by R. J. Jacobs
SOMEWHERE IN THE DARK
A Novel
R. J. Jacobs
To my family.
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.
—Carl Jung
If this were a movie I’d be the bad guy.
—Johnny Cash
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my editors Chelsey Emmelhainz and Melissa Rechter. Creating this book has been a team effort, and it was vastly improved by your thoughtful guidance. Thank you.
Many thanks to my agent, Rachel Ekstrom Courage. I continue to be indebted to you for your wisdom and support. Your enthusiasm for this project has been invaluable along the way.
Thank you also to my family and friends for their encouragement and advice (and patience) at various times while I was working and fretting about this book.
1
I’m late.
I know because of the way the sun blares through my window, creeping around the edges of the bath towel I draped over the curtain rod to dampen the dawn. I hardly need a clock during June in Nashville because the days start so early and I’m extremely sensitive to light.
For just a second I remember that all-thinking world from when I was twelve. It’s a world I never fully left, a space in my head that goes on forever. I’ve gotten lost there when I’ve visited for too long, so I grit my teeth to come back out of it. I have to get up. I have a therapy appointment I need to get to.
I focus on the worn but comfortable sheets brushing my skin and the birds calling to each other outside my window. I throw off my covers and stretch, listening to the chug-chug of the air-conditioning window unit. The white plastic fan propped on my dresser whirrs, moving the half-warm air around. Summer came early this year, and already my apartment is baking. My place is tiny enough that when my window unit switches off I can hear bits of what is happening in the apartments on either side of me. Most mornings, I hear the footsteps of the family who lives above me and the arguments of the couple to my right. I can smell the curry-scented cooking of the family to my left—a smell that seems to seep through the walls and cling to the ridges in my popcorn ceiling.
When I do check the time, the muscles in my legs stiffen. I have to hurry or I’ll miss my appointment with Ms. Parsons, who I am mandated to see once a week for a year.
Outside, a dog is barking. I hear my neighbor’s familiar guitar chords changing from C to G to E, and somewhere else a woman practicing scales—up and down and back up again. That’s Nashville. It isn’t even nine AM, and already there is music in the air. I overheard one of my neighbors, a girl who sounded younger than me, saying once, “This city has an invisible wind that carries ideas all around, everywhere.” I like the way she said that, just like I like picturing an invisible something that connects us all.
More than half the people who live in my apartment building are musicians, meaning everyone is poor but acts and dresses like they’re already famous. When we pass in the hallways, I notice how they smell like expensive shampoo and cigarette smoke. Musicians are mostly skinny and have sex constantly. I know because I hear them—not at night, because that’s when they play or have shows. It’s usually in the early afternoon, before their restaurant shifts start. Other times, I’ll hear them as they sit on their courtyard balconies practicing their songs. I’ll hear someone say, “Let’s try that again,” before restarting the part of the song they’re working on. Usually, country songs are about clay dirt and gravel roads, the backs of trucks, folks who have trouble paying bills. The lyrics sound better than my memories. Sometimes at night, I open my window and listen to the harmonies—so beautiful I hardly mind hearing the same phrases practiced over and over. I don’t get close—I don’t need to. I prefer the distance and listen in the dark.
I know the people in my apartment building, and their habits, but they don’t know me. I come and go like a ghost. At night, I keep my front light off, and if I listen to my own music it’s only through my headphones. I don’t bother anyone and no one bothers me, and that’s how I like it. My furniture is a mix of Goodwill purchases and unfinished wood castoffs that I can’t decide if I’ve chosen not to stain or haven’t gotten around to yet. My rent is just cheap enough that my state stipend and the little money I make catering cover it. I keep things exactly how I like them, and the landlords leave me alone and never mention my criminal record.
I get up and brush my teeth—the toothpaste has a bitter flavor I’ve named “sharp blue” in my mind. Then I dig some clothes from my dresser. I’m in such a hurry that when I yank the bottom drawer, the dresser slams back against the wall with a loud thump. The bottom drawer stays locked. Just in case.
Even though I’m late, I rush to vacuum over my footsteps in the carpet like always, then I turn everything off, lock the door, and jog to my car. I run my finger over my apartment key, remembering how key ridges felt like mountain ranges as a kid. I do the same thing with my car key—another mountain range. Getting an apartment, a car—the mountains I’ve climbed. Not bad, considering where I’ve been. I hear the rattle of a wind chime, and more distantly, an acoustic guitar. I look back at the door of my building. Sometimes I can’t name my own emotions. The feeling I have right now, I don’t know how to describe.
Later, after everything’s happened, I’ll know that particular feeling is called happiness.
I check my car’s mileage before I start the engine. The fuel gauge has never worked, so I keep a small notebook in the center console where I jot down the dates of my fill-ups and the approximate length of each trip to keep from hitting empty. I know other people might be troubled by this routine, but I like having a little system of my own. And no one gets in my car but me.
