by Libba Bray
“Ahh, shit!” I scream. My spastic arm flies out and whacks Chet in the gut. He’s a big guy, but the punch catches him off guard. His knees hit the floor, followed quickly by the rest of him. The jocks are on me at once. Every touch feels like it’s connecting with raw nerve endings. I’m vaguely aware that I’m screaming things that are “inappropriate to a peaceful classroom environment.”
I guess that’s why Chet finally hauls off and socks me.
The Calhoun High School behavior code sheet we all have to sign at the beginning of the year is pretty firm about the dos and don’ts of personal conduct. Punching beloved football players in the stomach is definitely a don’t. I’m suspended for five days for unruly behavior and, thanks to Kevin, suspicion of drug use.
Mom has to come pick me up in the Turdmobile. She’s so mortified and, knowing Mom, worried, that we drive in total silence—total silence being the parental barometer of just how screwed you are. But the real fun is yet to come. There’s the phone call to Dad, which results in his early arrival home (sorry, Raina), which leads to a closed-door discussion, which takes us to the four of us sitting in the family room: Mom, Dad, me, and the disappointment. It’s like I’m a camera cutting from close-ups of Mom—worried, vaguely detached, certain this is all a reflection on her uncertain mothering—and Dad—tight, controlled, pissed off, determined to fix things.
Mom: We just want to know if you have a problem, Cameron.
Dad: It’s obvious he has a problem, Mary. That’s not the issue.
Mom: Well …
Dad: What are you on, Cameron? Did you think it would be funny to get expelled like that?
Mom: Is it marijuana, honey? Did you get some bad pot?
Dad: When colleges look at your transcript now, do you think they’re going to be putting out the welcome mat? Jesus, we’ll be lucky to get you into community college.
Mom: Honey, you’re not sniffing glue or anything like that, are you? Please. Because that stuff can rot your brain.
Dad: And punching a kid in the stomach? That’s great. Just great.
Mom: Oh God. It’s not meth, is it? I saw a special on that. People had to have their noses reconstructed.
The camera cuts to a close-up of teen boy as he debates whether to tell his parents the truth, as he weighs whether they will believe him or not.
Me: Mom. Dad. I’m not on drugs. I just—
Cut to wide shot.
Mom: Is this why you got fired from Buddha Burger? Because you were doing drugs? Honey, you have to be careful when you’re working with hot oil.
Dad: Mary. Please.
Mom: I just wanted to know.
Dad: It’s beside the point.
Mom plays with her artsy earrings. Her hair needs a dye job. The roots are frizzy and gray.
Me: I don’t know what happened. I felt sick, okay?
Dad: So you started cursing and punched a classmate. Cameron, that doesn’t make sense.
Medium shot of teen boy as he struggles with what to say. It has been too long since he has tried to communicate with his parents, and it’s like they are on the other side of the ocean, speaking a different language. Cut to Mom.
Mom: Maybe he needs to talk to a therapist, Frank?
Dad: This is manipulation, Mary. We’ve got to be the parents, here. Tell us the truth, Cameron. Who’s selling you the drugs?
Mom: Oh, Cameron. You’re not selling drugs, are you?
Me: Mom. Dad. I’m not on drugs. Well, not this time.
Mom: Not this time? Oh, Cameron.
Me: Can you guys just chill for a sec—
Dad: (laughs) Chill? Chill?
Mom: Honey, we’re just …
Dad: That is rich. …
Mom: … worried about you.
Dad: Fine. You are officially grounded. The door’s coming off your room. You’ve lost your privacy rights for now. Do you understand?
Cut to close-up of teen boy as he stares at a spot on the wall.
Me: Yeah.
Mom: Do you have anything you want to say, honey?
Extreme close-up of spot looming like a hole.
Me: No.
The camera angle goes wider and wider till it’s so out of focus we’re nothing but a blob of color on the screen.
Once I’ve had my ass handed to me Dad style, and it is determined that I will go see a drug counselor and a shrink, I sit at the kitchen table, reading, since that’s pretty much all that’s left to me, being that I am grounded for the foreseeable future. Jenna prances past me on her way to the fridge to look at food she won’t eat because she’s afraid it will make her fat, and fat is a big old black smudge on the storefront window of perfection.
