For more than 20 years, 400-meter low hurdle runner Julius Mercer overcame all obstacles that stood in his way.
But everything changed the day Mercer woke up in a Los Angeles hospital and discovered he tried to commit suicide after a panic attack.
While driving home from work, he saw helicopters in the sky.
“I thought they were after me so I stopped the car, got out and started to run,” he recalled. “I was told police cut me down from a lamppost after I tried to hang myself with my coat.”
Doctors told him he needed professional help but Mercer wouldn’t have any part of it.
“I just wanted to get out of there,” he said
Mercer recalled his past in a recent interview. He also talked about his challenges in his book, “A New Fire in You.”
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In this second column on Mercer, the former Southland prep sprinter continues his interview about the hurdles he faced in life — including a grim period when he tried to take his own life.
After his suicide attempt, Mercer said he and his wife sold everything, including their dog.
Mercer said he spent 36 hours on a train traveling from California back home to Park Forest, where Mercer, once considered one of the top hurdle runners in the nation, found work for $3.40 an hour plus tips in a Chicago Heights car wash.
His running days over, Mercer later worked for Aunt Martha’s Youth Services and in the Special Education Department and as an assistant track coach at Rich South High School.
It was time to look ahead, but Mercer was soon staring into an abyss.
The Sixth Hurdle
There were cracks in the marriage. The birth of a daughter and what he says were the demands of his wife’s family to move to Kansas City gave rise to numerous arguments.
Once, Mercer took the keys to his wife’s car with him when he went to work.
His wife called police. Mercer tried to explain that there was no problem, just carelessness on his part.
But because officers responded, he had to leave the apartment for a day. When he returned, his wife and child were gone to Kansas City.
The marriage was over.
He said he would not see his daughter again for 22 years.
Severe depression set in, he said.
“I would sit in the middle of the floor and cry all day,” he recalled. “I could not sleep. I could not concentrate. I could not do anything. I was told to get help but I didn’t. I suffered in silence.
“I screwed it up.”
The Seventh Hurdle
The drugs came next.
Alone and unable to function for long stretches, he sought companionship in other places and other ways. A few drinks could gloss over the debris of the day; the garbage of the week. He met this woman at a bar and began seeing her on weekends.
His sister tried to warn him, he said.
“She’s a crackhead,” he was told. Mercer said she denied it at first, but on her behest, he began buying dime bags from a street dealer two blocks from the woman’s apartment.
Once Mercer spied on her and saw her taking drugs, but even after that he did not leave.
Later, at her insistence, Mercer began buying drugs from that dealer. It might have been at a party or in the woman’s home, but soon he was ensnared in the deadly web.
“It made me a monster,” he said.
The Eighth Hurdle
The burglaries came next.
“I needed more money,” Mercer said.
But when it came to theft, Mercer was wet behind the ears. He said he once stole a VCR and tried to sell it at a pawn shop.
“Where’s the remote,” he was asked.
So, Mercer returned to the scene of his crime and was caught by police.
Another time, Mercer said he went to court on a charge of residential burglary and was given probation for a first offense.
He said he was told to get help and to join a drug support group. He did not go get help. He continued taking drugs.
There also was the time he wound up in a padded room at the Tinley Park Hospital.
“What am I doing here,” he asked the guard.
He was told he had been there for eight days. He was told he was suffering from clinical depression abetted with an ongoing history of substance abuse.
He was told to go to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.
“I didn’t go,” he said. “I’m cool. I’m all right.”
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He said he was arrested and sentenced to prison 1996, 1998 and 2001 on a variety of charges, including burglary.
He was convicted again in 2009 and given an eight-year prison term at Pinckneyville, a medium security facility.
The Ninth Hurdle
“I’m not supposed to be here,” Mercer said he thought. “I was supposed to go to a minimum security prison; not Pinckneyville. I hit bottom.”
Life at Pinckneyville was ugly and often brutal.
Step out of line once and you wind up with a lonely 30-day sentence in “segregation,” he said.
Those solitary cells, however, were safe from the gangs and the various groups of offenders who seemed to congregate within its walls.
This was no place for a “good guy,” but that was the tag guards placed next to his name and soon he was working in the officer’s kitchen, he said.
“I had nowhere to go and finally asked myself what have I done?” Mercer said.
“I’m going to change,” he said he thought.
He did it through religion and a will of steel that had not been seen before. He did it by spending long months in segregation to keep out of harm’s way.
After one year, he was transferred to a minimum security prison in Robinson where he found time to grapple with his demons, begin writing a book about his long journey (A New Fire in You) and for the first time in decades, look forward to the future.
He was paroled in 2014 and now is a dedicated motivational speaker.
You can look him up on YouTube.
The Tenth Hurdle
In running the hurdles, the last barrier is the most difficult. The challenge Mercer faces every day of his life — fighting addiction.
One misstep, one lapse of judgment, one moment of failure will cost him everything.
He cannot falter or stumble. He must clear this hurdle each day, every day.
In Greek legend, the gods punished Sisyphus by forcing him to push a huge boulder up a mountain only to see it roll back and compelling him to repeat this every day for eternity.
Mercer’s race in life is never over and each day he faces similar task.
He knows one thing.
He must not lose.
Jerry Shnay is a freelance journalist and can be reached at [email protected]