Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets (16 page)

Knocking on the door produces no results. A light glows in the window, but it’s a dim one. Either she can’t afford higher-wattage bulbs or she left a light on for her late night return home.

Dr. Bird pecks on my brain. I try to swish her away with my hand.

“Do you need drugs?” she asks.

“I don't want to be a zombie.”

“Do zombies get depressed?”

“I’m afraid it will mean I feel nothing. I’ll have numb eyes. I’ll lose the ability to take pictures or write poems.”

“Are you sure of any of these possibilities?”

I say I’m not sure of anything, but I’m afraid of losing what little connection to my real brain that I have left.

“What if your real mind is already gone behind a curtain? What if the drugs will move the curtain?”

“I don’t think drugs move curtains.”

“Could they move mountains? Huge mountains of anxiety that are in the way of your real self?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Are you sure that your real self is this anxiety-ridden, bursting, twisting, unhappy, buzzing, hate-filled, meandering, overtired sleepless boy?”

I say I’m not sure who I am.

“Then would drugs really make a difference? Would the drugs be any worse?”

“I don’t want to be artificial.”

“You want to be nonfunctional?”

“I would rather malfunction than sit and stare at a wall like an unplugged coffeepot.”

“Is this choice a result of anxiety and depression?”

I do not respond. I will ignore Dr. Bird until Jorie comes home or I fall asleep.

Dr. Bird says: “Don’t you wish you would wake up one day and celebrate yourself? Don’t you wish you would wake up one day and celebrate yourself? Don’t you wish you would wake up one day and celebrate yourself?”

I want to scream at my brain, but I’m afraid of waking up Jorie’s landlord and then getting her kicked out. It seems like I’ve already ruined enough lives tonight.

JORIE WAKES ME UP
around one a.m. She’s alone, standing near the top step. There’s not enough room for her to get up on the landing and kick me or poke my eye.

“What are you doing here?” She has a smoke-strained voice.

“I came to see you. You weren’t home.”

“I know I wasn’t.”

My back hurts from being bent weird in my sleep. I move to get out of the way of her door.

“I went to Fillmore’s tonight. They said you didn’t work there anymore.”

Jorie unlocks her door. We go inside. She doesn’t say anything about her job; I don’t want to ask her where she’s been tonight because I’m not her mother or father. I can’t think of anything casual to say.

“I’m really tired, James. I’d like to hang out, but . . .”

“I don’t have a ride home.”

“I don’t have a car.”

“I know. I just. I can’t call Dad to get me now.”

She says I can crash on the floor. She pours a huge glass of water and explains she’s trying to avoid a hangover.

“Did they fire you?”

“Sort of. I think I technically quit.” She chugs the water. “They get to fill out the paperwork, so they’ll find a way to screw me out of unemployment.”

“I’ve been trying to get Mom and Dad to agree to let you come home,” I admit as a way to cheer her up.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Well, if you need to, I might have it figured out soon.”

“I’m sure they won’t let me.”

“If I get you back into school, he will.”

“That school will not take me back.”

As Jorie makes herself a peanut butter sandwich, she licks peanut butter off the knife. This makes her seem very hungry.

“It doesn’t matter. I got out of that school a little earlier than everyone else. That’s it.”

“What happened with Gina?”

My sister rubs her forearm. I take a glance to see if she’s been cutting herself, but the light in the room refuses to illuminate anything.

Jorie starts recounting the day of the fight, but nothing sounds important—woke up on time, Dad irritated her as usual, she forgot homework, she passed a pop quiz. Then, when she finally starts describing the fight with Gina, it sounds like an event in a small foreign country that she heard about on a scratchy AM radio. It’s not something that happened to her, just something that happened. I ask little questions, mostly trying to steer her to explain what set the whole thing off, but she’s stuck in the violence of it, how she lost control of herself, how she really wanted to hurt someone badly that week. By the time she gets to the moment things exploded, she only remembers that she wasn’t wearing socks and that Mom had thrown out one of her favorite T-shirts and an angry roaring drowned out the sound of the hallway.

