Cameron and the Girls

by Edward Averett

  It doesn’t matter. Life is all made up.

  “No,” I say.

  My dad sneaks a peek from the corner of his eye.

  “I mean yes,” I add.

  What if my dad isn’t real? What if all of life isn’t even real and your real life takes place on some alternate planet? Where only voices live? I think of what The Girl said. What if we are the voices in their heads?

  “That would suck,” I say out loud.

  We get to the hospital, and my dad parks almost exactly in the same spot as before. He holds on to me extra tight as we walk toward the ER. Instead of glass, the door looks like a solid dark entrance, covering up something evil that’s going to happen inside.

  “Oh my God,” my mom shouts as she sees us come through. She runs up and pulls my head into her. I can hear her sniffling in my ear. “I thought you were dead.”

  “I should be,” I say. And I can feel her pull back just the tiniest bit.

  “Don’t say that,” she says into my shoulder.

  I know times like this are supposed to feel comforting, but the truth is, I still can’t feel anything right now. My emotional pump, the machine that dredges up the right way to feel, has completely broken down.

  Beth and Dylan are standing back near the nurse’s station. Beth has her hand in Dylan’s. She smiles at me, but I close my eyes.

  Just reach right up and put your hands around her throat. Then they’ll know you mean business.

  “No,” I say loudly, and I pull back from my mom. “Not what I want.” She tries to get ahold of me, but I slap her hand away.

  “Cameron,” she barks. “Stop that.”

  My dad’s big hand comes out and clamps on my shoulder like a vise. “That will be the end of that, young man.”

  “I’ve got to find Nina,” I say.

  “Then we will go with you,” Dad says.

  He steers me with his tight grip. Dylan and Beth part to let me pass.

  I whisper “Benedict Armpit” as I slip through them. I am determined to find Nina. That is, until I turn the corner and there stands Dr. Simons, wearing a white coat and holding the end of the world in his hand.

  “You told me,” I say. “You said I could make up my own mind.”

  “Cameron,” he says as he steps toward me, carrying the syringe. “I said that’s true as long as you can take care of yourself. If you can’t take care of yourself, then the law provides for the state to take over.”

  I step back and run into my father. I can feel the heat from his body. “This is a free country,” I say. I expect my dad’s hands to hold me again, but instead Dr. Simons holds up the syringe.

  “You need rest,” the doctor says.

  “No, wait. Not yet. Where’s Nina? Got to talk to her first.”

  “Cam.” It’s my mother lurking behind my father.

  “Don’t talk to me,” I say.

  “It’s best if you come along,” says Dr. Simons.

  I look at him and then to my family. I see fear in everybody’s eyes, but it’s not the kind of fear that makes them run the other way. It’s more the kind that’s worried about what I might do to myself. It makes my dreams sag.

  “Okay,” I say to Dr. Simons. “But they have to stay out.”

  I know I’ve hurt them, but this is too important for me to have them looking over my shoulder. Dr. Simons takes me by the arm, and we walk down the hall. About halfway down, he motions me to a room.

  The lights are bright and twinkling off shiny yellow walls, and I have to shade my eyes till I get used to them. Dr. Simons motions for me to get up on the examining table. The paper crackles as I do.

  “I don’t want to do this,” I complain.

  “I know,” he says. He starts rolling up my sleeve, but I pull it away.

  “No, I really don’t want it to be over.”

  “What don’t you want to be over?”

  I look back on the last few weeks and think about what I’ve done. “My good life.”

  Your good life? You mean the best life ever. It doesn’t have to go away, and you know it.

  Dr. Simons nods and looks down at the syringe before catching my eye. “From my point of view, your face doesn’t look all that good. Actually, you look scared.”

  “But that’s good,” I plead. “At least I feel something.”

  Although I do feel afraid of the voice that keeps getting stronger and meaner, I also know Dr. Simons knows absolutely nothing about living with fear and how much better it is than living with nothing. But I’ve never gone this far before, and I just don’t know for sure.

