by Blake Nelson
I drink from Trish’s stolen coffee. God, I’d love a shot of Jack Daniel’s, I think. Or a hit off a joint. Or anything.
“How do you even hang out with boys if you’re not drinking?” Trish asks, taking her turn.
“I have no idea.”
“It seems impossible.”
I draw a card and throw it in the pile.
“I think about parties I’ve been to,” says Trish. “And I imagine myself telling people, ‘Oh, no, thank you. No beer for me.’ What a joke. I could never do that.”
“Maybe you have to hide out.”
“I’m not going to hide out the rest of my life.” Trish draws a card, throws it on the pile.
“Maybe there are other ways to hook up,” I say.
“Cynthia says I’ll still meet people,” says Trish. “But what cool person our age can’t drink a stupid beer?”
We abandon our game and go outside so Trish can smoke. We sit on the bench. I curl my fists up in the sleeves of my old coat.
“You got a boyfriend at home?” Trish asks me.
“I’ve never had a boyfriend,” I answer.
“Why not?”
“I dunno. Must be my sparkling personality.”
“I was trying to remember if I’d ever had sex with someone when I wasn’t drunk,” says Trish. “I don’t think I have.”
“I know I haven’t.”
“I wonder what it feels like,” says Trish.
“Probably pretty good,” I say. “The way people go on about it.”
“I can’t imagine doing anything straight,” says Trish, her face illuminated for a moment by the burn of her cigarette. “I’ll probably just kill myself. I tried that once.”
“Yeah, how did that go?”
“I fucked it up. Like everything else.”
“I’ll probably start beating the crap out of people.”
“Really?” says Trish. “You beat people up?”
“Sometimes,” I say. “When I’m drunk. I’m sorta famous for it.”
“Really?” says Trish. “You, like, punch them? With your fist?”
“Yup.”
“That’s awesome. That’s so strong.”
“It’s a great way to meet police officers.”
Trish thinks for a moment. “I would love to beat people up. How did you learn to do that?”
“I got really, really drunk and then it just came to me.”
6
Most nights in bed, I Iie awake and squirm and stare at the bottom of Angela’s bunk. I think: God, I would love a shot of Jack Daniel’s. Or a vodka cranberry. Or a Vicodin. Or a bong hit.
Other nights I’m more calm. I lie blinking in the darkness and wonder what will happen to me. Will I finish high school? Will I get a job? Will I ever get married? Have I already ruined any chance at having a normal life?
Then one night I’m half asleep and I feel my bunk move. It’s Trish.
“Can I get in with you?” she whispers in the dark.
I’m not a big sleeping-with-other-people person. Especially girls. I’m sort of not into it at all. But Trish is crying. She must have talked to the girl she almost killed. There are tears running down her face.
“Okay,” I say.
She gets in and I scoot over. We lie there. It’s kinda weird. She can tell I don’t want to cuddle or anything, so she scoots over and turns her back to me, faces away. I kind of lie on my side too, like spooning but not really touching.
We lie like that and you can tell she’s trying not to cry, but she can’t help it. The bed shakes as she sobs.
“Are you okay?” I finally whisper to her.
She nods, but doesn’t answer. I stare at the back of her head. She’s had it much worse than me. She paralyzed her best friend.
I rub her back a little and she finally falls asleep. I fall asleep too.
Then we both wake up the next morning, when Angela accidentally kicks Trish in the head.
7
So tell me more about this nickname,” says Cynthia in her office.
“What’s there to tell?” I say. “They called me Mad Dog. Mad Dog Maddie.”
“And why did they call you that?”
“Why do you think?”
“Because you were aggressive and hostile toward other people?” she asks.
“That would be why. Yes.”
“Why were you like that?”
“Did you ever go to high school?”
“Yes.”
“And did you notice most of the people are assholes?”
“I thought most of the people were just people.”
“Well, at my high school, they’re mostly assholes.”
Cynthia nods. “What about the girls? Did you have any female friends?”
“Did you not hear what I just said? The people there were assholes.”
She writes something in her notebook. I hate it when she does that.
“Did you ever fight with boys?” she asks.
“Sometimes.”
“What did it feel like, hitting people, trying to hurt them?”
“Honestly?”
“Of course.”
“It was fun,” I say.
“Why was it fun?”
“It just was. It was exciting. It was a rush.”
“So it was almost like another drug, added to the ones you were already on?”
I shrug. “I guess.”
“So you weren’t actually angry at these people?”
“Of course I was angry at them.”
“But it wasn’t really anything they did. It was more because you needed that adrenaline rush.”
“Trust me. They usually did something.”
She tosses her notebook on her desk. “You know there’s a saying: ‘If you meet three assholes in a day, you’re the asshole.’ Do you think that could be true?”
“That I’m the asshole? No! Are you kidding me?”
She stares at me.
“No way,” I say. “I am never the asshole.”
8
The next movie night, Trish and I get dressed up. We don’t have much to work with but we buy some cheap makeup at the local Rite Aid and slut ourselves up as best we can.
