Cameron and the Girls

by Edward Averett

  She’s mocking you for no reason.

  “Stop it,” I say.

  “Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah.” She bends over, as if she’ll never be able to stop laughing at me.

  But when she finally looks up, maybe Nina sees a change in the tone of my eyes, because she recoils, stumbles back to the rock, and says, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to ride you.”

  I have to steady myself because there is a rush like waves pouring over my brain. As if I’m actually standing on the ocean and one crashes into me and I have nothing to latch on to. I feel dizzy.

  “Oh no,” I say. I close my eyes tightly and wait for it to end. When I open them, she is squatting in front of me.

  She pulls a handkerchief out of her pocket and dabs it in the standing water between the rocks. She brushes it against my forehead. Then she blows on the spot.

  I can feel the water evaporate, and it feels cool and invigorating and temporary, like ice in the desert. But now I’m on edge, waiting for what my brain will do next.

  “You should have seen your face go all white,” she says. “As if someone plugged a straw into your jugular and sucked all the red out. It was freaky.”

  “I’m okay now,” I lie.

  She dabs a little more at my face, and I like how sweet and gentle the motion is.

  “Let’s go,” she says.

  “I need to do something,” I say. I remember what Dr. Simons once told me. Don’t wait too long because then it might be too late. Do something when you’re still feeling almost good. I lean down and pick up one of the wet rocks. My eyes burn in the dank underbridge.

  Nina takes one look at me holding the big jagged rock and scrambles over the boulders and up to the road.

  “No!” I cry, not understanding. But when she’s out of sight, I glance down at the rock in my hand and I get it. I was just going to make it splash in the river, but she doesn’t trust me. I don’t trust me. I drop the rock as if it were a hot coal. Then I walk out from under the bridge.

  My joints feel rigid and I’m walking like a robot. I’ve been walking and walking toward Dr. Simons’s office. I don’t see Nina anywhere.

  I guess we showed her.

  “I guess,” I say.

  What are you going to the doc’s office for? You know what that means, don’t you?

  “I just want to find something out, that’s all,” I say.

  Talking gets you nothing. Let’s do something unforgettable.

  “Like what?”

  Pick up a couple of chicks maybe. Something that will make people say, “There goes the coolest guy.”

  I look up and the clouds look back down at me. They briefly roil into chubby, dark, horrible faces and then quickly disappear into choking swirls of mist. I wouldn’t mind being unforgettable, but right now I’d settle for just normal. But how do I do that?

  I’m not one to talk, but this trip is definitely forgettable.

  Something is breaking down inside my head, and I can almost see my miniature self up there, running around with timbers and a hammer, keeping the walls from caving in. I get one edge secure and hear the crumbling of another. I’m exhausted without even leaving my mind.

  I reach the City Circle and put one hand up to defy cars as I walk across the main street and into the park.

  “I don’t know where I am,” I call.

  Do it again.

  “Do what?”

  Pick up a rock. Make them scared. Make them run.

  I do not look either way as I cross the street on the other side of the park. An angry driver never quits saluting me with his horn.

  Soon he is joined by another, and another. The music of the cars swells up too loud, and I collapse on the street. I wonder if I’ll ever have the strength to stand up. Then I am lifted to my feet by a pair of strong hands.

  Ten

  Right from the beginning there is a problem. Dr. Simons’s waiting room is packed, and there is no room for Nina to sit down. She stands, with her arms crossed, in the middle of the floor while I try to get in.

  “Dr. Simons,” I say to the young receptionist behind the desk. “Simons, Simons,” I add for good measure.

  I think I must be too insistent because her face flames as red as her dress, and I think I’ve set her on fire.

  “Cameron, you don’t have an appointment, and he’s very, very busy.”

  “It’s incredibly necessary,” says Nina.

  I glance back at Nina and then bang my head against the counter once, very hard.

  The receptionist pushes herself back in her chair, her hand at her throat. “Cameron!”

  “Please,” I say.

  I have to wait until the doctor is done with his current patient and then another fifteen minutes while he does a med check on another. By the time he’s done, it’s almost lunchtime.

  Dr. Simons wears a white lab coat that has three or four writing instruments sticking out of the pocket. “Dr. Simons” is embroidered in blue just below them. He comes out into the waiting room, smiles at a few people still there, pushes back his thinning blond hair, and then blows out a big, tired breath as he takes me by the arm and ushers me to a small room just behind the receptionist.

  “What’s the problem?” he asks me.

  “Have to talk to you.”

  “It’s bad,” Nina says from the doorway. “I had to drag him out of the middle of the street.”

  The doctor glances at her and then scratches his head. “Okay. But I have only a few minutes.”

  I stand up, and my glare pushes Nina back into the waiting room.

  In the doctor’s room, I hurry to my favorite gray chair and plop into it. I rest my head against the scratchy fabric.

  “Well?” says Dr. Simons.

  “I need help.”

  “Yes?”

  “Is it possible to make one voice go away and keep a different one forever?”

  One wonders which voices you are talking about.

  The doctor has been standing, but now he gently eases himself into his soft black leather chair. “I’m not sure what you’re saying,” he says.

