Inside Out

by Terry Trueman

Stormy yells, “No! If we let everybody go, they’ll just come in and shoot us, won’t they? That’s what’s gonna happen. We’re gonna be dead—Mom’s gonna have nobody! Great idea you had here, genius.”

  Frosty screams, “Shut up, Joey. I’m gonna figure something out, but we gotta let these people go or it’ll be worse. Just stop bitching.”

  As Frosty talks, his voice gets higher and higher, and for the first time since they came in, he sounds like he might start crying.

  Frosty yells, “Maybe we should just shoot everybody and then kill ourselves! What’s the point of anything, what’s the difference?” He’s waving his gun around while he’s yelling.

  Everybody’s quiet. The store guy still has his arm around the girl’s shoulders (if he’s not careful, she could turn him into a zombie, too). Nobody takes a breath.

  Frosty finally says, “We’ll let everyone go but one person. Somebody’s gotta stay and—”

  Fat suit interrupts. “Keep the loony”—looking over at me.

  Without planning it out or thinking it through, I say, “Sure, I’ll stay with you guys....” Frosty and Stormy just look at me like they don’t understand, so I explain, “If you’re worried about being in here by yourselves, I’ll stay.”

  Frosty says, “Jesus Christ, Zach, that’s all we need, to be stuck in here with you for the rest of our lives.”

  The fat suit lets out a loud laugh, but when he does, Frosty glares at him and the fat suit stops laughing right away.

  Frosty turns to me and says, “I don’t really know if it would even help for you to stay here, Zach.”

  I don’t know either, but they look really scared. I remember what being scared used to feel like, so I say, “If you’d let me call Dr. Curt, he’ll make the police let me have my medicine—then I can stay. If I don’t get my medicine pretty soon, Dirtbag and Rat will come—”

  Frosty looks confused. “Who the hell are they? Friends of yours?”

  I answer, “No, no way. But listen, Dr. Curt—”

  Frosty interrupts me again, “Who’s this Dr. Curt guy?”

  “He’s my doctor,” I say.

  Frosty asks, “Do you trust him?”

  I do trust him, he’s my friend, so I answer, “Yeah, he helps me.”

  Frosty asks, “Do you think he’d help us, too?”

  I ask, “Do you need medicine?”

  Stormy mumbles, “What a moron!” He says to Frosty, “You can’t trust this idiot!”

  Ignoring Stormy, Frosty says, “No, Zach, we don’t need medicine, but do you think your doctor would talk to the cops? Doctors take oaths to help people, right? Do you think that maybe he’d look at what they write and help us get out of here?”

  I don’t understand Frosty’s question. But I think zombie girl has a new friend. Skinny suit just keeps staring at the floor like a zombie now too. I need to talk to Dr. Curt and I need my medicine now! The only thing I can think to answer Frosty is, “All I can tell you is that Dr. Curt always helps me.”

  Frosty thinks for a second, then shrugs and says, “That’s good enough for me. Let’s call him up.”

  10

  Letter from Ms. Emily Wahhsted to Dr. Cal Curtis:

  … Thanks for your concerns. Zach seemed to have a good first week. But now, after two weeks, he says there are two “new” “meaner” voices bothering him. What does this mean? As you suspected, Zach may not be taking his medicine properly. I found several pills in his wastebasket....

  Dr. Curtis picks up his phone after the second ring. “Cal Curtis,” he answers.

  I say, “Hi, Dr. Curt, it’s Zach.”

  “Hi, Zach, how are you?” he asks.

  “I’m good,” I say.

  “Everything’s going all right?” he asks. “Your mom’s okay?”

  “Oh, yes,” I say. It occurs to me that I should say “thanks for asking,” that’s what a normal person would say. So I say, “Thanks for asking.”

  I should explain to Dr. Curt why I’m phoning, but I can’t think how to start. Finally I say, “I’m glad you were at your phone. At your office and stuff, I mean.”

  Dr. Curt says, “Yes, it’s nice to hear from you again too, Zach. But I’ve got a patient coming in just a few minutes, so I don’t have much time to talk right now.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Well, it’s been nice talking to you—”

  I’m about to hang up the phone when Frosty grabs it from me and says, “Hello!”