  “I want to ask you one question first,” I say. “You never did answer it before.”

  “All right.”

  “Is it possible to keep only some of the voices, or do I have to keep them all?”

  Keep them all, big boy. You can handle them all.

  Dr. Simons sets down the syringe and pets his chin with his fingers. “I can’t exactly say for sure, but my guess would be that you can’t pick and choose. You get what you’re given.”

  Pick it up. Pick up the needle and . . .

  I want to trust Dr. Simons, and it feels like he’s talking from the heart. “But that’s not fair,” I say. “With everything wrong with me, can’t I have just this one thing?”

  “You’re right, Cameron. It’s not fair.”

  It’s as if I’ve exhausted all my options. No pardons for the crazy boy. “Can I have a few minutes by myself?”

  He is skeptical and I don’t blame him.

  “I won’t do anything,” I say. “I promise.”

  He nods. “But this time there’ll be someone right outside the door.” He picks up the syringe as he leaves.

  He’s gone and I can breathe easier. Around me I see jars filled with absorbent swabs and tongue depressors. The walls tell stories about how to prevent the flu. My body feels jittery, as if I’ve had too much caffeine for three weeks. I kick at the base of the table. I am a hostage here. The rest of the world is outside the door. The rest of my life lives in that syringe Dr. Simons is guarding.

  Hello, Cam. That was a close one. There must be some way out of this.

  “God, I’ve been waiting forever to really talk to you.”

  What’s the plan, Cam? Is it a good one like the railroad bridge?

  “We have to talk,” I say.

  My favorite thing.

  “I don’t think I have a plan,” I say.

  There is a silence like death. Now it seems as if the whole world has its ear pressed against the door.

  Are you just going to let them do this to us?

  “No. Course not,” I quickly say, but then, more slowly, “but I don’t know what to do.”

  So you’re giving in? Listen to me—it doesn’t have to be this way.

  “It’s all changed.”

  What’s changed?

  “The Other Guy. I saw him at the table. I don’t know what to do with him, and he’s getting worse. It’s as if he’s taking control. Can’t you feel him?”

  He’s not that bad.

  “He almost made me hurt Nina.”

  Oh, her.

  “Nina’s a good person. I don’t want to hurt her.”

  But you want to hurt me, Cam.

  I take a moment to collect my thoughts. They are a jumble still, and I have to pick and choose the words that float by. “But Nina’s real,” I finally say.

  And me?

  I hear sniffles.

  “You? You’re perfect.”

  Perfect isn’t enough for you?

  “I don’t know,” I say. “All I know is that I don’t want to hurt anybody.” I struggle for the words. “But it’s too hard to be normal right now.” When I say this, a strange feeling occupies my mind, as if I were shaking, but my hands are calm. “Are you okay?”

  I’ve just heard I’m not good enough. And I’m about to go away forever. Would you be okay if that happened to you?

  I can’t talk because of the big rock in my t
hroat.

  I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was just being, you know, me.

  “I love you,” I finally say. “I’ve never known anyone like you before.”

  Oh, Cam. We’ve been through so much together. Remember the bridge?

  “Yes.”

  And the roof? Sleeping in the same bed?

  “I do remember.”

  And telling off Mrs. Owens the way we did?

  Laughter.

  Can’t I please stay?

  So this is what it’s like to feel real pain. My heart is wrenched and I grab at my chest. Is this normal? Is this what I want in my life? “I can’t,” I say. “I wish I could keep you, but I can’t. That other guy, he’s taking over.”

  Oh, Cam. Sometimes you have to take the bad with the good.

  From out of nowhere, I see a little peephole of light deep in my brain. “They tell me you’re just a voice I hear in my head,” I say.

  I hear her sweet laughter again.

  That’s so funny, isn’t it? I mean, when you and I both know different.

  “We do?”

