Thirty Hours: a semi memoir of psychosis and love

by KL Evans

  Several people in the circle mumbled and groaned, while I found my eyes shifting all over the room as I wondered how the hell I’d landed myself in this situation.

  “How am I supposed to be grateful for this bitch?” one man piped up from across the circle. “She’s done nothing but cheat on—”

  “Felix, abusive language will not be tolerated,” the group leader said calmly. “Maybe you should go first.”

  Felix exhaled loudly, dropped his head between his knees, and scrubbed his hands through his close-cropped hair.

  “Just try,” the group leader nudged. “Think of one thing… What’s your name, ma’am?”

  “Angelica,” the woman next to Felix said.

  “Angelica, are you his wife or girlfriend?”

  Angelica’s cheeks reddened and she spoke through a pinched voice. “I’m his wife. And I only—”

  “That’s not what we’re here to talk about,” the group leader said. “Go ahead, Felix. One thing you’re grateful for about Angelica.”

  Felix exhaled again and squeezed his palms together so tightly his knuckles were white. “She’s a good mom. And she—” He abruptly stopped to rub his hands over his face. “She’s a really good mom. And she works hard. She’s taken good care of us while I couldn’t find work.”

  Angelica’s face was three shades redder and tears were streaming down her cheeks. A man to her left passed her a tissue box.

  “Thank you,” she said to the man, and that seemed to set Felix off.

  “What the fuck? I’m pouring my heart out to you and you talk to him!”

  “Babe, I was just saying—”

  “This is the constant problem!” Felix hollered. “She’s always talking to everyone else but me!”

  I like people-watching. After all, it’s part of my job and I couldn’t help assessing what appeared to be wrong with those two. Felix was insecure and probably self-absorbed and probably neglected his wife. Angelica must’ve been exhausted by working and taking care of kids and a husband who was clearly a handful. The whole scene was a sideshow and I was a judgmental asshole.

  “Okay, Felix,” the group leader cut in. “That was good. Let’s keep the profanity to a minimum, everybody.” She glanced around the room and her gaze landed on you and me. “Charlie, would you like to go next?”

  You lifted your head away from my neck. “Yeah.”

  You looked at the group leader, then at me, and your cheeks flushed, and for a second there was pallid honesty in your expression. Or at least I perceived as much. You made a face like you realized how out of place I was and how ridiculous my being there next to you was, but that only lasted for a beat before you produced a piece of paper and unfolded it.

  “Dear Seth. I know you think I’m crazy,” you began, and I managed not to purse my lips or exhibit any kind of expression that said, you’re right. “And maybe I am, but I wasn’t always. At one time, I was normal. Nobody’s born crazy. Things happen that make people crazy. Things happened to me, a lot of things happened to me.” You stopped and choked on a sob, and I stared at the floor. “And you’ve only known me after those things, so you’ve only known me while I’ve been crazy. I’m supposed to tell you one thing I’m grateful for, but I’m grateful for a lot more than one thing. I know you were only with me for all those weeks because of your job, but I really needed someone to just be there and you were there. I know you’re not my boyfriend and maybe you don’t think we’re friends, but I needed a person and you were my person during the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through.

  “I was really mad at you at first. When I first got here, I was so mad at you because I didn’t want live in a world without my sister. But I’ve been thinking a lot this past week and I’ve realized I do want to live, even if it’s in a world without my sister, and I wouldn’t be living right now if you hadn’t been there.”

  You set the paper down, reached for my face, lifted my chin, and said, “You saved my life, Seth. You gave me a second chance. And I am so grateful for that.”

  The room suddenly felt like a microscope, and I was a petri dish, and your words were the inoculation, and I was fucked.

  Ava had been talking so much about me and you and us, and she wasn’t right in her assessment when she initially made it, but right then, with all of those people watching us while you poured your heart out… Ava’s assessment was suddenly accurate.

  I still didn’t understand how it had happened, and it was a really horrible idea, but there it was. There it had happened.

  Or maybe it was before that. Maybe it was that harrowing moment when I found you in your room. Maybe it was that feeling of you yawning against my lips in the emergency room. I don’t know.

  Ava was also right when she said I don’t understand what love is, so I didn’t know for sure if that’s what I was feeling even though that’s exactly what it felt like.

  Does anyone really understand something like that? Can anyone be in such a situation and be able to make an accurate evaluation of the root cause of their emotions? Can feelings like that ever be logical or make sense?

  Or is love just a decision? Do you stare those emotions in the face and say, this is what I’m feeling and this is what I’m calling it. I was hesitant to make such a call and I sure as hell didn’t say as much to you. I didn’t know what to say at all.

  Furthermore, the microscope of group therapy with a bunch of strangers was definitely not the place I wanted to vocalize any feelings of any kind, so I finally decided on, “I’m glad you feel that way. I’m glad I could be there. And you’re welcome.”

  For good measure, I picked up your hand and held it in my lap. You pressed your face against my shoulder and, like you, I wished we could just leave. Why and where would we go, I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything.