  He says into the phone, “My name is Alan Mender, and Zach is here with my brother Joey and me. He said we could trust you. We’re in a hell of a lot of trouble!”

  Aha! Now I know their real names, Alan and Joey. I liked Frosty and Stormy better.

  There’s a pause, a long one. Dr. Curt is saying something to Frosty—I mean, Alan.

  Finally Alan says, “Yes, Dr. Curtis, I know your first concern is Zach. I’ll put him on the line, but listen to him, okay?”

  He hands the phone to me. “Tell him what’s going on here, Zach.”

  I take the phone and try to think of the words. Before I can say anything, Dr. Curt asks, “Are you all right, Zach? What’s going on there, and who is that? He sounds pretty shaky.”

  I say, “He’s real, Dr. Curt.”

  “I know, Zach, yes, he’s real.”

  I still can’t even think how to start, so I just say the things that are in my brain. “I guess his real name’s Alan....”

  I think, I wish his name was Frosty.... It’s such a cool name. I wish his name was Frosty and mine was Stormy, not Wasteoid.... I wish …

  “Okay, Zach, it’s okay,” Dr. Curt says. “Can you explain what’s happening?”

  Now the words just tumble out of my mouth. “He has a gun and it’s real. His brother Joey has one, too, and he shot the drawer and the little girl peed her pants—I mean her dress. I can’t go get my medicine or any maple bars because the police would shoot us, but there’s two guns and two brothers and everybody gets to leave if you’ll come here and bring my medicine, ’cause I’m gonna stay till you help us, okay?”

  Dr. Curt says, “You bet, Zach.” He pauses a second, then asks, “Can I speak to Alan? The boy I spoke to a few moments ago, can I speak to him again?”

  I say, “Sure,” and I wait for Dr. Curt to say something more.

  Dr. Curt finally asks, “Zach, would you give Alan the phone now, please?”

  I say, “Oh, yeah, sure.” I turn to Alan. “He wants to talk to you again.”

  Alan takes the phone and listens for a few moments, then says, “I don’t want to use the word hostages, but yeah, nine counting Zach.” Alan pauses for a few seconds, listening to Dr. Curt. Now Alan explains about the police and the old ladies and the suits and everything else.

  Alan finally says, “The cops say they’ll put a deal in writing, but we don’t know if we can trust them. This Zach kid”—Alan looks at me—“he says you can help us, mister. To be honest, we’re pretty scared and right now we just wanna get out of as much trouble as we can. Zach says we can trust you. I don’t think Zach lies much, you know? I don’t think he knows how. So can you help us?”

  Alan listens for a few seconds, then says, “Thank you, sir, thank you so much. One more thing, will you call our mom, Louise Mender, before the cops find out who we are? They’ll scare her. We don’t want her to see this on the news.”

  Alan listens some more, then tells Dr. Curt his mom’s phone number, then says, “Okay, Dr. Curt … thanks.”

  Alan hangs up the phone and turns to me. “Okay, he’s coming here and he’s bringing your medicine. Are you really willing to wait here with us until he gets here?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  Alan looks at me kind of funny and asks, “Aren’t you scared, man? Aren’t you at least a little bit afraid of dying?”

  I tell him the truth, “No,” but I don’t tell him the whole truth, that dying, for a long time now, has been the least of my worries.

  Alan takes a deep breath and pauses, looking
around at everyone.

  Even though Alan’s seen Pulp Fiction, I don’t think he’s looking at us like he wants to shoot us.... Then again, how would I know for sure?

  11

  Letter from Ms. Emily Wahhsted to Dr. Cal Curtis:

  Zach told me that a new voice constantly calls him “worthless,” a “worthless wasteoid.” Zach says that he tries to ignore this, but that when he does, another new voice, the second one, screams at him. I don’t know how to answer when Zach asks me why they hate him so much, when he asks what he ever did to them to deserve this. What he ever did to anyone.

  Alan picks up the phone and dials the number the cops gave him and says, “We’re going to send everyone out but Zach, the kid whose mom called before. He’s gonna stay with us until we see the deal in writing from you and his shrink gets here and tells us that it looks all right.”

