The tragedy of being hap.., p.10
The Tragedy of Being Happy, page 10
“I don’t need your help.”
“I think you do,” Jim says.
I look at the ceiling.
“Happy, your mother’s worried…she thinks…she doesn’t know what to think. I told her that I would help you through this. I’ve moved Bug out of your room.”
The words punch into me.
“What?”
“I will protect the people here,” Jim says. “I cannot force you…I can’t make you…but I will not allow you to spread this…this illness…”
“Illness?”
“Yes!” He slams his hand on his desk. The sound of it shocks us both silent. But only for a minute. “Yes,” he says again, quieter. “Illness.” A redness spreads through his face. “You need to know a few things. You’re not to be alone with any other patient.”
“What?”
“If I hear…if you repeat this…if it happens again, you will be moved permanently to the Quiet Room.”
“Jim—”
“No!” he snaps. “I will not allow you to poison this place.”
“You can’t.”
“I can.”
“Jim, please…”
“Give me a reason,” he says, “either way. Show me. Either do as I say or not. You choose.”
A violence rises in me, but my body won’t work. My hands shake so bad they hurt. “Jim…”
Jim turns away then. “Go on,” he says.
A swirling feeling fills my head. For a second, I think I’m going to pass out but I don’t.
“Go on,” Jim says again.
As soon as the door closes behind me, the tears start. Hot and bitter. My nose flows like a busted faucet. My throat ties itself into a knot. I hate it. I’m embarrassed. Down the hall, lunch rages in the Commons. I don’t want anyone to see me. I don’t want to eat or talk or be around anyone. Getting to my room is impossible. I’ll have to get past the Commons with no one seeing me. Not a chance I’m willing to take.
I put my back to the wall and slide to the floor. I press my face to my knees and weep. Silent. Great, shivering sobs. My gut hurts. My hands and shoulders tremble. A ragged loneliness eats away at my insides. All I want is to turn to dust. To disappear. But I can’t. The best I can do is hide.
Staff finds me. He comes around the corner and stops. Hard. Stumbling a bit. “Whoa,” he says.
I don’t even look up.
“Happy?”
I turn away. Ashamed.
“Hey,” Staff says, kneeling beside me. He winces. His big belly folds around his fat thighs. Too many chins hang from a round jaw. Big ears flare under hair an improbable orange color. “What’s going on?” He sounds truly concerned. His tone’s soft and prying.
“Nothing.” It’s stupid. I’m all shivering tears and obvious sadness. Anyone with eyes can see that my day is not all sunshine and blowjobs.
“Happy, I can’t help if you don’t talk to me.”
I look up at his wide, freckled face. It’s open and kind and I know it’s a lie. There’s always a secret. A nastiness hidden behind kind eyes. Trust is a bedtime story. Secrets are currency. “I’m fine,” I say.
“You’re crying.”
“So?”
He slides down next to me. Too close. His hips bump mine. Shoulders, too. He just sits there. Silent. He waits and I wait. He doesn’t move or ask anything..
After a while, I talk. “You know what happened? Last night?”
Staff sucks in a breath and nods.
“It just happened,” I say. “It’s not like we planned it.”
“God gave us a frontal lobe. Just because we want to, doesn’t mean we have to.…I get it, though. You guys are all packed in here. There’s nowhere to go and no one else to talk to. Still, you know the rules. You couldn’t have thought you’d get away with it.”
“We did get away with it,” I say. “For a long time.”
Staff seems to smile. “Still, he says, “not smart.”
“Why’s it matter?” I say. “I mean, it’s just…you know? Fucking.”
“Happy, personally, I don’t care. But there are people here with histories. They make poor choices. What if someone gets hurt?”
“We’re not kids!”
“You’re still young and we have to be careful.”
“Stupid.”
He did smile then, a real smile. “Yes but true.”
I think about that for a moment. But then darker thoughts come. “Am I sick?”
“Sick?” he asks. “Because of last night?”
“Jim says it’s an illness.”
