Everyone is powerless to my depression. I remember this. I know this feeling. I spend days pacing the teeny square footage of my bedroom, crying off and on, and sometimes so frustrated I start stomping or throwing pillows. At night I feel a ball of fire rush up from my belly to my chest and back again, like the Supreme Scream at Knott’s Berry Farm. This feeling is me. I wonder if I’ll die, explode with complete self-disgust.
* * *
—
“Your mom let me in.” Meg stands at my door with a hand on her hip like a soccer mom, keys in her fist. I grunt.
“And I’ve got David and James in the car.”
“Meg.” My eyes plead with hers, thick eyeliner and a bouffant ponytail topping her wiry form. “I seriously don’t think I can be social today. I can’t handle it. I don’t mean to be a dick….”
She just nods and opens her arms to beckon me, and I crash right there. That’s how it feels to be me—crashing into heavy feelings, reaching for lifeboats. Meg is good at being quiet, and there.
“Dude, it’s okay. We’ll give you time.” She rubs my back while I sniffle. “Just take your time.”
I actually smile. “Thanks. Sorry. I know I always have to cause a scene,” I joke, wiping my eyes. “Call you after Christmas? I have to wrap your present.”
“Sure! We can do our own exchange, our little weird family of freaks. It’ll be great.”
I grin widely. “How’s everyone? How are you? Anything new?”
She shrugs. “We miss you. Everyone’s actually oddly normal at the moment. I mean, for us. Oh.” She unzips her backpack and digs around. “Kelly asked me to give this to you,” she chirps, presenting me with an intricate piece of origami, labeled Love you Morgs! From Kelly Kline in those cheery purple bubble letters.
“Aw,” I giggle. “Tell her I said thanks.”
“And, of course, from David.” I accept the unlabeled CD. “And here, James’s mom’s baklava. I guess his mom says to tell you ‘fight the power.’ ” I laugh loudly and roughly, surprising myself.
“Thanks so much. And thanks for coming to check on me. I really mean it.”
“And I brought you Teen Vogue and silver nail polish because sometimes you just need girlie things!”
She shrugs, tilts her head in a grin. I squeeze her tight.
* * *
—
My friends check in with me every day. Meg live-texts me from church (because she’s a germophobe, it’s mostly about how she hates having to hold strangers’ hands), and then from babysitting the little freak (all kinds of wacky pictures of Barbies and G.I. Joes). David calls almost every night and lets me be awkward while he regales me with stories about random daily encounters with a woman who looks like a Linda or a kid who looks like the little boy from that thing we watched on YouTube. Sean emails me song drafts or book recommendations and articles about black writers. James comes over one day, and we watch movies in silence, but eventually I go up to my sadness womb and he stays downstairs cooking dinner with my parents.
But eventually everyone disappears to tend to family Christmas stuff (and Sean’s family’s Hanukkah, then their half-hearted attempt at the first few days of Kwanzaa), and eventually, miraculously, I rise and perform my own family duties. I am trying to ride it out, to outlast my mood. Maybe I can get stronger. Maybe next year can be easier.
A few days before Christmas, my mom is doing my hair in two-strand twists while I sit patiently cross-legged on the living room carpet. Her iPod dock broadcasts a Christmas sermon by a gospel preacher with a gregarious and musical voice. Coco’s over here “supervising,” aka holding a bag of Lays and chatting giddily with my mom about hair and makeup and boring stuff like that. I see my same old face in the mirror. I think about the “true meaning of Christmas” the preacher recounts, the story of dozens of school plays and church musicals, the Holy Night of happenstance and myrrh. What a wild story, way more surreal than the Dickens story.
I think about Mary. Who just wants to have a baby for no reason, not to mention get run out of town, scandalized? And furthermore, what pregnant lady wants to ride a camel?
