Angst

by Victoria Sawyer

  I’m driving down a deserted back road when suddenly blue lights are flashing in my rearview.

  HOLY… FUCKING… SHIT!

  My heart is almost exploding it’s beating so fast and I’m the only car on the road. It must be for me. NO. NONONONONONONONO. My mind is going crazy right now, negative thoughts on overdrive, my own fucking theme song. I am CRAZY!!! I put on my blinker and slowly pull over. I’m practically throwing up. This cannot be happening. This is a dream. Not real. I fumble in my purse on the seat next to me and rip a piece of gum from the package, shoving it into my mouth. I am sober. Yes. Yes I am. HOLY SHIT…NO I’M NOT!!!! FUCKKKKK!!!!

  There’s a knock at the window and now I’m rolling it down and the very serious pudgy cop is saying hello and may I have your license and registration and I’m fumbling in the glove box, fumbling in my purse and finally I’ve got the documents and hand them to him with an uncertain smile and shaking hands. I need to escape. I need to get away. I cannot get arrested. DUI. DUI. DUI. DUI. I. AM. CRAZY!!!!!! My heart is slamming like the pistons of an engine about to shatter as he walks back to his car and I am tense and very afraid, the fear creeping up my throat, almost there, almost ready to spew over everything, but I must not because then he’ll know for certain that I am drunk.

  Am I going to have to do the sobriety test? Was I weaving all over the road? Was I speeding? I didn’t think I was speeding, I was sure I was going exactly the speed limit, hands clenched on the wheel, eyes squinting through the windshield, sure that I was the best drunk driver EVER. Now I’m fucked.

  Images and feelings flash through my mind, losing my license, being in JAIL. How could I get to school or work? How could I ever do anything again? How could I leave the house? My parents!! FUCK. My friends? What would everyone say? Dumb, drunk driving BETCH!!

  JARED? He’s going to break up with me. My heart is flying. Panic, fear, terror, Jesus I’m a mess. FUCK YOU, VICTORIA. You are stupid. My hand curls into a fist and I slam it against my thigh. I can’t believe it. I can’t. I’m numb, sick, fucked, thoughts spinning. My life is over. If I go with this officer, cuffs on, I will go insane. I will lose it. I will shit, vomit, cry, scream, kill myself. Death to stupid dumb fuck Victoria.

  It seems like it takes forever for him to come back. I’m sitting there thrashing myself, mentally and physically. The need to escape is over powering. My heart bangs, pulse throbbing, heat flushing over me and everything is whirling, blurry, total surreal. My stomach sloshes and then grips into a fist. Oh shit. I can’t just sit here. But I have to. Running away from a cop is even worse. It’s admitting guilt, and they would chase. Take me down. Take me downtown. Death. Death. If I get out of this, I will kill myself because this is what my panic has led to. This is what my curse equals. I’ve done this to myself.

  There’s another knock at the door, the officer, handing me back my documents.

  “Where are you headed tonight?” he asks, a youngish guy with small round glasses, his flashlight shining into my eyes and the car. I gulp, heart hammering in my throat. What to say? I can’t lie. I have to tell the truth or at least the partial truth.

  “I’m headed from my boyfriend’s apartment in Dunham,” I say with a gasp cause I can’t breathe, looking at him, hoping he doesn’t see my fear.

  “Where are you headed to?” he asks, no emotion. He is Authority.

  “My parents’ house, where I live,” I say, stomach clenching and sloshing like tsunami waves or a freakin hurricane, bent on the destruction of me. I’m about to be sick all over myself, one way or another. DISGUSTING. HATEFUL.

  “Do you know why I pulled you over?” he asks, light shining over to the passenger’s side of the car onto my handbag which is (thank God!) covering my water bottle and my heart slams again and again, breath almost panting. Don’t make it obvious! I feel like I might break down into tears at any moment. I’m not strong enough for this. I played with fire and I’m about to get 3rd degree burns on places that really really fucking hurt. I’m done. Life over. Game over. It’s not just the social officer this time, it’s the real deal. Cuffs, jail, DUI, court, no more life, no more boyfriend, no more loving family, 100% over the top death panic, total screw up, nut-house ready, brink of suicide, death, death, death. I’m sweating now, droplets sliding down over my torso, pooling under my arms, vomit about to spew. Finally I squeak out,

  “No, Officer,” and I feel like my voice is quavering all over the place. I need to act normal. But I cannot speak, throat closing, air restricted. I wait for him to ask me to get out. I wait for the hammer to drop, to smother me, to crush my brain. Finally after what seems like an interminable amount of time he replies.

