by Tom Lally
Far from All Else
Tom Lally
Austin Macauley Publishers
Far from All Else
About the Author
About the Book
Dedication
Copyright © Tom Lally (2019)
Acknowledgment
Chapter 1
Chapter 2Eight Months Later
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
About the Author
Far from All Else is the debut novel of Tom Lally. Tom is 22 years old and recently graduated from Hunter College in New York City with a degree in English Literature.
About the Book
Far from All Else follows the crisis of Drew Thomas, a young man struggling with depression amid the demands of a dysfunctional family. His odyssey takes him from an elite liberal arts college in an upscale suburban neighborhood to a mental health ward. The novel depicts the harsh realities of dealing with mental illness and loneliness while trying to grow up as he navigates this strange, new world.
Dedication
Dedicated to my family.
Copyright Information ©
Tom Lally (2019)
The right of Tom Lally to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalog record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528957304 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgment
I’d like to thank Roger and Jackie Pierangelo for all of their support and encouragement.
Chapter 1
The wind blew the loose snow down the gravel path. Patches of ice scattered themselves throughout as I walked past the dormitories of Hudson Valley College which were hidden in the dark shadows of the woods. My dorm was on the other side of campus. The library and the deli, the places I usually found myself in, were the farthest places from my room.
That night, I was coming from the library having spent the past three hours typing an essay. Upstate New York felt colder than Long Island during this time of year. The dense forest with its tall trees created wind tunnels. My worn-out jeans and old sweatshirt were no match for nature.
At least it’s Thursday night, I thought to myself.
I wasn’t stuck in the beginning of the week, but I didn’t want the weekend to arrive, where I’d sit in my room watching television and losing my mind from boredom. I wanted to drop out, but my father told me that I needed to stay for my own sake, though it was only for his benefit so he wouldn’t have to deal with me. I could only come home for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and spring break. I didn’t tell him I had already applied to colleges in Manhattan so I could commute next year.
I continued walking through the woods by way of the gravel path. A clay sculpture of a hand rising from the ground was erected in the middle of a fork in the path. It was out of place if you asked me. I didn’t understand the meaning; therefore, I probably didn’t understand why the hell I was in a place like this to begin with. A good grade point average in high school and a chance to get out of high society led me to these ivy-coated, Neo-Gothic buildings, but I wasn’t ready for the difference between myself and others. The student body was diverse despite the fact that they all could have been from Brooklyn. The hipster dilemma, those who conform to others that also don’t conform, yet ignore the fact that they all conform to not conforming.
Me on the other hand, I didn’t knowingly conform to anybody. My hair wasn’t blue. I didn’t wear style hats or berets. My T-shirts didn’t have any artwork or sarcastic phrases like, ‘Don’t look at my shirt’ or ‘Fuck Sting’. My ears weren’t pierced. I didn’t share the desires here, though I applauded them immensely. Kids who looked like the epitome of social outcasts were happy and sincere. Most didn’t have a similar background to mine. They didn’t like sports. They liked to talk about politics. They enjoyed embracing themselves, whether it be their sexuality or abnormal style of fashion. Everyone rolled cigarettes outside of class. I bought mine by the pack since I could barely roll without a pen to wrap the paper around. I was quiet. I didn’t have a lot to say, unlike these kids who seemed happy to say what they thought. No one wanted to hear what I had to say anyway. My appearance represented someone who came from the Iowa cornfields instead of one of the richest neighborhoods on the east coast. Most were surprised when I told them where I was from and I wished their imagination was my reality, but it wasn’t.
The gravel soon turned to pavement once I passed through the woods. More dormitories lined the narrow street. People flew past on their ten-speed bicycles and campus golf carts. I walked on and sucked down a cigarette quickly. I could hear music coming from one of the common rooms and people talking as the smell of burning weed lingered in the air.
Why couldn’t I have that, I thought.
I knew the issue wasn’t them, but me. This realization, though truthfully acknowledged, was a deep blow to my self-conscience. I didn’t know how to change and I was too scared to do so anyway.
I kept my head down even though it was dark out. The wind was freezing my cheeks and the five o’clock shadow I was sporting didn’t help keep the rest of my face warm. I could see the lights coming from my dorm and started to walk faster before finally reaching the door. I swiped my college ID card across the door sensor and walked through the foyer, passing the garbage cans and recycling bins that were filled with empty bottles of cheap vodka and flat beer. I walked through the second door and turned left. My room was the first one on the left. I took a deep breath and swiped my ID card again on the door sensor.
