by Nic Sheff
At the back of our house there is a small yard full of hard-packed dirt and tangled blackberry with nettles and artichoke. The fence is rotted out. My mom used to work out there in the garden for hours, but since that day on the beach, she’s left it to grow wild.
The lot behind ours is vacant, and when I was little, I built a fort of found plywood and grocery store pallets in a clearing in the bramble. The fort was packed with sleeping bags and blankets and milk crates and comic books and flashlights. The only time I was ever brave enough to sleep out there was when I was with Eliza Lindberg, who was my best friend besides Preston in seventh and eighth grades. To tell you the truth, I was totally in love with her. I mean, it’s no big fucking secret. We used to spend every weekend together, and her family took me on trips to Tahoe and even to Hawaii once.
I fell in love with her the very first time we hung out. We went to a movie after school, and Eliza bought M&M’s and poured them into her popcorn, and we ate the M&M’s/popcorn mixture as the chocolate melted and our hands touched in the dark.
She loved movies like I did and music and we used to talk really intensely for hours on the phone all about our families and everything. I think we were both able to tell each other things that we couldn’t tell anyone else. She trusted me to keep her secrets, and for the most part, I trusted her to keep mine. She would talk to me about her dad, who was this celebrity chef, being gone all the time and her mom’s drinking. And I’d tell her about my mom’s crazy up-and-down moods and how I felt so different from all the kids my age—including Preston—like this alien dropped off on the planet by mistake. Not that I wasn’t friends with the other kids in my class; I was. But that feeling of otherness never left me, like I could never let anyone know who I really was.
Until I met Eliza.
Because she was like an alien, too, dropped on Earth from whatever planet it was that I came from.
She was like me.
And we listened to music together and watched movies and slept out in that fort at night talking about school and our dreams and everything, really.
We relied on each other.
At least, we did when we were together after school. Around the other kids in our class, she would ignore me or even make fun of me sometimes. Maybe she was embarrassed because of the stuff she told me. I never could figure it out. I just had to content myself with knowing that, when we were alone together, she understood me and I understood her.
She remained my closest friend for all of seventh and eighth grades.
But then I ruined everything.
I mean, everything.
And still I can’t help thinking about her—pretty near every day.
As I climb the white painted wooden steps to our house, I wonder if maybe I should take that fort apart. But I know that’s stupid. I’d just go on thinking about her whether the fort was there or not.
Across the low picket fence I see Mr. Paganoff, the Russian man next door, sitting in his easy chair, wrapped in a heavy coat against the cold. I wave to him, and he smiles very wide.
“Miles!” he announces proudly, as if maybe he’d been struggling to remember my name.
The shops across the street are all shut down for the night and there are no cars driving past, so there is only the noise from Mr. Paganoff’s TV blaring as I unlock the door.
Inside there is a fire going, and one of my dad’s old jazz LPs is playing on the record player.
I put my stuff down by the front door and Jane comes running over.
Jane’s hair is darker now, like mine, and she wears it long and messy just like I do. Actually, I’d say of my whole family, it’s Jane and I who look the most alike. Though, luckily for her, she’s a whole lot prettier than I am.
“MILES!!!” she yells.
I bend down and kiss the top of her head. “What’s up, little frog?”
She laughs at that. “We’re making brownies.”
I notice the chocolate smeared across her face. “I see that. Can I help?”
She smiles and nods. “Of course.”
“Hey, I almost forgot,” I tell her. “I got a new record from Amoeba. You wanna listen?”
Again she nods. “What is it?”
I grab the record from off the floor next to my bag. “Some guy Dad told me about. He’s, like, an early twenties Christian gospel blues singer. He played this weird instrument called a phonoharp, I think.”
She crinkles her nose. “A phonoharp?”
“That’s what it says.”
She takes my hand in hers. “You know, you are seriously a weirdo.”
And then, when I don’t answer right away, she adds, “I mean that in a good way.”
“Well, thanks. And you . . .” I pause. “Are very, very normal.”
She laughs some more.
Because the house is small, pretty much everything is in the front room by the fireplace. The couch is relatively new, some cheap thing my dad and I had to put together from Ikea, considering I massacred the last one. And there’s a big La-Z-Boy. The floors are all hardwood and uneven, like you’re walking on a ship, and the walls are painted a dull yellow color. There’s a crack running jaggedly across the ceiling starting from the front door that lets in water when it rains. One of my dad’s buddies came by a couple years ago with some plaster sealant, but, for whatever reason, it didn’t work. Every winter the crack just grows a little deeper. There’s a rust-colored stain bleeding out from the center. Even now I can see condensation forming there from the fog coming in.
It’s one of those things we don’t like to talk about, though. My mom gets upset whenever she sees it or thinks about it, and then she’ll start picking at my dad about why he hasn’t fixed it, and he’ll take it and take it until he snaps back and then they have a huge fight.
