Inside Out

by Terry Trueman

  Stormy looks at the little girl who peed her dress, then asks the waitress girl who works at the coffee shop, “Is there a rest room back here?”

  The waitress girl grabs a wastebasket next to where she sits and throws up into it.

  “Shit!” Frosty says.

  The guy who tried to grab the knife puts his arm over the girl’s shoulder and yells at Frosty, “Asshole!”

  Frosty points his gun at the guy and yells, “Fuck you! You had to go be a big hero!”

  Frosty hurries over and grabs the big knife off the shelf and throws it out the doorway, into the main room of the coffee shop.

  A phone, sitting on the desk right next to me, rings. I pick it up and say, “Hello?”

  Frosty yells at me, “Hang that up!”

  The man on the phone yells, “What’s happened in there?”

  So I answer, “The little girl peed her dress.”

  “You shot her for that?” the voice yells.

  I answer, “No.”

  “HANG UP!” Frosty yells again.

  “That was a gunshot, wasn’t it?”

  “It just went off,” I say.

  Frosty points his gun at me.

  The man on the phone asks, “You shot her by accident?”

  “She’s not shot.”

  “We heard a shot!”

  Just then I see where the bullet from Stormy’s gun went.

  “The desk is shot,” I say.

  “Who?”

  “The desk is shot, right through the drawer.”

  I look at Frosty, and he cocks his gun, pointing it at my head.

  “Listen, son,” the cop says, sounding calmer. “You need to throw your weapon out and just come out of there before somebody gets hurt....”

  “Wong-gong—gong-wong.”

  Why does he think I have a weapon? How can I throw it out if I don’t have it?

  “Throw it out … throw up … throw rug …”

  Frosty’s coming toward me.

  “Are you still there, son?” the voice asks, interrupting my thoughts.

  I say once more, “The desk got shot.... I gotta go now.”

  I hang up the phone.

  Frosty stops and stands there staring at me.

  I’m wondering whether I should have said “Have a nice day” before I hung up.

  But now I notice that everybody is staring, and they are all dead quiet.

  “Did you have a nice chat?” Frosty asks.

  “I dunno. I was wondering whether I should have said—”

  Frosty interrupts, yelling, “Why the fuck did you pick up the phone?”

  I say, “It was ringing.”

  Frosty asks, “Did you really think it was for you?”

  The second he says this, I remember my mom. I look at my watch. It’s three fifty-seven!

  “Wow!” I say. “My mom’s waiting for me. I need my medicine. I gotta go, now.”

  I start to stand up, but both Frosty and Stormy jerk up their guns and point them at me.

  Frosty says, “You’re not going anywhere. What’s your name?”

  I look at their guns and sit back down. “Zachary McDaniel Wahhsted.”

  “Zachary,” Frosty says.

  “Zach,” I say. “Not Wasteoid, okay?”

  “Okay,” Frosty says. “Zach, not Wasteoid … you got it. Listen, Zach, if the phone rings again, it’s not your mom and it’s not for you, so leave it alone, okay?”

  I say, “Sure, Frosty. I’m sorry.”

  Actually I’m not really sorry, but people usually stop being mad at me whenever I say it.

  Frosty says, “Just don’t do it again.”

  Suddenly there’s the loud sound of footsteps running on the roof. Everybody in the room looks up, as if we could look through the ceiling.

  Stormy says to Frosty, “Cops?”

  Frosty answers, “No, Rudolph and Blitzen and Shitzen and Santa, too. Of course cops! Christ!”

  The footsteps get louder.

  Even though I can see that Frosty doesn’t want me to say anything more, I can’t stop myself. “The bad guys with guns in that Pulp Fiction movie shoot a lot of people.”

  Frosty is still looking up at the ceiling, but he says, “Yeah, they do, they sure do.”

  He keeps looking up, but he asks, “Have you ever shot anybody, Zach?”

  I shake my head no, but I don’t tell him I almost did. Me.

  Frosty, still staring at the ceiling, says, “I haven’t shot anybody either, Zach.” He pauses a second and looks around at all of us sitting here. “But there’s always a first time.”

