OCD, The Dude, and Me

by Lauren Roedy Vaughn

  My mother has never done this before, but she’s letting me take a week off school. She said that in exchange, I had to talk to Marv on the phone. So I did.

  “Danielle, are you hanging in there?” Marv asked.

  “I guess so.”

  “I am sure it’s tough.”

  “Yeah. I know you had a woman laugh in your face and throw furniture at you, but you never had the boy of your dreams moo in your face.”

  “Indeed, Danielle. Indeed. Tell me how that whole experience made you feel.”

  “Lost.”

  “Hmmm. That is understandable and well said. You may not believe me, but you are in a very powerful place. It’s not until we are lost that we can be found.”

  And now I am just sitting here for a minute trying to let his words settle within me and hoping a big burp of understanding rises about that and the burning.

  *AUNT JOYCE E-MAIL* 4/6

  E-mail from Aunt Joyce after she learns her niece is a cow

  Well, Danielle, I’m just gonna be honest. I want to kill that kid you like. I know these aren’t adult feelings, but I don’t care for the moment. My very wise, adorable therapist once told me that Carl Jung said, “You can be a fool and fall in love or you can miss out on all life has to offer.” So you were a fool. Good for you. Bravo. Join the painful club I’ve been a part of for twenty-some years. How proud of you I am to have you as a member; I cannot find words.

  For a little while be beloved. The loving can wait. Let your father, your mother, and me love you. Know you are beloved. And, oh, how you are. I love every little hair on your gorgeous self. You’re perfect.

  Because I love you and know what you can withstand, I will not call Jacob’s parents and tell them that we are coming over so he can apologize to you. That is what I want to do, however. You deserve an apology from him. Actually, Danielle, you deserve much, much more than you have decided you do.

  Jacob doesn’t serve you. Don’t take the cup from him any longer. Put it down. There is another you can drink from. Inside you is a two-million-year-old soul that knows what you deserve, that’s making martinis as we speak. Start talking to that woman and drink what she’s serving.

  Your Forever Aunt Joyce.

  *AUNT JOYCE E-MAIL* 4/6

  E-mail from me to Aunt Joyce

  Dearest Forever Aunt Joyce,

  Thanks for being so smart. What would I do if I didn’t have you to love me? I don’t know. I know everything you said is true, but it will take me a while to really know. My heart is broken. It’s broken. Well, it’s more than that—it’s gone. This plan that God has worked out for life just doesn’t seem doable. I’m kinda pissed off about it. Teeth, for one thing. Why would a deity design teeth to rot? I got a cavity that needs to be filled on top of everything else. It seems like added insult to injury. Well, I gotta go because a guy from my social skills class is coming over, and we’re gonna do homework together. His name is Daniel. I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t know because you and Mom seem to always have all the up-to-date info on my life. Thanks, though, you save me.

  Danielle (aka Clarabelle, the cow)

  *ME-MOIR JOURNAL* 4/8

  The morning after Daniel came over

  I’m really miserable. I mean, I have to be. Jacob Kingston moo’d in my face. It’s ridiculous to write, but it’s completely painful to feel. If I could lobotomize this experience from my brain, do an eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind overhaul on the whole episode, and every warm feeling I ever had for Jacob, I would in a hot second.

  Daniel came over and brought his homework, and we both sat at the kitchen table and did work. He tried to apologize for the Emily thing, but I told him to stop. He had nothing to apologize for. I had a bunch of my hats scattered on the table, and I think he was trying to cheer me up, but he put on a fashion show with them. It made us both laugh to see him in the feathered bonnet I have, the one with flowers around the rim.

  “I remember how funny you and Emily were together in junior high,” he said.

  I was uncomfortable for a minute but then I said, “You do? We were?”

  “Yeah. I remember this one day in seventh grade when we all got balloons for some reason. You know, the helium kind on strings. And you and Emily drew faces with mustaches on yours and pretended they were your rich husbands. You carried those escorts around all day. It was classic juvenile hilarity.”

