by Sapphire
“Hey there, are you OK, friend?”
I open my eyes, sit up. I’m in my bed again and looking at a man who is flicking ash from a cigarette into an ashtray on the bedside table. Who’s he? What’s he doing in here smoking? I lurch away, falling flat on my back, squeezing my eyes shut.
“Open your eyes, Abdul.”
Abdul? Who’s calling me? All those places, has this all been a dream? Will I wake up and be home? Or dead? Or am I still here, in this place, this room, these stupid white walls, these stupid white clothes? If I am in this place, if it’s not a dream, how do I get out of here? What did I do to get here? He’s close. I can’t hear his breathing, but I can feel him, smell him, cigarettes, coffee, and hospital. Is he drinking coffee? Where’s the filthy man in the motel room? Maybe I’m still in the dream? No, I’m wide awake with my eyes closed. I don’t want to open my eyes. He’s moving. Coming closer?
“Well, are you going to open your eyes or not?”
“Why should I?”
“Well, it’s customary when two people talk for them to look at each other.”
“I’m not talking to you.”
“Yes you are.”
“No I’m not.”
“Abdul, don’t be ridiculous, you’re talking to me right now.”
“You know what I mean,” I say.
“No I don’t.”
“Yes you do, liar,” I insist. He thinks he’s smart.
“Would you open your eyes, Abdul?”
This shit is getting tired. I’m not sure what to do; I just wish he would go away, but he isn’t going away. That’s obvious. The light coming through the skin of my closed eyelids is blood orange. I want music. I don’t want this shit. What for? Open, closed, what’s the difference? Shit sucks. But I want to get out. I really want to get out of this bed, this place, wherever it is. If I open my eyes, what? Blaring fluorescents, sheets, walls white. Hell is your eyes open? I’m starting to sweat. I want to wipe away the irritating beads of sweat I feel rolling down the side of my face. I want to go to sleep. I haven’t done anything to anybody. I have a right to sleep if I want to. What can I think of to go back to sleep? In dance class we use deep breathing to relax: IN-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, OUT-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, 2-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, 3-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, Git your ass outta here 4-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, 5-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 . . .
I hear a chair moving, yeah, pushing back. Yeah, he’s walking to the door? I keep breathing, it’s working: 1-2-3-4-go back-5-6-7-8-where you came from. His footsteps are disappearing. He’s gone. I open my eyes and prop myself up on my elbows.
“Come, come,” says the man, standing just outside the doorway in a brown jacket and pants, with a white turban on his head. “Did you think I would be that easy to get rid of?”
I collapse back in the bed, turning my head away from his voice. I feel silly and dumb. Why doesn’t he get his ass out of here? I squeeze my eyes shut, see a beach, a flock of seagulls rise up over the crashing waves to the shore caw caw caw—
“Come, come, Abdul, this is very time-consuming. I’m going to come back into the room and sit down in the chair. And I want you to open your eyes.”
I sigh, you win, fuck me, give me some more shit to fuck me up so I can’t think straight, talk, think, remember, get up; I don’t care. Bring on your straitjackets, faggot motherfucker; it’s your world, ain’t it? All I want is to get out of here; do whatever you want, just let me out of here. Show me how much shit I have to eat, bring it on forever and all motherfucking time. I hate you and will murder your mother, your kids, I’ll grab your kids by the feet and bash their heads in. I open my eyes.
“I’m going to walk back into the room now, Abdul, and sit in the chair next to your bed. I am not going to touch you in any way unless you want to shake hands with me, maybe you do, maybe you don’t.” He’s walking as he’s talking. And he’s talking as if he’s trying to soothe some volatile unpredictable crazy nigger. He sits down in a chair next to the bed.
“My name is Dr Sanjeev—Dr See from here on out if that’s too big a mouthful. How are you today?”
