SIMON, ARE YOU
STILL MINE?
Simon and I were strange bedfellows. We should not have lived
together, but we did. We met at a New Directions meeting. The
minute it was over, this lethargic man fairly trotted over to
me with plans of his own. Like a fly in a Venus Fly Trap, I
fell right in. We stayed together for five years. He was very
astute, a computer genius, but he had no feelings. Not for me
nor for anyone. It was the lousy combination of medication he
took. No wonder people fight taking meds. His wife and the
mother of his three children had just kicked him out of the
house on Palomino Drive. The man had nowhere to live, so why
not live with me? I have written a novel about him called “The
Redemption of Pulaski” and published it online.
He was a handsome
man when we met. White hair and a swashbuckling black
moustache. Never would you know that he had a mental illness.
Every single member of his family, but one, had a mental
illness and everyone was named after a saint. Dorothy,
Anthony, Margaret. The mental illness came from his mother,
the sainted Genevieve. The father, Anthony the First, was a
tyrant who worked constantly and had no time to love anyone.
There
was no sexual
abuse, only emotional abuse. Only. Hah! The dad died young. My
Simon had gotten a full scholarship to Saint Joseph’s
University on the Philadelphia Main Line. It was fully
withdrawn when it became know Simon had a mental illness.
Schizophrenia. Everyone else had bipolar disorder. But his psychiatrist,
Dr. Hoffmann, was
promoted so Simon got a new one. A Doctor Peter Ganime, still
in practice in New Jersey.
“You can’t get
to the top of Northrup Grumman if you’re schizophrenic,” said Ganime. “You have bipolar disorder.”
Simon had sat at
the beautiful sculptured desk of Hoffmann, who served as a mentor. He always offered
him a cigarette. Simon smoked constantly.
“If I could, I
would kill him,” Simon told me.
Since he and his
brothers were deer hunters, Simon thought of smuggling in a
deer rifle to kill Hoffmann, but it was impossible.
Good thought,
though. Showed that Simon had some aggression. Or built-up
anger like explosions in a pressure cooker.
Simon would get
into these “funks” and call me up.
“I’m sitting
here with the rifle in my mouth, ready to shoot myself.”
I had finally
kicked him out of the house when my son, Daniel, was moving in
for a while, while he and his girlfriend, Nicole, saved money
to buy a house.
Simon held many
stocks and bonds. Remember these were not stupid people. He
would leave me in his will. With bipolar disorder, you still
get your ups and downs. Simon had bought a new blue house in
Bensalem, PA, and I visited him several times. He had not
consulted me when he bought the house. My former boyfriend. He
had absconded with some important furniture I owned, such as
my Aunt Ethel’s two straight-back chairs with comfortable
cushions on the seats.
They were never seen
again. He also began to buy foolish unnecessary items, like
the trailer for a boat. He didn’t even own a boat. Also the
face of an angel made of concrete. Sweet. I put that in my
novel. He also planted “flags,” another name for iris. One of
his sons gave him a Jack Russell Terrier, who was the new love
of his life. “Tarzan” was his name.
One day when he was not home, his coin collection was stolen.
Ten-thousand dollars. His little dog didn't even bark.
I would drive
over to his house when I got suicidal, and we would go to the
“fleas” together. How I hated them. But I needed to save
myself. I would follow Simon, who was very popular and very
tall: six foot six. I was happy for him but in an abstract way
as I was in an agony of suicidal thinking.
The
flea market
was brilliantly set up. Items were in tents or out in the
open. Simon was a nickel and dime man. His “Awesome Wheels”
website sold a variety of engines – steam engines, Monod
engines, several of which I had in my front window at home. When Simon moved out, so did the tiny
engines.
I remember
buying fresh whole eggs in a yellow Styrofoam carton - they last for months I was told and it was true - and many
baseball caps, such as the Cleveland Indian’s cap, when they
were allowed to be called Indians. We would walk and eat
hot dogs with mustard on them. We rarely stopped to talk.
I suffered from
“the urge” to commit suicide. You cannot stop it. Dr. Laszlo
Gyulai had told me that. I knew most of the good psychiatrists
and what they believed in. And I’ll tell you right now. Simon
did not end up killing himself. He was too tough for that. He
was the toughest man I ever did meet. I am not sure, though,
if I truly loved him, because I do not know the meaning of
love, other than loving my two children, Sarah and Dan.
Tonight I had a
hankering to get in touch with Simon. Tonight when meteor
showers would be blanketing the earth. I stood outside in the
darkness. I leaned against my grey Nissan Sentra and looked up
in the sky. I was focusing on Simon. My bipolar disorder had
vanished but certainly not my feelings of aloneness.
According to the
Internet, the moon’s current phase is a Waxing Gibbous.
Waxing, we remember, means “growing” while “waning” means
diminishing.
Why was it that
Simon walked with a strange gait? Like walking on his
tip-toes. What was wrong with the man? I drove Simon to
neurologists Wagman and Diamond at Abington Hospital. They
took one look at him and said, “Take him to the hospital!”
For several
years he had suffered from diabetes but refused to pay
attention to it. When
he lived with me, he ate anything he felt like. There was
nothing I could do to stop him. We would order pizzas from
Bonnet Lane Diner over the phone, along with a huge plastic
container of Coke. I would eat most of the pizza but avoid the
terrible plastic taste of the cola. Or Sprite. With straws,
please. I would take one taste and spit out the rest. His
feet, he told me, felt like they were on fire. Unimaginable,
dammit!
Simon died from
the same thing as my father: lung cancer that metastized to
his brain. What was it my late friend Judy Diaz said about the
dying body? Whoever has it in his or her possession is in
charge of whatever happens, whether they know what to do or
not.
I tried to visit
him at the home of his son and daughter-in-law. They would not
let me in. Finally I just walked into the house, ascended the
stair case, and listened to them talking.
“So, then, I
just have a few days left?” Simon said in a weak voice.
The two kids
nodded yes.
They showed nothing but disdain for me.
I had been in
touch with his caregiver, a nice man named Donald, who let me
know what was going on. When it came time for the funeral, my
sisters Donna and Ellen accompanied me to the Flueher Funeral
Home in Richboro, PA.
Terribly sad! We
still talk about him.
Years later I
looked up his wife, Kate. She had died. As an Irish-American,
she had too much iron in her blood. The things we learn!
Hemochromatosis: The Danger of Too Much Iron in Your Blood. Excess iron in vital
organs, even in mild cases of iron overload, increases the
risk for liver disease (cirrhosis, cancer), heart failure,
diabetes mellitus, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis.
As a genetic
disease, I wondered if the grandkids might get it. Women are
hit disproportionately.
Jesus Christ,
what a world we live in!