Charlie, my roommate, was lying on his bed. His dirty socks were the first thing that greeted me when I walked in. The room was dark except for a reading light that clung to the top of the pages in his book. I could see his black hair somehow lined with sweat in January. His pudgy build and glasses made him look like a marshmallow with spectacles. He wore a large T-shirt with a decal for Jumbo’s Towing Company on the front. The sleeves extended down to his elbows.
“What are you reading?” I asked.
“The Turner Diaries,” he said without looking up.
It didn’t surprise me that he was reading a hard copy of a book written by a white supremacist. The book was a motivator for Timothy McVeigh when he destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma City. It was banned in public libraries and was supposedly tracked by the F.B.I. That being said, it wasn’t unusual for him. I walked to my side of the room and turned on the lamp sitting on my desktop. I could see his eyes shielding themselves from the fluorescent light. He had a putrid dislike for that sort of light which he never explained, but he constantly reminded me that it didn’t ‘suit him’.
“You have a good night?” I asked.
&nb
sp; “Ah. You don’t really care,” he mumbled.
“Something wrong?” I asked, scrunching my face in confusion.
He turned only his head and glared at me. His cheeks looked like they were packed with walnuts beneath their red dimples.
“No, nothing is wrong. I just want to read my book in peace, Jesus Christ. Turn that light off,” he said.
“What the fuck is up your ass?” I snapped.
“What are you talking about, Drew?” he said and quickly sat up.
“I just asked how your night was,” I said.
“Well, maybe I just want to be left alone,” he said.
“Why did you go away to school then?” I asked angrily. “Cause having a roommate sort of limits your time alone.”
“Why are you being a dick?” he asked.
He turned his body so his feet hung off his mattress.
“Me? I’m the dick? Are you fucking serious? I ask a polite question and you act like I just pissed all over your sheets,” I said.
My voice was growing more agitated. I could feel my pulse echo in my throat.
“All I said was I’m reading my book and turn your light out,” he said.
“How do you not understand this?” I asked.
I’d lost my temper twice in my life up to that point. Both times had been with Charlie. I hated getting angry. I lost my sense of right and wrong and just wanted to rip his head off. But Charlie just looked at me. He didn’t understand. I didn’t know if he couldn’t grasp what I was saying or if he just had a skewed view of socializing. I sighed and cursed at myself under my breath.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong. I just snapped,” I paused, “I’m sorry.”
Charlie flapped his hand at me and grunted while he jumped off of his bed. He barely looked at me as he stuffed his book into his backpack and grabbed his coat from the back of his desk chair. My anger crept back quickly. I wanted to scream at him, but it wouldn’t do any good except make things more awkward, though I truly thought I could yell common sense into his head.
“You know, Drew; you can be an asshole too. Don’t freak out with me when you think I’m being rude. I am the way I am. That’s how it is, so go fuck yourself,” he said and stormed out of the room.
I should’ve chased after him. I wanted to slam his head against the wall. Instead, I slammed my fist on my desk which I’d been standing over the whole time. I then leaned against the slab of the wall in between my bed and desk and I looked over at the third bed in the room. Our three-person room was a two-person suite. The third person never showed up. I think he knew something I didn’t. My printer sat on the blue mattress covered in Charlie’s laundry for the week. Sweaty shirts and stiff stocks told me it was best to print at the library. I’d used my printer only twice this year and both of my papers smelt like leftover deli meat.
Next to the bed, near my closet, Charlie had a blown-up alien doll. It looked like a cadaver and donned a white shirt with the words, ‘Beware’, written in sharpie. Charlie’s dad, Marv, had given it to him over Christmas break. He found it to be the funniest thing he’d seen in his life. My request to change rooms had yet to be answered. It’d been two months since I sent in my request and I’d given up hope.
My schedule gave me Fridays off. Most days, when I didn’t have class, I spent watching television or playing basketball in the gym. It got harder each week to convince myself to stay. I wasn’t going to do that this time. I pulled out my laptop from my backpack and placed it on my desk. I looked up Amtrak train times heading from the Hudson train station to Penn Station. The next train time was at 10:12 that night. I looked at the time in the upper right corner of the screen. It was 9:05 p.m. I could still make it if I got a cab. I’d remembered picking up a cab company’s card from somewhere during orientation. I found it in my wallet, buried behind some class notes and expired metro cards. I called the number and was answered by a monotone voice.
“Taxi,” the voice said.
“Can I get a cab from Hudson Valley College to the Hudson train station?” I asked.
“When?” the voice asked.
“Fifteen minutes, if that works?” I asked.
“Okay. Where you at?” the voice asked.
“McCann Hall on the south side of campus,” I said.
“Okay, McCann Hall, fifteen minutes, and your name,” the voice said.
“Drew,” I said.
“Okay, Drew, we’ll see you soon,” the voice said.
“Thanks,” I said.