  6

  Clearwater State Hospital—Transcript of videotaped recording of Zach’s second session with Dr. Curtis:

  Dr. Curtis: “When a brain works the way yours works, Zach, you can’t tell what to feel. If I were to tell you that your mom is dead and that the candy machine is out of candy bars, which news would make you sadder?”

  Zach sits very still, glancing around the office, expressionless and without any emotion. Finally, after several moments, Zach responds.

  Zach: “Would they put more candy bars in the machine pretty soon?”

  Frosty and Stormy are in the corner, whispering back and forth again, looking at Stormy’s gun and arguing.

  The sound of the cops on the roof is gone now, but there’re still lots of cop sounds outside in the front. I guess even though they said they’d give Frosty and Stormy time to think, the cops aren’t going anywhere.

  I feel a little better since Frosty explained about not shooting anybody. Frosty’s a nice guy for an armed robber, I guess.

  But it’s almost four o’ clock now—I’m trying hard not to worry about what might happen if I don’t take my medicine pretty soon. I’m trying hard not to worry about Dirtbag and Rat showing up either, which sometimes happens when I’m late with my meds. I’m trying not to worry, but trying not to worry isn’t the same as not worrying.

  Frosty walks over and picks up the wastebasket that the girl threw up in. “You done with this?” he asks.

  The girl nods.

  Frosty carries the wastebasket across the room and sets it on the floor in the open doorway. He pushes it so that it slides out into the other room of the coffee shop.

  Now he turns around and looks at us. He says, “I’m not sure how in the hell things got so out of control here. None of you are shot yet and none of you will be, but you gotta cooperate. No more hero shit!”

  I look around at everyone while Frosty is talking. The guy who tried to grab the knife still looks really mad. The two old ladies just stare at the floor. The girl who got sick isn’t looking up either, but she stares off into space, like she’s in shock or something. Suddenly I have a terrible feeling about her, she could be a zombie—her eyes are red and her skin is white and she stares into space like she’s not really here. She could definitely be a zombie, she really could. I’m gonna have to keep my eye on her.

  Since Frosty got rid of the wastebasket, it doesn’t smell like throw-up in here anymore, which is good because I hate the smell of barf. The two suits look like they’ve looked the whole time, scared Laurel and Hardy look-alikes. As I look at everybody, I notice that none of them look at me and I wonder if I’m invisible right now. People don’t like to look at me, so they pretend I’m invisible. You know, maybe I am?

  I jerk my arm up into the air real fast like I’m raising my hand in class, then pull it down just as fast. Everybody looks at me, then looks away, except the skinny suit, who stares at me with a completely grossed-out expression, like he’s looking at a worm or toe jam. Then he says, “Jesus,” and shakes his head.

  The fat suit says, “Just ignore him—he’s nutty as a fruitcake.”

  I ask them, “Do you like maple bars?”

  The fat suit says, “Shut up, nut job!”

  Frosty says to the man, “You shut up.”

  The fat suit shuts up.

  Everybody does. I leave my arm down at my side. I guess I�
�m not invisible. I guess that’s a relief … kind of....

  Man, I need my medicine. Now I feel the weird feelings, bad feelings under my skin, like ants are crawling over me, or like there’s something horrible swimming in my blood.

  “Wong-gong, wong-gong—you’re a stupid wong-gong.”

  Maybe I am....

  I’m starting to feel worse and worse.

  7

  Clearwater State Hospital—Transcript of videotaped recording of Zach’s second session with Dr. Curtis:

  Dr. Curtis (holds a photo album that Zach seems to recognize): “Your mom brought this in. She thought it might help you remember who you are.”

  They look at the photographs in Zach’s family album. After a while, Zach starts to cry. “That’s not me,” he says, “not anymore.”

  The phone rings. This time I just leave it alone.

  Frosty picks it up and says, “Hello.”

  Frosty is quiet a few moments. Now he yells, “Back off. We’re working on it!”

  Then he says, “Uh-huh,” a couple times, nodding his head.

  Now he says, “I’m sixteen, why?”

