Mum is screaming.
She was cleaning my room
and found the goodbye notes I’d written
months ago,
dropped under my bed.
A knot grows in my stomach
and a lump forms in my throat.
The shit has hit the fan.
She thinks I tried to slice my hand off on purpose.
Thinks I tried to slit my wrist.
She makes me sit in the kitchen until Dad gets home,
like she used to when I was little and really in trouble.
Dad turns pale,
goes ballistic.
Tim comes in to see what all the fuss is about
and gets ordered out of the kitchen.
I try to leave,
get held back by my parents.
They’re both crying.
Now I really want to die.
Mum grabs my handbag,
rifles through it.
Looking for drugs,
I guess.
She finds the referral from the doctor,
screams even more.
Dad whispers to Mum
and walks out the door.
Minutes later, there’s banging upstairs.
Bang
Bang
Bang
Bang
He doesn’t come downstairs for ages.
When he does, he’s carrying a box.
They’ve found condoms in my room,
and alcohol.
The box has all the stuff they’re taking off me, I guess.
The shit has hit the fan.
They scream at me until my eyes glaze over and my ears
start to hurt.
Eventually
Mum loses her voice
and they let me go to bed.
Trapped
I’m trapped like an animal
waiting for the slaughter.
My window has been nailed shut,
that’s what the banging was about.
The lock on my door is gone.
I feel like I’m waiting
to be led to the gallows.
I’m going crazy.
I can’t live this life any more.
Can’t do it.
Can’t do it.
I have to escape.
Escape plan
I’ve never been a fan of razors, but I have no option tonight.
The only way I can get out of this is by slitting my wrists.
I grab a piece of paper,
a million words in my head,
but all I can write is
Sorry I was such a fuck-up.
Better luck next time.
I can’t live like this any more.
Tonight,
I really don’t care
whether I live or die.
And I won’t wait until morning to live in hell on earth.
There is no other choice.
There is nothing good in my life.
Nothing.
There is no future for a person like me.
Even I can’t live with myself.
I need to shut up this goddamn voice in my head.
I head to the bathroom to find my razor.
It’s gone.
Not just mine, Dad’s as well.
Even the hand mirrors out of the drawers are gone.
It’ll have to be a knife then. I’m panicking.
They’re gone too.
Every single sharp knife out of the kitchen is gone. Every
one of them. Even the potato peeler is missing.
I bolt back up the stairs.
I just want my miserable fucking life to be over.
Check the bathroom for painkillers — anything!
All of the medicine is gone except for Dad’s
antacid medicine,
and that’s not going to do much.
Ransack my drawers.
Must have something!
Nothing.
Everything, every single fucking thing I could’ve used,
is gone.
Mum hears me walking through the house
and makes me a bed on their bedroom floor.
I watch in horror as they slide their bed
against the door.
I’m stuck. Trapped.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so low in my life.
I suck at living, and I suck even more at dying.
Why can’t the earth just swallow me up?
I lie on the bedroom floor,
curled up in a ball,
and weep.
I let my tears and snot run onto the pillow,
not even noticing, not even caring.
Will this night ever end?
Please don’t.
Let the night go on forever,
I’m scared of what the sunlight will bring.
Let the night go on forever.
It’s got to be better than tomorrow.
Let the night go on forever.
Let me die here on the floor.
Let the night go on forever.
Julie thinks
How can I sleep after something like this?
I sit up in bed, crying silently.
Staring at my sleeping daughter.
Staring at the box Paul has placed in our bedroom.
Condoms — my baby has condoms in her room!
Alcohol — alcohol! How did Char even get alcohol?
She’s only seventeen.
Painkillers — Char’s gone and bought painkillers,
and most of the packet is missing.
What is this child doing to herself?
Razors.
Knives.
Mirrors.
My sleeping pills from years ago.
All confiscated to get my baby through this night.
What has she done?
What have we done?
What have we done wrong?
