by Ned Vizzini
“Who’s Jimmy?” Mom asks eagerly.
“The guy I came in with downstairs. I think he’s schizophrenic.”
“Doesn’t that mean he has two personalities?” Sarah asks, turning. “Like, he’s not just Jimmy; he’s also Molly or something.”
“No, you’d be surprised, that’s a different one,” I raise my eyebrows. “Jimmy’s just a little . . . scattered.”
Jimmy sees me looking at him and smiles. “I tell you, you play those numbers, it’ll come to ya!” he chirps.
“I think he’s talking about Lotto numbers,” I explain. “I’ve been trying to figure it out.”
“Oh my gosh.” My sister covers her face.
“No, Sarah, don’t do that, watch,” Mom says. She turns around. “Thank you very much, Jimmy.”
“I tell you: it the truth!”
“I like this place,” Mom turns back. “I think it’s full of good people.”
“I really like it.” Dad leans in. “When can I join?” But when no one laughs, he leans back, clasps his hands, sighs.
“Is that a transvestite?” Sarah asks. J/C is down the hall, like forty feet away, and I don’t know for the life of me how Sarah suspects something out there that I couldn’t see at point-blank range.
“No, now listen—”
“Is it?” Dad squints.
“Guys!”
“Trans-vestite!” Jimmy shrieks. He does it at top range—I haven’t heard him that loud before. The entire hall, which admittedly is just me, my family, J/C, and the older professor-type woman with the glasses, stops and stares.
“I tell you once, it’ll come: it come to ya!”
J/C starts walking toward us. “Are we talking about me?” he asks in his guy voice. He waves at Jimmy. “Hey, Jimmy.” He comes right up between me and my sister. “Craig, your name is, right?”
“Yeah,” I mumble.
“Wow, is this your family?”
“Yeah.” I tip my palm at each of them—it’s at the level of the frills on his pants. “My dad"—he juts his lip out—"my mom"—she nods, all smiles—"and my sister, Sarah"—she reaches out a hand.
“Oh my God, so lovely!” J/C says. “I’m Charles.” He shakes with everyone. “They’re going to take really good care of your son here. He’s a good guy.”
“How about you; what are you in for?” Dad asks. I kick him. Doesn’t he know what not to ask?
“It’s okay, Craig!” J/C touches my shoulder. “My gosh, did you just kick your dad? I never even did that.” He addresses Dad: “I have bipolar, sir, and I had an episode, and they brought me here. I’m going back upstate today. But the doctors are very attentive here, and the turnaround time is great.”
“Wonderful,” Mom says.
“Of course"—J/C gestures to us—"it’s a lot better when you have family support. They want to make sure they discharge you into a safe environment. I don’t have that.” He shakes his head. “Craig, you’re very lucky.”
I look at them: my safe environment. I frankly wouldn’t be surprised to find any of them in Six North.
“Well, I’ll leave you guys to your afternoon,” J/C says. He walks away slowly.
Jimmy makes an indecipherable high-pitched whining noise.
“That’s applause, isn’t it?” Dad asks, throwing a thumb behind him. “I like that.”
“Those are awesome pants,” Sarah says.
“Okay, so let’s get down to business, Craig,” Mom is like. “What do you need?”
“I need a phone card. I need you guys to take my phone and leave it plugged in so the calls register. I need some clothes, like what you were bringing before, Mom. I don’t need towels; they have those. Magazines would be good. And a pencil and paper, that would rock.”
“Simple enough. What kind of magazines?”
“Science magazines! He loves those,” Dad says.
“He might not be up for science magazines right now,” Mom answers. “Do you want anything lighter?”
“Do you want Star?” Sarah asks.
“Sarah, why would I want Star?”
“Because it’s awesome.” She reaches into her purse—her first one, black, a recent Mom purchase—and unrolls a glossy pink monstrosity, complete with pictures of the most recent spectacular outing of a celebrity breast in public.
