Hamilton Hitchhiking to Madness

A Memoir
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 979-8-3509-1031-5
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 250 Seiten

Reihe: Hitchhiking to Madness

'Hitchhiking to Madness' is a gripping memoir that tracks Dr. Hamilton's 1970s journey from church excommunication to hitchhiking across America, witnessing her husband's descent into madness, and eventually transforming into a celebrated physician.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hamilton, Carol

Leseproben

Chapter 1:
Murderous Intent,
Part 1 December 1974, San Antonio, Texas Sounds came from behind the door—the rustling of bed clothes, a cough, a thud—my husband rising from the mattress on the floor. That’s OK, I thought. It’s daylight now. I tensed under the blankets on the sofa, facing the bedroom door, waiting for him to emerge and reveal his state of mind. “Oh, you’re out here,” Jeff said. He squinted in the light, trying to focus on where I was and remember why I might not be in bed with him. He had slept in his blue jeans, but his feet were bare. I saw memories and reactions click into place. “It was a rough night,” he said and looked away. He slid down the fake paneled wall and sat on the green shag carpet, his knees hugged to his chest. I sat up on the sofa and leaned forward. I kept the pillow and blanket bunched around me. Lame protection, but it was all I had. “Yeah, it was a rough night,” I said. My voice was hoarse, and my eyes were probably puffy. But Jeff seemed approachable, grounded. I needed to make a move before I lost him. “You know, Jeff, I was thinking that it feels like we’re in a pressure cooker. We’re all alone out here in this rented trailer house, in this weird mostly empty neighborhood, with all our family across town,” I said. I gestured to the window where we could see a monotonous line of other fenced-in trailer houses for at least a mile in each direction. There were no trees but an occasional dog barking in someone’s yard and a skinny guy walking briskly up the road with his jacket collar turned up, cigarette smoke trailing behind. “It’s Friday, and I can skip my one class today,” I said. “Let’s go stay with your folks for the weekend. We can eat your mom’s pot roast, and maybe you can go hunting with your brother. I think we need to be around more people and relax a little; give ourselves a break.” He picked at his thumbnail. I pleated the sheet between my fingers, smoothed it out, and started again. “Yeah, good idea. Let’s get out of here,” he said. He stood up and took his key ring out of his pocket, pacing while he twirled the keys around his finger. “OK, great! Let me just grab a few things and I’m ready to go,” I said and threw off the blankets. I stuffed a change of clothes and toiletries into the army surplus pack I had hitchhiked with and then grabbed my school backpack, untouched since coming home yesterday. I picked up my pillow from the sofa and turned, hoping he had unlocked the door, but saw he had stopped to read a passage from his Bible, absently fingering the keys. Please, dear God, do not let him put the keys back in his pocket. He looked up. “You ready?” he said. I nodded, and he unlocked the door. I was out but not yet safe. “Jeff! Slow down! You’re going to get us killed!” I said after he barely missed another other car’s bumper. “Don’t be such a worry wort! Trust me, Susie. All you do is doubt and question everything. Have faith! Ever heard of that, Susie? Faith! You have to give it over, Susie, give it over to Jesus,” he said. “You’re right, Jeff. You’re right. I’m going to pray, and I’m sure the Lord will take care of us,” I said. I buried my face in my pillow. Please, dear God, keep us safe. Keep this little baby inside my womb healthy and safe. Shield her till her daddy gets back to his normal, loving self. Please bring back the man I married, the man I love. Please help him stop making like I’m the enemy. And right now, please put a bubble around our car so we don’t die in a crash. In Jesus’s name, amen. We finally arrived in front of my in-laws’ house, a good thirty-minute drive from northwest San Antonio to the south side of town where Jeff and I had each grown up. It was still early on a Friday morning, but the family was in a typical frenzy to get Jeff’s three younger brothers off to school. “Well, look what the cat drug in!” my mother-in-law said when we walked through the front door. Malvis gave me a warm hug and tried to make eye contact with Jeff. Walter, Jeff’s dad, looked out from the kitchen. “What’s up, son?” Malvis said. “You look frazzled! Want something to eat? I was just cleaning up the pan, but I can make more scrambled eggs. Sit down, y’all. Walter, put some more bread in the toaster, will