Tuesdays Are Just As Bad

by Cethan Leahy

  ‘You can,’ he said, all his attention on a movie he was watching on his laptop. I was beginning to grow tired of that thing. The recent picks were all pretty terrible too, except one with a creepy-looking rabbit man. I enjoyed that one, although I couldn’t tell you what it was called.

  ‘No, I can’t,’ I insisted. This was true. After some experimentation, I had worked out that I could only go out on my own when he was asleep, and it had to be a pretty deep sleep at that. I still hadn’t figured out the reason for this. My working theory was since ghosts usually haunt a specific house, perhaps I haunted a specific depressed teen.

  ‘Well, sucks to be you so,’ he said, shrugging. He may have thought that he had the upper hand but this time I had a plan, a finely tuned scheme to convince him that leaving this hole of a room would be mutually beneficial. This cunning idea I devised upon careful observation and ingenuity. I had noticed that when he passed the radio in the kitchen that his mother left on when she was doing whatever mothers do, he would turn down the volume to the lowest setting when a certain ad jingle was playing, a song that goes a little something like this:

  ‘When you can’t get a sandwich out of your head …’

  ‘What?’ he said with surprise, distracted from the zombies destroying New York. Since I had never tried it before, my singing could most generously be described as enthusiastic. Also I’m not sure I’d got the lyrics right.

  ‘Buy yourself a pan of Healy’s Bread.’

  ‘Stop!’ he said, trying to block his ears with his hands. ‘I hate that ad.’

  I turned up the volume. ‘When you want toast with some spread …’

  ‘How can something with no physical throat sing so badly?’ he said, lifting a pillow and wrapping it round his head.

  I leaned in close. ‘Buy yourself a pan of Healy’s Bread.’

  ‘Why do you hate me?’ he said, throwing the pillow at me. Not surprisingly, it passed straight though me, and then knocked into The XX’s poster behind me, causing it to finally lose its grip on the wall. I continued to sing, as I could see I was really getting to him. On my fourth rendition of ‘WHEN YOU CAN’T GET A SANDWICH OUT OF YOUR HEAD’, he cracked.

  ‘FINE! We’ll go for a walk, if you’ll just stop!’

  ‘Oh yay,’ I said. I was victorious; also I wanted a sandwich, despite my lack of stomach.

  ***

  In the daylight, town was a strange and marvellous place, certainly in comparison to Adam’s private cell or the inside of the school building. For one, it was full to the brim with things. As we walked, we passed parks, shops, churches and dogs, bright dresses, pure white tracksuits, large jumpers and long jackets, scarves of all stripes, jeans with weird holes torn into the side revealing goosepimply skin.

  I suggested to Adam that he should start dressing in a more interesting way. He seemed unreceptive, but I was not surprised. He mostly appeared to dress out of necessity: T-shirts, jeans and nondescript jumpers.

  We reached our destination, the large Boots at the end of Paul Street. When he had told his mother that he was heading to town, she asked him to pick up her special shampoo. We couldn’t remember what it was called, but we knew it came in a blue bottle and we were pretty sure the name rhymed with ‘sports cough’.

  This was completely different. Inside were rows of toothpastes and deodorants, women with their hair up in elaborate towers, who stood in front of their booths waiting for their next customer on whom to practise their arts of illusion. They could make you look younger. They could make you smell fresher. They could remake you into something more attractive. With a little bit of effort, you could look a lot more appealing – I’m not sure to whom, but it was clear there was a kind of magic here.

  We passed them swiftly enough and stood in the shampoo section. There were many, many different types of shampoo.

  ‘Is it that one?’ Adam said, pointing at a blue one.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Can I help you?’ said a woman in a clean white smock, stacking conditioners.

  ‘Oh, ah, um … I’m looking for a shampoo that is blue and sounds like “sports cough”,’ said Adam.

  The woman immediately handed him the correct one.

  ‘Oh, it’s German. Thank you.’