What am I going to do?
Why couldn’t she talk to me?
It is that thought
that hurts more than anything else —
more than the thought of Char having sex and drinking
alcohol,
more than the thought of hiding the razors in case she
gets desperate,
more than anything,
the thought that haunts me —
why didn’t she come to me?
Let us know
At first light Julie reaches for her telephone book.
Surely there must have been someone who saw
something they didn’t see.
The school was asked if they had noticed a change in Char.
Why didn’t they alert her parents? Why hadn’t there been
any parent–teacher meetings so they could work
together?
Jim was asked where the hell he had been when this was
going on, and what he’d done to her.
The doctor was asked why he hadn’t told her parents that
he was referring Char to a shrink.
Everyone talked a lot, but no one actually had
any answers.
Funnily enough, the school, Jim and the doctor all said,
‘Let us know.’
‘Let us know what happens.’
‘Let us know what happens with Char.’
‘Let us know what we can do.’
I dream
I’m at a circus.
There are zombies,
dressed as clowns,
their mouths black and rotting,
holes where their eyes and noses should be.
There is a man,
very tall,
dressed completely in black.
He’s wearing gloves,
I notice,
woollen gloves,
as he tries to take my hand.
I don’t want to go with him.
I run.
There are bats
trying to bite at my neck,
; their claws scratching my skin.
I try to bolt
but I’m running in slow motion,
my legs are jelly and my feet seem glued to the floor.
Suddenly
I hear a gunshot.
The bats disappear.
There is a burning in my chest
and blood flowing out of my body.
I’m dizzy
and start to fall . . .
Falling . . .
Falling . . .
Falling...
I wake on the floor with a gasp.
Still scared and goosepimply, I climb into bed and huddle
under the covers.
I’m such a weirdo, even in my dreams.
Jim/men are tough
Men are supposed to be tough,
but I don’t feel very brave today.
Dad knows there is something wrong.
I tell him about Char and me,
about the baby,
about the cheating,
about her mum ringing me this morning.
I tell him how I feel,
like it’s my fault,
like I should’ve been there for Char,
like I could’ve stopped it getting this far.
I tell him how I avoided Julie’s questions,
how I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to look her in the eye
again.
How I don’t know what to do now.
He doesn’t tell me
to keep a stiff upper lip,
or to be brave
or even to stuff it all into a little ball and push that ball
deep inside.
He doesn’t tell me off
for being a dickhead
and he doesn’t ask
how I managed to stuff things up so much.
But he does tell me
about real men.
Real men
Real men,
Dad says,
are brave.
They’re brave when they’re scared shitless and have made
a mess of things and have to put things right even though
they don’t quite know how.
They’re brave enough to admit that they’re wrong and have
made mistakes.
And they’re brave enough to cry when they feel like it.
Real men,
Dad says,
are strong.
Strong enough to hold a woman whose heart is breaking
and comfort her when they want to run.
Strong enough to resist things that they know aren’t right.
Strong enough to turn down a hard path to make things
right again.
Strong enough to sit with another man who’s crying and talk
about feelings. That’s a strength, not a weakness, says Dad.
Real men,
Dad says,
can talk and listen and
Real men,
Dad says,
help each other out.
Dad’s never talked to me like this before. But,
I’ve never talked to him like this before either.
Don’t tell your mother
I told you this, he says,
but when we’d been dating for about five months,
she got pregnant.
(But Dad, I thought I was the eldest child?)
She was only twenty, and I wasn’t much older myself.
When she told me, I got mad, accused her of sleeping
around, because I thought that’s what men did.
Eventually, I came around.
I didn’t know how we could afford it.
(But, Dad, you’re like the richest person I know?)
And, oh geez, I thought her mother would kill me.
But Joan never did find out.
When your mum was about nine weeks or so along
she lost the baby.
(Oh god.)
I couldn’t really understand at first.
To men, you aren’t a parent until the baby’s in your arms.
