Jacked Up

by Erica Sage

  Or, maybe it was resolve. I like to tell myself it was resolve. That nothing I did mattered in the end.

  But it all mattered.

  You can do that some day. Hit the road. She should’ve said we. And I should’ve noticed.

  But I didn’t.

  I went into the room. I unlocked the cabinet, chose the gun, and put in her hands.

  It was my fault.

  It was my fault.

  It was my fault.

  “When my mom told me—because the police called them, or the hospital—I don’t even know, she told me in the kitchen. She said, ‘Diana shot herself.’ My dad was at the hospital with my grandpa. And, I thought—I reasoned—it occurred to me—she shot her toes. My dad and grandpa were there to visit because she shot her toes. Because the gun accidentally went off.

  “That’s what I remember. Standing in the kitchen, looking at my own toes.”

  The tears fell as I told Natalie this.

  “She was in the hospital because they were keeping her alive. To save the organs. She was a donor. There was no Diana to visit.

  “I don’t remember when I understood that she shot herself in the head.” I swallowed. “I imagine it all the time. Where she put the gun. If her hands were shaking. The only thing that makes me feel better is that the doctors could use her eyes. She still had her eyes. Something of her was still there.”

  I wiped the tears off my cheeks.

  “Someone has her eyes,” I said. “Someone sees the world how she saw it. She saw it so big.”

  I leaned my head against the tree trunk.

  “She wanted to see it all, do it all, have it all. And she couldn’t. She couldn’t even have half of it. That thing she said to Leah—‘Go East, Young Man.’ I looked it up. I thought it would reveal something, something to make it better. It was just a play on a famous quote ‘Go West, Young Man.’ Horace Greeley. He was all about Manifest Destiny. My sister was too, in a way.”

  After a while, Natalie said, “Your parents will figure this out for themselves. They’re adults.”

  And she was right. But at the same time, I’d wanted them to be adults and protect Diana. To hold Charlotte accountable, to stop feeding the arsenic idea that we should consider the perspective of intolerance. They let their other daughter’s hatred exist, let it eat away at Diana. They didn’t protect her, and I was afraid they couldn’t protect me.

  Maybe I should hate them. But I didn’t. I needed them. And I needed them to stay with me.

  “They’re going to hate me,” I said, which wasn’t exactly what I meant, but I just couldn’t explain it all.

  “They are not going to hate you.”

  “Look what I did to their daughter. Don’t you hate your parents? What they did to your brother?”

  I noticed then that she was crying too. She’d been crying for me, and now some of those tears were almost certainly about herself. “I don’t hate them. They didn’t do that to him. He had a choice. We all have a choice. Look at me. I’m not a meth addict. Or a heroin addict.”

  “You got lucky.”

  “I didn’t get lucky. I made a choice. To survive. To survive whatever happened.”

  This conversation sounded so much like the one I’d had with Charlotte, about all the little things in our lives being choices. But Charlotte’s conviction about our sister’s choices was judgment. Natalie’s was not.

  But what about my sister?

  “My sister goes to hell,” I argued, “because the Bible says. That’s what people say.”

  “Why don’t you let God do His thing? Quit worrying about what it all says, what it all means? It is what it is. She was a homosexual. She died by suicide. That doesn’t mean she’s going to hell. You don’t know her heart, and God is too big for our comprehension. You’ll drive yourself crazy trying to do His job.”

  I sighed. “You want to know the worst part?”

  The look on her face suggested nothing could be worse than my complicity in suicide.

  “When Diana died, I kept wishing it was Charlotte. I prayed I would wake up and it would be swapped. I told God I’d do anything to bring her back. I’d trade anything.” I put my hands to my eyes. “And I still wish it would’ve been Charlotte. If I have to hand someone a gun—” I broke off and pressed my hands into my forehead.

  Natalie put her hand on my back until I had no more tears.

  “He doesn’t bargain,” she said quietly.

  “He doesn’t understand,” I said.

  She didn’t correct me.

  We sat for a long time against that tree, and the bird shot song bullets through the sky.

  “Forty miles, not forty days, but … crazy things happen in the wilderness,” she said after a while. “Satan tempts you, Gabriel tells you to read scrolls, you reach Nirvana.”

  She was talking about Jesus, Muhammad, and Buddha. I wanted to tell her about Jack. How he said they were all here. Plus some Native American god and Ereshkigal and who knows who else.

  “We could try it out, under this tree,” Natalie said. “I mean, I don’t think this is a banyan tree, but maybe enlightenment doesn’t require particular f lora.”

  This girl. This mad, crazy girl on pretty road.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.

  “Because you never say a commonplace thing.” A line from the poster on my bedroom wall.

  She nudged me. “That might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, Nick.” Then she stood up, dusted off her shorts, and tugged my arm. It was time to leave.

  Ninja, as always, didn’t argue.

  As we walked side by side, Ninja lumbering behind, a lead rope completely unnecessary at this point. We seemed to be walking slower on the way back than I did on the way there, like neither of us really wanted to return. But, then, what awaited but a frustrated pastor with rockin’ abs (I’d seen him in the pool) and an unknown punishment?

