The History of Jane Doe

by Michael Belanger

  “Ray?” I hear my mom call up the stairs. “Cookies.”

  “Be right down,” I yell.

  Maybe I’ve just gotten bored with staring at the wall all day and writing down my thoughts. But I kind of think we can only tell ourselves so much. At some point we have to shut up, pick the pile of clothes off the floor, and go see what it’s like outside.

  This morning, I woke up and saw that my petition to change Town Hall had gone viral. Over a thousand signatures in the last couple days, which is like a million in Burgerville-speak. The town council is now considering a vote to change it. “To reflect the true blemishes and blunders of our history,” the press release states. Yours truly is even mentioned. Who says you can’t change history?

  * * *

  • • •

  At our last session, I told Rich I had a breakthrough. “Your mental health exercises are no longer needed,” I said.

  He laughed.

  “Why are you laughing?” I asked.

  “If you have the secret, would you share it with me so I can tell my other clients?”

  “You have a wife and kids, Rich. If people didn’t have problems, you’d be living on the street.”

  “As long as there are people, there will be problems,” he said.

  I agreed. We sat in silence in Rich’s dim office, our two chairs facing each other.

  “Do you believe in an afterlife?” I asked.

  Rich took a deep breath. “I’m not a priest.”

  “Not like the one with clouds and naked babies playing harps. I mean the sane people one. You know, just somewhere we go when we die?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It would be nice.”

  I nodded. “Maybe it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not then. Half the time we’re all just making shit up anyway. Why not make up good stories? Why shouldn’t we go to an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet when we die?”

  “Or a drive-in movie theater,” Rich said.

  “Yeah, or even better, how about a real movie theater,” I said, trying to help Rich conceptualize a better version of heaven.

  The rest of the session we traded alternate versions of our paradise, which somehow always included ridiculous amounts of food, exotic locations, fairies (Rich, not me), and the Beatles (both of us). Of course, the only part I didn’t mention to Rich was the one that mattered most, the one I wanted to keep just for me. In every single version, Jane was there.

  NOW

  NEVER HAD I EVER

  Simon picks me up in the Red Rocket.

  “What’s in the bag?” he says when I jump into the van.

  “I’ll tell you when we get there.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Beddington’s statue,” I say. “Light speed, Scotty.”

  “Simon. The name’s Simon.”

  I recline back and take in the view through the moon roof. The eternity of the stars dwarves the history of Burgerville.

  We arrive at Beddington’s statue. I look up at Town Hall, a building designed to emulate the absurdity of the universe. But I imagine the opposite, a world full of meaning, a world with answers to every why and what and how—

  Because in an alternative dimension, this is happening:

  Jane puts the bottle of pills back in the medicine cabinet.

  Her father gets up from his wheelchair.

  Ellie’s still chasing the Flying Possum of Williamsburg.

  And Jane is still Jane. Not some paper cut-out, but the three-dimensional version, what no amount of words could ever do justice to.

  Simon snaps his fingers in front of my face, waking me up from my daydream.

  “Why are we here?” Simon asks.

  “That’s a great question,” I say. I know he means at Beddington’s statue, but I can’t help but think of it in the cosmic sense. Why are we here? In this place and time? In this town? And of course, the opposite: Why isn’t Jane here?

  A question with a thousand different answers, each depending on what dimension you find yourself in.

  When someone dies, we spend so much time looking for an explanation. The rest of the time we spend making sure we won’t forget them. So we build statues. Hold memorials. Visit graves. All of these physical markers that make it impossible to forget. But what if it’s the opposite? What if the only way we can really remember is if we stop looking to the past? Maybe then they’ll become more them and less us.

  I feel like I can finally remember how Jane used to smirk. And then smile. Almost like she was hiding it. How she’d roll her eyes, but in a way that made you want her to do it again. The first time I saw her. Our first kiss at Beddington’s party. All of the many different versions of Jane, existing in moments, perfectly preserved. No spin or interpretation, just Jane. The historian is finally out of the picture. The past is now just the past. The amazing, complicated, tragic, beautiful, fantastic past.

  I turn to Simon, who has just finished taking a selfie that makes it look like Beddington’s giving him a high five.

  “I think I finally know how to say good-bye,” I say.

  I zip open the bag, pass Simon a gallon of milk, and take out a small bottle of whiskey I stole from my mom’s liquor cabinet.

  “Do you have whole?” Simon says.

  I shoot him a look.

  “Okay, two percent will do.”

