The Dead Inside

by Cyndy Etler

  As Sandy stands guard at the door, her dad goes around and messes with each window.

  “All locked,” he says.

  He replaces Sandy in the doorway. Then her hand is back in my belt loop, and we begin Act Five of The Weirdest Shit on Earth. She gets on her knees, pulling me down with her, and starts crawling around the room. Seriously, she’s crawling. One-handed. So I’m crawling too, only I get to use both hands.

  Sandy presses her face to the floorboards, runs her hand under each mattress. She skims her palm across a window ledge, then crawls us into the empty, doorless closet. She touches every surface in that nothing room, then pulls her hand from my pants and stands up.

  I don’t even ask why. She tells me anyway.

  “I have to make sure there’s nothing a newcomer can hurt herself with. You’d be amazed how much damage you can do with that plastic T that holds the tag on new clothes.”

  “I’m not gonna hurt myself,” I say. “You don’t have to do all that for me.”

  “Oh, I’m not doing it just for you. I sweep the room every night, whether I have a newcomer or not.”

  “Man, you—you do that whole search thing every night? Even when it’s just you sleeping in here?”

  “Of course! I don’t know when my druggie self might take over! Once a druggie, always a druggie. I have to protect myself from myself. And hey, good catch with that druggie word.”

  I don’t know what the fuck to say to all that. Luckily Dad G. walks back in, so I don’t have to say anything. He drops an armful of stuff onto a mattress.

  “Call me when you’re ready,” he says, and pulls the door shut behind him.

  “Okay, newcomer,” Sandy says. “Give me your clothes, starting with your shoes. And I mean everything. Including hair elastic. Including panties.”

  And I do it. What choice do I have? Besides, she’s already seen me wipe my butt. You can’t get any more naked than that. So piece by piece, I hand her the last shreds of myself. My Keds, my Levi’s, my tie-dye. She makes a little pile out of them on the floor. Second to last, I hand over my bra.

  “Oh. This, we’ll have to do something about,” she says, rubbing her thumb on the underwire.

  “Whadaya—”

  “I thought I told you. Anything damaging will be confiscated. Don’t you know how many ways a person can kill herself with an underwire bra? By hanging, with just the straps alone. She could slice her wrists with the underwire. And these sharp hooks in the back? Dangerous as a steak knife. I could keep going. I only have B-cup Velcro bras, so you’ll have to go without a bra until your parents bring your humble clothes.”

  She leans over the pile of stuff her dad brought.

  “Here,” she says, throwing something blue at me. “Pajamas.”

  I hold the blue thing up: a boy’s button-down shirt, minus the buttons. I put it on backward, like a doctor’s appointment dress. I keep my left hand behind me, holding the shirt together like a big flesh button. Then I hook my right finger into my undies, close my eyes, and pull.

  My eyes are closed as I hold my finger hook out to Sandy. There’s evidence in the crotch of what happened in that beige room. If she sees it, I don’t want to know.

  A tiny weight lifts from my finger, and this girl has my underwear in her hand. I was wrong. You could get more naked. This must be why I’d try to kill myself with a nail clipping.

  Sandy’s different from me. She doesn’t give a shit. She pulls off her maroon corduroy shirt and her turquoise-blue, elastic waist pants. She’s standing there in the biggest pair of granny panties I have ever, ever seen. The white cotton of her ass is the size and shape of a hockey rink. Maybe she should kill herself.

  I’m drop-jaw staring as she undoes the Velcro part of her bra.

  “Well?” she snaps.

  She waves her hand at the pile of clothes her dad dropped, and one of her boobs flops out of the bra. It knocks around a little, looking embarrassed.

  “What are you waiting for? Get yourself a blanket.”

  That’s my favorite, when people get mad because you didn’t do what they didn’t tell you to do. I grab a dark green blanket and cocoon myself in scratchiness. I look out the window at the silver hope of the moon.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” she says. “The windows are locked with a key my dad has. Dad!”

  I turn back to find Sandy in a long flannel nightgown, the same one I had when I was six. She’s picking up the mound of our clothes when the door opens again.

