Tom was nearing the end of the Early Stage. It was already apparent that he couldn’t handle a job any longer and I had already applied to Social Security Disability for him.  He was unable to make a telephone call without help at that point.  He couldn’t remember a phone number long enough to dial it.  He could still meet me at work, which was just 4 blocks from our apartment in New York.  He was still a hit with the waiters in our favorite restaurants, but then those contacts were short and sweet. These waiters made sure his meat was sliced before served and we were seated in the best lit spot in the room without having to ask and the depth of conversation was limited to chatty comments.

He could still carry on conversations with friends although they were often convoluted and often repeated.  He always caught the ‘looks,’ the asides, the evasions, the patronizing comments, even when he didn’t catch the content of the conversation, and on one occasion he commented: 

"I must seem like a clown to everyone."  

He could still find his way around New York to familiar addresses.  He could shop, although he was unable to make change because the use of numbers had inexplicably disappeared from his brain.  He was a man who computed higher mathematics ‘in his head’ faster than most could on a pocket calculator. He had been reduced to handing the checkout clerk a ‘pile of money’ as he put it, and relied on them to give the correct change.  

He was still the sociable animal he had always been and shopping and dining out and church afforded him the ideal settings in which he was allowed to shine.  I watched him hold entire conversations with people gleaning information about their jobs, their families, their lives only to have him ask me who the hell he had been talking to after the person left. And more often than not, that same person would later berate me for thinking there was anything wrong with the T. V. Murphy they knew. He still had in his arsenal the usual affable cliches that everyone automatically responds to. "How are you? How’s the family? How’s your job coming along? Those conversations were not a sign of wellness, they were a sign of adaptability and rote memory still in action.

He was confusing the faucets in the bathroom and shower.  Didn't always get the soap out of his hair.  Had difficulty handling a straight razor and we shifted to an electric.  He missed the toilet when he peed, had difficult getting in and out of his clothes, loss his keys, gloves, and wallet on several occasions.  Forgot the soap when doing the washing.  Left his zipper open and had difficulty finding rest rooms in public places and taking care of his business efficiently once he found them.

And then there was the time Tom got lost going home, (four blocks) after we had lunch together and I returned to work.  My mother was visiting on this occasion or I probably wouldn’t have heard the details of what happened.  He made a wrong turn at the corner and they wandered around New York for almost 2 hours before he found his way home.  My mother, who didn’t know the address and didn’t know New York was understandably upset.  It was through the use of land-marks that he finally found his apartment.  But the story continued.  She described his behavior after they finally got home.

He picked up the ‘Times’ and spent the next 45 minutes wandering around the apartment dropping sheets of the paper as he walked, picking them up as he wandered back, only to drop them again on the return trip. His sense of touch was being altered and he was no longer aware of what he was holding unless he was actually looking at his hands. At one point he stopped in front of my mother, he had tears in his eyes, he dropped what remained of the newspaper on the floor and said: "Something terrible is happening to me and I can’t seem to do anything about it."