  “I forgot about that.”

  “I admired you both. Smart ladies in the market for rich men . . . those are girls to watch, I thought.” He punctuated the statement perfectly by flipping the Sherlock Holmes–style hat onto his head.

  Talking about Emily and talking with Daniel made me realize just how long it has been since I have had a friend. And maybe that’s what Daniel is becoming for me, a friend. I mean, he ran four miles in pursuit of my crazy self and hugged me after I ate dirt. That’s gotta be a friend, right?

  After we finished our work, my mom made us dinner. I could tell my mom liked Daniel, and it was a little embarrassing how proper she was and how she got out my favorite plates, the ones that have European landmarks and postage designs; they look like old postcards, and I fell in love with them on a family trip years ago, so Mom bought them for me. She served us salmon and asparagus. As a side note, I’d like to add that we haven’t had any red meat since the incident.

  When dinner was over, Mom excused herself to go to her own therapy appointment while Dad worked out at the office gym. (God, what is it with my family? Every single one of us has a therapist and a myriad of self-help regimens! I have no idea what my dad even talks about in his therapy because he seems so together all the time, but he goes.)

  I was alone in the house with Daniel. I had never been alone in my house with a boy EVER.We went into the living room because Daniel brought Harold and Maude for us to watch together. Daniel had no idea how much I love this movie, but he loves it, too. We sang along to the sound track, and I cried a little at the end, but so did Daniel. “Don’t look at me,” he half joked. “Leave me alone with my rich emotions.” And then I punched him in the arm and that led to him dragging me onto the floor where we wrestled and tickled each other until we were exhausted.

  When my mom came home, she made Daniel call his mom and say he was spending the night. It was a school night, and I don’t know how our parents let this happen, but he stayed, and he slept on my couch and so did I. I fell asleep for the first time in a boy’s arms. As I started to close my eyes, I stared out at the entire San Fernando Valley through our big living room window. The dark, starry sky was the perfect blanket for us; the mysterious universe snuggling us in. I don’t know why my mom didn’t wake me up and make me get into bed. I don’t know. But my dreams in those hours were so soft and lyrical. I dreamed I was lying on a giant soft pillow that swallowed me and gave off oxygen. The farther I buried my face in it, the more life I felt.

  When my mom woke us up at six, she gave Daniel towels and walked him toward the shower. He dressed in the clothes he came over in, but he looked cool. We ate fruit and toast and talked about how we had to face Lisa and the rest of the misfits tonight in social skills class. We decided we’d pretend we both went to the rock concert that his stepfather was at last night, and therefore, couldn’t hear anything from tinnitus and couldn’t speak due to our screaming-induced laryngitis; but Lisa would have to be thrilled as we had “made a social date.” My mom packed him a lunch (which I just loved), I hugged him good-bye, and my mother drove him to school while I stayed home and started this journal. I have never loved my mom so much. However, I don’t want to mischaracterize anything. I’m still profoundly miserable.

  *ME-MOIR JOURNAL* 4/12

  Another Journal about Daniel

  Daniel came over one more time before I went back to school. He actually volunteered to go to Meadow Oaks and pick up all my homework from the front office so I wouldn’t get too behind; there isn’t that much school left and I can’t jeopardize my college options. Dan
iel found me in my room reading, and he looked around at all my stuff.

  “Holy crap, Danielle. I can’t believe you’ve read all these books.”

  “How do you know I actually read them?”

  “It’s obvious. All the pages are dog-eared and the covers are all worn. Oh my God, you’re a genius.”

  “Oh, but I wish,” I said.

  I showed him my letter from Justine. He thought it was awesome. “She is wicked wise,” he said and “you are lucky to be friends with someone who has been alive a long, long time. But you know what I like best about her? The fact that she likes you. ’Cause that club, the digging Danielle club—we’re the shit.”

  I threw my arms around him.

  “It’s true. I have good taste,” he said.

