by Barry Lyga
She smiles even more broadly. “I know you are. I know. Do you think maybe we should explore getting you into an English class that might be a little more appropriate for you?”
“It’s not the class.” I try not to bristle, but it’s difficult. “I can handle the class. It’s just this assignment.”
Ms. de la Rosa tilts her head sympathetically. “Sebastian, I can’t tell you what to do. I can only show you the road. I can’t walk it for you.”
Psychobabble. I pretend it’s deep and meaningful, something for me to chew over and not just spit out.
“Have you ever… Did you ever discuss hypnosis with your therapist? I’m just wondering. It’s not standard, but it’s not not standard, and I’m just thinking—”
“We discussed it.” It comes out a whisper. I know what she’ll say next.
“I’m just thinking maybe if you could remember… that might be healing. That might help you get past it.”
My throat slams shut midswallow. I stare at my hands, folded in my lap.
“It’s Friday,” she says. “I’m going to say you should get a jump start on the weekend. Take the rest of the day off.”
She makes it sound like a bonus vacation, a stealth holiday that crept out of nowhere and suctioned itself onto my calendar like a facehugger from the original Alien, the best one, in my opinion. Seven normal people trapped on a spaceship with a life-form evolved to be the perfect murder machine. So much more terrifying than the jacked-up special effects showcases the later movies turned into.
There’s a chirp from her computer. When I look up, she’s beaming at me. “Looks like your mom’s here.”
I say as little as possible on the way home.
“I just lost my temper a little bit,” I tell her. I don’t know what she knows, what Mr. Sperling told her. “It’ll be okay. I’m a good student. I have great grades. I’ve never been in trouble before. They won’t throw the book at me.”
Mom purses her lips and focuses on driving, saying nothing.
Mom drops me off at home. “If I didn’t have a meeting, trust me, we’d be having a very long talk right now. Don’t think you’re off the hook. I’ll have to stay late to make up for leaving in the middle of the day, but we’re having a serious discussion when I get home.”
“Hitting a desk isn’t the end of the world,” I tell her.
“The important thing is that you hit, not what you hit. As soon as I get home, seriously. The minute I’m through the door.” And then she’s gone, and I’m alone in the house, and I start laughing. It comes from deep in my gut, welling up like a water spout in the middle of a turbulent ocean, and it takes a terrific effort of will to tamp it down, to turn it into guttural chuckles in lieu of full-blown guffaws.
I can’t believe I fell for it.
I can’t believe I fooled myself without even trying. That I tricked myself into thinking that I could be happy, that I could be normal, that I could ignore the voice and it would go away, dissipate like smoke in open air. That the voice had gone away, that it ever could go away.
And I realize the voice is screaming at me. No longer whispering. More than that, I realize it’s been screaming for a while now. I just wasn’t paying attention.
But now I am.
Now I am.
Is it time?
And the voice says, Yes. Now.
It makes perfect sense, suicide does. An end to pain, to misunderstanding. An end to my existence as a walking, talking, living, breathing reminder to my mother of what was taken from her.
Why has it taken me so long? Why have I let my pathetic excuse for a life drag on this long?
I know why. Deep down, I know. I wasn’t ready. Not before. Not like I am now. I’ve been preparing.
I haven’t been steeling myself for suicide. The suicide is actually the easy part. It’s the other thing.
The other thing. That’s what I’ve been preparing for.
And my phone rings.
The number is from Florida, according to caller ID. There’s only one person I know who lives in Florida, and I’m not sure I want to talk to him. I hold the phone in my hand and let it vibrate once, twice, three times. Before it shunts the call to voicemail, I thumb-swipe to answer.
And I pretend.
I’m so good at pretending.
After brief hellos, Dr. Kennedy says, “I’m going to be in town this weekend. Do you think you have time to let an old man buy you a Coke?”
