The Trip - Part 2

My father visited Alex in Taipei a few times, and on one occasion he decided he would stay for three months. He always talks about how he hates it in New York and refers to it in our conversations as "hell on Earth". My father lives rent free in an apartment his mother owns, drives a car paid for by his family, and receives $1,500 per month from the State government for disability (due to his diagnosed mental illness - more on that diagnosis later). I am not sure if he is responsible for utilities, but even if he is, most of his income is disposable.

Let's imagine he pays $200 per month in utilities and $200 per month for other things, such as Internet and cell phone. Since he doesn't cook and only eats out, and by his omission predominantly eats at fast-food restaurants, let's imagine he spends $500 per month on food. This leaves him $600 per month of disposable income to do with as he pleases without any other responsibilities. And remember - he doesn't work and hasn't worked (in fact he's actively tried to avoid working, hence the disability) since he left jail almost 20 years ago.

This is more than most people have, yet from my father's point of view he lives in a situation comparable to living in hell.

Because he hates it so much in New York he always talks about leaving. I've asked him numerous times why he doesn't try to live in another state. Maybe he'd like Hawaii, Florida, or California better (he always complains about the cold) and I told him he could get a job, even a low paying one. If he could supplement his income with even $1,000 per month he could probably live in a lot of different places.

Even working for $8 per hour, which millions of people do, he could add an extra $1,280 per month to his income. Even if he has to pay rent (his car would remain free), with $2,880 per month he should be able to live decently. But he likes to live in nice places, and the condo he lives in is nice, and since the freebies would run out if he left New York and he has no desire to work he is stuck. From his perspectice none of this is his fault: nobody will hire an ex-con, he has no money, he has no retirement or savings, and in general the world is against him.

Instead of permanently moving somewhere he claimed that he would like to live three months at a time somewhere close to either me or Alex. I lived in South Korea for almost 20 years and my father didn't visit me once. To his credit he tried twice but canceled both trips due to his anxieties and imagined fears (such as of being arrested on arrival because he had served jail time in the US). Many parts of South Korea are also not as English-friendly as Taipei, so it would have been very hard for my father to navigate there. Instead of visiting me he frequently visited Alex in Taipei.

Another reason I believe he did this was that he knew Alex was in a better financial position than I was and he believed Alex would pay for more things for him.

On one trip to visit Alex, my father made the decision to stay there for three months. He told Alex his budget and Alex helped find him a small apartment to rent. My father arrived and Alex put him up in a decent hotel for the first few days. When it came time to move to the place Alex found, he gathered his things and moved with Alex to the rented apartment. It was already paid for for three months and the fee was non-refundable.

As soon as they walked in the door and my father looked around he told Alex it was worse than skid row, worse than the dirtiest places he has seen in Africa, worse than the most dangerous ghetto in New York, and that he couldn't stay there. He started to freak out and go into one of his familiar psychiatric breakdowns. Alex told my father that he could not pay for a nicer place for him for three months, but he could get him a nice hotel for another 10 days and then my father could go home. This is what my father decided to do, and his attempted three month stay in Taipei lasted in total about three weeks.

Now maybe you can see why the thought occurred to me: the reason my father was having one of his apparent psychic breakdowns was not because he was suicidal, but simply because he didn't like the hotel in Slovakia. Perhaps he hoped I would take pity on him and let him stay with me or I would get him a nicer hotel in Vienna. Not even considering the fact that my 50 square meter apartment I shared with my wife was too small for two people, it would have been incredibly stressful to have him there and my wife would have probably thrown us both out after a day or two (I wouldn't blame her).

Staying with me was out of the question. I also am not a millionairre. I worked as a consultant for a non-profit organization and get paid a very average salary and receive no benefits as a consultant (no vacation days, no medical insurance, no sick days, no maternity or paternity leave, and not even a parking spot; all of these were my responsibility). My father perhaps envisions I was a high ranking official in my organization with all the perks, but that wasn't me. Paying for a different hotel for three weeks was also out of the question.

That left leaving him in his raving state in his hotel room - of course, with a car, enough money for food and public transportation if needed - or heeding his request to go to a psychiatric hospital. I thought about what to do and tried to reason with him. As I talked with him I could see the situation was quickly turning into one of the all-night sessions I remember so well as a child.

"Look, I know you are feeling upset, but why don't we just try and stay calm. You are probably just tired, hungry, and fighting jet lag. Let's go into Vienna, have a nice dinner together, and see how you feel then."

"I don't care about dinner!" he yelled.

"I am going to kill myself unless I go to a psychiatric hospital now. There's nothing you can do. I need to go to the hospital."

"Okay, how about you just try to get some sleep," I asked.

"I really think you just need to rest and get some sleep. You will probably feel a lot better in the morning after a good nights sleep."

"If I stay here, I am going to kill myself!"

Nothing I said or proposed would work. He always came back with the threat of suicide and that he needed to go to a hospital. We went back and forth like this for about an hour. I realized that nothing I said would work unless I perhaps proposed that he stay at my place or that I get him a better hotel. I didn't want to risk asking either because I thought there was a good chance he would say yes to one of them.

Knowing my wife, taking him to my place wasn't an option anyway in the end. I could never do that to her.

Knowing Vienna, even bad hotels are expensive and a place that just barely met my father's standards would be a minimum of $130 per night. I didn't want to risk him saying yes and me being out of a bunch of money that I needed with a baby on the way.

I decided I would give him what he asked for. It was the first time in my life I put in "psychiatric hospital" in the search field of the map app on my smartphone.