Chapter Seven: Still I cry alone at night…

There were several things I needed to face. One of them was food and the other was sleep. I also needed to send a message out to my fans, but it was hard given that I currently had no personal assistant or manager. I needed to see my father, I knew he would help me. He wasn’t good at making money, in fact, quite the contrary, but he knew how to help when there was a crisis; he knew how to take care of his family.

“Michael, I don’t know if you want to take this phone call, but…I think it will cheer you up,” Mom interrupted me. I was sitting in the small informal dining area inside the kitchen waiting for her to make me something to eat.

I promised myself that I’d at least try, even if I did vomit, it didn’t matter, I just had to try my best to keep it down. I’d keep trying til it stayed down.

I hadn’t even heard the phone ring.

“Who is it?” I asked, looking away from the stained mahogany dining table and up at my mother.

She covered the receiver with her hand and smiled at me, “Its Liz.”

Everyone would have thought I’d been bursting at the seams to talk to my friend, Elizabeth, but really I was upset that it had taken her this long. I felt like talking to her as much as I felt like talking to my brothers.

I wasn’t rude enough to say no though, given that I was pretty sure my mother would have told her to just hold the line. I pulled myself up from the chair, feeling weak on my feet. I made my way to the breakfast bar and took the phone from her without a word.

“Hello?”

“Michael! How are you?” Liz asked, her familiar voice quickly melting me.

“I’m okay,” I replied quietly.

“I am so sorry I didn’t call sooner, I’m in Anguilla and have been for the past week, I told no one to bother me unless it was an emergency – and unfortunately, my assistant didn’t consider this to be an emergency, fool that she is!”

I could tell with just how urgent her tone was, that she was sincere genuinely concerned. “Its okay,” I murmured.

“No Michael, its not okay. What’s going on over there and what can I do to help?” her tone was take-charge and business. I needed that probably more than anything in the world. I loved my mother, but perhaps she was a bit too soft on me.

“I don’t know,” I replied with honesty. I leaned my elbows on the counter top and rubbed my face with my palm, trying to think, my brain felt fuzzy though.

“I’m coming straight home, sweetheart, is everything okay where you are?” I knew it was a loaded question. She knew how awkward and uncomfortable my family situation could be.

“You don’t need to, I’m okay, I promise.” We both knew I was lying. I wanted her to be by my side. I needed a friend.

“Don’t be silly. I’ll be there tonight. Are you eating properly, sleeping?” she pressed, knowing me far too well.

“Trying,” I murmured, “I have some sleeping pills, but I,” I looked up and saw my mother hovering, “I haven’t taken them yet, but I think after I eat I’m going to.” 

“Good boy. Listen, I have to organize my flights, is there anything I can take care of for you while I’m in transit? I can speak to your manager and find out what you need to do and get it all done, any errands?” 

“My manager walked,” I admitted, “I don’t have any assistants or management currently, Joseph has been taking care of a little bit of it. He got me a lawyer.”

“Do you want me to organize someone loyal for you? I can find you a good manager and also a personal assistant to do anything you need doing.” 

“Just one or the other, I don’t want too many people around me right now.” I told her honestly, “I kind of just want to be left alone, but I know there’s things that have to be done. If you can help with the fan thing, that would be wonderful. I need to get a statement out.”

“I’ll help you, sweetheart. I’ll draft something for you, I know your heart, when I see you tonight we can fine tune it and send it out via my manager, what do you think?”

“I think that its so good to hear from a true friend,” I told her, my voice breaking a tiny bit. She picked up on it straight away.

“Oh Michael, I hope you didn’t think I’d abandoned you.”

“No,” I lied, “I haven’t been here nor there, honestly…”

“Your Mom said you were about to eat, go and do that, okay? And then take a pill and sleep. When you wake up, my darling, you’ll probably be able to think and feel a lot more clearly.”

She was right about that. At that point, I felt pretty numb.

I agreed with her and was relieved that I would be seeing her later. “Thanks for calling me Elizabeth.” 

“Of course, I’ll see you tonight and give you a big cuddle.”

