“Let me ask you another question, then.” His voice was so gentle, so comforting. Sometimes I wished I could have an appointment with him every day. “Why do you think when you told Emmet you were ready, he suggested you talk to me?”
It was funny. I’d wondered that ever since Emmet said it, but now I wondered about it in a totally different way. I glanced up at Dr. North, wanting to say that but finding myself unable to articulate what I meant. I could barely get it straight in my head. It was an odd little nugget, like a spark of light in fog.
Emmet hadn’t been correcting me. He hadn’t been judging me. He wasn’t suggesting I do this because he wanted to help me. He and David—and Sally and Tammy and Dr. North, and the Washingtons—only wanted me to succeed. Not fix me because I was broken.
For a bright, shining moment I could see it so clearly, feel it all the way to my feet. But then doubt crept in, and the light winked out.
Dr. North smiled gently—not sadly, but in his way, which left space for me to feel. “It’s difficult, sometimes, to get out of the habit of believing everything is a test, a challenge. That everyone is a judge. Difficult to trust that people might be there for us out of love.”
Well, now I felt bad. My cheeks got hot. “I don’t mean to not trust Emmet. Or David. Or you.”
“I would suggest, in fact, the greater issue is sometimes you can’t trust others because your greatest difficulty is in trusting yourself, that a good-faith effort is enough. That saying you want to attempt to climb this mountain of your fear is something to be proud of. That the work you do with David is precious to many people. That in the months since we met, you’ve covered a great deal of ground. That you don’t have to compete with other people and their expectations of you. That first and foremost you should seek to live a life which gratifies and completes you—and striving is more than most people ever do.”
His words swam in my head, beams of light through my omnipresent fog. I let out a long, slow breath as the ideas took root where they could. When I was ready, I glanced at him, and this time it was me who raised my eyebrow. “So if I say learning how to survive Target gratifies me, and I try to do it, even if I don’t make it, I’m doing a good job? And that’s not stupid, or pathetic, though a lot of people survive Target every day?”
“You aren’t a lot of people, and they aren’t you. Trust me when I tell you many, many people would cower at the mountains you face, if the struggles your depression and anxiety give you were as visible as David’s quadriplegia.” He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “I see you, Jeremey Samson. I don’t see all of it, but I see more than most, and I’m impressed.”
Our session ended not long after that. It was funny how we hadn’t mapped out a plan, and yet I’d never felt more ready to go.
We made our first Target run on a rainy November Sunday morning.
Emmet and David went with me, and Sally drove us in the van that let David’s chair drive up the ramp. Sally came along too, since my job was to go to Starbucks and get her a coffee.
“But I’ve gone to the Target Starbucks a lot,” I tried to point out. “It’s where I sit and wait when I get overwhelmed.”
“Right. This first time, we want to all but guarantee a positive outcome.” Sally patted my shoulder. “Get going, hon. I’m ready for a latte.”
I felt kind of dumb, putting in my headphones to walk twenty feet through the doors to the Starbucks counter. The chairs were too close for David to go up comfortably, so he waited by the tables as Emmet went up with me. I took my headphones out as the barista smiled and asked me for my order.
“A grande vanilla latte with skim milk, please.” I gave her Sally’s Starbucks card and put it in my pocket once she’d swiped it. Then I put my earbuds in while Emmet and I waited at the other end of the counter.
I didn’t listen to “Happy” this time. I listened to “Welcome Home, Son” by Radical Face on repeat. It felt right. I’d say it worked, except like I said, I’d never melted down ordering coffee.
They all applauded me anyway when I went to the van.
“We’ll come tomorrow morning before Emmet goes to class,” David said.
I frowned. “I could go again now. Maybe go to the card section.”
“Go slow. Don’t push it.” Emmet’s gaze was over my head, but he smiled. “You did a good job. Be happy.”
I thought it was pretty pathetic, but they kept telling me I was awesome, and I admit, it was nice.
