Getting Over New York

maridein

a memoir

Martha Patterson

Big, cosmopolitan, cities can be exciting places to live but they can present a danger to one’s psyche. So can the pursuit of fame. I’d lived in London, with its blocks of green gardens in almost every neighborhood and friendly pubs for lunch or drinks at night; I’d lived in San Francisco, surrounded by brown hills and boasting the beautiful San Francisco Bay, on which I sailed once with a young businessman who invited me; and I was originally from Massachusetts, which had apple orchards and fields of pumpkins in the autumn as well as proximity to surrounding New England, with its gorgeous leaves turning orange and gold in the fall and the pleasure of eating lobster on the shore in Maine during the summer.

But New York City was a different animal - it had riotous taxicabs crowding the streets, skyscrapers, loads of fashion-conscious boutiques, and citizens who couldn’t care less about how loudly they expressed themselves while walking down Broadway. Manhattan was bold, busy, energizing, sometimes violent, and full of crazy talent. It was

filled with ambitious businessmen, retailers, and artists, and it was glamorous. The chaos was not without a price: four times while living there I was robbed or had my pockets picked, and the homeless occupied every street corner in the 1980s. I felt surrounded by the world at large.

By the time I was 34, I’d had many day jobs, including being a legal secretary, handling reception at The Bottom Line nightclub, administrative work at an Off-Off-Broadway theatre, I’d recorded a demo of songs I’d written, and I’d appeared as a leading lady in a few plays. But New York was aggressive and competitive – it seemed as if everyone I knew went there to become successful, if not as an actor or musician, then at least something else, and I was no different.

I didn’t succeed. My life there involved endless worry about money and the desperate feeling that I’d never make my mark. Everyone in the performing arts in New York thinks they’re talented and many of them are. They’ve all done worthwhile creative work before arriving there; they’re just trying to prove it again and make a living at it. And most fail, simply because there are so many others there trying to do the same thing.

It used to nearly kill me dwelling on why some people “make it” in show business and some don’t. Was it just a matter of being in the right place at the right time, or sticking around long enough, or was it having connections, or was it a question of sheer ability? I’d known many actors and musicians who were if anything more talented than me, but none of us were getting anywhere. We were puttering around performing on the fringes of the entertainment industry but always doing other things for income. And that wasn’t why we were in show biz. So when I left New York I thought my dreams were unfulfilled.

I became depressed and paranoid over a love-affairturned-sour and harassment from a boss. I felt incompetent at everything and afraid of people I met. I started imagining people were talking about me, even newscasters on the radio and TV. Later in the hospital it was explained to me by a psychiatrist that I’d descended into psychosis.

One night in a state of extreme distress I walked to an Upper West Side church – though any religious building, even a temple or synagogue, would have done. Even though I’d never been terribly religious, I was looking for faith, for God, for any kind of “salvation.” I was surprised these parishioners were having a service in the evening. Several dozen of them sat scattered among the pews and were listening intently to a preacher. In my fright I sat next to a man who looked to me like the Devil – he had sweat pouring down his face, since it was a hot summer night, and what resembled an evil grin. But I was lonely and desperate and thought maybe there I’d find an answer to my mental and emotional pain.

After the service the minister asked if anyone wanted to speak. I did. I walked towards the altar and the members asked who I was, if I had family. I said, “Yes,” but I thought one of them had a gun, because he kept one arm behind his back, and, fearful, I imagined I was going to be murdered. I began screaming.

These religious New Yorkers gathered in a circle around me, chanted and said a prayer, then asked if I wanted to go out for hamburgers with them. I was so scared I said no, that I was a vegetarian, and besides, I didn’t know these people at all. They were strangers. I walked home feeling like an idiot and told a friend who approached me at my apartment building about the experience. We went for a walk around the block, but I still felt foolish and afraid. Shortly after that I attempted suicide by cutting my arteries with a razor blade and wound up on a psychiatric ward. I was bewildered and couldn’t understand what had happened to my prior life, which had always seemed freer from worry than it was now. When I was discharged from the hospital I returned to life in my apartment but began thinking about moving home to my parents’.

But it would be hard giving up on dreams. The week before I left Manhattan, I walked up Fifth Avenue staring up one last time at the skyscrapers that I loved and for which New York is so famous. A street vendor asked, “Did you just arrive in the city?” She’d noticed the impression the tall buildings made on me.

“No,” I answered. “I’ve lived here for ten years.”

She shrugged nonchalantly and returned to minding her cartful of jewelry and scarves. I felt heartbroken, but thought I had little choice but to move. I could barely make sense of the world, what people said to me and what the meaning of everything was. Like many despairing homeless people, even though I did have a roof over my head, I’d lost my mind.

In the end it was the Sun, or more likely some semblance of my forgotten God, that tossed me out of New York. It was Memorial Day. I’d been listening to the radio but thought the announcer, who was playing a composition by Giuseppe Verdi and said in English his name would be Joseph Green, was talking about colors to me personally. Green seemed to represent envy, red love, yellow the appearance of Christ, and white mean purity. Every color people wore on the street seemed to me to have special significance -- and the words of the innocent radio announcer gave me the creeps. Tormented by my demons, I left my apartment and walked towards Central Park, feeling pulled as though by a rope tied to my waist. I came upon kids playing softball in the Sheep Meadow, and stopped to watch for a while.