I managed a smile. We said goodbye and I sat back down. My Mom didn’t ask questions and I was glad. She gave me some crackers. I began to eat them as quickly as I could, hoping that they’d stay down. My stomach hurt from the food, but I ignored it. After the crackers she’d made me my childhood favourite, brown bread banana and peanut butter sandwich and I ate most of that, choking down the last mouthful.

I excused myself shortly after feeling as though it was going to come all the way back up, but it didn’t. I took a tablet too, chewing it because I didn’t want anything to drink.

I slid in to my bed again, back under the already disrupted covers. I buried my face in the pillows and closed my eyes. Even if I wasn’t sleeping, it felt good to rest my eyes given how itchy and red they had been feeling.  

**

My thoughts drowned in the jovial business conversation around me. I wasn’t listening and had completely tuned out. My presence was just for show, it looked good or something. Whatever, I didn’t even care. I glanced down, the cuff on my red button down shirt had shifted up a little, exposing the slowly healing line on my wrist.

I quickly pulled it down, covering it. With noticing it, came the burning desire to do it again. The rush, the release, and the pain, it had all felt good to get expend through such a ridiculous and extreme measure.

I had just wanted to know what it would feel like, to join in on the pain infliction. Perhaps there was something satisfying about hurting me that everyone else was privy to except for number one.

I was currently a litigator’s dream, being sued left right and middle for any number of stupid things. Each time I peed, a new lawsuit was being slapped on me. And then, there was that whole thing with Carolina, the dizzying highs of new love and the rock bottom lows of knowing someone had told the press that you were a virgin and hadn’t made love in more than 10 yrs.

Not to mention the bullshit my brother Jermaine was saying to the press about me. Tensions were high between us, but injecting lies to the press about my sexuality was the last straw for me.

I ran my thumb over the spot beneath the fabric of my shirt and wondered if I had the guts to do it properly this time. First time was just a trial, a ‘see how it feels’ type deal. Second time? Well, the thought became almost obsessive as I sat in the meeting just waiting for it to be over so I could go back to bed.

I was good at keeping up appearances, you know, putting a smile on my face before going out to face a group of people. Every now and then I’d catch sight of the monster in the mirror that looked familiar and I’d notice he was scowling so the demons in my head forced me to smile so that nobody could know, nobody would bother helping.

I was past that point, and even if they tried, I’d cling to them and they’d hurt me.

It was easier if I hurt myself, at least I could control the pain this way and still indulge myself the same rush that everyone else seemed to get from it.

If I’d had something handy, I was sure I would have taken a bathroom break. Instead I sat, obsessing with the idea of warm blood trekking down my skin, watching it ooze from my flesh with a weird oily consistency. The thought alone alleviated my emotional discomfort immediately.

Suicidal thoughts had been coming fast and furiously over the past month. I tried to sleep them off but they had recently began invading my dreams and making me feel like it was time to go – to pack it all in.

I’d done enough things with my life. I was successful in one way, but a horrible failure in others. A week earlier my father had found out that I’d signed off over ten million dollars to overseas charities and the look he had given me made me feel sick to my stomach. I knew I was a failure to him. I wasn’t like the other boys. I didn’t socialize with my father, we didn’t drink beer and discuss the good times.

Nope, he wanted money from me. I was tired of saying no to business ventures only to have his borderline threatening face in mine, reminding me that he was responsible for my success so I owed it to him.

I may as well have burned the money, but instead I gave in. I was tired of all those pressures. It wasn’t like they were few and far between either, I got all kinds of requests for financial help. From my brothers, my Dad, from friends, distant family – nobody wanted me without wanting something from me.

Walking, talking cash cow, that’s all I was to anyone.

I had toyed with avenues of suicide for weeks. If I were to do it, how would I do it? I had begun to rewrite a will. I would leave a large sum of money to my parents and set it as a trust because my mother was too good to ever say no to my father, even when she knew it was a bad idea. The rest of my finances?

Well, those plenty of millions would be left to charities and only charities.

Business-wise I’d allow my friend Elizabeth Taylor to call the shots. She knew my heart, she knew what I would allow and what I would be against.