“I hear if you even look at the ice cream for too long, it’ll turn you into a porker,” I say.
“I’m not talking to you.”
“I’m crushed.”
“You punched Chet!” Jenna’s so pissed she actually takes out a non-fat free pudding cup.
“Don’t take it out if you’re not going to eat the whole thing,” I say.
She slams the fridge door and pulls off the foil top with dramatic flair. “You know why you don’t like Chet?”
It’s a rhetorical question, but I can’t help answering anyway. “You mean besides the fact that he’s a self-involved blowhard?”
“You don’t like him because he cares about other people. I mean, his speeches at Kiwanis help save people’s lives! Have you ever done that, Cameron? Have you ever done anything for anybody else just because you actually cared about them? No. You probably don’t even know what that feels like.”
This is the part where I jump in and say, Why, that’s not true. I care about all sorts of people. And the environment. And endangered farm animals. Secretly, I’ve been working up a plan to give an endangered farm animal to every person I care about just so they will know the depth of my feelings. But the truth is, she’s got me on this point. Chet’s not the angel that she thinks he is, but I’m in no position to say shit about anybody.
Jenna takes my silence as a concession. “You will not wreck things with Chet and me. From now on, you are not to talk to me or acknowledge me in any way. Got it?”
“You. Me. No interaction. Me got.”
“Good.”
She takes one bite of the pudding, licks every speck from the spoon, puts the cup back in the fridge, and drops the spoon in the sink with a clank.
CHAPTER NINE
Wherein I Am Subjected to Visits with Two Therapists and an Epic Fail with an Ergo-Chair
THE VISIT WITH THE DRUG COUNSELOR
“Hi, Cameron, I’m Abby.”
Her office is a study in bland. Soothing green walls. Plastic chairs set in a circle. A messy desk that seems to say, “Hey, you can trust me—I’m busy and kooky just like you kids!” The obligatory, inspirational, cute-pet posters on the walls: STAY STRONG—STAY OFF DRUGS! BE HAPPY, NOT HIGH! There’s a half-finished fruit smoothie in the middle of the desk.
“So,” Abby says, with an I-already-know-the-answer-to-this-question smile. “Tell me, why are you here today, Cameron?”
“There was nothing but reruns on TV.”
Abby nods sympathetically, but her eyes say, Just You Try Me, Asshole. “Cameron, I’d like to help you with your treatment, but you’re going to have to start by being honest with me. Tell me about your drug intake in a typical week.”
I shrug. “The occasional joint.”
She makes a tsk sound in her throat like she doesn’t believe me, when, actually, I’m telling the truth. “No hallucinogens? Because I hear you really tripped out.”
“No. Nothing like that. I think I got some bad pot, though? ’Cause I’ve been seeing weird stuff lately.”
“Mmmm, flashbacks,” Abby says, nodding. “That can happen with hallucinogens.”
“But I didn’t—”
“Oh, man,” Abby interrupts, laughing. “I remember this one time, I was traveling around following the Copenhagen Interpretation with m
y ex-boyfriend …”
Thirty minutes later: “… dancing polar bears and tracers coming off my body like the freaking aurora borealis! Crazy! Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, I’ve been where you’ve been.”
No, Abby. It is now clear that you have been many, many places I have not.
“And that’s why I say, you have everything to live for, Cameron. Every reason to be happy. Why would you want to hurt that? You need to stop self-medicating and start talking about your feelings,” Abby insists. “Get them out. Express what’s inside.”
“Okay, well—”
She holds up a finger. “So that’s why I’m going to send you to my colleague, Dr. Klein. Would you like to do that, Cameron?”
“I guess—”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Cameron,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “We’re out of time for today. But I think you did very well.”
THE VISIT WITH THE PSYCHIATRIST
“Hi, Cameron. I’m Dr. Klein.”