  Frosty listens for a couple seconds, then yells, “Bullshit! You’ll try us as adults; I see that shit in the newspaper all the time. Hell, last year you guys wanted to try a nine-year-old as an adult! A couple years ago I remember somewhere they executed a fifteen-year-old.”

  Frosty listens again for a while, and now he says, “Oh, you promise, huh? What’s that supposed to mean to me? Will you put it in writing?” He hesitates for a few seconds and says, “I’ll think about it.”

  He listens some more. Now he says, “No, really, I mean it, back off and I’ll think about it.”

  Frosty says, “Okay,” a few more times. “Yeah, I got it.” He hangs up the phone and just stares at the floor.

  All of us sit and stare at him. Finally Frosty turns to Stormy and says, “The cops say that they won’t charge us with kidnaping if we let everyone go in the next ten minutes. They also say they won’t charge us as adults, which means that maybe we won’t do jail time, or at least not as much. They say they’ll charge us as juveniles.”

  I blurt out, “Like juvenile delinquents.”

  Frosty says, “Yeah, Zach, just like juvenile delinquents: real-life, kidnaping, gun-toting, coffee-shop-robbin’ J.D.’s. Shut up, okay?”

  I say, “Okay.”

  Stormy says to Frosty, “Ten minutes?”

  “Yeah,” Frosty answers.

  Stormy asks, “And they’ll put it in writing?”

  “Yep,” Frosty says, but then he adds, “Course, we don’t know what that means exactly. They could just tear it up once everybody is free and they’ve got us, right? I mean, if we ask for a lawyer, how do we know they won’t just take some cop, hide a gun up his ass, and he’ll waltz in here and blow us away? We don’t know any lawyers. Johnny Cochran probably isn’t available, and Mom sure as hell doesn’t know any lawyers.”

  Stormy says, “Mom? Are the cops gonna tell Mom?”

  Frosty sighs and says to Stormy, “Yeah, I’m sure they will once they get us. I mean, come on, think about it.”

  “I don’t want them to tell Mom,” Stormy answers. He looks again like he might start to cry, then says, “She’ll blame herself.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Frosty says, “but we can’t do anything about it now. This whole thing was one dumbass idea.”

  Stormy says, “She’s too sick.... she’s—”

  “Just don’t think about it, okay?” Frosty interrupts, “We’ll figure it out later. Right now we gotta find some way to get out of this.”

  Stormy nods, but I think he’s still upset, because he keeps staring at the floor and won’t look up.

  The skinny suit says, “My brother-in-law is a lawyer.”

  Frosty looks at him and says, “Great, good for him. How’s that help us?”

  The skinny suit says, “Maybe he’d come down and witness the agreement, you know, make sure the police do what they’re supposed to do.”

  Frosty thinks about this for a few seconds and asks, “What kind of lawyer is he?”

  Skinny says, “He does probate and estate planning, you know, so that when you pass away your relatives can inherit your property while minimizing their tax burden and—”

  Frosty yells, “We don’t need any help making out a damned will, and we’re not dead yet, asshole!”

  Skinny shuts up.

  The phone rings again.

  Frosty snatches it up real quick, “Listen, asshole,” he yells “we’re talking about what to do, we’re …” He stops suddenly. His face turns real red. “I’m sorry,” he says. “No, ma’am.” His voice sounds different, quiet now. “No, ma’am, he’s fine, honest!

  “I’m sorry,” he says, then, “Yes, he’s right here.”

  The next thing, Frosty turns to me. He puts his hand over the phone and whispers, “Sorry, Zach.” He sounds like he’s just had a bad spanking. “It’s your mom!”

  8

  Patient discharge note from Dr. Cal Curtis re: Zachary Wahhsted:

  Zach states that the “wong-gong” words are still with him, but that they aren’t as loud or frequent as they previously were. He is well medicated and ready for a trial release to his family home (an excellent, caring environment). One concern: Zach states that when he’s late with his meds, he feels “weird in every inch” of his body; in schizophrenic adolescent males this kind of sensation is frequently associated with a high suicide risk.

