Dick
When did "Dick" become such a bad, vile name? Was it because of Dick "I am not a a crook" Nixon? Was it the coarse slang usage, or that it rhymes or euphemizes 'prick'? For me, it is double bogey, combining my brother and my grandfather in one name. I leave out my uncle Richard Courtenay because he did not use the nickname, and because I liked and respected him. My memory of grandfather Dick is of an unemotional, selfish, ungiving man. Someone who was never fun. No one ever disabused me of this, least of all my own father. And my brother long ago ceased to be a brother. Memory of him is of a plane crash, a dropping out, a refusal to take the difficult choice, again and again and again, a schizophrenic, a con man, a crack addict. A scary guy.
Or may be it comes down to unsentimentality? Sentimentality does not extend to anyone in my life named Dick. He was a nice kid until the age of 17, but that was more than 25 years ago. Most of the years since he has been in mental institutions, especially in the beginning. And for most of the past decade, Dick has been incarcerated among the criminally insane, as a crack addict and drug dealer with variously diagnosed mental problems, depending upon who mades the diagnosis and the financial state of his health insurance. The good news, at least until recently, was that we generally knew where he was. Off the streets and in jail somewhere may sound cruel and indifferent, but it meant that we and those he intersected with out on the street were relatively safer. And so was he. That those jails were usually in California, with the entire continent safely between us came as a comfort as well. Sorry Dick. It comes down to what is inside of you: do you want to sink or swim. No one else can do this for you.
Dick's present link with family comes through a weak younger sister and a foggy-headed father. No one else will talk to him as he has burned every bridge. Neither sister nor father possess what most people would consider great judgement. Speaking for myself, I would venture to say they have poor, irresponsible judgement, but who asked me for my opinion? My sister has no personal life of her own for this reason, I suspect, so she buys people with money, plying them with plane tickets and gifts, then flying to another continent to disappear or hide. She thinks hers is a cool, glamorous lifestyle. My father feels emotionally invested in the youngest son, with some kind of poisonous choke-hold binding them together, as it once had bound my mother until she died ten years ago, victim of stress, cigarettes and gin. Dad writes Dick checks every week or two, misguidedly thinking he can keep Dick at a distance, or that he will improve Dick's daily existence with a quick fix. Or is it just that he needs to assuage his own guilt? The evidence is pretty clear that the decades of assistance have maintained a monster and probably helped keep him sick and dependent. But who am I to say he, the father, is wrong? How does the other, the eldest son tell a cynical, resentful, bitter and imperious father that what he is doing is counterproductive without appearing self-serving and heartless? In the end, he doesn't, having tried many too many times before. "Butt out. It's our problem" my mother was wont to say. It is a lose-lose situation. Lose the argument, lose the parents. As for the Dick himself, he is long lost, beyond anyone's redemption but his own.
Dick is nearby somewhere, last seen in Boston. My father and sister sent him a one way ticket from San Francisco, east. It seems that California wanted to rid itself of an expensive pest, to get him out of jail by airmailing him out of state. Today, the human timebomb is 3,000 miles nearer home and his relatives. Not only that, it is winter in New England, and he is here instead of California, where spring abounds. Dad met Dick at a hotel for a night, then went back home to Rhode Island, probably giving him a few hundred dollars "for medecine." He thinks that Dick cannot find him at his girlfriend's home, which is absurdly naive. Dad lives down a long, private road with many turns, but not so many that Dick cannot find him. Dick is a high-functioning schizophrenic who has survived for years in jail and out on the streets. He is smart, not dumb, and resourceful as a chittlin beagle. This makes my father most vulnerable, and it places a handful of relatives living nearby in harm's way. I worry about my wife in our house in New York, alone as well. Dick has come in this direction before. It also puts our empty summer houses at risk. He has broken into them before, crapping on the floors and eating miscelaneous canned foods in the shelves. That's the thing. He is not an idle threat or the product of my hyper-active imagination. So I am going down there to the camps to see what's happened, if anything. A fresh snow will reveal his whereabouts if he is around.
The return of ragged Dick, abetted by his father and my sister, reminds me of Max Frisch's play "The Firebugs," when an arsonist bearing gasoline is welcomed into a house by its blind-to-what-they-see before them hosts. The firebug even asks them for the match which he needs to light the fire to burn the house down. The allegory is to Germany and the Nazis as they took control of the country, with most citizens refusing to acknowledge what stared them in the face. Dick has not stayed out of trouble or jail for more than a few days that we know about for many years. He has no money, no work and no place to stay. My sister somehow knows he is not on his "meds." Oh, and he has been a crack addict for years, I don't know how many. So what chance do you give him? Can you foresee a good outcome? The odds for that are slim to none, if you ask me. The Return of the Native? Slim Dick's Revenge? You Can't Go Home Again? Barbarian at the Gate? The Firebugs? This is a story in the process of being written. What will be its denouement? Will Dick accelerate the action, or will this become just another chapter's end in a lengthy tale?
