Behind the Red Brick Walls

Here I was, away from what I knew and in a whole new world.  A world that didn’t know me and I didn’t know it.  This world would be the beginning of the middle for me and lead me to where I am now.

Taking a step back and understanding that at this point in my journey my young mind had begun to protect it’s self and it would not be until my teen years that I truly dealt with the dark side and remembered all that had happened in my life through this point.  Some memories are as clear as day while others have been pieced together over time.  Even memories and information that will ensue in this chapter I did not fully have until just recently after reading through my medical files and journals.

With my mother gone and on the run I had myself and the rotating nursing staff to lean on.  Being such I looked around for entertainment and I quickly became a pool shark and the king of the “Asteroids Game”. My life was full of doctors poking at me, counselors picking my brain and funny little tasks.  Flash cards and tests were a normality for me and for the next 9 years I would deal with stereotypes and general clinical terminology.  I was fast becoming a “part of the system”.  A system that would fail me countless times, but would not destroy me.

I spent months and months in what is now a distant memory for the state of Utah, the Red Brick Primary Children’s Hospital.  A distant memory as it has since been plowed down and rebuilt.  This building holds a special place in my heart and many of my true childhood memories are hosted here. I attended school, learned arts and crafts here as well as found hobbies that remain with me to this day.  Yes it was a hospital and I was not understood, but it was my home.

Being that I was abandoned at the Red Brick, not much was known about me minus the information that was placed on my ‘check in’ form.  “Name Wesley Chapman, Social xxx-xxx-xxx, date of birth 11-14-1980, Reason for treatment, “temper-tantrums.”  I was not a quiet child nor was I a happy child.  Acting out was an art for me.  Fits where just a part of my character and destruction was my middle name.  It was quickly stated that I was a ‘troubled’ child and a “drug baby”. Medications started to pour into my small body like water.  A little of this for that and a little of that for this.  I remember them as candies. Candies that somedays made me feel funny and somedays made my tummy hurt.

Not all these medications worked nor did they solve any true issues.  In fact in many cases it just made it plain worse.  If you have not determined by now, this hospital was not an ER nor was it a medical care unit.  I remember as if it was yesterday, my home, my room and my floor.  If I close my eyes I can now draw the room to perfection.  Two beds with a small divider between them. Tall wooden closets on each side of the room.  Two metal framed wire windows and dark corners that not even the bright lifeless florescent bulbs could vanquish.  Each morning I would wake up with my blue cotton blanket wrapped around my legs and my woven cotton pillow somewhere traveling on the icy tile floor.  My light wood dresser with it’s handleless drawers that only little hands could effectively open.  My door was centered with a small 12 x 12 inch window that no small child could see out of and it’s cold silver handle mocking me each morning.

Across from my room was the craft room.  A retreat from the poks and picking that would fill my childhood.  Down the hall from that was the ‘front desk’.  Past the front desk was a long hall that doctors and other staff would use as offices.  Next to the front desk was a small waiting room with a big television hanging from the wall.  Directly across from this was the pool table and my trusted Asteroids Game. Then there was the white room.  A room with fluffy walls and no windows.  A room that my brilliant temper spats would land me in from time to time. This was my home.

The front desk was the center of my home and was the heart beat of my days.  It was either the place of joy or terrifying new discoveries.  You see this is where you were picked up, taken to play, given medication, bad news or “checked out” by the ‘pokers’ and ‘pickers’.  My greatest memories of the front desk though are silver round quarters!

Quarters for me were like gold for us now! “I got a quarter, now I can DO ANYTHING!”.  For each good thing we did we got quarters!  Now this was heaven!  You could get so much with just a simple quarter! You could play pool, play Asteroids, buy candy OR you could save your quarters for field trips!  Field trips to the 49th Street Galleria the coolest place ever!  This was my heaven.

This is the point of my life that I started to learn that life is what you make it, not what you are given. The Red Brick field trips soon became my outlet, my time, my place to be a child and I found an outlet that has remained with me to this day.  Rollerskating.  The 49th Street Galleria had the biggest roller-rink any child had ever seen.  It was endless.  Field trips would last for 2 hours and other children would spend 20 minutes in the roller-rink and 30 in the arcades and spread their time out among other activities.  Me, I would spend all my time going in circles!  I was determined to conquer the rink. Determined to prove that I could skate for hours without ever falling and never losing a race.  Now my Chapman blood is boiling, I would not fall nor lose at all costs.  While I remember this as the way it was, I am sure I fell once and lost one or two closely heated races.

