Living With the Little Devil Man

By Lina Lisetta

Sterling was another soul lost to addiction. He was a schizophrenic plagued by the little devil man. Heroin saved him from that reality so many times. Most people aren’t plagued by creatures, but what are they plagued by? What reality are they escaping? Sterling’s story gives us some of the answers we seek. One thing is for certain, his story teaches us the importance of human connection and how to love. Not to love the addiction, but to love the person behind the addiction. It teaches us to the importance of helping others through dark times without judgment. This emotionally riveting story shows how good can triumph over evil in ways we never can anticipate. Expect to both cry and laugh.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers USA
• Release date: Sep 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370261130

Lina Lisetta

Lina Lisetta has her doctorate in Child and Family Studies from the University of Massachusetts. She works at a small New England college where she teaches research methods, but will be the first to tell you that real life experiences build our deepest knowledge. Lina is passionate about her project of filming individuals in recovery from addiction, to spread the word that there is light after the darkness. Lina resides with her husband of 34 years and her four dogs. Her favorite pastime is playing in the rain with her grandchildren.

Book preview

Was Sterling just another soul lost to heroin addiction, or can his story give us some answers as to why so many people succumb? Sterling was plagued by the little devil man, and heroin saved him from that reality so many times. Most people aren’t plagued by creatures, but what are they plagued by? What reality are they escaping? What misfortune did heroin save them from?

We all want to escape from something. Unfortunately, heroin is too close at hand for far too many. The momentary escape, always leaving them with the need for more, every time. Perhaps, Sterling’s story will give us some of the answers we seek. One thing is for certain, his story tells us how to love better. Not to love the addiction, but to love the person behind the addiction.

At first, I didn’t want to write this book, but then I remembered all the times Sterling asked me to write his story. He would say, Johnny Depp will play me in the movie. I’m going to be a millionaire. I dedicate this book not only to Sterling, but to all his brothers and sisters out there who suffer from addiction. In the end, he wasn’t able to donate his organs, but today he gives you his heart. Send him back yours and let him be that millionaire.

Lina Lisetta has her doctorate in Child and Family Studies from the University of Massachusetts. She works at a small New England college where she teaches research methods, but will be the first to tell you that real life experiences build our deepest knowledge. Lina is passionate about her project of filming individuals in recovery from addiction, to spread the word that there is light after the darkness. Lina resides with her husband of 34 years and her four dogs. Her favorite pastime is playing in the rain with her grandchildren.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to those who have suffered from addiction, the afflicted and their loved ones. I wish you peace and recovery.

Lina Lisetta

Living with the Little Devil Man

Copyright © Lina Lisetta (2018)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Any resemblance to actual persons, dead or alive, or actual events is purely coincidental. Names of characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.

Ordering Information:

Quantity sales: special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publishers cataloging in publishing data

Lisetta Lina

Living with the Little Devil Man

ISBN 9781641822718 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781641822701 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781641822695 (E-Book)

The main category of the book — Young Adult Nonfiction / Biography & Autobiography / Women

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2018)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd ™

40 Wall Street, 28th Floor

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

[phone]

Acknowledgments

I wish to acknowledge all my spiritual guides, those on earth and those in heaven.

You have brought me to this point and have allowed me to be who I am. A very special thanks to my children, for opening their hearts to an injured soul. Without him, life would lack some of its meaning.

He came to me when he was already 19 years of age. I fell in love and made him my son. I told him I adopted him and he was mine. He was the greatest thing I ever lost. I wasn’t able to then, but today I give him his dream.

Part I

Prologue

Sterling was tossing and turning again. It started like it usually did, with him remembering the drowning. He relived it each time. It just kept coming back to him and wouldn’t stop once it began…

It all started off being such a happy day. He and his family were staying at a motel, on their way back to Grandma Betsie’s house. Dad was finally going to be with them for a while, instead of putting on his blue uniform and going away.

The motel was special. It had a pool, and Sterling couldn’t wait to go in the pool. He remembered that it was the way the water seemed to sparkle, to shimmer, that called to him. What 5-year-old wouldn’t be tempted? He wanted to know what the crisp, clean sparkle of water felt like around his body. No one was watching him as usual. His mom and dad were even being nice to each other. His baby brother slept in the lounge chair next to his mom. When he first looked back, his mom and dad started kissing. He kept looking back and noticed that they were kissing funny, like he had never seen before. Dad was holding Mom’s head, like he had to keep her from moving away, but Mom kept pushing toward Dad, trying to get even closer. This time, he knew they weren’t mad at each other. Things were good. They were going to be even better when he got in that water.

