Schizophrenic Story With Forked Stick

I know a schizophrenic (which I always thought had a t in it till now) being off his medication and smoking crack isn't terribly exciting almost 4 years after it happened. What happened in my encounter with the schizophrenic was. Now it's humorous, but then it wasn't. BTW I know several people who are bipolar and depressed and have NO bias against them. This isn't so much a story about the schizophrenic but my reaction to what he did. What brought this on? My sons girlfriend remarked she had been told she was pretty by a schizophrenic (she's a nursing student) so here's the story unless you are bored witless by now.

Background, we (husband, son, and I) were cleaning up after Hurricane Wilma in Ft. Lauderdale FL, November 2005 (we had trucks but wanted to try something different due to me being ill, stress, etc). Actually Son had gone back to Missouri for Thanksgiving and I was doing his job which was groundman, fancy word for hurricane debris picker upper. Debris is trash but it's mostly boards and shingles, some furniture and carpet and tree limbs, LOTS of tree limbs. The groundman would get it in a pile so the picker truck (see above, that's son in Hiller Park, Biloxi MS, I think)could pick it up and put it in the bed of the truck, then the truck would take it to these huge dumps and if it was mostly vegetation it was ground up for mulch or disposed of someway. We were picking up debris in a decent neighborhood of 20 year old ranch homes which probably cost way more than they were worth. There was a nice looking young black man (is that politically correct, btw I have a 1/4 black grandson so no racial remarks!) walking down the street, my husband was operating the picker truck, I was raking up branches and the FEMA monitor was there in her jeep. Her name was Patty. As the black man got closer I noticed that he had on Dickies work clothes and they were extremely well pressed and new and he was tall, he had nice cornrows in his hair, he was also crying like the world would end, bawling his eyes out, sobbing, it was horrible. I being Pollyanna asked him what was wrong when he got close enough and he gave me a look like there was nothing I could do and it was possibly my fault he was crying. I watched him out the corner of my eye but kept on raking and piling, he got out of my sight and a minute later all of a sudden Patty the monitor SHOT by the truck in her jeep looking like she'd been scared to death. She NEVER drove by the picker truck while it was operating because it was dangerous because of falling debris possibly coming out of the bucket. So I saw her up the street in her jeep making a phone call on her cell, I kept on raking. Here comes the black man back and this time he glared @ me, THEN when he got parallel to the passenger door on the picker truck he suddenly veered off course and opened the door and got in!!!

At this point being not to smart sometimes all I could think about was that the truck was running and my purse behind the seat and neither scenario was good. I could picture him getting the truck in gear and driving it off with my husband on the seat up high. (this is where I was not to smart, the stabilizing legs were down, I doubt the truck would move with them down). So what did I do? I grabbed a forked stick, I have no idea why forked but it seemed like a better weapon, more poking power? So I ran around to the drivers door of the truck and get in (now is the time to question MY sanity)! So I'm in this truck with this man who is still bawling to beat the band, he hasn't actually moved, he's just sitting in the passenger seat. So do I tell him to get out? NO, I ask him just exactly WHAT he thought he was doing, like I'm scolding a child, remember this guy is in his 20s, I have kids this old. He looks @ me and shakes his head and bawls some more, I ask him again, and get the same response, THEN I do shake the stick @ him (I'm sure he's terrified @ this point considering I'm like 5'4" armed with le forked stick and he's well over 6') and tell him he needs to get out of my truck NOW. He does reach for the door handle and SUDDENLY the door flies open, husband has seen what is going on but it took him awhile to get down the ladder from his perch on top and he has JERKED the door open. My husband wasn't terribly concerned with the reason for the mans abnormal behavior he just told him to get out now. I don't remember any other words but I'm sure there were more and they were colorful. My husband isn't but 6' but he's one of those guys with no neck and no matter if he gains weight he's still solid. I'm sure my husband was MUCH more imposing than a little woman with a forked stick trying to psychoanalyze the intruder. So the intruder got out of the truck very fast considering he was still bawling.

So here come Patty, seems the intruder had tried to get in her jeep passenger door and then pounded on the back door of it and scared her to death. She had called a FEMA boss and he got there like 5 seconds after the guy got out of the truck. We all exchanged stories and then went back to work and waited for the police because obviously this guy wasn't right in the head, the intruder had proceeded to walk down the block and sit on the curb and sob and sob, he glanced @ us once in awhile but he was 1/2 block away and the FEMA boss was there and the sobbing man was not looking like he wanted to talk to my husband anymore. It took an hour for the cops to get there and in the meantime we had discovered the sobbing intruders parents, they were very neat, mannerly, well dressed, late middle aged people who lived in a brown brick home down the street. Then they apologized for all the boy/man had done and said he was schizophrenic, had just been released from the hospital 4 days ago, quit taking his medication and had probably been smoking crack I believe for the entire 4 days! Those words coming calmly out of these peoples mouths were almost more of a shock than the boy getting in the truck.

I don't know what happened to the sobbing intruder, I know the police took him and he probably went back into the hospital eventually and hopefully back on his medication. I also know that sometimes I need to think before I act but adrenaline kicked in and I was MAD. I don't remember being afraid @ all except that the intruder would take off with my husband on top of the truck in the seat, since I had to pull the truck up sometimes with my husband sitting up there I was well aware of the highlines, trees, etc, that could drag him off (I have my CDL). After I thought about it all I was NOT smart @ all, actually I was an idiot and if I'd known that the guy had attacked Patty's jeep I probably wouldn't have asked him what his problem was.

So tell me what an idiot I was if you must. Has anyone had any weird experiences like this where something happened and adrenaline kicked in and they threw caution to the wind? So this is my forked stick sobbing man story.