Reckless Years

by Heather Chaplin

  Sunday, March 23, 2008

  New meds. No images for twenty-four hours. Is it possible who I am is determined by a few milligrams of some drug?

  I am very, very weak, but I am alive.

  Tuesday, March 25, 2008

  Peter and I don’t talk much as we walk back from the hardware store. He’s carrying our bags because I’m too weak to carry a glass of water more than a block.

  When we get home, we spread out garbage bags on the floor under the windows and put the plastic trays we’ve just bought on top. In each tray, we put the little biodegradable cones the guy at the hardware sold us, and then Peter looks at me and raises his eyebrows and I raise my eyebrows back and he knows to go ahead and cut open the bag of soil.

  We’re surrounded by little paper packets. Lavender, rosemary, thyme, sage, and cilantro. Lupines, Lilliput zinnias, cornflowers, peonies, sunflowers, and snap peas.

  I open the pack of lavender and peer in.

  “Dude,” I say, “this is never going to work.” I’ve already said this about six times, and Peter answers as he always does.

  “Dude, it will.”

  I tilt the pack of lavender into my hand. What looks like a bunch of extracted blackheads falls out.

  “No way,” I say. “I’m not stupid. You cannot tell me that one of these dots”—I wave my hand under Peter’s nose—“is going to turn into a flower.”

  “They will,” Peter says.

  I’m highly skeptical, but I plunge my hand into the bag of soil anyway. I forgot how much I like the feeling of running my fingers through dirt. I bring out a handful and let it fall into one of the little cones. I pat it down gently with the tips of my fingers.

  Sakura comes along and sniffs in the bag of soil. Then he stares at us like we’re a couple of idiots.

  “He doesn’t believe it,” I say.

  “Yeah, well, that dog is a cynic,” Peter says. “Borderline nihilist.”

  “I’ve decided to become a nihilist,” I say.

  “You can’t,” Peter says. “You’re too into flowers.”

  I grab the pack of lavender from him. “Let me read these instructions,” I say. “If we’re going to do this thing we need to do it right.”

  We have thirty-six cones in our trays and we fill each one three-quarters of the way up with soft black soil. Then, with our fingertips, we poke a hole in the middle of each one and drop in a few seeds. We brush the soil back over the indents, and when we’ve finished we gently pick up all the trays and put them in the window ledges.

  “Water,” Peter says.

  “Water,” I affirm, and go to the sink, where I fill up two watering cans. Peter starts on the left and I start on the right and we water our way into the center, so that all our little cones are damp and a thin layer of liquid covers the bottom of each tray.

  Sakura puts a paw up on what was his window ledge.

  “He’s pissed,” I say.

  “He’ll get over it,” Peter says.

  It’s just noon and the sun is pouring in those big back windows as if it were midsummer. We’re both squinting.

  “So now what?” I say.

  Peter wipes the soil off his palms onto the front of his jeans. He looks over at me.

  “Now we wait,” he says.

  Sunday, March 30, 2008

  I’ve interacted with Kieran three times since I got back. The first time I wrote to apologize for not responding to his email apologizing to me, and he was like, oh, I’m fine, I just wanted to make sure you were fine. And I’d thought, wow, Kieran is a pussy just like the rest of them. Then we talked on the phone and I told him I was having a hard time. He said I had more friends than anyone he knows and I should reach out to them. He said he would always be there for me because of how much I’d given him, which was sweet, but, based on past experiences, I take as more symbolic than literal. This morning he called and we talked for a long time. He was talking about his ex-wife and how tormented he is that she’s settling down with someone. Finally I just said, “Of course you are, you’re still in love with her.”

  There was a pause and then he said, “How long have you known that?”

  “Always,” I lied.

  “Jaysus, girl,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  Friday, April 18, 2008

  San Francisco

  Billy Santiago holds the sprig of lavender up to his nose. He sniffs it. He looks at it. He tosses it onto the ground.

