CLAUDE DENSON JUNIOR... THE THIRD

It was one of the worst days in my life, contemplating suicide from the roof of a four-story building I rented in 1979. Worse still I didn't even realize that I was attempting to kill myself. I imagined instead that I could lift myself gently off the roof, catch the wind and casually coast down to the grassy knoll some four stories below on the opposite side of the street, landing light as a feather, without incident, a brief hallucination that I didn't see any problem with implementing.

Years of alcohol abuse had finally driven me over the edge. I had come full circle, nearly sober from so much drink, but on the other hand, highly toxic and unable to keep it down any longer. An alcoholic needs a minimum amount of the drug in the system in order to short circuit the impending delirium tremors, but with the alcohol already coursing through the blood and brain at the maximum tolerance, indeed the small amount required for maintenance could equally lead to death. Sick, despondent and a little bit crazy then, without family or friends to call on, I wasn't really ready to die. I was just lonely, that's all, and from my lonely perch high atop the city I cried out to Almighty God: “Please Send Me Someone To Love!”

And sure enough, someone heard me, because along came Claude. Now picture this: I'm still hovering up there on the rooftop, perched precariously close to the edge, one foot in the rain gutter and the other about to make that first giant leap for mankind, or some such static that had long ago taken over my absentee brain.

“Don't jump, brother… don't jump,” came the most beseeching sound I had ever heard. It was at the same time eerie and calming, and it sounded like the Voice of God to me. Who else would dare intervene in the affairs of a lost soul but God? It was a beautiful sound, filled with the kind of comfort that comes from everywhere at once, but I finally located its source about 50 feet below me in the street. The voice was coming from Claude! What a sight he was, with arms up stretched in supplication, gazing intently towards me with that unchartered zeal he was made of. It was like an alternating current, vacillating between child like purity and a more intense psychotic paranoia.

Before I could answer, Claude had traversed the four flights of stairs and was by my side. And by my side was where he remained for the next several months, as I sought to regain my lost senses. Like two Siamese idiots running in opposite directions from a lobotomy, we stood in amazement of one another, honoring an ancient debt.

Claude had a habit of showing up at my studio every morning and waking me with his song, “Sweep the floor, boss? Only four dollars!” He never really was presenting it as a question. It was just the way Claude related to others.

“Then how about five dollars, boss? Six fifty?” How absurd was his reasoning! The price kept going up, not down. By the time we went back and forth a few times, he would finally settle it all by reaching into his pocket and pulling out the few pieces of change he had collected on the way over, count it out and exclaim, “How about 72 cents, boss?” And then he'd hand me the change, continuously grinning through that awesome white set of teeth of his, perpetually painted red with ketchup stains. It was always clear that the Cheshire cat had again landed a bloody rat in its jaws and was about to bleed it for all it was worth.

To save the trouble I usually just handed him a dollar and a broom when he showed up. It was hardly an insult since he had been programmed from birth to perform in this manner without a variation. After maybe three or four minutes of meticulously sweeping up approximately four or five inches of dirty floor space and pushing it into a pile, Claude would raise up twinkling, “How am I doing, boss… Am I doing okay?"

And usually before I could form an answer, Claude went on with himself, “Well boss, I've been doing such a fine job, I thinks I needs a vacation… how about it, boss, can I take a break now?” And sure enough, after maybe another two minutes of grinning and shuffling in slow motion, he'd coax the remaining dirt into a dustpan, empty it and be gone. Naturally, when he returned, often not more than an hour down the road, the first words through his bright red lips were, “Sweep the floor for you, boss?”

Claude came from a family of 17 brothers and sisters, half of which were more crazed than he, although his was a more gentle madness than theirs. At the time we hung together, every single one of his siblings were either hospitalized, incarcerated or between institutions. Claude himself was the quintessential outpatient of the lot. Their father was long dead and mother controlled the lot of them with an iron hand, collecting the various and assorted disability checks and disbursing a pittance to each in turn. After signing over his own check, Claude usually received enough to buy a bag of fries at Arby's and maybe enough for carfare for the day. Otherwise, he walked. That was it. The rest of the month Claude L. Denson Junior the Third was on his own.

Once upon a time I convinced him to return the check unsigned to the Social Security office. “Wouldst thou be healed, brother?” “Oh yes, boss man!” “Then take up thy bed and walk right down there and tell them you don't need that money any more… tell them you've been healed by the blood of Jesus!” “Yes, boss…”

The first of the month arrived. And with it came Claude's check. Later that afternoon, bag of fries in hand, Claude entered the studio. “Sweep the floor, boss?” When I asked him where his check was he broke down crying and at the same time apologizing, “I'm sorry, boss, my mom said I had to give it to her.”

And so we remained, he on the anti-psychotic medication called cogentin, and me on the grape-tinted ether. Daily and hand in hand we walked each other, alternately to the pharmacy or the liquor store, laughing like two run-away kids who never want to get caught, even though they've done nothing wrong in the first place. The prescriptions seemed to work well for us, helping keep our mania in abeyance. Usually, that is. Oh, there were days or weeks that I wouldn't see him - he'd be away having his medication adjusted. And too, there were days or weeks he wouldn't see me - I'd be doing a 30-day sentence in the workhouse for public intoxication. But you can bet we needed those vacations!

My last picture of him was just like the first one I'd encountered: Claude dancing down the street prophesying, dressed to kill in one of his dead father's suits, grinning with those big white ketchup stained teeth of his, except now they'd finally gotten to rotting his brain away at about the same frequency as the cavities that kept opening up in them.

Although his father died leaving nothing of substance for the children, he had in fact left Claude with the greatest of gifts, a legacy. It was the great and incredible gift of language, and it manifested in Claude's case as the Pentecostal penchant of talking in tongues that he'd grown up around. His daddy also left him with an inexhaustible wardrobe of freshly pressed suits and shirts, and in the entire four years we co-mingled I never once saw Claude in a ruffled outfit. He reminded me of a walking and talking scriptural proof: Be not anxious what ye shall wear, but seek first the Kingdom of God and all things that ye need shall be added unto you!”

Once I accompanied him to the church that his late father had pastored: The Lower Vine Street Church of The One True Living God in Jesus Christ, Pentecostal. They sure had a way with words. On the way there he informed me, “Yes boss, I'm the Deacon, the head Elder and the Pastor, now that my good daddy has passed on!” But we ended up sitting in a side pew. It turns out that Claude's only service to the church was that of janitor, and his duties didn't start until the congregation went home, and then they rarely lasted more than the few minutes it took him to sweep up in a few random places.

This indeed was my brother! Claude L. Denson Junior the Third, Outpatient. He was always there to catch me. He was there when I needed a friend to mumble senselessly to in my hour of need. And he was especially there when I decided to leave the demon rum behind, walking me through my pathetic withdrawals, offering me a clean washrag when I shitted myself or vomited up the putrid toxins.

Oh he was there all right, always grinning, regardless of my misfortunes. He was even there grinning on the day I picked up my bed and finally walked right on out the door. Yea, Brother!