  “You have a tail light out. You need to get that taken care of. I’m going to give you a verbal warning.” I breathe out the breath I’ve been holding. OMG. Seriously? That’s it? OMG. Just let me leave this and I will never drink and drive again.

  “Thank you, Officer, I will get that taken care of. I had no idea,” I reply, nice as pie, my stomach unclenching for a moment. I breathe. The cop nods and moves away, flash light cutting through the dark to his squad car. I’m free. I’m free. Don’t fuck this up now you stupid bitch, I murmur as I slowly pull away from the curb and drive down the road. Holy shit. I cannot believe what just happened. I am amazingly lucky. But I’m still quivering, full on body fucked and tomorrow I am going to crucify myself over how incredibly stupid I am. Basically my problem has gotten so bad that I can’t function. Victoria is dead.

  June 16, 2005

  Fucked in the head

  The mall trip was not the end. The STD, not the end. Jared finding out, somehow not the end, although I could have sworn it was. I hadn’t broken, yet. But each event was a step to my final madness. And now, I’m over the edge. Descent into physical and mental torture is upon me. I hate myself. I hate my life. I hate my panic. I want to die. I can’t even use alcohol anymore as a crutch. There is nothing left for me.

  My newest problem is simply the fact that, physically speaking, I cannot leave my parents’ house for any other reason than work. Work is the only place I still go and even then, not willingly. And now, here I am, lazy Saturday evening at the store feeling sick as I always do. It’s my everyday, all day, constant sickness. And lucky me is up front on the register, playing slave to every paying customer that walks through.

  Hello, how are you today? Hello, how are you today? Hello, how the fuck, are you today? I keep saying again and again like a parrot. I’m running a constant deep level of anxiety. Jittery like an addict or someone who’s had gallons of caffeine, stomach clenched, always on the verge of throwing up everything or having to run to the bathroom in agony, constant mental dissection of every little thing and how it affects my anxiety. Everything. Analyzing every thought, situation, potential situation, making me feel even worse. Wanting with every breath to die, but forcing myself to live out this false playacting game, just so I can feel that I haven’t completely given up hope yet. I’m close. Very, very close. Exhaustion isn’t far now.

  School is out now, thank God, and I just managed to squeak by. I was certain that I had failed all my classes and it was giving me some pretty extreme anxiety. I could picture my parents’ faces as I said…um, yeah, I got suspended. Luckily though I got by with some C’s and D’s. Not excellent and not up to my usual standards, but what could I do? I was…am…losing my freakin mind. I should try to look at the positive, I finished the semester. But being a humongous pessimist, I always look at the negative. I’m not sure my GPA will ever recover. But, you know what…fuck school. Really, just fuck it.

  “Hello, how are you today,” I say again with a forced smile to the middle-aged man and his wife who are approaching my cash register. I slide each item from the belt and over my scanner, hearing the beep and letting it slide down toward my bagger. The work is mindless and leaves me plenty of time to think. God, how I hate thinking. I try to focus on the items, pasta sauce, two red tomatoes, what is the code for red tomatoes? I
t’s been a while since I’ve been on register before tonight, bananas, frozen peas, deli meat, toothpaste.

  Then my mind begins to wander, never able to stick to the task at hand when there’s worrying or freaking out to accomplish. Because really, the only thing I can think of or feel is that I’m fairly certain I’m going to puke all over the register, my stomach heaving, bile rising and my feet are urging me to run away, just seconds from running into the person behind me in the register lane to my back, shoving their cart out of the way in crazy insane haste and then out into the wider aisle and all the way down back at a sprint to the bathroom. But I’m holding back. I won’t do it. I won’t. Please. But my heart is thudding and my eyes feel glazed over and the world is dizzy and steamed up blurry, like looking at through a shower door or mirror that you swipe with your hand to clear.