I hold it up for Jimmy.
“Mmmmmm-hmmmmmm! “ he says. “I tell you! I tell you! It come to ya!”
“That’s very nice,” says the professor woman with bugged-out eyes, who I somehow didn’t realize had migrated right behind me. “Oh, excuse me,” she looks up. “I wasn’t listening to your conversation at all.” She walks to her room.
“Um . . .” Sarah says.
“I’ll take it,” I say. I put it under my seat. “I think the floor will enjoy it.”
“Is it just me, or are you starting to develop a sort of allegiance to the tribe?” Dad asks.
“Shhh.” I smile.
“Craig, the next order of business: have you called Dr. Barney?”
“No.”
“Have you called Dr. Minerva?”
“No.”
“Well, they both need to know where you are, for health insurance reasons and because they’re your doctors and they care about you and this is going to be very important to them.”
“Their numbers are in my phone.”
“Well, let’s call them; we picked up your phone from the front,” Mom reaches into her bag—
“No!” Dad grabs her hands. “Don’t take out the phone!”
“Don’t be ridiculous, honey. Craig’s the one who’s not allowed to have it, not us.”
“Well, uh, I don’t think we want to be getting our son in trouble. This isn’t the kind of place you want to be getting sent to a time-out.”
I look at him."That’s really not that funny.”
“What? Oh, sorry,” he says.
“No, Dad, seriously. It’s not … I mean, this is serious business.”
“I’m just trying to lighten the mood, Craig—”
“Well, that’s what you’re always trying to do. Let’s just, not do it here.”
Dad nods, looks me dead in the eyes; slowly and regretfully, he banishes all the smiling and joking from his face, and for once he’s just my dad, watching his son who has fallen so low. “All right, then.”
We stay quiet.
“Is that the truth, Jimmy?” I ask without looking at him.
“It’s the truth, and it come to ya!”
I smile.
“We’ll handle the phone later,” Dad sums up.
“Next order of business?” Mom asks.
“How long I’m going to be in here, I think.”
“How long do you think?”
“A couple of days. But I haven’t seen the doctor yet. Dr. Mahmoud.”
“Right, how is he? Is he good?”
“I don’t know, Mom. You met him for as long as I did. He makes rounds soon, and I’ll get to talk with him.”
“I think you need to stay here until you’re better, Craig. You don’t want to come out early and have to come back; that’s how you get ‘in the system.’”
“Right. I won’t. I think that’s actually a big part of places like this: they make them so you don’t want to come back.
“How’s the food?” Sarah asks.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” I look at my family. “I’m … I know I shouldn’t be proud about this; it’s like really sad that this is my big accomplishment of the day . . . but I ate everything at lunch.”
“You did?” Mom stands up, pulls me up and hugs me.
“Yeah.” I pull away. “It was chicken. I actually ate two helpings of it.”
“Son, that is a big one,” Dad gets up and shakes my hand.
“No, it’s not, it’s really simple, everybody does it, but for me it’s like a stupid triumph—”
“No,” Mom says, looking me in the eyes. “What’s a triumph is that you woke up this morning and decided
to live. That’s a triumph. That’s what you did today.”
I nod at her. Like I say, I’m not a crier.
“Yeah, cause if you had died …” Sarah is like, “that would have sucked.” She rolls her eyes and hugs my leg.
I sit back down. “Once the food is in front of you it’s just like, eat. I mean, they’re professionals here; they know how to take people and put them in a routine that gives them something to do.”
“That’s right,” Mom says. “So what are you going to do now?”
“I think there are activities—”
“Hey, Craig, is this your family?” President Armelio steps on the scene. His half-harelip and hair shock my sister, but his relentless enthusiasm for just—I don’t know—living—would knock the fear out of anybody. He shakes all the hands and says we’re a beautiful family and I’m a good guy, he can tell.
“Craig’s my buddy! Hey, buddy—you want to play cards?”