  “It’s not that I don’t have a sense of smell,” he says, striding on. “I’ve checked with other people. I’ve done experiments. I seem to experience the same thing other people are experiencing when I hold something to my nose. It’s more that I don’t have any internal reaction to it, not the way it seems other people do. It’s like, I don’t care that there’s a smell.”

  I’m trotting to keep up with him. At least I’m not trying to record as we walk. I’m in San Francisco, in the Mission, breaking from our interview to get a burrito. I’m sweating and shaking and my teeth feel like they’re rattling in my head, but if I’m appearing outlandish in any way, it doesn’t seem to be affecting Billy. But then, Billy isn’t affected by the smell of lavender so who really knows. This morning when I was taping him, I could see the mike in my hand perceptibly shaking, but he didn’t seem to notice anything.

  I don’t know why exactly I’m sweating and shaking, but I have a feeling it’s because of some other changes Dr. Chester made to my meds. Or maybe traveling again was a bad idea. I was so psyched to have beaten the images that I threw a party, stayed up all night making out with an editor from Knopf, did two stories back-to-back, and then got an ear infection and had to do the last one in bed. I am so broke, though, I cannot afford to turn down the work. And my friend who went through a horrible divorce is getting married tomorrow in Sonoma and I wanted to show my support. Now I think maybe I was being stupid. It’s like I don’t learn. I must be the most exasperating person in the world. Is this why Eleanor has stopped returning my calls? I’ve never heard her so upset as when I told her I was coming out here.

  I run to keep up with Billy. He is without a doubt one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. He told me earlier, in passing, that he thinks in multidimensional visualizations. He’s supposed to be one of the best programmers in the world. When I asked him about this, he said, “Yes.” Then he resumed staring at me.

  Billy says his game is a model of what enlightenment might look like. He says it’s about what happens when you realize science is so much weirder than the mind can fathom and that reason will not lead you to the answers.

  Later

  Sonoma

  I didn’t last long at the reception the night before the wedding. I didn’t know anyone there except my friend, but he’s the groom, so what was he going to do, stand around talking to me all night? I tried to insert myself into a circle of laughing people by standing near them and laughing too, but they didn’t expand the circle to include me. I went and stood by myself at the edge of the bar with a glass of champagne, trying to look beautiful and alluring and waiting for some man to come and start talking to me—but no one came. I went and stood by the buffet eating Sonoma nuts and dried cranberries and tried to look alluring there, but still no one came. I realized, I am the only single person here. It was all couples. Men with their arms draped around women. Women with their hands tucked through men’s elbows. You are alone, I thought. You are entirely alone.

  It was an open-air reception in the redwoods, so I couldn’t just leave without everyone seeing. Finally, I tiptoed away through the woods and found a little bridge to the hotel where I’m staying. The bridge had a sign saying “Danger: Do Not Pass.” There was a picture of a guy falling backward with a red “no” symbol through him. There was only a tiny bit of water under the bridge, but it was about ten feet down. I tiptoed across it as lightly as I could, holding my breath and trying not to imagine a jump cut to me lying in the creek below with a broken back while everyone came running to see why I
was sneaking out of the party across a bridge with a big sign saying “Danger: Do Not Pass.”

  When I get back to my room, I stand with my eyes closed against the cool tile of the bathroom wall. Trying not to vomit. Then leaning over the toilet. Trying to vomit. After a lot of dry heaving, I splash cold water on my face. I look in the mirror to see who’ll be looking back at me.

  My skin is very, very, very white. Not as white as a dead person’s, but not quite as rosy as a living person’s either.

  You’re the ugliest person I’ve ever seen in my life.

  My mouth turns down at the corners like a kid about to cry. No, I’m not.

  Yes, you are.

  Later

  Peter writes, “A guy came into my class today, and he said that when he looks around all he sees is data flowing. I was thinking, if you had a mind that saw data, and you thought in three-dimensional space, you might not be interested in smelling flowers either. You’d want to see the connections, not the beauty. Or maybe the connections are the beauty. I don’t know.”

