On the surface, those who know or have heard of me would think my life was perfect and I have everything to live for. I’m Zachary Price, aka DJ Zach of Zach in the AM fame. I host the number one syndicated radio show in the nation. I also co-host a local TV show, promote parties, and work the best clubs in Atlanta.

In addition to running my own charitable foundation, I’m set for life financially and loaded with all the material wealth anyone could ever want or need. I’m in the who’s who of Atlanta and one of its most eligible bachelors to boot. But on the inside, where one’s true happiness and real treasure lies, I’m completely empty, tapped out. With every passing moment, it feels like the hole grows darker and deeper. So much so, that no hospital, meds, or group therapy can ever come close to healing me.

At the hospital, after my stomach’s been pumped and I’m stabilized, I’ll be moved upstairs to the psych ward. Normally, it’s only a seventy-two hour observation, but suicide attempts indicate an intent to harm one’s self. Prior to this attempt, I’m usually escorted in shackles to the ward under an assumed name. Freedom and decision making for myself will be taken away. I’ll say whatever I have to say, and do whatever I must do to get out of here. I’m unsure how the police even knew to come to my house to check on me, but I suspect my assistant Stephanie called them. She’s Gail’s sister, my show’s producer. They’re both very protective of me and I can always count on their loyalty and discretion. Truth is, I don’t deserve them–they’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a family. My shows and other businesses can take care of themselves. I’ve always been fortunate to have great people around me. I just don’t feel worthy of it.

After reluctantly signing the admission papers, my psychiatrist, Dr. Joshua Lucas paid me a visit. I feel guilty because I really like him. Along with the group and individual therapy, he’ll try different meds with me to see which ones work best. The most successful one was lithium, but I was on it so long it began to affect my kidneys. I took so much that at times I felt like a battery. And since I see only one way out of my darkness and despair, I’ll take my time and be patient. I won’t even try to escape. I’ll end the pain for good once I’m released.

Stowed away in a boxcar headed westward with my fears and wits intact, I began to calm down. My racing heart was grateful just knowing God was with me. There’s no other explanation for me being able to stay a step or two ahead of the folks looking for me. Not to mention the kindness I’ve been blessed with so far.

Listening to the locomotive’s whistle and the soothing rhythm of the wheels meeting the tracks, my thoughts hung on my folks and Mr. and Mrs. Crump. I took the Bible from my tow sack and opened it. To my surprise, an envelope fell out. When I opened it there was a note from Mrs. Crump.

Using the moonlight to see, it read: Dearest Lee, Forgive the sloppy penmanship, I wrote this in haste. Here’s some more traveling money for you. I’ve saved it for years, and can’t imagine a better cause for it. Take these two hundred dollars and be safe. Mr. Crump didn’t even know I had this. We were never blessed with children, but if we had, I would hope they’d be like you. In just a short period of time, you’ve brought joy to our lives. We know you were raised by good, God fearing folks. No one, let alone a child, should have to endure what you did. Be safe, and take our love with you always! Being Jewish, it is our custom to render aid to anyone in need. I know you’re not Jewish, but someday when you’re an adult, I want you to offer kindness and help to another in need. Life is unfair and full of challenges, but you have what it takes to go far! Love always!

Ma and Pa always said there were good white folks and bad white folks in the world. In these past few months,I’ve seen and experienced the best and worst of both.

A few nights, and a couple of trains later, I found myself in San Francisco, California. I quickly found a couple of jobs: working on the docks during the days, and washing dishes at a diner in the evenings. I rented a room for two-fifty a week. I saved on food by eating at the diner for free. Aside from clothing and toiletries, I saved the rest.

Taking no chances, I was now eighteen-year old Harold Cox from Mobile, Alabama. I was even more cautious, and always looking over my shoulder. I was polite like I was raised to be, and mostly shy and quiet. Colored folks had more opportunities and were treated a lot better here. Some of them even owned businesses. Like I said earlier, there were a few bad apples, but the good ones far out weighed the bad ones.

In no time, seven years passed and I grew into a man. Tall, strong and slender, I have a physique like Pa. Whenever I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw him. I grew a beard to further mask my identity. Until now, I’d been able to steer clear of trouble, and had earned and saved a heap of money. But, the night I headed to the carnival would be my last one in San Francisco.

Like I said, I was a tall and strong young man now. Women folk were noticing me, and I was noticing them, but that was as far as it went. Why chance starting something I knew I couldn’t finish. Anyway, I was walking past a bar when I saw a sign in the window announcing an arm wrestling contest with twenty dollars in prize money. The night was young and I didn’t see a problem with entering it. I easily won every match, setting up the final one pitted against the biggest white man I’d ever seen. Lou Phibbs was 6’6″ or 6’7″, and was close to three hundred pounds, if not more. He was solid like a mountain. I knew I had a chance because he was pretty drunk, and even more confident. His boys and his pretty girlfriend were there to cheer him on.

