white coats and ties

Colin Rosewicz was born in dover the son of two polish immigrants but when he was three he and his family moved to farmington hills near detroit because manchester manufacturing needed mr. rosewicz's skills more in michigan than in delaware
                   he worked in the machine shop she was a maid
         this was in 1985 the year of the spy the ethiopian famine and tetris
his parents spoke little english but Colin went to school and came home with little ribbons with plastic medals from his teachers and his work would always have a golden star sticker and his parents were content that their child was smart
         he was smart
         in middle school and in high school Colin was not particularly inclined to talk and his classmates too were not particularly desirous of talking to him
                   they were scared
                   by his silence
                   by his intelligence
                   by the aura of intimidation you felt when you were alone in a room with him

when he was seventeen he began to hear voices and he did not want to do his work anymore
         because he could not make himself lift the pencil and put it to the paper and write
         nor could he bring himself to shave every morning
                   and so the dark brown eastern european roots began to grow into an awkward scraggly beard and Colin's hair was similarly distended and began to gray at the roots
         and he heard voices
and on the advice of Colin's counselor in high school he went through a series of referrals and eventually ended up in the office of one dr. pierpont who after a brief conversation (Colin spoke no more than what was required of him and mainly just listened anyway) gave him pills and his parents a sheet of paper explaining what schizophrenia was and assuring them that Colin could live a functional and happy life
         if he would take his pills
         but his parents understood as much english now as they had when they had come to america a few years before Colin was born
                   all they knew was that their son was sick
                   (they were disappointed because it was their fault)

Colin took his pills for two weeks and six days but on the very last day he felt tired of being underwater and hid dr. pierpont's pill bottles in a brown shoebox beneath his bed
for a week after he was fine and he had shaved and he was a handsome man even though he was certainly not ugly even in his previous state
         he was still young and he had a strong prominent jawline and broad shoulders like his father
         about six foot two          
         piercing blue eyes
                   he smiled when he walked
and then the voices came back and with them this time came the sensation that Colin was being watched
         the voices which had until this point not been particularly inclined to malevolence began to taunt Colin
         they told him that he was indeed being watched
         he was under observation
         the men in lab coats and ties and sunglasses wanted to steal his brain waves because if they knew his brain waves they could make a supercomputer to manipulate the stock market
                   there was a whole cabal of these men
                   each wore a pair of sunglasses
         Colin never once saw them with both eyes but every so often his peripheral would catch the sweep of a coattail as it hurried around a corner
         the glint of reflected sunlight off of a pair of sunglasses that he could not find once he saw but was sure was there nonetheless
                   a tie that stuck out in a crow for naught but a split second          
                             (crowds were terrifying)

in august of 2001 Colin was getting into a taxi to come home
he had spent the day at gabriel richard park downtown because he liked the sound of people having fun
         but when the cabbie turned around to ask Colin where he was going Colin saw the sunglasses and he saw the tie and he saw the starched white lab coat and Colin screamed and ran out as fast as he could

by nightfall
Colin was on the ambassador bridge the bridge that connects detroit to windsor
         the taxis were coming nearer and each had a man in a lab coat driving and another one in the passenger seat
         they had needles and listening equipment
         and when he focused on them they would disappear but if he shifted his field of vision they would reappear
                   they were playing tricks on him because they knew they had him now
                   surrounded
Colin stood with his back against the steel-silicon supports of the bridge and trembled in fear as they each came closer
         what was a taxi doing trying to cross the bridge anyway if not for him?
Colin resolved at that point in time that he was not going to be a test subject and his brain waves would not be used to create a supercomputer that would manipulate wall street
and so Colin Rosewicz jumped with the grace of a terrified goose into the water
         his arms flailed as he fell down like an anchor
         it was not a plop sound like the cartoons it was more of a hard smack as if he had hit concrete
                   indeed it was as if he had hit concrete because the fall killed Colin on impact and his lifeless body crumpled and distorted and sank all the way to the bottom

when his parents were packing up Colin's things to sell or to hide quietly in the back corners of the house where it could not bring them distress they found beneath his bed a brown shoebox full of pills and pill bottles
and they found a note at the bottom
         it said this

         "I refuse to submit to any activity that may deprive me of my right to decide exactly what kind of person I am."

but his parents could not speak english well much less could they read it enough to understand.