Hearing these stories was comforting in a way that “You are going to be okay, I promise” never could be. “You are going to be okay” acknowledges that you are very much not okay, and the best we can muster at this point is illogical and empty assurance: you will be okay. Based on what? No one ever says, “You will be okay because…” followed by a compelling reason. It’s strictly aspirational, patronizing even. “You will be okay” means you’re in an abyss right now, and I got nothing for you. You never get step-by-step instructions for emerging from the abyss.
The Bird’s stories said something entirely different. They said, “Don’t lose yourself, because I still know who you are.” They said, “You are weak right now, so weak that you need to hear about how marvelous I’ve known you to be since you were born; how unconditionally and attentively I’ve loved you since you got here; how I’ve had your back since day one, saw a truth teller where everyone else saw a little smart-ass. You were the toughest to give birth to, the toughest to raise, even tougher than your pothead brother. Yet I went to bat for you against everyone and everything, even when I should have let you face the music, because I see you, who you are, what you are. And you won’t be facing this music alone either. This is just another chapter of The Book of Zachary I’ve been taking notes on and writing in my head for twenty-six years.”
Of course this unwavering support took a serious toll on the Bird. As nightmarish as the psych ward was for me, what my mother had been forced to go through was probably worse. Until I regained lucidity, I had no idea that I was out to lunch. I didn’t have to sit there and watch the whole thing, wondering if the guy she was so proud of was ever coming back. Things had never been easy for her: first a drunk for a father, then a cokehead for a husband, then a tyrant for a second husband. Poor the whole time, buying nothing for herself, putting every dollar and every ounce of energy into her children. Mac ’n’ cheese, borrowed margarine, $3 in the gas tank. Doing it all alone with a constant headache and constant anxiety about how we’d make it.
And we kind of did: The Bird had graduated from Dillon’s, put herself through college, and gotten a master’s degree. And she’d kept going: at age fifty, she was closing in on a PhD in education. Alexa had gone on to veterinary school at the University of Florida, and was now in her residency at an animal hospital in Chicago. Adam was taking his time, but we knew he’d figure it out. The Bird was so proud at my law school graduation and immediately took to writing “Esq.” on my mail even after I told her to quit since it didn’t impress anyone in an office full of Esquires. That one of us would get pegged with the Uncle Eddie bullet had been her worst fear as a parent. She started researching signs of childhood mental illness when I was two, but despite all the shit I got into growing up—the fifteen fights, the two expulsions, the suspensions, the totaled cars, the bouts of depression—by God, her boy’d made it.
And then one day she got a phone call that her B.B.H.B.B.B.I.F. was locked in Bellevue and possibly schizophrenic, just like her crazy-ass dead brother.
The guilt I felt about the burden I was placing on her, after a lifetime spent swallowing tough pills forced on her by the failings of those around her, burned my insides. I had always dreamed about being the source of her salvation, and here I was, dragging her backward. And yet she knew and I knew, no matter how dark it got, she would be there. Ain’t no quit in the Bird.
Chapter 11
And then Black Santa died.
The Bird was sobbing so hard I couldn’t understand her. I had to tell her three times to breathe before I could make out “Terry!” and “Gorilla.”
“What?” But just as she knew when I said “Edward” on the day he died, I knew what “Terry!” meant. There’s hysterical crying, and then there’s the love of my life just died crying. This was the latter. “When, what happened? Breathe.”
“He’s dead, Gorilla. He’s dead. His sister found him. He was in his boxer shorts on the bathroom floor! He’s dead, Gorilla!”
“When?”
“I was at school. His sister called me and asked if I was sitting down. I thought his parents died. Never in a million years did I think…Terry! Oh my God! Oh Jesus!” She sounded like she was hyperventilating.
“Bird, sit down. You gotta breathe. Sit down and breathe. Don’t say anything for five breaths.” I could still hear her sobbing and gasping for air, but slowly her breathing grew steadier.
“I’ll come home.”
“But you’re not okay!”
“But you’re not okay, Bird. I’m coming home.”
The Bird looked a mess when I arrived at 1050 Denmark two days later. She told me she’d been taking Valium and that her friend Lisa was monitoring her. “I can’t even remember what I done took.”
“Well, by God,” I said, “you’re a pill popper is what you are.”
“I’m a, by God, twice-divorced widow is what I am.” She laughed, then cried. Then pointed to the shellacked piece of petrified wood with the lantern and the sticker of Jesus. “Fake husband gave me a piece of wood with my savior on it.”
“Not even going to give you shit about your magic savior. I’m sorry, Bird.”
“Old drunk. Old smoking drunk, leaving me here like a widow and a crying fool. Doctor tells him not to smoke and what does the old fool do? Dies in his underwear on me.”
I’d never seen my mom so helpless. Maybe if she told herself enough times that Terry was a “fake husband” and a fool of a drunk, she could start to believe it. But the Bird is no liar. She knew what Terry meant to her. “I’m not even a real widow. He’s going to have two ex-wives at the funeral and I’m not even number three.”
