by Pepper Pace
The medical center on the entry level was accessible by anyone so there were people milling around that weren’t just patients. He wondered what he looked like to them. Did he look like he had just come down from the mental ward? Did he look like a homeless bum?
Troy spent the next four hours being poked, prodded, scanned, and questioned. He was asked to get on a treadmill and run, he was asked to give himself a seizure which he did easily by sitting in the doctor’s chair and spinning it rapidly. He was told to sweat, to urinate, to bend over and when he was done he returned to his room and curled up in his bed and slept.
When he woke up it was to Jace, once again, in his personal space. He blinked at the boy feeling disconnected. He’d just received another dose of medicine and he was beyond tired. He stared at Jace who’s black hair half concealed his dainty face.
“You look like a girl…” He murmured. Jace smiled.
“Thanks. Sorry to wake you, I’m sure you’re tired. But it’s time for me leave.”
Troy pulled himself up into a sitting position. His grey eyes were still half closed but he fought the fatigue. “What time is it?”
“Just after dinner.” The young man gestured to the desk. “I brought you a burger in case you’re hungry.”
“Jace, you’re a good friend. And you’ll make some guy a fine wife. I’ll keep my eye opened for a black guy for you. One who won’t care that you have a penis and no breasts.” He yawned, eyes closing.
Jace smiled and watched the tired man. “Take care of yourself Troy and good luck to you.” But Troy didn’t hear. He was sitting up and sleeping.
The next day Troy had one last counseling session with Dr. Barren. He hated seeing Jace’s empty bed and asked Rebecca where the boy would be going as she led him to his appointment.
“Well, as you know, Jace has some issues that he has to come to terms with. He will be in 14 day hold at a long term facility.” He nodded knowing that Rebecca didn’t have to let him know this and he was thankful that she’d told him even though it saddened him.
Dr. Barren shook his hand in greeting and asked him to sit and to make himself comfortable. “I hear you’ve had quite the busy day?”
“I wish I could get some sleep.” He responded with a yawn. He didn’t like yawning in conversation but couldn’t help it.
“Don’t try to fight what the medication is trying to do. It’s trying to relax the portion of your brain that is prone to seizures. We’re pretty confident that we can reduce the frequency of them.”
Troy listened intently. “And the headaches?”
“That’s a tougher puzzle. We are working on discovering if you have an allergy, maybe to certain food; just isolating a trigger may take some time. But there is medicine that will treat the pain. You shouldn’t have to live with that.” Troy nodded once, not sure if he could trust himself to answer.
“Now, we haven’t gotten your test results back but we are pretty sure of two things. First you don’t seem to be bipolar. I know from you and your parents that this has been a big concern for you. I know the diagnosis of bipolar syndrome is often times misread. I think this is what happened in your case. For a while, it was very popular to say, ‘this person is bipolar, give him some medicine.’ We are moving away from those generalities.”
The doctor sighed, “second, and the biggest thing is this; none of us think that you suffer any mental illness at all.” Troy’s eyes grew wide and Dr. Barren smiled. “You react to your migraines and to your seizures. But you have coherency, formal thought order. You have no First Rank symptoms and I doubt if you ever had. In other words; your brain doesn’t look like the brain of a schizophrenic, you don’t have any of the symptoms of a schizophrenic. You have normal highs and lows. Troy, your reaction to stimuli is typical.”
“W-well…w-why…?” Troy lifted his palms trying to say a million things but not able to say one.
“Why?” The doctor smiled at him patiently.
He nodded.
“Why, what?” He made a circling motion, indicating for him to continue.
Troy looked off into the distance. “Why…why do I think crazy thoughts?”
“Such as?” Troy resisted trying to analyze whether or not this question would lead the Doctor to rethink his diagnosis. But it was as he’d told Jace; it was now or never time.
“That the world is a big fat trap waiting to close in on us.”
“Ahh.” He opened a file. “You have some very strong ideas about ‘owning’ possessions and feeling trapped by them.”
Trapped?
“And you reject them before they can be taken away from you.”
Troy began to sweat and his heart was beating rapidly. Freaking medicine…
“You also think that certain items such as cell phones, internet, credit cards are designed to suck you into a pit of additional spending.” Dr. Barren lowered his glasses and looked at Troy honestly. “Well how is any of that psychotic thinking? You may see things much clearer than the average person. And that most people have no choice but to live with these ‘trappings’ just might mean that they put on blinders to cope with it.” Dr. Barren closed the folder. “And having controversial or unpopular ideas doesn’t make for mental illness. But it wouldn’t hurt to talk to a psychiatrist. I’d recommend it.”
