Trembling Purple Paisly

Posted on March 9, 2006 in Encounters Psychosis

My support group set me up for dinner, so I ate alone at an all night cafe in Garden Grove. An old man with a gigantic white mustache gambled at grabbing a toy using a three-pronged claw. A waitress told me to sit “anywhere I wanted”, so I took a seat at the bar and received immediate service.

A gap broke the bar in half. At the end of my half, an East Indian man leaned forward on his elbows and stood more than sat in his chair. “Where’s my food?” he demanded. “You’re keeping my food from me. I can see it up there. Give me my food. Give me my food now.” He pointed at the stainless steel shelf where the waitresses picked up their orders.

They grumbled at him. A chef who had a drooping, black mustache stared through the long, candy bar window at the Indian. He pushed out the order, to which the waitress added some condiments. She bagged it and handed it to the man who seized it and rushed out the door almost before I could see that he wore purple paisley cotton pants whose legs trembled.

“That man is suffering,” I said to the waitress.

“Oh he always comes here and does that. Every day.”

And that is how some people go for years without being diagnosed.