Head Case

by Beverle Graves Myers

“Mitchell is squatting on the sidewalk. His hair is long and greasy and he needs a bath. He stinks.”

The lady’s voice drones on and on, describing me in all my tarnished glory. She has a strident Russian accent, and her voice comes from somewhere over my head, like out of a loudspeaker. Only there isn’t any loudspeaker and there isn’t any lady.

My mother always blamed drugs, as in “Your father and I gave you everything. We took out a second mortgage on the farm to send you to college, but you had to go and wreck your brain with those marijuana cigarettes and who knows what else.”

The nurse at the Rainbow Village Day Program had a different take. She used words like “schizophrenia” and “auditory hallucinations”. Then her lips would pull back over her big teeth in this fake smile that wouldn’t fool a four-year-old, and she’d pull out her needle and syringe. Those were her drugs, the kind that made you feel like your brain was turning into soggy breakfast cereal and your arms and legs into stone.

But my mother and that nurse are back in the little town where I grew up. Last month, I’d had all I could take and decided to hitch my way to the city. In between learning how to avoid cops and where to scarf a meal, I try to figure out how to tell if voices are real or just in my head. That’s what I’m doing this cold morning in front of the abandoned stockyard—sitting alone, no distractions, arms around my knees and head down. I’m willing the lady of the loudspeaker to just shut the fuck up.

The drivers of the passing Volvos and BMWs headed for their glass office buildings downtown probably have no idea that this weedy maze of crumbling brick walls and wooden cattle pens is home to a bunch of nut jobs—real head cases like me and six other guys who don’t have anywhere better to go. Pork Chop is the one who keeps us together. Don’t know his real name. He busted out his two front teeth gnawing on a pork chop bone so Pork Chop he is. Like me and Donnie and all the others, Pork Chop’s done with clinics and caseworkers.

The difference is that Pork Chop has been on the streets a long time. He knows to survive.

“Morning, Mitchell. Want some coffee?” It isn’t the loudspeaker woman and it definitely isn’t Pork Chop. This voice is low and calm.

I look up. A smiling man with frizzy gray hair that tops his head like a smoky halo bends down, offering me a Styrofoam cup. A baggy turtleneck sweater nearly covers the black shirt and collar that marks him as a priest, but I know who he is and he knows me.

Every morning, after he’s said Mass at St. Ann’s, Father Leo goes to the McDonalds up on Second Street and buys as many coffees as he can carry. Then he makes his way down to the river, stopping at underpasses and empty storefronts. The priest is okay. His smile is for real and his voice never criticizes.

“Going to be a gorgeous day, Mitchell. Fall is really in the air. Are you and the boys keeping warm enough at night?”

I nodded. We have a fifty-five-gallon drum way back in a corner of the building that still has a roof. Makes a great container for a fire.

“If it gets too cold, there’s always the shelter over on Market Street.”

Fat chance, I think, but I nod anyway.

“How are the voices, today?”

“Not so bad.” My voice sounds flat and far away, even to me. “Not like Donnie’s. That guy’s real bad off. Doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.”

Since Father Leo isn’t giving me that “ho-hum, wish I was somewhere else look” that the Rainbow Village shrink always used to, I go on. “Donnie talks like he thinks he’s back at home with his mom, always muttering about the beans she made him eat and the stories she used to tell him.”

“The poor woman must have been doing the best she could. Maybe that’s a comfort to him.”

“I don’t think so. Not the way he howls and shivers all night.”

Geez, am I ever getting chatty. Pork Chop doesn’t like that. Better shut up. He and Donnie are coming around the corner of the tumbledown building right now.

Father Leo holds up a cardboard carrier from McDonalds. “Hot coffee, boys?”

Pork Chop plants his boots wide apart and sticks his chin in the air like he’s a muscular TV wrestler instead of a pipsqueak wimp whose flat butt can barely hold his jeans up. “No, thanks, Padre. We take care of our own here, so you can just keep walking.”

Father Leo doesn’t push. That isn’t his way. He just strolls on down the sidewalk, whistling a tune under his breath and lugging the coffee carriers under his arms. I worry about the guy, all alone in the rough part of town, but Pork Chop doesn’t give me long to fret. He gives me a backhand across the face that bangs my head into the brick wall and makes me see stars. “How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t talk to those do-gooders.”

