Authors: Nick Lake
I was just thinking that when I saw a gleam of white, and then you were there, sitting in the driver’s seat of your Ford pickup truck.
“Hey,” you said.
I nodded. I didn’t know what else to do. I noticed, close up, that your eyes were a shade of green I had never seen before: river green. But flecked with gold. A slow river, dotted with ocher leaves.
Sorry. But it’s true. You have amazing eyes.
“You need a ride?” You made a face. “Sorry, that sounds creepy. I mean, it’s not a pickup line. It’s just, you looked kind of down. I thought you might need a lift.” You swallowed. “I’m on break. I have till—”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t need a lift.”
A pause.
“Uh, but, thank you,” I added.
“S’cool,” you said.
You didn’t drive away, and admittedly I had just been thinking about how I was lonely, so even through the fog I was living in, some glimmer of desire for human contact obviously shone. At the same time I was kind of surprised that the voice, even though it was mostly gone, didn’t say anything about you. Usually the voice hated if I spoke to someone.
So …
I figured I would speak to you.
When I say it like that it sounds ridiculous, makes it sound like such a radical decision, but it was. But also, I’m telling you this for a reason, because I think you thought I was being standoffish, and I wasn’t, not deliberately.
“What’s with the truck?” I asked in a lame attempt to make human contact.
You smiled. Then you opened the door and got out. You stood by the Ford and did a little bow, kind of showing off but mocking yourself at the same time. When you straightened up, I watched the muscles in your neck move. “You’re looking at the Assistant Plush Manager for Two Piers,” you said.
“What?” I said. I flashed back to meeting Paris at the hospital, how I had said the same thing. It was like a tic with me.
Suddenly you looked self-conscious. You straightened up. “Oh, uh, it’s stupid,” you said. “I just … I’m delivering plush.”
I looked at you blankly; at least I assume I did, because you had an uncomfortable expression on your face.
“Stuffed toys, you know? For the stands. Prizes. I get them from a warehouse in town, and I drive down onto the beach. Throw them up to the guys on the piers. To restock.” You gestured with your thumb toward the open back of the pickup truck.
I looked: there was a plastic bag in there, the size of a person, full of Angry Birds.
“After my break, I’m taking those to Pier Two,” you said, filling the silence nervously.
“They have an assistant manager for that?” I asked.
You shrugged. “Like I said, it’s stupid. Really, I’m just the plush delivery guy, but they gave me that title. You wouldn’t believe how quick the stands run out of prizes. And there are a lot of stands.”
I wasn’t really interested in the stuffed toys, which is sucky of me, I know. I was still amazed that the voice had said nothing about you. I hadn’t even had my risperidone that morning; it made me too tired to do anything, so I’d skipped it, which I knew Dr. Rezwari would bust a gut about if she knew. The voice had stopped with the threats. It didn’t seem to tell me to hurt myself anymore or that it would kill Dad or whatever—I don’t know if that was the drugs—but it would still sometimes insult me, sometimes curse about stuff.
I thought for sure it was going to say something like, “He knows you’re ugly,” or whatever. That would have been its style.
But that’s the thing about you—you’re an insulator. A muffler. You silence the voice.
Then the little mike on your shirt buzzed.
“714, come in,” said a crackly voice, sounding reedy through the small speaker.
You reached up and pressed a button. “714.”
“What’s your 20?”
“On my break for another half hour,” you said. “Then I’ve got a delivery to Pier Two.”
“Okay,” said the voice on the other end of the radio. “I need five medium Tweety Birds and ten large SpongeBobs to Pier One, when you’re done.”
“10-4,” you said, and signed off.
“10-4?” I said. “Seriously?”
You held up your hands defensively. “I think all the guys on the piers wish they were cops. They believe they’re characters in an Elmore Leonard book or something.”
“A lot of them eat in my dad’s restaurant,” I said. “The real cops too. I’d say they’re more Carl Hiaasen than Elmore Leonard. They’re the kind of guys who wear novelty socks.”
You leaned your head to one side, intrigued. “You like books?”
I shook my head. “Used to.”
I could see the curiosity on your face, but you didn’t press. I think you heard something in my tone. “Well, okay,” you said, backing away.
Me: repelling people since seven years old.