I turned back to my computer and bought a ticket to the city. I had no idea where I was going, but I wasn’t worried about that. I just couldn’t be where I was any longer. I packed my clothes into my gym bag and then packed my schoolbooks and my laptop in my backpack. After searching through the desk drawers, I found my notebook which I used to write stories and journal entries in and stuffed it inside my backpack before sitting at my desk, counting the seconds until it was a full fifteen minutes from when I called the taxi. I listened to the wind swirling in the streets outside, hoping the sound would be punctuated by a car engine or a honk from its horn. The lone window’s curtain was always drawn. The window was right next to a bike rack and a bench where everyone smoked. It was disconcerting to be sleeping while people could easily look through the window, so I relied on my ears to guide me. I finally thought I heard something and decided it best to leave the room. I wanted a cigarette either way.
The cab parked right in front of the building just as I crushed my cigarette on the ground.
“Drew?” the driver asked from his seat.
“Yup,” I said, exhaling the remaining smoke.
“Hop in,” he said.
I hurriedly jumped in and he began to drive. We drove through the narrow roads that passed the large field where rows of solar panels stood. We passed the church, a small and isolated section of the campus. It seemed strange to have it here since everyone was either an atheist or believed in anything other than God. The driver turned onto the main road that led out of the campus. We passed students walking, eliciting happiness and a sense of belonging. Their smiles and animated dances told me they were either telling a story or listening to music. I looked down at myself. My sweatshirt was ripped and the bottoms of each sleeve were burnt from trying to drunkenly light cigarettes. My sneakers were covered in dirt and paint, though I didn’t remember where the latter came from. My appearance didn’t matter to me. This was who I was, but nobody else seemed to like it. I liked myself sometimes, but I hated myself more often. Everyone else seemed fine and secluded in their clique, but the world swallowed me whole. I was isolated in my own self-imposed exile.
The cab ride was quiet and the driver looked tired. His eyes were bloodshot. His New York Yankees hat covered his balding, pale scalp. His denim jacket was old and worn while his knuckles looked bruised. His left hand couldn’t wrap itself fully around the steering wheel. I could see him in the rear-view mirror as he licked his top gum between the gap where his two front teeth should have been.
I imagined his name was Gunner Howling, a boxer from the golden era when Muhammad Ali ruled the media and Joe Frazier stepped ahead of Ken Norton in the rankings. I could see his sculpted body and how it succumbed to the constant blows of fighting, his front teeth landing on the scorer’s table where blood deflected across the paperwork like bird droppings. The cinematic end showed him in a black-and-white photo on his knees with blood dripping down his face while his competitor celebrated in the opposing corner.
He was then stuck in a dive bar in Brooklyn. He was too drunk to move and his left hand could barely hold onto the glass of water the bartender gave him to sober up. His career was gone as were his supporters. He drank away the loneliness, hoping to lose the memories of his nineteen-year-old self, shadow boxing in a Queens gym as journalists talked to his trainer about his illustrious future.
I imagined him wandering aimlessly through Bay Ridge in the cold, living in drug dens with other junkies, h
olding a spoon above a lit candle and wrapping a rubber tourniquet around his arm. He nearly jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge, but was stopped by a man who offered him a ride to Poughkeepsie for no reason other than friendliness. The man gave him $150 and he spent the next month sweating and vomiting away his addiction in a motel room. He then slowly worked his way farther upstate, working odd jobs trying to find the right place until one hitchhiking trip left him here. He scrounged together his remaining cash and headed to a local bar where he met the man I’d spoken to with the monotone voice. The man recognized him from his fight with Chuck Wepner in Trenton long before Wepner took Ali fifteen rounds in Ohio. He tried to hide his identity, but the scars below his eyes gave him away and he accepted it. He needed a friend. They talked about life, women, booze, wasted dreams, and unfulfilled talents. The man then brought up his cab service and his search for new drivers. A former boxer may have scoffed at the idea, but Gunner needed the money. He slept in another seedy motel when he first started working before renting an apartment above a laundromat a couple of months later. The cockroaches and cave crickets didn’t bother him the way cold sidewalks and torn boots in a New York winter did. He was just happy to have a couch and four walls. Ever since, he’d been doing this.
He’d already worked a full day when we first met. He started at 5:00 a.m. and had driven all day, but only had a few fares that night. He’d eaten a gas station ham sandwich before taking a nap with his hat over his eyes. Then he got the call over his radio to pick me up. It woke him suddenly and his eyes hadn’t recovered. His hand was cold and sore. He wished he had some sort of narcotic to dull the pain, but reminded himself not to think about it numerous times on our drive. He just thought about the destination and the money he would get at the end of his shift.