  “Here you go, Dad,” she says, pinching the hot pink corner of my underwear and sifting them out of the pile. She drops them on top of the bundle, then hands it over.

  “Goodnight, girls,” Dad G. says, and the room goes dark as he takes the camp light out with him. After the solid click of the door closing, there’s a muffled beeeep, then Dad G.’s voice again. “Alarmed in!” it says.

  In the light of the moon I see Sandy drop down to the floor. She pushes a mattress up hard against the door and says, “Get some sleep. Wake-up’s in four hours.”

  I lie down and pray to disappear.

  16

  NO LEANING OR SLOUCHING

  God must not have heard me, ’cause I didn’t disappear. Instead, this morning I’m back in the beast. I mean, group. But it’s not really me anymore, because I’m not in my Levi’s. And I don’t have on makeup, and my boobs are all dangly and sloppy under this weird yellow shirt Sandy pulled out of the “phaser closet” in the hallway. I don’t know who’s sitting here, whose thighs are wrapped in old-lady plaid on this plastic seat. But it is not Cyndy Etler.

  While we were getting dressed, Sandy pulled a Goody barrette from her bathroom drawer and held it out to me. I already had my hair in a ponytail, so at first I was like, what’s the point?

  “Nah, I’m okay,” I said. “My hair’s long enough to stay in the ponytail.”

  “It’s not for your ponytail. It’s for your bangs.”

  That’s when I almost puked. I looked from the barrette in her hand to the red bumps on her forehead, which were on full display, thanks to a silver Goody. A burning wave kicked my stomach to my throat. She was going to make me look like her and that super-loser, Barrette Chick.

  “I—I,” I choked out, then swallowed the burn. “I’m not gonna wear that.” I sounded feeble, even to myself.

  “Yes, you are, Cyndy. Now take it and slap your bangs back, so we have time to eat.”

  I didn’t even argue. That’s another reason I’m not me anymore: I am so not the yes-ma’am kid. But I took the barrette, thumbed it open, and scooped some of my bangs to the side with it.

  “`Kay,” I said, taking a half-step toward the door.

  “Not ’kay,” Sandy said, taking a whole step toward me.

  She unclipped the barrette, tweezed all of my bangs back with her fingers, and scraped the barrette across my scalp, hard. When I touched my finger to the spots that hurt, it came away with blood. You could hurt yourself bad with a Goody, if you wanted to. What the fuck happened to “safety first”?

  So that was this morning, before we headed back to prison, a.k.a. “the building.” When we get here, somebody’s already sitting in the front corner seat. But just like yesterday, I get dragged right up to it, like nowhere else will do. Two seats down, there’s an empty chair, but no, I have to be centered in the crosshairs between the barstools and the beast, like the target in a spy movie.

  After Sandy moves the girl out of my seat, she sits in this row of empty chairs across from me. There are only twelve chairs over there, which are lined up next to the barstools. God knows why they’re set up across from the rest of the “group.” Maybe those kids watch the group when staff looks away.

  Or maybe they’re the super-psychos. As soon as Sandy’s knees bend—like, before her butt even hits the seat—she’s got both her arms up, doing that “motivating” t
hing. She’s angled toward the barstools, whipping her fists around in pentagrams, like a spastic kid ooh! ooh!-ing his hand in the teacher’s face. But the barstools are empty. She’s whipping her fists at nobody.

  More kids are funneling in. They’re like creepy, silent crows descending on a branch. And as soon as they sit, they face the empty stools and start motivating. Every single kid, except one. Me.

  From my James Dean lounge—legs out, arms crossed—I see movement at the floor, where my eyes are. It’s Sandy’s right hand. She’s spinning it like a pinwheel by her feet, trying to get my attention. And what a sucker I am: it works. I slide my mouth sideways in a smirk, but Sandy doesn’t speak that language. She latches her boiled-egg eyeballs onto mine and then, with flat open palms, she jerks her hands upward, three times, quick. It’s what my mother would do in church, to tell her choir to stand. Sandy wants me to stand up? No, ’cause now her jerking hand has gone back to doing spaz arms. She’s staring at me, and she’s motivating.

