American Gothic

Bless you Mary Jesus

Oakland California may be a refugee camp for San Franciscans displaced by the Dot Com meltdow ..for Mary Jesus, it was already home. It was also sanctuary from the demons inside her head, the one’s she thought would go away when she turned 30 ..but they stayed on to torment her more. She was diagnosed with depression and borderline personality disorder ..but was fine as long as she had a place to live. When that was threatened, she lost her grip. Her apartment was in a stately old building . She refurbished the hard wood floors, hung black lace curtains, and painted her bedroom black and red, tastefully –in Japanese motif –decorated it with her own paintings ..dark, sinister expressions of death and Christian-challenging symbols. She loved the place. Even managed the building for a while ..and very effectively according to some of the tenants. She originally grew up in the goth-rock underground of Sacramento ..and continues to reject mainstream society. She wears black outfits ..black gloves, black sunglasses, black lipstick and parasol. Her friendships often ended abruptly however. Mental instability does that. Now she was being displaced by the rising tide of people displaced from San Francisco. She fighting, but the eviction proceedings are not going well. At the eviction hearing, she put on a dapper black velvet pantsuit and, without an attorney, presented her defense. She lost. Over the next two months there were a series of emergency motions for reconsideration. Twice, Mary Jesus won 30-day stays of the eviction. To pay her rent, she borrowed $900 from publisher Victor Vale, who had often encouraged her to write about her struggles.The conflict turned into despair. Mary's primal fear was homelessness. Twice, she was hospitalized at the county's psychiatric facility after exhibiting signs of extreme anxiety in court. Mary had another hearing to present new facts. But, on the morning of the scheduled eviction — she learned that she had lost her final appeal. Once again, Mary Jesus was transported to the county psychiatric hospital in restraints. She was released later that day. Returning to her apartment, she put her belongings in plastic bags and hung them as gifts on the doorknobs of neighbors ..she wrote a note, complete with court case names and numbers, and made 200 photocopies. She took the elevator to the balcony of the Tribune tower, climbed over the railing and tossed the notes to a crowd of people below. Then, to everyone’s horror, she took a deep breath ..held her nose with one hand ..raised the other in the air ..and, like a someone jumping into a pool, she plunged to her death