Last Night I Sang to the Monster (11 page)

That’s what he read. And it really tore me up. Somehow I felt as if Rafael was reading that just for me. His voice—and the way he read it—I don’t know, it’s just that all of a sudden I felt as if I was going away and I wondered about that because I didn’t like it when I did that, sort of went away because that’s what my mother did, so I made myself stay in the room. And I kept looking at Rafael’s picture and I was only half listening to what everybody was saying and thinking and feeling about Rafael’s painting and then I heard Adam ask me what I saw in Rafael’s painting and I just looked at Rafael and asked, “Is that boy you or is that boy me?”

And I didn’t know why but I was crying. And I hated that. I was just crying. I was hitting and hitting myself, hitting and hitting myself in the chest with my fists. And then I felt someone taking my fists and holding them until I unclenched them—and then I felt a hand holding my open hand. And I heard Adam’s voice saying, “I see you, Zach. I see you.”

But I didn’t know what that meant.

Maybe it was all a dream. A bad dream. But Rafael’s voice had been so beautiful so maybe it wasn’t all bad. And Adam’s voice sounded so kind when he said
Zach, I see you
. And I kept thinking to myself:
Some people have dogs. What do I have? I have dreams I don’t want to remember. I have two roommates named Rafael and Sharkey. And I have a monster and a therapist named Adam. What happened to me that I couldn’t just have a dog like normal people?
And I couldn’t stop crying.

“I need to ask you a question. Is that okay, Zach?”

I should have had a cigarette before coming into Adam’s office. But there I was, staring into Adam’s eyes that were blue as the sea but that today looked like they were green as a leaf. I wondered about his eyes. Just like I wondered about Rafael’s eyes. And Mr. Garcia’s eyes. What was it about their eyes that made me wonder?

“Zach?”

“Yeah.”

“When you go away like that, where do you go?”

“I didn’t really go away.”

“What were you thinking about?”

Like I was going to tell him that I was contemplating eyes. “Nothing important.”

“Everything’s important.”

“Okay,” I said. Adam, he knew how to read that I-could-give-a-shit thing in my voice.

“Answer me this, Zach.”

“Okay.”

“What do you remember about coming here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know why you’re here?”

“Everyone seems to think I need to be here.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Well, maybe I
do
need to be here.”

“You could leave if you wanted. You’re eighteen. You’re an adult.”

“Like that’s really true,” I said. “I’m still in high school.” I looked down at the floor. “Where would I go?”

“Don’t you have a home?”

I just sat there for a long time, not saying anything, just looking down at the floor.

“Look at me, Zach.”

I didn’t want to look at him—but I did.

“What do you remember?”

“I keep telling you that I don’t want to remember.”

“I get that, Zach. I do. But can you tell me anything about what you remember?”

“I don’t want to fucking go there. Don’t you get that, Adam?”

“I do. Look, let me ask you another question.”

“Okay.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yeah. Mostly I trust you.”

“You trust me 100%? 50%? What?”

That made me smile. He liked the percentage thing. I thought that was very cool. I don’t know why. Adam tore me up. In a good way. Well, not always in a good way. “I trust you 85%.”

“Yeah? 85%?”

“That’s not bad.”

“How much do you trust the group?”

“60%.”

“60%?”

“I thought that was pretty good.”

“Okay, how much do you trust Sharkey?”

“Sharkey? I really like Sharkey.”

“Okay, Sharkey gets 100% on the like scale. But on the trust scale?”

“70%.”

“Just 70%?”

“Look, you know him better than I do. You’re his therapist too.”

“This isn’t about what I think, Zach.”

“It never is.”

He shot me a look. You know that look that said
I’m not the guy in therapy—you are.

“And what about Rafael?”

“90%.”

“Rafael is 90% on the trust scale?”

“Yeah.”

Adam nodded. And then he smiled. “So you like him, huh?”

“Everyone likes him.”

“We’re talking about you, not everyone.”

“Yeah, I like him.”

“Why?”

“I just do.”

“Okay. Do you talk to him?”

“Sure I do.”

“Why do you trust him?”

“He’s trying hard to be honest. With himself, I mean.”