  “Hi, Mom,” I say, and my mom starts to cry. “Don’t cry, Mom. I’m sorry I’m late, but Frosty says I gotta stay.”

  I say, “I’m sorry” again, because I know that’s what normal people say when somebody is crying and because saying it always makes my mom feel better.

  “Are you okay, honey?” Mom asks. She’s stopped crying, so the “I’m sorry” worked.

  “Yes,” I answer. “But I’m kinda hungry.”

  “Okay, honey,” Mom says. Then she asks, “Zach, are you hurt at all?”

  I think about it. “My butt’s kinda sore,” I say.

  Mom asks real quick, “What did they do to you, Zach?”

  “The floor is hard and kinda cold.”

  “Oh,” Mom says, and asks, “Are the guys who are holding you being mean?”

  “No,” I say, although I’m not sure exactly if that’s true or not. I mean, having the guns pointed at us is kind of mean, I suppose. But Frosty hasn’t called me Wasteoid once, and Stormy just seems to do what Frosty says. So I don’t know for sure.

  Mom says, “I’ve gotta go, honey. The police need the phone. But I’m waiting here for you, okay? The police can’t let me come in, but I’m waiting right here, Zach, okay?”

  “Okay, Mom,” I say.

  Mom asks, “Is there anything else you need? Is there anything we can get for you?”

  I think about it for just a second. I look at the zombie girl again. She makes me nervous. “Yeah,” I answer, “I need my medicine.”

  Mom says, “I know, honey, I know. The police can’t let me come in, but I have it right here.”

  9

  Letter from Dr. Calvin Curtis to Ms. Emily Wahhsted, mother of Zachary Wahhsted:

  Many times patients like Zach believe that it is the medication that makes them feel poorly. They lower their dosage without telling us. At first things sometimes do seem better. Patients often believe that maybe they will be all right without their medicine. This is an extremely dangerous misperception....

  After I hang up, I think more about my medicine. I’m really worrying that Dirtbag and Rat might show up soon. But maybe they can’t get through the cops—maybe. I hate it when they come—it’s the worst. Lots of times I’m a little late with my meds and nothing bad happens, but when I’m under stress … well, sometimes … I don’t even want to think about it....

  “Listen up,” Frosty says. “I want to let you guys outa here. This wasn’t supposed to go down like this, and this offer fro
m the cops sounds like our best chance. But I don’t trust the police. We have our reasons for doing this, and they’re important, so don’t think we won’t do what we have to. But if there’s some way we can get you guys out of here without screwing us up, we’ll do it.”

  The nice-smelling old lady sitting next to me says, “You might think you have a good reason, but it’s still wrong!” Her words sound even meaner than before.

  Frosty looks at her and quietly says, “You wouldn’t understand, lady.”

  But the old lady keeps talking. “Whatever’s wrong in your lives, do you think it will help anything for you to go to jail? You think it will help anything if the police gun you down like a couple of dogs?” Her voice is like she’s swearing even though her words aren’t swear words.

  The other old lady touches her friend’s arm and says, “Ethel, please.”

  The mean lady says, “Well, they deserve whatever happens to them. They’re punks!”

  The nicer lady says, “They’re just boys whose mother is ill....”

  Stormy asks, “How’d you know that?”

  The nice old lady looks up at him and says, “I heard you mention something about it. That’s right, isn’t it? Are you boys doing this to try and help your mother?”

  Stormy starts to answer, “Yes, ma’am. We need money to—”

  Frosty interrupts Stormy. “Shut up,” he says. “Listen, lady, no offense, but it’s a private family matter.”

  The nice lady looks at Frosty and nods. She turns to her mean friend and says softly, “They’re just boys, Ethel.”

  Frosty looks at the ladies and takes a deep breath. He doesn’t say anything. He looks pissed. Why did that old lady have to say the thing about them being gunned down? I don’t think that helped.

  Stormy asks Frosty, “We gonna let them go?”

  Frosty nods. “I guess so. We’re gonna have to do something, or the cops are gonna bust in here sooner or later.”

  “What if the cops are lying about everything?”

  Frosty answers, “We’ll have to take our chances.”