This is what he always says when he’s coming to town. Dr. Kennedy was my therapist for most of my life—I literally cannot remember a time when I didn’t speak to him regularly. About a year ago, he retired and moved to Florida—“Because this is what old people do,” he said, somewhat gravely. By then, I was officially done with my therapy, but I still saw him once a month or so. “Just to keep up,” he would say.
He moved, but he still comes back to Brookdale two or three times a year, usually in the spring or summer, and each time, he calls me and offers to buy me a Coke. Each time, I tell myself I won’t go, that there’s no need to. And then that, okay, I’ll go, but I won’t talk about anything that matters. And each time, he manages to wrangle me into talking about important things, about things that matter, about things that are buried deep—like in a memory hole—and leaves me thinking it was somehow my idea.
He came to Brookdale over the summer, and I genuinely couldn’t meet him for that famed Coke; I was too busy with the YouTube channel, and that seems so ridiculous now.
A month ago. And now he’s back already.
“This is quite a coincidence,” I say casually.
“Not a coincidence at all. I spoke to some people at your school today.”
Dr. Kennedy is not a bullshitter or one to conceal. He’s bluntly honest, sort of the polar opposite of every psychiatrist on TV and in movies. Popular culture woefully underprepares us for actual therapy. He has never once asked me, “How does that make you feel?” or “What do you think that means?” He’s more likely to tell me what I feel or what something means.
“You don’t have to come up here because of that,” I tell him.
“At my age, there aren’t many things I do have to do. This is something I want to do.”
“Come on…”
“I didn’t get to see you last time I was in town. I keep up with very, very few of my former patients, Sebastian. Did you ever stop to think that I regretted missing you last time, and I’m happy for this opportunity?”
The truth is: No. No, I never stopped to think any of that. Dr. Kennedy has a way of saying something nice that makes me feel guilty, anyway.
“I want us to revisit the question of hypnotherapy.”
So. He’s definitely spoken to Ms. de la Rosa.
“We’ve been through it before, Dr. Kennedy.”
And we have. So many times. If you could remember, it might help you get past it.
And I countered: Isn’t it just as likely that not being able to remember is my way of getting past it?
That would be true. If. If you were truly past it. And I don’t believe you are.
“You’ve refused in the past for very good reasons,” he says, “reasons I understand and respect. But I’d like to discuss it again. Can you do me a favor and be prepared to talk about this again, with an open mind?”
And of course I can. Because for Dr. Kennedy I can and would do anything. I promise him to be prepared, to discuss the issue with an open mind, and I hang up and I know it doesn’t matter what I’ve promised because I will not live to have the conversation in the first place.
I’m so good at pretending.
I’m a liar.
I’ve lied to everyone.
To every person in my life, to everyone I know.
I’ve never told the truth. I’ve lied to them all.
To my mom. To Evan. To Dr. Kennedy. To Aneesa.
Everyone keeps saying that if I could remember, it would help. That’s what they’ve said all along.
And the thing is this: I remember doing it.
I remember every single bit of it.
History
I’m told it was a Tuesday. It was. This is true.
I’m told it was June and it was hot and there’d been no rain for weeks, no respite from the heat that pressed down on Brookdale. Sticky hot and oppressive. Unrelenting. Heat like a heavy breath in your face. Not a whisper of breeze.
(bored bored bored)
I’m told Mom was in the backyard, hanging laundry on the line, that my father was in the garage. Mommy says don’t go outside too hot but Mommy is outside not fair I want to be outside. He was cleaning the gun on the workbench just inside the door that led from the garage into the house. And the doorbell rang and he left the gun sitting out as he went to answer it.
(bored bored bored)
Daddy says go away I’m busy not for little boys adult stuff.
(bored bored bored)
Doorbell and I go see Daddy again but Daddy is not there but grown-up toy! Grown-up toy!
Grown-up toy! I have a grown-up toy!
It’s heavy and smells funny like change in Mommy’s pockabook.