When the van comes, it’s just Vern and this woman we don’t know. But Vern is in a good mood and he tells us dirty jokes all the way to Carlton. We laugh and goof around and try to gross each other out. The other woman is mostly horrified by the three of us. She’s like a suburban housewife who’s addicted to Ambien.
There’s only about ten other people at the theater. Vern and Trish and I make fun of the movie. And talk. And gossip about Juan in security. The other people don’t appreciate this. At one point someone threatens to call the manager.
“Just try it,” says Trish. “My friend Maddie here will kick your ass!”
“No, I won’t,” I say, shrinking into my seat.
“Yes, you will. And I’ll help.”
Afterward, back at the halfway house, Trish and I keep everyone up late watching America’s Next Top Model and playing gin rummy and drinking so much Diet Coke our eyes get fuzzy. Everyone tells stories about weird stuff that has happened to them with boys.
Angela tells about her cousin who started pimping her out to his friends when she was twelve.
Trish tells about losing her virginity in eighth grade when she was so drunk she couldn’t stand up. “That made it easier for the Hartley brothers,” she says. “I couldn’t get away.” This happened in her parents’ pool house, while her parents were having a party. Trish’s family is sort of crazy, it sounds like. You didn’t even have to leave the house to get into serious trouble.
My situation was the opposite. I was so bored at home I couldn’t stand it. I was always getting caught crawling out my window. Or trying to steal my mom’s Volvo. Or trying to hitchhike someplace.
Everyone is horrified when I tell them about the hitchhiking. They act like that’s the scariest thing they’ve ever heard of.
That night when I go
to bed, I’m totally wired on Diet Coke. It’s a terrible high, all chemicals and caffeine and my skin is crawling and I can barely stand it. At one point I get the squirmies so bad I kick off my covers and kick the wall about twenty times and then lie there breathing and cursing to myself.
Nobody says anything, though. Not even Angela, who’s right above me.
People freaking out at night isn’t that unusual at Spring Meadow. You kinda have to live and let live.
9
Then one day Trish starts gathering her stuff. She’s finished her eight weeks in the halfway house. She’s going home.
For some reason, I have refused to think of her as a real friend. But the minute I realize she’s leaving, I get so panicked I almost throw up.
I sit on her bunk and watch her fold clothes and put them in her suitcase. She’s worried about her cigarettes because she told her parents she quit, but she didn’t. She tries hiding them in various places in her suitcase. She wonders if she should maybe try to quit now. She goes outside to smoke while she thinks about it.
I don’t say very much. When Trish goes, the only young person in the house will be Jenna, and I’m not going to be friends with her. She’s horrible. She’s like a wild animal.
Trish gives me the makeup we bought at Rite Aid, and the barrettes and the lip gloss. She wants to give me stuff, like you do when you say good-bye to someone. I want to give her something too. But we don’t have anything, just our crappy clothes, sweatpants, and the junk they let you have in here: candy bars, gum, trashy novels.
She gives me a deck of cards she forgot she had and never opened. I give her a plastic key chain that has no real significance.
“I’m really going to try to stay sober this time,” she says to me quietly. “I never really tried before. I’m going to do yoga and meditate and go to AA and all that.”
I nod hopefully.
I help her carry her stuff onto the porch. Then we sit and wait for her mom. I look at the arm of the chair and think of all the people who have sat here, waiting to be picked up, waiting to start a new life. Not many actually get a new life. Most people go right back to their old life. That’s what Cynthia always says. The statistics are not pretty.
A black Cadillac Escalade appears. Trish’s mom gets out. And her little sister. Her mom is an older version of Trish, tons of makeup, cheesy highlights, prob able boob job. The little sister is dancing around in the reflection of the car windows, singing into a hairbrush. For a moment my heart sinks for Trish. This is the genius family who let her get raped in her own pool house.
Her mom picks her way across the muddy yard, trying to protect her designer shoes. But when she gets to us, she hugs Trish and I can see the strain in her face. And the worry. And the love.
It kinda kills me. It does. It breaks my heart.
The freaky sister hugs her too, and then Trish introduces me. I step forward and shake hands and the mom says, “Trish has told us all about you. She says you’ve been a great friend to her.”
“I didn’t really do anything,” I mumble.
“Thank you,” her mother says again, gripping my hand. “Thank you so much.”
Trish and I drag her stuff to the car. The little sister is still bopping around, sticking her ass out.
Trish gets in the passenger seat. Her mom starts the car. I stand there while Trish lowers her window. “Will you call me?” she says.
I nod that I will.
The Cadillac pulls away. I stand in the street watching them go. I feel like I’m having my heart ripped out.
It’s so weird being straight. You have no defenses. Shit happens and you have to feel it. You have no choice.
10
Without Trish, the whole house situation changes. It’s just me and a bunch of old hags basically. I stay in my room as much as I can. I start reading a ragged copy of Stephen King’s The Stand. I hide in the bathroom, picking at my toenails and reading for hours.
