Growing Up Next to the Mental Read online

  “Postponed till two,” a rival reporter revealed as we passed on the steep old wooden staircase that must’ve been designed and constructed by the same people who’d erected St. Bon’s. I continued upward, anyway, having been burned before by erroneous info from the competition.

  Turns out there was a scheduling conflict with Courtroom #1, where more than a dozen new lawyers were now queuing for their call to the bar. Several other rooms were free, but it was common knowledge that Chief Justice Sinnott had a special affinity for the grandeur of #1, even if it meant slowing the wheels of justice even more.

  It took me all of three minutes to get back to Provincial, where, as luck would have it, the Monchy matter was on break.

  The question now was whether I’d get to speak with him alone.

  “We can chat in one of the lawyer-client rooms over there,” said the public defender. “He’s back in holding, but I’ll go get him.”

  I was too on edge to sit, so I stood and waited impatiently in the plain, square room for the moment to arrive.

  Some scuffing and shuffling, the sound of many keys jangling, and the door finally opened.

  “Mr. Mooney, is it? How are you?” I could tell right away we were going to play it coy with the lawyer present.

  Despite seeing him in the flesh, it was his voice that put me right back in the Mental Field, in his secret little room, on the pavement with my mini-bike.

  “Yes, sir. I’m good. How are you is the question.”

  I extended a hand to shake by habit before retracting due to the obvious restrictions placed on his extremities.

  “I could be better, I guess.”

  I looked to his lawyer and the two male sheriff’s officers.

  “So, can we talk alone, or . . .”

  “I have to stay,” said the lawyer, “but they can wait outside the door, if you’re okay with that.”

  It seemed we wouldn’t get to reminisce after all. Not today, anyway.

  “Yeah, that’s fine,” I said.

  We kept strictly to business and the details of how, when, and where we’d have the larger, longer sit-down.

  We’d exhausted the planning preliminaries when Monchy cut to the chase.

  “I don’t really want it, any story, to be a beat-down on the hospital or the people down there. I think they’re good people. Just a little misguided and disillusioned, I would say, by being down there themselves for so long.”

  I wanted to remind him that such reasoned logic would rubber-stamp his transfer from the Waterford to the Pen and possibly beyond, but I knew he knew that.

  “People are so quick to judge without having any clue. And I think I took advantage of that—knowing what people would think of me just by my actions. Then I blamed those same people for assuming I was as crazy as I wanted them to think I was.”

  I looked to his lawyer, wondering if I could get away with turning on my recorder. He caught my drift and interrupted.

  “Jerry, maybe we should get into this later during the interview?”

  “Oh yes, I’m sorry. It’s just hard to stop when I gets goin’. But lemme ask you this: how many times already today did you ask yourself what’s wrong with this or that person? Whether it was just a stupid driving thing, throwing a cigarette out a window, or even grabbing a doctor?

  “That may be wrong or abnormal to most, but you have to realize that not everyone thinks normal. They’re not linked to common sense. You can’t judge someone else by your own moral compass. You’re assuming they understand what’s right or wrong and are wilfully choosing wrong. But many don’t see or know the difference. And the onus is on normal people to understand that.

  “Everyone’s wired different. People just have to accept that and understand that it could happen to anyone, even them. So you gotta mind your mind. And be kind to the mind. Yours and theirs.”

  It was quite the diatribe that neither I nor lawyer guy had any intention of interrupting. I only wished I’d hit record.

  “Well, I didn’t tape any of that, but I wish I had,” I said. “I guess the only question now is when we can get together so we can get into all of that a little more.”

  They immediately proposed getting it done that afternoon.

  “I would like to, but I’m already assigned to the White trial up at Supreme. I’ve got a request in to interview him, too, but I’m not holding my breath!”

  “Careful what ya wish for there,” said Jerry with a J.

  The three of us stood at the same time, and the door opened on cue, as if someone had been listening in and knew we were done.

  “Let’s shoot for tomorrow, then?” I asked. “We can talk later today or early tomorrow to confirm.”

  They left, and I paused to exhale in private.

  “Did ya get what ya needed?” asked Madam Sheriff, peeking inside the little room.

  “I did, thanks. How about lunch?”

  “Can’t—I’m working through. But I could do supper.”

  Even better.

  27

  A lot of what Monchy said stuck with me over the lunch hour.

  But mostly it was his comment to mind your mind. And be kind to the mind.

  It was only a week earlier I’d heard a woman on Open Line ranting and raving about the stigma surrounding mental health and how so much of it was precipitated by the language that we used.

  Tell me about it.

  “Gotta get rid of that friggin’ word—mental. It’s just so cold and old. Too much like metal. Like a metal plate in someone’s head. Even to say mental health. It’s so full of the stigma.”