  You and I both know that you’re a voice in my head.

  I still can’t take this in. My mind flails from one idea to another.

  You make me stronger, Cam. I can’t live this life without you.

  “But, no. It’s not . . .” But she may be right. Who am I to say? Maybe I had it entirely backwards all along. Maybe I was right before about my dad and the whole family, my whole life, not being real. I shake my head. Does this guessing never stop?

  Cameron. I don’t want us to die. Please.

  One recognizes the finality of this moment. One has chosen well. We all must find our own places.

  “But it still hurts,” I say.

  I hear The Girl’s sadness and feel like I’ve betrayed my best friend. Feel my own failure. I realize it’s now or never. If I don’t do something now, I may never get out alive.

  I step down from the table and open the door. True to his word, Dr. Simons is standing right outside it. The rest of my family is grouped not far away. I guess they won’t make the same mistake twice at this hospital. Dr. Simons comes in and takes the cap off the syringe.

  “You ready?” he says.

  I nod and close my eyes, thinking about love and understanding and the ups and downs of my life. Then I feel a touch on the back of my neck, and fingers caress me. Her fingers. I reach out and grab Dr. Simons’s arm and hold tightly. There is a slight pinprick, and then I feel a thick solution infiltrating the muscle in my arm. But unlike in the past, I’m calmer now as it works its way inside me.

  “I love you,” I say, but I hear nothing back.

  Epilogue

  They have me on the fifth floor at Saint John’s again. It’s the loony bin, but they call it Five West. That’s so it won’t hurt our feelings. And believe me, they’re all about feelings here. I share a room with two other guys, but they’re way out of it, so we don’t talk much.

  They tell me it’s three days later and that I’ve been sedated most of that time. I feel logy, but I’m mostly awake and I can follow what’s going on on the TV overhead. My brain is back to the way it’s felt for most of the time since all this started. Cobwebby. There is a tiny militiaman at every neuron, making sure nothing and nobody gets through. Since we are supposedly the type that can never control our feelings, they make sure no big unmanageable ones ever crop up.

  I’m up now, wearing a stupid gown. At least they let me put on my boxers underneath. I look in the mirror and see a stranger. My hair is stiff and stands straight up like shaved wheat. My teeth are protected by a thick coat of ugly film. It is in this fine state that I greet Dr. Simons.

  He’s as cheerful as ever. “Okay, then,” he says. “I see the patient has swum up to consciousness.” His white coat flows around him like swirling snow as he hurries into the room. “You feeling okay?”

  I shrug. “How am I supposed to feel?”

  “Good, good,” he says. “Listen, I think we’ll be letting you go home in a couple of days. How’s that sound?”

  I twirl my finger in the air.

  “Good, good. Well, we can talk about all this later. For now, you’re making a good recovery, and that’s what we’re most concerned about. Anything else?”

  “I was wondering if you could tell me about Nina.”

  “Ah yes, Nina,” he says, his eyebrows curving down. But then they do an immediate uplift. “You know about confidentiality, Cameron.”

  One of those little brain guards must have been asleep on the job because upon hearing this, I feel a rush of pleasure. “She’s alive, then?”

  “I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

  We both know what he’s really saying. “Thank you,” I say.

  “A little later, your parents are coming,” he says. “I want us all to talk.”

  “Okay.”

  “In case you wanted to go for a little walk on the ward,” he says, “room five-oh-eight has some interesting elements to it.”

  When he’s gone, I reach under the bed with one foot and pull out my slippers. Snuggling into them, I venture out into the hall. There is a quiet hum all around. It’s not like a regular floor; here people don’t need clanging surprises. I immediately walk down and check out the numbers on the doors: 511, 510, 509. I stop in front of 508. The door is slightly ajar, and I can see shadows moving around inside. I’m about to knock, but the door swings open and a young woman in a pale blue uniform comes out carrying plastic trays. She sets them on a cart near the door.