We did go the next day. I wanted to go to the cards, but Emmet pointed out that was where I’d started to get nervous last time. “Let’s walk down the first aisle to the end. We’ll go to the men’s underwear and turn around.”
I got nervous by the time we passed women’s pajamas, which was only halfway to the underwear. I started to breathe heavily, and David nudged Emmet to take my hand. Emmet did, but first he signed for me to look straight ahead and listen to my music. Nodding, I fixed my gaze at my goal and listened to the lead singer. It was “Welcome Home, Son” again.
I made it to the underwear, but my breath was shallow and fast. I tried to practice AWARE, and it helped a little to think of the things the acronym stood for, but mostly I focused on not passing out. Sally had me stand there a second and recover with my eyes shut. I tried to act as long as I could, but eventually I gave the sign that I needed to leave. Then we got the hell out of there. When we got to the van, they all cheered, but mostly I felt as if I’d been through the wringer.
“You did great,” Sally said over and over. “You didn’t melt down. You were nervous, but you did what you said you would. That’s excellent progress! I think you deserve ice cream.”
We went through the Dairy Queen drive-through. David got a malt, which we had them thin a bit more and put in his special cup that he could strap to his wrist. He grinned at me as I clutched my Blizzard, still too shaken to eat.
“You were awesome, buddy. Give it a day or two, let yourself recover, and we’ll do it again.”
And that’s exactly what we did. Over and over and over. Every time we went, Emmet and David and either Sally or Tammy went with me. We went to men’s underwear four times, until I could get there and back as easily as I could order a latte, and every time, whether I panicked or not, we went to get ice cream. Every time, I listened to “Welcome Home, Son”.
“I still think you should listen to Pharrell,” David told me one afternoon when we were riding the bus to campus.
“I’m waiting to use it for a victory lap,” I confessed.
He grinned. “I like that you’re thinking about victory laps.”
It wasn’t always easy to think about success, though. Emmet was right—there was something about the card section that tripped me out. When we started heading that way, I panicked every time. I was mortified, but Emmet never was.
“I think you should switch your song. And try sunglasses.”
“I’m sorry I keep messing up,” I said.
Emmet rocked on the couch beside me. “You’re not messing up. You’re learning. Are you using AWARE?”
I was a little sorry I’d taught him the acronym, because he hounded me mercilessly to use it. “Yes. I’m trying.”
“You need to expect the best, but don’t be so upset when things aren’t perfect. But I still think you need a new song.”
Emmet sat up with me that night trying to find another song to play in the aisles. After considering a lot of popular songs that didn’t feel right, Emmet pulled up someone I’d never heard of on Spotify.
“His name is Derek Paravicini,” Emmet said. “He’s autistic, like me. He’s a savant, which means he has a mental disability, but he’s good at a skill, better than people on the mean could ever be. He’s blind too, but that has nothing to do with how he plays.” He held out his headphones. “Here. Try this song.”
It was simple piano, and I didn’t know th
e tune, but the readout said “It’s Only a Paper Moon”. It was light, bouncy and simple. Paravicini was amazing. I watched the TED talk about him and understood the kinds of obstacles he’d had to overcome—and did. Beautifully. I read the lyrics to the song, about how everything is fake, except for belief. I listened to that song and others of Derek’s over and over. I lay in bed, on the couch, curled up beside Emmet or by myself, listening to the music and imagining myself making it past the greeting cards.
Just past them, I told myself. Just to the wrapping paper. I shut my eyes and imagined myself doing it. With my friends. Alone. With headphones. Without. I imagined it over and over.
And eventually, I did it.
Playing Paravicini’s “It’s Only a Paper Moon”, I made it past the greeting cards. The first few times I huddled in a ball in the van after, David and Emmet and Sally reassuring me, but I managed it only shaking a little. I was AWARE. And then I went farther. And farther, and farther.