  It was a good point that had been broached before, yet it just seemed like its time had yet to come. You could put the word “mental” in any sentence with any context, and there was only one thing I thought about: the Mental, the Mental Field, and mental cases.

  Which is why Monchy’s words resonated so strongly with me.

  Be kind to the mind. Hmm . . . I made a note to myself to pitch it to the Canadian Mental Health Association at my first opportunity, with full credit to Jerry with a J, of course. He could even be the face of the whole thing.

  The rollout of such a slogan and publicity campaign was all I could think about as we waited for Chief Justice Sinnott to blow in through the private side door that led to his chambers.

  But it was White who arrived first this time, his head on a swivel, documenting the players and spectators in attendance.

  He was wearing the same Umbro sweats as the day I saw him, shuffling in shackles to the prisoner’s dock, which at the time was still procedurally flanked by two Newfoundland Constabulary officers. It was an incriminating sight that flew in the face of innocent till proven guilty.

  White’s young lawyer greeted him with a smile, handing him the pen and notebook he’d requested to take notes.

  As tends to happen, the highly anticipated proceeding was brutally anticlimactic. It took all but five minutes for the Crown and defence to concur on his apparent fitness to stand trial.

  I hadn’t been able to make eye contact with White when he came in, but I was intent on getting his attention on the way out, even if just to gauge whether he was even aware of my interview request.

  All rose as Sinnott left the courtroom. A few reporters rushed outside for some snaps of White as he was exiting, while the rest of us watched as he hugged a girlfriend, shook a brother’s hand, and turned to leave.

  It was now or never for one of my brazen perp-walk questions.

  “How are they treating you at the Waterford, Wally?”

  It was an attempt to get his attention through name familiarity, and it worked.

  He turned quick and smiled easy when he recognized me. One of the sheriff’s officers had a hand on his shoulder in preparation for his return to cuffs
.

  But he broke free, lunging toward me with fisted hands that bashed into my chest and drove me to the floor.

  “There ya go, my buddy. Report on that.”

  A blow like that would wind anyone, and I strained desperately for air, trying to catch just one breath in my hunched-over state.

  But I couldn’t. I suddenly had no strength to do anything. My fingers tingled as I pushed against the floor just to stand up. But I couldn’t do that, either. I was scared and starting to panic, a rush of blood and fear filling my face and head.

  There was pandemonium around me as White was tackled to the floor himself, while others tried to help me up. But I was dead weight and fell onto my back, causing a whole other higher level of pandemonium through the room—overlapping yells for help, calls for 911, first aid, and other loud sounds that were getting fainter, just like so long ago when I was gassed at the Janeway.

  My last blurry image was the non-writing end of a blue Paper Mate pen stuck stiff through my black blazer, the other three-quarters of it buried in me.

  There was no bright light at the end of a tunnel, no choir of angels, no pearly gates, no rays of sunshine darting through clouds to raise me heavenward.

  Just my own view of me, standing by the Waterford River, with a body in it.

  to be continued . . .

  Acknowledgements

  First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge the patience, love, and support of my family, who gave me the space and time necessary to write this book. Stephanie, Brianna, and Amy, your support and ability to just let stuff go in times of strife has made all the difference.

  And speaking of patience, thank you to my parents, William and Daphne Callahan, as well as my brothers and sisters: Sean, Maureen, Sheilagh, Anne Marie, and Mark. There but for the grace of God go all of us!

  About the Author

  photo by paul daly

  Brian Callahan was born in St. John’s and is a graduate of St. Bonaventure’s and Brother Rice High School. He completed two years of English and political science courses at Memorial University before getting his start in media with the former Q93 and KIXX FM radio station in downtown St. John’s.

  But the bulk of his career was spent at the Evening Telegram, later the Telegram, as a reporter and editor for just over seventeen years, from 1990 to 2007. He subsequently went to work for his former Telegram colleague Ryan Cleary at the Independent newspaper before its unfortunate demise in 2008. In September 2009, Brian began working with the CBC as a commentator, news and current affairs producer, online reporter, and periodic host of the Fisheries Broadcast.

  In 2016, after nearly thirty years in journalism, Brian took a step back and decided to focus more on his own writing and music. Meanwhile, he took a job with Belfor in the construction industry, initially as an asbestos abatement worker and eventually into all facets of ripping apart structures, clearing the sites, and building them back up again. He currently works as a parliamentary transcription editor with the Hansard division of the House of Assembly.

  When he’s not in the office, he continues work on the next instalment of Wish Mooney’s adventures and enjoys playing gigs with his rock band, The Mics. Brian is also a sports junkie and loves playing a game of ball when time and schedule permit.

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