  “What are you going to do about your brother?”

  “What’s to be done?”

  “Go find him?”

  She laughed drily. “He’s in a city somewhere with stringy hair.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. “What about Eden Springs? Will you come back? Even though he’s gone?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I have a scholarship. I kind of have to come back.”

  “Well, you don’t have to.” I thought of Holly. “So, you’re on work crew too?”

  “No. I’m indebted to some mysterious philanthropist.”

  “How did you get out of sweeping stray pubic hairs off the bathroom f loor?”

  “I just got a call from the camp office one time. I was in sixth grade or something.”

  That seemed really weird. “That’s not really how it works for normal people,” I started to explain.

  “I think we’ve established that things don’t work normally for me.”

  “Maybe by next year he’ll come back to zombie camp.”

  Our shoes scraped across the rocks, and that was the only sound. I noticed we were walking toward the sun again and worried I’d see the shimmering faces in the bushes. The desert trolls. But I felt safer with her there, like I wasn’t going to lose my mind.

  “So, will you be coming back to Eden Springs next year?” she asked.

  “Ha. I don’t think so.”

  Natalie smiled. “You seem kind of judgmental about it all.”

  “I think they’re crazy, that’s what I think. I feel like I’m stuck in some Salvador Dalí painting half the time.”

  “They are crazy. That’s the best part.”

  “If you like that kind of crazy, I guess.”

  “You of all people should understand. You’re the one who likes Jack Kerouac.”

  I shook my head. “No, I do not like Jack Kerouac. I’ve already said that. My sister likes him.”

  “Okay, but you like the quote about the mad ones.”

  I nodded. “I’ll concede that.”

  “Then concede this. Thos
e people down there. Those people who operate Eden Springs and the people who go—Charles, Kim, Matthew, Dan, Jason. Me. They’re just Mad Ones. They’re mad to live, mad to be saved, desirous of everything.”

  “But it’s all wrapped up in religion,” I argued.

  “Yes, it’s about Jesus for them. They’re mad for Him. Mad to be saved by him. So, you’re not. That doesn’t make their madness less cool just because you don’t share in it.”

  “What about those guys who blow up abortion clinics in the name of religion?”

  “Not okay. Right-wing terrorism,” she said and kind of laughed. “But, Nick, who cares what other people are mad about if they’re not infringing upon the rights of others? Why do you let them bother you so much?”

  I knew why it bothered me. Or, at least, I knew part of the reason, but it was so much, a garbage bag of things to explain.

  “I don’t understand how they can all be happy,” I said.

  “Are you jealous?”

  “Ignorance is bliss and all that.”

  “But they aren’t ignorant. Jeez, Nick, listen to yourself. What is the difference between you hating the conservative Bible-thumpers and them hating you because you don’t believe? And those people, down at Eden Springs? They don’t hate anybody. They love everybody. They just want people to come to their little oasis and party for a week in the name of Jesus. Don’t you get that?”

  “It’s stupid, Natalie. They’re stupid. The guy was a guy. Jesus Christ, the real one, not the hillbilly dude at camp, was a guy. That’s it.”

  “Yeah, the maddest guy of them all.” She looked at me like she felt a little sorry for me. “Whether you believe in him as a religious figure or as a historical one, he’s mad as hell.”

  “Well, that makes two mad Jesuses.”

  Finally, she said, “Nick, don’t let man’s rules and religion get in the way of the divine mysteries of the universe.”

  PRAYERS AND CONFESSIONS

  Holly: Please give me the strength to be who I am. All of me. Even the parts other people can’t accept.

  Dan: I didn’t say sorry. My dad did, over and over. I pray he really is, Lord. Please help him get sober.

  Monica: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you …

  The three crosses stood tall and expectant on the horizon. I was relieved to have the forty-mile journey in the wilderness over. But I was also disappointed to part with Natalie.

  Not long after first seeing the crosses, I saw the silhouettes on the horizon. Two men waiting for us.

  “Are they going to send us home?” I mean, we’d both run away.

  “Maybe you. Not me.” She wasn’t joking. I was just the new kid. And I’d actually stolen camp property. Ninja didn’t like to be objectified like that, but he didn’t understand the human legal system.

  We kept walking. The men headed toward us.

  “Two more things before they nab us,” Natalie said.

  We hadn’t been talking much the last hour. I raised an eyebrow at her.

  “You need to believe in something.”

  “Me? Or everyone?” I asked.

  “You and everyone.” Natalie tugged at my sleeve to stop walking. “In a way, we’re all at zombie camp.”

  “We’re meth heads?”

  “Don’t be stupid. I think we’re all a little like zombies. Walking around a little dead inside, looking for something to fill us up.”

  “Drugs or … Jesus … or …” I held my hands up in a shrug.

  “Horses …”

  “Horse people are really weird.” We both laughed.

  “Cats …” Natalie suggested.

  “Old lady cat lovers!”

  “Video games.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Child porn.”

  “Ew.” Her face curled in disgust. “Anyway, believe in something, Nick.”

  “Anything?”

  “Okay, not child porn. Too far.”

  We laughed and kept walking.

  “Okay, so?” I asked.

