In fact, that spring, we came to an important decision for us, to maintain our sanity. It was my idea this time, and we had to sell it to Nick, but it proved to be one of the things that made Nick’s illness liveable for us, and gave me some modicum of peace of mind. And in the long run, Nick not only adjusted to it, he liked it. We decided to hire attendants for him.
When the children were small, and actually to this day, one of the gifts I gave myself at our summer home, where we had a big, open pool, was to hire lifeguards in the summer. With six young children and three teenagers, I was constantly worried about accidents in the pool, and someone drowning. Having young college boys for the summer to watch the kids diligently at the pool gave me peace of mind that was worth everything else I had. Besides which, nine kids is not nine kids. Nine kids is nine kids plus ten friends. On any given day in Napa, there were fifteen to twenty kids in the pool, and the lifeguards were essential.
The attendants for Nick were the same concept for me, someone to keep their eyes on him at all times, see that he was safe, and drive him places. Like all kids his age, he needed a lot of chauffeuring, but he also needed more supervision and more monitoring than even my six-year-old. There was no hiding from the fact that we needed to keep a constant eye on Nick. And doing that, while attending to the other children’s needs, was a constant challenge. I thought the attendants would make a huge difference for us. He needed to be prodded into the shower, have someone help him wash his hair (once he gave up on his “dreads”), administer his medicines, and do the usual things one had to do with a child, like tell him to clean up his room (just empty words to Nick), and do his homework. An attendant would be a godsend. Though it took a little while to sell it to Nicky, and to find one.
Julie began interviewing. We tried to get people who had some experience with problem kids, and for lack of a better place to look for them, Julie began tapping into her old resources, and talking to people who had worked for her in drug programs with adolescents. The problems were different here, but some of them were willing to try their hand at a new routine and a different set of problems. And most of them were overly optimistic when they started out, thinking they were going to change things for Nick, and he was just a slightly out-of-whack teenager. Again, because he often appeared so functional, he often fooled people into believing he was. And then he would turn on them in a rage, become fiercely oppositional, or outrageously insulting, or behave like a five-year-old. To a man (and one woman eventually), I believe they were unprepared for what they were facing, but most of them were incredibly good-hearted, willing to learn, and devoted to Nicky.
Some people adapted quickly to the job, and grew rapidly fond of Nick, others never did and left after a brief stay, and it took a while for us to understand what we, and Nick, really needed. But in the four years we had attendants for Nick, there were some exceptionally wonderful people with him, whom he loved, and who truly came to love him.
But for me, having an attendant with Nick made life easier, less stressful, and kept Nicky safer. I didn’t have to worry as much about him. I knew Nick was in good hands when there was someone reliable with him, and once Nick adjusted to the idea, he actually liked them. They did exactly what I had promised him they would, took him where he wanted to go, paid constant attention to him, he was the central focus of their attention, and he loved that when he was younger. He told his friends they were bodyguards, which made him feel important.
Later on, as we became more adept at meeting Nick’s needs, and more aware of them, we hired psychiatric attendants to work with Nick. There were always two people who worked with Nick, alternating days and shifts, and fill-ins when needed. They worked with him seven days a week, endless hours, and were inseparable from Nick. The last two men who worked with him became particularly dear to us, and to him, and it is clear even now how much they loved him. Paul worked with him for more than three years, and Cody for well over a year. It is rare to have found two men like Paul and Cody, and Nicky came to view them almost as older brothers.
His attendants spent more time with him than anyone else, and were with him from fourteen to twenty-four hours a day, depending on his schedule and his needs of the moment. It was surely more time than they spent with their partners, spouses, friends, or their own children. And as lovable as Nick was, it wasn’t always easy to be with him. He had an intensity about him. A sense of urgency that meant everything had to happen “now” with him, faster than fast, as soon as he thought of it. He had fuzzy concepts of time, so that something that had happened hours, or even days ago, seemed like years before to him. And something in the distant future had to happen right this minute.
Julie’s house was well over an hour away from mine, an hour and a half at heavy traffic hours, and when he traveled between her home and mine, he and his attendant would have to take that into account. Paul says now that in the three years he drove him back and forth, Nick would always claim it took just under twenty minutes. As a result, he would drag his feet, cause them to leave late, and then just laugh and say, “Tell my mom there was an accident on the bridge, Paul. It’s okay.” I realize now, looking back in light of that, that if as many accidents had happened on that bridge as he said, there would have been more casualties on it than in the Korean War, but their tardiness never seemed to faze Nicky. He would always explode into the house with a big grin, a kiss and a hug for me, and an apology for arriving halfway through dinner.