Fuck you, that’s how I am today. I don’t take his extended hand. Where’s he from, India? What’s up with the turban? No doctor clothes. His jacket has leather patches at the elbows. That’s pretentious. He’s not riding no fucking horse. I remember asking Mrs Washington why do those guys need leather patches on their jackets? He’s dark-skinned, not as dark as me, but dark, straight hair, a nice-looking guy.
“Mind if I smoke?”
“Bad for you.”
“So you do talk.”
I’m surprised myself. I was starting to forget how I sounded. They say their shit out loud, and I answer in my head. But everything in me is so fucking in it’s disappearing.
“This is the first time we’ve been formally introduced, although I’ve actually been in here several times talking to you. Do you remember those times?”
“What do you want?” Let’s get to it, dude.
He smokes Marlboros. He has his own little beanbag ashtray. Was it in his pocket?
“Can I have one?”
He gives me a hard look, takes a drag, and snuffs out his cigarette. “Not right now.”
I just said the first thing out of my mouth. I feel the opposite of how I been feeling, drowsy and spaced, or at least I want to feel different, want to speed, or maybe it’s just that I want my own adrenaline back. I feel like maybe they got me on something making me up, but it ain’t enough!
“What do I want? Well, I want to talk to you, get to know you some, and see if I can help.”
He already knows me if he’s been in here checking on me and shit. He knew my name, he probably knows how old I am, for sure how long I been here, what the fuck is wrong with me, why I got put in here, or whatever the fuck happened. Should I let him know how much I don’t know, yesterday, what, nothing! It’s like a thick coat of dust on a picture, wipe some away and what you see is that particular part. Yesterday I don’t even remember what I was seeing. But today all I can think of is St Ailanthus: Mrs Washington’s face, the brothers, my dorm room, clean and empty, the beds made up tight: Bobby Jackson bed number one, Richard Stein number two, Angel Hernandez number three. Omar Washington number four, number five Malik Edwards, and number six me. Then Alvin, Louie Hernandez, Billy Song, Etheridge, Jaime, and at the end Amir. Bacon and eggs on Saturday, prunes and oatmeal with brown sugar on Monday. Am I in New York? I know I’m in America from Watkins and his radio, I think. Amir loved oatmeal with brown sugar and butter. Art class, Amir was the best, head bent over construction paper, scissors moving, hands shining. I had forgotten about him, those guys were my buddies. Amir had AMIR THE ARTIST written on his notebook.
He pulls another smoke out, fingers it but doesn’t light up.
“And you, Abdul, what do you want?”
I want to know how old I am, how long have I been in here. Oh, fuck him. Fourth position, I prepare, pull up plié and pirouette! One two three four five six seven—the audience gasps, I’m still turning, I can’t stop. I’m shaking; I’m hungry in a weird way, like in my brain, like my stomach is dead or something. I squeeze my eyes shut and scoot further down under the covers.
“Hey, hey, where you going, man?”
Figure it out. Then I think I want something. “Music.”
“Huh? You want the radio?”
Good doctor. I’m shaking so much my teeth are chattering.
“That was nice, wasn’t it, Smith’s radio. There are plenty of radios around here. I’ll see what I can do.”
I don’t say nothing else. I’m not being mean; I really am going like fetal, shaking bad. I can’t control it. I have to curl up in a ball to stop it. I press my clenched fist against my forehead. I feel the rough cuts crossing my wrists and open my eyes to look at them.
“Abdul? Do you remember that?”
I stare. The left wrist looks uglier than the right.
“You came in in pretty bad shape. You’ve been under observation and in isolation. I�
��d like to see you moved to another part of the complex, a ward with other guys, and see where to take it after that. What do you think?”
What do I think? I don’t want to be in no fucking ward. I don’t want to be here period! Are you crazy? That’s what I think. I want to get the fuck out of here. My anger stops my body from trembling.
“Sanjeev? What kind of name is that?”
“It’s my first name, actually, but I use it as a last name in this country.”
I’m trying not to get chatty, but words keep coming out my mouth. “Why?”