I saw the 9 bus then and jerked my head at it. “That’s my bus,” I said.
“You sure I can’t drive you? In a noncreepy way?”
“I’m sure. Thanks.”
You smiled a tentative smile. That was one of the things that impressed me about you: another guy faced with what I’m sure was a pretty frosty demeanor from me might have felt hurt, rejected. But you stayed nice. I think you really did just want to help. “Catch you later,” you said.
“Yeah,” I said.
I KNOW: It’s like Romeo and Juliet all over again, isn’t it? Dialogue FOR THE AGES.
Of course, I didn’t feel anything though. I didn’t have, for instance, butterflies in my stomach. I
couldn’t
feel anything, because of the drugs.
No. No, that’s not true. I think I did feel something for you, even then, but it’s like when I was sedated—I know I felt it, but I can’t remember it. Which sucks in a whole other way, as if my memory is taking you away from me, erasing you. When I look back on myself in those days I see a dead person walking around, dressed up in new skin. Even then, standing at the bus shelter, in the light, with you by your truck, it was as if everything was a little too shiny and unmoving, like everything was behind glass, even the sun.
Then you drove off and I got on the bus and went to my appointment, where Dr. Rezwari asked me if I was hearing the voice anymore and when I said no, not really, she pretty much just shoved me out of her office right away. She’d given up even on offering me books by this point.
Here is the thing: if you hear a voice, it is very important to those like Dr. Rezwari to make it stop, and keep it stopped. This is because they are afraid the voice will tell you to hurt other people. And yourself, of course. So they load you up with risperidone until you’re nothing but your own shadow, and they call it a day.
I don’t blame them for this. I get it.
It’s just—if she had, only once, asked me
when
the voice started. Or why I thought I heard it, or anything about it. What it sounded like. Who it sounded like.
If she’d asked those questions, then maybe I would have gotten better sooner. Would have been spared a trip to the ER.
Anyway.
You probably remember that whole conversation at your car differently, of course. I am quite sure you were confused and maybe even a little hurt by my flatness, I mean; in those days I could barely motivate the muscles of my mouth to smile. That’s the thing. Our versions of reality always differ, even when we’re supposedly sane.
But I thought you were cool, even right then at the start. I want you to know that.
I think it was maybe a week later that I saw Paris again. I hadn’t really seen you in that time. I mean, I’d passed you and Shane on the lawn a couple of times, drinking your beers, and I’d seen you drive past in your truck, sometimes laden with bags full of Elmos or Beanie Babies. We’d said hello and stuff. Had some epically awkward interactions in the laundry area—Dad and I used the same machines—some painful false starts.
“Oh, you wear T-shirts too!”
That kind of thing.
Awful.
Anyway, I was on my way out of the hospital from seeing Dr. Rezwari and Paris was standing there smoking by the revolving door. It was hot, and she was wearing a string vest. I mean like an old man’s mesh tank top; you could see
everything
.
“Hey, Fortune Teller,” she said.
“Hey,” I said.
She was leaning against the wall right by the door, in the cool blast from the air-conditioning inside; the air in town was muggy, full of rain that needed to fall. “Appointment?” she said.
“Yeah. You still here?”
“No. Outpatient too now.”
“Good,” I said. When they let you out it means they don’t think you’re in imminent danger of doing something stupid. “You got an appointment too?”
“Done. Now I’m waiting for a ride.” She examined me. “You look ******* terrible, BTW.”
“What?”
It really was a tic, see?
“Your skin, your eyes, everything. Diazepam? Valium?” She peered at my eyes. “No. Haldol. Wait, no, that’s kind of a big gun, you’d be drooling more. Risperidone. Yep. Risperidone. I’m right, yeah?”
I stammered. “Y-yes.”
“You feel like you’re wrapped in cotton?”
Fog was how I thought of it, but, yes, close enough. “Uh, yeah.”
“Me too. You have to stop that shit, seriously.”
I shook my head.
Paris flicked her cigarette; it exploded on the concrete, sparking. “Afraid of the voices?”
I nodded. Then I shook my head. “Just one voice.”
“Same thing. Anyway, I stopped it. You can too. ’Course, the docs go ape if they find out. But the docs think drugs are the answer to everything.”
“You … heard voices too?”