  Simon opens his milk, takes a swig.

  “Hold on,” I say. I take a deep breath and unscrew the cap. “Before Jane . . . Never had I ever kissed a girl.” I take a sip.

  “Before Jane . . . Never had I ever had a girl think I was funny,” Simon says. “You know? Not weird funny. But actually funny.” He chugs the milk.

  “Never had I ever been so happy that I thought my heart might explode,” I say. I take hold of my chest. “Sometimes it still hurts.”

  Simon holds up the bottle of milk to the sky. “Never had I ever felt like I was part of something, like I was at the lunch table where people wanted to sit. And not just because they wanted to steal my food. But because they wanted to hang out with me.”

  We both drink, holding up our bottles to the universe, acolytes proffering the one thing we still have: our memories.

  “Never had I ever felt so sad,” I say. “But the good kind of sad. The kind that means you really care about something. The kind that means you have something to lose.”

  “I didn’t know how much we were missing out on,” Simon says. He takes a sip, wipes his milk mustache.

  “No one does,” I say.

  We keep going, sip after sip, until my head is spinning.

  We walk over to the statue. I read the inscription at the base: Visionaries don’t see with their eyes, they see with their hearts.

  “Jane,” I whisper, my head tilted toward the sky.

  Simon and I sit down with our backs to the statue, Beddington’s arms overhead, forever reaching, never wavering in his belief in what he saw.

  I lay my head back on the marble, content with the knowledge that maybe, just maybe, there’s a green cow running around in Green Cow Acres, and the moon really does change history, and the ghost of McCallen is still treating patients from beyond the grave. And Jane is somewhere—call it heaven, call it whatever you want—making sarcastic comments about all those harps, complaining about the softness of the clouds, and telling Ellie all about Burgerville, a place more unbelievable than anything likely to be found behind the pearly gates.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Talking about mental illness can sometimes feel like a riddle. It’s omnipresent but invisible. The people who need the most help are often the least likely to ask. It makes you feel completely alone even though, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, approximately 1 in 5 teenagers and adults live with a mental health condition.

  I grew up in the shadow of my grandmo
ther’s depression, similar to Jane’s experience with her grandma Irene. My grandfather dedicated much of his life to supporting my grandmother as she fought this faceless enemy, but unlike fairy tales, the dragon was never slayed. There were bad moments—suicide attempts, time spent in mental hospitals, weeks where she’d stay in bed. But those shadows are tiny compared to how much light she brought into our lives.

  I didn’t really get it growing up, and I can’t say I fully get it now. But that’s the thing about mental illness; there’s the diagnosis, and then there’s the experience, a pain that’s often indescribable, much to the confusion of family and friends. As Rich tells Ray, “Depression is like this black light on everything in your life so you can only see the bad stuff.” How do you help someone fight demons you can’t see?

  It’s easy to feel haunted by mental illness, whether because of a loved one or your own struggles with depression and anxiety. I’ve been there, and some days I’m still there, though I’ve been lucky enough to be given some flashlights along the way. There are no quick fixes—no random images, folk songs, or affirmations that will magically erase the pain—but there are ways to live with mental illness, manage it, and even conquer it.

  If you or someone you know needs help, don’t be afraid to ask. There’s an entire village of people who care—friends, family, teachers, guidance counselors, school nurses, and therapists like Rich. For help finding a mental health professional, call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Helpline (1-800-662-4357). If you’re feeling at risk of suicide and don’t know who else to turn to, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255). Your life matters. The world can’t stand to lose another John or Jane Doe.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The history of The History of Jane Doe could probably fill its own volume, but like Roger Lutz says, that’s the problem with history; there’s always too much of it. With that in mind, I’ll keep my acknowledgments brief. At least I’ll try.

  First, I have to thank the Westport Writers’ Workshop for giving me a place to hone my craft and meet other like-minded writers. My first workshop in the fall of 2014—the same workshop where I shared the beginning of THOJD (is it presumptuous to make my book an acronym?)—completely changed my life. To have a community of fellow writers critiquing and celebrating my work—especially Katie Agis, Heather Frimmer, Denitza Krasteva, Kate Marlow, Paul McCarthy, and Loretto Leary—is a gift I will always be thankful for.

  I was beyond lucky to have Chris Belden as a workshop leader during my time at WWW, and now even luckier to call him both a mentor and friend. Chris offered invaluable feedback on the manuscript and encouraged me to send it out to agents. He also came up with the greatest pitch of all time when he called the book a cross between The Catcher in the Rye and The Simpsons. I would not be the writer I am today without Chris’s support.