He frowns. Something angry crowds around his eyes, the corners of his mouth. “Jim has a right to his opinions.”
“Right.”
There it is. All the Staff follow Jim’s lead. They watch and they wait and they get off on controlling things. They all think I’m bent. Dangerous. They all hate me. I can’t blame them. I hate me too.
“No,” Staff says, “not sick. Stupid. Careless. Not sick.”
Staff walks me down the hall. Between me and the world. A wall no one can get through. When we get to my room, Staff looks at me until I look back. Right in the eyes. There’s something there. Kindness, maybe. Anger, too, and something else. And all of a sudden, his name flashes through my mind—Patrick.
The room’s empty. No sign of Bug. Someone made his bed. Too tight. Too proper for Bug’s work. His desk is empty. Walls rise over me. The same walls from yesterday. Harder now somehow. They seem to hold me in. I sigh and an angry sadness wells up. I’m used to Bug. I’m used to his occasional snore at night and his more than occasional fart in his sleep. I’m used to having someone to talk to at night when the lights are dark. I’m used to his warm body. His generous lips. His glorious shoulders.
Gone. All of it. Taken away.
Being powerless is not unfamiliar but it still sucks.
I’m greasy with worry-sweat and fear-sweat. I itch. Again, the shower lacks all comfort. The water’s neither hot enough nor powerful enough. It seeps out of the shower head. It slips over me, soft and slow. Still, I sit on the cold tiles and let it cover me. Being naked. Being alone is a comfort. For a while, I pretend I’m somewhere else. I don’t have to worry about who watches what or what they can do to me. I pretend I don’t have to keep my secrets so tight.
A vast exhaustion rises up and drags at me. Moving slowly, I dry myself and decide to take a nap. I remember my promise to Patrick. A little guilt rises up but I’m worn out and ragged. I need to lie down. I’ll eat later.
So, I lay in my bed and pull the blankets to my chin. Thoughts of Jim crowd my head. All the things I’d never say to him push in. Powerful words that only come when Jim isn’t there pushing at me. I imagine myself crushing him. I imagine the look on his face when he realizes I’m stronger than I look.
Seamlessly, I slip into a dream of city-sized trees. Gnarled. Knotted. Limbs, wide enough to support heavy traffic, motor and foot, growing in long curves. Leaves larger than the biggest person offer a dim shade. Off in the distance, a mountain, white and black. I rise up and see the tree where Los Angles used to be. And San Francisco. Portland and Seattle. All of it offers a strange comfort.
I tell myself to keep hold of the dream. I tell myself to wake and make notes. This is a book happening. This can make me famous. Something breaks through the thought. My name. A voice. First, it’s just part of the dream. An echo. But then it’s real. Still, I fight it. I don’t want to open my eyes. I open my eyes. Grumpy. Bug leans in the doorway. Not his usual self. The cockiness and confidence, missing. His grin’s a little forced. He looks down the hall. “Are you okay?” he asks. I sit up. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
“I believe you.”
He picks at his shirt with his fingers. Even sad and worried, he carries a certain beauty. Smooth skin. Hard muscle. A face to capture a thousand painters and give them each a thousand dreams. “They moved me,” he says. “I didn’t want to go.”
“Okay.”
“Happy,” he says, panicky. “I want to say no. I want…”
“It’s okay,” I say.
“It’s not.”
“No, you’re right. It’s not.”
He looks gut-punched. Gray-faced. Wide-eyed. His mouth pops open. He looks at the floor and his hands flutter like he’s trying to grab something not there. “I can’t do this,” he says. He wants me to say something but there are no words. I’m caught up in my head. Things come to me but they refuse to stay still long enough to get hold of. They blast through me, a hurricane. Fear grinds against rage. I press it down, striving for apathy. I school my face.
“People are talking,” Bug says.
“Okay.”
“They say we’re fags.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t want to be a fag.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not fag,” he says.
“Okay.”