  I’ve just finished rolling my eyes, settling back to my power lounge, when I’m punched in the spine. Know how a fisherman jams his knife in a fish, then slices it right open? It’s like that: out of the blue, something sharp jabs my neck and pain rips down my spine. Before I can scream, there are clamps on my wrists and a demon at my ear.

  “Back straight! Hands up!” it growls.

  My arms are yanked up. My hands flop around at weird angles for a sec, until my brain catches up and I make fists. Now everyone is motivating at the empty barstools because I’m doing it too. I’m being motivated.

  I deal with it the best I can, by crossing my ankles like, “Whatev.” These people just don’t get it. I’m not staying at Straight. I don’t friggin’ need to do this.

  So that’s what I look like—half my body on vacation, the other half epileptic—when a familiar voice snaps from behind.

  “Song!”

  I hear the slap of bodies moving faster. The bottoms of Sandy’s chair legs clatter and jump on the tiles. Sandy’s going nuts, and everyone else is too. It’s like a flock of geese blasting into flight at the sound of a gunshot. But here, the shot is a word. “Song!”

  And then there’s another shot, a name this time, and the geese fall dead around me. Everyone’s arms drop; mine are pulled down by the hands clenching my wrists.

  “John B.!”

  A giant pops up on the boys’ side. He’s a man, almost. You can see the smudge of beard on his face. Then my demon, whose hands are still gripping my wrists, tells me, “Stop staring at the boys’ side.”

  I focus on Sandy’s feet, so I’m hearing, not seeing, when a cannon booms out, “You Are My Sunshine.”

  And the “group” starts singing it. No joke, every one of ’em. Picture three hundred dead-eyed teens, smiling away and singing this shit. Can you even?

  Yeah, there was singing yesterday. But it was like “Country Roads” and “Lean on Me”—lame songs you hear on AM radio. And then they sang those songs where “Straight” was every third word. But even those weren’t as weird as this. We sang this song in nursery school.

  The next thing I know my demon is moving my hands in shapes that go with the lyrics. I’m trying to twist her grip off of me when I see him.

  The guy walking down the group-aisle, next to the mean blond staff girl from last night.

  He’s—he’s Scott Deutermeyer!

  He looks the same as he used to when he’d come by my house to see Kim, just minus his perfect, faded jean jacket. My jaw unhinges as Scott and the meanie pop onto the barstools. Then I go kind of whirlwind. All the fucked up shit from the past twenty-four hours—being left in this pit with strangers, spine-fisted into rooms, watched on the toilet, forced to crawl around a floor—it takes over my brain. Without even thinking, I raise my hand while everyone else is singing.

  And Scott Deutermeyer—someone I know! In here!—looks right at me. He smiles like a priest and says, “Yes?”

  The group stops singing as I smile huge and say loud, “I know you!”

  “Stand up!” my demon bellows.

  Hands all around me start shoving air upward with flat, angry palms. But I’m not scared. With Scott’s John Stamos–look-alike face here in front of me, I couldn’t feel safer. I stand up and say it again. This time, I point.

  “I know you! Scott Deutermeyer! You’re friends with my sister Kim!”

  His smile falls, but I’m too hell-bent to wonder what that means. Scott’s gonna save me. He’s a staff member, and he knows me! He’ll take me to that little beige room, and I’ll tell him how no one’s listening when I say I’m not a druggie. He’ll tell the other staff, and then I’ll be out of here. Fuck three days! In three hours, I’ll be free. There’s so much happy sizzling out of my pores, I’m shocked the chick next to me hasn’t caught on fire.

  That excitement fizzles, though, when Scott actually speaks.

  “What’s your name?” he asks.

  As if he doesn’t know me. As if our being in this hell hole together isn’t a miracle from God.

  “Cyndy!” I say. “Cyndy Etler!”

  For a second he looks at me, like he didn’t quite catch what I said. A few more beams of happy short out.

  “Kim Etler’s sister?” I try. “From Stamford?”