We locked hands and went at it. The longer the match lasted, the angrier and redder Lou got. Finally, with one push, I slammed his hand down on the table. The whole bar went quiet, and he was enraged. It didn’t help that his boys were razzing him. I suppose the final straw was his girlfriend hugging me. I knew this wasn’t good. I took my prize money and got out of there as fast as I could. Lou and his boys followed me out of the bar and up the street, yelling and calling me names. I took off running and made the mistake of turning down a dead end alley. Trapped, all I could think about what Pa told me about standing my ground.

Lou looked at me and snarled, “Boy, it’s one thing for you to luck up and beat me, but it’s another to put your hands on my woman! I believe you need a little reminding of your place!”

Ella, his woman was begging Lou and his boys to leave me be. I thought about offering him the prize money, but I remembered I always carried all my money with me.

Growling, he grabbed me and pushed me up against the wall. I managed to get my hand on my knife and plunged it as hard as I could deep into his chest. When he gasped and fell to the ground, I went after his boys. I stabbed one in the back, but the other one got away.

Shocked and screaming, Ella looked at me and said, “Run as fast as you can and as far away as you can get! Lou’s folks won’t ever stop hunting for for you!”

Soaked in blood, I took off running, heading for the rail yard. There was no need to go back to the boarding house. I snatched some clothes drying on a line behind the laundry house and threw them on. As happy as I’d been in San Francisco, I knew I’d never be able to come back. Trouble had found me once more, blood was on my hands again and I knew I’d never be able to return…

I wandered around Tallahassee for a few days scared out of my mind, looking for work, and hiding in plain sight at the same time. At night, I slept in the shadows at the rail yards. I kept moving while keeping my head on a swivel. Of course, I missed Ma and Pa terribly and thought about them often, but I knew I had to keep going. A few days later, after I was sure no one was looking for me, I found work in a barn behind a feed and grain store loading and unloading sacks of feed and grain. I earned sixty cents a week, which was good pay for a ten year old colored boy in 1910. Of course now my boss, Mr. Herman Crump didn’t know that. He thought I was a seventeen year old named Will King from Macon, Georgia.

Tall and thin, with those spectacles always resting on the bridge of his nose, Mr. Crump liked that I worked sunup to sundown without ever complaining. Truth was, I think he took a shine to me, or at least I’d earned his respect. He even let me sleep in the barn’s loft. Mrs. Crump would bring me food and books to read in the evening. Short, stout and always smiling, both she and Mr. Crump were kind to me. Before long, he raised my pay to a dollar a week and I saved every dime, along with the money Pa and Reverend Pope gave me earlier.

Months later, one morning when I was on my way into the back of the store, I spotted Dale Fowler and his boys coming through the front. I heard him tell Mr. and Mrs. Crump that for months they’ve been looking everywhere for me and wouldn’t rest until my body’s swinging from a tree.

When he asked Mr. Crump if he’d seen me, he looked him in the eyes and said, “No, I haven’t seen him, and he’d better pray I don’t. Seems like this boy doesn’t know his place and needs to be reminded of it.”

He even grabbed his rifle from under the counter and cocked it. They shook hands and told him to wire them by telegram if he saw me. They also asked him to deliver me unharmed, because they wanted that pleasure for themselves. When Mr. Crump agreed, they left.

Terrified, I ran back to the barn and hid up in the loft until sundown. I was so scared I couldn’t think straight or stop shaking. But despite this, I knew one thing was certain: I’m way too close to Attapulgus, and it’s clear those folks aren’t going to ever stop looking for me.

Before long, Mr. and Mrs. Crump came in the barn where I was. And because I’d seen him cocking his rifle in agreement with Dale, I didn’t know what to think. But my heart was calm, so I trusted it. Ma and Pa always said you can never go wrong following, listening and thinking with your heart.

Mr. Crump whispered it was ok to come down. Once downstairs, Mrs. Crump handed me a plate and a glass of lemonade. They wore concerned and horrified looks when I told them what really happened that night, and who and how old I really was.

Mrs. Crump had tears in her eyes. Mr. Crump looked me in the eye and said, “Son, it’s no longer safe for you to stay here. I’m sure they’ll be coming back if they’ve even left in the first place. You need to go as far away as possible, California even. Here, take this and put it in your pocket. It’s fifty dollars, I wish we had more to give you. Just as you hopped a train to get here, you need to do the same and leave tonight. Stay in the shadows and keep you eyes open.”

With a firm handshake, he said, “Go with God son, may He bless and keep you.”

Wiping away tears, I said to them both, “Thank you so very much Mr. and Mrs. Crump, I’ll never forget y’all and the kindness you’ve shown me.”

As I threw my rags and belongings into my bag, Mrs. Crump ran into the house and came back carrying a bible. Handing it to me, she smiled and said, “Take God and His word with you. He and His angels will always watch and keep charge over you. Plus, Mr. Crump and I will always keep you in our prayers.”

“Thank you Mrs. Crump, God bless you both. I’m obliged to you both and I promise to keep moving. I’ll take God and my faith with me, because wherever I go, He’ll be there.”

After a prayer and hug, I slipped into the night.

