Michael Harris woke this morning restless. He moved his aching legs down the arm of a cigarette-stained couch and stood up. His first step was cautious, avoiding the agitation of the blisters on his feet. He made his way to the pale blue hamper and pulled out a striped pink and neonturquoise shirt and the tattered jeans that have made him familiar, even though his appearance never signified much. He did not dress himself for work but to walk.
Absent-mindedly, he wandered about the living room organizing the untidiness by plugging in the broken cassette player and placing trash in boxes pushed flush with the crown molding as a sort of basic decoration for the empty, white walls.
He adjusted the thermometer a few times, just as his sister ordered, in fear of another $350 power bill, and on the wall adjacent to the thermometer, in between the door, he read the reminder to take his medication.
With the routine completed he sat down to adjust the orthopedic shoes that hid the sores and corns of so many impressions made by his splayfooted gait.
This pause stopped Harris for the last time until he returned to his house in the evening.
Harris, 36, has been living and walking on his own for most of the last four years in an effort to be the responsible and independent man he knows exists.
For a while Harris was unsure of who he was, the reason: schizophrenia.
Four years ago, Harris was diagnosed with what he called a bi-polar type of denial. In other words, when his personalities change it is usually triggered by strong feelings of abandonment and loneliness.
These thoughts, he said, come from his mind set that when no one is around him, no one cares about him and if no one cares for him, he cannot care for himself.
Harris has these thoughts when he is inside; by walking he avoids them.
“Walking is a way to be near people,” Harris said.
“When it rains or something keeps me inside, I think too much and get skeptical.”
Harris has been walking nearly every day for the last four years. He has found that the best places to walk to be near people are shopping centers. His favorite is the tuckedaway, some-call-it-dying North Augusta Plaza.
This beaten stretch of asphalt and marred by several unrented outparcels is home to the CSRA’s only Big K KMart, a Publix that stays full, and the loyal retirees who shop at Hamrick’s.
The walks usually start near the entrance to Publix where on occasion he will help employees gather stray shopping carts. From Publix he paces himself. His walk is more of a crooked sway than a straightforward step that gives him the appearance of being a vagabond regardless of his intentions.
Harris passes storefronts of Japanese and Chinese restaurants, a salon, a tax office, an appliance and furniture rental center, a video game store, a vitamin and supplement store and Payless.
He will go in the stores occasionally, browsing for a dollar video game, or if he is burnt out he will stay awhile in the air conditioning; never really intent on making a purchase, he said he wants to know who is in the store rather than what.
He walked into GNC for a short moment. He opened the door, took a step through then jumped back an inch; startled from the obnoxiously loud doorbell. The eyes of the only other customer made their way to Harris with a stare of confusion. Harris noticed her and he gave her a smile and a chuckle then told her that doorbells like that make him jumpy. She smiled back and Harris contently walked right back out of the door.
Harris was bothered that the doorbell startled him.
“I wasn’t being as nice as I could have been back there,” Harris said. “I guess all people make mistakes.””I am so hard on myself because I know that a more respectful person is inside me.”
Harris does not work. In many ways, walking is his 9 to 5. His personal task has become learning about the people who shop and their willingness to be courteous and greet one another and how he can do the same.
Through his several walks over a given day , Harris wants for himself, and all people, to be concerned about others. He feels that this shopping area is his responsibility for making sure that people are friendly.
Friendliness is not always the response Harris receives. Many people without noticing he is mentally handicapped side step him for a beggar or worse, knows he is handicapped, and take 0 of him.
An incident at Publix involving Harris occurred several months ago. According to reports, from both North Augusta Public safety and employees who witnessed it, Harris was coerced into buying alcohol for some teenagers. Harris at the time did not realize that these teenagers were taking advantage of him but rather they were just trying to be friendly to him. Charges against Harris were eventually dropped.
Angela West, store manager for Famous Hair, remembered what happened to Harris that day and how easy it can be for him to be taken advantage of.
“I was not sure what happened at first, then I found ou t and heard charges were dropped,” West said. “He is a sweet man, and he never does any harm I wish that people would realize this.”
When Harris passes by her store she calls him “Sugar.”
West does her best to look out for Harris. So much so that on occasion she will go and sit on the bench outside the store with the hope that Harris will sit down and chat with her, but he smiles, waves and keeps on walking for himself.
“I’m not sure why he walks,” West said. “I just try to make sure that I greet him and make sure he is OK when I can.”
Not everyone in the strip mall knows that Harris is schizophrenic. Those that don’t, wonder why he hangs around and does not work. Those that do, wonder why he is always walking.
Harris walks to stabilize himself and his thoughts.
Harris is fully aware – in the fullest sense possible – that being mentally disabled usually requires assistance from other people around you to function, to think and to support you. For this reason, he pressures himself to become more and more independent so that he can recognize his behavior on his own and deal with it.