The thing about the Christian Christmas story, and all the drama Mary had to go through, and all the stuff we kids have to go through—midnight Mass, endless pageants, pretending we don’t care about presents or those tree-shaped cookies—is, who said we needed to be saved? Not all “sins” sound that bad at all. I mean, murder, yeah, but—doesn’t everyone get jealous? Why does Jesus need to be involved in our “intercourse”? Why shouldn’t homosexuals just get to be homosexuals? And how did I get here, where even curiosity is punishable?
Don’t follow rules you don’t understand. I pledge allegiance to myself and my rebellion. I get it—consequences hurt, and mine will always hurt a little more than everyone else’s. But it’s worth it to stand by my own rules. I see my hair in the mirror, its delicate kinks glimmering with Blue Magic hair grease, and I see myself differently.
* * *
—
So even though I’m depressed as hell, on the night of our family’s Christmas party, I’m feeling in control of myself enough to just be easy, let everything and everyone around me fall as they may. Even me—I even leave myself alone. In the seventy-degree weather of sunny Highland, California; my aunties cackling in the too-small kitchen; my dad shouting at basketball on TV; my mom, tipsy and shouting for me to get my iPod and pick out a song for the electric slide; my brother across the room, catching my gaze for a shared eye roll; my cousins laughing with me, not at me; the way my cousins and uncles and fake-cousins love me even though there’s so much about me they don’t know.
I help myself to another glass of wine, and I smile, because it feels good to be warm.
CLICHÉ ROAD TRIP MONTAGE
15 Hours to 2009. Montage to the soundtrack of Regina Spektor’s “That Time,” where James always exclaims the line “so sweet and juicy!” in a pitch that pierces the whole coast of the Pacific, and I laugh so hard I cry.
Bright and early on the last horrifically lovely day of hellish and legendary 2008, James, Meg, David, Sean, and I are in my dad’s Man Van on our way to an apartment in San Luis Obispo, a trail of cigarette butts and empty peach ring bags in our wake, tasked with cat-sitting for James’s sister’s friend. James suggested I invite Sean and David “as arm candy,” and my parents are going out of town for the weekend, anyway, and Meg’s mom is feuding with Meg’s stepmom.
After five hours and just one stop for $5 per gallon somewhere along Pacific Coast Highway, we drop our backpacks on squeaky beds in maritime-themed bedrooms.
It’s a pretty sweet deal: when we arrive, there’s a note on the counter from James’s sister’s friend, with the contact information of an of-age gentleman who’s agreed to buy us “supplies”—to assure our adult comfort. James rides with him to the liquor store in his Toyota Tacoma.
* * *
—
9 Hours to 2009. While the rest of us decorate the back patio with leftover Christmas tinsel and lay out on our beach towels with a few Coronas smuggled from the Man Van, James rides with the guy, Jack maybe, to procure liquor, and is misunderstood.
“So, what do you want me to get?” says Jack maybe (and his Caesar cut) to James on the eleven-minute ride to the strip mall Ralph’s.
(We were like, “Just get whatever you can!”)
“Oh, you know, um, just some beer, wine…” James pushes his luck because you miss all the shots you don’t take. “And vodka. And also whatever.”
The guy laughs, “Nice. You’re gonna have a pretty good time with those two girls.”
“What? Oh. No, we’re um…It’s not like that. They’re just my friends.”
“Can I give you some advice? You can’t hit the ball if you don’t swing the bat. So just go for it.”
James nods, hands clasped tensely in his lap, raising h
is eyebrows and probably grinding his teeth with restraint.
“Swing the bat,” goes the guy. “Swing the bat.”
* * *
8 hours to 2009. James is delighted to re-enact this conversation for us when he returns, bearing gifts of every kind of liquor.
Each of us is holding secrets and tensions, but out in the beachy air, things are easy. I know Southern California is my personal purgatory, and when I see blue skies for a hundred days in a row I’m convinced I’m going to choke on the sun, but I can’t imagine not wearing cut-off shorts on a holiday.
* * *
—
6 and a half hours to 2009. Sean, James, and I go through hell turning on the tiny red barbecue on the apartment patio.