“But what did Gina
do
to set you off?”

“When I saw her, she was smiling. She looked so damn happy, like nothing could ever hurt her. Ever.”

Jorie sits on the floor with her sandwich.

“Did you ever get so mad,” she asks, tears pouring easily from her eyes, “that the whole world became flat and all you could see was anger-orange?”

I say nothing. It’s too late to admit that I’ve never felt such an intense anger. Even earlier tonight, when I made a spectacle in the restaurant, I didn’t feel like I was there as I yelled at Sally and customers and busboys. My real self was outside, waiting for my foolish body to start running.

I want to press her for the truth, a real, concrete fact about what happened, but we’re both drained.

“You can sleep on the floor,” she says. “I’ll get you a blanket.”

I text the Brute that I’m staying over at Jorie’s. I hope that will be enough to keep him from killing me.

I KNOW I’VE PISSED
my father off good, because he hits me.

It’s the first time my father’s hit me in a long, long time. Years. Even back when I was little I only got hit for breaking things in the house or losing money. My mom used to smack at me when I was hyper or if I talked back, but I was good at avoiding her. Jorie was always more willing to take a hit; she told me once that Dad would get more aggressive if he missed, so it was better to let him land a couple right away so he’d be satisfied. I remember that she had a huge red mark on her back when she told me this. It was a weird moment, because Jorie was old enough to be shy about her body but she showed me this welt and was trying to brag about her ability to take a hit.

I could never adopt this strategy, but he also never seemed to maintain his focus when he missed. It’s like he never had his heart into hitting me. And then I realized neither of them had hit me in months, then years.

So, when he hits me mid-tirade, it surprises us both. A whack to the temple so forceful and just out of the blue that I spin around and get hit a second time, less hard, possibly as punishment for being cartoonish.

In the moment I think something stupid:
This
is a reason to be depressed.

I am grounded for the foreseeable future. My father yells at me with the kind of ire people usually reserve for an outburst a few days before writing a manifesto and then shooting office coworkers. I can’t even follow his argument for why I’m a terrible son.

Let’s just all understand, though, that I agree.

In my room I stare up at the tree and simmer in a self-loathing that makes me hate the photos and the stupid effort I went through to tape it all together and affix it to the ceiling. I could have done something more productive.

Of course it would be okay to be depressed if I got abused as much as Jorie. But I’m not. So then there’s something wrong with my wiring. I’m predisposed or programmed to be depressed. How horrible is that? Jorie was a mess last night and she’s not even in the house suffering under my parents’ regime. I know my parents aren’t swinging by her apartment for coffee, cake, and a quick smack. She and I seem to be poisoned with sadness in our blood.

Maybe this is why Jorie started cutting herself. To see if there was something different in her blood.

I’m not confined to my room, but I don’t leave it. My mother brings me a sandwich for dinner; I leave the plate untouched on the bathroom sink.

By ten-thirty on Saturday night I’m at my worst moment. I check my phone and e-mail obsessively for signs of connection from Derek, Beth, or even any Facebook friends. I hit refresh again and again. Spam messages give me false joy; I infuriate myself.

Attempts to capture anxieties in my journal fail, despite all the free time.

Around two in the morning, I write a poem. It’s the only thing that happens.

The oak grows out from the inside

old.

Rot licks slow.

The tree is upset.

Rooting in wrong places,

meeting up with concrete, buckling the ground

for kids on bikes to jump or tumble over.

The bugs crawl up, crawl in,

limbs get limp,

sway with less affection,

exaggerated in the dusk’s storms.

The leaves flash white,

a mirror of clouds,

and no one knows it’s too late

until a branch lets go,

hanging by dried-out muscle.

I HAVEN’T EATEN SINCE
the dinner with Beth. It’s Sunday but I’m not hungry. I spend most of the day in my boxers, under my covers, sleeping. I tell my mom I’m sick, so she brings me soup and a peanut butter sandwich for every meal. It’s gray outside, which doesn’t help. My mood has grown cold. My eyes feel puffy. I’m congested. Maybe it’s emotions, maybe it’s phlegm.