Sterling had watched a couple of ladies going into the pool and enjoying a swim. He was tougher than those ladies. He wasn’t going to walk down the stairs like those scaredy-cat ladies did, but he was going to float around the water just like they did. If those scaredy-cat ladies could do it, so could he. He saw the ladies climb up a ladder on the other side of the pool when they got out. He was going to climb down that ladder. He liked to climb and he climbed his dad’s ladder before, so he knew it was easy. The scaredy-cat ladies had gone to sit in their chairs, and he could have the water all to himself. He climbed down that ladder, and he was in bliss.

The water felt so good, swirling all around his body. He swished his arms around himself to make the water move. As the water moved, it moved him away from the ladder. He was floating like the ladies! He didn’t want to call out to his mom and dad. They might make him get out. They might get mad at him again, because he was bothering them when they were kissing.

Suddenly, he got scared. He didn’t know what went wrong, the swishing wasn’t working the same. His head kept going under water. He would swish and be floating, and then the water would cover his head for longer and longer. He could only breathe when his head wasn’t covered with water. How did the scaredy-cat ladies breathe when they went underwater? He saw them do it.

How hard could it be? he wondered. He tried opening his mouth underwater to breathe, and it was like he was choking. Suddenly, it felt as if the water tricked him. It was no longer a beautiful sparkling thing, but something ugly and dark. It kept swirling around his head, and he couldn’t see the sun anymore. He couldn’t see his mom and dad kissing anymore.

It hurt! The water was hurting him. His chest felt like it was going to explode, like the firecrackers his dad lit on the Fourth of July. Sterling wanted to light the firecrackers too, but his dad said it was dangerous. Now he knew how dangerous it was. It felt like the firecracker was going off in his body. His head hurt too. It was like someone was squeezing his head. He just wanted it to go away. It seemed to go on forever, and then it just stopped.

At first, he thought he was floating on top of the water again. His whole body was floating, but there was no water. He was floating in air. Air that was so soft, it seemed to wrap around his body, not just behind him, but all around. He couldn’t remember anything feeling this good. He wanted it to stay like this forever. But it didn’t.

The next thing he knew someone was banging on his back, hurting him. He didn’t want the hurt. He fought it and kept trying to return to the soft air, but he couldn’t reach it anymore. He felt something pouring out of him. It hurt when it came out of him. He couldn’t stop that either. He realized he was choking on water again, but this time it was leaving his body and he could breathe. He opened his eyes and saw his dad. Dad was mad again, like he usually was. It was Dad who was banging on his back, hurting him.

His dad didn’t say a word, but looked like he had the firecracker in him now and was going to blow up. Sterling wondered if the firecracker inside his dad hurt as much as it hurt him. Sterling then saw his mom holding his baby brother and looking down on him, with her hand over her mouth. She looked scared, really scared. Sterling wondered if the ugly water scared her too. Dad looked at Mom and said, He’ll be fine. Mom handed Dad his baby brother, stepped over to him, and lifted him up. Mom never lifted him up. Sterling wondered what she was going to do with him. He didn’t want to go back in the water. She held him, pulled him close, and whispered in his ear, Look what you’ve done now. She put Sterling down, took his baby brother back from Dad, and walked away.

Sterling knew then that everything was going to be alright. Life was back to normal. Mom and Dad were mad at him. Mom put him down and he still felt kind of funny. He looked over to the water, and there was some little red thing next to the water. At first, it was a red blur, but he blinked his eyes three times and it became clearer each time. It was a little devil man, like the one his Grandma Betsie would point out in her bible, but smaller.

Grandma Betsie would point to the devil and say, When people are bad, the devil takes them. This little devil man had seemed like a trickster to Sterling. First, he had a smile on his face, and then his face changed. The little devil man looked right at Sterling with an evil sneer. Sterling stood still and heard him say, I didn’t get you this time.

Sterling was pointing at the little devil man with a look of horror on his face. He looked up to tell his dad, but everyone was already gone. There was no one there for him. Somehow, the scaredy-cat ladies seemed to have faded in the background. He felt all alone.

Just then, his mom stuck her head out of the motel room and called, Come on, Sterling, hurry up. Sterling looked back one more time, and the little devil man seemed to say, You’re all alone, left behind. Suddenly, Sterling heard a pop, and the little devil man disappeared. Sterling ran. It was never hard to run before, but today he had to try really hard. His dad opened the door to their motel room and said with frustration, Come on already.

