Shades of Yellow:
How to Not Walk Away
Page 3/5

Every morning, I shuffled over to the Howe Street Laundry, plunked down significant change, and listened to the washers and dryers chug, swirl and hum. Still, it wasn’t such a big deal when I awoke soaked at the group home. I mean, after all, a few colleagues were leaving turds in the shower, so my retention difficulties didn’t weigh me down a ton. It was uncomfortable and awkward, yes, but at that point in my life, I took any advantage offered. To not be on the lowest rung gave me an odd solace. 
Now, for the first time in forever, my father looks mortal, fallible to me. Over the past years, as his body healed from his accident, he left behind a wheelchair, a walker, and a cane, so he did, in fact, return. He’s steadfast, a rock. Or, should I say now, a partially damaged rock. I always imagined those circle-of-life moments were going to wait till he was 101 years old. 
That they’d wait for a better time, when I could handle things with more clarity, finesse, and maturity. I know it’s too easy and crass to say that, in the end, what binds us isn’t talk shows, barbershops, or statues—if I wanted to end as tastelessly as possible, I’d say what binds us is yellow, pure and simple. 
But I’d never end that way. 
A buddy of mine speaks of a Zen-like balance in caring for himself and his SUV. He’s a successful, full-time automotive service writer at a Toyota Dealership in Fairfield County, and also is an adult with schizoaffective disorder who preaches basics: setting the tires, rotating them, always keeping an eye on the engine, adding motor oil every 5,000 miles. The metaphor gets beaten to death, I know, but it’s an effective strategy. Take life step by step. Eat right, do your work with pride, take your meds, write good stories, and have supportive people around you, and if you don’t, seek out new ones. Hank has always maintained a groove of stability, even in his most riotous and horrific days. We’d sit next to each other at a local psychiatric unit and I’d listen to his advice. Hank was the guy to go to if the hospital started sinking into the sea at three a.m. I always knew he’d find some way to get the two of us the hell out of there. 
When I’m back in New Haven, which I lived in for twelve years, I can feel dislodged by the pace on the streets. I see many striving faces—young women and men on fire, burning up the universe with their iPads, notebooks, gadgets, and their ambitions. It’s a grand thing to be reaching for better days, more fulfilling lives. And it scares me to feel so outside of that, and I know many of my old colleagues feel the same shame. 
I see a few of them on the street around the group home I lived in for a decade on Broadway, I notice that stunned, harried look in their gaze. So far from sharing a warm embrace or a substantial conversation. A long journey from feeling needed and loved. Instead, a few have approached me when I’m in the neighborhood and ask for five bucks for a Red Bull and a Snickers at the bodega, or a bucket of wings and biscuits and a Pepsi at Popeye’s. Often, when I see myself reflected in their glasses, my own doubts slam me like a kick to the solar plexus: How can I be so sure I won’t end up alone again, dragging blades through my body? How do I make certain that the swirling blackness won’t obliterate me like it did so many times before? 
My dad is now eighty-four, a savvy businessman, a philanthropist, a friend to so many who don’t have the emotional tools he acquired over the years in struggles with the mental illness in his son, and with losing a younger sister to suicide. He’s on the elliptical each day, but his latest problem is a hip that needs to be replaced, so he’s slower, but not by much. Today what I notice most are his hands: they’re sore and dark with age spots, which remind me of his mother’s. 
Grammy was a wild force of a lady. She taught French at Somerville High School in Massachusetts for years, and sometimes treated her grandkids to a taste of what she was like in the classroom. When we mumbled at her growing up during holidays or summer visits, she suggested better posture to begin with, chins up, and added her very own Number 2 Pencil Rule.