President Armelio holds up a deck of playing cards like he just fished it out of the sea.
“Yeah, absolutely!” I say. I stand up. When was the last time I played cards? Before the test, probably—before high school.
“All right!” Armelio says. “My kinda guy! Let’s do it. I’ve been looking and looking: nobody here likes to play cards like I do! What do you want to play? Spades? I’ll crush you, buddy; I’ll crush you.”
I look at my parents. “We’ll call you,” Mom says. “And hey—what about sleeping?”
“I’m wired right now,” I say. “But I’ll crash. I’m starting to get a headache.”
“Headache? Buddy, once I crush you in spades, you’re going to have a lot bigger headache!” Armelio toddles away to the dining room to set up the cards.
“See ya,” Sarah says, hugging me.
“Bye, son.” Dad shakes my hand.
“I love you,” Mom says. “I’ll call you with the doctors’phone numbers.”
“And bring a phone card.”
“And I’ll bring a phone card. You hang in there, Craig.”
“Yeah, I will.” And as soon as they’re around the bend, I head into the dining room and learn how to play spades for the rest of the afternoon, which Armelio absolutely does crush me in.
twenty-five
I’m afraid of making phone calls. The phone on Six North is a hubbub of activity, with Bobby and the blond burned-out-type, who I learn is named Johnny, fielding calls from, I assume, their respective female counterparts. Bobby starts off his calls happy and says “Baby” a lot, but then he gets angry and slams the phone down saying “bitch"; Smitty tells him not to do that; Bobby walks away leaning back with a particularly potent aura of not caring. Five minutes later, another call comes in for him, and he’s back to “Baby.” He doesn’t ever answer the phone, though; President Armelio has that job. When he answers, he always says “Joe’s Pub,” and then finds whoever the call’s for.
In a rare moment when Johnny and Bobby leave the phone open, I walk up to it with the phone card that Mom brought me twenty minutes after she left with Dad and Sarah. I pick up and hear the dial tone, dial the 800 number for the phone card . . . and then stop. I can’t do it. I just don’t want to deal with it.
People on the outside world don’t know what’s happened to me—I’m in a sort of stasis right now. Things are under control. But the dam will break. Even if I’m here just through Monday, the rumors will start flying, and the homework will pile up.
Where’s Craig?
He’s sick.
He’s not sick, he got alcohol poisoning because he can’t handle real liquor.
I heard he took someone’s pills and freaked out.
I heard he realized he’s gay and he’s coming to grips with it.
I heard his parents are sending him to a different school.
He couldn’t handle it here, anyway. He was always such a loser.
He’s freaking out in front of his computer. He can’t move or anything. He’s catatonic.
He woke up and thinks he’s a horse.
Well, whatever, what’s question three?
There were two messages on my phone when I came in, and now there are probably more, each one necessitating a call back, and the call back possibly necessitating another call back—Tentacles— leading me right back to where I was last night. I can’t go there, so I wait. I can wait five minutes. But then Bobby’s on the line. And then I wait another five minutes. And the messages are piling up. And this isn’t even counting e-mail. What sort of hellish assignments have my teachers e-mailed out?
“Excuse me, are you using the phone?” the giant black woman with the cane asks as I stare at it.
“Yeah, uh.” I pick up the receiver in my hands. “Yes. Yes I am.”
“Okay.” She smiles, rolling her gums, not showing teeth. I start dialing, enter my PIN, enter my own number.
“Please enter your password, then press the pound sign.”
I obey.
“You have—three—new messages. “
One more than before. Not so bad.
“First new message: message marked urgent.”
Uh-oh.
“Hey, Craig, it’s Nia, I just, um … we talked and you were sounding really bad. I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right, and since you’re not answering—it’s like two A.M., I mean, why would you be answering?—but I’m kinda worried that maybe you went and did something stupid because of me. Don’t. I mean, it’s sweet, but don’t. Okay, that’s it, I’m with Aaron, he’s being a total dick. Bye.”