Practice for me was a challenge.  I found that going in circles was not enough, so I took up spinning while going in circles, jumping over those that fell and other obstacles I could place on the rink.  It turns out that that rink would become a life long safe haven for me and would prove to be the building blocks for my life.  Life would seem to circle around me and I would find ways to spin and jump around in it. To this day roller skating is a passion.  I have replaced the four wheel skates with rollerblades and while I can’t do all that I once could, I will say I am still hard to beat in a race!

My childhood had all but seemed to begin, but I was missing something.  Something big.  A Family.  A mom, a dad, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles and all the joys and pains that come with family.  I was bounced from foster home to foster home.  Some of the homes were not much better then my Step Father and Mother’s home.  I have very little memories of these ‘trips’ save a few that are just as dark as those before.  My assigned foster families were slim pickings for the system based on my age and ‘labels’. I was too much to handle, I was too much a problem with no explanation.  I was given stereotype after stereotype and thus was a plague for any healthy and happy family to risk.  Friend after friend moved on, roommate after roommate came through that mocking door, but I always seemed to stay, I seemed to be trapped.

Would I ever leave this place?  Would I find that match, that family that loved me?  Would I be cured from these stereotypes?  What was wrong with me?  This was an immense load for a child to handle and in so much my actions became inflamed.  My temper grew deeper and darker.  Files that I have read state that I was the true “Problem Child”.  I was doomed and would not come through this.  I was officially tagged as, “hopeless”.  I do not blame those that tagged me as they did not know the past, they did not know the root.  They just saw a child that was emotionally unsound and would not respond to love as love for me was unrecognized.  More medications was the cure from doctors and the like.  “Numb him,” was the call.  Thus my memories of this time become spotty and I have poured over my medical records and journals to piece this time of my life together. Hopeless was not okay with my small mind and I continued to fight.  I continued to skate.  As it turns out my hopelessness was not accepted by two other young men.  Young men that shaped my childhood and I will forever be indebted to.

Little did I know that God had a plan and He had started it from my first days I was inside the Red Brick Walls. His plan would be my salvation and my way to a family, friends and life. From my first days in the Red Brick Walls I was talked to by these funny boys that wore black suits, white shirts, dark ties and silly little name tags.  They always came and talked to me about being a Child of God and read funny stories to me about Jesus, fish and bread.  Told me that miracles do happen and can happen to everyone.  All things that I wanted to believe, but didn’t understand. I always felt peace when they would come and it was a rare time that I would sit and just listen.  They called themselves Elders from the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or Mormon Missionaries.

I have been blessed with one or two talents in life and one is the gift of thought.  This gift has promoted me to educate myself and learn things that can not be taught, but must be experienced. The Elders words made my young mind think.  While I remember little details of my talks I do vividly remember the feeling. I was at peace, I was happy. The Elders taught me how to pray, a gift that has guided me through life on numerous occasions.  Pray I did and often.  Their message was not just to pray, but also informed me that my prayers are heard and answered.  Not always the way you think they should be, but always the way God needs it to be.  My testimony of prayer and our Father in Heaven would be my greatest ally in enduring life and what was to come in my battle to the middle.

I never knew the real names of these young men nor all they did, but I do know they did two things for me that changed my life forever.  They gave a child hope and they gave me my Grandmother.  You see the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) has a vast record system called, The Genealogy Center and these Elders searched out and found my Mother’s mother who lived in the Utah area.

God had a plan, a plan I could have never understood or known about.  While I was becoming a product of the system I had a fighter building a new home and breaking down wall after wall to get to me.  I would soon be free from the Red Brick Walls and the cold tile floors.  I would soon have SuperMan pillows and Ninja dolls.  I would soon have my first Christmas memory, my first birthday candles and my very own, warm, room.

While I was inside the walls of the system, these Elders where searching and had found my Grandmother to bring me home.  Home, a word that had till now only meant away from him, would soon mean so much more.