Then I wandered off and came upon a black man, a Jamaican with scars on his face, who was smoking a joint. Sitting down on the bench with him, I asked if I could have a hit. I’d never smoked pot much – it made me paranoid in college – but I was looking for a friend, a kindred spirit, and this man’s casual and relaxed attitude calmed me for a few minutes. After a while I asked if he’d like to come back to my apartment. I was lonely and only wanted companionship. He agreed and began walking down the nearby path with me, but suddenly stopped in his tracks.

“You pay me,” he said. I looked at him, wondering what he meant.

“What?” I said. The man was fierce and furious when he repeated himself.

“You pay me.”

He shocked me. He looked bitter and angry. I realized he must think I was a hooker looking for a way to make quick money, and I fell onto a nearby bench and collapsed. What happened next was excruciating. Suddenly I felt disembodied, like a brain only, with no other self-hood, and I thought I was gazing into what seemed like the very personage of God. Feeling as if my head had been split in half by an axe, I received from above two distinct messages: that “God builds things,” and “the Devil is dumb and hurts people without even realizing it.” And moments later I absorbed the meaning that they are one and the same. I had always wondered what God was, and thought I’d been given the answer, the truth, in spades, because I felt my brain had been ruptured by a Godlike blow to my skull.

Finally I came to, and the Jamaican man had disappeared. Vastly relieved, I walked to Central Park West, weak in the knees, and collapsed against a lamppost. As I tried to stand again, a woman passed and asked if I was all right. But then, frightened of me herself, she turned away quickly and walked on. I managed to stand, then ran back to my building, screaming at the top of my lungs the name of a trustworthy and ethical man I’d loved in college and had never forgotten. He had been true in intention, and well-meaning, and politically on the left, and I’d always held his values in high regard. His name burst from my lips because I felt so abandoned and he’d always been kind and motivated by justice. And I arrived at my apartment, peeling off my clothes and curling up in bed. I wasn’t to see Kevin again for many years, but his memory kept me company in my isolation and fear.

That was it. I moved.

But I was miserable back in Massachusetts, and despite what New York City had cost me, I missed my old neighborhood. I felt a little calmer being around my family, but the old Greek-American diners on every block where I used to pick up coffee to go, the lightning speed of city traffic, the tall buildings and exuberance and vitality of New York, were all missing from my life. My parents tried to be sympathetic, but were worried and impatient that I didn’t find work right away. I was not fit psychologically to work for anyone. Paranoid, I locked myself in my bedroom and listened to music. One day my parents picked the locks off my door to gain entrance. I was so angry at this invasion that I picked up a small shovel for ashes that was next to the Franklin stove in my room and struck my father on the backside with it. He in turn was so mad, he grabbed me by the wrists – he was easily twice my size – and threw me on my back onto the floor. I was frightened by his ferocious strength and couldn’t believe his rage. So my distress continued. My mother tried to stay calm. After this episode I was hospitalized a few more times. I kept wondering in futility what life was all about – peace of mind, God, justice, poverty, the arts, ambition, success, and my quest for stardom, which was elusive and probably not meant to happen, and which I thought now, in Massachusetts, certainly never would.

After a while I did find a job but was deeply dissatisfied with my new life and the job was unpleasant, with unsympathetic co-workers and tiresome responsibilities. I still missed the old excitement and color of New York.

In the end, after my mother died, I went to grad school for a Master’s degree. This turned my life around, because I became a writer. I studied Performing Arts Education with money my mother had left me, thinking I’d use my theatre knowledge to teach high school, but realized while getting the degree that I really didn’t want to teach. I began writing in earnest – mainly plays, for which I ended up getting many productions around the U.S. and in Europe. I was ecstatic that I’d found new vitality and purpose in my life. For money I worked busily in publishing sales for seven years and dated a few men who were disappointments to me because they seemed unsophisticated and not worldly. But by then I had already become an author, had had numerous successes around the world, and was published in more than fifteen anthologies with other types of writing: essays, poetry, short fiction. Life was turning out better than I’d dreamed with my new-found creative career, and I felt proud at last because of accolades and occasional payment from publishers. I won a $10,000 grant from the Dramatists’ Guild Fund and several other substantial grants as well, awards given to struggling writers.

I also read a lot during the next few years. I read the short stories of Irish author William Trevor, the exciting action novels of British writer Ian Fleming, the domestic comedies of Jane Austen, and countless nonfiction articles on medicine and new discoveries about science that I discovered in periodicals. Psychiatric medicine became interesting to me because I had experience with it as a patient. New discoveries in the field are constantly being made and there seems almost limitless hope for people who suffer as I had.

It began to seem as if happiness was possible -- it had seemed unattainable for so long -- and today I am finally content in Boston, which may not have all the chaotic vibrancy of New York City, but which is tame and civilized and feels at last like home. I’ve recovered, with the help of school, meds, good doctors, and loyal and caring friends and family. And I’ve found that giving up a performing career was in reality a blessing, not a curse, and brought other skills and talents into my life in a way I’d never before imagined possible. My existence is once again satisfying, with the rewards of recognition for my work and the sense of a possible creative and artistic mission. Finally, I’ve found peace.

Martha Patterson’s 27-story collection “Small Acts of Magic” was published this fall by Finishing Line Press. Her plays have been produced in 21 states and eight countries. Other writing has been published by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, Smith & Kraus, the Sheepshead Review, the Afro-Hispanic Review, Silver Birch Press, Syndrome Magazine, the Pointed Circle journal, and others. She has two degrees in Theatre, from Mount Holyoke College and Emerson College. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and loves being surrounded by her books, radio, and laptop.