For the first time in weeks, I return to that practical question: Why don’t I just kill myself?

When I think about offing myself, I take a cue from Homer and begin
in medias res.
I think about being in the moment of doing it or having just done it. I think about myself as a crime scene or hovering over the moment of last hopes. I take pleasure in the fantasy of someone finding me, of amping up their guilt and sorrow as much as possible.

Then, after I’ve held my breath underwater as long as possible, so to speak, I jump back to the procuring of devices: How would I get a gun? Where would I tie the noose? Would a whole bottle of ibuprofen actually kill me?

Most of all, I want to cease. Goodbye, worries, end-of-semester projects, attendance, staying awake, gym class. My stupid haircuts, gone. No need to worry about colleges, girls, or disintegrating friendships.

Pleasure exists in these thoughts. In the throes of suicidal thoughts, the counting down of reasons both delays the act and encourages it. This must be what drug addicts love: teetering.

I am not a kind person. I have been a bad brother. A bad friend. I hate my parents. My parents hate me. I do not try in school. Girls do not like me. I am not interesting. I read books people do not care for. I watch movies to enjoy cinematography and not explosions. I do not drink enough alcohol. I do not enjoy parties. I cannot relax enough to relax. I will never be able to extinguish my worries.

Then Whitman wakes up and, despite what I expect, he helps me stay focused on death.

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?

I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die.

That’s a good one. True. Worthy of a yawp, if I had the energy.

Oh, but then there’s this:

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?

And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?

So, really, he can’t refrain from judging suicides. But fuck you, Whitman, because my sister defiled her body with little cuts while trying to find the joy that you so easily see in spears of grass. How come that couldn’t save her? How come trees can’t save me? How come we didn’t see bright joy in the world, or in ourselves?

Later, as my father drives me to the pizzeria, his gassy, grumpy body reeking of judgment and anger and disappointment, I can’t help but wonder how little he knows about the depth of my sadness. The depth of my very being. Will he be upset to find me dead, or relieved? Maybe he’ll use me as an excuse. Maybe I’ll help him seal a few real estate deals.

“I’m sorry, Dilbert, but I’ve just been so distracted with the death of my son that I haven’t been able to come up with a decent counterbid.”

“Gee, Dale, that’s all right. We’ll accept whatever offer you’ve got.”

Cue fake tears. Cue manly back-patting. Cue check writing.

At the pizza shop, nothing happens. It’s a Sunday night. A few orders come in. No one picks them up, it seems, but the pizzas disappear. I assume I’m ringing people up. Some other dude is working delivery, but he spends the night texting while sitting in the booth by the door. I forget his name. Usually Derek and I work together, but I bet he switched nights to stay away from me.

A pizzeria seems like the dumbest place to be depressed. Maybe I’m in hell.

I wipe down the already wiped-down tables and chairs. I think about what I would miss if I died.

Sometimes I urge my body to develop an illness that will kill me. So that I will know something is wrong inside and I can withhold the hurt and decay until it’s too late.

And they would say, “Why didn’t you tell us something was wrong?”

And I would say, “You didn’t notice. You never noticed. Something was wrong the whole time.”

That, I think, would be the most satisfying thing. Has anyone ever committed suicide with a self-willed cancer?

I have not eaten since Friday, I remember. It might be causing the headache that squints my eyes. The smell of pizza normally would exacerbate the situation, but I feel nothing in my stomach. A full, round nothing.

I check my phone for e-mails, texts, signs of life that I can grumble about.

There’s a message from Jorie:

J - Sorry about the other night. Haven’t been doing great. I think you know what I mean. But there’s nothing wrong with being down sometimes. We should hang out and listen to some music. I borrowed a hard drive from my friend Dutch. It’s got lots of crazy stuff that I think we’ll both love. I miss your tree pics!