I wipe blood on my jacket sleeve and whisper, “Father Leo’s different.”

“Different, hell. He wants to help us. That means cops rousting us out of a good place and Social Services nabbing us for the psycho ward. Grow a brain, college boy. I’m the one who’s keeping you out of the nuthouse, and I’m the one that makes the rules. So screw your asshole Father Leo.”

Pork Chop grabbed my coffee, poured what was left down the sewer grate, and handed me the empty cup. “Here, start downtown by the Galleria and don’t come back until you’ve filled this cup at least five times. Remember, no holding out or there’ll be trouble.” He jerks his chin toward Donnie. “And take this turkey with you. I ain’t got time to babysit him all day.”

I know the drill. Stand in the little park in front of the jazzy new shopping mall they’d built to span both sides of Fourth Street, but not so close that the mall’s security guard would take notice. Put some change in the cup and jiggle it to give people the idea.

“Got a dollar, lady? Please, for a sandwich? Coffee?” Try to look hungry and pathetic. Not too friggin’ hard.

Middle-aged ladies are your best bet, I find. Look for the ones who might have a son about your age. Then, as soon as the cup began to fill up, transfer the money to an inside jacket pocket. And don’t forget to keep an eye out for uniforms. See a cop? Don’t run, just put your head down and slowly ooze around the block.

I manage to stuff the Russian woman and her running commentary into a back corner of my mind and go to work. Donnie is a hassle. I sit him on a bench and order him to stay put, but he wants to wander. He keeps going to look at himself in the window of a coffee shop. He twists his skinny body into weird postures and chatters nonstop. “Mom—I hate beans—knees hurt—no more stories—please, Mom.”

Good thing most people don’t like to get involved. All Donnie gets are a few dirty looks as shoppers and businessmen hurried by. Still, I keep a sharp eye on him.

Around lunchtime, I hit some luck. A man in a gray suit orders a burger and some fries at a nearby food truck, but after a bite or two, his cell phone rings and he shoves the cardboard container in a trash bin. At first Donnie refuses to even look at the munchables I retrieve, but I keep explaining that they aren’t his hated beans and he starts nibbling. At least it keeps him quiet long enough for me to take a break and look at a newspaper I’d also snagged from the trash. It’s several days old, the Metro section.

I glance over the usual stuff. The city council wants to build another bridge, but some rich people with condos overlooking the river are hiring lawyers to stop the project. Lots of schools and neighborhoods are planning fall festivals for the weekend. Ah, here’s a story about a you-pick pumpkin patch. The photo shows a young guy throwing his arm around a scarecrow surrounded by pumpkin vines stretching in all directions. Not a bad idea. Even a head case like me ought to be able to plant some seeds.

“Mitchell thinks he can be a farmer. He is stupid and immature.” Damn, just when I think I have her under control. I try to force the grating voice into the background by concentrating on the next newspaper story, making myself read it word for word.

It’s gory, for sure. A priest at one of the downtown churches was cut up real bad. Someone had found him alone, bopped him on the head and cut his face and arms up like a jigsaw puzzle. The cuts were pretty superficial, but there were a lot of them. The old guy had lost so much blood, they weren’t sure he was going to make it. Churches were warned about locking their doors except at service times.

“Mitchell is going to get in trouble. Mitchell is not watching Donnie.” Damn and double damn. A silver-haired lady rigged out for an elegant luncheon is asking Donnie if he needs any help. I drop the paper and run to grab his arm.

“He’s fine, ma’am. He’s with me and we’re both fine.”

She clutches her purse while looking me up and down. “Are you certain? Your friend seems quite troubled. Perhaps I should call 911.”

“Oh, no, ma’am, please don’t do that. We’re just on our way back to our shelter house to meet with our social worker. She’s expecting us.”

“Well, take this then, for some hot coffee.” She digs inside the purse and hands me a couple of coins with manicured fingertips. I look at the shiny quarters on my palm. I shake my head. That lady is even worse off than I am. She must think it’s still 1975. I thank her anyway.

