Very Damaged Man

 

We got back from Natchez to a world that seemed to change nearly overnight. We found a large duplex in what was then called the Med Center area because it was right down the street from The University of Mississippi Medical Center. Twenty years later it has now become known as Fondren with a large redevelopment of the area occurring about 10 years ago. There are upscale apartments, specialty clothing and gift shops, art galleries, a performing arts center and great restaurants, all in keeping with the historic art deco architecture of the original area. Back when we moved in to our apartment there was only really the shopping center with a Jitney Jungle grocery store and a drug store that happened to carry my ostomy supplies which was a great convenience. The problem was coming up with the $200.00 per month to pay for them. With a using intravenous drug addict in the house, money was extremely hard to come by, not only for my supplies but for food, rent, utilities, etc.

I worked for a large insurance company about 5 miles from my house which was very convenient because keeping money in my billfold for gas was hard. We did not have a checking account, mostly because I was afraid of the bad checks Bob would write on the account for cash for drugs.

At the time, we only had my little sports car. Bob found an older model Jeep Cherokee that he talked his grandfather into buying for for him so he could get back and forth to work and go hunting. Bob's Big Daddy, as he was affectionately called by his 2 grandchildren, Bob and Julie, who lived with Bob's aunt in New York was a kind but stern retired man.  He was very much the Southern Gentleman.

Big Daddy has long ago  lost faith in his beloved only grandson. Years before Bob had stolen a number of highly-prized guns form Big Daddy's gun cabinet from his Planters' Home in Natchez. Planters' Homes, not to be confused with Antebellum Homes, and are usually somewhat smaller than the Antebellum mansions in Natchez. It was, however, on The National Historic Register. Big Daddy slept in the same be he was born in, with I'm sure a few mattress changes in his 70 years.

Big Daddy and Bob's grandmother, that Bob also called Mamaw, had divorced years before. I think in large part due to Mamaw's drinking habit. She had since been to treatment and had been sober for several years. Her mother, Grand Mam, was also a raging alcoholic and I am honestly not sure if she died sober or not.  I hope so.

I'd like to tell you about Bob's background in the hope that it will help you understand him a little better. His mother became pregnant at, I believe, 17 years of age, by Bob's dad who had immigrated with his family from Panama as a young teen. He and Bob's mother married and Bob was born several months later.  Their marriage lasted only a few months after Bob was born.

When Bob was about 7, his mother married a Canadian who was working in Natchez in the oil fields in the area. When he moved back to Vancouver, British Columbia, his mother moved herself and Bob with him. She had also left Bob earlier in his life to go for a modeling contract she was offered. She was an extremely beautiful young woman, At her mother's misguided insistence, she never explained to him where and why she had to leave him. He just woke up one morning as a 3-year-old and his Mommy was gone. Apparently, she was only gone a few months, but it was enough to leave Bob with abandonment issues the rest of his life.

She divorced the Canadian no more than several months after moving there with him. She got a job, leaving Bob as a latch-key child after school. With the child already having abandonment issues, being left alone for hours into the night only added to the psychological burden that he already carried. In addition, he was a bed wetter. His mother would spank and beat him when he wet his bed. He just never stood a chance, did he?

When he became a teenager he started getting into trouble in Vancouver. At 15 he started mugging old ladies. Not sure what else he became involved in but his mother decided to start shipping him back to his father in Natchez for him to “fix” this out-of-control, problem kid that she herself had created. At 15 there's not much that can be done with a kid that was abandoned at 3, moved away from everything and everyone he knew and loved (and that loved him) at 7. In addition to the being left alone every day for hours on end and being beaten for a problem that he had no control over, what was anyone going to do with him? He just got into more trouble when he was in Natchez for the summers.

So eventually he moved back to Natchez permanently and he stayed in trouble. The seeking and acquisition of drugs became his only motivation in life. No one tried to put him into treatment at this point, although, even if they had, it would have made no difference in that point in his life, I believe.

Please do not take what I am saying as I am making excuses for his behavior. I'm not. But I can never get the picture out of my mind of walking into out apartment one afternoon when he didn't know I was there. This 25-year-old man was holding himself, arms wrapped around each other, rocking back and forth on our couch. I have since read that this is a way that many mentally damaged people comfort themselves.

At this time, I had no idea how damaged this young man I loved so dearly was.