Lincoln remembered Paul from the Chess House, before the pandemic. Paul had been a strong player at first, formally grounded, until he started losing and he stopped coming around.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to hear the guys saying Paul went crazy,\u201d Lincoln said. \u201cHe\u2019s walking around, talking to himself everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
At Frank\u2019s urging, Lincoln started to visit Paul three times a week in the rehab facility, sometimes four, bringing snacks and a chess set. Paul started to regain his bearings, though he still had trouble with his memory and had lost much of his hearing.<\/p>\n
For Lincoln, the approach of winter meant another season of sleeping out in the elements. Yet there was an apartment sitting idle, half a block from Central Park. Paul\u2019s rent for the apartment, a small studio, was frozen at $486 a month.<\/p>\n
The apartment was also uninhabitable. Frank needed a gas mask just to look at the mess. The floor was trashed, the window didn\u2019t close and there were rat holes in the walls.<\/p>\n
Frank gave Lincoln $500 to buy cleaning supplies, including a hazmat suit, and he contacted Paul\u2019s sister, Marilyn Makela, who lived in Arkansas and had not been in touch with her brother for years. Frank sent her photos of the apartment, and asked her for $2,000 to pay Lincoln to clean it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was thinking that these are a couple of con guys that are really trying to take my money,\u201d she remembered. When she went to the bank to wire money to Frank, she said, the clerk told her, \u201cMarilyn, I really think it\u2019s a scam.\u201d<\/p>\n
But over the coming weeks, Frank reassured her and helped her get power of attorney to make financial and health care decisions for her brother. She wired the money.<\/p>\n
\u201cI took out 96 bags of garbage,\u201d Lincoln said. Much of it was rotting food that Paul had hoarded from the nearby senior center and soup kitchens. Most of the furniture and the rug had to go. Paul\u2019s sister persuaded the landlord to make repairs and paint the apartment.<\/p>\n
With her blessing, Lincoln started staying in the apartment in November, putting his sleeping bag on the floor because he\u2019d had to throw out the bed.<\/p>\n
Frank left for India in December, hoping Paul and Lincoln would get along, knowing that Paul could be difficult. If anyone could handle him, Frank thought, it was Lincoln.<\/p>\n
Things were touch and go. During Lincoln\u2019s visits to the rehab center, Paul would blow up over something minor or imagined. Frank, calling from India, would then have to smooth things over with Lincoln, dreading the next, and perhaps final, eruption.<\/p>\n
As winter moved toward spring, the rehab facility made plans to discharge Paul. Either Frank or Lincoln saw the logical next step: for Lincoln to become Paul\u2019s live-in home health attendant, under a Medicaid program intended to keep people out of nursing homes. It would give Lincoln a secure home and an income, and it would keep Paul safe from the conditions that nearly killed him.<\/p>\n
It was risky: The apartment was just one room, and Paul could be volatile, Lincoln quick to react. And Frank was still half a world away in India. But what was the alternative?<\/p>\n
Lincoln joined a home care agency, and after a one-day course and fingerprinting, he got a company uniform, an ID badge and time sheets with detailed orders for Paul\u2019s care: seven duties \u2014 shower, mouth care, dress, etc. \u2014 on each shift.<\/p>\n
When Paul came home in March, Lincoln got something else: a salary of nearly $500 a week, for 23.5 hours.<\/p>\n
\u2018Spiritual Matters\u2019<\/p>\n
Shortly after Paul\u2019s return, I visited him and Lincoln at the apartment. The place was spotless, with neatly made twin beds on opposite sides of the room, and a table with a chess game in progress. At age 87, after six months in rehab, Paul spoke with a booming voice, in part to compensate for severe hearing loss. He looked robust, preparing to go out to gather food. I asked him what had caused his decline.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, this gets into spiritual matters,\u201d he said. He looked at Lincoln. \u201cIs it OK to talk about it?\u201d Lincoln nodded.<\/p>\n
Paul said he still did not know whether his mind was functioning correctly. \u201cI don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m completely cured,\u201d he said. \u201cBut then again, I might be, and don\u2019t even know it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He had grown up in Houston, where he was assessed as \u201cborderline genius\u201d in high school, his sister said, but would not work at anything he didn\u2019t like. He moved to New York in his 20s to be an actor. But after a few small roles in commercials or soap operas and some extra work in films, his career fizzled, and he lost interest. He never pursued another line of work.<\/p>\n
