No Worldly Options Except Suicide or Schizophrenia: But God Has His Own Plans

By Jay Thomas Willis

This is a novel about two boys who grew up in a rural area of East Texas. Neither of them had telephone, gas, or plumbing until later in life. They did get electricity by the time they entered first grade. Their early education was designed to poorly develop them. In addition, they both had schizophrenia as a strong genetic factor in their family’s history. You might say they both started from behind the eight ball. They both grew up with, according to their background, limited potential They moved beyond this potential to become moderately successful. The novel follows them from childhood through adulthood. It demonstrates that two boys who probably had no options except suicide or schizophrenia did do as well as anyone could be expected. God truly has His own plans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669805915

Jay Thomas Willis

Jay Thomas Willis graduated from Stephen F. Austin State University with a B.S. degree in sociology. He also graduated from Texas Southern University with a M.Ed. in counseling, in addition to receiving a MSW in social work from the University of Houston. Willis has held numerous social work positions.

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Copyright © 2022 by Jay Thomas Willis.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 01/11/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

838869

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Backwoods Boy #1 (Jimmy)

2. Backwoods Boy # 2 (Jason)

3. Jason’s Beginning

4. Moving On

5. Another Beginning

6. Marriage On the Decline

7. More Destruction

8. The Finale

About The Author

NO WORLDLY OPTIONS EXCEPT

SUICIDE OR SCHIZOPHRENIA:

But God Has His Own Plans

ALSO BY JAY THOMAS WILLIS

Nonfiction

A Penny for Your Thoughts: Insights, Perceptions, and Reflections on the African American Condition

Implications for Effective Psychotherapy with African Americans

Freeing the African-American’s Mind

God or Barbarian: The Myth of a Messiah Who Will Return to Liberate Us

Finding Your Own African-Centered Rhythm

When the Village Idiot Get Started

Nowhere to Run or Hide

Why Black Americans Behave as They Do: The Conditioning Process from Generation to Generation

God, or Balance in the Universe

Over the Celestial Wireless

Paranoid but not Stupid

Nothing but a Man

Things I Never Said

Word to the Wise

Born to be Destroyed: How My Upbringing Almost Destroyed Me

Nobody but You and Me: God and Our Existence in the Universe

Got My Own Song to Sing: Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome in My family

Random Thoughts on My Reality

A Word to My Son: A Celebration

Messed-Up Kid

Off-the-Top Treasures

Going with the Flow

Man’s Basic Purpose

God Told Me to Tell You

My Life and Times: Some Personal Essays

Life’s Lessons: Some Passing Thoughts

Fiction

You Can’t Get There from Here

Where the Pig Trail Meets the Dirt Road

The Devil in Angelica

As Soon as the Weather Breaks

The Cotton is High

Hard Luck

Educated Misunderstanding

Dream On: Persistent Themes in My Dreams

Longing for Home and Other Short Stories

Poetry

Reflections on My Life: You’re Gonna Carry That Weight a Long Time

It’s a Good Day to Die: Some Personal Poetry About the Ups and Downs in My Life

DEDICATION

To Jason

It’s our imagination that makes life toxic for us.

—Jay Thomas Willis

"Every individual is in a situation or condition

that he or she doesn’t want to be in."

—Jay Thomas Willis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To all those who gave the author a certain amount of dignity, respect, and concern, even though he was just a backwoods’ country boy who didn’t pay particular attention to his hygiene.

Thanks to the author’s mother, Sadie Willis, for providing the environment which helped him to develop into a man. It wasn’t as bad as he thought for so many years. It is true that what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. His environment was rich with its own kind of motivation. He thought plowing a mule from sunup to sunset was a lifetime prison sentence. But it provided what he needed to make him persevere, be consistent, and determined.

Thanks to the author’s father, Johnnie Willis, for doing what he had to do. He wasn’t there all the time, but when he was, he was decent, kind, and generous. He provided a good image of a hardworking, sensitive, and dedicated man.