She made an equivocal motion of her head. “Kind of. Visual phenomena. Apparitions. Which would sometimes speak as well.”
“Like ghosts?”
“Like ghosts.”
“And you still see them?”
“There’s a woman standing behind you right now. Half her face is missing.”
I whipped around, heart jumping.
“Kidding,” she said. She gave a wicked smile. “But yeah, I still see shit.”
“I don’t want to hear my voice. It … It wasn’t nice.”
She waved a hand, dismissing this. “You have to learn to deal with it, is all,” she said. “Dr. Lewis can help with that.” Then she leaned closer. Suddenly she was conspiratorial, serious. “Here,” she said. She handed me a card. On it was printed:
NEW JERSEY VOICE SUPPORT GROUP
Under it was a number and an e-mail address.
“Thursdays, at the bowling alley on Elm,” she said. “There’s a room at the back. If I’m not there, tell them Paris sent you.”
I looked at the card. “Is it … safe?”
She laughed. “It’s not a
cult
. It’s run by a super-respected guy. Dr. Lewis. It’s just … they’re psychologists, mostly. The docs aren’t on the same page as them. Though there are a couple who are coming over to the light.” She paused. “Who are you seeing? Rezwari? Yeah, she’s not one of them.”
“And the people in this group … don’t believe in drugs?”
“They begin with the principle that the voices are real, and are created by trauma, and must be accommodated, not silenced.” It sounded like she was reciting something.
“My voice scares me,” I said. Admitting this out loud seemed major.
Paris glossed over it though. She waved a hand. “Thursdays, seven p.m. You don’t have to go. But give it a chance. Those drugs they’re giving you are just putting a lid on things. They’re not turning the heat down on the range.”
I glanced at the paper bag she was holding, which obviously contained prescription drugs.
“These are antidepressants,” she said. “Different ball game. Without these, my life isn’t worth living, seriously. I’m not, like, antipsychiatry. Just the way they deal with people like you.”
“Which is?”
“Tell you you’re schizophrenic, or whatever. They did that, right?”
I nodded. It was one of my three possible diagnoses.
“Fill you with drugs. Treat the symptom, not the problem. Most people who hear voices, they’re not mentally ill. They’ve just suffered something. Lived through something really bad. And it manifests itself as a voice that seems to come from outside.”
My legs suddenly shook. There was an image in my head: blood pooling around a head, small white tiles. A baseball bat.
I put out a hand and grabbed her wrist.
“You okay?”
I gasped. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry.”
She looked at me, and her eyes were lit with intelligence. “I would hazard a guess”—she talked like that sometimes—“that something bad may have happened to
you
when you were younger. Am I wrong?”
“No. I mean, yes, you’re wrong.”
My veins and arteries were alive, thin snakes writhing within me. I was so freaked out I didn’t even think to ask the obvious question.
Can you see what the obvious question would have been?
Take a moment.
Yes.
The obvious question would have been:
If that’s true, if it comes from trauma, then what happened to
you
?
“Okay, then,” she said. “Fine. You just remember what I said.” She thought for a second, then she flicked some invisible hair from her ear and looked right at me. She was wearing no makeup at all and was pale and skinny, but I still almost had to look away from her; it was painful, her beauty, like looking at the sun without those weird shades that have a slit in them that people wear for eclipses. “Pop quiz,” she said.
“Huh?”
“Obamacare: Pro or con?”
I closed my eyes. “I’m tired. I can’t—”
“Oh please,” she said. “I aced an Anthropology midterm at Rutgers on Xanax and methadone. On which note: Marcel Mauss.”
“What?”
“
Marcel Mauss
,” she said, stressing it this time.
I thought for a second. My brain was so slow. “Uh, magic. Or sacrifice?”
“Both, actually.” She gave a soft clapping mime. “Back to the start. Obamacare: Pro or con?”
“Pro?”
“Good. Word association. Pro.”
“What?”
“What word do you associate with the word ‘pro’?”
“Choice.”
“Good answer. ‘Life’ would also have sufficed. Next one: leather.”
I hesitated for a moment. “Notebook.”
“Martin.”
“Amis.”
“Eleanor,” she said.
“Rigby.”
“Good. I would also have accepted ‘Roosevelt.’ ”