When he had no income, he moved into the apartment with an older woman whose name remains on the intercom downstairs. She put a curse on him, Paul said. \u201cI was told by a spirit medium that in a previous lifetime I had known her, and we had had a friendship, and she wanted to make it a lot more serious than I did, such as marriage,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what prompted her to do what she\u2019s done to me in this lifetime, preventing me from succeeding at anything, not only chess, but any endeavor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though the woman died almost 20 years ago, Paul said, the curse remains in effect.<\/p>\n
Now that he was back home, he was having some restless nights, keeping Lincoln up by talking out loud with spirits that visited him. Some were \u201chigh spirits\u201d who wished him well, and others \u201clow spirits\u201d that told him to prepare for death.<\/p>\n
Lincoln had a theory about Paul\u2019s restive states. \u201cIce cream is a trigger for him,\u201d Lincoln said. \u201cIt gives the negative spirits some kind of power over him. So he acts out, and he doesn\u2019t know that his spirit now is taking control over him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lincoln said he understood Paul. He, too, had spirits trying to control him. \u201cWhat Paul is going through,\u201d he said, \u201cI experienced some of that too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018I Saw Some Kind of Demon\u2019<\/p>\n
When Lincoln was in his early 30s, an acquaintance from high school had offered to help him get rich, and led him through a ritual that included smoking cinnamon and other substances. Afterward, the acquaintance told him to look in the mirror, and he\u2019d see the spirit that was inside him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I saw was some kind of monster, some kind of demon,\u201d Lincoln said. \u201cSo I dropped the whole mirror. It smashed up. I was afraid to look in a mirror again.\u201d<\/p>\n
After that, his life began to spiral downward, through more negative spiritual encounters, until in 1996 he became homeless, living at first in one shelter, then another.<\/p>\n
At the shelters, clinicians proposed psychological explanations and treatments for his problems. But he saw these as spiritual, not psychological, and the voices in his head as real, not imagined.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want to give it a name \u2014 schizophrenia, bipolar, mental health,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t believe in these things.\u201d<\/p>\n
At one shelter, he said, he saw a psychiatrist, but he refused medication. \u201cI said: \u2018I\u2019m telling you the truth, what happened to me, my experience, and you\u2019re telling me I\u2019m crazy. I don\u2019t want to talk to you no more.\u2019 And I just got up and walked out.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the shelter staff workers understood, he said, especially those from the Caribbean or Africa. \u201cThey knew what I was talking about,\u201d he said. \u201cThey knew I was telling the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, Lincoln gave up smoking cannabis and eating meat and eggs, and he shaved his dreadlocks \u2014 all nutrients or triggers for the spirits bedeviling him, he believed. These measures weakened the spirits, he said, but did not remove them.<\/p>\n
As March progressed, Paul and Lincoln continued learning how to live together. Paul made daily rounds of the nearby senior center and soup kitchens, gathering free food to take home. He went to church most days, where he said voices told him, \u201cYou\u2019ve become a higher spirit than you were before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Who these voices were, he did not know.<\/p>\n
Several times he blew up at Lincoln, once accusing him of causing him to miss Mass.<\/p>\n
Lincoln learned not to react. \u201cI understand that that\u2019s not Paul,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause I know Paul is a nice guy. Paul is a very peaceful guy. He don\u2019t bother nobody. So when he acts out like that, I know that it\u2019s triggers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul\u2019s sister advised Lincoln not to try to stop Paul from bringing excess free food into the apartment, just to throw anything out after three days.<\/p>\n
Paul, too, adjusted to Lincoln.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust two men living alone in the same small apartment are going to be head-bumping all the time,\u201d Paul said. \u201cBut he keeps house better than any man I ever met. And he also is a damn good cook.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trying to Make It Work<\/p>\n