  Actually, no. I knew one thing. I was right about your suicide attempt, and you finally knew that, and you finally agreed with me. In my mind, that was the most important thing.

  The group leader moved on to another person in the circle and your face was still smooshed against my arm, and I felt like I owed you more than what I’d said.

  “Charlie,” I said, keeping my voice quiet, and you looked up at me with big, teary eyes. “I am your friend. I’m still here for you.”

  “Don’t say that, Seth McCollum.”

  So suspicious. So weird. I spoke into your ear. “Did something happen to you? Is something going on here?”

  “No, Seth, of course not.”

  Suspicious. Weird. You kissed me again and slipped your tongue between my lips that time, and if that was supposed to a distraction, it worked because I sat patiently and quietly with you for the rest of the group session.

  And before I left, in the privacy of your cell-like room, I did the same thing to you. I can’t decide whether that was a good idea or not.

  Hour Twenty-Four

  Fuck.

  We’re running out of time.

  I don’t know how I know. Don’t ask me how I know. I can just tell.

  What now? What next?

  You were in the psyche ward for another two weeks and I came almost every single day. On the days I couldn’t come, I talked to you on the phone. I read to you. Sometimes from the newspaper. Sometimes from books. I read you my articles in progress, my notes, anything I could think of to keep you on the phone for as long as possible because I got this sense that your newly stable state was actually you clinging to your sanity by a very thin thread.

  The problem was I didn’t entirely trust you. You kept calling me Seth, not Seth McCollum, and something about that was suspicious. Weird. But I didn’t know why and figured I was simply still reeling because—in case I haven’t mentioned this yet—finding someone near-dead and your serendipitous finding of them in such a state being the only thing that saved them has a tendency to stay with you. Rather, it has a tendency to stay with you and fuck you up.

  That stretch of time was like a juggling act. I do have a job, you know. And trying
to keep you sane while trying to pay attention to and understand what was going on with Missy and Christian was a lot like that scene from I Love Lucy when Lucy and Ethel are working in the chocolate factory. Except I got no chocolate. I got nothing but insomnia and heartburn and my first couple of gray hairs.

  Missy is a single mother and Christian is an irreverent, smart-mouthed little shit, albeit a really smart irreverent, smart-mouthed little shit. I liked him right off the bat, even though the first time I met him, he took one look at me, turned to his mother, and said, “Where the fuck did you find this foppish mother fucker?”

  Missy popped the back of his head. “Watch your mouth, child. This is Mr. McCollum. He’s a reporter and he’s going to write an article about us for the Morning News.”

  “Call me Seth.” I offered my hand and he slapped my palm.

  “Why the fuck do you want to do that?” he asked.

  “I will not hesitate to stick a bar of soap in your mouth, son,” Missy threatened with a pair of harshly raised eyebrows.

  Christian took a seat and mumbled, “Sorry, Mama.”

  That particular afternoon, they met me at the same café where you and I had met the last time I saw you before everything changed. Ava, being nosy and clingy and having nothing better to do with her time, had offered to drive them there due to Missy’s car breaking down and apparently believed this was a social gathering because she’d ordered a spread of hors d’oeuvres. I noticed Missy and Christian began stuffing their faces like they hadn’t eaten in weeks.

  “Your mom tells me you’re a really good student,” I said.

  “And?”

  “What’s your favorite subject?”

  “Psh. None of them.”

  “Come on, man.” I was trying to talk to him like I was his age and felt ridiculous. The look he gave me told me the feeling was spot on. “If you’re making perfect grades there has to be something you like.”

  “I like when the asshole teachers get off my back,” he said without missing a beat. “I like the first day or two when I’m at a different school. I like when people leave me alone.”

  That was new information and I glanced at Missy before looking back at Christian. “How often are you at a different school?”

  “Psh.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. At least a few times a year.”

  “Why?”

  “Well,” Missy cut in, “we don’t have a stable place to live. We haven’t for a while. So when we change places, he usually has to change schools.”

  “You guys move a lot?”

  Missy opened her mouth to answer, but Christian beat her to it. “We don’t move. We just don’t live anywhere.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re homeless, Seth,” Ava answered for both of them.

  Actually homeless or Ava homeless, I wanted to ask.

  “We’ve been staying in my car for a while,” Missy said sheepishly.

  “Really. How long is a while?”

  “I just can’t seem to get ahead,” she deflected.

  “We’ve never lived anywhere,” Christian said. “We’ve stayed in Section 8. We’ve stayed in by-the-week motels. We’ve crashed at people’s apartments. We’ve slept in the DART. We mostly live in the car.”

  “So, because we don’t have a consistent address, he has to go to different schools,” Missy explained.

  “How is that possible?” I asked. “It seems like the school district would make accommodations for your situation. Maybe even offer to help.”

  “They don’t give a fuck, bro.”

  “Christian,” Missy warned.

  “Well they don’t. If this guy wants to know what our life is like, there’s no point in sugar-coating it, right?” He turned to me, cocked like a pistol. “What do you have to say to that, Seth?”

