The "Kissy Monster"

     It wasn't easy growing up with a man who scribbled mathematical equations on the walls and microwaved his underwear to kill those pesky flesh-eating creatures no one else could see.  On bad days, I spoke to my father like a child and ridiculed him for conversing with imaginary people on the front lawn.  On good days, I curled up beside him on the couch and let him tell me all about the strange images darting through his mind.
     "Captain Janeway is no fool," he declared one morning after a breakfast of milk and Oreo cookies.  "She does the best she can to represent the minorities, and the homosexuals, too."
     The television wasn't turned to Star Trek, and no mention of the show had been made that morning.  I could only guess that he was shooting the breeze with one of his imaginary friends.  "What about ET and Darth Vadar?" I asked.  "Are they well-represented?"
     Despite my father's tendency to zone in and out of reality, he took an active interest in my life.  In the eighth grade, when a bus stop fight left me with a bloody nose, he marched over to the park where neighborhood bullies gathered and punched my attacker in the face.  He spent only one night in jail for popping a thirteen-year-old girl in the eye.  It's one of the supreme advantages of being certifiably insane. The jails don't have a place for you, and the mental institutions can't afford to keep you.  
      The hands that terrorized neighborhood bullies could also be surprisingly gentle. When I was five years old, Dad invented a game called, "The Kissy Monster."  Capitalizing on my love of Sesame Street's Cookie Monster, he chased me through the house threatening to gobble me up.  When he caught me, he covered my cheeks with kisses.  I enjoyed the game in elementary school, but it seemed embarrassing and inappropriate as I entered adolescence.  I mocked his Oreo Cookie breath and demanded he shave his unruly beard. Looking back, I wish I hadn't gotten so bent out of shape. He was merely seeking affection from the only person in the world who might agree to provide it.
      As an adult, I was elected to drive my father to my grandfather's funeral, because my Grandmother was too distraught to deal with him on such a trying day.  Throughout the hourlong trip, he carried on an intense political debate with an imaginary fellow named Larry. I should've been happy that Dad had found a way to escape the torment of losing his father, but his constant chatter made me want to put my fist through the windshield. "Could you shut up for just five minutes!" I screamed.  "The real people in your life need you right now.  Are you aware that the voices you hear don't exist?"
      He looked at me as if I were the one who needed psychiatric intervention. "I'm aware that they're part of a reality we don't share."
      A few years later, when my Grandmother passed away, he was equally distracted at her funeral. I thought he was simply incapable of grieving until the day I showed him a long forgotten photo of the two of us.  I could tell right away that the picture affected him deeply.  His lips trembled, and he began to make buzzing and clicking noises with his tongue, a practice he adopted when processing information or responding to the rapid fire of voices in his head. Finally, he calmed down enough to speak clearly. "That's my Snoodles!" he said,  pointing to me as a happy nine-year-old girl in a mint green polka dotted dress. "Show grandma."
     I reminded him that he'd attended his mother's funeral more than a year ago, but the ceremony meant nothing to him.  "She's still with us," he said. 
     From that moment on, I began to pay more attention to the incoherent babble I'd trained myself to ignore.  Once I opened my ears, I discovered why my father didn't mourn the loss of his parents;  he chatted, argued and joked with them on a regular basis.  
     My father could never hold a job, but he managed to apply his considerable mathematical and technical knowledge when it mattered most. In my freshman year of college, when I couldn't muster the talent to come up with visual aids for my speech class, he spent long hours sketching diagrams of the Ford Mustang and writing detailed cue cards that would help me explain exactly how the car had evolved over the last fifty years.  Many of his friends were skilled mechanics who sat around discussing cars in coffee shops. When his restaurant buddies weren't around, he continued the discussions with the voices in his head. A General Motors engineer once told me that he wasn't sure if my father was a genius, a lunatic or some fantastic hybrid of the two.
     Shortly after I got married and moved away from home, a domestic fight forced my mom to divorce my father after many years of acting as his primary caregiver.  When he was sent to a mental hospital, I breathed a sigh of relief.  Perhaps now I wouldn't have to worry about him hurting himself or hurting others.