There was a childlike cuddliness about Nick, more than ever in later years. He loved being close to the people he loved, physically as well as emotionally. He would follow me around, just happy to be with me, he did the same with Julie, and he was happy just “hanging out” with his attendants. Paul says now that when he went off to do something, and would leave Nick with Julie or me, he would instantly get a page on his beeper, invariably followed by the code “911,” to indicate that it was an emergency. Given the possibilities with Nick, he would immediately call in to see what had happened, only to hear Nick’s cheerful voice say to him, “Hi, Pauly. What’s happening? I just wanted to see how you were doing.” It was hard to get mad at Nick over things like that. There was something about the way he did them that touched your heart. It was his way of saying, “Hi … I need you … I love you …” He found it easy to say those things too, but he had a way of reaching out and just touching you that made you realize again that you were important to him. And the men who cared for Nick, and went everywhere with him, were very important to him. Especially in the case of Cody and Paul, he looked up to them, admired them, respected them, and genuinely loved them. And it was as obvious then, as it is now, that they truly loved him. And he knew it.
In some ways, these men knew him better than anyone else did. They saw his foibles, his weaknesses, his fears, his strengths, his unguarded moments. Cody tells another story, of Nick’s generosity. Apparently, whenever they would pass a homeless person on the street, Nick would stop, and rather than give them money, he would give them a brand-new full pack of cigarettes. And if he didn’t have one on him, he’d stop to buy one. Nick was generous to a fault, in other ways, too, giving his friends his favorite possessions without hesitating, or buying thoughtful gifts for them, his siblings, or for me. He loved giving people presents (as I do).
The attendants’ job became particularly challenging during Nick’s years while he was on tour with his band. These men who had come to him to care for him, and administer medication, suddenly found themselves in deafening concert halls, with flashing lights, in a crowd of hot, sweaty, tattooed bodies, watching Nicky sing, and helping him and his roadies and band members haul equipment on- and offstage, or sit in a van for fifteen hours with nine teenage boys going from one town to another to play yet another concert. In order to do that, they gave up time with their families, weekends, holidays, and probably suffered hearing loss from Nick’s music, but he loved them for it. With Nick, life was always full of surprises.
One of the other things his a
ttendants did was go to twelve-step meetings with him. Drugs were not the main issue with Nick. His greatest challenge in life was learning to live and cope with manic depression. But when feeling down or out of control, or not adequately covered by the medication he was on, drugs were always a lure to him. Going to twelve-step meetings shored him up against a temptation that could only complicate his problems and interfere with the medications he was taking. Nick knew with certainty that he had to stay away from alcohol and drugs. And to be sure he did, we tested him daily for drugs with urinalyses, and raised hell with him when he dallied, which wasn’t often. But when we said he wasn’t on drugs, we knew for certain that he wasn’t because of the testing.
What dismayed me in those early years were the tales he told about his hospitalizations. Although he was usually remarkably honest with us, he thought nothing of telling outrageous stories to the outside world when they served a purpose, or enhanced his image. When he went to a mental hospital, he told his friends he had been to rehab, or worse, jail. Because he thought it made him sound more interesting. And when I scolded him for it, he would laugh at me and say, “Just be cool, Mom.” I learned to be very cool over the years. Very. A lot “cooler” than I’d ever planned. Nick taught me a lot of new lessons.
But whatever his early views about drugs, and how “cool” they were, in his late teens he became rabid about them, taking a strong stance against them. Not only for himself, but his younger siblings. He became what the kids call “straight edge,” which is violently opposed to drugs, alcohol, or sex. He managed two out of three anyway. And we teased him about the rest. And the only time he used drugs in the last years of his life were when he attempted suicide. Any other time, whether it was for a beer, or a puff on a joint, we came down on him like bricks and put him in the hospital to adjust his meds, and warn him of the risk he was taking with his health and his own delicate balance. But in his last years, we never had to do that. He monitored himself, and had clear and very reasonable views on the subject. And as Julie pointed out to me not long ago, it wasn’t an easy fight for Nick, because of his illness and the challenges it presented him, the fight to stay clean, to not allow himself an escape through readily available illicit drugs was harder than anyone could imagine. It was a real victory for him, and one he was deservedly proud of.
So that was what Nick was up to the spring he turned sixteen. He was living with Prozac, going to school, had two attendants alternating shifts to monitor him, and in June he went off to his summer camp for “special boys.” He was a little leery of it, but only because he was not in love with the great outdoors, and he would have rather stayed home and gone to concerts. And he had just joined a band called “Link 80,” and was excited about playing with them. He was anxious to get back to the city to have an opportunity to play more, and rehearse with them. But we convinced him that his outdoor experience would do him good, although he teased me about it. I hate the outdoors as much as he did.
