by Chase Connor
It sounded like I was choking on cigarette smoke.
“You know, I was thinking, about the other day, when you drove us out to the lake and we talked?”
“Yeah?”
“Maybe,” He said lowly, “I mean, totally up to you, but maybe we could go on a date sometime. If you wanted, I mean. I don’t eat much, so you won’t have to buy me a big dinner, right?”
He found this funny.
“But maybe we could see a movie or something?” He suggested. “Just the two of us. We don’t have to say it’s a date date, but…I really like being around you and I think you like being around me, so…”
He trailed off, not bothering to find a way to finish his thought.
“I don’t want to date anyone right now, Isaac.”
“I know.” He sighed. “And I don’t want to try to pressure you or convince you that you do. But, let’s just say we hang out more and see what happens, ya’ know?”
“We can hang out more.” I nodded, and looked up at him, puffing on my cigarette. “But we’ll never date. Okay?”
He chewed at his lip.
“Why?” His voice was so small. “I know that right now I’m not exactly all that good looking and everything. But I’m really trying, Tom. I’m trying so hard to beat this shit so that I’ll look better. So you’ll find me attractive.”
“You know that you’re kind of stupid, right?” I wasn’t trying to be insulting, but there it was.
Isaac stood there, staring at me.
“I’m not turning you down because you’re skeletal, Isaac.” I said. “I mean, yeah, I want you to put on weight and be healthy. I want you to be kind enough to yourself to do that. To not be crazy. Just like I don’t want to be crazy. But we’re both crazy. I’m crazy as a fucking shit-house rat. But I know that I’m crazy. You don’t.”
“I mean, yeah, I have anorexia…”
“You don’t even know your truth, Isaac.” I shook my head. “You don’t even know why you are the way you are. How the fuck can I date someone who is more fucked up than me?”
“I told you my truth.”
“Beat anorexia for you, Isaac.” I shook my head. “Stop making yourself unattractive—because you deserve to look and feel a way that makes you feel good about you. Whomever made you want to feel unattractive so badly that you were willing to die for it, I hope they’re dead. I hope they died in an excruciatingly painful way. And I hope you feel good about it. But…if they’re still around, it’s time you stop letting them live in your head.”
Isaac sputtered and his eyes grew wide.
“But don’t stand there and tell me you told me your truth.” I sighed and flicked my cigarette away—I could see Jeff walking across the parking lot. “Because we both know we’re liars. And dating me won’t make you feel attractive. A kiss from me won’t make you feel better. It’ll just make you forget. Briefly.”
And then Jeff was walking up the front sidewalk to the community center. Isaac was sputtering and try to form words and I hopped off of the planter when Jeff smiled and waved us towards the entrance. Unsure if Isaac was going to pull himself together and follow us, and honestly not caring, I followed Jeff into the center, glad to feel the blast of heat when the doors opened outward. Instead of waiting for instruction, I went and took a seat in the circle of chairs in the center of the room and rubbed my hands together, trying to get feeling back into them as I waited for group to start. Isaac finally wandered in, his head down, and took a seat across from me in the circle, avoiding eye contact. Then the other attendees filed in and sat down in the circle before Jeff took his seat.
We were missing an attendee. Jared was noticeably absent. I began to wonder if I too couldn’t have just missed group and pretended that I hadn’t known about the new schedule for the week.
“How is everyone doing today?” Jeff asked, like he asked every time we met.
There were grumbles and mumbles from everyone but me. I just sat there. Even Isaac managed to mumble something. It seemed that no one was having that great of a day. Imagine that. A bunch of group therapy attendees not being happy about their day.
“Well, you all seem very happy to be here.” Jeff chuckled as he settled into his seat, crossing his legs, getting comfortable.
Nothing about this group therapy session was going to make me happy or feel any better or any less crazy. We hadn’t even started and I already knew that. And my head was killing me. All of the noise in my head was producing the start of a headache. Involuntarily, I gritted my teeth together as I sat there, waiting for Jeff to get the show on the road so we could be done and I could go home and maybe lay down before I saw my psychiatrist. Or I could sit and smoke cigarettes nonstop until it was time to see him. Somewhere it wouldn’t be quiet. Like next to an airport or something.
“Who wants to start today?” Jeff asked.
No one raised their hand.
“Where’s Jared?” Crystal asked. “We ain’t gonna wait on him?”
Jeff glanced at her and shifted in his seat.
“Anyone?” He ignored her.
I looked over at Jeff. I knew that glance and that uncomfortable shifting. I knew where Jared was. Actually, I knew where Jared wasn’t.
Everything falls apart at some time. It’s an intrinsic truth that all of us want to deny as human beings so that we can act stunned each and every time that it happens. Being stunned was no longer in my repertoire. I merely sat there and stared blandly at Jeff as my mind got louder.
SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!
“Did you tell him that group time changed?” One of the other attendees asked.
Isaac was still looking down at his feet.
“Jared had an accident last night.” Jeff said softly, looking first at Crystal, then the other attendee who asked about Jared.
SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!
I stood from my seat and walked through the circle of chairs. I was leaving.
“Tom?” That was Jeff speaking.
