Waiting for the Trial

1985

Waiting for the Trial is a collection of photographs made during the three weeks my mother, my brother Lind, and I were cooped up in a motel in the Arkansas Delta, waiting for Lind’s court date. At my mother’s suggestion, I came home from California to be with my family. 

As always, James, my Granddaddy's right-hand man, met my mother and me at the airport. He talked as he drove towards Northeast Arkansas: Motorboat, the cat had died, Lind, my brother, was in rehab for a drug problem, and my Granddaddy was worried as all heck. 

Getting closer to home, James politely mentioned we might stay elsewhere. I adamantly wanted to stay at my grandparents' house where I had spent much of my childhood, but my grandfather’s wife made it clear that my mother wasn’t welcome there. Instead, he had reserved a room for us at the Best Western Motel at the edge of town.

Lind ran away from an antiquated rehab facility in Missouri, where his mental illness and drug addiction were treated with humiliation, shame, and punishment. When Lind returned home, he was placed in a correction facility overnight as a holding place after his time in rehab. My family hoped it would scare him straight.

Lind, along with the Mississippi County court-appointed attorney, pleaded his case in court and won. Mother wanted to give Lind a chance to live with us in Los Angeles instead of going back to rehab in Missouri; Granddaddy believed Lind should return to the facility. I thought it was clear that Lind needed real psychological help. When we returned to California, I drove him to the Betty Ford Clinic to see if they could help. They turned us away. My grandfather and I tried the best we could to help him, but even we didn’t realize how deeply he was suffering.

Lind died of a self-inflicted gun wound to the heart on December 25, 1990. He was twenty-five.

 Since my brother’s death, open dialogue about mental health has become less taboo. I share his story as a sincere contribution to this conversation in the hopes that the stories of others can end differently.