Sterling had to make it there before his dad closed the door. Sterling ran past the scaredy-cat ladies, who looked like they were crying. Why would they cry? Did they see the little devil man too? Sterling made it to the door and his dad held it open. Sterling climbed on the bed and went to sleep, thinking that next time he was going to go down the stairs like the scaredy-cat ladies. That’s what he must have done wrong! Next time, he’d show that little devil man!

Sterling fell asleep that day thinking of the ugly little devil man. And every time he remembered the drowning, the nightmares would start, and then the little devil man would come. He wished he could stop remembering. It was in these nightmares that the little devil man would torment him. Back then, it always started by the pool.

The little devil man would begin by looking at Sterling with this evil sneer on his face, and say, You’re so stupid, you let the ugly water get you. You didn’t even know how to stay with the beautiful water. You’re stupid, stupid, stupid. Sterling would begin to toss and turn in his half sleep and cry back, I’m not stupid.

Sterling’s response excited the little devil man. He didn’t like to give up until he made Sterling feel really bad. The little devil man would bring his face very close to Sterling’s, until it was all Sterling saw; and would start to rant and rave, about how he was going to chase him for the rest of his life and get him, because he couldn’t do anything right.

Sterling would start to shake and ask the little devil man to leave him alone. Of course, he wouldn’t listen. Sterling knew he didn’t do a lot of things right, his mom and dad always told him. He didn’t need the little devil man to tell him too. Sterling knew his dad was strong, but if he went to him to help him fight off the little devil man, his dad would say what he always said, Stop being an idiot, Sterling. It’s just a bad dream. Go back to bed.

When he went back to bed the little devil man would say, See, I told you. Sometimes the little devil man would be happy with that, but as the little devil man got bolder, he would sometimes bring larger demons that were even worse than the little devil man himself. Or sometimes he brought just shadows that wouldn’t form, but would darkly torment Sterling into a state of fear. The little devil man was always a trickster though, pretending to be Sterling’s friend at first, by smiling and dancing. Sometimes he even promised not to be mean anymore, but it was always a lie.

Eventually, the little devil man didn’t even need the drowning memory to come. Sterling never knew when he would come, and if he would bring the others. Sterling decided there was only one thing he could do. He had to let it happen. Whenever the little devil man decided to come, he let him tear him apart from inside out. This left him so petrified, that after hours of turmoil, he would eventually pass into an exhausted deep sleep, where there were no thoughts, sounds, or feelings.

The little devil man returned to Sterling throughout the rest of his life. There were days when Sterling would say he wasn’t afraid of the stupid little devil man and days when he would admit he was terrified. Sterling had no choice but to let him come, until he was old enough to find something that kept him at bay, at least for a short while.

Twenty Years Later

It was one of those times, you know, when you go running out of the shower to grab the phone, just to miss the call. For some reason, I felt I just had to answer it. Dripping wet, I picked up the phone, calling out, Hello, Hello. No one was there. I had missed the call. Having a deep sense that it was an important call, I switched on the caller ID and stared at the words Central City Hospital. I stood there for a moment, confused, and asked myself why the hospital would be calling me.

Then it hit me. This could only be about Sterling. This may seem odd, but the first time I met Sterling when he was 19, I knew he was my son. Somehow, he belonged to me and I had to take care of him. Last night, Sterling left my house to sleep at the house where he was renting a room, just ten minutes from my home. I thought to myself, Oh no, maybe he was seeing things again. By the time he left my house the night before, he was beginning to act very odd.

At that moment, I couldn’t help but ask myself, when is he going to admit that his schizophrenia is out of control? He needed to realize that alcohol, pot, and Xanax bought on the street were not working for him. I brought myself back to the present and hit call back on the caller ID. I got a message that the phone number was only for outgoing calls. I started to get nervous. I ran up the stairs to my computer desk and searched for the hospital’s main number. I finally found it after misspelling the name a few times.

I realized that I needed to calm down. I took a deep breath. I called the hospital and asked if they had a patient named Sterling. The woman who answered asked who was calling. I told her, My name is Lina Lisetta.

She seemed to know something I didn’t and told me, Yes, he’s here in the emergency room. She tried to connect me, but I spoke with two other people before I was connected to the emergency room. After one too many just a moment please, they actually put Sterling on the phone. I sighed with relief and thought to myself, Well, at least he’s not dead.

Once Sterling got on the phone, I asked him how he was and he told me he was fine, just fine. But I noted he didn’t respond with his usual, F-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c. He said he drank too much the night before, and fell and hit his head in his driveway. He told me he was okay and that they