  Finally, his gorgeous face nods. I can hear the sigh in his head, like he’s remembering a good dream. Oh, Kiiiiim. I don’t know what’s supposed to happen next, but I wish it was something other than this:

  “Cyndy Etler, then,” he says. “Okay, Cyndy.” Then he looks away from me.

  The “LOVE YA, CYNDY!” is like a tidal wave. It knocks me back into my seat, and I’m surrounded by an ocean of arms. The demon picks up my wrists, hoisting them over my head, and this time I don’t even fight her.

  • • •

  “No going outside on First, Second, or Third Phase!”

  “Love ya, Jackie!”

  “No talking about what goes on in the building!”

  “Love ya, Steve!”

  “Hold newcomers tight by the belt loop!”

  “Love ya, Sandy!”

  We’re doing this thing called “rules rap,” and I’m motivating. On my own. I look like a total spaz, but I’m so psyched to get called on right now, I’d do anything. Because Scott came back to the barstools after lunch, without the blond. This is my chance to get him to actually listen. And then my wish comes true. Scott looks right at me, gives me that smile, and says my name.

  “Cyndy E.!”

  I sit there with my heart doing fireworks.

  The demon behind me—a new one; the first one took a break—knuckles me in the back.

  “Get up!” she snaps.

  Angry arms flap at the ceiling, and their force pushes me up too. I’m the only person standing, surrounded by an ocean of faces.

  I should’ve had a plan for what to say. “Umm…”

  “When did you get here, Cyndy?” Scott asks.

  “Um…yesterday?”

  My guts are being pushed through a sausage grinder. Standing above all those kids and saying something?! When I first talked to Scott, I was hypnotized. But this time, I’m wide awake. God damn, there’re a lot of kids in here.

  “You got here yesterday,” Scott says. “Maybe a little soon for you to know the rules, huh?”

  I shrug. It’s the slowest, hardest shrug of all time.

  “Next time, Cyndy, I want you to have a rule for me. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I say to the floor tiles.

  “Here’s one: ‘All phasers must motivate in group.’ Remember that.”

  “Okay.”

  I’m knocked back into my seat by the crush of “Love ya, Cyndy!” And when my butt hits the chair, it’s like my brain switches back on. If Scott’s gonna help me out of here, why do I have to know the rules? And why’d he say r
emember it?

  The demon snatches my hands up again, which cuts off my thoughts. So I’m sitting here, being motivated, when Scott looks over and gives me a nod. Just me, like we have a secret. And with a burst, I get it. He told me that rule as a front, so it looks like I’m going along with the program. That way the staff will agree when he says, “She’s not a fuckup. She’s just a nice, bruised kid.” What a great idea!

  Knowing I’ll be gone soon makes me feel bad for the rest of the kids. They’re all stuck in this place for—what, like six months, at least? I can motivate today, since I’ll be out of here later. Playing along for just one day? That’s the least I can do.

  So I put some muscle into waving my arms on my own. Down and then up; down and then up. The demon’s hands break off my wrists; she pats me twice on the back. And it feels good, like somebody likes me. I keep motivating on my own and almost, almost, I feel free.

  • • •

  I’m sitting here with a Styrofoam tray bridged across my knees. The tray has the same stuff on it as yesterday: a piece of bologna, two pieces of bread, and hot veggie fart, plus half a cup of water. And a spork.

  I learn it’s called a spork when this other staff guy comes out for “dinner rap.” He’s got black hair like Scott Deutermeyer, but he’s taller and meaner. He likes being in charge, you can tell. His name’s Matt King. He prowls back and forth, talking a blue streak, I guess because the group can’t motivate with trays on their laps.

  “How’s that dinner, y’all? Mm-mm good? I had my dinner at Bonanza, y’all know it? Steak place where you get a tray and can pick out whatever you want? They got a salad bar, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, tater tots, even. Chocolate cream pie, lemon meringue…and I got one o’ them big, brown, plastic cups for my Coke. Raise your hand if you know them cups.”

  From the corner of my eye I see the chick next to me raise her hand, so I turn a little more, and there are hundreds of hands up. We’re supposed to answer that question?

  Because I’m stupid, I look back at Matt, and his eyes burn right through me. Pure mean.