“Yes, he is.”

“I admire that—he’s trying to be honest even if it hurts.”

“Yes, I think that’s right. He’s trying to remember everything in his life that hurt him. You’re doing the opposite. How can you admire someone who’s doing the opposite thing from what you’re doing?” He looked straight into my eyes. Adam with the blue eyes that looked green today.

I looked back at him. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll tell you one thing that I remember.”

“Okay.”

“Blood.”

“Blood?”

“There was blood. That’s what I remember. There was blood.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. I just know that there was blood.”

“And what do you feel when you remember blood?”

“You know damned well how I feel.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“How would I know?”

“I know you know.”

“I don’t, Zach. I don’t know what it’s like to be you. I don’t know what it’s like to feel what Zach feels.”

“I don’t like to feel.”

“You say that every session. I get that, Zach, but—”

“But what?”

“Zach, how do you feel when you remember blood? Can you tell me?”

“How do I feel?” I looked at Adam’s eyes. They weren’t green anymore. They were blue again. “I feel like I died. That’s how I feel. Like I died.”

Rafael told me that sometimes he feels as though God is nothing more than a set of jaws that bites down on his heart. After Rafael said that, I got this picture in my head of those jaws and I started thinking that if Rafael was right, then God was the monster. Look, I think I know what Rafael’s really talking about. He’s talking about pain and where it comes from. And me, what I’m trying to do is figure out this whole thing about monsters. I thought I was supposed to get a guardian angel. No guardian angels for Zach. Nope. Look, maybe God
is
the real monster. What the hell do I know?

I have a new addiction: I read Rafael’s journal.

Okay, this is
not
okay. But the guy leaves it on his desk and it’s just sitting there and it feels as though it’s calling my name. All right, journals do not call you by name unless you hear voices. There’s a woman here who walks around and shakes. She looked me straight in the eye and told me I was suffering. I may be suffering but
I do not suffer from auditory hallucinations.

This is just the way it is with me right now—I just feel compelled to read what Rafael has written in his journal. Compelled, that would be a Mr. Garcia word. And now that I think of Mr. Garcia, I am absolutely certain that the only thing I really suffer from is intellectual curiosity. Okay, yeah, and the therapists here would call it something else. They would say I was not respecting someone else’s boundaries. The real story depends upon your point of view—that’s what I’m thinking. We’re back to that perspective thing.

This is what I’m thinking: if Rafael’s journal was such a private thing, then why was it just sitting there on his desk? It just sits there all the time,
and it’s a public space.
Okay, this is all bullshit and I know it and this is a really bad thing to be doing, yeah. Look, I guess I like getting into other people’s heads too—just like everyone else. And I especially like getting into Rafael’s head. It’s cool, the way he thinks.

Reading Rafael’s journal—around here it would be classified as a very unhealthy behavior. I mean, we have these sessions on healthy boundaries. Healthy people have healthy boundaries. Unhealthy people, well, let’s
not get into that. It’s like this: some people have walls which means they let no one in. This equals unhealthy. Some people let everyone in and let themselves be stepped all over. This equals unhealthy.

No one has to tell me that reading Rafael’s journal is a violation of his privacy, which equals a definitely unhealthy behavior. In group it would also qualify as a secret. We
are not
supposed to keep secrets. Secrets are killing us—that’s the theory. And another thing, I am
not
supposed to be talking about
us.
I’m supposed to be talking about
me.
It is not a healthy behavior to speak in universals. I am only supposed to speak for
myself.
And I’m not supposed to use sentences using
you
. I’m not supposed to say things like: “When
you
feel sad,
you
cry.” No, no, no. I’m supposed to say: “When
I
feel sad,
I
cry.” Adam always corrects us. He’s all nice and sweet about the whole thing, but he corrects us all right. Stops us right in mid-sentence. Okay, so I got the point. I, I, I. I, I, I. Okay,
I
am feeling this.
I
am feeling that. Yeah,
I get
it,
I
get it.

Therapy is tearing me up. Am I better? I’m mad. Is getting angry part of therapy? Isn’t all this about getting un-angry? What do I know? What I do know is that there’s an anger group on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Maybe I’ll join that group. Hell, I bet I could run that group.

