My phone rings, it's him. I look at it wincing and answering it with a prayer things are ok. They are not. He got in a fight with his father. Supposedly a big one, hard to tell with his disjointed telling of the tale. He is kicked out with no where to go. He is at the hospital. They tell him he is not crazy enough to be admitted but he can't go until his blood alcohol is down. He swears to me he only had 2 beers 10 hours ago. And he thinks I will believe this. Now he has no place to live. I frantically start looking for apartments or houses to buy for us to live together. Reality hits and I know that cannot happen.  Three days later after staying in the shed on his dead grandmother's property, he has found an assisted living facility where he can stay. Things are looking up, settled, paid and he talks happy and almost like a regular human being. We talk back and forth on the phone as he lives in Florida and I in New York. Now when he calls, there is no trepidation to answer the phone except I have things to do and he doesn't so the calls can last and last. Then last night the call comes that I have been dreading. He is drunk. I tell him so, he denies it. It's so obvious and in his stupid state he thinks he can con me into believing him. I ignore his calls for a day then answer. I proceed to tell him off. He listens like he is taking it to heart and will be  good boy from now on.  I know that won't happen. Maybe for a while but things will crash again. Who knows what the repercussions will be then. So in short, that is what it is like to have a mentally ill son who will never learn, never grow up, never take responsibility. Always on the edge waiting for the other shoe to drop. I live in some kind of strange fear that some day he will have reached the end of places to live. Then he and I will live in some kind of hell together for the rest of my old age because he is still my son and I love him.  That is my burden to bear.