Or may be it comes down to unsentimentality? Sentimentality does not extend to anyone in my life named Dick. He was a nice kid until the age of 17, but that was more than 25 years ago. Most of the years since he has been in mental institutions, especially in the beginning. And for most of the past decade, Dick has been incarcerated among the criminally insane, as a crack addict and drug dealer with variously diagnosed mental problems, depending upon who mades the diagnosis and the financial state of his health insurance. The good news, at least until recently, was that we generally knew where he was. Off the streets and in jail somewhere may sound cruel and indifferent, but it meant that we and those he intersected with out on the street were relatively safer. And so was he. That those jails were usually in California, with the entire continent safely between us came as a comfort as well. Sorry Dick. It comes down to what is inside of you: do you want to sink or swim. No one else can do this for you.
Dick's present link with family comes through a weak younger sister and a foggy-headed father. No one else will talk to him as he has burned every bridge. Neither sister nor father possess what most people would consider great judgement. Speaking for myself, I would venture to say they have poor, irresponsible judgement, but who asked me for my opinion? My sister has no personal life of her own for this reason, I suspect, so she buys people with money, plying them with plane tickets and gifts, then flying to another continent to disappear or hide. She thinks hers is a cool, glamorous lifestyle. My father feels emotionally invested in the youngest son, with some kind of poisonous choke-hold binding them together, as it once had bound my mother until she died ten years ago, victim of stress, cigarettes and gin. Dad writes Dick checks every week or two, misguidedly thinking he can keep Dick at a distance, or that he will improve Dick's daily existence with a quick fix. Or is it just that he needs to assuage his own guilt? The evidence is pretty clear that the decades of assistance have maintained a monster and probably helped keep him sick and dependent. But who am I to say he, the father, is wrong? How does the other, the eldest son tell a cynical, resentful, bitter and imperious father that what he is doing is counterproductive without appearing self-serving and heartless? In the end, he doesn't, having tried many too many times before. "Butt out. It's our problem" my mother was wont to say. It is a lose-lose situation. Lose the argument, lose the parents. As for the Dick himself, he is long lost, beyond anyone's redemption but his own.
Dick is nearby somewhere, last seen in Boston. My father and sister sent him a one way ticket from San Francisco, east. It seems that California wanted to rid itself of an expensive pest, to get him out of jail by airmailing him out of state. Today, the human timebomb is 3,000 miles nearer home and his relatives. Not only that, it is winter in New England, and he is here instead of California, where spring abounds. Dad met Dick at a hotel for a night, then went back home to Rhode Island, probably giving him a few hundred dollars "for medecine." He thinks that Dick cannot find him at his girlfriend's home, which is absurdly naive. Dad lives down a long, private road with many turns, but not so many that Dick cannot find him. Dick is a high-functioning schizophrenic who has survived for years in jail and out on the streets. He is smart, not dumb, and resourceful as a chittlin beagle. This makes my father most vulnerable, and it places a handful of relatives living nearby in harm's way. I worry about my wife in our house in New York, alone as well. Dick has come in this direction before. It also puts our empty summer houses at risk. He has broken into them before, crapping on the floors and eating miscelaneous canned foods in the shelves. That's the thing. He is not an idle threat or the product of my hyper-active imagination. So I am going down there to the camps to see what's happened, if anything. A fresh snow will reveal his whereabouts if he is around.
The return of ragged Dick, abetted by his father and my sister, reminds me of Max Frisch's play "The Firebugs," when an arsonist bearing gasoline is welcomed into a house by its blind-to-what-they-see before them hosts. The firebug even asks them for the match which he needs to light the fire to burn the house down. The allegory is to Germany and the Nazis as they took control of the country, with most citizens refusing to acknowledge what stared them in the face. Dick has not stayed out of trouble or jail for more than a few days that we know about for many years. He has no money, no work and no place to stay. My sister somehow knows he is not on his "meds." Oh, and he has been a crack addict for years, I don't know how many. So what chance do you give him? Can you foresee a good outcome? The odds for that are slim to none, if you ask me. The Return of the Native? Slim Dick's Revenge? You Can't Go Home Again? Barbarian at the Gate? The Firebugs? This is a story in the process of being written. What will be its denouement? Will Dick accelerate the action, or will this become just another chapter's end in a lengthy tale?
posted by Stonechuck at 11:30 AM
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