I knew if I didn’t have a set will, craziness would ensure upon my exit. I couldn’t do that to my mother.

I knew my Mom would be heart broken, but I’d leave her a letter. She’d understand that my pain in this would lose out to my desire to be home with God.

I hadn’t realized that I was crying openly in front of a bunch of suits until someone touched my arm. “What’s going on, Michael?” Larry whispered, nudging me.

I suddenly jolted to attention, glancing around at about 8 sets of eyes that belonged to big wigs that all kind of meshed together. I gave a polite chuckle as someone handed me a tissue, “sorry,” I smiled, “I was just thinking of how much this is all going to help the children.”

They all seemed relieved. Larry smiled at me and patted my back.

“Well, Michael would you like a tour of the oncology unit you’d be helping?” one of the suits asked me. He was bald save for the unreasonably long beard and mustache. He looked like if he changed his dress code, he would have more suited a motorcycle.

“Sure, I guess.” I pushed the chair back and got up from the roundtable. Whatever it took, just get me out of here and back home, I thought.

We walked past some wards. I was with a group of yes-men as usual. They all tried to impress me by pointing out things and explaining what their uses were. I was more interested in the people, that’s the way I’d always been. We walked past a few wards and I waved and stopped to say hello to some of the children and their parents.

Then I met her.

Her eyes stared straight through me lifelessly as I was about to pass. I stopped in my tracks. Everyone around me stopped short too, almost bumping in to me. I threaded between two of the men on either side of me and let myself in to the unattended ward.

‘Casey Hargrove’, her name above the bed read. She seemed lethargic and deathly. I knew she was in the later stages of her illness. I slipped in to a chair, dragging it closer as if I was connected to her in some ways.

I too, was in my last stages of my illness. Perhaps they were different types of illness, but both were all consuming and debilitating and causing us to just be waiting for the right time to be carried home.

“Hello…” I whispered, slipping my hand atop of this child’s. I didn’t want to scare her, but she seemed indifferent to me sitting there. She had a tube in her nose, feeding her, IVs in her ankle.

I felt like they were probably just keeping her comfortable. Her chest rose and fell with what sounded like great difficulty.

“This is Casey,” a nurse informed me, pushing past both men as well. I felt like she was trying to show off, immediately I disliked her. “She has been diagnosed with Wilms tumor which is cancer of the kidneys.”

“What’s her prognosis?” I asked bluntly.

The nurse shrugged. I hated that she didn’t really seem too moved by this one little girl’s plight. “Treatment is a financial issue. We’ve stopped chemotherapy but her mother brought her in last night. She’s very unwell and having difficulty breathing so we’re helping get a bit of strength back before we send her home.”

It was incredible to me that the nurse explained the situation as though she were sharing directions on making a great peanut butter sandwich. I shook my head trying to get around the explanation.

“What on earth is going on here?” a voice demanded to know from the doorway. The voice came from behind me, angry and offended. I turned around to find a woman in her mid twenties or so, with her hair dark brown hair looking a little disheveled. When she realized who she was talking to, she flinched slightly, but didn’t let it on.

“My daughter is not your publicity stunt, she’s not your science project!” she snapped at both me and the men around us. She glanced at the nurse, “who are you to give him private information about my daughter’s case?” she snatched the clipboard from her and placed it face down on the hospital tray.

“I’m very sorry,” I apologized, realising she must have been deeply hurting over the helplessness of her daughter’s condition, “it wasn’t my intention to butt-in.”

“Well you did,” she retorted, crossing her arms, standing on the other side of her daughter’s bed. Casey gripped my hand tightly, not really taking her eyes off of me the whole time.

“Okay, well I apologise again. I wish your daughter all the best.” I went to get up and felt a tug at my hand. I smiled down at the little girl. Her eyes told me to stay. My heart wanted me to stay and I felt necessary in that moment.

“Don’t-“ the overly emotional mother held her hand up at me to halt my wishes, “just don’t.”

I felt awful and to be truthful, a little selfish for my earlier feelings. I slowly loosened little Casey’s grip from my hand and gave her a tiny smile. “God bless you, sweetheart,” I murmured.