By mid-afternoon I’ve collected enough money to satisfy Pork Chop, and my empty belly feels like it’s trying to digest itself. We’re too late to make the sandwich giveaway at the Salvation Army, so I head to St. Ann’s with Donnie in tow. Father Leo always has a bite to eat for anyone who knocks at the back door of the little rectory tucked behind the old stone church with the soaring stained-glass windows.

Donnie manages to behave himself while Father Leo puts some peanut butter sandwiches together, but when the priest asks us to carry some boxes of church bulletins over to the sanctuary, Donnie lights out like a rabbit with a pack of dogs on his tail. I don’t try to catch him. That crazy dude wandered the city for months before he’d taken up with Pork Chop. Donnie’s voices might be beating up on him, but he would find his way back to the stockyard on his own.

After I follow Father Leo across the sunny courtyard and dump the bulletins in the vestibule, he asks me to sit with him in the sanctuary for a few minutes. I figure he has something on his mind and I’m not wrong.

“Mitchell,” he begins, “I read an article about this new medication, and I thought of you. It’s a pill, not a shot, and it seems to help the symptoms of schizophrenia without producing nearly as many side effects.”

Oh. I don’t say anything, just stare up at the dust motes taking a lazy swim in the sunbeams shining through the arched stained-glass windows. Outside, a siren wails and heavy trucks rumble by, but the city noises seem far away. For a wonderful moment my mind is absolutely quiet, the loudspeaker silenced.

Father Leo sighs. I’m afraid he might start bugging me about the medicine, but he points to the windows instead. “Do you know how old those are, Mitchell?”

The tall, brilliantly colored windows are like pictures in museums, only made of pieces of glass outlined with black metal. I never saw anything like them in our little Baptist church back home. I answer, “Really old, I guess.”

“Over a century. When St. Ann’s was built, the parish had hundreds of families. They sent all the way to Italy for the craftsmen who made these windows. Each piece of glass was cut, outlined with lead, and set in place by hand.”

“The pictures are all different.”

“Back then, a lot of people couldn’t read, so they put stories from the Bible in the windows. See, this one is St. John the Baptist, and the next one tells the story of Mary and the Archangel. Back when I was a boy, they were called God’s storybooks.”

I do like the windows with all their multi-colored bits, but it’s time for me to get moving. Father Leo walks me to the paneled front doors.

“Will you at least think about the new medication?” he asks, with his hand on the door handle.

“Maybe,” I mumble. I know the priest wants to help, but he doesn’t understand that the doctors are always bragging on some new pill that turns out to cause the same old problems. Then I have a thought. “You really should keep these doors locked, Father. Somebody is doing bad things to priests.”

“You heard about our sad occurrence, did you?” He squeezes my shoulder. “You needn’t worry. I’m sure it was an isolated incident.”

“But you’ll lock these doors?”

He shakes his head. “We can’t change our way of doing things because of one bad apple. I only lock the doors when I put the church to bed for the night. At other times, the doors must stay open so people can come in to pray.” He adds wistfully, “Not that we get many people praying anymore.”

When I get back to the stockyard, the sun is going down behind the buildings across the street. Donnie has beaten me in, and Pork Chop’s mad as hell. “Can’t you do anything right?” he bellows.

To stop his raised backhand, I pull a wad of bills and change out of my jacket.

His scowl turns to a gap-toothed smile. “That’s more like it. We’ll eat tonight after all, boys.”

Pork Chop takes one of the guys to help him carry the food, and they head for the Second Street McDonalds. He orders the rest of us to get the fire going. We poke through the ruins, looking for wood scraps, and when we can’t find any, pull some loose planks off the cattle pens. Donnie’s no help, of course. He amuses himself by throwing his pocketknife at the rats we stir up. We don’t care—whatever keeps him busy.

My take buys a lot of burgers, so we all have full bellies. After only a few minutes of conversation around the fire, the guys start nodding off. When you don’t have electricity, you turn in early.

I’m snuggling down in my nest of cardboard and rags, watching Pork Chop stir the fire with a long mop handle, when Donnie starts his nightly howl. “No beans—Mom—no—no stories.” His moaning voice echoes off the brick walls.

