Waiting for Fitz

by Spencer Hyde

  But I also didn’t want to let Fitz down. I mean, he was right. My dilemma was that I didn’t know what I wanted to do or who I wanted to be. I’d been coasting up until that point—in choppy waters, mind you, but it was still just a type of coasting.

  Also, I wondered if maybe he was just asking me because he needed more bodies—like, maybe Junior and Didi could play a role, but he needed someone else kind of put together and able. Why was this year so important? Why was this anniversary such a big deal?

  I didn’t like the idea that he needed me for no other reason than to help him get out, but it did cross my mind. Maybe I was just filling a role, and he’d go after the next girl thrown in to the ward with just as much gusto. I hated that thought, but I couldn’t help but entertain it momentarily.

  “Let me think about it,” I said.

  “What’s to think about?”

  “Why haven’t you tried before now?” I said.

  “I have,” he said, slouching. “We almost made it too.”

  “What happened?”

  “Three weeks before you showed up, Junior had a seizure in his room a half hour before we planned to run. They locked down the ward. I can’t blame Junior. Just luck. Just a moment away from success.”

  “I don’t know, Fitz. Things are going okay here.”

  “For you,” he said, standing. He looked at the papers spread out in front of me. They were Dr. Morris’s notes for the first part of the semester. Fitz stared at me.

  “What?” I said.

  “What is this?”

  I grabbed the paper he was pointing at. It was the most noticeable page because it had a giant circle on it, cut into zones of a journey. The bottom half of the circle was labeled “The Special World” with a ninja jumping in the air. Probably why Fitz noticed it.

  “Notes from my teacher about Joseph Campbell’s book. It’s all about the different types of heroes and the journeys they take and how they fit into a bigger narrative. All cultures have stories like that. Even your ninja dudes experience this journey in some form.”

  “I know what it is. Maybe you need to read through it again,” he said. “Or look at that special world again. You need to make sure you properly understand the hero’s journey, Addie.” He leaned on the table and got closer to me than he’d ever been. “I’m not mad. But I’m also not playing around. I need this.”

  “Okay,” I said, unsure of how to respond.

  “I have to meet with Riddle. See you at dinner, Addie.” He grabbed his book and left.

  The fluorescent lights above me flickered, and one tube went out completely, leaving me in a state of half-dark. Sorry—maybe I’m being too pessimistic. I was in a state of half-light. I kept reading my book, but I had to put it down after a few minutes. Why was Fitz so eager to leave? Why did this trip mean so much to him? I didn’t like being pressured, but maybe he was right. I started rereading Morris’s notes just as Junior spoke up. I wondered how long he’d been standing in the doorway, looking weary, holding his book.

  “Is it gonna be quiet in here for a bit?” he said.

  “Yeah. Sorry about all that, Junior.”

  “It’s fine. I get it. Fitz is a talker,” he said, slumping back into his chair and holding up a paperback that looked like it was about motorcycle maintenance or something. “Like you,” he said, smiling at me. “I’m used to it.”

  “How long have you known Fitz?”

  “Long as I’ve been here. Four months now, I think,” said Junior.

  “Does he ever talk about getting out?”

  “All the time. We tried it once.”

  “Yeah, he mentioned that.”

  “Something to do with Quentin,” he said.

  I think Junior immediately regretted what he’d said, because he took his feet off the coffee table where he’d propped them up and closed his book and looked my way. Then he stood up again and started to leave.

  “Not my place to talk about his personal stuff,” he said. “See ya, Addie.”

  I didn’t know what to do with that information. Was Quentin a real person, or just another voice telling Fitz he had to leave the psych ward? If that were true, then it would be risky to follow that kind of lead.

  My thoughts swirled around Quentin and Fitz for the rest of the afternoon.

  Lunch and the physical fitness hour were ho-hum as usual. I basically sat on a stationary bike for an hour staring at the wall and thinking about Morris’s notes about the hero’s journey.