When that happens it’s my job to take Jane into my room and read—usually from this collection of stories we’ve always loved called Nathaniel and Isabel. They’re these books that I think are French, but translated into English, about two children who’ve run away from an orphanage and this evil governess lady who’s always after them. The stories are all pretty much the same, with the two little orphans always escaping just at the last second. But I was obsessed with those books when I was a kid. Whenever I was scared at night, I’d get up and read them to myself until I could fall back asleep.
I used to read them to Teddy, too, and Jane—and I still read them to her when our parents fight.
Which really isn’t all that much, honestly. It’s just that crack in the ceiling that sets my mom off. So we live beneath it without ever looking up at it.
Now, since Teddy’s disappearance, we mostly just eat dinner on our laps watching TV or whatever, but tonight, for some reason, my dad’s decided to cook something nice—roast pork and Brussels sprouts (which, maybe surprisingly, I love)—so he wants us all to eat at the actual dining room table.
I go over and change the record on the turntable.
All the nice stuff we have is from back when my dad still had his staff job at the Chronicle. The record player, the speakers, the TV, the PlayStation, the DVD player, our cell phones, the computer, even the art and photographs. It’s like the whole house is frozen in some sort of time warp.
Like we’re still living in 2010.
The record crackles loudly as it finds its rhythm, and a man starts in, talking.
“What are they doing in heaven today? I don’t know, boy, but it’s my business to stay here and sing about it.”
And then he does, his voice coming through clear and pained and beautiful. Just his voice and that strange instrument, sounding like a child’s toy.
“This is awesome,” Janey says.
We pour the brownie mixture into a pan and then take turns licking chocolate batter off the long metal spoon.
“What is this terribly depressing music?
” My mom comes out of her room wearing a plush-looking bathrobe over her loose-fitting striped pajamas. “Is this yours, Miles? Go turn that off right now.”
Jane looks up proudly. “It’s a phonoharp.”
My mom remains unconvinced.
“I mean it, Miles. Turn it off. It’s too depressing.”
“Okay, okay,” I say, going over to turn the record off.
She stands there for a moment, breathing.
“I’m sorry,” she finally says. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’ve just been so . . .” She trails off.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I get it.”
She goes to take Dad’s roast out of the oven, replacing it with the pan of brownie batter. She puts the roast on the stovetop and turns toward me. Her hair has gone almost completely white since Teddy’s disappearance. And, while she’s always been very thin, now it’s like she’s almost sickly. Her hands are knotted and arthritic-looking. There are lines and creases around the corners of her mouth and eyes. I don’t say that to be cruel. I know it’s my fault. I’ve made her this way.
“Hey, Mie,” she starts, somewhat abruptly. “Was everything okay today? I didn’t see you at lunch.”
My mom works as the librarian at my high school, and ever since I got sick, I’m supposed to check in at least once a day to make her feel better. But I realize now that somehow, today, I totally forgot.
“Well, I . . . I . . .”
“He went to buy that record,” Jane says.
I smile down at her. “That’s right, I went to buy that record.”
My mom shakes her head. “You know you’re only supposed to spend your money on your cell phone . . . and to help out with your medicine now that the insurance has run out.”
“That’s all I do,” I tell her. There’s a pressure building steadily on either side of my forehead, like the veins at my temples are filling with blood and starting to squeeze my brain underneath. “It was Dad who told me to buy the record.”
“Well, he shouldn’t have done that,” she says. “I’ll talk to your father about that later.”
I close my eyes tight, and it’s like there’s a strobe light flashing in the darkness. My teeth grit together. The medication I’m on always gives me these terrible headaches, but somehow this feels even worse than normal.
And then I hear my dad shouting from their room.
“Talk to me about what?”
I open my eyes to see him walk out wearing pajama bottoms and a San Francisco Giants T-shirt that’s a little too small for his big belly.
He looks over in my direction. “Miles. What’s up, buddy?”
He comes over and messes my hair; he smells like soap and laundry detergent. His hulking frame looms over me, considering he weighs a good seventy pounds more than I do. Plus he’s, like, six foot three, so he’s got me beat by at least four inches. There’s something comforting about his size, though, making me feel so small like it does.
“Hey, Dad,” I say.
My mom tells him to sit down. “Sam, come on, dinner’s ready.”
Sam is my dad’s name. My mom’s name is Audrey. Sam and Audrey Cole. I think they were happy once.
My dad goes over to wrap his arms around her, but she pulls herself free, turning to face him.
“Did you really tell Miles he could buy a record today?”
My dad makes a face over at us, clenching his teeth together and dropping his head down so it looks like he has about five chins. Then he turns back to Mom and kisses her on the cheek, grabbing her around the waist again and shouting out, “Guilty!”
She doesn’t smile. “We talked about this.”
“Oh, honey, come on. He works hard for that money. Anyway, it was probably just . . .” He glances back at me. “Miles, how much did that record cost?”
“Four dollars,” I say, but quietly.
“See? Only four dollars.”
