Far from All Else

by Tom Lally

  “We’re here,” he said.

  “Huh?” I asked, realizing I’d spaced out.

  “The train station,” he pointed out of the windshield.

  “Right. What do I owe you?” I asked.

  “20,” he said.

  I pulled my wallet out from my pocket and fetched a crisp twenty and a five-dollar bill.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Yes, sir. My pleasure,” he said with the same resignation with which he’d said everything else.

  I grabbed my bags and got out of the car. The station looked like a house. Ivy covered the brick walls and snaked through the black shudders. The entrance was through a pair of double doors. I passed through them and found the waiting room to be empty. The station clerk sat with his feet up on the desk and didn’t notice me as I walked past. I grabbed a seat on a wooden bench and looked at the master clock hanging against the wall. The time read 9:38 p.m. I wanted to sleep, but I worried that I’d miss my train, so I took out my journal. I wrote reminders for myself regarding homework and college transfer applications I still needed to finish.

  I started writing character notes regarding the cab driver. I went through every aspect I had come up with, jotting them down in bullets. The paper started to fill slowly with ink. As I reached the few remaining lines, a voice sounded through the intercom.

  “10:12 train to Penn Station will be arriving on track 1 in fifteen minutes,” the voice said.

  The waiting made me crave nicotine again. I picked up my bags and walked through another pair of double doors at the rear of the building. It led me to a sky bridge covered by an iron roof. The cracked, cement floor was covered in pigeon shit. Rats ran into the shadows and through separate holes in the walls. A yellow sign declared a small segment, ‘Slippery. Careful When Walking,’ ignoring the rest of the hallway that was pockmarked with puddles.

  I walked to the furthest stairwell where a spray-painted sign said, ‘Track 1’, with an arrow directing me down to the platform. It was empty and I was glad once I saw the view. The Hudson River harbored the tracks. The darkness made it hard to see, but the soothing sound of calm waters reminded me of the beach near my house. I sat down on a bench and lit a cigarette, poorly shielding myself with my sweatshirt from the harsh wind that kicked up from the small, freezing waves as they crashed on the shore. The elements only made me unhappier and my thoughts drifted to what else was wrong in my life. College wasn’t working out. I couldn’t go back to my house. I didn’t have a place to sleep that night. I couldn’t seem to snap out of this sullen mood. I hadn’t made any friends at school and I was stuck with a roommate who barely understood how to respond to “Hello”.

  Three cigarettes later, I was still silently measuring my life, calculating my failures against other people’s successes. I didn’t even notice the train approaching until the engineer sounded the horn a hundred yards from the station. I stood and picked up my bags. I walked to the yellow safety line and watched the diesel engine loudly rushing towards me. As I peered into the headlights, I started to feel my body shift. My stomach twisted, forcing me to breathe heavily. The train’s headlights grew brighter and I could feel my feet moving closer and closer to the rails. As it neared within a few feet, I jumped back quickly and turned around. The wind from the passing train blew my hair forward and I started shaking. That was the first time I truly thought about killing myself.

  Chapter 2

  Eight Months Later

  Dr. Merriweather’s office was one of the few places I felt comfortable. It was small, yet inviting. It seemed as though the dimensions had been purposely set up so all of the bullshit stayed on the outside. The square room always smelt of rich mahogany and the black screens of two computers made me feel as though I had his full attention. The room couldn’t have been more than twelve feet long and wide. His swivel desk chair sat next to the door while I sat on the sofa across from him. A small glass table with a chess set whose pieces were civil war soldiers and horses separated us as we went through our sessions. I’d grown accustomed to going there so the table offered itself as an ottoman to my legs, both of which seemed more lethargic than they ever should have been for a twenty-year-old.

  Dr. Merriweather was in his sixties by my estimation. He had snow-white hair, but a slim figure that made his age hard to guess. It was something I didn’t know if he was sensitive about so I decided it best to wait until he finally told me, though he never did.

  I could hear his dogs barking whenever the doorbell rang for the next patient. His wife would occasionally peak her head through if she needed him for something important. The fact that I was in his house was even more comforting. I was in the place that most people tend to call their own, yet here he was, offering assistance to those who strayed from theirs for fifty minutes of healing.

  “How do you find the medication?” Dr. Merriweather asked.

  “I feel like a science experiment,” I said.

  “I know. We have to find the right dosage though. I know it’s hard, but remember, quality of life is the most important thing. It shouldn’t matter how you get there. We just need to get to that place,” he said.

  “I know. It’s just frustrating that everyone else seems to be able to just… I don’t know, to just be, if that makes sense?” I said.

  I hated reminding myself that others struggled too, but they seemed to figure it out by battling the obstacles while I crumbled whenever facing something greater than my mind could handle, which seemed to be everything.

  “I understand that. I don’t doubt that frustration is a major part of this. But is the medication helping with the mood swings and the anxiety?” Dr. Merriweather asked.

  “I guess, some days are rough, others are fine, but they, uh, they fluctuate depending on the day. I don’t really know what the trigger is, but some days, I don’t know, I just wake up and it feels like I’m worthless and then the next day, I feel like a normal kid again. Sometimes I sleep for fourteen hours, others I feel like I’m functioning as I should,” I said.