Thanks to the author’s sisters and brothers just for being themselves. As the old cliché goes, thanks, I needed that.

Thanks to the author’s relatives for keeping their distance and allowing him to become an independent young man.

The author always says that he had three saviors: Social Security, his brother Wade, and his wife and sons. They all know what they did for him.

Thanks to all those anonymous individuals who helped him without him having any knowledge they were doing so, there are always some of these individuals.

Thanks to the Balance in the Universe. This is what the author refers to as the one and only Almighty God.

INTRODUCTION

This novel describes the life of two backwoods’ individuals who grew up in a small town in East Texas in a rural area at the end of dirt roads. They grew up together and had a lot in common. They both were attracted to each other’s sister. They lived in the same neighborhood, went to the same school; roamed the same hills, valleys, trails; and had many of the same experiences. Jimmy usually had enough to eat because they grew their own food. There were ten children in Jason’s family, and his family didn’t put a seed in the ground or attempt to raise a single animal for the slaughter. When they got older, they traveled together, went to the same college, joined the Navy, went to the same graduate school. After graduate school they both got married and moved to a South Suburb of Chicago. They even both had schizophrenia as a genetic factor in their family background.

The story follows each of them through their early years, high school, college, military, graduate school, and their lives in a South Suburb of Chicago. They both had similar beginnings but didn’t end the same.

They both lived in Hallsville, Texas (1,295), 20 miles south of the city limits. So, they were 30 miles from Longview (60,000), 145 miles from Dallas (1,000,000), 20 miles from Marshall (45,000), 50 miles from Shreveport (200,000), 10 miles from Jefferson (3,000), seven miles from Harleton (1,000), 60 miles from Tyler (60,000), and 40 miles from Kilgore (40,000). Houston was 300 miles south (1,000,000). At a young age they had to cover a lot of miles to get anyplace. They lived in an extremely rural area. They were relatively isolated for the most part. So, they mostly fished, hunted, and roamed the hills. And could only dream about getting out of East Texas. They didn’t do much visiting of other people. Jason stuttered and was uncomfortable around a lot of people.

In high school, Jimmy’s brother bought him a car. Jimmy usually provided transportation to school activities and wherever else they wanted to go. Jimmy tried to inculcate his values in Jason. He was like an older brother to Jason. Jimmy thought his efforts at trying to inculcate his values in Jason were wasted, until he could later see his values taking hold in Jason. At first Jason was slow to accept Jimmy’s values.

They would walk wherever they wanted to go or caught a ride with someone. It was a blessing when Jimmy’s brother bought him the car, and later his father bought a truck after he retired and came home from the Gulf Coast. Jason would help Jimmy and his father to gather produce from the fields and deliver them to the market. Jason’s family consisted of seven boys and three girls. Like in Jimmy’s family, most of them had left home for larger cities. Jason was also the youngest in his family. Jason was happy to help Jimmy, have something to do with his time, and make some money.

They both lived in rusty-tin-roof shacks. They didn’t have electricity, gas, or indoor plumbing for a long time. Jason’s family finally got gas, telephone, and indoor plumbing. The family got electricity about the same time as Jimmy’s family did. They didn’t get electricity until the roads were constructed on Jimmy’s seventh birthday. Jimmy’s family got butane when he was a freshman in high school; a telephone when he was a junior in college; and indoor plumbing after he had been in Chicago for several years. Jimmy can only assume that the timeline for these things were the same as what they were for his family. Usually when such things were made available in the community, everyone in the community picked up on the innovation

They were as thick as thieves in high school, college, and later in a South Suburb of Chicago, after college they both moved to Chicago. They did a lot of associating in Chicago. Jimmy had a wife and two children, and Jason had the same. Neither of them knew a lot of people in Chicago and were careful about making friends. Usually, they spent time together when they weren’t with their families.

Jason was a social worker with the Department of Children and Family services. As he got older, he gave up his social work position for his pursuit of writing. He had obtained a Masters’ degree in social work, just as Jimmy had in graduate school. Jimmy did social work