She squints her eyes, kind of glaring at him. “Four dollars?”
I go over to the record player, grab the sleeve off the floor, and hold it up for my mom to see.
“Four dollars,” I say.
Her mouth seems to form a smile in spite of itself.
“I’ll get the plates,” Dad tells her, giving her a quick kiss on the forehead. “You go on and sit down. You want a drink?”
“I’ll take a beer.”
She comes over to the table then and sits down next to Jane.
“How ’bout you guys?” he asks. “You want some lemonade or something?”
Jane smiles. “Yes, please.”
Despite the pounding in my head, I get up and go over to the refrigerator to get the drinks for my mom and sister. I open the beer on the edge of the counter, hitting the bottle cap hard with the palm of my hand.
“Miles, don’t open it like that,” my mom says.
I look over at her. The skin around her mouth is all puckered and withered—her eyes are deep set with wrinkles. She has grown cold and bitter. From what she was, to what she is now . . .
It’s too terrible to even think about.
How can I ever make it up to her?
How can I make it up to Jane, to my father?
How can I make it up to Teddy?
If he’s alive . . .
But I know he is alive.
I feel it.
I feel him.
Mom, Dad, the police, the press—they may have given up on him, but I never will.
The blood seems to swell and the veins tighten around my brain. The pain cuts in.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
But that isn’t enough. It can never be enough.
I have to do more.
I have to make it right.
But how?
7.
THE SCHOOL AT STANYAN Hill is small, maybe a thousand kids total, built out of an old converted church and churchyard. There’s a tall wrought-iron fence surrounding the entire property and an orchard of crab apple trees and cherry blossoms and an Astroturf soccer field that separates the kindergarten through eighth grade classrooms from the upper school.
The roof of the main building collapsed in a storm two years ago, so they redid the entire thing out of white stucco like one of those Spanish-style missions. They planted red roses and pink bougainvillea and a vegetable garden in the back with all kinds of lettuces and carrots and radishes they serve in the salad bar in the cafeteria.
There’s a brand-new performing arts center and a theater and an indoor pool and an art studio and a science lab and an athletic center with a full gym and tennis courts. There is, however, no football field, as the school has no football team.
No football team, no basketball team, and no baseball team, either.
Not that I’ve ever been super into sports or anything. Still, there is something incomplete-feeling about going to a high school that doesn’t offer those kinds of all-American sports. Like if our school didn’t have a prom. I mean, there’s no way in hell I’m going to go, but at least I get to make that decision myself. If we didn’t have a prom at all, then I wouldn’t be able to reject it, now would I? And what would the fun be in that?
Growing up in basically the most liberal city in the country, there aren’t a whole lot of opportunities for rebellion. You have to get creative if you want anyone to notice your goddamn teenage angst.
When I think about my dad growing up in Georgia in the seventies and how much he had to rebel against, I gotta say, I’m pretty jealous.
Maybe having schizophrenia is my big fuck-you to the status quo.
Only, I guess at this point, being normal and well-adjusted would be, like, the biggest fuck-you of them all.
So I guess I’ll just try to shoot for that, if I can.
• • •
Monday morning the rain falls steadily
against the bus window as we lumber down Fulton past Golden Gate Park. I can see the street kids camping out in brightly colored sleeping bags and tarps laid out across the grass.
A lot of days my mom and Jane, who’s still in the lower school, will come with me on the bus, but they don’t have to be in ’til later this morning, so I’m alone, listening to these old Marc Bolan records on my iPod.
The bus pulls over at the corner and I get out, hurrying up the block. I have a hoodie pulled down over my eyes and I keep my headphones on while I show my ID to the guard and then run down the carpeted steps to the basement floor where our lockers are set up. The smell of sweat and mildewed, damp clothing fills the hall, and there’s a bottle of Gatorade spilled on the floor beneath my locker, so my sneakers squish, squish along the carpet.
Bodies move past in all directions as I unload my books into the locker.
I have biology first period, so I hold on to my science book and calculator and a notebook, but that’s about it. The music is playing loud in my ears, and I close up the locker and spin the dial on the combination lock, and then something hits against me and I turn, startled.
It’s Ordell Thornton, one of the few people in this school who isn’t afraid of me.
He mouths something at me that I can’t hear ’cause of the music. I watch his jaw and cleft chin and coarse-looking scruff on his face moving again and I take the earphones off.
“What?”
He pushes his long dreads behind his tiny ears, which stick out practically at a perfect ninety-degree angle from his head.
“Dude, I called you, like, five times this weekend. What’s up? You avoiding me or something?”
I take a step back. “Uh, no. Not at all.”
He smiles real big. “I’m just playin’ with you. But seriously, yo, where you been at?”
I shake my head. “Nowhere. I mean, home. I’ve been sick.”
As much as Ordell’s nice to me and all, his dumb, surfer-dude act is super annoying. I tend to lie and make up excuses so I don’t have to hang out with him.