Personal Jesus

Waking up again before enough sleep to comfortably start the day, I hear Toby laughing and clapping in his bedroom next to mine. It's not untypical at this unholy hour, around 5:30 AM-ish, when he usually chooses to rise. My sweet little man, oh, how his mood varies; Toby is generally happy, with big hugs, kisses, and smiles that I live for. I wouldn't dare to disrupt his schedule, though, as he may become irritable and discontent. He refuses to eat, throws objects at every glass and damageable surface, biting and clawing my wrists and thighs, or anything he can connect with while I am changing his oversized diaper. It has graduated to the point of smashed televisions and broken skin. Explaining to Toby that there is any diversion in his plan is beyond his comprehension, he shuts down in a fit of rage, often until exhaustion, where he falls into a slumber so long that he awakes at general bedtime and is up for the duration, even sunrise on several occasions. If all goes according to plan, it means Cheerios with chocolate milk immediately followed by his favorite fire truck with the VCR playing Labyrinth on repeat. When we have to take the 10 minutes to rewind the tape he screams so loud that it heightens my anxiety and turns my brain into what I describe as "scrambled eggs"- reminding me that this responsibility is my very own.

It pisses me off at times, and I hate that. I'm not angry with Tobes, but I am surely infuriated with the individual who left me to navigate this independently.

My folks and I are still trying to dissect the vague diagnosis that he was given approximately three years back when he was two. Now don't get me wrong; hes a wonderful, bright, whimsical and so much of an affectionate boy and brings so much wonder and joy every day, I am just explaining the challenges here. However, we have a little more insight each day, which drives me through. "A day at a time," they say, but the days are long, and my attention span and fight to understand this life goes in reverse.

My zombie mom self rises to the scheduled occasion. I pray, take my daily medication, and then saunter across the hall to Toby's bedroom. He hears me approach and giggles before I jiggle the doorknob.

"Hey there, sweet little guy," I gleefully whisper through the crack in the door that I jarred just enough for my face to peer in.

"Hey, IT'S MAMA!" Toby cheers.

"You want to have cereal?" he coyly asks.

"Of course, pal. Let's clean up and have at it."

I follow through our ritual, singing "The Ants Go Marching" to motivate him to the best of his understanding. Integrating music into his routine has been a Godsend, and I always wish I had known the first years of the signs of his condition. It's been a learning experience, to say the least. His way of thinking will always required navigation, and my way of learning him depends on exploration. Again, "a day at a time."

As I am preparing Toby's 5-star culinary masterpiece (he's an extremely picky eater, and this is the ultimate go-to and never a turn down), the phone rings before I pour the milk into the Cheerios. I run over to pick up the telephone, hoping it reaches over to the rear side of the kitchen where I am fixing his breakfast before he realizes the morning routine has been interrupted. Too late, Toby screams. I snatch the phone and hurry back to preparing his breakfast, but he has already sensed the deviation. He releases this groveling scream that always shatters my bones; I wince at the shrill sound and throw my finger so far into my left ear that I can almost taste the salt in my fingertip.

"Hello?!" trying my best to deafen the shout in the air.

"Well, hello, Tracy. I have some news for you. Do you have a moment?"

My eyes roll hard, I haven't had to engage with Arthur's mother often after the split, but it's always been trouble, and I am just not in the fucking mood today. I noticed that she sounded a bit nasally and heard a slight whimper.

I reply, "Not really, Linda, and I am having trouble hearing you at the moment."

Toby has been quiet since I figured out how to manipulate the slack on the telephone so that I could sit down and spoon-feed him his cereal. I crafted the art of balancing the two before, but usually, he prefers me to be silent while feeding him.

"Tracy, I am grateful that you picked up the receiver. After many years, I know you are not a true believer of Christ, but the Lord called Arthur home last night."

Wait, what...? My mind just boggles. The spoon drops and Toby goes into sheer panic over this.

"YOU DROPPED IT! DROPPED IT! DROPPED IT!" he panics in repetition.