  “That’s not the price it said on the tag in the aisle,” says the small grey haired man with wildly pointed eyebrows, snapping me from my thoughts. I blink and then awake to action.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I reply, my voice a sweet deadpan, no emotion but pleasant, how may I help you bullshit. I. Am. A. Robot. “I can have my bagger do a price check in the aisles.” I say, handing the offending item to my bagger who scurries away to find out the price. I continue ringing up their groceries, climbing back into my own mind for a few minutes until my bagger returns.

  Work is almost impossible. It’s like willfully walking into a torture chamber and allowing someone (something?) to do horrid things to you simply to prove to yourself that you haven’t completely lost it. Everyday is hell. Every waking moment is now hell for me. Whether at home or work, the only two places I go, I am constantly hyped up and frantic.

  Tonight I’m supposed to work from 3:00 until 10:00. When I first walked through the door they told me I would be ringing groceries up front instead of my normal place in the courtesy booth. They really (really) needed someone up front, so I was asked to grab a cash drawer and start ringing.

  Behind the register I have no freedom. People expect me to stand there and ring groceries, take money and smile. There really isn’t any option for escape, not without drawing the attention of several different people. The manager, my bagger, the customers in the checkout line, would all care a lot if I suddenly up and left them high and dry. At these thoughts, I begin to flush, a red hot heat pricking my body like a thousand tiny burning injections as my bagger returns to tell me that the man had been correct about the price of the item.

  I reach up to flick on the light above my register, making it blink so the front end manager can enter a price change. My hands are sweating as I stand there waiting for him to notice me. He’s at the far end of the register banks talking to another manager. The night seems interminable and I feel sick and nauseous and I can’t breathe, trying not to make it obvious that I desperately want to drag huge breathes of air into my lungs. Oh my fucking God, hurry up, asshole!!!

  Finally the manager comes over and enters the price change and I’m able to resume the sale. My hands shake as I take the man’s money and I will myself to focus on something, anything other than my anxiety. I open the drawer, paying special attention to the change I have to count out. Fifty cents, sixty, sixty two cents. Life is simply becoming too difficult to live.

  Thinking about my life now makes me think about my friends. Hannah, Amanda, and even Kayla have called me since we left school. Everyone wants to know if I can do this, or do that. Let’s go to Montreal, we can drink there and party like animals! Or, come visit me at my parents’ lake house two hours away. Or, come with me to Boston to go shopping! And I’m all like, ummm…yeah…and then it’s lies, lies, lies. It makes me feel so shitty. I miss them. I miss normalcy. Wait…I’ve never really known what it is to be “normal,” so I guess I miss…being able to leave the fucking house.

  And then there’s Jared. I’ve been…avoiding talking to him about what’s been going on. We’ve talked on the phone many times since I stopped leaving the house and I’ve been making up my oh so excellent excuses about why I can’t see him and so far they’ve been working, but I can tell that it won’t work much longer. He keeps trying to get me to talk about my anxiety, but I’ve been silent and secretive about it for so long that it’s still hard for me to open up. I mean, I know he knows the truth and I know logically that he’s kind and compassionate and only wants to help me, but I can’t seem to force myself to subject him to the true level of how damaged I really am. It would drive him away, I just know it would, all those fucked up thoughts and feelings. It’s one thing to say, I’m freaking out and another to explain exactly why, to go into detail about how deranged my brain is. So I’m walking a fine line right now, trying not to drive him away and trying to keep him at the same time. I know if I continue to make up excuses for why I can’t go out, he’ll get fed up soon enough. I’m not sure what to do. It’s only increasing my misery.

  Finally, after three hours of constant physical fear, it’s break time, off the register. Thank God. I ask the front end manager if I can go home. I’m not feeling well. His answer: No, we need you tonight Victoria. Pleading eyes, all that bullshit. I groan inside. Fuck no. This cannot be my life. I feel that bad, that on edge, that fucked up crazy that I actually use my get out of jail free card excuse and they say NO! WTF? Yeah, talk about upping the ante on my panic. As I walk toward the back of the store with my lunch, I’m a mess. Tears almost cascading from my eyes, stomach clenched, quivering, hot flashes, dizzy, fucked. I want to die. I guess if I look at it rationally, I can leave if I really want to. Just up and leave them high and dry, but of course I don’t, of course I feel obligated to stay, to not look crazy, obligated to kill myself with my own anxiety.