  When I walked into the cafeteria for dinner, I saw that it was just Didi and Junior, no Fitz or Leah or Wolf. Martha was sitting next to Didi, so I joined them because Junior was still reading his motorcycle book.

  “Don’t you ever sweat in that fur hat?” I said to Didi.

  “I sweat just peeling an orange,” said Martha, holding her arms up for me to see the pit stains.

  “That’s disgusting, Martha,” I said, laughing.

  “At home, people come visit and ask if I’ve been on a treadmill or something, but I tell them the truth—just rolling out of bed makes me sweat.”

  “Gross,” I said.

  She just smiled. She had no shame. I loved that about her.

  “Didi was telling me about his life before the hospital,” she said. “I figure, if my shift leader asks me to be in the kitchen for dinner, I might as well get to know this guy a little better,” she said, patting his fur hat.

  “It’s all pretty basic stuff,” said Didi.

  I never saw much of Didi’s hair because he always had that weird hat on. But then I wondered why I always noticed the hair and the eyes first. Why did those stand out so much to me? Why not just describe the shape of the body? The ears and the eyebrows?

  Then I thought about being in a detective show, like where I’m constantly asked to vet the perps in the room with that two-way mirror and after I spend hours grilling a suspect, the captain says, “So, Foster, is this our man?” and I respond with “Hair and eyes. They give it away every time,” and then there’s the sound of a gavel and loud music like in Law and Order and they cut to the title of the detective show as the camera zooms in on my eyes and a small gust of wind blows my hair from my face and then the screen lights up with Fostering Justice. So stupid.

  But that’s how my mind was working before Didi’s hat grabbed my attention and pulled me back to the present.

  “All news to me,” I said.

  I smiled at Martha and set my tray of food down next to her—sweet potatoes and bland chicken fingers. I wasn’t nervous, and I didn’t notice any ticks, but Martha still had to walk me to the restroom so I could do a small pre-dinner ritual washing of my hands and face. I noticed the cracks in my hands were gone, leaving just smooth skin, and it made me smile.

  When we returned to the cafeteria, we resumed our places next to Didi.

  “What are you thinking about, Didi?” said Martha. “Why do you have that big grin like you’re hiding something under your hat?”

  “Tomorrow we have Parent Visit, Martha,” he said. “I’m just excited to tell my mom about some of my newest exploits. Wolf Blitzer!”

  Martha looked at me, and I looked at her. Junior didn’t even blink or put down his book, but just kept reading.

  “That’s how I feel about the chicken fingers, Didi,” I said. “They’ve been around a long time, but they know how to manage a room. We all want that.”

  Martha laughed and rested her giant chest on the table.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “Don’t apologize,” said Martha. “No shame there. Just tell Addie what you were telling me.”

  Didi sighed, acting like he was above recounting his grand adventures again, but I could tell he was excited to talk. I’d never really given Didi the time to just relax and talk because I’d been too caught up in my own therapy those first few weeks.<
br />
  Dr. Ramirez kept telling me to worry about others more, but to also focus on my own treatment. I didn’t know how to live within that paradox.

  But maybe Dr. Ramirez was wrong, maybe I needed to get lost in others and do the opposite of what he said in order to leave my mind. Maybe not focusing on my treatment at all would help. Whatever. As for my own therapy, I was starting to relax into the routine a little, and my blinking was a little less obnoxious—as were the washing and the rituals.

  “It’s all pretty boring, really,” Didi said. “I mean, I did most of it before I got in this place. I think people were scared I was doing too much too fast.”

  “Then bore me,” I said.

  “Well, I’ve written dissertations on pretty much everything you can imagine. I wrote a dissertation on imagination, actually. I came up with the term ‘no-holds-barred entertainment’ that critics so often use.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Oh, he ain’t done, honey,” said Martha.

  “I am the embodiment of success, Addie. In fact, I invented the word ‘success’ because I needed a new word to define my lifestyle. If you want an ‘in’ in life, talk to me. I know it all because I’ve done it all. I’ve been to every popular tourist site, and by so doing, made it even more ‘must see!’ I don’t sleep or take naps because I don’t need them.”