  He insisted we call each other when I got back in school to make sure I’m feeling “copacetic” when I’m in class with Jacob. I’m glad he set that up because back at school, after fourth period, I ran out into the quad and called him.

  “I was just in English with him. It was really hard. Looking at him makes me sick to my stomach.”

  Daniel said, “Abide, sister, abide.”

  “Abide what? Him?”

  “Yes! Abide it all. Him. The situation. Endure it. Withstand it.”

  “I’ll try, but I’m afraid I might puke.”

  “Well, if you think you are going to, try to make it to Jacob’s lap.”

  “Ha! Good plan. Thank you.”

  Talking to Daniel on the phone made it look like I had a friend. I saw Sara do a double take when she saw me on the phone laughing, and I realized it didn’t just look like I had a friend. I actually did.

  *ME-MOIR JOURNAL* 4/13

  Jesus, can’t social skills class just go away??!!!

  No, it cannot, according to my mother who says these classes have “yielded some fine results. Look at your friendship with Daniel,” and so I have to keep going because it might get even better. I told her I don’t need it to get any better. This is good. I have a friend. Social skills class—a success. “Not so fast,” she says.

  When I’m forced to do stuff against my will like this I want to be destructive and ruin environments. I want to fully turn on my impulsivity spigot so that all the inappropriate words I have stuffed in my head flow out. If I actually loosen this spigot in social skills class in an effort to show my mother how bad this class is for me and punish her at the same time, I realize I will probably just end up in some other group I can’t stand or have to go for an evaluation to see if I have Tourette’s syndrome. (If I had to have a syndrome, I think I would like to have that one, but Daniel said I’m being very shortsighted with that view, that Tourette’s is nothing to shout about. He’s funny.) So I went to class tonight, and I swear, if it weren’t for Daniel, I might gouge my eyes out with one of Lisa’s brooches (like Oedipus, thank you very much) right in front of everyone, and they could just send me to wander into the desert of Los Angeles!

  Tonight we had to do what Lisa calls a “social autopsy.” We had to each talk about a social situation in our lives that we didn’t think went well, and Lisa took it apart and analyzed it like doctors do to dead bodies. I think the analogy is morbid and hopeless. A social autopsy? Really? Like we’re all dead on arrival in any social situation. That is probably true, but how messed up for Lisa to use this language. Some of us in the room get the deep, dark, penetrating meaning.

  Daniel saw the schedule for tonight online where Lisa posts everything for us. I just ignore it, but Daniel gets off on checking it out and mocking it. He’s more evolved than me, clearly. Anyway, he saw that we were doing social autopsies tonight and he came in dressed as a cadaver. A stroke of genius, totally. He put gray makeup all over his face that made him look plastic, and, well, dead, and said he came prepared for his autopsy. It was fantastic. We all laughed, and I have to give it to Lisa because instead of acting all offended and superior like she usually would, she laughed, too.

  For his autopsy Daniel told a story about being slammed up against his locker by a football player at school, and how the incident drew a crowd. He couldn’t fight back, and there were a bunch of people who just saw him slide down his locker onto the floor and wipe snot and blood off his nose. He just started singing “Who Let the Dogs Out?”, which I thought was a brilliant maneuver in this situation, but it got him further pummeled.

  “Analyze that situation, Doctor,” he said to Lisa.

  At first, I didn’t know if this really happened to Daniel or if he was just using it to make Lisa struggle at her craft. Lisa asked if Daniel had done anything that might have instigated that assault (not that anything would justify that behavior she said); she was just asking. Daniel said he didn’t have the slightest idea what he had done.

  I could tell by the way Daniel said it that he knew exactly what caused the football player to go crazy, but he wasn’t going to tell Lisa. I had a feeling then that this was a true story. I don’t remember what Lisa said to Daniel. I don’t think I was listening at that point because my mind started drifting off and thinking about how Daniel has had it rough, too. I wasn’t the only person in the room whose life had been marked by pain and for whom school was a war zone.