  Alan pauses and listens, then says, “No, he is not being kept against his will. He agreed to stay, free and clear.” Alan listens some more and turns to me. He covers the mouthpiece of the phone and says, “Damn it, the cop wants to talk to you.”

  I say, “Okay.”

  I take the phone from Alan. His hand shakes as he hands it to me.

  I say, “Hello.”

  The voice says, “You need to come out of there, son.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, otherwise you’re in real danger. Not to mention, by not leaving, you could be aiding and abetting in the commission of a felony.”

  “I don’t know what abetting means.”

  “You know right from wrong, don’t you?” the cop asks, sounding kind of mad.

  The truth is the whole right-from-wrong thing is a little confusing to me at times. “Maybe not,” I answer.

  “Don’t get smart with me, son.”

  “Wing-wong, wing-wong, wing-wong smart smarty—dumb dong.”

  The cop says, “If you stay in there of your own free will, we can’t promise that you won’t get hurt.”

  “Do you like maple bars?” I ask.

  “Jesus!” the cop snaps.

  Suddenly I hear my mom’s voice in the background. I can’t hear all she says, but some parts of it come over the line, including, “… talk to my son that way … Yell at my boy …” and now Mom says some swear words, too.

  I hear the cop speaking back to Mom like he’s sorry, which I bet he is—it’s not a good idea to get my mom pissed at you for being mean to me. Dr. Curt once said, “Your mom’s a butt kicker and a name taker when it comes to protecting you, Zach. You’re lucky to have her!”

  The cop says to me, “Listen, Zachary, I’m sorry I yelled at you and—”

  I interrupt him, “That’s okay, but I’m tired of talking.” My skin is starting to feel like ants are crawling all over me again, and zombie girl and the skinny suit are both staring at me. I say, “Thanks for calling. Have a nice day. ’Bye.” I hang up.

  Alan says, “That was easy.”

  I ask, “It was? If you say so. Hey, do you see ants crawling on me?”

  Alan shakes his head and looks down. I think I make him uncomfortable. I do that to people.

  Suddenly the zombie girl says to me, “There aren’t any ants on you.”

  I’m afraid to look at her again, but finally I do. She looks normal now—maybe she’s okay. But zombies can be tricky. I’m still going to keep my eye on her.

  “Go ahead, Wasteoid, show them how stupid you are.”

  I put my hands up over my ears and the voice stops for now. But I need my meds. I need them bad!

  Alan looks around the room at everybody and says, “We’re gonna let you go in a minute or two, so don’t try anything stupid, okay? It’d be kind of a shame to have to shoot all of you now.”

  Alan pauses a second; he turns to me. “You too, Zach.”

  12

  Letter from Ms. Emily Wahhsted to Dr. Cal Curtis:

  Zach says that he’s tried to ignore the terrible new voices, but that after listening to them for weeks on end, death feels like his only escape. He told me death feels like a good idea.

  Yesterday, Zach came home from school before I got back from shopping....

  Except for Alan and Joey and me, all the other people here in the back of the coffee shop are ready to leave. As soon as the two old ladies stand up, they straighten their clothes, like they planned it out together ahead of time. The fat suit’s shirt has stretched really wide across his big belly, and the button just below his tie has come undone. I say to him, pointing at it, “Your button’s undone there.”

  “Oh,” he says, and quickly buttons up. “Thanks,” he mumbles.

  He hasn’t looked at me hardly at all. I look around at everyone else as they stand up. Maybe this sounds bad, but I don’t care about any of them. They’re strangers, and they’re just like everyone else I ever meet, as much like zombies as humans. I glance again at the store girl and skinny suit real fast when I think this; I wonder if they can read my mind. Most people remind me of characters in a cartoon—zombie characters. I know that most other people aren’t like me. I think it’s why they don’t like me much.

  The lady with the little girl steps over to where I’m standing and looks at me. “Thank you so much,” she says softly, “for helping us.”

  I say, “You’re welcome,” even though I don’t really know what she means.

  “If it weren’t for you staying here, I’m not sure they would let us go.... I’m not sure what might have happened if it weren’t for you....” She starts to cry.

  I don’t know what to do, so I say, “I’m sorry,” the fixer-upper words.

  “Pardon me?” she asks softly.