“To erase this message—”
I hit 7.
“Next message.”
“Craig, it’s Aaron, call me back son! Let’s chill—”
I hit 7-7.
“Next message.”
“Hello, Mr. Gilner, this is your science teacher, Mr. Reynolds. I got your phone number from the student directory. We really need to talk about the lack of your labs; I’m missing five of them—”
7-7.
“End of messages. “
I put the phone down like it’s a dangerous animal. I pick back up, call home. Can’t stop now.
“Sarah, can you get the phone numbers of Nia and Aaron out of my cell? And look through the recent missed calls for something from Manhattan; I have to call my science teacher.”
“Sure. How are things over there?”
I look to my left. A Hasidic Jewish guy, complete with the white pants, yarmulke, tassels hanging off him, braided hair, and sandals, dashes down the hall toward me. Scraps of red food dot his dark beard, and his eyes are wild and unhinged. He says to me: “I’m Solomon.”
“Um, I’ve heard about you. I’m Craig, but I’m on the phone.” I cup the receiver.
“I would ask you to please keep it down! I’m trying to rest!” He turns and races away, holding his pants.
“Oooh! Solomon introduced himself to you!” hoots the woman with the cane. “That’s big.”
“It’s normal,” I tell my sister.
“Okay, here.” She gives me Nia’s and Aaron’s and the teacher’s numbers; I write them down on a scrap of paper that Smitty has given me. I should’ve known these before. Nia’s looks good written down—wholesome and useful. The science teacher’s looks jagged and hateful. I may not be able to call him until tomorrow.
“Thanks, Sarah—bye.”
I hang up and look toward the lady with the cane.
“Hey, I’m Craig,” I say.
“Ebony.” She nods. We shake hands.
“Ebony, it’s cool if I just make one more call?”
“Of course.”
I dial the 800 number, enter my PIN, dial Nia.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Nia, it’s me.”
“Craig, where are you?”
It’s funny how people ask that as soon as they get you on the phone. I think it’s a byproduct of cell phones: people—girls and moms especially— want to nail you down in physical space. The fact is that you could be anywhere on
a cell phone and it shouldn’t be important where you are. But it becomes the first thing people ask.
“I’m at a friend’s house. In Brooklyn.”
I wonder, too, how many lies cell phones have contributed to the world.
“Uh-huh, Craig. I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean?” I wipe sweat off my brow. The sweat is starting again. This isn’t good. I was sweating down in the ER, but I wasn’t sweating at lunch.
“You’re not at any friend’s house. You’re probably at some girl’s house.”
I look at Ebony. She smiles and leans forward on her cane. “Yeah, totally.”
“I know you. Last night you had me on the phone; tonight you’re out hooking up with some girl.”
“Sure, Nia—”
“Seriously, how are you? Thanks for calling back. I was worried.”
“I know, I got your message.”
“I don’t want you to freak out over me. I think you just need some time to decompress a little bit, and not think about me, and think about someone else. Because, like, I know we might be good for each other, but I’m with someone else, you know?”
“Right… um … I wasn’t freaking out about you last night, actually.”
“No?”
“No, I was freaking out about, like, much bigger things. I was having kind of a crisis, and I wanted to reach out to somebody who understood.”
“But you asked me if we would ever have been able to be together.”
“Well, I was trying to clear that up because, y’know … I wanted to do something stupid.”
She drops her voice: “Kill yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“You wanted to kill yourself over me?”
“No!” I scowl. “I was just in a really bad place, and you were part of it, obviously, because you’re a part of my life, just like Aaron is a part of it and my family is a part of it, but I thought you could clear something up for me before I…”
“Craig, I’m so flattered.”
“No, you have the wrong idea. Don’t be flattered.”
“How could I not be? I never had a boy want to kill himself for me before. It’s like the most romantic thing.”
“Nia, it wasn’t about you.”