  “I have a girlfriend.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I want to keep her. Can you help me?” I bite my tongue so I won’t repeat the last sentence. Dr. Simons does not like echolalia.

  Although it would not seem erudite to say it, what am I, chopped liver?

  “Be quiet,” I say.

  Dr. Simons raises an eyebrow and then clasps his hands together. “Is that your girlfriend out in the waiting room?”

  “No, that’s Nina. Just a friend.”

  “Then who is your girlfriend, Cameron?”

  I hesitate to tell him, but he is my therapist. “I don’t know her name. And she’s out of town. Out of town.”

  Now the doctor notices the repeat. He scoots his chair over to be closer to me. The squeaky wheels make my head ache. “Can you answer me one question before I help you, Cameron?”

  “Okay.”

  “Have you been taking your Risperdal?”

  “Of course,” I say, but I can’t look the doctor in the face.

  “Because it seems like maybe you’re not taking them. Your story is not quite right,” he goes on. “And look at you. You’re wet and dirty, and is it true that the young lady out there had to pick you up off the street?”

  I hang my head.

  “Cameron?”

  “Please don’t tell my mom. Please. I don’t want to lose my girlfriend.”

  The doctor puts a soft hand on my shoulder. “Your mother is very devoted to you.”

  “But she’ll make me lose The Girl.”

  When involved in a discussion such as this, it would be best to include everyone present. Voices are the product of your own thought processes. One could be thinking this through better.

  “I see.” Dr. Simons heaves a sigh and scoots back over to his desk. His fingers tap the buttons on his phone. “Cameron, you and I go back a long way. I’ve always tried to do what’s best for yo
u. And I’d like to do that now.”

  I close my eyes tightly and imagine a life without The Girl. “No. Please,” I say. But even with my eyes closed, I can hear the doctor’s fingers punching the buttons on his phone.

  I sit in the back examining room that the doctor hardly ever uses. The walls are a bare glaring white. There is a pair of orange plastic chairs facing each other, a small low table between them. I hold a paper cup of water and stare at my reflection in it. Nina came in a half hour before and said goodbye.

  Now I hear voices out in the hall, but none I recognize from inside my head. Soon, the doorknob jiggles and my mom comes in. She has that look on her face, the one that tells me I will never stop being the patient in my family.

  “Cam,” she says. I can hear the tears in her voice, see the red in her eyeballs.

  Behind her, Dad looms in the doorway. The top of his head barely fits through. He has his work clothes on. On his shoulder, a dark stain from the machine at the mill looks like the map of Texas. “What’s up, son?” he says. “Too much homework?”

  But I can’t answer him. Mom has mashed my face into her chest. I can barely breathe. I finally have to push her away. She takes my chin in her hands and studies me.

  “I knew it,” she says. “Didn’t I ask you about the meds?”

  Shut up.

  Dr. Simons comes through the door. “Ah, I see we’re all here,” he says. “It seems we have a little problem.”

  “Not one that can’t be fixed,” says my dad. He walks over to me but doesn’t stop. He ends up doing a circle and standing a few feet away.

  “I don’t understand it,” Mom says. “Things were going so well and now this.” She shakes me a little. “Weren’t things going well?”

  You touch me one more time . . .

  I don’t want to answer. I don’t want to tell her that her mouth is making big ballooning motions as she talks.

  “He’s fourteen,” says Dad. “Fourteen-year-olds like to do things like this.”

  “We could speculate until the sun goes down,” says Dr. Simons, “but that doesn’t change the fact that this young man is in trouble.” He turns toward me. “Are you hallucinating, Cameron?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I don’t see anything weird.”

  “But what about the voices? You’ve had trouble with voices before.”

  My dad turns away. He doesn’t like to hear this kind of talk. I’ve seen it make his gut contract and force him to reach in his pocket for the cigarettes he quit smoking five years ago. He stares out at the parking lot.

  “No voices,” I repeat.

  “The Girl?” says Dr. Simons.

  “Who’s that?” my mom asks. Then she shakes me again. “Who’s The Girl?”

  You don’t have to take this, you know.

  “I told you already,” I say.

  “Apparently he has a girlfriend,” Dr. Simons says. He waits until he has Mom’s attention, then does a little head shake and a frown.

  But I see it. “She is my girlfriend,” I insist.

  “Of course she is, sweetheart,” says Mom.

  Of course she is, sweetheart.

  I smirk, even though it is The Other Guy. Maybe he’s not so bad.

  “Well, girlfriend or not, we still have a problem,” Dr. Simons says. “It looks like Cameron is in quite a bit of distress. My suggestion is we give him a shot today and find him a bed at Saint John’s so he can sleep it off.”

  “I don’t want a shot,” I cry.

  A shot will clear up the confusion.

  “And end up killing you,” I say.

  My.

  “So, yes, in answer to your previous question, you are chopped liver,” I say.

  This seems to scare my dad. “You have to have a shot right now,” he says.

  And that is what happens. Dr. Simons leaves, and pretty soon the nurse comes in carrying a tray with a hypodermic needle resting on it. She has me roll up my sleeve, dabs my skin with alcohol, and then pierces it with the needle.

  Cam, what are you going to do about this?