“That’s a piece of paper.”
“Hombre. Oh my God, Hombre.” Hombre was Terry. I don’t know if the name was from his bodybuilding days in Spain or something nasty that I didn’t want to know about. I chose to believe the former.
The Bird joked on the way to the funeral. Enough that I decided I could make fun of her and possibly it would make her feel better. “By God, widow at fifty is what you is.”
“I can pick ’em,” she said.
I was less ruthless than usual, though. Normally when she talked about Terry I’d launch into a five-minute soliloquy on his Christmas gifts. In addition to the Bird’s petrified wood Jesus, he’d once given my sister a pamphlet extolling the virtues of olive leaf extract. It had clearly been inside the packaging of some sort of snake oil supplement. Terry just had the pamphlet. Alexa regifted it to me the next year. That same year, he gave Adam, a twenty-three-year-old, a wind-up NASA rocket toy and me two books I could have read in fourth grade. The Bird was furious, but if petrified wood Jesus wasn’t a deal breaker, neither were these.
When we got to the church, she couldn’t front any longer. I could barely hold her up as we made our way in. Julius, Terry’s father, who was probably ninety but looked sixty, motioned for the Bird to come sit by him, resolving the widow issue in her favor. This pleased her. “Getting the, by God, widow’s pew at least.”
“At least the important stuff’s going your way,” I said. “We’ll try to get you walking on your own accord again soon.”
“No one needs your forked-tongue sarcasm in the house of the Lord.”
The Bird and I made our way over to Terry’s father and she buried her head in his shoulder. It had to be hard to see him—he looked a great deal like Terry would have if he’d lived another twenty-five years.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Julius said. “I’m so sorry.”
She wailed throughout the service. Louder than the real widows, louder than everyone.
I dragged her to the casket for that little morbid ritual. If I hadn’t been capable of supporting her entire body weight, she’d have tipped over the casket. “Bird, you can’t get in there with him,” I said.
“But I want to. Oh my God, Hombre.”
The final hymn lasted about seventeen minutes. “Jesus, oh Jesus,” etc. I whispered in the Bird’s ear, “How long is this godd
amn song?”
She dug her nails into my hand and said, “You are in a house of God, you cynical little smart-ass.”
Terry was buried in the same cemetery as Uncle Eddie. On the drive over, the Bird alternated between flippant sarcasm and grave pronouncements. “At least I got my widow status. Did you see how Julius swatted all those other biddies away? Only Terry’s drunkard son had anything to do with those ho bags.”
“Why do they have to be ho bags?” I asked her.
“Because I am the widow.”
“I wonder who’s calling you a ho bag in the cars behind us right now.”
“By God, all of ’em can call me a ho bag because Julius knows I am Hombre’s widow.”
“Maybe we’ll get you a placard. Attach it to some shellacked petrified wood.”
“Gorilla. Goddamn. Let your mother grieve.”
“I’m going to be sore tomorrow from dragging you around the church and keeping you from jumping into the casket. I’m allowing you a proper grieving.”
“Hombre was never going to get a PhD like he said. I knew he was full of bull. But…” She was ready for another breakdown. “I want to play gin rummy with him. And listen to gospel music. And touch his beard. His beard. Oh my God.”
“Breathe, Bird. Breathe.”
“I feel like there is a swarm of bees in my armpits and a Volkswagen on my chest. And my head is throbbing.”
There was comfort food at the reception: black-eyed peas, ribs, greens, fried chicken, and sweet tea. The Bird told me to go eat so I didn’t become a low-blood-sugar gorilla, said she could stand on her own feet for a minute and she’d sit if she needed to. I loaded up a plate big enough to feed us both in case I could get her to nibble a little. “I bet you won’t eat fried chicken, but will you have two bites of mac and cheese?” I asked her. “It’s not very good. But you need your strength, woman.”
“This is far more painful than my brother’s death. It eclipses my two divorces. The only time I’ve ever felt worse than this is seeing you in the hospital.”
“You don’t have to rank ’em, Bird.”
She ate a little and then told me that we needed to go. “If one more bitch or sonofabitch tells me I should be grateful for the time I had with him I might just whoop somebody’s ass.”
I only stayed a few days. I wished I could take her back to New York with me. If Wichita was responsible for so much scar tissue on my psyche, what did the Bird’s soul look like? My dad, then Clyde, then her brother, now Hombre. And according to her, losing the love of her life wasn’t the worst part of her year. I told her I wished I could stay with her and take care of her, and that I would if she wanted me to.
“Gorilla, you and I been through the fire with gasoline-soaked drawers on. And we’re still standing. Now get your hairy ass back to New York and stay out of my garage.”
Chapter 12
What do you wear the first day back to work after a ninety-day leave of absence due to experiencing a psychotic break? The dress code at the office was lax—T-shirt and jeans was my norm—but I churched up for day one with a sober navy sweater and pair of dark slacks. My hair had grown out and was styled, for once, in a court-appropriate fashion. Even though I knew I wouldn’t have anything to do, I got there early—I didn’t want to walk in during rush hour. I felt about as self-conscious as an elephant in a small law office when I pushed open the double doors of our main ninth-floor entrance. Darryl was sitting behind the reception desk.