Karen Johnson, program director for the Hartzog Mental Health Center in North Augusta, SC., in which Harris goes for help, said that walking or something social is a natural remedy encouraged by many of the programs at the center because it can get the patient thinking about something around them rather than their condition.
“Every patient is different, but we encourage anything that helps the consumer to get better,” Johnson said. “[As a mental health patient] you are always working toward something else.”
The something else is independence.
The Hartzog Center is a branch of the Aiken-Barnwell Mental Health Center in Aiken, SC., which sees previously diagnosed patients with severe or persistent mental illnesses.
The state of South Carolina has more than 100,000 registered mental health patients.
Covering a catchment area of North Augusta, Belvedere, Jackson and Beech Island, SC., the center alone sees anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 patients each year.
Programs and prescriptions encouraged and diagnosed are all based on severity of illness for each individual patient. Although the Hartzog Center and Johnson consider wellness, stability and independence differently for each patient, they still try to generalize it in a way that gives the public an understanding of their goals.
“(Success is) for every patient not being in and out of the hospital and being a contributing member of society,” Johnsonsaid. “For me, in my 25 years of working at the center I cannot remember any patient being sent to a hospital on an emergency based need.”
One of the ways the center has proved beneficial in getting patients on their feet in society is their housing program.
Angela Quinn, until her recent hire as mental health professional for the Hartzog Center, served as the housing coordinator for the main office in Aiken.
Quinn is responsible for much of the success the two centers have seen in helping mental health patients become more stable, having built the program from the ground up.
As a liaison for the Mental Health of America affiliate in Columbia, SC., Quinn was able to make the housing deals necessary to get people placed.
“We did not want to set them up to fail,” Quinn said. “We would provide staff assistance if need be, it was almost like the worse off you were the better housing you would have.”
Charts and records Quinn kept showed that basing the housing program’s success solely on whether or not someone got placed is difficult. Several factors including, family involvement or if the patients just never found a place, hindered Quinn from pinpointing the exact reason for unhoused patients.
Although Harris would be qualified to be put in housing by the Hartzog Center, his family made a decision with him to live somewhere separate of the housing offered.
Harris’ sister, Sharon Hunter, did not respond to requests for an interview.
“She does a lot with her job, but she helps me when she can,” Harris said.
One of the several ways she has helped was making Harris aware of the benefits he could receive through social security.
Harris is a recipient of government disability funding. This funding is one of the factors to how he can manage on his own.
Lynn Dominguez, a technical expert for the Augusta, Ga., branch of the Social Security Administration said that the application process itself is the first step in managing on your own.
Dominguez said that after the initial application process comes across their office for anyone seeking federal or state help with medical disabilities it is then considered by Disability Determination Services for financial support.
“If we think you might be eligible for a program (based on disability) we have what is called Supplemental Security Income,” Dominguez said.
The SSI programs of each state weigh the medical diagnoses of patients, against work and financial history, and appropriate certain funds and health care, like Medicaid, for them to be able to live on their own.
For patients with similar conditions to Harris, there really is no nationally determined average of financial support.
“It depends on if you work or not and usually people with schizophrenia have a very spotty work history, so they are probably looking at SSI and if that is the case the most they pay is $674,” Dominguez said.
According to Dominguez, accepting disability is always left up to the individual petitioning for it, unless they are incoherent to do so.
The basic goal for SSA is getting the people what they rightly deserve. And in the case of disabled people SSA pays them as much as possible in order to stabilize and equip them financially to live independently.
“Even if you have someone on disability,” Dominguez said, “there are programs and we have incentives for them to try and go back to work so they can become independent end even come off of social security one day.”
Harris said he is grateful for the services, programs and help that he has received from people but still values independence.
“I want to be a man on my own, and have the feeling of making money,” Harris said. “But I do like the help.”
Harris loves the food of China Restaurant in the plaza. When he gets a chance, he will order takeout; combination No. 30; white rice and sesame chicken, an eggroll and, of course, the fortune cookie.
Harris eats on his own mostly because he is used to it.
The entrée usually remains in the bag, but Harris cannot resist nibbling on the eggroll and cracking open the fortune cookie. A trail of cabbage, crust and crumbs direct the course of Harris back to his apartment.
Harris secured the “Thank You” bag securely around his wrist and pulled out the fortune. Today it is relevant, but not surprising to Harris.
With a slow, stuttered, and unintentionally raspy voice Harris began to read the fortune just before swallowing.
Never underestimate the power of the human touch.
“Man, ain’t that the truth,” he said.
Walking and living independently have taught Harris to think less about how no one is around him and concentrate more on those that have helped him.
“I learned that the birds really do tweet tweet, man,” Harris said. “I learned that the sounds of the locusts living in the suburbs reminds someone how they grew up in life. And I’ll remember it even if I’m alone in life.”