  Adam dutifully bought the bottle of shampoo. Having accomplished his one task in town, he decided to walk in the vague direction of home, which is how we ended up in a brick-paved area next to a shopping centre where I was amazed to see happy teenagers. And not just a few – there were loads. They stood under the tree that seemingly grew through the pavement in the centre. They sat against walls and under the sole tree with half-drunk bottles of Club Orange or Coke, using their mobile phones to play music. They drank tea on rickety seats outside cafés. They wore weird clothes, and hats covered hair of unnatural shapes and colours. They had piercings and sunglasses (even though it was closer to winter than summer) and laughter and everything. As you can imagine for the all-boys private-school-goer, the most alarming aspect was that there were teenage girls, many of them in fact.

  Whatever this place was, it was a brave new world for us to explore and naturally, since he was a big baby, Adam decided he wasn’t doing this any more.

  ‘I … I have to go home. Mum will be worried if I’m too long,’ he said checking his phone, which had no messages.

  ‘Relax,’ I said, ‘she was clearly cool with this.’

  This was probably not true. Though she was glad he had left his room, she did fear not being in the immediate proximity of him in case of you never know what, so she had made him promise he would text her in the event that something happened or, indeed, if nothing happened.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Adam. ‘We should get back.’

  ‘Oh come on!’ I said. ‘Foot stamp noise!’ (I couldn’t stamp my foot.)

  ‘Hey, Hammer!’ said a voice.

  The owner of the voice was Douglas, the batty channel guy from the psychologist’s office. He was holding court over a pot of tea in front of one of the cafés with the group of kids from the maternity hospital.

  ‘Ah … I’m not mad about that nam–’

  ‘Wanna join us? It looks less weird if you are in a crowd when you are talking to yourself.’

  I certainly wasn’t going to let Adam pass up the chance to expand his horizons.

  ‘We should join them,’ I whispered in his ear.

  Unsure, but too polite to run away screaming, Adam walked towards the table. ‘Sure, ah, my name isn’t Hammer. It’s Adam.’

  ‘Hi, Adam!’ they all said in unison.

  Douglas kicked a chair across from him from underneath the table. It didn’t shift as intended but the sentiment was obvious. The girl next to the empty seat pulled the chair out the rest of the way for him. Douglas stood up and spread his hands out in a flourish, inviting Adam into his domain.

  ‘Well, Adam Hammer, let me introduce you to the whole gang. This tall girl, who was so kind as to pull out your seat and comes covered with positively shocking yellow hair and a carefully curated collection of badges on her jacket, is Linda.’

  ‘Charmed,’ said Linda.

  ‘Hi,’ said Adam, offering his hand. She shook it with a false daintiness which clearly embarrassed him. I wondered what her hand felt like.

  ‘This young man in the striped jumper that has “Dead Flowers” emblazoned on the front is Barry, and no, we don’t know what that is supposed to mean. He is short and very chatty,’ Douglas continued, pointing at the solemn-looking young man.

  ‘Hi,’ said Adam.

  A grunt was his response.

  ‘And this Gothy lady, who is rudely writing something down as I speak–’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘… is Aoife.’

  ‘Hi,’ she said, looking up from a notebook with a design of two skeletons in an embrace on the cover. Her clothes had a lot of studs in them.

  ‘Hello,’ Adam said with a nod.

  ‘And you know me from our littl
e tête-à-têtes every Saturday morning, but in the very unlikely event you don’t recognise me in a different environment, I’m Douglas, the Lord of Paul Street.’

  ‘Hah,’ said Aoife.

  ‘Quiet you! Combined, we are the … group of people who have yet to settle on a name for their group.’

  ‘How do you two know each other?’ asked Aoife.

  ‘I–’ said Adam, before he was interrupted.

  ‘We share a psychologist. Remember, you saw him a few weeks ago when we were hanging out at the hospital. Adam here tried to kill himself with a hammer.’

  Dick move, Douglas. Not only did this bald statement silence everyone and leave Adam to flounder, it also ruined the possibility of hinting at a cool secret past, like on TV. One that could include Paris and a torrid affair with a governor’s wife, and didn’t involve ineffective suicide methods. All ruined now.

  ‘I was never any good at DIY,’ said Adam.