As I turned my back, I heard her moan out loudly as if crying out for me to come back.

“Its okay sweetie,” I heard the mother try to placate her but pretty quickly her call for me turned in to weary and struggled cries.

I tried to walk out, and I started too, sheepishly, but my heart felt heavy and so did my feet. “Wait…” the mother called as I was about to make my way down the corridor, “could you…” I turned back, staring at her. Her eyes were covered with water. I knew she must have felt incredibly helpless.

“Sure…” I gave her a smile to let her know I wasn’t mad or annoyed, but rather happy to stay and console her child. This at least, was something that I was good at.

“Can they leave?” she asked, nodding toward the rest of the men.

“Mr Jackson did you want to see the rest of the hospital?” another man asked me.

I looked up at him and smiled politely and looked at Larry, “I’m okay for the minute. Larry, why don’t you go and check it out, come back and get me when you’re done?”

He understood this is what I wanted.

“Okay, Daryll is just outside the door.” Daryll was the 7ft2 giant that monitored my safety.

I just nodded. They left me to it with a nurse who had just been chastised by the angry and overprotective mother.

The nurse left too, but I could tell she was trying to busy herself for long enough to hear our conversation or spend more time with me. She went away reluctantly but said nothing except giving me a small wave.

I decided to give the mother some space and not try to ask her questions or win her over. In all honesty, I was only interested in the little girl. I wanted to know her story and how I could help her.

She ceased crying when I drew my chair up again. She eyed me carefully. I smiled at her and edged closer. I rested my hand on hers again. She clutched it and focused in on it. She breathed heavily and unevenly as if she was struggling.

“You are so beautiful…” I murmured with a smile, “you must be such a joy for your Mommy…”

“What your name is?” at first I couldn’t understand her. Her voice was quiet and hoarse, as though she hadn’t been speaking a lot.

“What was that?” I asked, “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite hear you?” I cupped my free hand over my ear and leaned down, gesturing to her to speak up.

“What your name is?” she asked again.

I gave her a smile, “my name is Michael. Can you say that?”

“Mi-cooo” she repeated.

“My friends call me Mike, you call me that if you like,” I told her. It wasn’t actually true, really no one called me Mike, but I knew it was a bit easier her to say.

I finally looked up at Casey’s mother and saw that she was wiping her tears away furiously. “I’m sorry about coming in and sitting down, I guess I didn’t really think that it wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“Its okay,” she murmured, wiping her eyes with a balled up tissue.

I looked back to the little girl and wondered how life had to have a price. Wasn’t everyone’s life just as important as another?

I’d have given my life in that moment for that little girl. Granted, my indifference to existing was on an all time high, but still.

“Is she comfortable?” I asked her mother, “I mean, is there anything I can do to make sure she isn’t in any pain?”

The mom drew in a deep breath and sighed. “I think she’s okay.”

I stayed with the child until she fell asleep and slipped out with my manager and security.

**

Home was lonely. I listened to my security guard doing detail throughout the house as I went to bed. It was raining outside. I couldn’t get the child from the hospital out of my head. The way she had stared through to my soul had taken me by surprise.

Perhaps it was unfair of me to be so willing to throw away my life when she was struggling so much to keep her own.

It had certainly given me a new perspective.

Still, I thought, as I ran my fingers across my thigh, it didn’t stop this obsessive part of me from trying to find relief in my very own pain. The second the bleeding stopped, I longed for it to happen again.

I knew it was unhealthy. I knew I needed help, but helping knew I would no longer have that outlet.

So, I made the decision on the spot to do everything I could to make sure the little girl in the hospital received the best possible care. I wanted her Mom to know that she wasn’t just a charity project, but rather a precious life that put my own feelings in to perspective.

Casey Hargrove was the reality check I needed that edged her way in to my life in the nick of time.  My suicide had been all but executed, I just hadn’t quite found the courage but it was being tested and tried slowly but surely.

If I hadn’t of met that child when I did, I was sure that I wouldn’t have been around to face these accusations.

And in that moment, I couldn’t figure out if that was a blessing anymore.