The only thing I can hold in my shaky, fragile hand is this fucking phone. I look at my boy as he is in his tiff over his cereal and only see the movement of his mouth, the squinting, and the tears. The deafening turns into a dull ring in my ears. On autopilot, I stand up and walk over to the silverware drawer to get a new spoon, sit back down, and follow through while trying to listen to this woman. I've never known this numbness. The cord to the telephone is wrapped around my ankles now. In this state of discontent, I have somehow found the ability to feed him with my left hand as my ear pressed tightly to my right ear, connecting to my shoulder. I can't process what I just heard. I look at Toby as he takes a healthy spoonful and see his blissful unawareness to the velocity of the situation.

The moments it took me to reply to her were too few.

"Well, are you going to talk?!

My initial response shocked even me. I have been generally defensive over Linda lashing out for some years and stood still at every moment, but this was strange, and I was here with a different disposition that I couldn't quite depict now. All that could come out of my mouth at that moment was,

"Who told you I didn't believe in Christ?"

It was like something otherwordly took over my words, but indeed, a valid question on my behalf.

"How and why?" I ask, with vacancy and numbness.

Trying to stifle the sobs, she replies, "You don't care anyways, but he's home now."

"I'm sorry for your loss, Linda. Take care." I hung up the telephone, as needed, with complete overstimulation, disbelief, and even agitation that Linda would use passive aggression in even the worst of situations.

I give Toby his last bit of breakfast and see the blissful unawareness in his eyes as he diverts his attention to his fire truck. I sit here more numb than that plastic vehicle with the batteries dismissed (he hated the sound the manufacturer installed and was afraid of it for months until he was confident it would never make that sound again). I just wanted to sit here with Toby and enjoy the silence before his memory jogged him into remebering that breakfast followed sitting cross legged in front of the televison watching MTV music videos. He loved all the great ones: The Cars, Talking Heads, Prince, Dire Straits, and especially Depeche Mode. I feel the joy and pride of my boy sharing the same whimsical music taste as myself- Arthur never appreciated that. He found every way possible to take a jab at me as a parent, and this was one of them. I sit there and recall as my son draws the ladder on his fire engine up and down, only staring at the crimson-red hue of the plastic apparatus and going back in time to one of the many conversations we had regarding me being the shittiest person on planet Earth.

We knew that Toby was "special" before any doctor slapped us with a diagnosis and that bothered Arthur to his core. He was easily frustrated with him when it came to feeding, navigating and fits, mostly.

He blamed me for this constantly. That cigarette I had before I knew I was with child, the bit of cocaine I tried in 1979 that "imbedded into my DNA" and my favorite- the anxiety and despair that I needed to get "under control" when I found out he fucked his ex-wife when I was eight months pregnant- explaining that these things 'happen' and its 'natural animal instinct.' He was right about one thing; he was an animal- a vicious, ferocious mind-fucking one, a species I pray that would render extinct. Anyway, the conversation that rings heavy is followed after I got a nice cash bonus at my retail clothing sales job.

"Art, with the bonus I got at work, we could take Toby to an awesome music museum I heard that opened in the city! He would absolutely love this."

I was so excited to have a little wiggle room in the budget and to be able to take our boy to do something he would truly enjoy outside of the realm of swingsets and blocks. He's exceptional and in the best way.

"Wow, really, Tracy? Because you have a little money now, you want to go and do extravagant and inappropriate things for our boy. These are adult things, a shit mom thing to even recommend, actually. What about the zoo? Or is it all about you and your money now? It is smelling up the sock drawer anyway, so just go ahead and spend it on being a loser and damage him more than you already have. You're so selfish".

I was just learning how well Toby responded to music, not the nursery rhymes but what I listened to. I thought this was exceptional and magnificent, but I was shunned for this breakthrough with my unique son. It may have a lot to do with him just losing his fourth construction job in three months. He was bathing his organs in alcohol, so I chalked it up to the whiskey talking.

