When I walked in the house, the smell of a fire filled my nose. Not the warm smell of a toasty fireplace, but that of a flame too quickly squelched and the steam wrapping its filth in the curtains. Something had burned here and the author of this fire killed it to either hide it or save himself. That was my clue that madness was in my home.
It wasn't the first time I had walked in to such horror. The memories of my childhood were filled with the stank smell of recently deceased anger. The smashed wine glass, the mixing bowl torn from the table with shards of glass plastered in the gooey mix against the wall, the wimpering mother chain smoking on the stairs. These were always signs during my younger years of trouble, but this time the air smelled different and the usual signs of domestic violence were missing. But it felt just the same without the smolder of recently passed anger. This smell wasn't of anger but instead confusion and sadness. It felt different but so much the same.
His affect was the same as I left him, with jokes and conversation, but I was sure he didn't realize the smell had clued me in to the fact that something was wrong. When I asked him about the charred log that sat saturated with water in the sink, he played it off saying with jovial cordiality that a fire had "got away from him". It was his lack of concern that bothered me and that was when I knew something tramatic had pulled him back from one of his many fancies and he was as afraid as I was but couldn't remember it.
When I pressed him about the odd site in the sink, he confessed to me that things had gotten out of hand and he panicked, dragging the flamming log from the fireplace and into the sink to douse it. The damper had been closed and the house filled with smoke immediately and in his confusion that was his best solution. He didn't mean to cause a fire, just trying to keep warm, but his fear of it was hampered by his inability to see the obvious. Open the flue and it would be fine. But the reality of the obvious is not something the demons allow you to see when they decide to visit.
Madness is an evil illness. It sometimes creeps in while other times it storms through the house like a fireman aiming to save the artwork. You never know who will be there at the dawn or what demons came to visit in the overnight. But the aura that hangs in the air when its all over feels the same as a drunken father and an angry mother. It felt the same to me, but so very different.
Looking back the first signs that things were not right happened several months before. He had been hospitalized after he was found wandering the streets with no pants and his car wrapped around a tree. Months had now passed and his insurance was settling the payments. But the man who came home from the hospital was not the man I once knew. He was different.
He talked with a lisp at times and made strange requests for cigaretts and milk. These were not his usual requests- although cigaretts had always been a part of the nightly festivities. Its was the pairing of the two that seemed most off. Who drinks a glass of two percent with a pack of winstons? He did and it seemed almost normal the way he asked, but it seemed odd none the less.
I hated the idea that he could be crazy. I always worshipped him. His pills had always been a fixture and his use of drugs and alcohol a given. But I always imagined he would forever be the strapping 20 year old with a cowboy swagger and a glint in his eye. But the man I now saw was afraid and cowered at confrontation, but
to the innocent and unthreatening, he was as fierce as he had ever been. He aged it seemed in minutes and the man I now knew had all the brevado of his youth, but none of the strength or manlihood to back it up. I dont know if he knew it or not, but he seemed frail and ashamed when the cloak of brevado was pulled away. He wasnt the same but he thought he was.
The first glint of madness was so very much worse. When I walked in then it was as if I could feel the demons that attacked him. The light was wrapped in duct tape and the table turned on the floor. The fridge door hung open with a rancid steak topping the pile of groceries that were neatly stacked in front on the the floor. But then I thought it was just a ususal drug binge. Why are drugs so acceptable while madness is the quiet sin? Why did I fear madness while I accepted drug addiction so easily? The results now were evident and one I knew was not in my control while the other I felt entirely out of control.
Its not the kind of thing you know is coming, but then again you see it happening before your eyes- the idea that one you love is suffering from mental illness sneaks up on both of you. When you realize its here, it hits you like a cancer diagnosis. But it isnt lethal. He can live for years with this illness, but his life will never be a life? And neither will yours. Its is the curse of death with none of finality. You will both live with the daily struggles and the sleep will come some day with its permanent silence and you will forever say good bye. But that sleep will come only after you visit with the demons of mental illness for far too long and wish for its arrival long before its due, hoping that he will wake up one day and be the same as he once was, if only for a few minutes. And then the demons come back.
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