The Lost Soul of La Guardia
William, a bright student from a small southern town, struggles with loneliness and isolation in the busy city of New York. His descent into psychological darkness leads to a tragic event that leaves him lost and abandoned by his family, facing an uncertain future.
William was born and raised in a town in the South. That town was so small that everyone knew each other. His parents were hardworking and of modest means. His father was a minister and his mother was a nurse’s aid in a hospital. I really do not know much about them. I do know they had a couple of children and that they aspired to have one or both to be able to attend college.
William was bright. He got good grades and actually succeeded in getting accepted to NYU. They were very proud of that fact. They sent him off to New York with their love and blessings. They were not able to accompany him since they could not take off from work. So William came to The Big Apple all alone. Coming from a laid-back small town in the South to the bustling New York City, it was a great shock to him. The sidewalks of New York were always crowded. There seemed to be more people on one sidewalk in Manhattan than there were in the whole of his town. People seemed to be in a hurry to get to their destinations. They did not take time to stop and chat. They were cold and brusque. William found his university and his fellow students lacking in warmth and friendliness. This was nothing like his friendly, sleepy town in the South. He was overwhelmed and struggled in an attempt to make friends. For some reason, he was not able to. Instead, he put his efforts into his studies and at first, he did well. He tried to tell his parents about how lonely he felt and how he was finding it difficult to make friends in this, to him, alien environment; but they encouraged him to persevere.
Months passed. He felt so alone. His only solace was his guitar and his jogging. In the mornings he would get up early and go for a jog. Weekends when other students were out partying, William would sit alone in his room strumming his guitar. No one approached him, no one spoke to him. He felt as if he was invisible. Loneliness became like an acid that was slowly eating at his soul. His grades deteriorated.
Very soon he dropped out of college. At first, he kept his rented furnished room. That did not last for long. He discovered La Guardia Airport. The airport became his home. He spent his days running through the airport talking to himself. He lost his sense of reality. Sometimes during that period, the parents realized that something was not right with him. They set up a modest account for him from which he received enough money for his food, clothing, and other basic necessities. I do not know why they did not take him back to his hometown and into the safe bosom of his family. All these years later, that still is an enigma to me. At any rate, William became one of the ghost-like figures that lived in the shadowy grayness of the corners and crevices of the airport. If he was hungry, he could buy food from the different concessions there. The temperature at the airport was kept at a comfortable temperature at all times, so there was no danger of extreme heat or cold. Life, for him, continued like this for a few years.
He did not interact with anyone. He became just another invisible lost lonely soul wandering about this heartless city. People passed by him and did not notice him. At first, he felt like saying, “Look at me! Speak to me! I am here. I exist! Acknowledge me!” But as time went by, he became lonelier and more dejected and sadder. Finally, it became the norm not to be seen, appreciated, or loved. He did not expect anything and did not receive anything; no companionship, no meaningful conversation, no laughter, no kindness, no human warmth…
One summer day, as he ran back and forth, back and forth from one end of the airport to the other, he felt thirsty. He stopped at a vending machine for a cold drink. As he was about to feed his coins into the slot, a man crept up behind him. “Give me your money,” he said gruffly. He stuck a knife lightly into his back. William at this point in his life was quite unaware of any sense of right or wrong. Since his habit was to jog constantly, and since he had enough money to eat, he was quite strong. It took William a few seconds to realize that there was someone trying to stop him from having a drink. He was quite thirsty. William grabbed the knife from the attacker and proceeded to stab him again and again until someone stopped him. The perpetrator was dead. William was now a murderer.
This incident pushed him even deeper into the psychological abyss in which he existed. He was in quite a bad place. He was not aware of his actions. He retreated further into that dark world within himself. He was not violent. He was passive and gentle. Mostly he was silent. When he spoke, it would have nothing to do about him or his emotions. Peter was hired to represent him. No matter how hard he tried, he could not draw William out. Psychologists examined him. They determined that he was incapable of defending himself and that he was mad. Peter appealed to his family to come to New York, in an attempt to draw William out of himself. They said they were too busy. Peter asked me to pretend to be part of his family. I accepted. Day after day I sat at his trial. Peter would vaguely wave his arm in my direction, as if to say, ‘his family.’
I learned to dislike the judge intensely. He was a self-righteous, pompous nonentity, in my opinion. All through the trial, William showed no interest in his fate. During most of the trial, when he did speak, he spoke of the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan, had not been president for quite a while. I even believe that he had passed away. Yet, the judge believed that William was acting. Peter fought hard for him and instead of allowing him to languish in prison, where he would have suffered more mental and physical abuse under the hands of the more violent inmates, he managed to have him committed to a psychological ward where he would have a chance to be cured and perhaps have a bit of peace. His family never came to visit him. To them, he seemed to have ceased to exist! I still feel outraged and puzzle at why they behaved this way. What kind of people were they to abandon their son like that? Why?
His guitar and books were given to Peter when William was arrested. Peter carefully packed them and placed them in the basement of his office on the chance that one day William may get well and be freed. Then Peter would return his possessions to him. That did not happen.
A few years after that trial, the judge retired. They held a retirement dinner in his honor. Peter asked me if I would like to go. “Not likely,” I answered.
I wonder if William ever got out of that institution. I would like to think so and that he is living a normal life in a comfortable home, with a good wife and a loving family; but then we are talking of life and not a ‘happily ever after’ fairytale…
This story is based on one of Peter’s cases.