Sharkey’s angry, that’s for sure. Worse than me. Okay, this is not a contest. I get that. And even Rafael’s angry. This is the thing: life has not been kind to us. I think I’ll make a new list: The Reasons Why
I
Am Angry. I am stunned out, torn up, wigged out. I am A-N-G-R-Y. This is why we have no baseball bats around this place. This is why everyone is all concerned about some clients having sharpies. Look, if you’re not a windshield, you’re pretty safe around people like me.

I’m trying to do the work. And, really, I think that Rafael’s journal entries have become part of my therapy. I mean the guy writes really beautiful things. I mean it.
He tears me up to shreds.
Rafael’s thinking is very, well, you know, it’s thoughtful. The guy writes screenplays for a living and that’s very cool, but I’m thinking that Rafael is some kind of poet—just like Mr. Garcia. I’m trying to learn from him. And this
is not
a bad thing.

Yesterday, when I was alone in Cabin 9, my feet took me over to Rafael’s desk. There were a couple of sketches on his desk that were
probably going to become paintings. I reached over and began leafing through Rafael’s journal. I found this very cool story about his monster:

1.

The boy is reading to the monster. He is like Scheherezade. He will read a story every night—read and read until the monster falls asleep. And the boy will live one more day. He will live this way forever.

2.

The boy’s name is Rafael. He is seven. He could be five or six or eight. But right now, he is seven. When he grows up, he will become a writer, though no one suspects this—not even the boy.

There will be many monsters in the stories he will write.

3.

The boy reads the story of his life to the monster but he leaves certain things out of the story. He is afraid of making the monster angry. If the monster gets angry, something very bad will happen. The boy decides that the monster prefers happy stories about happy boys so the boy makes up a happy story about himself. He becomes an expert at telling happy stories. He is certain the monster likes the stories. He is certain.

4.

As the boy grows older, the monster comes to him—mostly at night. The monster is insatiable for stories. The boy, who is now almost a man—but who remains a boy—keeps telling stories to make the monster happy. Somewhere inside of him, the man who is still a boy knows that the monster will never be happy.

But he continues reading the stories he writes for the monster.

5.

Sometimes, Rafael doesn’t feel like reading his stories to the monster. He is tired. There are nights when the monster stays away, and he thinks or hopes or wants to believe that the monster has gone away forever. Sometimes the monster stays away for weeks and months and Rafael starts to believe that he is free. He prays that the monster is dead.

But the monster always comes back.

6.

The boy has now become a man (but is really still a boy). Reading to the monster is driving him insane. He begins to drink. He has always liked drinking but now the drinking has become his consolation. He drinks and drinks as he reads his stories to the monster. He knows now that he has always hated the monster. He wonders what would happen if the monster discovered the truth. He feels as if his heart is on fire. The hurt is becoming impossible to bear.

But the drink is good and helps him get through the story when the monster comes.

7.

Rafael, the man who is still a boy, is starting to get old. His hair is turning white and he wears the look of a man who has learned how to whisper the word
suffering as
if it were a prayer. He has forgotten words like
happiness
and
joy.
He laughs but the laughter is hollow. Only the tears are real.

He wonders why he has a monster. He wonders why he has surrendered to him.

8.

He thinks to himself:
What would happen if I stopped reading to the monster? What would happen if I read him a real story—a story about
a boy who was damaged and hurt and kept wounds in his body like treasure? What would the monster think about that story? What would the monster say if I told him, I don’t want to tell you any more stories about boys. I want to tell you a story about Rafael who wants to cross the border and enter a country called manhood. It is a hard and difficult and beautiful country. Do you understand that, monster?

Tonight, when the monster comes, he will tell him the story he has wanted to tell all his life.

9.

It is dark outside. The night has come again, but he is not afraid. It is a strange thing for him not to feel the fear. He feels naked. But he thinks it is not such a bad thing to feel his body, to feel his arms and his legs and his chest and his hands and his heart. He is sitting on his bed. He does not need a drink.

He will not drink. He is waiting for the monster to come so he can tell him his story.