But to a woman, James, to a woman,
it’s a different story.
She cried,
oh, Jesus, did she cry.
And all I could do was hold her.
I watched her fall apart.
She was so sad
and I felt like it was all my fault.
If it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t have been pregnant.
There wouldn’t have been a baby to lose.
A long time went by
and eventually she told me
that if I’d stopped holding her
she would’ve wanted to die.
No matter what’s happened with this girl, James,
she needs you.
She needs you to be there for her.
She needs you to hold her.
It’s time for you
to be a man.
A real man.
Watching
When James/Jim goes away,
his dad thinks about
the funny business
of raising kids.
Teaching them how to
walk,
talk,
and a million other things.
Watching over them like a hawk,
jumping in to save the day.
To reassure and make it right.
Then —
when they get a little older,
all you’re allowed to do is
watch.
Watch them do stupid things and
dye their hair funny colours and tattoo their bodies and
drive recklessly and sneak out of the house and
drink when they don’t think you’ll catch them
and do all sorts of stupid stuff and
all you can do is
watch.
Because you’ve gotta let them go,
sooner or later,
you’ve just gotta let go
and hope you did okay.
Jim/spin me right round
My head is spinning
with everything that’s happened today
and it’s only ten in the morning.
Char has cracked up
(more than usual).
Dad knows about Char and me
(everything that happened)
and Mum and Dad lost a baby years before I was born
(and I never had a clue).
There’s no way I can go to school today,
not with a head like this.
Why is it that everything always happens all at once?
I head to the beach
and watch the waves for a while
before peeling off my shirt, my shoes, my watch.
I dive in,
into the icy water
and gasp.
When I emerge,
I feel
renewed.
Char/waking
I wake.
A combination of dried snot and tears on my face,
perpetual knot in my stomach,
sheets tangled around me.
For a second,
it’s peaceful.
Then I remember.
Their little girl
I can hear my parents fighting again,
and this time,
I know for sure what it’s about.
They’re blaming each other
for me being like this
even though it’s no one’s fault but my own.
I stand at the top of the stairs,
watching them fight.
‘Shut up you two! Just shut the fuck up!’
I’ve never sworn at my parents before,
and I didn’t mean to even speak.
They stop fighting, and look at me,
astounded.
My knees crumple
and I sit on the stairs,
sobbing like a little girl.
I can’t remember the last time I cried in front of
my parents.
Dressing for battle
I have to wear jeans to the shrink’s.
Mum and Dad won’t let me have the razor in the shower to
shave my legs,
in case I off myself, I suppose.
Mum says she’ll stand in the bathroom and watch,
if I want.
No way!
I’d rather be hairy.
Looking crazy
In the waiting room,
I look around suspiciously,
looking for crazy people.
There’s only two other people in the room,
apart from the receptionist.
A man in his forties who blinks a lot
and a girl about my age
wearing a T-shirt that says,
Keep staring – I might do a trick.
I have the feeling that I would get on well with her,
but we’re not exactly at the school social.
Botox and jeans
The door opens eventually
and a woman who doesn’t look that much older than me
steps out and calls my name.
This must be the shrink, I guess.
I put on my mask
of composure and happiness
and follow her into the room.
She tells me her name is Vivian,
which matches the name on the certificates on the wall.
This woman must’ve had Botox
because there’s no way someone who looks that young
can have done that much studying.
Botox for sure.
And she’s wearing jeans — jeans!
Wonder if she has razor issues as well.
She must go crazy, listening to people and their problems
all day.
Telling my secrets to strangers
She asks me questions about school, and music,
trying to get me to talk, I guess.
She asks me how I ended up in her office.
I tell her I can’t sleep.
Tell her that Mum and Dad found condoms and alcohol
in my room.
Tell her they’ve overreacted.
Tell her it’s nothing.
It’s like a test,
see if she’s got a bullshit detector.
What Does Blue Feel Like? Page 8