Julie took him to camp with a four-week supply of meds, all our phone numbers, including mine in Europe while I traveled with John and the kids, and a long list of instructions from Nick’s doctor. All was well when John and I flew to Paris with the kids. It was a special trip for me, as I spent much of my childhood and adolescence there, had gone to French schools, and still had school friends and family there. I hadn’t been back in years, and I was dying to show my children the landmarks of my childhood. I was only sorry Nick couldn’t be there. But maybe someday …
I got the first call from him a few days after we got to Paris. It was the middle of the night for him and he sounded panicked. It had been too much to hope that everything would go smoothly, and now I was six thousand miles away, eating crêpes, and taking the kids on the metro.
“What’s up?” I asked, trying to sound casual. But I could hear the nervousness in his voice. I suspected part of it was psychological, because I had never left home before, and Nick liked to know I was close at hand for him. He had unusual separation anxiety for a boy his age, but the psychiatrist said that was not only due to his illness, but also because I had never left him. “How are you doing, sweetheart?” I said, hoping to reassure him by the sound of my voice. He didn’t like being left anywhere, and for the first time in years he didn’t have me, John, Julie, or even his attendants. But at sixteen, we hoped he was ready for it, and listening to him, I suspected easily that he wasn’t.
“They’re not giving me my medication, Mom, and I’m getting crazier by the day.” He sounded anxious, and it was rare for him to call himself “crazy,” or to acknowledge how severely he needed his medication. I worried for a minute that he was making it up so that we’d bring him home, like his old stories at camp about torture and torment, when he was a child of ten and thought I needed some excitement.
“Are you sure?” I was worried, but didn’t want him to know it.
“Of course I’m sure.” He sounded insulted by the question.
“I’ll call Julie.” I promised.
“I want to come home, Mom.” He sounded five years old and he tugged at my heart with his tone.
“I know, Sweetheart. Just hang in,” I encouraged him, “We’ll all be home soon.”
“Get me outta here … they’re not going to give me my meds.” I could tell he was near tears as he said it.
“Yes, they will,” I promised. “I’ll call Julie.” Julie, the fixer of all crises and problems. Julie, who had long since had to give up her other private clients because Nick was such a full-time project. What on earth would I ever have done without her?
I urged Nick to hang in, and called Julie immediately, although it was the middle of the night for her, but she never complained about midnight phone calls in a crisis. Like me, she found it unlikely that they were withholding Nick’s medication, but when she called them, they said that he had to be responsible for taking his own meds, and had to report to the med room by seven A.M. or he didn’t get them. And so far, he hadn’t been able to do that.
We were both panicked when we heard that. We had counted on the camp giving Nick his medication. Not expecting him to be responsible for them, which he couldn’t handle.
And Nick must have been feeling even more panicked than we were, and desperate, because he apparently broke into their store of medicines in the infirmary that night and helped himself to something, God knows what, to ease his anxiety, and they were furious about it. But getting himself to the med room at 7 A.M. every day had been more than he could cope with.
The next day, the phone rang as we were leaving our hotel room in Paris to catch a plane to London. It was two A.M. for Nick, and he sounded frantic.
“I’m leaving here, Mom. I can’t stay here. They still haven’t given me my meds.” Shit. It was Father’s Day in the U.S. I was six thousand miles away, and we were about to miss the plane to London. But I couldn’t just abandon him, either, and I knew from his tone that he was desperate and frightened. And without his medication, his impulse control had to be at its lowest ebb. God only knew what he would do to relieve the situation. And all I could do was try to speak to him calmly.
“Nick, you can’t leave. Just a day. Give me one day. I’ll get Julie to you tomorrow.” Lucky Julie. Back on a plane to rescue Nick. It was such a damn shame the camp hadn’t worked out. It would have been so nice to give him a normal experience for a change. It was both worrisome and disappointing.
“I can’t wait,” Nick said flatly.
“Yes, you can. Just till tomorrow. I can’t ask Julie to come up on Father’s Day. She’ll come and get you tomorrow, and I’ll be home soon. You can stay with her till I get there.” He had already spent a couple of weekends with her when the attendants needed a break, and I knew he liked it there. “Look, I’ll call you in …” I calculated rapidly, “about three hours, from London. Just sit there.”
“Mom, I’m walking out of here.”
“No, you’re not, Nick.” I tried to sound firm rather than panicked. “You’re going t
o sit there until someone comes to get you. Twenty-four hours. I swear.” And with that, someone interrupted our conversation. I could hear in the background that someone at the camp had discovered him on the phone and scolded him for calling his mother in California.
“I’m not,” Nick said honestly. And I knew what he meant. I wasn’t in California. I was in Paris. He was calling from the director’s office. Nicky was never shy about doing what he felt he had to, to get what he wanted. And this time was no different.
“Nick, I’ll call you in three hours. I promise.” I hung up then, and we just barely made the plane to London. And the instant I walked into our hotel room there, the phone rang. It was Nick. He had kept careful track of our itinerary, and I was glad that he used it, given the situation he was in at his end.
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