Before I could save enough for a car, I took the bus everywhere I went. Which I hated, because it was slow and inconvenient, but also I loved it in a way because it reminded me that I was resourceful. I always felt like people who grow up with too many advantages never fully develop that ability, and the feeling that it was me against the world sometimes wasn’t all bad. Not needing much made me feel strong and independent—I used to stand on the bus with my shoulders pulled slightly back. Of course, getting to where I was going on time was also nice. And so was not having to stand in the rain, or freeze in the winter.
I turn the key and the engine rumbles to life. I start off toward the Community Mental Health Center, my thoughts turning to the high school graduation party I will be working in Belle Meade that night.
Of the work I’ve done since leaving jail, catering is the best. On the days we get ready for parties, I work by myself, prepping the food. Some of what I make hardly looks like food to me, but that’s okay because the people we serve it to hardly eat it. For rich people, food isn’t about good, I’ve learned, it’s about presentation. My boss, Ken, likes me to prep because I can work alone for long stretches of time with my headphones on, and because I am very, very precise with cuts and angles, and when creating a display I am very good with a knife.
Most of my favorite food still comes from places like convenience stores and vending machines. I prefer food wrapped in packages. It is contained, and when I open it up, I always know what to expect. Two other cooks, Andre and Malik, work with the catering company too. Malik told me that the dishes I make are his favorites, but I suspect from the way he lingers around the kitchen that he is interested in me as more than a friend. My face flushes when he talks to me. I can’t tell if he notices. I work quickly and keep my eyes on the cutting board in front of me, usually unable to meet his kind gaze.
I step on the gas, nearly running a red light. I don’t want to be late to my session. The air-conditioning hasn’t worked in my car in I don’t
know how long, so I keep the windows down and the wind blows my hair wild. After I park, I brush it quickly, straightening out the tangles. Therapy always makes me reminisce, and I remember admiring my mother’s long brown hair when I was very little. I think of the way she smelled like double-mint gum, and the way she bustled around in quick, jerky movements and bit her lips incessantly, until they bled. I remember sores on her face, like chicken pox that never seemed to heal. Her fingers left dark spots where she gripped my arm, like shadows on a ripe banana. I asked about her sometimes after she left, until I didn’t anymore.
I place the hairbrush in my glove box and click it shut. The middle of my back is wet from sweat, which feels cool in the slight breeze as I cross the parking lot. I like the familiarity of going to my appointment. Home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling. That’s a saying, but it’s true. Some people make you feel at home wherever you are. My social worker, Ms. Parsons, is like that. She took my case as a referral from the state. She’d read my file before we met, and I’m sure saw my picture in the news. I wonder if she knows more about me than she lets on, or if she is just kind enough to not bring up the trouble I got into at the concert every time we meet.
Before I started seeing Ms. Parsons, I assumed our therapy sessions would feel like those foster system check-ins after I had broken rules or when I was changing homes, but she’s so nice I actually look forward to seeing her. I can tell her about most of the things I do—about vacuuming my carpet in straight lines, for example, and about getting nervous around new people. But I know better than to share about every part of my catering job or to talk about what I keep in my bottom drawer. I’d never want to put her in a bad position.
I’ve had a lot of counselors before. When I was very young, I saw a dark-haired man who sat so that the sun was behind him, making it impossible to read his expression. The chair in his office was so soft it felt like constant sinking. He took notes on a paper tablet and nodded when I answered questions. He mostly wanted to talk about my real parents, even though I barely remembered them. I was always confused. Once, I asked about where my father actually was, and the man pursed his lips like he tasted something bitter. “No way to know,” he told me, his eyes narrowing the way people’s do when they are frightened by the truth.
Another counselor wanted to know if I prayed. “This is the South,” she said. “People go to church.” God was always around, she explained, someone who hears us when we speak from our hearts. God listens when we’re scared, and sometimes answers our prayers. Prayers are talking to God. She pointed her index finger toward the ceiling. I tilted my head back and looked up.
I knew better than to tell her about how Shelly and Owen James’s songs got me through life when I was locked in the dark. Shelly and Owen James are legitimately famous—two of the biggest stars in country music. Everyone knows who they are, but no one knows them the way I do. I can never explain my relationship with the Jameses, not really.
It would make me sound insane.
I’m slightly famous too, in a way. The state took care to hide my identity because I was a minor when I was discovered, but I did make the history books. I was the person held in captivity the longest in the state of Tennessee—kept by foster parents in a dark closet for more than a year.
I don’t like to talk about that, but sometimes I have to.
I hustle up the stairs of the Community Mental Health Center, which is a weathered old building, loud with echoes and the creaking of heavy doors. As I spin past the glass of an office door, I see the reflected spray of my brown hair and black T-shirt. I’m nineteen now, but I stand under five feet tall because of the “extended period of malnutrition” when I lived in the dark. Ms. Parsons doesn’t make me feel bad about being different. I’ve seen her fifteen times already, and she still doesn’t understand me completely, but she tries to. She makes me feel … another word for okay … she makes a space that is comfortable to talk in, which seems like the most important part of counseling.
