When Life Hands Out a Different Plan

Michael Mack's performance piece comprises dozens of short “scene poems” that in different combinations convey his memories of growing up with a mother who had schizophrenia. “River of Lights” (below) recounts the day when her behavior made visible her true condition.

River of Lights

Dad, why is Mama there?....

My father stops, clears his throat, pauses so long I whisper Dad? Maybe he's said enough.

Or maybe he wants to tell everything: how little they found in common, the silence in their bedroom brittle as fingernails. How stubborn she became, refusing to leave the house.

Secretly he thought of divorce, perhaps when the kids were older. But everything changed one Saturday: home from Safeway with groceries under his arms, he found her on the stairs shaking.

Annie, what is it? What's wrong?

She looked up at him, her cheeks alive with tears, in one hand a pair of scissors, in the other hand, her hair. Has my face changed? Am I the Blessed Virgin?

His own hair stood up on the back of his neck.

He says he cried like a baby her first time in the hospital, and I try to imagine my father crying. He counts on his fingers:

Harrisburg State Hospital, Springfield State, Spring Grove, Rosewood, Saint Elizabeths, Crownsville....

Discharged, she'd come back fragile, quiet, would drift through the house. But sooner or later, in weeks or months, he'd get home from work to find her gone, doors flung open, children playing in the dark

Or police: Mr. Mack, we have a woman at the station claiming to be your wife.

Officer, she probably is.

My father looks over the seat at me, eyes lost behind his glasses. Son, you'll never know how rough it was. I didn't plan any of this.

I turn away from my father, and watch the road rush under our hood. The sky thins. It's twilight. Lights above the median strip flash overhead like jets.

Source: Selections from Hearing Voices (Speaking in Tongues)

© 2006 Michael Mack