Frantic voices shook, prodded, and lifted me from my bed onto a gurney. Barely conscious, dazed with my head throbbing and spinning, I heard someone say, “He has a pulse, hurry! Bring those pill bottles so we’ll know what he ingested. From the looks of it, he washed the pills down with this bottle of rum. Get him in the ambulance and down to the emergency room.”

I couldn’t speak, but wanted badly to say, “Please leave me be and just let me go. I’m nothing–I have no real friends or family to speak of. No one to love and no one to love me. My life isn’t capable of holding any happiness or joy. I’m tired of riding this emotional roller coaster, wearing a false mask and hiding my true self day after day. I just want the pain to end. My mind’s in a thick haze and I’m totally hollow inside, unable to escape the dark shadows and barely existing.”

At nineteen, I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder II, and since then I’ve cycled from the heights of mania, to the far depths of depression where I now find myself. More often than not, it’s hereditary. Years of therapy unearthed the trauma of me coming home from school in the third grade and finding my mother dead from a self-inflicted gun wound. Of the two poles, my manic state feels incredibly creative. My thoughts race so fast, I can’t seem to grab onto one. The many downsides are reckless spending, hallucinating, promiscuity, insomnia, and loss of appetite. The periods of mania don’t last, and it’s also an extremely dangerous state, followed by a deep depression.

That’s what I dread and hate most. Its effects can linger for years. It’s when I barely have the energy to get out of bed. It’s when I feel locked in a powerful vacuum of hopelessness and despair, like I’ve fallen in a deep, dark hole. A hole with a rope ladder anchored from the outside in. And no matter how many rungs I climb, I can never escape before the walls close in and smother me. I’ve tried every known treatment available, even ECT, but the demons of darkness lying in the shadows emerge and slowly overtake me. I suppose I’m to blame also. I don’t always follow my psychiatrist’s advice. I don’t take my meds everyday and occasionally miss appointments, not to mention exercising and eating right. I suppose the simple truth is, I’m thirty-five now and just sick and tired of being sick and tired. I have nothing left. Obviously, this attempt failed, but prayerfully the next one won’t…

January 21, 2013

The same nightmare has roused me from my sleep for the past thirty years. Deep-rooted trauma permeates my mind and invades my nights with the frequency of my own breathing. I lost my beautiful mother to cancer three years ago, and my younger brother Rudolph eight years prior after being fatally struck by a car. My older sister Juanita, left home in the middle of the night right after mama died, and I haven’t heard from her since. But the event that forever changed me and plagues my sleep occurred during the wee hours of a warm May morning after I’d graduated from high school earlier that evening with a full academic scholarship to Morehouse College. My father, Paul Spires (or “Big Paul” as he was known around Tutweiler), was always a binge drinker but he’d been rapidly spiraling out of control since we lost Mama. I heard Grandma say more than once that I was a product of rape, and out of fear of retribution from my Grandpa and uncles, he reluctantly married my underage mama. Though she never did anything to warrant Big Paul’s physical and verbal abuse, I’m sure the weight of it all drove her to an early grave. I was born an albino, and because of false rumors and innuendo that’s festered about my appearance since I’ve been born, he believed more and more that I wasn’t his. I suppose on that night, his ignorance and alcoholism finally brought him to his boiling point, and he exploded in kind.

“Get your sorry ass up out of bed, get all of your shit and get out of my house! I don’t ever want to see your piss colored ass again! I’ve held my peace long enough, you, your ma and her folks have made a fool out of me for the last time! I don’t care no more!”

Still drowsy, I stumbled out of bed, grabbed a couple of trash bags and threw all my belongings in them. I got out of there as fast as I could before things could escalate any further. He had quite a few pistols, and usually kept one in his pocket. I vividly remember the crazed look he had on his face as he stepped aside so I could leave, but not before shoving me by the back of my head. The last thing he said to me was “If you ever come back to Tutweiler, I’ll kill you where you stand!” As far as I was concerned, that was something he’d never have to worry about.

It pains me to relive it so often. So much so, I’m usually up for a while and never manage to get back to sleep. Of course, I suppose it’s all a matter of perspective. I also credit that horrific morning with fueling my maniacal drive, focus and work ethic. Besides haunting me, It also helped me graduate from Morehouse as valedictorian, and do the same at Oxford.

It was at Oxford that I fell in love and married Heather McCaskey, the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in England, Rolf McCaskey. Over there, he and my mother-in-law Olivia, saw past my race and unique appearance and didn’t treat me like a novelty. Their only daughter’s happiness was all that mattered to them. With my incredible drive, and a small loan from Rolf, I’ve built the largest securities and brokerage firm in Seattle and all of the West coast.

I’m P. Randall Spires, from Tutweiler, Mississippi. It’s a small town roughly seventy miles from Memphis, Tennessee and about one hundred forty miles from Jackson. It’s 3 A.M. now, and as usual, I’m pacing the floor in my study again wound tighter than a tennis ball. Unfortunately, Heather and her family don’t know much about my family, other than what I’ve told them. To be honest, neither do I. Like I said, I haven’t had any contact with my father, sister or anyone back home since I left. The closest I’ve been to Jackson since the night my father put me out was Atlanta, Georgia, and that was only during a layover for a flight. However, that all changed when the phone rang.