His office is a study in bland. Soothing vanilla-colored walls. A few ergonomically correct chairs in muted shades of brown. A wooden desk that seems to be whispering, “Don’t mind me; I’m just observing,” tucked into a corner. And a long leather couch pushed against one wall. I decide right away that I will not go on that couch.
“You can sit anywhere you like,” Dr. Klein says, settling into a big Star Fighter villain-worthy chair. I sink into one of the ergo-chairs. It’s so low my knees come up to my chest.
“You can raise that,” Dr. Klein says, seeing me. “There’s a handle on the side there.”
I struggle with the hydraulics of it, bouncing up and down like a low-rider till I finally land in the same squatty position where I started.
“Good?” Dr. Klein asks.
“Yeah. Golden.”
“So,” Dr. Klein says, giving me a smile as vanilla as the walls. “Why are you here, Cameron?”
“Aren’t you supposed to tell me?”
Dr. Klein nods. The nod says, I Know All About You, Asshole. “I know what your parents have said. I want to know why you think you’re here.”
“Chronic masturbation.”
Dr. Klein raises an eyebrow. “If that were a character disorder, I’d be seeing the entire high school. Anything else you want to tell me?”
Turns out, there is. It feels good to talk, and once I start, I don’t stop till I’ve told Dr. Klein all about the weird flame dreams, the feather message I found, the winged Valkyrie girl with pink hair at Buddha Burger, and the feeling that my body has basically been invaded by pain aliens who stab me in intervals and make it hard for me to remember stuff.
Dr. Klein jots down notes, and then he stops writing and just sits, ramrod straight, looking small and a little scared in his big boy chair. In the end, he hands my parents a script for antipsychotic medication and schedules some serious sessions. So, now I’ve been to see a drug counselor who told me I needed to lay off the drugs and talk about my feelings, and a shrink who heard what I had to say and immediately put me on drugs.
Thank God I’ve still got some weed left.
CHAPTER TEN
Of What Happens When I Find Myself on a Dark Country Road and the Sky Rains Fire
The anticrazy meds make me really tired, but still I can’t sleep. The insomnia’s gotten worse in the past week, and I’m up every night until four or so watching late-night TV. Last night, I was so bored I actually watched a public television special about some scientists building their own big bang machine—some kind of super-duper, atom-smasher, supercollider thingy they want to use to discover strings and super-strings and parallel worlds our brains aren’t wired to see yet; worlds that could be as small as a snow globe or as big as the Milky Way. Eleven dimensions. That’s what they say there might be.
Right now, the dimension I’m in is extreme boredom. I’ve basically been under house arrest since the Chet incident. But tonight, Dad’s got a lecture at the university, Mom’s at book club, and Jenna’s spending the night with her girl posse. I feel kind of shitty—my muscles ache like I took a body slam from the entire football team—but I’m not wasting my freedom. I smoke enough to get loose and bike it over to Eubie’s.
“Hey, Cam-run!” Eubie says when I walk in the door. “Where you been?”
“Nowhere.”
“Still? That’s not right.” He takes a good look at me. “You look worn, my friend. Zombified.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“Got no color. You need to get out. Experience things. Play music. Fall in love.”
“Yeah, I’m on it. Night and day,” I say, flipping through a bin of novelty records.
“Why you giving me that smart-ass shit? I’m serious,” Eubie says. “Life is short, my friend.”
“So they say. Got anything new for me?”
Eubie puts his hands on the counter and leans forward. “No,” he says. “Unless you want to borrow that Junior Webster record.”
“Maybe some other time.”
“All right. Not gonna push you. But you missing out. Hey, ch-ch-check it out,” Eubie says, waving a travel itinerary at me. “Got me two tickets to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.”
“Who’s the other ticket for?”
Eubie puts a hand to his chest and staggers backward in mock shock. “Cam-run? Did you just ask a personal question? Did you express an interest in your fellow man, in someone other than your own miserable self? Lord, Jesus! It’s a miracle—that’s what it is!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I say, pretending it doesn’t bother me. I’m interested in other people. I’m interested in having sex with Staci Johnson. That’s a form of interest.