  Then, later: “Actually smell is important. Smell brings up memories and memories are connections. My girlfriend in high school loved lavender, so I gave her a pillow stuffed with it. Then it turned out I was allergic to lavender. Lavender + puberty = allergies and glasses.”

  I write, “Heather + puberty = acne and fat.”

  Peter writes, “Yeah, but I still have glasses and allergies.”

  Later

  I sneak back across the bridge to the party and say good-bye to my friend and his bride-to-be, as if I’d been there the whole time. I tell them what a great night it’s been. What I really want to say is, you’re making a terrible mistake. In fact, I want to scream it. I imagine myself grabbing those bottles of Sonoma microbrews and smashing them on the floor one by one and then collapsing in a writhing, sweating heap onto the broken glass. Would that bring us any closer? I think again how very, very slim the line is between doing something and not doing something. At this moment, it feels like it’s just a breath of air between me staying in control of myself and a complete loss of all bodily functions.

  Back in my room

  I think, the beauty is in the connections. How did Peter get so smart? Right now the only connective tissue I feel is to the past. Like Peter and his lavender pillow, only so much uglier. What are these things in my mind? Am I really connected to them? I don’t want to be. I want to be connected to the people at the party, to this room, to the stars outside me. To what’s happening now. But nothing. Nothing. I thought I was better. I thought I was overdramatizing the voices. The minute the images left, I told myself they’d never been there. I shouldn’t have thrown that party. I shouldn’t have stayed up all night with the editor from Knopf. I shouldn’t have come out here. Eleanor was right. I should have stayed home. I should have stayed home a long time ago. It’s happening again. I’ve been ejected from this world. I’m sliding away. The thing that waits outside my door will get me soon.

  Saturday, April 19, 2008

  It is time to get your shit together. You have come for this wedding. You will attend this wedding. You will enjoy this wedding.

  Okay. Okay. I’ll go, I say to the voices.

  I have a beautiful dress from that same Barneys Warehouse sale in that other lifetime. It’s lightly form-fitting silk with a soft, low V-neck, spaghetti straps, and the tiniest train—just maybe six inches of extra fabric—in the back. It’s got green and pink flowers on it that are edged in matching beads. I wear it with little silver slippers and, since they were giving them out, a parasol over one shoulder. The ceremony is outdoors among the redwoods, with a raised platform and rows of white folding chairs placed before it. I plant myself behind all the seats next to a tree with wide, low, spreading branches and try to take solace in thinking how beautiful I must look framed by my parasol and the green leaves, even if no one wants to talk to me.

  I’m approached by my friend’s business partner. Turns out he runs something at the University of San Francisco called the Center for the Future of the Internet and he’s very interested in my work. I can’t tell if he’s an actual geek or an ironic geek, but his wife is very pretty, which makes me think the latter.

  So things are going well. I have a little posse to hang out with, and I keep seeing men staring at me, even with ladies on their arms. By the time dinner is over, I’m loving my friend’s business partner and he’s loving me, and he keeps saying, “I have a project I want to talk to you about. Are you looking for work?” And I’m like, “oh, I don’t know, it depends”—not at all like, yes, God, please pay me to do something, because I’m about to be foreclosed on.

  Then I start to get sick again. Except this time it isn’t just the sweating and the shaking, which I’ve kind of gotten the hang of. This time it’s as if there’s some growth on my brain that is swelling at an inordinate rate and pushing against my skull and at my eyeballs from the inside out. I start seeing little silver dots swimming around in front of me, and, from one second to the next, half the room goes out of focus. My friend’s business partner says, “Are you okay? Did you still want to hit the dance floor?” Because we’d been just about to go dance. I flee. By the time I get to my room that thing has happened to me that happened in Dublin in my tangerine room. A break. Not a vague sense of slipping away—but a total break from one reality into another.

