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name: will baker blogrollin' other sites: |
somewhere, Somone
"I've reason to believe that we'll all be received down in Graceland." Paul Simon Next to the office where I work, there is a sort of daycare center for retarded and/or disabled adults. I don't think it's a very nice place, and their clients are always walking up and down the sidewalk that runs the length of our building, doing nothing all day but bumming cigarettes and talking to themselves. There is one young man who does nothing but pace...back and forth, all day long. He never talks to anyone, but he talks to himself pretty much constantly. One of our case managers, an older Black woman who worked in the State Hospital for years, says he's schizophrenic. He does seem to hallucinate more more less constantly as he paces back and forth in that terrible heat, ignored by everyone. His medications have made him fat and cause him to shuffle when he walks. The dark circles under his eyes make me think that he doesn't get much sleep. I wonder if all those side effects seem like a resonable payoff for whatever limited relief his meds give him from his symptoms. Or if anyone is paying enough attention to make those kind of calculations. What an exhausting life that must be, fighting inside all day long. Whoever it is that talks to him never seems to leave him alone. They're always fighting, him and his voices, as he shuffles back and forth, sweating, hands flexing and twitching. I can understand, just a little bit, about fighting the battles that no one sees. To whatever extent the concept of heroism means anything to me, I would say that this kid is a small sort of hero--strong just to survive the darkness, impressive to me because he got his shoes on and he hasn't accidentally hurt anybody today. He's heroic to me because no one is really impressed by his hard labors. No one is doing a local-news "human interest" spot on this kid. He's not on Oprah, braying loudly about being a "survivor" of this or that, bedecked with a folded ribbon in the color of the cause celeb du jour. That whole scene is a million miles away from the dusty sidewalk where he shuffles through minutes and hours, negotiating with his voices for another day. He's my hero because no one notices; because he survives even though no one cares. Because I believe that, despite all appearances, somewhere, Someone is watching.
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