  I’m also forever indebted to my agent, Stephanie Fretwell-Hill, who took a chance on a manuscript written by someone with no actual writing credentials. Of course, the great paradox of publishing is that you can only get credentials by publishing, which often seems akin to winning the lottery or being the first person to discover a new species. At least that’s what it feels like after each new rejection. But like Earl Beddington, Stephanie believed in Burgerville’s green cows right from the beginning.

  Many thanks to my editor, Kate Harrison, who was able to sort through all the history of Burgerville and help me find the true heart of the story. Every writer needs a champion, someone willing to keep pushing them, let them fail and veer off into ridiculous territory as they attempt to navigate a world filled with strange history and flying possums—and Kate Harrison is that person for me. Her insights brought Jane’s story to life, and her dedication to the book gave me the confidence I needed to see it through. Words cannot express how grateful I am to have found an editor who believes in Burgerville as much as I do.

  I’m also honored to be working with the amazing team at Dial and Penguin Random House. Writing can often feel like a solitary pursuit, but that’s not the case with publishing. Thank you to Lauri Hornik and Ellen Cormier for their suggestions on the manuscript, Regina Castillo for her copyediting talents and magic with tenses, Dana Li and Jasmin Rubero for a book design that perfectly reflects Ray’s search for answers and Burgerville’s bizarre past, and Bridget Hartzler for helping Ray and Jane’s story find its audience. I couldn’t ask for a better home for The History of Jane Doe.

  Thank you also to Grace Lee for bringing the world of Burgerville to life with her whimsical illustrations. It’s such a thrill to see people and places that have lived in my head for the past few years be translated so beautifully onto the page.

  Thank you to Dr. Jennifer Hartstein for her helpful feedback on the therapist/client relationship, especially her thoughts on how a therapist would approach a topic as complicated and delicate as suicide. Thank you as well to the various mental health practitioners who have provided a safe and supportive environment for me to do my own version of what Rich euphemistically calls “Brain Cleaning.” I would not be where I am today without the help of these caring professionals.

  Thanks to Fairfield University’s MFA program for helping me grow as a writer and providing an inspiring place to disappear to during ten wonderful days in the summer and winter. Thank you to Al Davis, Sonya Huber, Eugenia Kim, Karen Osborn, Hollis Seamon, Michael White, and all of my colleagues for everything they’ve taught me about writing and the creative process.

  I’m also grateful to Fairfield University’s American Studies program for allowing me to write my first novel as my master’s thesis. Though the novel lives in my closet, the experience lives on in my heart, as do a thousand other clichés. Special thanks to Nicholas Rinaldi for being the first person to ever say the most magical four words in the English language: “You are a writer.”

  And I think that’s it.

  Your family. You’re forgetting your family.

  Of course! Thank you to my family for reading early drafts of the novel and being genuinely enthusiastic about it (or lying to protect my feelings), taking my ambitions to be a writer seriously, and occasionally comparing me to their favorite authors. Mom, Dad, Megan, Matt, Amanda, Andrea, Hammy, Bella, and even Mojo (my parents’ chi-corgi who seems to believe I’m the devil incarnate): I’m honored to share my genes with such amazing people (and dogs).

  Thank you to Emily Hernberg for letting me bother her to read scenes throughout all of the twists and turns of the revision process. I couldn’t ask for a better partner, best friend, and podcast buddy. Thanks also to Louisa and Laura, our two cats, whose punny names befit two cat people who love literature: Louisa May Alcatt and Laura Ingalls Wildcat. It’s probably already been done before, and I don’t want to ruin the illusion of originality by googling, so I’ll just pretend we were first.

  Now for closure, a buzzword every teacher knows well, and a fitting way to end the acknowledgments for a book that grew partly out of my experiences teaching high school. Thank you to everyone who has made my day job so rewarding. Thank you to my colleagues for their encouragement and guidance, especially the inspirational pep talks after the lessons that just didn’t go my way. I know how you feel, Mr. Parker. And thank you to my students for teaching me what bravery really is. Day after day, I’m inspired by your strength and perseverance. Studying for a test on the Great Depression even though you’re struggling with your own depression. Revising an essay while your parents fight in the next room. Creating supply and demand graphs after losing a loved one only a short while ago. Be brave, but remember to ask for help.

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  Michael Belanger, The History of Jane Doe