I’m told I leveled my father’s .38 Magnum at her as she sat in the little bouncy chair with the stuffed birds hanging overhead. Go play with grown-up toy. Go to my room. I hear Lola in her room. She makes a song-noise. “So cute” Mommy says and I say it too when I hear it. She liked to sing along with the bouncy chair’s recorded music, cooing off-beat. Over her head, stuffed birds rotated slowly on their axes, captivating her.
So cute!
I’m told she would only nap in the bouncy chair, that she loved the stuffed birds and the birdsong that the chair played for her. Go into Lola’s room. She’s in bouncy bouncy chair, go bouncy bouncy. Singsongy noises. She would stare at the birds and babble her version of the birdsong for endless precious minutes.
Lola sees me. Eyes wide. Smiles and says “hah-dah!” But then she saw me.
“Hah-dah! Hah-dah!” She couldn’t speak, but she could exclaim. She could erupt with syllables without warning, sometimes blurting out a single sound, then falling silent, other times repeating them in a staccato verbal tattoo over and over.
Swings her arms and giggles. Bouncy chair jiggles. I laugh too. So cute. So funny.
She sees me she smiles her big open toothless smile she smiles with her whole face with every part of her. That day, she said, “Hah-dah!”
Lola is my sister love my sister she’s so cute and she loves her big brother Mommy says she loves her big brother. God, I remember it.
Loves when I play with her when I clap for her.
She swings her arms again, “Hah-dah! Hah-dah!” Claps her hands. I remember it so well. “Hah-dah!”
I swing my arms, clap for her.
I’m told it was point-blank range and that I shot her one time. There’s a BIGSOUND and I fall back. It was one shot. I don’t remember pulling the trigger. Or aiming. I think it was genuinely an accident.
Which, really, is all it takes. BIGSOUND. So big! My ears hurt. Ears hurt so much!
She was four months old. I’m told. My ears hurt! Everything hurts! Why am I hurt? I’m shaking. My head hurts, my legs hurt, my arms hurt. I peed in my pants and Mommy will be mad.
I’m told Mom got there first, the back door being close to the nursery. My father arrived a few seconds later and I was on the floor, blacked out from the kick of the pistol, which knocked me across the room. Mommy here now. Mommy! Mommy! I hurt! I hurt! Up, Mommy! Up! Up! I didn’t black out. Not for an instant. The kick of the Magnum knocked me off my feet, threw me back against the wall. It’s a miracle the recoil didn’t break my shoulder.
Mommy not looking at me. Mommy crying and then Daddy screaming and Mommy crying Daddy mad.
I’m told Mom screamed and screamed, clawing at her own face at the sight before her. What happened?
What happened?
Pee in my pants.
Where’s Lola? Why is there red?
Local legend has it that my father, fearing she would gouge her own eyes out or tear her face to ribbons, deliberately punched her out cold. Mommy gone. Want Mommy! Everything hurts! Everything hurts all over! WANT MOMMY! My father did not punch my mother. He shoved her out of the room. I watched. He shoved her out of the room and cast about, as though looking for something, anything, that was not the tableau before him. Arms outstretched, reaching, grasping, his hands desperate for purchase, to grab hold of reality and warp it, bend it to his will, coming up only with air.
He dropped to his knees near me, keening.
I have no reason not to believe any of the things I’ve been told. Why is there so much red? What happened? What happened? Except that so many of them are not true. But the ones that matter are.
I could only lay there, dumb and howling in pain and confusion.
I’m told so many things. Where’s Lola? Wondering.
I was a child. It was an accident. It wasn’t my fault. Why is there so much red? Not understanding. But I understand now.
I’m told. Where’s Lola???? But I’ve never told.
I was four years old. WHY IS THERE SO MUCH RED?
WHY IS THERE SO MUCH RED?
The Present
I remember. I’ve always remembered. There hasn’t been a moment of my life when I haven’t remembered.
And it hasn’t helped at all.
Which means nothing will ever help.