He picked up an ink pen and began to write on a pad of paper. “I made some calls to a neurologist. He can see you as soon as next week. Troy, this man is top in his field. He can look at your brain and see things that will tell him which medicines will be best for you. Call his receptionist to confirm and I think that this will put you on the right track to managing your condition.” Troy took the paper and stared at it as if it were gold. Dr Barren rose and offered his hand. Troy shook it enthusiastically.
“I’d like to continue monitoring you and your reaction to the medication for the rest of your stay. We have you on phenytoin. How have your seizures been?”
“I haven’t had one today.” Of course he’d slept up until it was time for his visit.
“Absence seizures do well on that medication.”
Troy was all smiles as he gripped his piece of paper and waved goodbye to Dr. Barren. “Thank you!” He hurried out of the room and to the lounge so that he could call his parents.
CHAPTER 16
Things happened rapidly after that. Troy left Good Saints the next day. His Mom, Dad, Lori, and Bob were there in the lobby waiting for him. He was so surprised to see them that he had to stop a few moments just to absorb how wonderful it was not to have to walk alone in life. He was so accustomed to being alone that he still hadn’t absorbed the fact that his family was at his side now—now that he had allowed them to be.
Deep down he felt regret at all of the time that he’d lost, regret that he was here and Juicy was somewhere else, but he didn’t want sad thoughts, so he immediately pushed those away to the back of his mind.
They went to The Cracker Barrel for dinner and the topic of conversation was his misdiagnosis of mental illness. Though his parents had already shared this information, at one point Bob excused himself from the table. When he returned his eyes were red from crying. Troy looked at his older brother and for once—for the very first time, he understood just how loved he’d always been.
There was a time when he would have killed himself. Now he understood that if he had done such a thing—he would have killed them as well.
Once he was back at his parent’s house, Troy hurried up to his old bedroom and dialed Juicy’s cell phone.
“Hello. I’m not available right now. If you would like to make an appointment-” Troy slammed the phone down in the middle of her generic message. He’d already listened to that same fucking message half a million times…and she still hadn’t called.
“Damnit, Juicy! Why can’t you just…answer the phone?! Just…” He grabbed his duffel bag and…well there wasn’t anything to pack since he’d come empty handed. He jogged down the stairs.
“I need to go to th
e bus station. I’m going home.”
“Is there something wrong with Juicy?” Mom asked with a serious frown on her face.
“No. I mean, I can’t get in touch with her. She won’t answer, she won’t call.”
“Well what about the appointment with the neurologist?”
Troy was shaking his head and pacing. “I’ll have to get a specialist in Cincinnati.”
Dad went in to grab his keys. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Troy!” Mom never raised her voice and he and his father stopped in their tracks surprised.
“No! No no no!”
“What?” Troy said with a confused frown. His mother’s hands were balled into fists.
“I know exactly what’s going to happen when you leave here. You will go back to Cincinnati. You will call to make an appointment with some doctor, try to see a neurologist. But he won’t be anywhere as good as this doctor. It might take you a month, maybe two to see a good one. Meanwhile all of the work you have done so far will be gone. Your child will be born…and I promise you that you will be too afraid to hold him in your hands!” Her face turned beet red.
“You will stay here at least until you see that neurologist! And you will get a referral from him to a specialist in Cincinnati! You will not leave here until you have done at least that!”
Troy stared at her. She glared at him. His adam’s apple bobbed and he nodded his head once and slowly went back up the stairs.
***
“I went to see the neurologist today.” Troy was lying on his bed. It was three days later. He’d been leaving long messages in which he just pretended that she was talking to him. It was okay to do that since he wasn’t really crazy.
“Babe, he put me through every test imaginable. EEG, MRI, blood, urine. And then more forms, more documents and he took me off the phenytoin and put me on something called ethosuximide.” He rambled on and on about side effects, different medicine, how much they cost.
“He’s giving me a referral to a good neurologist in Cincinnati. He wants to see me one more time in three days to see how this medication interacts with my headaches. But after that…well I’ll come home. I miss you lots, Juice. Do you miss me?” He waited but of course she wasn’t really there. He hung up slowly.
He called Juicy several times a day; if he had a thought that he wanted to share with her or just to say goodnight or good morning. He stopped becoming upset if she didn’t answer because he was doing what he needed to do and that was all there was to it.