I never told anyone about it, but I figured out the places which were the worst were the ones where I’d been with my mom or dad and they got angry over my panic attacks. Sometimes I could see them in my head, like they were hovering at the end of the aisle, frowning at me. I did what I could to erase them from my mind. I wore sunglasses so they weren’t as bright. I accepted that they were there with me whether I wanted them there or not. I watched them and rated how upset they made me…or didn’t. I listened to Derek Paravicini, imagining him learning music without being able to see, unable to understand the world in the way even I could. Sometimes I imagined Derek walked with me, holding the hand Emmet wasn’t.
David and Sally and Tammy always cheered me when I did well, but Emmet only smiled and said, “Good job.” His praise made me feel the best.
I had to take a break on my “Target practice”, as David liked to call it, during the Christmas shopping season. It was too busy and crowded and sent me backward on some of my progress. I also had some tension with my parents during that time. They wanted me to come home for the holiday. I wanted to stay at The Roosevelt, or go to the Washingtons. Or David’s house. Anywhere but what had been my home.
For most of December, I was busy practicing telling my parents no, then processing through feeling guilty because I finally did.
After Christmas, though, everything changed. It helped I’d had a good holiday with my boyfriend and my best friend, and the residents of The Roosevelt. I’d made cookies, sung carols, helped David shop online for his family and do the wrapping. I got Emmet a gift with money I’d earned from working with David: it was a complicated, angular art piece I’d seen in the window of a gallery downtown. It was unusual but beautiful in a way that reminded me of Emmet.
David convinced the artist to give me a break on the price, and I’d bought it. Emmet loved it. His present to me was a computer program that had an image of me—with my real head on a cartoon guy—dancing down the aisles of a busy store while “Happy” played in the background.
During the second week of January, that’s exactly what I did.
We’d been to Target a few times where everything had been fine, and I’d played “Happy” for those trips. David was right, playing it reminded me of The Roosevelt, and I danced a little while I went through the aisles, like I did in the lounge with David. David saw me one time, and I could tell he had a plan from the wicked look on his face. On the way home, he told me.
“I think we should go to Target again tomorrow. You, me and Emmet. And Sally or Tammy. They’re going to take a video. We’re gonna be a baby flash mob, you, Emmet and me. We’re gonna play ‘Happy’ on my iPad with a Bluetooth speaker to boost it, and we’re gonna dance in the fucking aisles and put that shit on YouTube after.”
I balked, but before I could say what a crazy idea that was, Emmet grinned and said, “We should wear our Blues Brothers costumes while we do it.”
David barked out a laugh and held up his hand for one of his and Emmet’s awkward high-fives. “Fuck yeah. Oh, shit. We might go viral for that. Come on, J. What do you say?”
I wanted to say no, but they looked so excited. “What if I can’t do it without headphones?”
“You keep your headphones,” David said. “The speaker is for everybody else.”
“But what if they’re not in sync?”
“I can make them play the same,” Emmet said. “No problem.” He grinned and rocked in his seat. “I want to be a viral video as Elwood Blues. Too bad we can’t sing ‘Everybody Needs Somebody’.”
“‘Happy’ is more flavor of the month. Well, it’s a little passé now, but it’s closer than the other one. Plus it’s more fun to dance down the aisle to, and it happens to be the song getting your man through big box stores.” David raised an eyebrow at me. “So?”
Of course they convinced me.
We didn’t go the next day, since Tammy wanted us to practice. She taught us some choreography, helped David figure out how he could safely weave through Emmet and me. Emmet did his usual Blues Brothers dance, but I needed help so I didn’t feel so self-conscious. I worried I would freak out with that much attention, but I did want to try. For Emmet, for David and for me. I could see it in my head. If I could do it, it would be amazing. I expected the best as much as possible.
The day we went to do the flash mob video, Emmet and David and I went alone to the store. We took the bus, which meant we had to walk from the stop to the door, but that was okay. We laughed and teased each other, and I gave myself a pep talk, saying I could do it, and if it turned out I couldn’t do it yet, that was okay.