The guy next to me has been asleep. Now he’s up and cussing. “Shut up, punk.”

Donnie just goes on howling.

“Aw, get out of here and let us sleep. Go on back to your Momma if you won’t shut up about her.”

Pork Chop wields the mop handle and the guy doubles up, groaning and sputtering.

“You shut it,” said Pork Chop. “Donnie can’t go back home. His Momma’s dead.”

“What happened to her?” I whisper.

Pork Chop pushes the end of the mop handle into my chest. The firelight gives his sharp face a demonic glow. “I don’t know what happened to her. Never thought it was any of my business. But I do know Donnie spent time in prison for whatever it was.” He twists the handle into my ribs. “Any more questions, Mr. Nosy-britches Mitchell?”

Donnie finally shuts up—or wanders off—and everybody settles down. It isn’t that cold, but I still can’t sleep. The Russian woman won’t let up, and scenes from the day keep flashing through my head in disconnected pictures.

After it had been quiet for a while and I concentrated on calming my mind, those scenes begin to link up and make sense. Like Father Leo’s storybooks of glass, the shattered bits of my day come together to tell me a story. A crazy story, I hope, but with my heart thumping, I decide to check it out.

I unfold from my nest. By the dull light of the fire’s embers, I quickly search the other piles of rags. Donnie’s gone.

I shake Pork Chop awake. “Is Donnie Catholic?”

“What the …?” Pork Chop is too sleep addled to punch me. “Is Donnie what?”

“Catholic. Was he raised Catholic?”

“Geez, Mitchell. I think so. Why?”

I take the blocks to St. Ann’s as fast as my feet will fly. It isn’t really that late and there’s still traffic on the streets. The Russian lady stayed with me all the way: “Mitchell is running too fast. Mitchell is going to get hit by a car.” I just ignore her and keep running, up the stairs in front of St. Ann’s, through the paneled doors and down the aisle to where Father Leo is lighting the nightly altar candles.

He’s barely registered my presence when I reach the first pew and see the crouched figure hiding behind a big potted fern at the altar rail. I launch myself into the air and we collide with a crashing thud. Donnie’s knife flies out of his hand, landing at the feet of one very startled priest.

After we tie Donnie’s wrists and ankles with cords from the sacristy and 911 has help on the way, Father Leo and I try to make sense of his babbling. It seems Donnie’s mother was one hell of a tyrant. She punished even minor misbehavior by dragging him to their parish church and forcing him to kneel on hard dry beans while she and the priest lectured him about the saints portrayed in the stained-glass windows. There was more, lots more, but it was those jigsaw puzzles of colored glass that really set the poor guy off.

The cops finally arrive with sirens screaming and TV news trucks right behind. Somebody sticks a microphone in my face every few minutes and asks, “How do you feel having prevented another attack on a priest?”

What the hell do they think I feel like? These reporters must have gone to college. Couldn’t they come up with a more intelligent question than that?

After Donnie was on his way to the county mental hospital and the news crews had disappeared, Pork Chop and a couple of the guys meet me on the steps outside the church.

“You’re not gonna let this hero crap go to your head, are you?” Pork Chop punctuates his question with a sneer. “If the cops knew about your crazy voices, they’d be taking you off to the psycho ward, too.”

I shrug.

Pork Chop sucks air through his missing front teeth. He sounds like a hissing snake. “You just happened to be at the right place at the right time, nutball. Don’t forget, you’re no better than the rest of us.”

I chew at my lower lip and think back over all I did that day. Better? No, I don’t think I’m better than the other guys.

But maybe—just maybe—I’m better than I always thought I was. Maybe I don’t need to be freezing my hungry ass off in a deserted stockyard all winter. And more importantly, maybe I don’t need a little jerk like Pork Chop running my life.

In a few minutes, the other guys would follow Pork Chop back to the old stockyard, but there’s no reason I have go with them. I glance toward the welcoming doors of St. Ann’s. Father Leo would probably let me stay at the rectory for the rest of the night, maybe even kick in for bus fare back home. I could try to make it up with my parents. Give Rainbow Village another try.

I felt my lips stretching into an unfamiliar smile. Maybe I could even talk to the shrink about that new medication Father Leo was so hot on.