While
Mark was unique he was not living in a vacuum and his family, while
maybe not so intense, were just as idiosyncratic. They always had
some weird scheme and theory about anything they encountered. They
were an example of what I have found with many people of less than
average intelligence in that they attributed grand and expansive persecutory motives to even the smallest
misfortune. If they were disciplined at work it was not for the
simple fact of their misbehavior it was always that everyone at that
job hated them and the boss was always looking for any little reason
to fire them, They believed that the government from the city on up
was taking personal discriminatory interest in their family and that
was just about all I remember them talking about, The teachers and
principles at the schools were in on it too giving out bad grades
because they hated those kids so badly. The parents had so deeply
ingrained this world into their children that the kids and the
parents we just as suspicious of each other's motives. They we
constantly formulating exotic plans to safeguard they meager
possessions from external defilement and theft but just as much time
was spent defending against internal threats. One of the most bizarre
safeguards I remember was that they had added a hasp to both doors of
their fridge and there was a keyed padlock on each. They told me it
was to keep the kids from eating each others personal food and to
keep all of the kids from eating in between meals. Every time I was
over for dinner they would unlock the fridge and everyone who wanted
one could have one 8oz. glass of milk and what ever was for dinner.
After dinner was cleaned up the locks went back on the fridge until
the morning meal. The only other time I have seen a lock on the
fridge like that was at my maternal grandmother's house a few months
before she was forcibly removed from the home by adult protective
services because he paranoid schizophrenia had made her a danger to
herself. I guess we live in a society that thinks that if you put a
lock on your fridge you are some sort of weirdo, and they are right.