For dinner we make grilled swordfish, mashed potatoes, and asparagus. David, being difficult, opts instead to eat three Hot Pockets.
We raise white wine in real glasses and toast “to the freakin’ New Year,” or rather, to the end of whatever this year was. “Good riddance,” we shout.
* * *
—
5 hours to 2009. We get down to business taking shots.
I get drunk pretty fast because of the Prozac in my system, and Meg gets sloppy drunk real fast because she never really drinks.
“Lover!” she shouts at me. Drunk Meg should be on YouTube.
“I can’t feel my face!” she shrieks, grabbing at her cheeks after her second vodka, and I laugh so hard I cry, filling and refilling a water glass I keep pushing on her, glad to repay all the nights of her playing Mom.
James turns on some random Now That’s What I Call Music! and twirls his hips in another room.
* * *
—
3 hours to 2009. David corrals us into the kitchen, the whole world simmering with nervous anticipation of the ball drop.
“One more shot, guys!”
It’s shot number three, I feel like Cuervo is in my nostrils and my tear ducts and my pores.
“After this one,” he adds with urgency, “we’re getting baptized in the Pacific.”
I love him with those inspired, swimming-pool eyes. I almost forgot how warm and exciting it is to be his friend.
“Amen!” shouts James, wielding the human-baby-sized handle of alcohol.
“Should we say resolutions or something?” Sean holds up his shot glass. I notice some muscle in his bicep and internally blush. I really like his “Cassius Clay” T-shirt. I like him, maybe. Another high-drama but probably-dead-end saga for the Notebook—it’s thrilling.
“Nah, screw resolutions.” David Santos should become either a motivational speaker or a camp counselor or the host of Fear Factor. He would be good at exactly these jobs. “Let’s say what we’re leaving in this garbage year. Oh!”
He dodges, a sweaty gazelle, to the iPod dock, the rest of us rapt and expectant but impatient to drink. Usher’s Confessions.
“Oh, so, a for-real baptism?” I follow up, trying to swallow the weightiness suddenly attached to a dumb shot of tequila. “We’re washing away our sins?”
David rejoins us around the table, squeezing in between me and Meg, and takes my hand. “Better than an exorcism,” he elbows.
It is super cute.
“So, you go first, darling,” I flirt for the hell of it.
“Okay, fine! I, uh…” he scratches the back of his neck nervously but tries to look casual. It’s like he’s deciding whether or not to lie. Or run. “So, when I met you, Morgan, art class?”
He starts laughing, but not with his regular laugh.
“I don’t know why I took it! I took a bunch of those classes, too, and guitar and karate and I was even in a book club with a bunch of retired nurses. It was crazy….”
He trails off somberly. (What’s going on with him? Why didn’t I know this?)
“So, my parents were fighting a bunch, and I was starting to think I was the problem and I just, couldn’t be in that house last summer. And the worst part is,” he sighs, the rest of us listening intently, not sure how to respond, “I didn’t like any of it. I don’t like anything. I don’t…know what I care about. I guess my sin was running away from figuring it out.”
I wince as his pain lands like a bee sting on my own skin. To me, David has always been so certain, so firmly sure about himself and the world.
But maybe when we were trying to break my curse, we were on a mission to break his, too. Get him unstuck. Find something bigger. While I want to giggle to the Yellow Notebook about how intimate the moment is, make everything light and surface-level, all I can focus on is how much I care for David. How much I genuinely want only good things for him. How close I feel to him, and how important he is to me.
Darkness isn’t a bad thing. Darkness is just real.
“Anyway,”—he glances over at me with a particular look—“you guys have really helped me with that stuff.” He drinks, contorting his face and wagging his tongue. Sean reaches around to clap his back.
Meg extends her glass ceremoniously. “I know I’m probably supposed to say popping pills, but that’s too easy. So, popping pills, yeah, but also: I stole something. I know I shouldn’t have but…” She shakes her head and giggles, twisting her arm around to reach into her back pocket.
She opens her fist, and in it is Mr. K’s American flag pin.