     In 2002, a $500-million budget shortfall forced a $100-million cut in community health programs, including programs that support the mentally ill.  For me, the widely
publicized shutdown of Michigan mental hospitals meant one thing;  I would be responsible for taking care of a man I had never learned to control.
     Determined to pick up where the state left off, I purchased a single wide trailer and struggled to keep my father's cabinets stocked with basic essentials.  For a few precious months, I watched him live as an independent adult and make routine decisions most people take for granted.  On a routine shopping trip for household supplies, he rejected the burgundy towels I'd chosen and threw blew ones into the cart. For the first time in many years, he cared about something tangible.
     My role as a caretaker ended with one horrifying phone call.  On June 7, 2002, I learned that my father had doused his clothing with gasoline and set himself on fire. No horror movie ever made could be as deeply disturbing as the sight I encountered when I entered my father's hospital room.  Plump red flesh hung from his face, neck and eyelids.  Loose flecks of charred skin clung to his whiskers.  Scattered patches of hair dotted his swollen scalp.
     Despite his ghastly appearance, he still looked like himself.  Behind his swollen eyelids, I saw glimpses of the lovable loon who was more like a mischievous playmate than a parent.  My head spun with memories of us sneaking outside after Mom went to sleep, going for midnight joy rides up and down Telegraph Road, and sharing Big Boy's hot fudge cakes at 3 a.m. on a school night.  I would've given up everything I owned for just one more Oreo Cookie kiss.
     As the daughter of the most eccentric man in the neighborhood, I often wondered what it would be like to live the kind of life that classmates enjoyed with their families.  I never knew what it meant to fly to Disney World or head out to the beach on a Sunday afternoon, but I went to bed each night with the supreme knowledge that I was loved.  My father may not have brought home weekly paychecks or attended parent teacher conferences, but he raised a child while battling complex inner demons and brought a bit of magic to a little girl's world.   
     There are medals for war heroes and trophies for outstanding golfers, but there are no awards for parents who remain with their children against insurmountable odds.  Regardless of how he exited the world, my father lived a life worthy of recognition. 
     It is often written that adversity makes us stronger, and I believe it's true.  As a result of my experiences visiting mental hospitals, I wrote a fictional book about several souls with various afflictions struggling to survive in a world of hypocrisy and persecution.  I hope to use the riveting format of a psychological thriller to raise questions that force us to re-evaluate the way we perceive people with special challenges:  Is it possible for a disfigured woman to find love in a society where men define themselves by the physical attractiveness of their dates?  Can an impoverished schizophrenic man find the help he needs within a healthcare system that reserves institutional care for the heavily insured?  Can a clinically depressed billionaire pull himself from the depths of despair by feeding upon the natural optimism of ambitious youngsters?
     These are just some of the questions explored in Vengeful Tendencies, the story of a psychopath who sets out to humiliate his psychiatrist by helping the patients he cannot reach and seducing the woman he secretly adores.
    Although my father's memory provided the inspirational spark, I set out to write a fictional piece that fosters compassion for the mentally ill, not a memoir. In the same way that One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest connects the average reader to the mentally ill person, I hope to leave readers with the sense that we're all connected in the search for truth and the pursuit of happiness. I began the book as a therapeutic project shortly after my father died.  It gave me an inner peace that no priest or grief counselor could help me attain.
     I'm happy to report that the book is getting five star ratings on Amazon.com.  Each day, I look forward to opening e-mail from folks I've never met who grew up in similar circumstances. It is my ultimate goal to collect such stories for a web site that helps the family members of mentally ill people cope with the special problems that caregivers face.
     Above all, I hope the book will be an inspiration to those who have lost the ability to find joy in everyday experiences.  I see so much tragedy in the world today, from violence and drug abuse to depression and mental illness.  What is this elusive thing called happiness, and how can more people obtain it?  It's my goal to explore this question and get people thinking about how they might let go of old resentments, create new challenges and look upon each new day as a gift from God. 

--Bethany Vale, author of Vengeful Tendencies (Books and reviews available on Amazon.com. More information at VengefulTendencies.com. Author's e-mail address:  TwilightRealm@aol.com)