“Hey, D.”
“Uh-oh! Z. McD in the building! You back, man?”
“Back.”
“All right, Zack. I see you. My man Zack back in this.”
“Good to see you, D. Gotta check in.”
“Check in, Zack. That man Zack checking in.”
I buzzed my security card and entered the interior office. Instinctively, I walked to my mailbox to pick up my case printouts, subpoenas, and discovery material from the DA’s office. Of course there was nothing there, but it was gratifying to see that my name was still on my slot. The drinking fountain next to the mailboxes was still fucked-up and patched together with duct tape. The soundtrack in the lobby was the same: “I need to speak to a fucking lawyer! I need my goddamn Legal Aid!” Darryl chilling out whoever was going off on him. Darryl gets yelled at a lot.
On the other side of the door, in the offices, a low ambient grumble of lawyers complaining about clients and DAs, punctuated occasionally by some of the more volatile attorneys shouting at their clients on the phone. “Mr. Green, it’s two fucking days of community service! Two! And they will dismiss your case! These are criminal charges!” I took a deep breath and decided there was no use delaying it any longer: I had to go talk to my supervisor.
Just before I rounded the corner, putting myself in my boss’s direct sight line, I made a U-turn back to the lobby and dove into the restroom; 213—same code, thank God. This is a huge fucking mistake. I fished my phone out of my pocket, scrolled to the Bs, and tapped BIRD. It was 8:30 a.m. in Kansas—she’d be busy setting up her students as they trickled in. She answered on the first ring; her phone had become an appendage since I moved back to New York.
“Gorilla report?”
“Gorilla at Legal Aid.”
“First day of school? Not good?”
“Not good.” I spilled it—sobbed, breathed, sobbed. “I shouldn’t be here. This is so ridiculous. I feel like such a fucking idiot. Fucking idiot. I can’t see these people again yet.”
“Steppers keep on stepping. You’re a…”
“Not a stepper! Not a stepper. No steps.”
“You’re a leaper, Gorilla. Three months ago you were in a goddamn psych ward. You’re at work now. You’re still an attorney. It’s not easy, what you’re doing.”
“I want to leave.”
“You can leave. Can’t you?”
“Technically, I guess I could.”
“So if you want to leave…”
“Of course I want to leave, but this is stupid, right? I shouldn’t be scared of these people, right?”
“Who scares you? What are you scared of?”
“Everyone. And everything—all the time. The subway. Confined spaces. Walking through the halls, waiting for everyone to stare at me. Madman back in the building.”
“You need Mama Gorilla to open up five cans of whoop ass on somebody?”
I knew she’d love to. “You know what? Fuck this. Fuck ’em all. I’m doing this.”
“Puff out that big gorilla chest and go rip it off like a Band-Aid. Call me if you need me.”
I wiped my eyes, left the stall, and splashed some cold water on my face. Don’t let them see you sweat. Steppers keep on stepping. I looked in the mirror—You look good, you look normal. You’re a normal guy. Then I slapped myself in the face as hard as I could. Game time.
I swiped my security card again. Round two. I passed by the paralegals’ bullpen and gave a friendly wave to Chele and Jana. Both stood up and smiled, but I kept charging—figured I’d act like I belonged here. My supervisor’s office was steps away and I saw him before he saw me.
“Barry.” I hit him with a two-fingered salute.
“Mr. McDermott! Look what the cat dragged in. To what do we owe the pleasure? Are you back back?”
“Yeah, I think I am,” I said.
“Well-hell-hell, we are thrilled to have you.”
“Good. I’m thrilled to have you as well, Barry.”
“And there he is,” he answered. My sarcasm seemed to relax him. “So I guess let me call the powers that be and see what the procedure is. Do you have a note? I think they’ll need a note.”
“Shit. I had a note”—I did have a note—“but I forgot my note.” I left out the part about being too busy trying not to throw up as I forced myself out the door to remember the note.
“Okay, I’ll call Dawn and see what the deal is. There’s an open office where Jenny used to sit. I’m not sure if you’re still going to be in our cluster, but if you
are, it will probably be in there.”
“Okay.”
“Good to see you. Stand by and I’ll get in touch with Dawn.”
“Ten-four, boss.”
I felt emboldened after my talk with Barry. He seemed genuinely glad to see me. More important, he didn’t seem to look at me differently at all. I sat in my new temporary office, a downgrade from my first office. There, if I craned my neck, I could just see the Statue of Liberty behind me. Now if I craned my neck I could just see three beige walls and a giant beige filing cabinet, all bathed in white fluorescent. After half an hour or so, Barry came into my office looking a bit somber. “So I talked to Dawn. You need a note.”
“Okay,” I said.
“You actually can’t be here without a note. Sooo…you’re going to have to leave until we get one from your doctor.”
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