Hearing Jeff over the noise in my brain was like listening underwater. My chest was pounding as I burst through the front doors of the community center and felt that blast of early spring cold air. Jerkily, I stomped over to the planter and sat down. I didn’t even feel the cold of the bricks against my ass. My chest was heaving and my mind was screaming and my hands were shaking and every hair on my body felt like it was standing on end and I was coming out of my skin and everything was wrong.
Panic.
Panic attacks.
Sometimes I have panic attacks.
I hadn’t had a panic attack in so long that I had almost been able to forget that that was a possibility. Why wasn’t my medication working? I did remember to take my medication that morning, right? Yes. I took a double dose of my anti-anxiety medication. I had doubled up due to the dream and the panic I felt when I woke up. I knew that I needed that extra pharmaceutical padding to get through my day. But even that extra padding hadn’t insulated me enough from what the day brought forth.
I heard more voices underwater. But it wasn’t my mind speaking this time. I looked up to find Jeff standing there, Isaac at his side, looking down at his feet, Jeff looking at me, concern etched all over his face. He was saying something but I couldn’t hear anything over my own mind and the thudding in my chest was audible in my ears. I wanted to peel my skin off and run down the street cackling like a loon.
Peeling off my skin wasn’t an option.
But running was.
So, I did.
Wherever You Go…There You Are
God, I hated those green and yellow walls. But at least there was never much silence. Except at night. And I was usually asleep then, thanks to the tranquilizers and sleep aids that were doled out like candy. My psychiatrist didn’t want me to get too dependent on medication for sleep but, all things considered, he had decided to back off of that stance temporarily. It was a good call on his part. I could no
longer feel nothing and everything had come crashing down, so sleep could be difficult at times. The lies had become so big and so mythical that my head could no longer contain them. That made sleep difficult.
I’d like to tell you about my first days back in the hospital, I really would. I want to tell the truth. I need to tell you the truth. But…I don’t remember those first days. In fact, I don’t remember anything from the time I ran from the community center until maybe the fifth or sixth day back in the hospital. Well, that’s not entirely true, but it’s not an intentional lie, either. I’m not trying to be dishonest with my story at this juncture, things are just a little hazy. I get flashes of those handful of days but it’s not really solid information that I can rely on being correct.
Running home, I kind of remember that. I remember the way my chest felt when I got home anyway, the way it pounded and throbbed as I ran. I remember my mom shouting at me when I entered the house and fell to all fours in the foyer. I think I remember hearing her on the phone, speaking erratically and frantically, but that might just be my brain giving me logical information to fill in the gaps. And I remember lights. I remember not being able to move my arms and legs, so my brain tells me that I was probably strapped down to a gurney. I remember seeing what I think was a doctor’s face hovering over mine, then my psychiatrist’s face over mine, then my mom’s a lot of times—but those memories are flashes.
Trees through glass—a window—probably the window in my hospital room, I think. I slept a lot. Probably from tranquilizers or sedatives given to me intravenously. Then I remember the green and yellow walls passing by as I floated down a hallway—probably in a wheelchair. Then a new bed and no windows and someone talking to me comfortingly. Then a lot of silence but being too tired to worry that the silence would be deafening.
Silence has been deafening for me for a very long time. Because that’s when I can notice everything my mind is telling me. I’ve been used to the cacophony in my mind for a very long time. It feels like forever. But the silence in the hospital was different. It was like being in a vacuum. I couldn’t even hear my mind anymore. Just a silence so deep it was almost a buzz or a hum. Like I could hear my own blood flowing in my veins, being pumped by my heart. It was even more deafening than the usual kind of silence because I was no longer sure if I was alive or dead anymore.
Another lie.
I knew I was alive, but I wasn’t sure I existed. Because, without a mind, are we even there anymore? Are we even alive? Are we human? Then I was filled with a new worry that I had never experienced before. Had something happened to me the night before group, or the morning of group, or during group, that had irreparably damaged me neurologically? Or did they put me on drugs that had done this and this was how I would be for the rest of my life? The Shell of Tom.
Here Once Was Tom.
Bit of a Fibber.
But boy was he exciting.
Was. Was exciting.
Now we have his shell for your viewing pleasure.
After two weeks, when my meds started being scaled back to a reasonable level for a human being who wanted to function, the silence got a little less loud. I could hear myself again. And I knew the attempt at healing was soon to begin again. The doctors and orderlies and nurses, my mom, my psychiatrist, everyone involved with my care would start to try to get me to come back to the land of the living and sane.
I was laying in my bed in my room in the hospital, around the end of week two, and the enormity of being Tom the Liar sat on my chest. It felt like a weight I could wrap my arms around and plunge into the Earth. I could sink down, down, down, and never come back up. I could just accept this alternative to becoming a new version of Tom, a Tom who could tell the truth, a Tom who didn’t feel like a traitor if he told the truth, a Tom who wanted to live. A Tom who wanted to be sane. If I accepted that, I could just sink. And, sooner or later, that would be that. I, too, would be in the Earth like Dally.
So, I cried for two days straight.