Again, he looks down the hall. He looks for anyone close enough to hear. He looks for anyone with the power to hurt him. All he sees is me. “Where I’m from…” Bug says. “In my family…they kill fags.”
“Maybe we’re already dead,” I say. He frowns. “Maybe this is hell. Maybe there’s nowhere to go from here.”
“What’re you talking about?”
A floating feeling fills me. I’m here and not here. I’m in my body and out of it at the same time. It’s a drunk feeling. Disjointed. Quivering.
“Nothing,” I say, unable to think or move.
“I just want you to know,” Bug says, “I tried…but…I can’t be your boyfriend.”
“Okay.”
“Not anymore.”
“Okay.”
We stand like that for a long time.
“Okay,” he says.
“Yep.”
He turns away. Stops. He turns back. “I’m sorry.”
“Okay.”
“We’re friends? I want to be friends.”
“We’re friends,” I say.
The words ease something in him. He leaves and I wait for a moment, not sure if I’m a liar or not.
Because I promised Patrick I would eat, I get up. Because Patrick was nice to me when I needed it, I go to the Commons. I’m not hungry. I don’t want to spend time with people. But I promised, and I feel like I should at least try.
The Commons is neither empty nor full. People finish their meals. They sit and smoke and talk. A few look up when I come in. A few snicker. A boy whose name escapes me says something that makes everyone around him giggle. I stop and we eye each other like a couple of cats, silent and still. Finally, he looks away. No one wants to fight. Not yet.
“Happy,” Pudge says. She sits in her usual place. Alone. I almost turn away. “Happy,” she says, “here.” She puts her hand on the cushion next to her. Her face is a worried line. I take my tray and settle next to her. The food smells meaty. It smells of gravy and grease. “Sweetie, are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Totally sucks,” she says. “Preacher breaking you two up.”
“It’s okay.”
Pudge shakes her head. Hair flops around her face. “It’s not,” she says. “Bug’s all sick with it. People are saying things…”
I lift the cover from the plate and gag a little. Mashed potatoes. Roast and beans. My gut knots. My hands shake. Slowly, I tear one end of a salt packet open and pour it over the food. Making time.
“It’s all so stupid. You weren’t hurting anyone.”
Slowly, I take a small bite of meat. It isn’t bad. A little stringy but not mushy. It sits on my tongue waiting for me to chew. I have to concentrate. Everything seems too hard. Everything requires me to focus. Nothing’s automatic anymore.
Through it all, Pudge talks. She pays no attention to me. All wrapped up in her own outrage. “Preacher thinks he knows things,” she says.
Another bite. Beans this time. Leathery and tasteless. I decide I’ll leave the rest for the garbage.
“Sweetie,” Pudge says, “I am so worried about you. Staff says you had an episode. An episode! Scared the shit out of me. I mean, what the hell is an episode?” She stops then. Tears stand out in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I know you love him.”
I shake my head. “I don’t believe in love,” I say.
“Happy,” she says, “it’s okay.”
I set my tray aside. I can’t eat anymore. My system’s sufficiently shocked for the day. “Bug broke up with me,” I say. Pudge’s eyes get wide and white. “He says he can’t be a fag. As if you’re only a fag when other people say you’re a fag. Like, last night he wasn’t a fag. Like, being a fag is a bad thing.”
“Oh my God,” Pudge says.
“Don’t.”
“That’s so shitty,” she says.
“I guess.”
Pudge grabs my hand and squeezes it hard. The cello calluses are edged and hard. The rough skin feels like it can peel flesh from bone. I find myself wondering about calluses. How long does it take for them to go away? When do things go back to softness?
“Do you hate him now?” she asks.
Hate? I can’t get worked up enough to hate anyone. I’m too empty to hate anyone. Hate requires fire, and I’m all ash. Not even an ember.
“I should kick his ass,” she says.
“Don’t.”
Pudge slumps back on the couch. “I hate this.”
Patrick comes for my tray. He stands over me.
“I tried,” I say.