  What was this strange sound? Laughter? Adam had said something vaguely witty and people enjoyed hearing him say it. This really was a day of miracles. Feeling welcome, Adam sat down, but the moment his bottom touched the seat …

  Beep beep!

  Adam checked his phone.

  Hey, I’m passing through town from Ciara’s,

  if you are feeling lazy and want a lift home. xx

  ‘Girlfriend?’ said Linda. ‘Sorry, we hold no manner of secrets in the group that has yet to find a name.’

  ‘No, it’s my mum.’

  ‘Well, don’t be a cad of a son, text her back immediately,’ said Linda. I made a note that she deeply respected the bond between son and mother. It seemed important to remember things about people if you wished to become their friend.

  It’s okay Mum. I met some friends. Will be

  home in an hour.

  No rush! See you for dinner.

  Xxxx

  The extra ‘x’s suggested that Adam’s mother was completely on board with this friendship making.

  ‘So before I rudely made you join us, we were discussing … what were we discussing?’ said Douglas.

  ‘I don’t think we were discussing anything,’ said Linda.

  ‘We have been sitting here for an hour. We had to be talking about something.’

  ‘The best ways to eat a banana?’ suggested Barry.

  ‘No, that was yesterday,’ said Aoife, ‘on Facebook.’

  Linda made an expression of pure fury and slammed her paper cup on the table. ‘I was not invited to this banana discussion, despite being a known enjoyer of bananas!’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about bananas,’ said Douglas.

  ‘You are not the ruler of this conversation, Douglas,’ said Linda.

  ‘One day, Linda, one day.’

  ‘Wait, is there more than one way to eat a banana?’ asked Adam.

  Douglas shook his head. ‘Oh, Adam, you have much to learn.’

  They literally spent the next hour talking about bananas, tackling such subjects as how many bananas you can eat before dying of potassium poisoning, if the fact that the ridges perfectly match the shape of your hand is proof of God’s existence and the curious statistic that Ireland was the largest exporter of bananas in the world. (The last point was Adam’s contribution. Apparently bananas from around the world are imported into Ireland and then sent out again all over the world. I’m unclear how he knew this as he had never spoken of an interest in bananas before.) While I was a little confused by the pointless nature of this discussion, it was a strange relief to not have the cloud of Adam’s condition hanging over it.

  Eventually, due to impending dinners, the group scattered to catch their respective lifts and buses, but not before they all gave Adam their numbers, except Douglas, who firmly did not believe in mobile phones and was only contactable through the landline, post and Facebook.

  ‘See you later,’ Adam said.

  ‘GOODBYE, NEW FRIEND!’ they shouted as they split up.

  Eleven

  Sunday morning came and it was approaching that time for Adam’s parents’ weekly enquiry if he wanted to go for a family walk. They were obsessed with walks. I wondered aloud if this was a sign that they really wanted a dog rather than a son. Adam rolled his eyes at this suggestion and instead informed me that they had read somewhere that walks were a good idea for someone suffering from depression. I countered that while this may be true, it was still entirely possible that they would prefer a dog. He did not appreciate this.

  A knock on the door, bang on schedule.

  ‘Hey, your father and I are thinking of heading towards Garretstown for an old stroll if you fancy,’ said Mum, popping her head in. She was good at popping her head in. Adam looked out the window at the grey day outside.

  ‘All right.’

  His mother smiled.

  ‘Cool,’ she said.

  In the car there was a big discussion about which radio station to listen to.

  ‘You know,’ said Dad, ‘I knew I had gotten old when I didn’t understand what the music on the radio was. Is that a robot singing?’

  ‘Who is this? Adam, do you like this?’ added his mother.

  ‘It’s okay, I guess,’ said Adam.

  ‘I was mad about music when I was your age. I was a Blur kid. I was even the drummer in a tribute band, “Parklite”. Although I only had a drum machine, not a proper drum kit.’

  When this got no reaction, he continued. ‘However, horrors of horrors, your mother was into Oasis, but I learned to live with that.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ I asked and Adam shrugged.

  ‘Very funny. What do you listen to, Adam? What are the young people into today?’ asked his mum.