  I didn’t have much to say to that because there wasn’t anything to say. My own employer had recently published a pretty damning exposé on corruption within the Dallas school district and I had a feeling this smart-mouthed kid had not only read it, but was also now challenging me to keep defending the guilty parties. “Is your dad around?”

  “Psh. Fuck no. As if that would make a difference. My dad was an ignorant piece of shit.” He shook his head as he pulled out a cigarette and lit up.

  “Will you stop that?” Missy growled, slapping the cigarette out of his hand, and sighed. “He’s eligible for a number of scholarships because of his grades and our… our um… our status.”

  Christian scoffed. “Pity money.”

  “He doesn’t want to go to college,” Missy added. “Even though he’s eligible for a full ride to a number of the state universities.”

  I raised my eyebrows at Christian as I couldn’t help thinking about the latest bill for my student loans that was sitting on the kitchen counter back in my apartment—the student loans for which I now owe more than I originally borrowed, despite the fact that I’ve been paying them for seven years. Suddenly suicide doesn’t seem like such a bad idea, amirite?

  Sorry. That’s not fucking funny. Not in the least.

  “Really?” I asked Christian. “Why not?”

  “First of all,” he said, perching forward in his chair as if he was about to give me the schooling of a lifetime, “when someone like me gets handed something like a free ride to college, you have to work twice as hard as everyone else. You have to bust ass because college is hard as fuck anyways. And then you have to bust ass because everyone thinks you’re there not because you’re intelligent and a good student, but because you got a fucking charity handout that the university has to give to someone to meet some kind of philanthropic quota instituted by the state so they can maintain their federal education funding.”

  Keep in mind that Christian is seventeen. He’s a seventeen-year-old smart-mouthed little shit, and a really, really smart one. I friggin’ love Christian and if something ever happened to his mom, I’d adopt him. I told Missy that at some point and it made her smile, and that made me believe there was hope for me to become less of a selfish asshole. But, of course, that’s a hypothetical situation and the actual situation is that I’m still a selfish asshole.

  At the time, however, I just thought he was crazy, and I stopped acting like a reporter for a second and more like someone who had some kind of position in his life to have an opinion about anything he was doing.

  “Are you insane? You have the opportunity to have your entire undergraduate education paid for. You can make a future for yourself and get out of the world you’re living in. You must be insane because you’d be out of your mind to pass that up.”

  “Psh.” He scoffed again. “And what kinda future would that be, Seth? Dressing up in a suit when it’s five billion degrees outside so I can kiss Big Corporate’s white ass my entire life? Fuck that noise.”

  “Wouldn’t that be better than how you’re living right now?” I glanced at Missy. “I mean, no offense, Missy, but—”

  “None taken,” she said. “I agree with you. But he won’t listen to me either.”

  “Man, you two need to back off.” Christian huffed and lit another cigarette. “I met this guy all of fifteen minutes ago and he’s over here trying to be my stepdaddy.”

  “I’m just trying to understand why you would pass up an opportunity like this,” I said. “I’m sitting on almost forty thousand dollars of student loan debt that, unless I get some kind of major promotion, I probably won’t have paid off for another twenty years.”

  He shrugged flippantly. “Maybe you shouldn’t have gone to college. Or maybe you should’ve gone to a cheaper college.”

  Christian is you part two. Charlie 2.0. In more ways than I care to list.

  “If I didn’t go to college I wouldn’t have a job right now.”

  “Well, you also wouldn’t have forty grand in debt.” He took a long, slow drag while he let that sink in, and then gestured at me with the cigarette. “Besides, I got a job. I didn’t need a forty thousand dollar piece of paper
to get it either.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “Subway,” Missy answered for him, smug, unamused, and fed up.

  “But it’s a job, Mama!” he hollered, dropping the cigarette and stomping on it. “I could be out slingin’ drugs, but I’m not. Maybe you should be thankful for that.”

  “Maybe you should be thinking about your future,” she shot back. “This is the plan you have for your life? Work at Subway until you’re an old man and rack up a criminal record a mile long just so you can stick it to the man?”

  “You’d rather me end up like this?” Christian asked, flipping his palms toward me as if presenting me as exhibit A. “With a mountain of debt and a slightly less shitty job? You know newspaper reporters make only a little bit more than Subway pays, right? And everyone hates them. From where I’m sitting it seems like I’ve got the better set up.”

  His assessment was painfully accurate and I managed to avoid a pathetic, self-deprecating laugh.

  “You wouldn’t have the debt if you would just fill out the goddamned applications!”

  He slammed backward into his chair, shaking his head and visibly fuming.

  “Okay,” I said, suddenly remembering myself and what the point of the whole meeting was. “Christian, if you could do anything you wanted, any job in the whole world, what would it be?”

  “I’d do exactly what I’m doing now.”

  “You’d work at Subway?”

  “No, man. I’d paint.”

  “Well, there you go. You can study art or art history or—“

  He cackled. “Yeah, no. I’m not going to college to be some whiny, flamboyant art major.”

  “So when you say you want to paint, that means you want to deface public property.”