Living with Bill
M. gets strange fast. At first I think it’s just the usual getting used to
living with someone but in short time I notice a lot of things that I have to take
note of. These are things that should have rung warning bells very loudly to me.
The problem is that I tend to like to see where something is headed before I react
or speak. I have heard that I am over dramatic and tend to speak too quickly.
Bill M. calls in
his newscasts to the various radio stations that he works at. Watching how this
works is so fascinating to me. Bill M. speaks into the phone, attached a recording
device attached to the back of the earphone and then looped it into a mini tape
recorder. The station adds there on air
logo and he records the whole thing. Bill M. then runs around putting all the
radios on to the station that he just called, so he can hear how it turns out.
It starts to get
weird at these moments. Wherever I am he will walk in, place one finger to his
mouth, shush me and start talking. Places I can be found when he does this are
1. Sitting on the toilet. 2.While I am in the tub. 3. Sleeping, and my favorite
# 4. While I am dancing in my speedo, in front of a tanning lamp, that I bought
at a garage sale, while locked in my bedroom.
Bill will knock and knock and knock and knock
and knock, until I open my door. The tanning lamp has one timer switch and I
have to wear goggles. I give myself a zap 15 minutes a day. Bill M. won’t let
me turn it off but will stand in my room and talk into the phone.
One of the first things
I notice in the house are his Bottles of pills. These pills line the counter in
the kitchen, the bathroom, and from what I can see from the doorway of his room,
all over his dresser.
The bottles have
various medical prescriptions written on them. I write them down and I go to
the library to do a little research. He is doped up so bad. Most of the
medications point towards schizophrenia. What I also notice are that his behavior
leans the same way.
Bill looks
completely normal, almost scarily so, but Once in the middle of the night I
turn on the bathroom light and find him standing in the dark, staring into the
mirror. While he mumbles, I walk him and his matching pajamas, back to his
room.
I am not allowed
to “ever” enter his room and I need to rap loudly 3 times, stand in the doorway
and speak in a loud voice before he will talk to me. I can hear him talking to
people that don’t exist and some weeks he doesn’t bathe.
The rules quickly
become crazier and I turn to David.
To be continued……..
Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writing "A Day in the Life". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.
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