  “I’m sorry you’re sad.” But as I’m saying this, I blurt out, “You’re pretty.” The second I say it, I know I’m being “inappropriate.” But she is very pretty; her eyes look friendly, like a dog’s eyes. I say to the lady, again, “You’re pretty.” I also say, just to try and explain what I mean, “You have nice dog eyes.” This sounds goofy even to me.

  “Wong-dong, ha-ha, long dong long dong long dong.”

  The voice is making fun of me for liking this grown-up lady and for calling her a pretty dog-eyed person. It’s also talking about my dong and I feel my face get red.

  So I say, “I don’t mean that in a bad way.”

  She smiles at me and touches my arm and says “thank you” again.

  “Okay,” I say, but when she touches me, I think about her hugging her daughter after the little girl peed, and I can’t help but wonder if the lady’s hand has pee on it.

  While I’m thinking this, the lady hugs her little girl close to her again. I know this pretty mom wouldn’t rub her little girl’s nose in the sheets if the little girl wet the bed. I’ll bet this mom would just give her little daughter a maple bar or something. Life is so weird. One kid gets a nose full of pee, another kid gets loved to bits. Heck, I don’t even care if this lady has pee on her hand or not. Life is too weird to worry about a little pee here and there.

  Alan picks up the phone and says, “Everyone but Zach is coming out now.” He hangs up.

  Alan turns to everyone and says, “Okay, you guys, get outa here!”

  Alan and Joey and I peek out the door of the back room as everyone walks away from us. I can’t believe that it’s dark out now—when we came into this room, it was daytime, but now it’s night already. Sometimes it’s hard for me to keep track of time—to be honest, time doesn’t make sense to me anymore.

  “Time … grime … pantomime … long-gone wong-gong is a wong-gone long gong …”

  The itching on my skin is getting worse—I feel hot now, too.

  The others move slowly toward the door. The police shine bright lights through the windows—they’re kind of blue. All the people look blue, which makes them all look like zombies. I know they’re not really zombies, even the store girl or skinny suit, at least I don’t think so—but I’m not sure anymore.

  Why is everybody moving so slowly? Why don’t
they just walk out? Then maybe the blue zombie light will shut off. I’d like that.

  “WHEN YOU GET TO THE DOOR, STEP OUT VERY SLOWLY, ONE AT A TIME. PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEADS AND WALK DIRECTLY TO THE POLICEMAN WAITING FOR YOU.”

  The skinny suit goes out first. He puts his hands up behind his head, just like he’s supposed to, and disappears into the blue light. Next the fat suit leaves, now the old ladies, now the store guy and girl. As everyone goes through the door and walks out, it’s pretty quiet. Nobody says anything, and the only sounds are the sounds of the police moving around. Finally the mom and her daughter go out together; the mom holds the little girl close to her side until they reach the door. Now the little girl puts her hands up behind her head just like her pretty mom. Weird. Do the cops think the little girl with the wet spot on her dress is some kind of kidnaping midget terrorist or something? I laugh out loud at this thought. Joey gives me a dirty look.

  The bright lights glaring through the windows make it hard to see what happens to everybody once they’re out of the coffee shop. For all I know they could be out there shaking hands with the president of the United States—except he’s not here, he’s probably in Washington, D.C., keeping the world safe for democracy and stuff. One thing’s for sure, though—all this action, all this fuss, and still no maple bars. I think the least that should happen is that I get a maple bar.

  Why did I stay here?

  13

  Letter from Ms. Emily Wahhsted to Dr. Cal Curtis:

  Zach says that the two new voices kept torturing him, begging him to kill himself, so he went to my bedroom closet and found the rifle I kept for our “protection.” …

  To be honest, I’m glad everybody except Alan and Joey and I are gone. Most of the time, like I’ve said, I’m not that thrilled to be around people, ’cause they usually just confuse me. I always feel more relaxed when I’m alone, except for the times when I’m alone for too long and Dirtbag and Rat come after me.

  Now that it’s just Alan and Joey and me, and since I’m sitting up in a chair instead of on the floor, I feel a lot better. It also feels like there’s a ton of room back here now, with all the others gone. I feel pretty happy, actually, even without a maple bar.