“I’m taking my new lady,” Eubie says, kissing the tickets. “Misty Deanna. Miss D.”
I wipe a hand across the back of my neck. I’m sweating and clammy at the same time. “Sounds like a porn name. Or a drag queen.”
Eubie holds up a finger. “Don’t start. You got plans tonight?”
I shrug.
“What’s that mean?”
Nothing. That’s the glory of a shrug. Totally noncommittal.
“There’s a sweet show going down at Buddy’s. Jazz. Some tight cats. I’m sitting in. You want to come? I’ll put you on the list as my guest.”
“Nah, thanks. I got stuff I gotta do.”
“Uh-huh. Like what?”
“You know. Stuff.”
“Okay, Mr. I Don’t Go Nowhere I Don’t Ever Try Nothin’. But you’re missing a hot show.”
“Next time,” I say.
“Yeah. Next time,” Eubie says, rolling his eyes.
I leave with some blank CDs so I can make copies of my Tremolo LPs. By the time I finish the other half of my J, the streetlights have all twinkled into action. The weed is most excellent, and I’ve copped one hell of a serious buzz that makes everything, including me, seem like it’s both wave and particle. I pedal past campus housing, hopping my bike between street and sidewalk, ignoring stop signs and dodging traffic lights. At the last corner of Mambrino Street, a truck-load of drunken college guys careens around a corner, nearly wiping me out.
“What’s your problem?” One of the guys is yelling at me, but mostly I hear my heart beating like a mofo in my ears. They hurl insults and empty beer cans.
“Get out of the road, dude!” somebody shouts before they peel away chanting, “Par-ty! Par-ty! Par-ty!”
I’m too altered for in-town cycling, so instead, I shoot off onto an old country road that winds past cow pastures and lonely farms. The route’s longer but there’s less traffic, and I can enjoy my buzz in peace. The road’s bordered on both sides by flat, open fields dotted by bales of cotton. The long white rectangles remind me of those newspaper pictures of soldiers’ coffins unloaded from army planes.
I stop pedaling and enjoy the feel of the damp wind on my face. It’s going to rain, but I don’t mind. It’s like I’m the only person in the universe right now. Soft rain pecks at my face. I stick out my tongue and taste it.
Th
e wind picks up and pushes harder. Over the cotton fields, the clouds are thickening into a mean gray clump. They’re moving really fast. It’s as if they’re being pulled into the center of the sky by a huge invisible magnet. Seeing it makes my heart double its beat. Suddenly, I don’t want to be out here by myself. It’s about a half-mile to the turnoff that leads back to my house. I’m out of the seat, pumping hard as I can, putting my full weight into each pedal stroke.
That dark cloud mass starts swirling. Tornado, I think. Shit. But it’s weird, because the clouds aren’t pushing out and down; they’re pulling in. There’s a boom of thunder, a zigzag of electricity, and a small, dark hole opens up in the murky center of those clouds, a black eye giving off no light at all. The rest of the sky crackles like a laser light show. A neon spear of lightning strikes a small tree close to the road. With a huge pop, the tree explodes in a shower of flames. I’m startled and lose my balance. My bike skids out and away, and I roll on the gravel, thudding my head against the road. With a hiss, I sit up. My vision’s blurry. The horizon’s doubling. My head aches and my knee’s bleeding.
The tree’s still burning, blooming with fire leaves. As I watch, bits of fire leap free and then, man, I must be higher than ever or my brain got banged up, because what I’m seeing now cannot be happening. Those leaves of fire grow and change, like something’s inside waiting to be born. The one closest to me evolves as quickly as one of those time-lapse photography experiments in science: the small, hunched-over form unfolds, spreads out, takes on mass, intention. It stands, stretches taller and taller, maybe seven or eight feet high. A huge, burning man with eyes black as the hole opening above us. Oh God, there’s three, four, now five of them; they burn so brightly, flames licking off their bodies like blue-orange sweat. They sweep their arms out this way and that, and where they pass, the land curls up in blackness. This makes them laugh, which is a horrible sound—like the screams of people burning to death.