  “So … ?”

  “You said there were two things.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Natalie blushed. “Do you like Holly?”

  “I mean, I like her, but …” I couldn’t finish that statement.

  “You’re not into her?” She looked at her feet. “I mean, a lot of guys like her and she seems kinda into you.”

  It was f lattering that Natalie thought for even a second that a beautiful girl like Holly would sincerely be interested in me.

  “She’s actually really smart,” Natalie added. “Like STEM-nerd smart. Like MIT smart. Her IQ happens to be triple her bra size.”

  I knew she was smart, and I wished I could tell Natalie the whole truth about the confessions, but I’d made a promise. So I told her a different truth. “She might be smart, and she might also be the girl that everyone thinks is hot. But I like your theory.”

  “My theory?”

  “About the horizon,” I said, blushing. “About watching people walk away.” That maybe the way you can tell if you love someone is when you keep looking for them, keep seeing them, even when they’re not there anymore. I looked at her. “I don’t just like your theory. I believe it.”

  She moved closer. Her arm bumped mine.

  “So, there you go. I believe in something.”

  We walked in silence the rest of the way.

  We soon heard Pastor Kyle and Jason, the quiet deep rumbles of their conversation rolling toward us.

  Then it was the four of us, standing there awkwardly. They breathed hard; we barely breathed. Their lips were tight with disappointment; our lips hung open in anticipation of the smackdown.

  “Why don’t you walk with me, Natalie,” Pastor Kyle finally said, and they stepped out of the square and headed off toward camp, Ninja on a rope behind them.

  Jason watched me watch them go. I didn’t want to look at him.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, probably for the trillionth time in four days. My list of sins against Jason and his zealous love for all things Jesus and Eden Springs exceeded my lifetime list of all other sins combined.

  “Let’s go,” was all he said, and we started walking toward camp. He didn’t say anything for a long time. I just watched Natalie, Pastor Kyle, and Ninja disappear and reappear over small hills and valleys, their silhouettes becoming smaller. They seemed to be walking a lot faster than the two of us.

  When we reached the ridge above the three crosses, Jason stopped. He looked over the camp. “We contacted your parents yesterday.”

  My face burned. They would be freaking out, thinking I was dead, imagining me being eaten eyeball by eyeball by something awful. “Were they freaking out?”

  “We assured them you were safe.”

  “That’s good.”

  “And they’re here,” he added.

  “They’re here?”

  “We asked them to come.”

  “To pick me up?”

  “To talk. And then, likely, to take you home, yes.”

  It made sense. The sending me home. Running away from camp was a major no-no.

  “Does Natalie have to go home?”

  Jason sucked in his lips. Finally, “No.”

  “Because she’s on scholarship?” That kind of kid always got second chances.

  “It’s complicated.”

  Jason didn’t take us down the steep decline, the way I’d come up to the crosses both times I’d followed Natalie. Rather, he led me down the wide path that snaked slowly into the camp.

  Nobody noticed us, at first, as we crossed the green manicured lawn. But as we got closer to the pool, more faces turned in our direction. I swore I heard whispers, though that couldn’t have been true, considering the bass that quaked from the speakers.

  Just the day before, I’d felt a part of the camp experience, though still separate because
I didn’t believe what they believed. But just then, coming out of the desert, after the visions and the voices, after confessing that I’d handed my sister the gun that she used to blow her brains out … now I felt kept behind a glass window. Like camp was a fishbowl, and I could only look in.

  The campers weren’t smaller, by any means. I didn’t feel superior in a fish-owner kind of way. I just felt far away, behind a cloud.

  I caught sight of Natalie walking through the door to Babyl On, Pastor Kyle ushering her in, probably for a round of counseling and prayer. She didn’t have a cross over her shoulders.

  And Jason didn’t drag one over to me. He led me in the direction of the cabins. I didn’t know if my parents were in there, or if I was supposed to pack first.

  Then Matthew was running toward me from the sanctuary. I could see him coming across the field. He was pointing at the fresh confessions painted on the sides of cabin doors.

  “So you know I didn’t do it now, right?” I said to Matthew when he reached me. “I wasn’t even on campus.”

  “Not literally, right?”

  “What? Literally, what?”

  Matthew pointed to the door of our cabin. And there it was. On the door, my confession was painted in scarlet letters.

  I killed my sister.

  I looked at Jason. Swallowed hard. “Where are my mom and dad?”

  It was time to find the right words. To cross the bridge between me and them.

  I told my parents. Told them everything they didn’t know already. They already knew about Leah coming over. They already knew about my conversation with Diana. They knew about the mistaken pronoun. They knew that she’d planned on going to the gun range. All of these things we’d talked about in the days and weeks after she shot herself. But they didn’t know the part about the key. That I went in for the key, that I unlocked the cabinet, that I chose the gun, that I selected the bullets. That I put them in her hand.

  My parents didn’t cry at first. Their mouths hung open, their eyes wide, their heads shook slightly. I knew they wanted me to stop, that they didn’t want to hear the end of the story. But the real end, they already knew. Diana dies in the end. She always dies in the end. She was always going to die in the end. That was her after.