  Depression was like a game of Russian roulette. I never knew how I was going to feel. There were days when it seemed like I was just another kid navigating the potholes of adolescence as so many others did on a daily basis. Other days offered a glimpse into the world that I felt like only I could understand. Mornings would come and that feeling in the pit of my stomach would appear. No one else could creep within my head, but inside was the evidence to prove that I was completely alone in this world, the proof I only read about in articles and stories that celebrate the person that ‘could’ve been’ had they just reached out for help.

  “Are you still getting sick before you go to work?” he asked.

  “I was, but I finished a few days ago,” I said.

  “Oh right, I remember you telling me. Well, that’s good,” he said.

  “Yeah. I just hope I feel better,” I said.

  “You will and I promise you’ll have more energy. What else do you feel?” he asked.

  “Alone. Comfortably alone. It makes it seem like just for a little while, maybe I’m not as crazy as I think I am sometimes, though I know that couldn’t be further from where I’m trying to get to,” I said.

  “You’re right. Being alone is fine, but it has to be done in moderation. Too much time alone is not good for you, similar to how being with people too much is also not good for you,” Dr. Merriweather said.

  “Right,” I said.

  I’d begun to let my head fall so I was staring directly at the faded red color of my T-shirt. Dr. Merriweather quickly understood that I wanted to tell him something.

  “Go on, Drew, say it. Remember, this is a safe zone,” Dr. Merriweather said.

  His voice again remained calm, the result of thirty-five years of experience. It was his greatest psychological weapon. The safe confines of his office seemed to be cemented in his gentle tone. Anything I said to him would never be repeated in the outside world.

  “I had another episode.
I was standing on the, uh, the subway platform going to school, and I felt it again,” I said.

  My eyes wandered to the floor and then darted to each wall. Dr. Merriweather’s degrees, encased in expensive-looking black and gold frames, reminded me that this was not something he hadn’t heard before. I was not the first, nor was I ever going to be the last.

  “Felt what exactly?” he asked.

  “That urge again,” I paused for a few seconds, “to let myself fall onto the tracks and just…let it be over.”

  Dr. Merriweather looked down quickly at his dress pants, as if he was slightly disappointed in himself for seeing me go through this, but his typical, relaxed manner returned within a matter of seconds.

  “When’s the last time that happened?” he asked.

  “Happens often, a few times a week. But the urge is never there. I think that, I, uh, I think about killing myself, but I never actually feel the desire to go through with it,” I said, questioning myself as to whether or not I actually had lost it all, or just felt like I had.

  My chin dropped to my chest again. It seemed like my body was just reacting to my insecurities. It strangely felt as if gravity just pulled it down like bad days did to my demeanor.

  “I just want to assure you again that I’m not going to do it, but it scares me that the feeling is there,” I said firmly.

  I didn’t lie in his office. I truly didn’t believe I could have ever thrown myself into oncoming traffic or a train, but the reality of feeling as though that was an option was something that not only scared me, but it made me realize that I was not okay.

  “Those thoughts are not unusual for someone in your shoes. They’re rogue thoughts. Your brain is almost like a pinball machine and sometimes those thoughts get trapped in between what you know and what you feel. Those thoughts might be there, but you have to combat them,” he said.

  His calmness allowed me to feel like I was back to being myself again, re-emerging from the dark hole of overthinking everything and anything.

  “I know, but it’s the thought that’s frightening to me, you know? When someone asks, ‘How are you doing?’ I notice that I have to lie,” I said.

  “I know, but you can’t overthink every single aspect of a conversation. The line ‘how are you doing’ is simply a tradition of politeness and merits an answer of ‘good’,” Dr. Merriweather said. “Here, that question is the basis for what we talk about, but with people outside, it isn’t their business unless you want to tell them about something.”

  I nodded my head in understanding. I felt better when these conversations took place. It meant for a few minutes, I felt normal again. It was a high I chased, similar to the feeling a rare blunt produced when it relaxes every muscle in your body. I thought of it as the only measure of normalcy, the only hope that I would one day feel this way outside of his office, but that was something that eluded me. Safety truly was key for my sanity and I thought of Dr. Merriweather’s office as the next best place to my basement where my record collection and television offered an escape from reality.

  “I just want to stop thinking about it as much as I do. Music used to calm me down, but now those bad feelings kind of hover around all of the time,” I said.

  “Are you still writing?” he asked, scratching the shoulder of his blue sweater.

  “Rarely. I have my notebooks lying around, but I kill most of my time watching T.V. or doing homework,” I said. “I mess around with the guitar occasionally, but not a lot.”

  The truth felt good sometimes, even if it reminded me of the time I was wasting. I had been in ninth grade when I turned in my first creative writing story to my English teacher who told me that I should never give it up. That was the last person I ever showed a piece of work to except for Dr. Merriweather. Besides then, short stories and notebooks littered the dresser cabinet next to my bed. Nearly five years of writing, and I never planned on showing it to a soul.

