thirty-eight
I was sure I knew him from somewhere though I couldn’t quite place the man. He was trying to wake me up but I was very sick. He shook me and tried to cover my body with my clothes but I kept shaking them off because I was so hot. He shouted at me in a foreign accent: “Boy! Hey, boy! Wake up, boy!”
It was daylight, morning I guess. My stomach was upset and I knew I was close to puking. Rogelio! That was his name. He worked in the building.
“Why you do this, boy? You can’t stay here!”
I tried to get to my feet and run to the toilet but I was so dizzy the floor fell to a forty-five-degree angle and I was on my back again.
“Put the pants, boy. Put the clothes on.” He said clothes in two syllables: clo-thes.
I turned my head away from him and puked on the floor. It spread out in an almost perfect circle. Rogelio jumped back to avoid the splatter but there was none. It was a contained and tidy spread of vomit. He clicked his tongue in disappointment.
“Put the clo-thes, boy! Please!”
I felt bad for him. I sat up and he handed me my pants. I had to lie down again. The room was spinning and I was going to be sick again. I needed water, I was so thirsty. I asked him for some and he left the room clicking his tongue. I closed my eyes and tried to stop the spins.
* * *
When I opened my eyes my mother was cleaning my face with a warm, wet towel. The towel was white but it turned pink very quickly. I was still naked and felt embarrassed that my mom was seeing me in the altogether but then I became aware that I was in the bathtub in my apartment. I was submerged up to my neck in a hot bubble bath and I wasn’t so ashamed. The bubbles had swirls of pink and red—the remains of Lou’s last song. Doomed to banishment down the drain, into the sewers of New York City, seeping into the harbor and washing up at the feet of Lady Liberty.
I asked my mother to make a copy of the words on Lou’s wall. They were his last words, they were important and had to be preserved.
“Shhhh,” she said as she gently scrubbed my chin. She told me to close my eyes and rest. Everything would be okay. Not to worry. Rest. You’re home now. You’re safe.
But my eyes were already closed. Weren’t they? I was confused. I was not in the bathtub and my mother wasn’t with me. I was still on Lou’s bedroom floor.
I saw Rogelio to my left. His face was close to mine and he was trying to get me to sit up. I heard a crackling static sound and a woman’s voice calling out a sequence of numbers and streets. Rogelio put a blanket over my shoulders. The woman’s voice was coming out of a walkie-talkie that hung from a cop’s belt. The cop was on my right side and he was helping Rogelio lift me up. There was a fireman in the room too. He was unfastening the belts of a stretcher on wheels. The cop had kind eyes and kept telling me to stay calm, everything would be okay. Not to worry. You’re safe.
I was wheeled through Lou’s empty apartment, then through the hallway and into the elevator. My mother was at my side by the time I was in the lobby. She was crying, hysterical and unraveled. I was very sorry to have done this to her. She rode with me in the ambulance and held my hand. Neither one of us said a word.
thirty-nine
“GUY WALKS INTO A MENTAL HOSPITAL”
A Comedy in One Act and 180 Days
PLACE: Adolescent psych ward of an NYC Hospital.
TIME: The present. Or past or future. Take your pick.
CAST: Dr. X, a middle-aged shrink from South America.
KID Y: A seventeen-year-old boy from Queens.
ACT 1
IT IS VERY EARLY IN THE MORNING AND DR. X IS INTERVIEWING KID Y IN HIS OFFICE. DR. X REFERS TO AN OPEN FILE ON HIS DESK.
DR. X: What were you feeling when you started to write all these things on your body?
KID Y: I was preserving what I thought may have been the last lyrics written by a famous rock star.
DR. X: And this “rock star,” you know him personally?
KID Y: Yes. I was in his apartment.
DR. X: The apartment was empty. There was no one living there.
KID Y: He moved out.
DR. X: Why were you in his empty apartment?
KID Y: He was a friend of mine. I went to visit him.
DR. X: If he was your friend, why didn’t he tell you he was moving?
KID Y: I don’t know.
DR. X: Did you write on your body first or the wall first?
KID Y: I didn’t write on the wall. My friend did.
DR. X: The rock star?
KID Y: Yes.
DR. X: Why would he write on the wall?
KID Y: I don’t know, you’d have to ask him.
DR. X: Does this rock star have a name?
KID Y: Lou Reed.
DR. X: I’ve never heard of him. Maybe he’s not such a star.
KID Y: Maybe not.
DR. X: Maybe he’s a star in your own mind.
KID Y: No, he has a following.
DR. X: Are you one of his followers?
KID Y: I was his friend.
DR. X: Was?
KID Y: Well, he’s gone.
DR. X: Where did he go?
KID Y: I have no idea.
PAUSE
DR. X: Did he tell you to write the words on your body?
KID Y: No.
DR. X: You did it under your own volition?
KID Y: Yes.
DR. X: Does he ever tell you to do things?