  I take off my dress. I’m sweating in a serious way, and not just on my face but all over my body. I’m shivering. I wrap myself in towels and climb under the blankets. I can’t find any words in my brain to correlate with anything I’m seeing or doing or wanting. Kieran is there, hovering, but every time I think, it’s okay, he’s here, I’m safe, he’s gone, and it’s just me and the shrieking. I want to say to him, please save me, but I can’t find words. And by the time I find the words, I don’t know to whom I’m talking anymore. Then, fear. It’s not the mopey feeling of being alone. And it’s not the fear of devils like in Dublin. It’s fear like I imagine you’d feel if someone were pointing a gun at your face or you’ve lost control of your car on a four-lane highway. I have my eyes closed, but I know there’s a man’s face above me. Heavy breathing—I can hear it; I can just almost feel it. I open my eyes. It’s gone, but I know it’s just outside the door. Then it’s right up against me again; it’s breath on my face. I squeeze my eyes shut. My heart is pounding. I think, here it comes. I think, no, not these connections. Please, Kieran, Josh, someone, anyone, where are you? Aren’t you going to save me?

  Suddenly, I’m leaning over the edge of the bed and retching onto the floor, except there’s nothing in my stomach to throw up, so it’s just enormous dry heaves, like my intestines are trying to come out through my mouth. And the owner of the face is right there in the room with me, crouching in the corner, biding his time, waiting for me.

  Total fear.

  Total clarity. I know exactly what is going on. Oh God, I think, please don’t let this be the end of my story—because it’s here, at last. It didn’t go away when I got rid of Josh. Kieran can’t save me. This thing, it owns me. That’s what I keep thinking. He owns me. No matter how far I go, it’ll always be there to drag me back. There is no now. There is only then. Don’t you see, it’s my father.

  * * *

  Tuesday, April 29, 2008

  New York

  What can I tell you about my father? That he wore his dark hair long and wild down to his shoulders. That he had brilliant blue eyes with long black eyelashes and a black beard. That when people found out I was his daughter, they said, you must be a very smart little girl, because your father is the smartest man in Baltimore. That when he came into my school every year to play the banjo, I clung onto his arm as we walked through the hallways so everyone would know he was my dad.

  Should I tell you that I loved him? That he broke my heart into so many pieces, no man in the world will ever be able to put it back together again? Should I tell you that I still love him? Even as the thought of him brings hands to
my breasts and up between my legs? I look at my friends’ kids, at their tiny, beautiful bodies, and I’m afraid to touch them, afraid I’ll accidentally damage them in some way. I have to look away when I see my male friends hold their daughters. I think, don’t touch her, don’t touch her. Fear has been a man’s face looming over me for as long as I can remember. Shame is the oldest feeling I’ve ever had.

  I’ve told you enough. I’m going back to sleep.

  Saturday, May 3, 2008

  I’m heavily sedated. This is because of the shouting. I don’t know how I made it back from San Francisco to New York. But when I walked in the door of my apartment, I started shouting and I couldn’t stop. I called Seth. He came over and sat with me that first night because I was so scared someone was outside the back door that the air around me was growing quivery and time was skipping around to some strange rhythm. Seth kept saying, “You know it’s not real, Heath. Right?” And I was thinking, no, it is real. That’s the whole point, although I will never in a million years tell him what is real. He doesn’t know about my father, and I won’t ever tell him. I don’t want him to know what I know.

  Peter always seemed to be about five feet away from me, his hands folded across his chest, looking like he was about to cry. Faith took the bus up from Baltimore. Eleanor came from DC. Summer called every day.

  Dr. Chester quadrupled the antipsychotic, tripled the antidepressant, and started me on sedatives every two hours. Then I stopped screaming. Instead, I cried. All day long, and at night too, as if that’s what I’d been put on the planet to do. I got sick again. The bronchitis came back and another ear infection just for extra measure. Then I stopped crying. I slept. For about a week, I just slept. It’s impossible to stay awake on all these meds. When I’m awake, I lie in bed and wait to die. I’m still waiting. There’s no craziness around it. No violent images, nothing frenetic at all. I just know I can’t stay alive knowing what I know.