The winter that Lincoln stayed in the apartment, at least 20 New Yorkers, many of them homeless, died in 18 days during a brutal cold snap<\/a>. For Lincoln, having a steady home provided not just physical security, he said, but also spiritual grounding.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s progress,\u201d he said. \u201cBeing here is an opportunity for me now to live a normal life, because I don\u2019t feel affected anymore.\u201d Though he still had demons trying to control him, he said he had taken steps to weaken or neutralize them, including washing his body and the apartment in a dilute solution of household chemicals.<\/p>\n Frank, returning in March from his three-month trip to India and Uzbekistan, visited the apartment to see how things were going. It was his first time seeing the place cleaned up. Paul and Lincoln were getting along better than he might have predicted, and he noted the chess game in progress on the table.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels good,\u201d Frank said. \u201cIt just feels good.\u201d<\/p>\n Then in April, Paul became more and more belligerent with Lincoln, especially after trips to church. Paul\u2019s sleeptalking \u2014 which he never remembered \u2014 became more aggressive, with complaints about Lincoln throwing out his food.<\/p>\n Finally it became overtly threatening. In a nocturnal rant recorded by Lincoln, Paul channeled one of his spirits, speaking in a rasp unlike his usual voice. \u201cLincoln has gone far enough for you, Paul,\u201d the voice said, calmly. \u201cThere are countless numbers of people like me who want him dead. You cannot imagine how much hatred he has incited for himself by countless other people.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul woke up very confrontational, yelling in Lincoln\u2019s face. Lincoln said that even then, he was not afraid for his safety. But he hid the knives, and called Frank for help. The two called for an ambulance. When a battery of police officers and emergency medical technicians came to put Paul in an ambulance, he went without argument. Lincoln joined him.<\/p>\n Over the coming days, Lincoln took Paul to the psychiatric unit at Metropolitan Hospital, where he was given a prescription for an antipsychotic drug, quetiapine, to be used only when he became agitated. If he was given a diagnosis, neither Paul, Frank, Lincoln nor Paul\u2019s sister knows what it is.<\/p>\n By May, the blowup appeared to be behind them. Paul did not remember it, and Lincoln ascribed it to Paul\u2019s demons, not to Paul. Lincoln was still optimistic about his ability to care for Paul, in part because he was experienced in dealing with spirits. \u201cI have something under my belt that a lot of people need to have under their belt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Asked about their future together, each said he enjoyed the other\u2019s company. \u201cWe have our differences, but all things considered, I think it\u2019s a good thing that he\u2019s here for me,\u201d Paul said. \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s a good thing that he\u2019s here for him, because this is a good situation for him, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Chess had brought the three men together, despite their vast differences. It was one of the remarkable things about the game, Frank said. You sit over a board, black pieces on one side, white on the other, and your differences \u2014 billionaire or pauper, globe-trotter or homeless man \u2014 disappear. Kings and queens don\u2019t care. Everybody\u2019s knight moves the same crooked way.<\/p>\n Frank was reluctant to claim much for his role in the tale. Instead he thought about Paul and Lincoln, who had taken his prodding and turned it into something much more \u2014 a New York story that could have all gone so differently.<\/p>\n John Leland<\/p>\n Reporter covering New York<\/p>\n To me, this is a story about hope, and how individuals can create it. If we’d met Paul a year ago, living alone in an apartment that was beyond squalor, we’d have thought he was a goner. If we’d met Lincoln, living on the street, tormented by demons, we’d have imagined a bad future for him. And Frank, traveling for months at a time, might have seemed cut off in the rarified world of Kashmiri scarves. But together they changed each other’s lives, in ways no one could have expected.That, I think, is the definition of hope: not as wishful thinking but as productive energy. I like to think it’s working in countless ways around us, underneath the surface. It was an honor to bring this instance up into the light.<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/cropped-1aba30ae0714c3735c3836d805574c56432464f43921de2b6c3b62f7d05c4326c8472866.png\")
<\/p>\n