KID Y: Well, he’s asked me to do things. He didn’t really tell me to do them. I had a choice.
DR. X: What did he ask of you?
KID Y: Oh . . . let’s see . . . He wanted me to take dictation but that never happened.
DR. X: He wanted to dictate what you did, give you orders?
KID Y: No, no . . . he wanted me to help him write. He was writing a play.
DR. X: Was he a rock star or a playwright?
KID Y: I guess he was a rock star who was writing a play.
DR. X: And he needed your help.
KID Y: No. I think he just didn’t like being alone.
DR. X: Do you like being alone?
KID Y: Sometimes.
DR. X: (reading from a page of the file) “If you need someone to kill I’m a man without a will.” Whose words are those?
KID Y: Those were the words he wrote on the wall. I think they were the lyrics to a song.
DR. X: That’s a very strange song, don’t you think?
KID Y: Not if you knew him.
PAUSE
DR. X: Tell me about Victoria.
KID Y: Victoria who?
DR. X: Your friend who took her own life.
KID Y: Veronica.
DR. X: Yes. I’m sorry. Veronica. Tell me about her.
KID Y: She was very smart, very pretty . . . creative . . . kind.
DR. X: Were you in love with her?
KID Y: Yes.
DR. X: It must have been difficult for you to lose her.
KID Y: It was.
DR. X: After she did what she did, did you want to do the same?
KID Y: No.
DR. X: But you told my colleague that you would be surprised if you made it to your eighteenth birthday.
KID Y: I did say that and I still feel that way.
DR. X: Because you are a danger to yourself?
KID Y: No.
DR. X: Then why did you say that?
KID Y: I don’t know . . . I just feel a sense of impending doom.
DR. X: Did you write the words on your body because of what happened to Victoria?
KID Y: Veronica.
DR. X: Sorry. Yes. Veronica.
KID Y: No. I wrote Lou’s words, his lyrics, which he had written on his wall, on my body because I couldn’t find a piece of paper.
DR. X: Is that the truth?
KID Y: Yes. Lou was gone, he moved out and I had a bad feeling about it so I thought it was important to preserve his song for posterity in case he was dead. But I really had no reason to believe he was dea
d, just that day I was thinking maybe it was possible he had killed himself because his girlfriend had left him and the last time I saw him he was so depressed. Plus, I was feeling that sense of impending doom like I told you. So if these were really his last words, I felt somebody should write them down because the apartment was probably going to be painted soon and the wall where he wrote the song would be covered over.
DR. X: He was depressed because his girlfriend left him?
KID Y: Yes. But she wasn’t a girl, really. I think she was a guy who looked like a girl and dressed like a girl and Lou treated him, treated her like a girl. So did I. I considered her a girl.
LONG PAUSE. DR. X WRITES IN THE FILE THEN READS FROM THE NEXT PAGE.
DR. X: “Dirty’s what you are and clean is what you’re not.” Do you feel that you are dirty, and not clean?
KID Y: No.
DR. X: Then why did you write it on yourself?
KID Y: Third base.
DR. X: What?
KID Y: Third base. Who’s on first? It’s an Abbott and Costello routine.
DR. X: What’s that?
KID Y: A comedy routine.
DR. X: Ahhhh. So you think it was funny when you wrote on yourself?
KID Y: Not at all.
DR. X: Do you want to be a rock star?
KID Y: I have no musical abilities.
DR. X: What if this rock star does not exist?
KID Y: There’s people you can ask about him. The doorman of the building. Go to a record store. He exists, he’s real.
DR. X: Yes. Yes. We will look into all of this. We shall. Very soon.
KID Y: I heard Allen Ginsberg was a patient here and stayed in my room. Is that true?
DR. X: That would be confidential.
KID Y: Of course.
DR. X: Judy Garland was here, though. And Lenny Bruce.
KID Y: They’re not confidential?
DR. X: They’re dead.
DR. X CLOSES THE FILE.
DR. X: Okay, Matthew, that’s all for today. (Dr. X grins.) Maybe all we have to do is just give you a head transplant and send you on your way.
PAUSE
KID Y: Do I get to approve the donor?
THE LIGHTS GO TO BLACK. IF THERE IS A CURTAIN (THERE SHOULD BE), IT SHOULD COME DOWN NOW.
forty
I was told that my scores on the tests were some of the highest they had ever seen. I am not sure if that is something to be proud of or not. I did not ask for clarification and did not care to know what it actually meant. Whether I was the most brilliant kid to ever visit their fine establishment or the most crazy did not matter in the least; I was going to be sticking around awhile. The things I wrote on myself were being used against me to establish that I was “a risk to others or myself.” That meant I had to be kept off the streets.
Manic episode . . . angel/demon delusions . . . schizoid tendencies . . . these are among the words I overheard from those who are supposed to know who is and who is not a proper fit for the highly organized, well-ordered, and functional society we live in.