Large nature photographs line both sides of the hallway—purple and orange wavy rock formations that look like they could be from another planet. My heart swells as I remember how Ms. Parsons protected me, even after I messed up very badly. It was at the end of our second session. She touched my shoulder—I know she meant it as a gesture of encouragement, like the expression “a pat on the back,” but a person’s head can know one thing while their muscles know another. I grabbed her wrist the second her finger reached my back, wheeled her around, and had my fist pulled back before either of us understood what had happened. She screamed a little, and I stepped back, panting, and started to cry—crying, telling her I was sorry because even if I was very afraid, I would never hurt her. Ever. She smoothed down the front of her shirt.
We heard banging on her office door and a man calling out, “Amanda! You okay in there?” I put my hands over my ears. Ms. Parsons made a motion toward my face, and I wiped my cheek. A man who I understood was her work-neighbor threw open her door, but Ms. Parsons smiled and said, “Oh my gosh, Bill, I’m so sorry. I tripped and dropped a stack of folders.”
The man looked at the floor. There were no folders anywhere.
I tried to slow my breathing, using a technique Ms. Parsons had shown me a week earlier.
She reassured him, “Everything’s fine, really. I was just silly. Sorry if I startled you.” She nodded toward me and her work-neighbor looked at me like the police had when I did the thing I regret most. Ms. Parsons told him, “Sorry for the excitement.”
She rubbed her wrist behind her back.
After he left, Ms. Parsons and I sat down again. She leaned forward and folded her hands in her lap. “I didn’t mean to startle you, Jessie,” she said. “That was just a reflex you had. I want to talk about what happened more next time, if that’s okay with you.”
When our time ended and I went outside, I felt as if I’d flown high and nearly crashed to the ground. I wanted to be back inside with Ms. Parsons and away from her at the same time.
I know I can’t tell Ms. Parsons everything because her “professional responsibilities” mean she would have to let the police know if there was any chance I would harm myself or anyone else.
I understand why.
Ms. Parsons’s door is halfway open, but I stand in the hallway until she sees me, shifting back and forth from one foot to the other.
“Jessie,” she says, standing up. “Come in.” She has a Tennessee accent, like mine, and always greets me like I’m important. Lots of people in Nashville actually have no accent at all because they’re mostly from other places now, but I like that Ms. Parsons and I come from the same place. “Do you need a minute? You look like you rushed to get here. Want to use the restroom or grab some water before we start?”
I shake my head. Even with her, I’m slow to talk.
“Well, come on in then, make yourself comfortable.”
Her office is crowded with books and smells like the jasmine tea she always drinks. Behind her desk are two large windows. Through them, I see the crawl of traffic on Charlotte Pike. When I feel shy, I watch cars pass and wonder where everyone is going until Ms. Parsons brings my attention back. The word for showing kindness … Ms. Parsons is always very gentle with her questions.
She sits cross-legged in her high-backed chair and holds a steaming cup of tea in her lap. “How are you feeling about the techniques we’ve talked about so far?” she asks. “For times when you’re feeling especially restless? I’m thinking in particular about when you’re meeting new people.”
She taught me how to rub a rough piece of cloth between my thumb and forefinger to calm down when I feel I may lose control instead of indulging in my normal compulsive behaviors like organizing trinkets on a shelf. Sometimes her strategies work, and sometimes I give in and do what I’d intended to do in the first place. I think for a technique to work, you have to actually want it to, but I know Ms. Parsons really wants me to succeed, so I tell her, “It’s going pretty well. I’m s
taying pretty calm, especially when I do the one with the fabric.”
“Sometimes just that little bit of friction keeps us anchored in the moment. From there, the skill really is learning to tolerate a little anxiety. Knowing that feeling anxious doesn’t mean you have to act.”
I’m not good at not acting. Ms. Parsons sets her tea down on the table beside her and lowers her voice. “Jessie, when we meet, we usually focus on how your life is now. But maybe you could tell me about when you started wanting to keep your things in order. Was it when you were by yourself?”
She means when I was inside the closet, but there is no way to really talk about that. I’ve tried and tried before, but unless you’ve had an experience like it, you can’t understand. I get why Ms. Parsons is curious though, because that part of my life is so uncommon.
How do you talk about only being able to imagine the things around you, and never see them? When I lived inside the closet, it was very, very important to keep my things organized so I could find them by feel in the dark. I only had a few possessions, so the world seemed tiny. But the space in my mind became huge. There isn’t a good way to describe it.
Ms. Parsons’s eyes stay steady and warm as I begin to talk. “Most of the time I didn’t know whether it was day or night. I had to put on music to fall asleep. I kept my Discman about four inches, or a palm width, from my headphones. I kept the CD I had another palm width away from that so I always knew where it was. I needed the Discman to keep going, so I arranged the batteries in order of how long I’d had them. When Mr. Clean gave them to me, I marked their sides with my thumbnail. I made another mark each time a week passed. I counted the marks to get the most out of each battery and kept my hand on the Discman when it played to feel it vibrate as the disc spun around inside.”
Ms. Parsons already knew I had only one CD in the dark, so I didn’t have to tell her that. What I always listened to was Owen and Shelly James’s first album.