The Glory Days: Ode to Sue

Yesterday I took the Queen of Colitis to the vet. She was finally well enough from her bout to get her rabies shot. She remembers having to stay at the vet's for a day for intravenous fluids I guess. The Queen of Colitis whined and whimpered, crawled up into my lap, tried to open the door to get out.

Afterwards, I decided to drive out to Hagaman. Hagaman is a very small town where I used to live. I had gotten clean there. It was in Hagaman that I first learned about the joys of having a dog, courtesy of Huey the old man who lived upstairs. Together we and our dogs roamed all over the woods within a 200-mile radius. Huey knew the woods intricately. He had traveled by foot through many forests. I remember going to Tenant Creek Falls, Woods Lake, Jockey Bush Pond, Murphy Lake, Kibbe Pond. We had to climb up Kibbe fecking Mountain to get to Kibbe Pond though. Huey forgot to mention that in our plans. We also ate at every diner in every small hamlet around every trail we walked.

After I got clean-- immediately after-- I discovered that the dog loved to go for walks daily. And he wanted me to go with him. The dog quickly learned that I would not stow him back in the flat in the mornings until after he crapped. So he took forty-five minutes every morning to do so. Herbie used to twirl himself around and around like a whirling dervish once he located the perfect spot. His unknown ancestors must have used the same technique to flatten out tall stands of grass before relieving themselves. Herbie (that dog) came to a bad end. Turned out he was a fear biter. I knew what had to be done in fairness to Herbie and to all people everywhere. My heart was broken. It was Huey who took me to the shelter when I was ready to get another dog. I came home with Berry, the flat-coated retriever who later saved my life (by waking me up) in a house fire.

Berry and I continued our strolls in the woods with Huey and his dog as well as our walks around the neighborhood. Berry hadn't known me when I was drunk or high. Berry did not want strangers to touch him. He tolerated their petting him. Those people who were attached to their own dogs crossed the boundary of wariness into friendship. One of those lucky people was Sue.

Sue lived down the road from me in a large white house built in the dutch style with a porch and tufts of flowers springing from various places in the lawn. Tall pine trees marked the property lines between her and neighbors. Sue had a basset hound. Berry and I would stop to visit with Sue. We shared glasses of homemade lemonade while watching Berry attempting to get Sue's basset hound to play.

The Queen of Colitis and I walked past Sue's old house yesterday. The pine trees were still there. And the flowers. But the house wasn't as grand as I remember it. The paint was peeling and the roof was in need of replacing. Sue herself has been dead a long time now.

"Breast cancer," Huey had told me a few years after I'd moved away. "Sue had breast cancer-- the kind that makes the boobs dimple like the skin of oranges-- but she never told anyone. By the time folks realized she was sick, she was dieing." I had grieved for Sue. But I thought I understood her decision to allow the cancer to take her.

Sue had schizophrenia. She did not live alone. She lived with an older sister. It was her sister's house. Sue was unable to work due to her mental condition. Her symptoms yielded somewhat to management by medication but did not go away totally. Sue spend several days a week in a day program for chronic schizophrenics. It was a way for the mental hell agency to keep an eye on those who lived in the community in a cost-effective manner. But the m.h.p.s [mental hell professionals] did not notice that Sue was committing medical suicide right in front of them. Sue died, mostly unsung.

As the Queen of Colitis and I went walking yesterday, the memories came rushing back. We had connected, Sue and I. We were two lost people within the fabric of something much larger than either of us. The mental hell system is alienating at best, soul-numbing at worst. I got out alive, although it took me many years to escape. Sue got out too, but not with her life.


sapphoq on life