I think my big mistake was revealing to them my fears that I was the victim of some kind of witchcraft or spell and under the influence of various nefarious curses and hexes. I both believed this 100 percent and did not believe it at all. I gave them no specific names or details as to who put this upon me or precisely how I was afflicted by it. I regret saying any of this at all and I know it really did me in as far as my case for going home went.
“Just do your time, don’t think too much, keep your body clean, eat whatever they give you, take your medicine, and you’ll sail outta here fit and happy before you know it.” This was told to me by an orderly named Roscoe.
I like Roscoe better than anyone else on the staff. He is the kindest and in my opinion the smartest and the most honest. Every once in a while he’ll give me an Almond Joy or an Archie comic book from his personal collection.
I’ve followed his advice as much as possible.
Roscoe was born in Oxford, Mississippi, which I told him was the home of William Faulkner. Roscoe had never heard of him. Later on, as we became closer, he confided in me that his father had been lynched by the Ku Klux Klan when he was five years old. His dad was accused of cheating a white man out of ten bales of hay so the Klan burned their trademark cross in front of their house. Roscoe’s dad refused to be intimidated because he had done nothing wrong. A week later he was founded swinging from a sweet gum tree in a grove near Ole Miss. After the funeral, Roscoe’s mom moved him and his sisters up to Memphis where he spent most of his childhood.
Roscoe was of great help to me in explaining how the medicine was going to affect me. In the beginning I was afraid it would dull my mind, soften and blur all my edges, and leave me wandering (waddling?) in a permanent fuzzy haze like some of the other kids in here. Roscoe assured me that I might feel a little sluggish for a while but that would pass as my body and mind got used to the dosage.
It was pretty miserable in the beginning. My body felt like shit and I didn’t feel like talking very much. But somewhere in the middle of July I started to feel better.
After the first long weeks during which I was allowed no visitors, my mother finally came to see me. I’m not sure what I looked like then, but it must have been awful because she kept rubbing my cheeks and straightening my posture. She fixed my hair too, wetting her fingers with saliva, rubbing her hands together, and then smoothing out the cowlicks atop my head.
Actually, Mom came to sign me out but she quickly learned that it wasn’t an option and wouldn’t be for some time. I think she felt very guilty, as if it were somehow her fault. I tried to smile to let her know I would be okay, though I’m not sure if what I was thinking and intending in my head translated properly to the muscles in my face.
The next day Mom brought me some books and the latest issue of MAD magazine. Its cover had a drawing of King Kong scratching his head as he looked at his lady who sat knitting in the palm of his hand. I had been reading MAD since I was nine so forgive her the irony, please, bless her heart. She was doing whatever she could to hold herself together under the circumstances. I think she was taking the whole thing worse than I was.
She explained to me that the books had been given to her by my principal at Hobart and that he’d arranged with her an accelerated course of study for me while I was away from school. She asked if I was okay with the idea.
I squeezed her hand and tried to smile. “Sure,” I said.
“Mr. Barrett said you might even be able to graduate early if you can keep up with what he gives you. What do you think of that?”
Under the circumstances I didn’t see how that was possible. I felt we were putting the cart way in front of the horse but I didn’t let her see my doubts. I squeezed her hand again, she kissed and hugged me goodbye.
She left a bag of underwear, socks, and T-shirts on my bed and the books stacked tall on my desk: Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, Animal Farm, The Stranger, The Diary of Anne Frank, Invisible Man, and Candide.
It was an impressive list and I would eventually get to reading all of them. They had a lot in common: prejudice, intolerance, cruelty, persecution of the other, subjugation of the weak, the powerful dominating the meek, evil triumphing over good, genocide, murder, and slavery. All the lovely themes that keep repeating themselves over the course of recorded history.
The other book I read during this period was the Bible. It was provided by the hospital and was freely available to all who wanted it. All of the above-mentioned themes were also featured in the Bible alongside the familiar litany of human sacrifice, plagues, locusts, floods, torture, and crucifixion.
I was getting an education in the march of human progress and it seemed that if we are to be certain of any one thing at all, it’s that most of us are lambs waiting to be slaughtered at the hands of the butchers. A realization made far worse by the fact that the butchers are invariably idiotic, pea-brained morons whose stupidity almost manages
to overshadow their cruelty. Almost.
Paradoxically, being aware of all this has given me great strength and courage. The devil as you know it. It’s like everything makes much more sense to me now. As if the veils have been lifted and behind the curtain there is just the truth, naked and raw, in sharp focus, with all the details defined.
I have come to a real understanding of who Lou was, who Veronica was, and why they were who they were. Why they did what they did.
It all comes down to a particular and special quality they shared. I call it an acute sensitivity to human fragility. I think it was something that became unbearable to them quite often so they were forced to find ways of coping with it. This was achieved in two ways: one, by covering themselves in layers of armor; and two, by transmuting it into music (in Lou’s case) or words (in Veronica’s, though never fully realized).
The Perfume Burned His Eyes Page 14