5150 (eBook)

A Manic Depressive Adventure

Tony del Zompo (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
272 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-7466-9 (ISBN)

Infos

5150 A Manic Depressive Adventure is the first memoir by writer Tony del Zompo. Tony was by all appearances a regular guy. Although he struggled with alcoholism and addiction during his adolescence, he got clean and sober before his twenty-second birthday and went on to start a family, complete a graduate education, and begin a career in health care. Tony did not realize at the time, however, that sobriety was only the beginning; he had not idea that he had reached adulthood completely unaware of the work that remained. The story truly begins when his marriage ends. At times funny, frequently gut-wrenching, what ensues is a wildly unpredictable journey that can only end when the protagonist is confronted with an opportunity to make the last decision he may ever have to face.

Tony is a physical therapist who lives and works in Santa Cruz, CA. Tony remains an avid surfer, snowboarder, and writes in his spare time. 5150 A Manic Depressive Adventure is his first full length book, but his pieces have appeared in Genesis Magazine, The Catamaran Literary Reader, and The Santa Cruz Sentinel. He has begun working on his second memoir, Finding Jessica, the story of how he recovered from his mental health crisis and reunited with his daughter after a ten-year estrangement. Although Tony enjoys clinical practice, his intention is to retire from physical therapy in order to write full time. Tony is also an accomplished speaker. He has participated in high school outreach programs in Santa Cruz and San Francisco, and in 2019 he presented the keynote address during the closing ceremony of The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's Out of the Darkness Overnight in San Francisco.

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5150 A Manic Depressive Adventure is the first full length memoir by writer Tony del Zompo. Tony grew up in a troubled home. His father, a Korean War Veteran, an alcoholic, and a San Francisco Police Sergeant was an ominous presence throughout his childhood and adolescence. His mother, a hairstylist with an insatiable need for control, was too busy trying to keep the house intact to notice how the family chaos had affected her youngest son. Tony began to medicate himself with booze and drugs at an early age, and although he sobered up briefly in his twenties, he reached his young adulthood completely unaware that he was about to assume responsibilities for which he was completely unprepared. On the outside, it looked like Tony had it all together. He had a beautiful wife and daughter, and a promising career ahead of him. Despite it all, Tony could not outrun the childhood that followed him with each and every step he took. When his wife asked for a divorce, he spiraled into addiction once again. What follows is an unpredictable, wild ride into the abyss. This is the story a regular guy who, by all appearances, had everything and lost it all along with his sanity. We follow Tony into the psych ward, jail, to a brief volunteer stint at Ground Zero in New York, and back to California where he survives a near-fatal automobile accident. The reader can't help but root for him as he recovers from his injuries and makes a comeback, only to burn it all back down one last time before confronting what might have been the final decision he would ever have to make. Tony writes with an urgency that compels the reader to turn the page. While some may find it difficult to digest, anyone who has endured a mental health crisis or stood back and watched while a loved-one is consumed by addiction will identify with the story, and perhaps even find themselves someplace within the pages wishing that they could do something to pull Tony out of his downward spiral before it's too late.

Textauszug

ONE

I never meant to go crazy. When I was a kid, “crazy” wasn’t what I wanted to be when I grew up. I told everyone that I wanted to be a veterinarian, but what I really wanted was to be Dr. Doolittle and talk to animals the way he did. Dad said that I would have to go to Davis if I wanted to be a vet. I didn’t know what “Davis” was, but I knew that it was where you went if you wanted to learn how to talk to animals.

We never had what you’d call a real pet because Dad had no use for dogs, and Mom didn’t want any animal hair on her spotless white couch. My first pet was a newt that Mom bought for me when I was six. It was brown with a bright orange tummy, and even though I didn’t know whether it was a boy or a girl I decided to call it Jenny.

Jenny kept me company at night by making chirping noises from her habitat. Sometimes I could even hear her over the sound of Mom and Dad fighting in the kitchen down the hall. I used to pretend that Jenny was telling me that everything was going to be okay even though I already knew that it wasn’t.

I’m the youngest of three sons. Dad wanted one more, but after three boys in a row, Mom told him that if he wanted another kid that badly, he could have it himself. I was raised on Greenview Court, a dead-end street in a suburban oasis called Midtown Terrace that is nestled snugly against the western slopes of Twin Peaks in the center of San Francisco. None of the houses touched in Midtown Terrace, and everybody had their own backyard. The developers left plenty of green space for the woodland creatures that learned to coexist with the people who had taken over their territory, and at night raccoons and skunks would knock over garbage cans in search of a meal. It might have been an idyllic, all-American existence if it weren’t for Dad’s drinking and Mom’s constant screaming.

Dad joined the police department when he came home from Korea. He never talked about the war, but I knew the words to the “Marine’s Hymn” by the time I was four years old. Dad looked like an action figure in his police uniform, and he was my childhood hero even though he was the scariest man I have ever known. Our house was located within his Park Station District, and on the nights he worked he would come home for dinner in a squad car. When he was in a hurry, he sat down at the kitchen table wearing his gun.

Mom worked as a hairstylist in an upscale salon in Union Square where she did her best to make rich old ladies look beautiful until she was five months pregnant with me. My oldest brother, Lou, was in the first grade at St. Cecilia’s School when Mom left work early one afternoon to purchase a cake for the annual church bake sale. She normally rode the streetcar to Forest Hill Station and caught a bus back to Midtown Terrace, but she called Dad for a ride that day because it was pouring out. Dad didn’t want to leave the house and drive across town to pick her up in the rain, so he told her to catch a cab instead.