  “But you have to be in your room at night, so what do you do?” I said.

  “I remind myself how I let old Benny-boy-Franklin discover electricity because he needed more street cred. I already had more than enough. I wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence when I was taking a break from creating a de facto US national government and forming the Continental Army. I helped end the Safavid dynasty by siding with the Afghans. Why? I was bored. I founded the New York Stock and Exchange Board at the same time I was involved in convincing Upper Canada to end slavery. I invented the Spinning Sally but realized my friend Hargreaves needed an income boost, so I let him name it the Spinning Jenny and take all the credit. I wrote a dissertation on ‘taking the credit.’ I carved the Rosetta Stone. I wrote a song called ‘Incredible Grace,’ though, obviously, someone stole my idea. I blackmailed Russia so the US could have Alaska—what can I say? I’m a sucker for salmon. I’m also clearly a sucker for astronomy because I gave Tycho Brahe his golden nose. Detachable? Yes. Why? Because I care.”

  “How old are you, Didi?” I said, but Martha shushed me, and Didi kept talking.

  “Before I came along, Einstein only had a theory of relativity; I made it ‘special.’ I gave Orion a belt because, hey, even hunters are fashion conscious.”

  “That’s cute,” said Martha. “Hadn’t heard that bit.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “Quite an impressive past.”

  “I also found out where the wild things were and gave the idea to an unknown writer. I wrote a dissertation on ‘giving’ and gave the resultant money away. No surprise. I showed Monet the pond with the lilies. Please. You can’t expect a guy like that to find water lilies by himself.”

  I rolled my eyes at Martha but was actually too impressed by the sheer range of lies to stop listening. I saw Junior put his book down and lean on the table to get a better ear on the conversation. Well, more of a diatribe or monologue or whatever Didi wanted to call it, who apparently was much older than I’d originally suspected.

  “I came up with surfing because I knew the participants would provide numerous slang terms for eternal use. I wrote a dissertation on ‘slang,’ and it was epically rad.”

  Junior laughed and walked over to our table to sit next to Didi.

  Didi didn’t flinch. He just kept talking. “The Constitution of the United States of America was my idea, but I wanted our ‘fathers’ to have some feeling of ‘founding.’ They say history is written by the winners, but please don’t make that word plural,” he said, putting his hand on mine. “I wrote history. Miley Cyrus! Sorry. Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel using a paint-by-numbers scheme that I created, and Raphael was a witness if you need proof. I wrote a dissertation on ‘proof.’”

  By this point, Martha was grabbing at her stomach and totally losing it.

  I thought it was all pretty funny, but I was more intrigued by the fact that Didi could lie to himself in such grand ways. It was mesmerizing.

  “Did Newton get hit in the head with an apple? Yes. Did that apple fall from a tree above him? No. Hall and Oates! Sorry.”

  “Don’t be ashamed of Hall and Oates, sweetie,” said Martha, but Didi just kept going.

  “I threw the apple at him because he fell asleep during my lecture on something I had recently discovered: gravity. Deductive logic was my idea. That reminds me—Doyle owes me for Holmes,” he said, pointing to the heavens. “The only reason Cooper had a popular book is me. I found the last Mohican while I was hiking Everest barefoot, and I shared the story with Jim. I told Frost to take the road less traveled. C’mon, Frosty, be original. I wrote a dissertation on ‘originality’ for all the boring people. Hey, boring people, read it!”

  He yelled that last bit. I laughed, and I saw that Junior was too.

  Martha leaned close to me and said, “Most of this is new. I just heard the first piece, I guess.”

  “I can speak English, Arabic, German, French, Finnish, Russian, and Urdu all in sign language, using only one hand. I am extremely important. I created the ‘high five’ and the ‘thumbs-up,’” he said.