Then I was sedated for a few more days, though I’m not sure how long because I lost time again. Only flashes of those days of sedatives remained in my mind when I came back to myself. Everything felt like a dream—nothing was real and that Tom from before was a construct of my mentally ill mind.
And I knew it was all a lie. Everything after summer camp and The Summer of John was a lie. Well, maybe not every little thing, but I had been an active participant in deceiving myself at every turn, at constructing this version of Tom who was laying in a mental hospital, sedated and/or crying, depending upon the day. Being sane is a default, being my version of crazy requires work. And I was so ready to retire. I wanted to let go and let God. I wanted to say to my doctors, my mother, everyone involved in my care that I was just so tired. I just wanted to be Tom two-point-one at the very least.
Living under the shadow of John and Dally was getting heavier and heavier by the moment. They were those lies sitting on my chest like a block of concrete, begging me to hold on and sink. To give myself over to the sound in my head and the lies on my tongue. To just let it all just happen. I had no loyalty to John but I had loyalty to Dally. Didn’t I?
Then I’d remember that…maybe Dally and I weren’t best friends. I mean, we had barely begun to be really good friends before John happened. We had just met on the bus to summer camp—who knew if we would have actually stayed friends after summer camp if it hadn’t been for John. We were two teenage boys on a bus to camp and we latched onto the first person we found who might be a partner in crime, insulation against the loneliness of being away from home for the first time. After camp was over, under normal circumstances, we probably would have drifted apart. John had been the tie that bound us together. That elastic tether that snapped us both back towards each other if we drew too far apart.
Did I have loyalty to Dally? Or did we just share a trauma?
Isn’t there a difference?
I think—at least, I’m pretty sure—I was in the hospital for three weeks before I even had a sit down, face-to-face meeting with my psychiatrist. And, unlike my first time in the hospital, I was walked to my appointment by an orderly and a nurse. I was lucid and no longer under the blanket-like haze of sedatives, but I was still being watched closely. Once I sat down in the chair opposite my psychiatrist in one of the utilitarian offices used for appointments with psych docs, the orderly went outside to wait. He had made it clear to my doctor—Dr. Renfro, that was his name—that he would be right outside if he was needed. He made sure I heard that statement, too. Great, now I was a psycho, too.
Everything was so bright. So real. Everything in that room felt more alive and real than things had felt for a long time.
“Good morning, Tom.” Dr. Renfro smiled at me warmly.
He was a warm, friendly man. He had always been a warm, friendly man. Up until then, I had hated him, thought he was a total bastard. But, looking back, no matter how difficult I had been with him, he had been kind. Talk about hating yourself in retrospect.
“Is it morning?” I asked.
I hadn’t shaken off the stupor of my sedative from the night before. So, maybe I had lied. I was still kind of under the influence of the drugs I was being given to keep me calm. I could think and I could hear my own mind, but I was foggy.
“It’s,” he glanced at his watch, “just now ten o’clock, Tom. Are you feeling okay?”
“I feel foggy.” I said, the truth coming out easily.
He nodded.
“That’s to be expected.” He said. “You’ve had a tough few weeks, I would imagine.”
I nodded, my head mostly just lolling around.
“Do you feel like talking today?” He asked, at ease as he sat across from me. “I would like to talk to you if you feel up to it.”
“Dr. Renfro?” I felt my eyes well up.
“Yes, Tom?”
“I’m tired of being crazy.”
Dr. Renfro didn’t have a pad and a pen to jot down what I’d just said. He didn
’t give me a condescending or pitying look, he didn’t immediately follow that up with “how does that make you feel” or some other inane, nonsensical question that mental health providers loved asking. He just watched me, waiting to see if that was the end of my thoughts.
“Who told you that you are crazy, Tom?” He asked.
“Me.” I bit my lip.
“What makes you think you’re crazy?”
“Because I don’t even know what’s real anymore.” I said. “I don’t know what’s a truth and what’s a lie. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t even know who Tom is anymore. And I’m so tired of feeling nothing and everything all at the same time. I’m just really tired.”
“Do you want to go sleep some more?” He asked. “We can try to talk another day.”
I shook my head, swallowing down a sob.
“I want to tell you a truth.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “What truth do you want to tell me?”
“I don’t think that John stabbed Dally.” I said. “I think I stabbed Dally. I think we told the cops that that is what happened because it was easier than admitting the truth. I had his blood all over my hands and my arms and body from stabbing him, not trying to save him.”
Dr. Renfro just looked at me.
“I don’t know why we decided to lie. At least not that time.” I said lowly, trying to control myself. “But John didn’t stab Dally.”
Then we sat in silence for a few moments.
“I know that John didn’t stab Dally, Tom.” Dr. Renfro spoke after several moments. “But you didn’t stab Dally either, Tom. We’ve talk about this before. Do you remember that?”
“Then who stabbed him?” I felt a tear slide down my cheek.
“Dally stabbed Dally, Tom.” Dr. Renfro said gently. “That was Dally’s first attempt at suicide. You saved him. When you weren’t there to save him the second time…you are feeling guilty for something that is not your fault, Tom. You didn’t stab Dally. Ever. You are not responsible for Dally’s actions.”
I shook my head.
“Steve thinks John stabbed Dally but it was me.”
