Schizo

A character sketch using another character to explain the main -- an interesting experiment, if I do say so myself

My grandfather had schizophrenia. It went without being diagnosed through my mother's childhood and much of her adult life, too. It only went on so long because they were too afraid to point it out. I'm sure, in hindsight, they regret waiting until he was scary all the time, rather than just when he was angry.

His temper was the most obvious indicator.  In the beginning, when my mom was still young, he would start scream over the smallest mistakes. Once, she dropped a piece of toast on the floor and tried to pick it up, she knew how furious he'd get over unfinished plates. She found out trying to eat food that had been on the floor was a much worse offense. Apparently, he screamed until sweat ran from his temples then whipped her with his belt until my grandma had threatened to call the police. The whole time, he’d been bellowing things like, “You did that on purpose, you filthy child! You were placed here to torture me, weren’t you? You wouldn’t be harmed by the poison they coat these floors with, would you? You’re a demon! You spawn! Satan's spawn!”

He was also a rather paranoid, but he was excellent at hiding it -- in the beginning at least. Mom told me she's sometimes catch him muttering to himself, scanning the woods behind their house with binoculars. She was always too afraid to get close enough to hear what he was saying. The one time she did, he was saying, "...they're coming, I know it. I'll be ready..." Sometimes, if someone did something he'd been thinking about doing he'd say something like "They think they can stop me, but they can't" or "They always take what I want." When she was a teen, Mom remembers a time when he was brought back home from the bar in a police car. He'd gotten in a fight at the bar with a tourist, he reportedly ran at the man, shouting, "This is my place, you aren't allowed here! We had a deal!" The bewildered man had been beaten pretty severely, but he didn't want to press charges since there was no real damage -- just a lot of cuts, bruises, and a mild concussion. The officer, speaking privately with Grandma, told her that he ought to see a doctor. After that night, he never held a job again, saying every time that 'they' were all Satan's minions.

When he was jobless, it was hardest on everyone. Then, in the early 80's in their little town, it was almost unheard of for a woman to work, unless her family was very ppor -- even then, the father always had a job too. So, when Grandma suggested that she could get a job, he would become tantamount to unmanageable. But when he gave up, coming to the conclusion that the world was infested with demons, he compromised. With the last of their savings, they started a dairy farm.

It worked out for him, Grandpa got to control everything and had no reason to think anyone was tempting him to evil or evil was attempting to ruin him -- he could see every mistake and where it arose from. But, it meant that the rest of the family hat to work too, since, as he said, "no one is worth trusting in these matters." It seemed he was the only one that truly benefited from it, though. It's not that my mom and grandma didn't want to or weren't capable of helping, but there was just too much work for three people. Mom had to repeat a grade since she had to miss so much school for her often-broken feet. Grandma was hospitalized three times for fainting. They had to inject her with fat cells, even though she ate six full meals a day. Grandpa had four heart attacks from the stress and his unwillingness to eat anything other than red meat and potatoes, saying vegetables and fruit were Beelzebub's way of creating lethargy.

Even after my mom grew up, he'd call her occasionally, stating that Grandma was stealing money from his flea market fund or purposely increasing his half of the bills. Once he went so far as to say that all the missing money was for her affair. I can remember that conversation, the look of disgusted outrage on my mother's face before she slammed the phone down. Although I didn't understand the conversation, I understood the look her face to mean that I wouldn't be seeing my grandpa for a while. He was hospitalized soon after that and I didn't see him again until his funeral.

Apparently his mother was pretty insane too. there's an old story about how his mom may have had her third husband kill her second on a hunting trip, based on the fact that she married the guy and had had funeral arrangements made before they left. She had also chased her first husband with a butcher's knife down the road once. That story I heard from a wispy, white-haired woman at the grocery stores during one of my trips back to their town. She had apparently recognized me by my grandma's smile and grandpa's eyes.

Despite his insanity, my grandpa was well-known and well-liked in their village. He was always kind, he was the fostering sort. He had taken in two orphaned fawns for a summer after he, and everyone else at that, had see them wandering, emaciated, down the many dirt roads. My grandpa told me that when he saw them, they looked at him as if they were pleading with him and walked up to him as soon as he got out of his truck. He used to hunt and donate the meat to poor families, actually teaching a lot of the young boys from those families how to hunt and fish and how to clean their catches. On a drunken night, Mom told me, on our way home from their house, that she sometimes wish he'd loved his family as much as he loved helping other people.

That's not to say he didn't love us as much as he loved to be of assistance. He did a lot for his family, he always made sure there was food and he never let his tempers destroy the truly important things. He definitely loved me, his only grandchild. Sometimes, after all these years, I'll come close to calling my belly button my "tickle button." I'll never forget my fifth Christmas because of him, too. We went to their house the day after to find Grandpa sitting at the dinner table in a Santa Claus suit. His white beard was combed and clean, his eyes still had their twinkle. He told me he'd forgotten to take off his uniform. I begged him to keep it on and he did. For the next two years, I told every person I met that my grandpa was the real Santa Claus. My mom ended up telling me Santa wasn't real that year, just so I'd stop believing it.

I guess that should have been the first indicator that I'd grow up to be just like him.

Author's Note

How solid is my description of Grandpa's illness? I want it to be vivid as well as believable.