“Hi Juice.” He murmured into the phone, eyes drooping. “I was I was I was…I was trying to call you be-before the migraine hit but I was too late. So sooooooo…I love you…”
The next morning he called and said. “Hey Juice, I was holding the phone in my hand when I woke up this morning. Did I call you?”
Later he called to say; “Oh man, this medicine is jacking me up. I keep blacking out. Not sure if I can do this one.”
That night he called to say; “Hey Juice? Do you think Miss Vernetta is mad at me because I didn’t bring her cookies?”
***
“Hi J-Juice. I’ve been having bad seizures.” He was gripping his stomach as he paced in his bedroom. “I’m tired a lot but its okay. The medicine is just showing up in my system is all. We think that one of the medications that I’m taking for the migraines is interacting badly with the seizure medicine which is making it worse than ever. I told the doctor that I don’t want treatment for the migraines. They aren’t as often and he can just give me something to reduce the pain once it is already happening.
“Also, something is really bothering my stomach.” He paused. “Are you…there? I’ll be coming home tomorrow. It’s been almost two weeks and I miss you so much. You know what he told me? He told me that my focal seizures may go away permanently with medicine and that means that I’ll be able to drive.” He hadn’t thought he’d ever be able to do that, now it was another goal.
“It would be nice not to have to carry the muffins on the bus. Do you know how often people try to buy them off of me?” He chuckled. “I miss you and I miss the shop and the ladies and baking.” He sighed. “I want to hold you, Juice.” He hung up and then hurried to the toilet.
The next day he called her again. “Juice? Please answer just once. I’m going to the bus station now. Everyone in my family will be sending me off; even my little nieces and nephews. I told them they’d be having another little cousin real soon…So, I guess I’ll see you in a few hours. Juice…I really needed you.” He hung up the phone with a disappointed sigh. After a moment of staring at the phone, hoping that it would ring he picked it up and dialed the hospital that he’d only just recently been a patient.
He asked to speak to Rebecca and got some information that he needed then he went downstairs. “On the way to the bus station, do you think we can make a quick stop?”
Troy walked down the white linoleum floor, following an orange stripe that would lead him to the psychiatric ward. He stopped at the receptionist desk. These people dressed in nurses clothing. He spoke to her for a few moments and she pointed a short distance down the hall.
When he reached the room that he was looking for, he knocked on the door lightly. A few moments later Jace Macadue opened it and his eyes grew large with surprise. Troy grinned sheepishly.
“What-?”
“I’m a visitor, not a patient.” He explained.
Jace grinned broadly. “You came to visit me?”
Troy entered the room and looked around. “Isn’t that what friends do?”
CHAPTER 17
“Troy, I want to come with you.” Bob said seriously.
“You want to run away from home?” Troy joked. He knew that everyone was afraid for him, concerned about him going away from them and wondering how fragile his emotions were. After all he was on a new course of medication and that alone was enough to cause some concern. He blacked out more frequently, his tremors were more pronounced and he had bouts of stomach problems.
But he had faced things tougher than that and survived. Maybe one day he would share those things with his family; but only if they asked.
“You might need…someone to talk to.” His lip twisted grimly. He thought that Juicy would dump his ass or an argument might send him flying off the handle.
“You’re just a phone call away, right?”
Bob nodded. “But if you need your big brother I’ll be there in a flash, right by your side Troy.”
He looked down. “I know.” They hugged briefly and Troy boarded the bus back to Cincinnati; back to his life and his future.
***
It didn’t really make sense that he didn’t have a cell phone. In actuality, his life would be so much simpler if he didn’t have to worry about having change so that he could call Juicy to tell her that he was getting off the bus and waiting for a cab. And yes, he was going to use his brand new CREDIT CARD to pay for the fare. Some things were too much of a hassle to deal with; like stopping at an ATM machine when he ran out of ready cash, so while back in Connecticut he had received his very first credit card.
As the cab let him out in front of the Brownstone that was his home, he thought about Juicy’s dark, nearly black eyes that slanted slightly and looked so beautiful on her rounded face, and her deep chocolate skin highlighted by her long golden dreds. His heart began to pound in anticipation as he hurried up the stairs. Two weeks was a long time not to see the woman that you’re in love with.
He slipped the key into the lock and was calling her name before he even pushed open the door. “Juicy?!” He looked around. The apartment was a mess. He closed the front door and walked inside, stunned. He stooped to pick up clothes. It was as if she’d come home and stepped right out of her clothes as she walked.