Which means I’ll never get over it. Never never never.
Which means there’s only one thing to do.
I’ve known it all along.
One thing and it’s an easy thing, so easy, and I’m so angry at myself for waiting so long. I should have done it years ago. I never should have met Aneesa. I never should have met Evan. I should have been dead so long ago.
Me: Can I come over?
Evan: Now?
Me: Yeah
Evan: 2night’s the thing
Me: I know. I just left something at your house is all
Me: Five minutes, in and out
Me: No one will know
Evan: OK
It takes forever to get to Evan’s house on my bike. By the time I get there, on the other side of town, the sun is just starting to dip in the sky, but the heat and the humidity have clung to the dregs of the day and to my back, my forehead, my armpits. I’m exhausted and spent and wet from head to toe, and the only thing that keeps me going is knowing that it’s almost over. Almost. So close.
There are half a dozen expensive cars parked in the Danforths’ roundabout driveway, and more to come. Evan answers the door in a tuxedo. I try to remember how I should respond to this. Snarky? Faux impressed? I discover that I can’t summon the proper reaction, and I fear I’m lost already, but Evan takes one look at me and says, “Jesus, don’t let my mom see you, okay?”
On the first Friday evening of the school year, the Danforths throw an expensive, black-tie-only fund-raiser for whichever subject areas or extracurricular activities their offspring have chosen to indulge in that year. It’s their way, I’m sure, of compensating their own egos for their children’s refusal to attend private schools. When Richard Jr. went to South Brook, the football team was the best funded in the state. Evan is pretty much single-handedly guaranteeing that the drama program and the jazz band will be flush for his four years at South Brook.
The price for this largesse? The Danforth children must attend the soiree, attired appropriately. Hence, Evan’s tux. And further hence, the rich people within, with more to arrive soon, explaining Evan’s insistence that his mother not see me in my disheveled state.
“Up and down, in and out,” I promise. “It’s just a DVD I left in—”
“Just go,” he stage-whispers, gesturing me in, furtively checking all around to be certain no one notices his poor, underdressed, sweating, stinking buddy.
I scramble up the stairs. I really did leave a DVD here at the beginning of the summer, but I don’t care about it.
I only care about Mr. Danforth’s office.
About the rifle case.
Everyone is downstairs, drinking unicorn champagne and eating solid gold caviar. Whatever it is rich people do. Me? I’m walking into Mr. Danforth’s office like it’s my own.
The cabinet is locked, but I know he keeps the key in his desk drawer. Why wouldn’t he? His sons are grown and responsible. The lock is just a formality at this point.
I unlock the case. Skip over the rifles. Too big. Unnecessary.
Down at the bottom of the case are the handguns. The big Magnum and the small Colt, the girly gun.
I could do all the damage I need to with the Colt, but I take the Magnum. This began with a Magnum and it will end with a Magnum.
I tuck it into my waistband and blouse my shirt over the grip. Even unloaded, it’s heavy.
There’s a box of ammo, too. I tip a handful of bullets into my palm, then slip them into my pocket.
I drift out of the office and peer over the second-floor balustrade into the vestibule below. It’s empty. I have a straight line of escape from here to the front door.
I check the gun again to make sure it won’t drop through my waistband and down my pants. Then I head down the stairs, quick and quiet.
My feet have barely touched the vestibule below when another set of footfalls echoes softly from off to the left. I spin just in time to spot a server in a purple bow tie and black suit nearly on top of me, one arm raised to bear a silver platter.
He lowers the platter into my range of vision. “Canapé?” he asks. After a moment in which he takes in my sweaty, disheveled, black-tie-oh-so-optional clothing, he grudgingly adds, “Sir?”
The thought of food causes my stomach to crumple in on itself like a fist. “No, thanks.”
He nods and proceeds into the great room. For reasons I don’t understand, I pause, wasting a crucial getaway moment to listen for a cry of alarm.
Nothing.
I’m beneath notice.
