Crazy People

It’s 1957. I’m 5, my sister Anne is 7, and my mother is pregnant with my sister Lisa. My father’s not working. He spends a lot of time not working. It’s because of the drinking. He loses interest, quits, or gets fired. And when he’s not working, we don’t have any money and end up living with my mother’s parents – the Foleys, or my father’s parents – the Cookes.

That year, we are living with the Foleys in a two-story, green frame house on the westside of Bay City, on a corner lot.

My Grandma Foley is very proud of that lot. She may live on the westside, the wrong side of town, but at least she has that corner lot. The Cookes may have that ‘la-dee-dah’ house on Center, on the east side of town, with all those beautiful wood floors, but she has that corner lot.

To my 5-year-old eye, my grandmother looks awfully round with a massive bosom that hangs to her waist and too much gray hair. Unlike my Grandma Cooke, my Grandma Foley’s hair is short, clipped about level with her ears, and she just seems old (she was maybe 58). Maybe it’s because of all the complaining she does – what my father calls ‘belly aching.’

My Grandma Foley belly aches about the furnace – it’s never hot enough in the house, even at 80; the price of coal; the cost of feeding her daughter, son-in-law, and two kids.

And she belly aches about the Cookes:

“With all the money they have,” she tells my mother, “you’d think they’d have a son that works, that knows how to support his family.”

“With all the money they have,” she says, “you’d think they’d take you in and not expect us to do it.”

“With all the money they have,” she says, “you’d think they’d have the sense to get Lanny out of Doylestown and away from that crazy doctor.”

She, my mother, and I are sitting in the kitchen at a table made of tin — white with black trim and four mismatched, tin chairs. They are smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, which my grandma serves in dainty, china cups complete with matching saucers. Because I am so young, and pretty much invisible to adult eyes, I am allowed to sit there, listening to them talk, to my grandma belly ache.

Most of her belly aching I’ve already heard, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard of Lanny. My ears perk up.

My mother glances at me, and I do my best to remain invisible.

Evidently, I’m successful because she turns her attention back to my grandmother.

“From what I’ve heard, Mother, Dr. Rosen is supposed to be the best.”

My grandma harrumphs. “If he was any good, Lanny wouldn’t still be in that hospital.”

My mother sighs, rubs the bridge of her nose. “It’s not like he’s got pneumonia, Mother.”

“I know what he’s got, Patty Anne.”

“Who’s Lanny?” I ask.

“He’s your father’s brother,” my mother says. “Your uncle. And you’re going to get to meet him tonight.”

“They’re meeting him?” my grandmother asks.

To my 5-year-old ear, she sounds horrified. My Uncle Lanny is beginning to sound pretty interesting.

“Yes,” my mother says. “They’re his nieces, and they’re going to meet him.”

“Is that even safe?” my grandmother asks, just as I’m asking why he’s in the hospital.

My mother answers me and not my grandma: “Because your Uncle Lanny is sick and needs doctors to take care of him.”

“Did he get his tonsils out?”

“Not that kind of sick,” my mother tells me. “Your Uncle Lanny has a problem with his head.”

“Did he fall out the window?” I ask.

My mother shakes her head ‘no.’

“So go ahead, Pat,” my grandma says. “Explain schizophrenia to a 5-year-old.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“It means he’s crazy,” my grandmother says.

Crazy is the Wild Man From Borneo in The Little Rascals, who runs around yelling, ”Yum, yum, eat ‘em up.”

I don’t want to meet a crazy man, and I let my mother know that.

“See, Pat,” my grandma says, “even a 5-year-old’s got better sense than you.”

She shakes her head. “You and the Cookes.”

“Reeni,” my mother tells me, “your Uncle Lanny is not ‘crazy,’ his head is sick, so he needs doctors to take care of him. He won’t hurt you, and I promise, he won’t scare you.”

My mother’s promise held true.

My Uncle Lanny came that evening, accompanied by his doctor. Anne and I were sleeping; my mother woke us, took us downstairs where a man, who didn’t look crazy, who just looked sad and was awfully quiet, sat on the couch next to my father.

My mother introduced Anne then me, and then sent us back to bed.

That was my Uncle Lanny — hospitalized with schizophrenia at 19, who never got better, never regained function. He died, still hospitalized, of a massive heart attack brought on by the meds used to treat his illness.

He was 40.