Mom walked up Powell Street to the St. Francis Hotel with the bakery bag in one hand and an umbrella in the other. She couldn’t stay dry and protect the cake at the same time so like a good mother she sacrificed herself. She waited another forty-five minutes for a taxi because the storm brought downtown traffic to a standstill, and when she arrived home after dark, soaking wet, she announced her decision to quit her job and cut hair at home in the kitchen.

It must have been hard for Mom to be married to a cop. It certainly wasn’t a normal life. In 1968, The Black Student Union at San Francisco State University and the Third World Liberation Front demanded increased minority representation in admissions and the curriculum taught at the college, and although the demonstrations were less violent than those that would follow, there were clashes between the police and the protestors. I was too young at the time to remember anything about it, but Lou told me that Dad would come home and drop his riot gear in the hallway before he sat down to eat. When he had finished his dinner, he grabbed his helmet, his shield, and his club and went back to the college to kick some ass and rack up some overtime.

A few years ago I found old black and white footage of the demonstrations on YouTube. I wept as I watched the police swing clubs and draw guns on the students, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not Dad had beaten the shit out of anybody. If he did, I’d like to believe that he didn’t enjoy it.

Our first house had two bedrooms upstairs. Mom and Dad kept me in their room until I was big enough to be out of my crib, and then they moved me in with my brothers. Lou slept in his own bed on one side and I shared bunks with my middle brother Frank on the other. Frank slept on top because I was too little to climb the ladder, but I was small enough to hide underneath my bed and bury my face in the orange shag carpet whenever Mom and Dad fought too loud.

When I was five, Mom and Dad decided to upgrade because a bigger house across the street went on the market. I was excited because I would have my very own room for the first time. While Dad and his friends moved the furniture, I loaded my red Radio Flyer wagon with my toys and my favorite stuffed animals and transported them to my new, private sanctuary.

Mom and Dad slept in the master bedroom across the hall from me while Lou and Frank got the big bonus room downstairs. Mom’s father, Nanu, took the last bedroom upstairs in the back of the house because he had gotten too old to live alone. When the move was complete, Mom and Dad converted the laundry room into a beauty salon where Mom built a thriving business. She would sometimes see up to three clients at a time, and on good days she made plenty of cash that she was able to hide from the IRS and later from the Family Court during her divorce from Dad.

Dad was Mom’s second husband, so they weren’t married in the Catholic Church. Though their marriage was considered adulterous, Mom still brought my brothers and me to church every week because it was an even bigger sin to miss Mass. We were usually late, but Mom said that it counted if we arrived before the priest read the Gospel from the New Testament. There was a crucifix in every bedroom of our house and a print of Da Vinci’s Last Supper hanging in the kitchen, but the only time I ever heard God’s name at home was when it was being taken in vain by one of my parents.

I was born at 4:06 p.m., and Dad loved to remind me that a “406” in police radio code meant that the requesting officer was in need of immediate assistance. Dad and I were estranged many times throughout my life, and during one of our longer stretches, a psychic told me that I had been sent here by the universe in order to help him in some way. I thought it was one of the most ridiculous things that I had ever heard, but in contrast to some of the things I used to believe in, like Santa Claus, the virgin birth, and transubstantiation, it somehow seemed slightly less absurd.

I was in the second grade at St. Cecilia’s when my teacher, Miss Daly, prepared my classmates and me for our First Holy Communion. When she told us that the priest had the power to turn bread and wine into the actual body and blood of Christ, my hand shot skyward.

“If we eat Jesus every week, don’t we finish him?”

I wasn’t trying to be funny. I figured that if we kept eating tiny pieces of Jesus every week, we would run out of him eventually. Miss Daly, however, was not amused by my curiosity.

“Sit in the back!” she yelled. “And write, ‘I will not blaspheme.’ 500 times!”

“How do you spell blaspheme?”

When my classmates laughed, she got angrier. Her jowls flushed and she raised her finger toward the door.

“Out! Principal’s office. Now!”

I walked down the hall to Sister Sylvia’s office scratching my head. I didn’t know what I had done wrong. I had no idea what blasphemy was, let alone transubstantiation, and neither Miss Daly nor Sister Sylvia ever answered my question about running out of the body of Christ.

The day before the ceremony, my classmates and I marched up the hill to the church for Confession because we had to be in a state of grace when we ate Jesus for the first time. When I told the priest that I had committed blasphemy, he instructed me to say “The Lord’s Prayer” and “The Hail Mary” ten times each for my penance. I returned to my pew, got on my knees, and blessed myself. It felt like I was there forever because several of my classmates knelt down next to me, served their time, and left the church before me. When I was finally finished, I blessed myself once more, stood, and walked back to school with a shiny new soul.

The next morning, I got out of bed and put on my white dress shirt, navy blue slacks, and matching clip-on bow tie. Dad slicked my hair back with Alberto VO5 just like he did to himself every day before work. I wore the new Timex watch that he and Mom had given me, and I was super proud because it indicated my official big boy status to the church.

I sat up straight during the service and tried to pay attention, but I kept scratching at my neck because the clip made my bow-tie too tight. Fortunately, the place was packed and nobody was watching me. When the priest had finished turning the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus, he raised a wafer over his head and spoke his blessing.

“This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to His...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 23.4.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-7466-9 / 9798350974669