  ‘I dunno. I don’t really listen to music.’

  ‘Oh, “Common People”! Leave this on. I love this one. You know this, right?’

  After fifteen minutes of listening to whatever the hell the nineties was, we arrived at the beach. It didn’t seem to have many people on it as it was Ireland and nearly winter. I am an intangible being of unclear origin and even I knew it was too cold for a swim.

  ‘It’s good to be out and about,’ said Dad to no one in particular as they climbed over some rocks.

  I had never been to the beach before. The sea was impressive; it really did not look like it ended anywhere.

  ‘The water is bleak enough,’ said Dad.

  They jumped down and landed safely on the sand. On a closer look, Adam’s father was right. The sea did look bleak. As they trudged along the edge of the water, Adam said nothing, instead watching a boat floating far away on the horizon. It looked like a toy from here.

  ‘It’s been a long while since we were last here,’ said Mum.

  ‘It’s only a few months,’ said Adam.

  ‘June, wasn’t it?’ said Dad. ‘Remember, we ran into Jason’s brother?’

  ‘Oh, is that all? Seems longer.’

  ‘It is late September. That was a while ago.’

  They walked more in silence, perhaps remembering that sunny day they met Jason’s brother, whoever that was. The wet sand made a sombre plop with each step. I could hear a panting noise and saw a large, fluffy creature rapidly approaching. The closer it got, the clearer it was that it was one of those big hairy dogs from the paint ads on TV. Leash flapping in the wind, it had clearly escaped from its owner. It skipped past Adam and rubbed up against Dad.

  ‘Oh, hello boy!’ said Dad, petting him.

  ‘He has a lovely coat, doesn’t he, Adam?’ said Mum.

  Adam grunted.

  ‘Sorry about that. He just wants to play,’ said an out-of-breath woman who had just arrived.

  ‘No worries.’

  ‘Come on, Hobbes,’ she said, taking his leash and walking away. When she was gone, Mum started talking with great enthusiasm about Pepper, her childhood dog who she was just reminded of. I smirked at Adam. Still pretty sure they’d prefer a dog.

  Twelve

  ‘Miss, if Hamlet’s uncle married his mo
ther, does that also make her Hamlet’s aunt?’ asked Redmond.

  Miss Campbell thought about it for a few seconds and shook her head. ‘I’m not sure. When I asked for questions on the text, this wasn’t really the kind of question I was looking for. Yes, Stephen?’

  ‘Yeah, Miss, but does it?’ said Stephen.

  We were four weeks into school at this point and the novelty had really worn off. Five days a week of seeing the same dull people proving wrong the teacher’s adage that ‘there are no stupid questions’. In some ways, I was glad Adam had no friends in school as the prospect of watching him having to engage in conversation with even half of them was grim.

  When we first came back, it should be noted that a few of them did make the effort to talk to Adam. The trouble was that either they didn’t know what to say to someone they didn’t really have a previous relationship with, or they were way too interested in the suicide attempt. There was one kid, Matt, who was constantly asking questions like ‘Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?’, ‘Why a hammer?’ or ‘Did you see any dead family members or ghost pets?’ After a while they stopped talking to Adam beyond making general small talk, either because they were satisfied with the effort they had made, or they had run out of morbid questions.

  ‘Moving forward, the theme that I want you to keep in mind is that of Hamlet’s antic disposition. He wants to prove his uncle and aunt’s – I mean mother’s – deceit, so he pretends to be mad to create a distraction from his investigation. This way if he does anything suspicious, everyone will think “It’s just crazy old Hamlet.” The question is: is he pretending or is he actually mad?’

  The classes themselves were beyond tedious. Maths is boring, Irish is pointless, chemistry is an exercise in watching teenage boys setting their ties on fire with Bunsen burners. Business studies is meh, and besides, I don’t see many future captains of industry around me. English I did like, as it was primarily about sitting down and judging things, figuring out what’s wrong or right about things and guessing what the writer was thinking. That really appeals to me for some reason. Also Adam was pretty good at it. Perhaps I felt some pride. Oh how sentimental I’m getting now that I’m a few months old.