I snap out of this God-awful "Day-mare" and divert my attention back to Tobes, who is ready for the next step of his morning routine. He asks me everything in the form of a question, e.g., "Mom, do you want to brush my teeth?" "Mom, do you want to watch music?" etc.

I love this quirk and find it the most endearing out of the many he has.

"Mom, are you ready to watch music?" he asks. He does this daily enthusiastically as if it were the first time he had ever had this fantastic idea.

I am still following through the motions; his blissful ignorance allows me more comfort than he will ever know.

"Sure, babe. Get your milk, and I'll turn the tube on."

He sits cross-legged in front of the television as I power it on and adjust the antenna just right; he panics at the static, so I've learned to perfect the art. He has his green overthrow and firetruck safely grasped in his left hand which he uses primarily. I loved the moment I found out he was left-handed and celebrated that uniqueness in my mind more than anyone had ever known. I love every single thing about this boy, even the tiny glimpses that remind me of his father; I just had to find a way to strip it down to the bone and never mind the abusive nature. Tobes is comfortable now, and MTV is in his favor immediately, so I retreat back to the kitchen table to allow my mind to process the chaos that's happening inside.

I sit down, staring at the cup of black coffee next to me that I haven't even had time to dress, and wonder where on the pain scale I actually am. Am I shocked? Yes. Am I sad? Not sure. The indifference is so consuming that I feel guilt, an abreast feeling to what he imposed on me daily. This feeling isn't foreign; I feel it all the time now, but I have learned to adjust. I involuntarily reflect on it all. I'm struggling so hard to find the good and ultimately trying to sort through the possible causes of his demise, although I know and can feel it. I remember him quoting one of the Depeche Mode songs that I love,

"I think God's got a sick sense of humor, and when I die, I expect to find him laughing" he would celebrate this fit of madness and then scold me in the same breath, "This is the shit you let YOUR son listen to!"

Art and his comments: I have tried to block from more core memories, but they are just spilling through the fragment of my brain like a sick black moss growing out of control that even the best brand pesticide can't cut through. He spoke with such confidence and certainty that I was the aggressor and drilled this to me consistently, rendering me completely submissive, broken, and most often, when I was pregnant, knowing I was terrified of having a our child alone. The anxiety I had that festered since his birth is more than enough to feed off until he found out our son was special needs, and my entire emotional supply would be to him and not enough to feed Arthur's artificial wounds anymore.

Toby, cross-legged and content, is watching his MTV music videos. I gaze with him watching the video, Personal Jesus:

Feeling unknown

And you're all alone

Flesh and bone

By the telephone

Lift up the receiver

I'll make you a believer

I will deliver

This instantly submisses and pisses me off at the same time, I know it's a messgae of some sort. I fucking knew, not only the fact that my thoughts were so loud for what seemed an eternity at this point that I couldn't hear a single thing happening around me other than the lyrics, in full blast and extreme BASS through my mind, perfectly depicting the manipulation and sick spell you had me under for too many years of my life. Finding out that the child we created had needs and life with us wasn't fun to you anymore, and "dealing" with a "family with problems" was a "waste of your time." You spoke of this with such confidence and conviction explaining that I was too eager and willing to be with you that you lost interest, telling me it wasn't natural to love one person and even going to the extent of wanting to share me with another man, wanting to watch or encouraging me to go on out on my own to "explore" then come back home and purge the details.

"Maybe he'll enjoy you so I can again." you'd say.

I would sob, and you'd tell me to "Get over it."

I was eight months pregnant for one of many of these conversations.

I sit and reflect on the destruction and havoc you brought into our lives with zero regard for anything other than yourself and your dick. I am still sitting here, explaining myself to myself. Im still left wondering if anyhting I say is valid or just miniscule thoughts in my head that don't matter. You're dead now, and I STILL am not sure if anything I say or think actually matters. I ponder hard at the thought of Toby entering your mind before you passed. The sad reality; this story will hurt me more than it would have ever hurt you. Every word has always been a waste of my breath.

Linda calls back.

"Tracy, I guess since you're the mother, you should know he took his own life."

Reach out, touch faith