  Didi took a big breath and grabbed his water and slurped it down. None of us responded. Junior stared at him with his mouth open and his eyebrows creased. Martha was doubled over and patting Didi on the back between laughs. Didi looked serious, like he wasn’t lying at all.

  I gave him a calm smile. “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.”

  “Had it figured out ages ago,” he said. “That’s probably why Mom makes me stay in this place. I’m too dangerous to be out there roaming around. ‘She’s my cherry pie’! Sorry,” he said.

  He always covered his mouth after he shouted a guilty pleasure band or song or show or newscaster or channel, and I could tell it made him feel bad because his face always went beet red. But it didn’t make anybody upset, so I didn’t know why he was so embarrassed.

  “You got five minutes till the movie,” said Martha, wiping tears from her eyes. “I’m gonna swap with Jenkins and get it started for you. It’s the one you requested a week ago, Addie. That Hamlet comedy, something or other. Hey, Didi, you mind if I record you saying all that stuff some time for me?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said, confident.

  “Son, you’ve got a mind on you like nothing I’ve seen,” she said.

  Martha disappeared around the corner, and we all stood to empty our trays and head to the movie room. I figured Martha probably shouldn’t tease Didi like that, but he didn’t seem to mind. It made me wonder what kind of training the orderlies got before joining the ward.

  I was ecstatic when I heard that the movie I requested was going to be the film that night. There was so much to look forward to, what with the movie and then a Parent Visit the next morning.

  I walked next to Didi with a big smile on my face. “You’re going to tell your mother all of that? Won’t she feel overwhelmed?”

  Didi looked down at his feet with a smug, little, side-smile. “She’ll be proud.”

  “Who wouldn’t be?”

  “Thanks, Addie,” he said.

  At that moment, I realized he was at least partially aware of the grandiose nature of his comments. Therapy must have been hard for him initially, maybe even consistently.

  “I’m excited to see everybody’s parents—or parent. It’s always fun to see what features people get from their parents, or how they have similar mannerisms or whatever. Kind of fun.”

  “Parent Visits are nice, but they also make me feel bad for Fitz,�
� said Didi.

  “Why?” I said.

  Junior hit his book against the palm of his hand and sighed. “Fitz’s mom has never visited.”

  “Never?”

  “Not once,” said Didi.

  Five

  I was almost late to the movie because I stopped to look out the big bay windows in the hallway leading to the entertainment area. Birds dotted the sky like some type of Morse code. Small specks in the fading blue. Short. Short. Short. Long. Long. Long. Long. Long.

  Seattle had these gorgeous clouds chattering to one another all over the darkening sky. The trees looked like little spikes dotting the landscape, the mountains rising out of distant waters, the landscape beginning to blur. I was caught up in the view and thinking about the essay question on Morris’s exam. Why did Beckett write in such an absurd manner? Why have two characters sitting around, waiting for something to come along? I couldn’t figure it out. Why all the rituals? Why not leave instead of sitting there and waiting for days? Why trade hats instead of skipping town?

  “Did you reread those notes like I told you to?” said Fitz, when I saw him in the movie room. He gave me that goofy smile with his handsome gap.

  He looked calm and casual—at least he was consistent about that. But maybe that was his way of hiding all the inconsistencies inside. His hair was curlier than usual, some strands falling over his eyes.

  I was aware I didn’t look all that presentable—red T-shirt with sweats and my hair in a bun. How exciting, I know.

  Martha waved at me, and I returned her kindness. She had this semi-smile that was more than I was used to getting from an orderly, or even a doctor. I liked it because her smile seemed genuine. I liked Martha—a lot more than any of the other orderlies.

  Martha dimmed the lights, and I sat next to Fitz. Didi and Junior and Leah were in the first row. I hated front-row seats at movies, but I was glad Leah had people next to her. Wolf was sitting two seats away. He had this massive head of curly hair that was never combed, and big bushy eyebrows. I think his eyes were brown, but I never really saw them closely through all that hair.