Later in the week, they shuffle the bunks around and we get two new people in our room. One is Margarita, a Nicaraguan woman who shot her husband in the stomach when she was drunk. The other is an ice-cold rich lady who only wears sweat clothes but spends two hours every morning putting on her makeup and fixing her hair.
God, I miss Trish.
On Monday I meet with my counselor, Cynthia, and she tells me I have to be more open to others and not judge people so fast. She says: “Your disease wants you isolated. Your disease wants you alone.”
That’s how they talk in rehab. Being a cranky bitch is “a disease.”
11
Then my dad calls. My dad is sort of a big deal. He used to be an engineer at NASA and then he ran a solar energy business and now he’s a private consultant, and so he travels constantly, raising capital and talking to rich and powerful people around the world. I think he cheats on my mom on these trips, but whatever, it’s for the good of the family, making truckloads of money and all.
So we talk. He’s obviously really busy and doesn’t have time and doesn’t know what to say. But he does his best. It’s better than talking to my mom at least, who always tries to tell me what to do. This has never worked, since I’m about ten times smarter than her and always do what I want anyway. But that’s our family dynamic. Mom is clueless and pissed off, while my dad and I both see what totally outrageous bullshit we can get away with.
Later, back in my room, I have an argument with ice queen Sweatpants Lady, because one of my dirty socks touched her floor area.
As we “discuss” this matter, I stare at her and consider punching her face in. I’m actually about to do it…but then it turns out I’m sort of a wuss when I’m not drunk.
Later still, we all learn something about Margarita, the woman who shot her husband in the stomach: She snores. It’s so loud, the window shakes. It’s like a wounded buffalo groaning all night, about three inches from your ear. And when she’s not doing that, she’s chattering in her sleep. In Spanish.
This place is a loony bin.
12
Vern leaves. I find this out on the next movie night. I’m getting in the van, and I see that nobody’s inside.
“Where’s Vern?” I ask the driver, since Vern always goes to movie night, no matter what.
“He shipped out. Went back to Estacada.”
“He’s gone?”
“He’ll be back,” says the driver. “Vern always comes back.”
I get in, pull the side door closed, and sit down. I’m stunned. No Vern? No Trish? How am I supposed to survive here?
I stare out the window. It’s raining and cold and I’m wearing my own gross sweatpants tonight, which are dirty and not warm enough.
“Looks like nobody’s going to the movies tonight,” says the driver when we pull over at the next house.
I stare out the rain-blurred window. There’s nobody there.
We continue along Recovery Road. We come to the last house. There’s no one there either. But wait, there’s one person. A guy, it looks like. He’s standing on the porch. He’s wearing a green army coat over a hoodie.
The driver pulls the van over and the guy isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do. He finally hops off the porch and comes toward us. He squints in the rain.
“Is this the movie thing?” he asks the driver.
“It sure is. Hop in.”
He opens the sliding door. That’s when he sees that there’s no one inside except me.
“Oh,” he says as he looks around the empty van.
He gets in and shuts the door. He sits at the end of my seat.
He’s tall and skinny and has dyed blond hair. He looks like a rock star. Maybe he was rich and famous and blew it all on drugs and hookers. They get those at Spring Meadow sometimes.
“Are there more people?” he asks.
“Not tonight,” says the driver.
I say nothing. I look out the window, away from him.
But then I remember I’m supposed to be nice to people — according to
Cynthia — and make friends, and not judge. So I turn and try to smile at him. That’s when I see how young he is. He’s my age. He’s just a kid.
The van drives. He doesn’t say anything. He seems vaguely in shock. I know the feeling.
We drive for a while. Finally, he asks the driver what movie we’re going to see.
“Beats me. I just drive.”
He looks at me.
I shrug. “I just go.”
“Huh,” he says, staring forward in the dark.
It takes about fifteen minutes to get to Carlton. The driver is listening to sports talk radio. We all listen to it.
When we reach the theater, the two of us get out. Him first, then me. I shut the door. The driver waves to me and pulls away.
Then we’re alone together. On the sidewalk. I avoid looking at him.
“I’m Stewart,” he says.
“I’m Maddie,” I reply.
“So now what do we do?” he asks me.
“We should probably go in.”
We buy our tickets. We go in. The two of us stand nervously in the lobby. We look like we’re on a date, which makes it even weirder than it already is.
“The popcorn’s only a buck,” I tell him.
“Yeah?”
“We usually get some.”
“Then let’s get some.”
We go to the concession counter. A local boy, about fourteen, gets us our popcorn. He stares up at tall, imposing Stewart with a mixture of awe and fear.
Inside the actual theater there’s more awkwardness. Should we sit next to each other or one seat apart? I end up making this decision and sit one seat apart. But then some other people come and we are forced to sit together.
We don’t speak. In the dim light of the previews, I sneak looks at him. He has dark, watery eyes, pale white skin. His face is chiseled, with high, wide cheekbones. He’s totally cute, is the truth of it.
I, on the other hand, am wearing bag-lady sweatpants and a down coat with food stains on it. I’m also bloated and I smell and my hair is dirty.