  “Is it okay to go inside?” I ask.

  “Sure,” she says. “She’s awake and she’s the only one in there.”

  Nina’s sitting up against the pillows, brushing her hair, and the first thing I notice is how pink her face is compared with when I last saw her.

  “I was wondering when you would stop by.”

  “I’m here too,” I say.

  “Yeah, I can see that.” She sets down the brush, and some of the thin strands of her hair try to go with it.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “For what? You didn’t do anything.”

  “But I should have—”

  “Listen, Cam, it’s demeaning to try to convince me I can’t make up my own mind. It was my idea to do what I did. Not yours.”

  This is not going the way I thought it might, so I find a chair and sit down at the side of her bed.

  “I’m back on the meds,” I say.

  “Yeah.” She licks at her lips and adds, “So am I. So much for going our own way.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I wish you didn’t take so many.”

  She starts brushing her hair again.

  “I saw all my voices at the table in my house,” I say.

  She turns to look out the window. “I don’t think I want to share war stories about your psychosis.”

  “I’m just saying.” I start to feel shaky, so I stand up. She runs the brush once more through her hair. “Well, I guess I’ll see you,” I say.

  “Did the doc give you a discharge date?”

  “A couple of days. How about you?”

  She shrugs. “He hasn’t said. He wants me to go to these gross-out groups, but I don’t think I will.”

  “Yeah. Well, hold out for what you think is right.” I raise my fist and shake it.

  “Cameron, I need to tell you something,” she says. She takes in a deep breath. “The time with you, even when it got a little crazy, was the best I’ve ever had.”

  “But look what you did to yourself,” I remind her.

  “So you can imagine what the rest of my life’s been like.” She bites her lip.

  I’ve got to learn this from Nina, this knack of taking life for what it is. “Can I come back and visit while we’re both still here?” I ask.

  A trace of a smile plays on her lips. “Sure,” she says. “And we can lock the door and let them try to break us up.” Then she turns away and stares out the window
again. But before I’m out the door, I hear her say, “I want you to practice this. It’s N-i-n-a. Nina. That’s my name. Remember it.”

  True to his word, Dr. Simons has the family all grouped together later that afternoon. Even Beth is there, but she looks nervous to be on this particular floor.

  “Well, I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief,” Dr. Simons says. “We’ve dodged a bullet this time.”

  “Can we please not use gun metaphors?” says my mom.

  “Sorry,” Dr. Simons says. “First off, do you have any questions?”

  He’s looking at me, but it’s my dad who answers. “We’d like to know what the future holds.”

  “Excellent question,” Dr. Simons says, rubbing his hands together. “And I wish I had an excellent answer. The truth is, with the kind of disease Cameron has, it’s possible that he will continue to have short-term episodes for an indefinite period of time. But it’s also possible that at a certain age, he could stop having episodes.”

  “Isn’t that good news?” my mom says to me.

  I shrug. It’s about the hundredth time I’ve heard this, and I’m not as happy as my mom seems to be.

  “I’m stressing the word possible,” Dr. Simons says.

  But I don’t hear anything else. Dr. Simons once told me that I need to learn the difference between a vision and a fantasy, and while sitting there, I wonder if Dr. Simons needs to learn the same thing.

  In two days I’m back home. There’s no good answer to how I’m feeling. It all looks pretty much the same. In the car, I thought they might have put up ribbons or a WELCOME HOME, CAMERON sign, but it was a no-go on that one.

  I sit down on my bed and dangle my hands between my legs. It’s weird and doesn’t make much sense. Do you put an alcoholic right back in the bar? Do you put a drug addict back out on the street? Do you put a crazy kid back in the same old house?

  I hear two sets of footsteps climbing the stairs, and I quickly check to make sure I’m presentable. Mom and Dad are at the door. Dad is so tall that I can’t see his hair. Mom comes to his shoulder. Both of them have that look on their face.