“Well, it got made into a last name when I came to this country. You know, for example if your name is John or Ibrahim and people are calling you Mr John or Mr Ibrahim. What difference does it make? The village where I came from, people didn’t have last names. I was Sanjeev until my family—”
Oh, la-di-da, I don’t want to hear about your fucking family, you fucking whatever kind of nigger you are.
“You mentioned music. What kinds of music do you like to listen to?” I’m so fucking sleepy right now. This dude just does not get it. What kind of music do I like? Hey DJ, how about some Coltrane, “A Love Supreme” or—
“Charlie Parker.”
That’s who I really like, and Erykah Badu, is he hip to her?
Something is coming down now, sleep a river. I’m in another white room, water is running, who’s banging on the door screaming? I’m really nervous, too nervous to be dreaming, but I’m dreaming now. I can’t see how I’m going to get out of this. I take the plastic party knife and start to slice and slash, and sob hard, then harder. It’s me screaming. I sit up in the bed; sweat stings my eyes, I put my arms around my knees, hugging them to my chest. I look in the doctor’s dark face. I’m angry. My heart is closed, but my mouth opens with a mind of its own.
“I remember.”
“What do you remember?”
Nothing, sucker, not a goddamned thing, homeboy. I lean back, stretching out in bed, then roll over onto my side, rubbing the twinge in my shoulder that is turning into an ache. A reminder of the last time I trusted anybody. Them rushing toward me, blank white faces, long vestments swishing like black knives, their voices coming at me, light pouring through the windows shining like Christ! I’m rising toward them; I always remember that—not running away but walking toward them. I was theirs, wasn’t I? A child who had found my way home. They didn’t really send me away to lose myself in the forest. Like Hansel and Gretel. Then they grabbed me, twisted my arm, and took me down. I thought my arm was going to come out of my shoulder and just fall off my body, it felt like my shoulder was just sitting in napalm, burning. It hadn’t broken me when they sodomized me, pinched my navel with nail clippers, alienated me from the other kids and myself. We’ll take care of you, you’ll always have a home at St Ailanthus. All that shit they did, and I never told on them. My heart is in my shoulder, a soft-tissue injury that will never totally heal, breaking, it’s just breaking.
“Abdul, you were getting ready to say something?” Dr Sanjeev.
No I wasn’t. Go away, I think, and will myself to sleep. The last thing I hear is the chair move back and his footsteps disappear.
WHEN I WAKE UP, I can’t move my arms, they’ve been restrained. I’m on my back, looking at the long annoying tubes of light stuck to the ceiling. They never turn the lights off. Did I miss something, or is it just when the fuck they want to strap me in they strap me in?
“Abdul?”
I feel the weight of drugs in my body. What’s the purpose of this shit? I’m waking up after being out for five minutes or five hours or five days? How much time has passed? Time worries me like a mother.
“Abdul?”
Why be bothered with his voice if the end result is being strapped down and shot up?
“I just wanna dance.”
“Well, ah, well, there’s no law that says you can’t dance in here if you want. I certainly don’t care.”
I feel his warm hands on my skin, hear the Velcro ripping open. But now that I can move, I don’t. How much of what I remember is yesterday or the distant past? What’s the last memory I have outside this place? I don’t think it’s a real memory but more like a fact: I was walking, like I did a lot, and I was young and strong. I don’t know if that’s how things really were or what, but they must have been at some point: walking, strong and young, having what I want, having what other people want. Yes, but when, where, who, even? Is that me anymore? I can’t figure it out. I turn over onto my side, pull my knees up fetal, I want to go back to sleep. I almost am anyway; whatever they gave me has me on extreme slo-mo. I don’t want to move. I close my eyes and see Roman’s face, but it’s a young face, younger than I ever knew him. He’s saying something I can’t hear. A lot of times in my dream, I can’t hear what people are saying.
“He’s saying something I can’t hear.”
“If you could hear him, what would he be saying?”