  I watch the serum go into my arm, thinking this is what they do when they execute someone. I wince, but it isn’t from the pain. I can hear The Girl pleading.

  What’s going on, Cam? It hurts.

  “You’re killing her,” I cry to the nurse.

  Don’t let them do this, Cam. Please.

  “Hold on, young man,” the nurse says.

  Please, Cam. I don’t want to die. I love you.

  I stand up, trying to pull away while The Girl’s voice sounds like it’s drifting into nothingness, but the nurse is already finished. She rubs at the spot again and then takes away her tray. I suddenly feel so flushed that I have to sit down. My head swarms with smoky clouds. I imagine special forces with machine guns, seeking out all the unwelcome guests in my head and killing them.

  “That’ll hold him,” the nurse says at the door.

  “I want to go home,” I say.

  But I don’t get to go there yet.

  I mostly sleep. The shot has gone straight to my brain and cut off everything. I can’t feel sad or happy or mad or enlightened. Only tired. I wake up every couple of hours and try to make sense of the hospital room. But it is dark even though it is still day, and my eyes close to keep my wobbly head from falling over. I hear other voices in the room, the chiming of bells.

  I don’t dream. I don’t dance through the halls with The Girl. I don’t sneak out of the house and find my own place. There is no one with me.

  When I wake up for good the next morning, I’m exhausted from all the sleep. At first I can’t feel the ends of my arms. My hands seem to be floating above the blankets.

  A nurse pads in on her velvety white shoes. She has copper hair, and a stethoscope has created a faint black ring around her neck. She pumps up my arm and then listens to the beating of my heart. I imagine she can tell that it’s broken.

  “Are you there?” I croak out words, but my throat is too relaxed from not talking, and I end up coughing.

  “I’m here.” The nurse waits for more with the stethoscope dangling.

  But she’s not the one I want to hear from. “I’m hungry,” I finally say.

  “He speaks,” the nurse says. Then she digs into her pocket and pulls out a saltine cracker. “Here.”

  I grab it and spend a few seconds trying to tear apart the cellophane before I bite into the cracker. My mouth is immediately flooded with salt and I moan.

  “I’ll get you a menu,” she says, and is gone as silently as she showed up.

  At home, there is a knock on my bedroom door. “Cam? It’s Mom.” She’s been in and out since I got back.

  She opens the door and enters with a tray. Something steams from a bowl in the center of it. She sets it down on the table to let it cool.

  “Now I want you to tell me the truth,” she says. “How long did you stop taking your medicine for?”

  I shake my head.

  “You don’t want to talk?”

  I shake it again.

  Mom sighs and her shoulders sag. “I wish there was a way to get through to you.” She reaches out and pats my covers. “Cam, I know you’ve lived with it and so you understand, but I just want to tell you again.”

  Everything she says makes my head hurt.

  “This is very, very serious. You have an illness that you can’t play around with. You have to treat it with respect. You respect it and it respects you. I know it scares you when it gets out of hand; you’ve told me that before. If you don’t want to be afraid, there is one way that you can make the fear go away. And that’s by taking your medicine the way you’re supposed to. This is what happens if you don’t take it. Do you understand that? Of course you do.”

  I find my voice among the pile of debris in my mouth. “It’s you who doesn’t understand,” I say.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s not worth it to tell you. You just don�
��t get it.”

  “Try me,” she says.

  I actually consider telling her everything, to start over fresh, but the look on her face tells me she can’t take it.

  “Please?” she says.

  I turn from her. “Just go away,” I say.

  Eleven

  No school for me yet and it’s like being grounded. I’m propped up on the couch with a blanket over me. The TV is on a twenty-four-hour news station. I’ve heard the same news about the Middle East for the past two hours. I reach for the remote, but it’s as if my mom has new ears. She pops into the family room. “Is there something you need, sweetie?”

  “No.”

  “Anything I can bring you?”

  My own life, I think, but I don’t say it.

  “You’ll let me know?” She nods. She’s really trying, I know, but she is more than annoying.

  “Leave,” I say.

  She actually smiles. “You know how I can tell when you’re getting better? When you start acting like a teenager.”

  I ignore her.

  “Okay,” she whispers.

  There is nothing to my life now. I rub at the spot where the nurse took away everything. Before that, even though I had the voices, I was at least feeling something. Now I can’t feel anything. I try to force myself to laugh, but can’t. To cry, but can’t. I pinch the skin on the top of one hand, but don’t care.

  By the afternoon, I dress myself and walk aimlessly around the house. In every room I end up in, there is my mother pretending to clean. I imagine her as a hallucination, but it doesn’t work. I chew on the inside of my cheek until I can taste blood. I notice that Mom smiles more now, seems happier. She is cleaning in a way I’ve never seen her do before. She even polishes the same table twice and then a third time. When she’s through, she stands and looks at me, a drop of sweat trickling down her face.

  “Just like the old days,” she says. “Remember before you went to school you used to follow me around the house?”

  “No,” I say, although I do.

  “You used to carry the spray bottle for me. You were my little helper. Then we’d sit down and watch As the World Turns together. You could tell me everything that was going on with all the characters.”