“Is that—” My eyes bug out, and James and I completely crack up.
Meg smirks. “Yep.”
“How did that even happen?”
“It was just sitting on his desk!”
James slow claps. “Amazing.”
He amps up while Meg swallows her shot, jaw clenched. “Okay, so you know that guy Tim McCloud?”
I get a pang of shame and rage and roll my eyes. “Ugh, yes.”
“So. I…gave him a blowjob.” James downs the shot. Meg and I go crazy gasping and screaming.
“How did that even happen!” Meg is breathless.
James removes the lime from between his teeth. “Well, I met him in a nerdy video game chat room and…yada yada yada, I gave him a blowjob behind the GameStop in Sunshine Village Plaza.”
Everyone freaks out, the room is roaring with laughter. I jab my shot in the air and blurt, “Oh, so, um!”
“Okay, okay,” David yells like a kindergarten teacher, waving his hands. He would not be a very good kindergarten teacher. “Everyone shut up. Morgan, then Sean, then holy water!”
“So, okay, um,” I repeat, hardly containing my laughter. “I also gave that guy a blowjob!”
I can only sip the shot because we’re all laughing so hard. Everything is ridiculous.
“In the backseat of his car. In the orange groves. After mock trial.” I frown theatrically, finish with my lime and shrug at James. “It was just okay, right?” He gives me a high five.
“It was a hard year,” I mutter to myself.
“I cannot believe this!” Meg shouts. “You both have to write about it in the Yellow Notebook so we can compare and contrast.”
“Yo, who is this guy?!” Sean blurts, totally clueless.
David’s laughing just because. “Yeah! Is he like the Jared Leto of your So-Called Christian School?”
“I wish!” I cover my face, cringing and giggling. “That’s the thing…he sucks!”
“Oh my god,” Meg squeaks, darting for the iPod. “We need to dance to ‘No Scrubs’ right now!”
“Wait!” I stop her. “Sean’s confessional!”
Sean takes the floor. “Okay, um…Guys, I don’t know anything about Kwanzaa. Like, I don’t really know what the hell it is!”
I cackle as he brings the shot glass to his lips, and just as he’s about to drink, he chuckles, “I don’t know a lot of things, man.”
He goes straight for the shot, no salt, and bites into the lime like it was candy.
* * *
—
1 and a half hours to 2009. We’re two verses into our ’90s R&B sing-along when someone rings the doorbell. Things get sloppier and sloppier as the New Year countdown ticks.
EXIT MUSIC FOR A FILM
New Year’s Eve is unquestionably my least favorite holiday in the history of the world. It’s just so much pressure to make one night both foreshadow the year to come and memorialize the year that’s ending. That’s too much responsibility for one night, especially since most nights are pretty terrible, anyway. I hate setting myself up for disappointment. It’s just pointless—the universe already has that covered.
When midnight comes announcing 2009, someone’s entire glass of sparkling cider is soaking the front of my jeans, and someone else is in my face asking if I’m okay, and I don’t know who any of these people are.
I’m drunk, but not the right kind of drunk, not the happy kind, but the stressful confusing kind. I look up from where I’m absently wiping my jeans with my own T-shirt, pushing an anonymous white hand full of KFC napkins out of my line of vision, and all I see is a blurry idiotic mess. I dart for the backdoor, pass all my friends swinging arms and dancing in circles with that Jack guy and some other random strangers, forming ill-advised drunken bonds.
It’s all closing in and I pretend no one can see me, my tight face, all the clanging going on in my skull.
Out on the apartment porch, I close my eyes and the party is only in the distance, and the air is cold and crisp. I hear the ocean a few blocks away. I taste the air and let it settle me.
The world is so much bigger than me, than all of us, than my moods and my fuck-ups and my bad memories. It is wide and beautiful, I remind myself. Without the noise and crowd around me, I smile a little bit. You made it, I think. I’ll be damned. Never mind the terror of what could happen this year or even tomorrow, I am a survivor.
Who Put This Song On? Page 22