One of his eyebrows rose. I notice they’re so pale they almost completely disappear in his soft white face.
“I just…I can’t,” I say.
Pudge tries to stand up for me. “He’s had a bad day.”
“Pudge,” Patrick says, “please.” His voice is all warning.
I squeeze Pudge’s hand and she looks at me. “It’s okay,” I say. “He’s okay.” Pudge doesn’t look convinced but she closes her mouth.
Patrick doesn’t look happy at all. “You promised,” he says.
“I know. I tried. Honest.”
A bit of a silence. After a bit, he just takes my tray.
Pudge goes to get cigarettes. I’m back on Level One but Patrick slips her an extra cigarette. Pudge smiles at him. Breaking the rules sometimes makes you look stupid. But sometimes, it makes you the one people trust. When Pudge hands me the forbidden smoke, I look up at Patrick and he points at me. His face, all stern again. It’s a message. “Try harder,” it says. “I like you anyway,” it says. “You’re worth liking,” it says.
Maybe it’s weird, but in that moment, Patrick is my best friend.
Staff comes with the bell. Group time. We all line up and Staff counts us. Instead of standing with Pudge and me, Bug waits at the end. Alone. Away from me. Away from Pudge. Everyone watches. They whisper about us. About the fags and their hag.
When Staff finishes counting us, we walk quietly down to the Group Room. We take our seats. Bug sits across the room. I can’t help but stare at him. He squirms. He tries hard not to see me, but he has to look up sometimes and when he does, I’m there, waiting. Misery ruins the lines of his perfect face. A puffiness around his eyes makes him look all weepy and weak. Stubble blurs the line of his jaw. His usual goofy grin sags into a thin-lipped grimace.
Staff says my name. “Maybe you can start us off.”
I shake my head.
“You’ve had a rough time lately,” Staff says. “Maybe you can tell us how you are.”
“I’m fine,” I say.
I say it like it’s true. But the whole thing makes me nervous. The room’s too small and there are no windows. The room smells of sweat and cigarettes. Pudge takes my hand. It helps. A little. Kind of. Across the room, Bug jumps a little, as if someone pinched him.
“I have a question,” Jules says.
Everyone goes quiet. Jules never talks. People tend to forget that she’s around. Now, though, she’s here. She stands out, sharp in a pink shirt and black skirt. No shoes. Socks. Her hair hangs in a long tail down her back. Even Staff seems surprised.
“Do you believe in forever?” Jules asks.
Staff frowns. “What do you mean?”
Jules looks up at the ceiling, as if there were words there. “I don’t know,” she says. “You tell us about mindfulness…you know…you tell us to accept things.” She stops for a moment and chews on her cuticle. “I just think that accepting things…just letting them happen is kind of weak.”
“I don’t know about that,” Staff says. “Sometimes, you just have to get through the moment.”
“What if the moment lasts forever? I mean, we’re either alive or dead.” Staff starts to interrupt her, but Jules holds up a hand. “According to what you teach, right now is all that matters, right?” Staff looks unsure but willing to listen. “If the right now is all that matters,” Jules says, “if this moment goes on forever, then we’re both dead and alive. All at the same time.”
“Schrödinger’s Cat,” Pudge whispers.
“I don’t know anything about cats,” Jules says, shaking her head, “but I know that if this moment, this forever moment, is all there is, then there’s no reason to try. I’m either going to be sad forever or happy or lost or confused.”
“No,” Staff says, “you can be perfect and still try to improve at the same time. Just because two things seem to be opposites doesn’t mean they’re both not true.”
“So, the right now can be both forever and temporary?” Jules asks.
Staff grins. Thrilled, maybe, that Jules is participating and excited that someone understands the shit he’s selling.
“So,” Jules says, “you can love someone and hate them at the same time?” She looks right at me. A bit of sweat runs over my ribs. My palms itch. Staff looks from me to her. “It’s just mean,” she says, “to tell us to move on... There is no past and no future, there is only the eternal now.”