  *Essay assigned by me to me to vent my frustration* 4/18

  Why Must Things Like This Always Happen

  Danielle Levine

  English 12

  Ms. Harrison

  Period 4

  In English class today, I was staring out the corner window and found myself taken in by a little hummingbird fluttering among the huge branches of the tree that grows outside our second-floor classroom. It was gray and for a second I wondered if this was the hummingbird my mom called Spaulding. It made me chuckle, and I wasn’t paying attention when Ms. Harrison announced our groups for the day. Keira yelled my name to break my trance, and that’s when I found out my group consisted of me, Keira, and Jacob. Need I write more? Do those three names not clearly address the title of this essay I assigned myself? Even though I like Keira, it’s really hard for me to be around her and Jacob, especially since they found every excuse to touch each other in between discussing the assignment, which was to brainstorm-as-a-group possible ideas for a “poignant and passionate” essay entitled “Why I Stand Out.” I thought “murder-suicide in front of your classmates” would fit the bill, but I kept that idea to myself.

  I was completely infuriated that Jacob just talked to me as if everything was as it always was—which it frickin’ was for him because his moo-ing in my face had no impact on him at all!!!!!!!!!! (There aren’t enough exclamation points in the world, believe me.) And I realize that I am tragically flawed because I can’t just get over this easily; that I can’t let it all roll off my back; that I can’t figure out how to be like the Amish who can forgive so easily. Dear God, right now, can’t you teach me how to do that? What kind of God designed a world where things and people you find value in eventually hurt you?

  I really wish someone could give me a clear, cogent response to that question.

  During the course of our little perverse brainstorming session, Jacob said to me, “Danielle, why don’t you write about how you have red hair? That makes you stand out.”

  Yes, and why don’t I also add to this winner of an essay how I’m fat! Ah, Jacob, Ye of the genius literary mind.

  He told Keira, “Hey, babe, you should write about your tongue. That stands out.” She hit him, thank goodness. That let out a little steam from my desire to bludgeon him.

  I logically see what a jerk Jacob can be, but that doesn’t seem to be enough to get my body from having charged feelings for him. OMG, I could solve the energy crisis with the feelings this guy stirs up in me!

  To make matters worse, at one point, Keira said, “Danielle, do you have a date to prom? Because Jacob has a friend who wants to go, and he’s like just a little chubby but super nice. Do you want to go with him?”

  “No, but thanks. I’m going with my boyfriend.”

  W
hat the hell was I thinking? I don’t know, but now I have to remember to ask Daniel to be my pretend boyfriend for prom.

  I hate my crazy emotions, and I hate the God that made this emotional chaos possible. Oh, and I tangentially hate the teacher who put me face-to-face with the object of all my conflict. During class, I heard my father’s voice say, “Danielle, work is the antidote for worry.” This was a little past worry, Dad, and trying to work in that situation was impossible. I didn’t come up with any good ideas for that ridiculous essay.

  *ME-MOIR JOURNAL* 4/23

  Daniel and I watch The Big Lebowski

  Daniel and I stayed up too late on Friday night and watched a movie he insisted I see. It was called The Big Lebowski, and he said if I watched it I would learn to abide in the proper way, and I would laugh heartily, which I did. The movie was revelatory.

  First off, I saw that people have problems that never even occurred to me. Cutting off your toe to make money is beyond nuts. Also, I had no idea that people take bowling so seriously. It was really an obsession with these people. Beyond all the craziness, there was something so enticing about this film. It may be that it had mythic elements, which is something we are talking about in English right now.

  Myths are these universal stories that come about and last and last over thousands of years because everyone can relate to them. We have mythic symbols and mythic relationships that just are. It’s kinda amazing to me. A hero is a mythic symbol. In a way, Jeff Bridges is a hero in that movie—albeit, a very lazy one. The narrator with the really cool deep voice says “He’s the man for his time and place” and in Los Angeles, nonetheless.