He’s gone, good. Am I talking or sleeping now? Talking, sleeping, dreaming different things?
“One day we were all hanging out—”
“Who is ‘all’?”
“Me, Amy, Scott, Snake, and My Lai, so we’re all hanging out having fun, and Jaime walks in.”
“Where’s this?”
“Starbucks, Astor Place. And Jaime, he’s like nowhere now, but for a while he was trying to dance and shit. He didn’t really have it in him, and he was so small; that might be a plus for a bitch, but it’s a minus for a man. So we’re, like, talking, laughing, and into our lattes and so on, and he just invites himself to sit down. Well, OK, wrong thing to do, but if you were going to do that, just sit your ass down and shut up. But no, he starts in with all this shit about St Ailanthus. I just look at him like he’s crazy when he starts that ‘remember when’ shit. Scott used to take, maybe he still does, Imena’s class in Harlem; that’s how Jaime found out about Herd, not from me. He wanted to be a part of Herd, but you know it wasn’t happening.
“‘Remember that time at St Ailanthus when Brother Samuel flipped your ass and body-slammed your ass and you peed all over yourself while he had you pinned down? No? What about the time Brother John, Brother Samuel, and Brother Bill kicked your ass?’
“I, like, totally ignore him, raise my eyebrows like, Is this dude crazy or what?
“‘Well man,’ he goes, ‘what do you remember?’
“My Lai is feeling me, raises her eyebrow, and looks Jaime’s pitiful ass dead in the eye and says, ‘Why don’t you shut up, bitch, and get the fuck out of here.’
“‘Yeah, whatever this is, this is not the place for it.’ Scott.
“‘You don’t remember trying to rape me when I was a little boy.’
“‘Little boy! Motherfucker, you’re older than I am!’
“This has an effect on everybody, like who is this hairy-ass motherfucker?
“Amy who’s, like, been in stunned mode says, ‘Well, that is . . . is something. How old are you, Jaime?’
“‘Twenty.’
“‘Abdul is only nineteen,’ My Lai comes in hard. ‘So when did this shit happen? Not like I really fuckin’ care or want to know. I mean, like, dude, you always been older than him.’
“‘You’re not going to get away with this.’ Jaime.
“‘You’re crazy,’ I scoff, ‘totally wrecked, man. If anything, it was you pulling the creep on us younger kids.’
“‘Your coffee is cold, dude, and your shit seems kinda tired, maybe you should go home and get some rest, you know.’ My Lai. Then she says, ‘You know,’ again.
“He doesn’t get she will fuck him up.
“‘Like, leave, dude, you’re not welcome here.’
“He gets up with her staring him down, and I don’t see him anymore for a long time.”
I’m tired of talking. I take the skin of my wrist into my mouth and bite down hard, hard as I can. Blood fills my mouth drops down cherry red onto the white sheets.
“Oh no, Abdul! Oh no!” he gro
ans.
Oh yes, I think. Who do you think you are? You just walk in here with your fucking turban black ass and start talking shit to me. I ain’t crazy don’tcha know who I am? Who we are, My Lai said we were dancing death—more powerful than life. I miss her—voices are rushing down the hall in white padded shoes. It’s the nappy-headed assholes coming to tie me down and inject me. Watkins and his crew! Well, come on, motherfucker. He busts into the room. Ah, I leap out of the bed, slam him dead in the jaw with my fist dripping with blood. Down that black motherfucker goes. Ha, ha! Then he’s up, screaming. Everybody is screaming. The doctor and the marshmallow-shoe crew is holding back Watkins, who got up screaming.
“You black motherfucker! I’m going to kill you!” Watkins.
“Watkins, get back, he’s not dangerous!” Dr See.
“He’s not dangerous, he just hit me!” He breaks loose, they get him again.
“He’s bleeding—”
“Fuck that shit, his ass is going to die or wish he was dead.”
I already wish I was dead.
“Get out, Watkins!”