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Authors: Eric Christopherson
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wind. My body shuddered, head to toe. I couldn’t bear the thought of what I might do upon hearing that Darth Vader-like voice tell me Sarah’s cooking was poisoning me, slowly poisoning me. Or that my four year-old was plotting to poke my eyes out with the kitchen scissors.
Tears seeped from my tightly closed eyelids. Some cry struggled to come out, but I pressed it down inside me, pressed it down, pressed it down, grimacing from the strain.
“Don’t lose control!” I told myself. “Don’t! Figure out what’s going on. And for God’s sake, figure out what to do!”
Chapter 9
On the Old Town boardwalk after dark I strolled alone along the waterfront, hands in my pockets, eyes at my feet, or following the lights aboard slow-moving ships on the Potomac River —all the while remembering my father. The man’s behavior had always been erratic, even from a loving child’s point of view.
My father would disappear for days at a time. And he’d usually return disheveled, reeking of body odor and booze, warning us that the communists were coming, or warning of other strange and fearful things. One day he'd disappeared altogether.
It wasn’t until years later, after my own diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, that I finally understood him. The disease had gripped my father too. It'd seized me through him.
When a child’s parent has schizophrenia that child has a fifteen percent chance of suffering from the same disease. Children who don’t have a schizophrenic parent have only a one percent chance. And that disparity in odds was the main reason why I’d become a dad at a relatively old age. It’d been a tough decision making Ellie. And her sibling to be.
My father must be dead , I thought. He surely must be dead by now. Or institutionalized somewhere .
I felt ashamed that I hadn’t found out, one way or another, long ago, what had become of my old man. I’d always been afraid of what I might find, afraid to learn what my own fate might be.
If my father is alive , I reasoned, then the old man just might’ve seen me on television, seen some old interview I did about the assassination attempt on President Cooper—the History Channel shows a documentary every year—and then, somehow, some way, he might’ve learned enough about me to make that phone call .
Perhaps. But if my father is so addle-brained as to suggest that his son kill John Helms, then how did he manage to obtain my private cell phone number ?
Given my own psychiatric history, and the remarkable week I’d been having, I knew it was far more likely that the phone call—and the warning I’d received—had originated in my own, sickening mind. Yet I strained my cerebrum for alternative explanations.
Could some strange person—sane or insane—have made the call? Claiming to be my long-lost father ?
If sane, why ?
If insane, why not ?
I was still debating whether I’d really talked to my father—or a man claiming to be him—when a new idea panicked me.
Maybe it was someone else entirely who’d called me on that plane today—Wasn’t Keisha supposed to call?—and I’d simply imagined it to be my father, imagined the entire conversation !
My steps halted. My chest heaved as if zapped by cardiac paddles. I don’t know what’s real anymore! And what’s not !
I’ve got to call Keisha !
I whipped out my cell phone, pushed her speed dial button, and listened to the ringing on the other end of the phone line, recalling for the first time in over two decades how tremendously exhausting it is to keep one’s grip on reality when it’s fast slipping away . . .
“Keisha,” I said when she answered. “What’s new?”
“Argus!” she said. “Say, Mister President and CEO, what’s the big idea turning your cell phone off?”
“Got a problem,” I said. “It’s personal.”
“Called your house. Jack
Tears seeped from my tightly closed eyelids. Some cry struggled to come out, but I pressed it down inside me, pressed it down, pressed it down, grimacing from the strain.
“Don’t lose control!” I told myself. “Don’t! Figure out what’s going on. And for God’s sake, figure out what to do!”
Chapter 9
On the Old Town boardwalk after dark I strolled alone along the waterfront, hands in my pockets, eyes at my feet, or following the lights aboard slow-moving ships on the Potomac River —all the while remembering my father. The man’s behavior had always been erratic, even from a loving child’s point of view.
My father would disappear for days at a time. And he’d usually return disheveled, reeking of body odor and booze, warning us that the communists were coming, or warning of other strange and fearful things. One day he'd disappeared altogether.
It wasn’t until years later, after my own diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, that I finally understood him. The disease had gripped my father too. It'd seized me through him.
When a child’s parent has schizophrenia that child has a fifteen percent chance of suffering from the same disease. Children who don’t have a schizophrenic parent have only a one percent chance. And that disparity in odds was the main reason why I’d become a dad at a relatively old age. It’d been a tough decision making Ellie. And her sibling to be.
My father must be dead , I thought. He surely must be dead by now. Or institutionalized somewhere .
I felt ashamed that I hadn’t found out, one way or another, long ago, what had become of my old man. I’d always been afraid of what I might find, afraid to learn what my own fate might be.
If my father is alive , I reasoned, then the old man just might’ve seen me on television, seen some old interview I did about the assassination attempt on President Cooper—the History Channel shows a documentary every year—and then, somehow, some way, he might’ve learned enough about me to make that phone call .
Perhaps. But if my father is so addle-brained as to suggest that his son kill John Helms, then how did he manage to obtain my private cell phone number ?
Given my own psychiatric history, and the remarkable week I’d been having, I knew it was far more likely that the phone call—and the warning I’d received—had originated in my own, sickening mind. Yet I strained my cerebrum for alternative explanations.
Could some strange person—sane or insane—have made the call? Claiming to be my long-lost father ?
If sane, why ?
If insane, why not ?
I was still debating whether I’d really talked to my father—or a man claiming to be him—when a new idea panicked me.
Maybe it was someone else entirely who’d called me on that plane today—Wasn’t Keisha supposed to call?—and I’d simply imagined it to be my father, imagined the entire conversation !
My steps halted. My chest heaved as if zapped by cardiac paddles. I don’t know what’s real anymore! And what’s not !
I’ve got to call Keisha !
I whipped out my cell phone, pushed her speed dial button, and listened to the ringing on the other end of the phone line, recalling for the first time in over two decades how tremendously exhausting it is to keep one’s grip on reality when it’s fast slipping away . . .
“Keisha,” I said when she answered. “What’s new?”
“Argus!” she said. “Say, Mister President and CEO, what’s the big idea turning your cell phone off?”
“Got a problem,” I said. “It’s personal.”
“Called your house. Jack
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