  “Playing guitar is good, but you also need to write. You cannot throw it by the wayside. You know me. I cannot tell you a lie. You have a gift. My wife read your story six times once I told her you’d written it as a freshman in high school. Have you written anything in the past few months?” Dr. Merriweather asked.

  “No. I just don’t think I can do it,” I said.

  All of my work had succumbed to the frustration of dealing with a writer’s deepest fear, the question, ‘Am I any good at this?’ That question had driven me in different directions depending on the day. In the past six months, I crumbled into the oblivion of cigarettes and video games. Before that though, I would sit at my basement desk and write for hours on end. Both ended at the same conclusion though. I wasn’t worth a shit regardless.

  Dr. Merriweather shook his head and said, “Well, that’s not a good way to look at it. To change you, we need to change your thinking. Write about anything you want, but know that it’s not worthless. It’s a part of your identity, the one you keep running away from. You’ll never know until you try. I can’t tell you that you’ll be successful because I don’t know, but I’m telling you the truth when I say if you don’t try, then you’ll never succeed.”

  “I know, I know,” I mumbled.

  “We have to end here today,” Dr. Merriweather said.

  “Okay, same time next week?” I asked.

  “Yes, and do me a favor, bring something that you wrote, old or new, I don’t care. I just want to see it. Is that okay with you?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I nodded and laughed shyly.

  I pulled a check out of my wallet and left it on the chessboard.

  “Okay. I refilled your prescription; we’ll keep you at two hundred milligrams for now and see how it is next week, okay? Stay strong, kiddo. We’re making progress. Trust me,” he said.

  “I know,” I said quietly though I didn’t believe it. “I’ll see you on Sunday.”

  I walked back into the waiting room where two chairs rested against the wall with a small reading table separating them. Music came from two speakers in the corners of the room, playing Mozart before transitioning into Simon and Garfunkel. The married couple waited outside as they always did. It was awkward to talk to them, as we both knew something was going poorly in each other’s lives.

  “How are you doing?” the man asked.

  “Good,” I lied, “how are you?”

  “Great,” they lied.

  Through the lone window, I saw my dad’s car parked in the street.

  “Great,” I said. “Have a good one.”

  My dad saw me walking down the cement path to the street. His Cadillac’s engine started to growl a sound that I knew he enjoyed. I reached the car door and hopped in, immediately smacked by the smell of cigars and old man.

  He turned around and threw his newspaper along with his reading glasses on the backseat. The gray in his hair had started to become more prominent. His face always had a stern demeanor, especially when he was driving me to and from these appointments. He was forced into this situation by my sister who pleaded with him to take me once I got back from Hudson Valley College.

  He buried his face into his phone, tapping at the keys with his pointer finger like so many elderly people do. He squinted his eyes as he tried to read the small font.

  “Fuckin’ thing sucks,” he said.

  “You can turn the keyboard so it’s bigger,” I said.

  “It’s broken, fuckin’ stupid ass thing,” he said and threw it into the cup holder between our seats.

  I sat patiently while my father put his seatbelt on, struggling to get it comfortably over his large gut that rested against the bottom of the steering wheel.

  “You know he can’t figure it out for you,” he said.

  “We’ve been over this. He can help me,” I said.

  “He’s not gonna help you that much,” my dad said.

  “Well, it makes me feel better,” I said.

  “Do you really need the meds?” my dad asked.

  “I think they’re helpi
ng. Why?” I asked.

  “Because I don’t like the medication. When I was your age, we didn’t have any of this shit. You made it on your own and you figured it out on your own,” he said.

  “Well, for me that didn’t work so well,” I said.

  “For me, it wasn’t a choice,” my dad said. “Instead, now I’m paying $250 a week so you can sulk in the basement.”

  My dad’s face became long and drawn. The withered scars of torn teenage pimples and a single spot of melanoma resided on his rotund cheeks.

  He was an ‘experienced’ man in the sense that he hated the ‘new generation’. He was thirty-five years removed from me and didn’t believe in disorders or mental illnesses in his family. He was a modern Darwinist. The strong survive and the weak fail. With my other siblings, he reveled in their accolades. It made him look great. For me it was different. I’d quit basketball after my sophomore year. I’d been asked to play football after the coach saw me throwing in gym class, but I didn’t want to go to practice every day. I graduated in the top 20 of my class, but I wasn’t first. He looked at me like a waste of space, a human paperweight with one foot in my grave.

  “You can’t run from this, Drew,” he said.

  “I’m not trying to run from this, but it’s not easy,” my voice grew more distressed with each word.

  “You sit in the basement all day, watching television or listening to music or doing whatever else,” he stopped again. “You need to get out of the house.”

  “You wanted me to get a job and I did,” I said.

  “And then you quit, Drew! You worked for five months and then left because ‘it was too stressful being a waiter’,” he mocked me. “When Riley was your age, she was modeling full time. When Pierce was in college, he was interning three straight summers, going to school, and juggling that with football.”

  “I’m not them though,” I said.

  “No, you’re not, obviously,” he said with a short breath. “You can’t hope to get better, Drew, you need to do something about it.”

  “I’m trying,” I said.