ya’?” “Boys! It’s time for y’all to get going or you’re going to be late for school!” Malvis hollered down the hall. The normal bustle and banter washed over me, and I began to relax. We grabbed coffee and plates of food, and by the time we sat down, the kids were gone and the house sighed with relief. “We’ve had a rough week,” I said, once we’d eaten our fill. “We were hoping we could stay here for a few days and see if—” “She wants to stay here,” Jeff said, “’cause she’s scared. But not me; I got things to do.” I was surprised he said it, but I took the opening. “Why do you think I’m scared, Jeff?” I asked. “You’re scared that you’ll finally see the truth. You want Mom and Dad to help talk me into settling. ‘Settle down and be a daddy,’ ‘Settle down and be my husband,’ That’s all you talk about. ‘Get a job and get your mind off things,’ you say. But I don’t want to settle! Because that’s not what the Lord wants! And I only want to have my mind on one thing, the Lord! Nobody else seems to remember that. Nobody else cares about that, but I do! I’ve got to spread His Word, and He won’t let me rest until I do it.” “Son,” his mother said, “what do you think Jesus wants you to do? You want to start going back to church? Our new congregation would accept you, I’m sure. Do you want to try to be a youth leader, like you were doing before? Or do you think—” “No, church is not the answer, Mom,” Jeff said. “The Church of Christ and other churches are filled with men who want power. They’re the moneychangers in the temple. They’ve got nothing to do with God. You’re just like everybody else, Mom. No one understands it, but it’s getting clearer and clearer to me every day. And I know it’s on me! Things are starting to happen, big things, and no one will be spared. Not you, not me, not some little baby in Susie’s belly. I’ve got to warn people.” Jeff was pacing now, pushing the dining room chairs in and pulling them out as he passed by each one, slamming some into the table. “OK, Jeff, you can just calm down now,” Walter said. “Why can’t you stand up for Jesus and be a Christian at the same time you’re working at a job, son? I agree with Susie. You need to stop all this talking and get to work! Besides which, what exactly do you want to do? Stand on the street corner? What are you going to say?” Walter was a big man with a big voice and was prone to bluster. But at this moment, I was happy to have his support. “See, that’s the problem, Dad,” Jeff said. “You’re all the same. You’ve got to try to pin me down, argue me out of it, don’t you? But I know what you’re up to. I’ve been warned. I know your tricks. But just like Moses, I don’t have to know the exact words beforehand. When the time’s ready, the Lord will speak through me and say the right words. A few days ago, the Lord’s voice was crystal clear in my head, and I know we’ve got to pray and spread the Word or it will get real ugly, real fast. But then when I get home with Susie, all I hear is her words to ‘settle here and settle there,’ and I’ve got to resist. I’ve got to say, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’ I’ve got to resist her womanly wiles.” He kept pacing and talking more to himself. “No one else can see what I see, and it’s coming fast. It’s coming fast. And then sometimes I can’t hear His voice, and that’s when the Devil gets a foot in the door. But he’s smart, too, and I’m learning some things. Yeah, I’m learning a lot of things from him too . . ...” He went out the back door mid-sentence, and we could see him walking the perimeter of the backyard, talking to himself and now and then reaching down to pet the current family dog, a long-haired mutt who was jumping up and down in delight to see Jeff again. I looked at Malvis and Walter and was glad they had witnessed one of his harangues. “You can tell it’s getting bad,” I said. “I kept thinking he was going to snap out of it if only I prayed hard enough. But this is how he is now. How can God let his mind wander this way when all we ever wanted was to worship Him and serve Him and do the Lord’s will? I keep thinking that if he were to just get a job and not have so much time on his hands—” “I don’t think this is about religion, Susie,” Malvis said. “Like I’ve been saying these past few weeks, I think he’s got a serious mental problem. He looks too much like the patients I see on the hospital ward at work, and it scares me.” Malvis worked as an attendant at the State Mental Hospital and had been making the case to me that Jeff’s behavior might be something serious, mental illness of some kind. “I don’t think he’s just going through a bad patch,” she said, “but when we talked the other day, you said he was doing better. You sounded happy, and I was hoping things were going back to normal.” ...