Tammy was there waiting, and so was Bob, and Marietta and Doug and Althea. They were so excited, waving and grinning as we walked past the jewelry counter. The Target employees were looking at us curiously, but when David started flirting with the female clerks, they smiled and followed us.
At the greeting cards, Emmet started our music, and we danced.
David wiggled his shoulders to the beat and made his chair swerve as part of his dance step, the way we’d practiced. I couldn’t hear them, only the music in my headphones, but I saw David singing along, or at least moving his lips. Emmet moved in front of us, doing his Elwood dance.
I laughed and wiggled my butt a little, then weaved with Emmet and David as Tammy had taught me. Ahead of us Sally and Doug were both filming. A guy I didn’t know was smiling and filming us too.
A woman shopping nearby smiled at us. David said something to her, and the next thing I knew, she was blushing, but she was dancing too. She danced with us all the way to the grocery section. First it was that woman, then another, then a grandpa and his grandson, then four employees, and the next thing I knew, Emmet and David and I were leading a dance line through the store, like something out of a movie. We were a real flash mob. We were cool. We were making everyone happy, including ourselves.
I was nervous the whole time, I’ll admit. I never once had gone to Target without knowing a panic attack was a possibility, a pit waiting for me if I wasn’t careful. I had to be so, so careful while we danced, while we were such a public spectacle. On the one hand, it was easier, since the stimulus was controlled—we were the stimulus. But sometimes I simply got nervous from exposure, and when that happened, as we’d agreed, I fell back behind David’s chair. Every time I did, he hammed it up more, egging Emmet on to dance more aggressively, swerving his chair more wildly. Basically, they took attention off me, gave me space to get my head back in the game.
Maybe I wasn’t ever as flashy as either of them, but the fact that I was willing and able to dress up and dance in a store that had made me tremble at the thought of it only a few months ago was an out-and-out miracle.
When I had courage enough, I got in front of David and boogied down like I was dancing by myself at home in my bedroom.
I was happy. I was amazing. I’d conquered my fear—or at least learned how to drive it a lot better.
When the song ended, everyone clapped. Everyone took pictures of us, with us. We were the Blues Brothers. We were the cool kids.
As the barista brought me over a free coffee, smiling as if I’d made her day, I realized I was always this cool. I’d just been waiting to figure it out.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Emmet
When the second semester of classes started, Jeremey was really good at being in public. David started going to ISU, and he took Jeremey with him.
Jeremey wanted to take an online course through Des Moines Area Community College over the summer, but otherwise he wanted to help David. One night when we were talking on the couch, he told me what he wanted most for a job was to be David’s aide, one who would work all the time and would stay. That would mean getting his Patient Care Technician certification, which wasn’t a lot of school, but still made him nervous. I thought about how he’d conquered Target and learned to manage his panic attacks, and I told him to start with the one class and see how it went.
I liked having Jeremey and David on campus at Iowa State. We had no classes together, and David was only part-time, but on Wednesdays we met for lunch in the Memorial Union or at the Hub, if the menu was good. I enjoyed having lunch with them, though if they weren’t along, I kept to myself on campus. I knew people in class, but I didn’t have any friends in my classes. When David and Jeremey were with me, we were the Blues Brothers, even if we didn’t have sunglasses on.
One day in early February, we were going to the bus stop to go home, singing, when some frat boys went by. They muttered something mean under their breath and laughed at us. That was when I found out I’d been right about David all along, that he was one of those guys. What I hadn’t understood until then was that he was one of those guys on my side.
David stopped his chair, spun it around. “Excuse me, asswipes. Were you saying something?”
The frat boys glanced at each other, their faces too complicated to read. They started to go faster, but David’s chair can go up to fifteen miles an hour, and he caught them. He almost ran them over.
Carry the Ocean Page 25