  Now lunch is over and I’m out in the aisles, pushing around a cart of overstock that needs to be re-shelved and fortunately, it’s one with a damn squirrely wheel. I’m leaning hard against the cart, digging the handle into my stomach, wishing I had some weapon to disembowel myself with, sicker than a dog. The truth is that I would love to call out sick every day, or call and quit this shitty job all together. But I can’t. It’s not even really the money. It’s because it would be admitting failure. I’ve already let everything else go. I’ve already stopped doing all other normal things. That’s how bad it is, I literally have not left the house for any other reason for a month now. And every moment at home is spent feeling guilty about my stupid mistakes, the fact that I won’t agree to see Jared or my friends and fear. Never ending fear. Fear of Jared breaking up with me, fear of leaving the house, fear for my sanity, everything.

  I’ve gone to the bathroom several times now because I feel like I’m going to throw up, the panic only making it worse. For literally hours on end my heart has been beating so hard I thought my chest would explode and my stomach is tense and tight, aching. Heat is constantly rushing over me and my legs are so weak that I’m holding myself upright with this cart. I can’t stop shaking and everything seems unreal, as if I’m floating above my own head, watching myself drown under my own self-imposed terror. And my mind is the worst, flying through every scenario, every sick twisted fear, even inventing new ones. I almost laugh at how irrational and fucked up I am because now even talking to someone for a moment makes me crazy.

  Now I’m wandering around, nerved up, everything making me jumpy. A woman approaches me and starts talking and her voice sounds like mumbles, nonsense, and her face is swimming before my blurry unreal vision and I can feel myself not listening. All I can think is, how can I escape this conversation? My stomach heaves and then I think, how can I get away without embarrassing myself? Can I run away? What can I say to get away? What can I say that won’t make me seem like some kind of insane person? She stops talking and just stares at me, buggy eyes piercing me with their gaze and I panic. What did she say? What does she want?

  “Can you repeat that?” I finally say, leaning hard into my cart-walker and she repeats herself.

  “Can you tell me where to find the candy aisle? I�
�m looking for gum drops,” she says again, looking at me strangely and my thoughts continue to race and my brain is clouded, but finally I look up at the signs above the aisles and remember that the candy is in aisle 12.

  “Aisle 12,” I finally gasp out, uncurling my claw hand from the handle of the cart, racing away from her, toward the bathroom. I can feel her eyes boring into me as I rush away, like a bullet in the back as I retreat. She’s thinking I’m fucked. I know it.

  I rush to the bathroom and I’m sick. Sicker than I’ve ever been, and in public again too. As I’m heaving and purging, I’m cringing and hating myself and hoping no one will come into the bathroom, damning myself to hell for this affliction that I cannot cure. I can’t do anything anymore! I can’t even exist on a basic human level! I’ve left normal so far behind I don’t even know what normal is. I really feel like I want to die, right here, and it would be a blessing.

  Finally I’m done being sick and I leave the bathroom. I walk back to my abandoned cart very slowly, careful of my tender stomach. Each step jars it and I know I shouldn’t venture to the other side of the store away from the bathroom, so I try to focus on putting away items on this side of the store. I’m just rounding a corner of an aisle when I hear two cashiers talking as they break down some shelves. I walk slowly toward them and every word is crystal clear.

  “My roommate last semester was fucked in the head!” the blonde blue-eyed extra skinny one says with a laugh.

  “What do you mean?” asks the taller curvy girl, her long dark hair falling down her back in a thick braid.

  “Well, she was fine at the beginning of the semester but then she was sick all the time and she’d freak out when I asked her to do anything. She just wanted to stay in our room and cry and basically be a pain in the ass! God only knows what was wrong with her, although I do know that her mother is in some crazy house. It probably runs in the family,”