Last Night I Sang to the Monster

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

  When Rafael first arrived, me and him would talk a little. Not much. I didn’t like to talk and he was sad and we both liked to read. So it was a good match. The cabin was nice and quiet. But with Sharkey on the loose, the whole cabin changed. His first night, he started asking a lot of questions. “What are you in for?” He looked straight at Rafael. It wasn’t hardly a question.

  Rafael gave him a crooked smile. “I’m an alcoholic,” he said.

  “Is that all?”

  Rafael shook his head. “There’s more to it than that.”

  “Well, I got nothing but time. I’m stuck here for thirty days.”

  Rafael laughed. “You can leave any time you want. This isn’t a prison. We’re not doing time.”

  “The fuck we’re not.”

  “Have you ever actually done time?”

  “Fuck yes. And I’m not going back. That’s why I’m here.”

  “So you have yourself some legal consequences?”

  Sharkey laughed. “You could say that. Look, I’m not coppin’ to shit. But, see, I figure the judge is gonna smile at someone’s who’s trying to get his act together by coming to a place like this. See, I’ll spend thirty days here, get my therapist to write a nice letter and, you know, the judge will see that I’m ready to join the earth people. Not that I want to be an earth person. But there’s no harm in pretending to be one if it’ll keep me out of the fucking slammer.”

  Rafael smiled. I mean, I could tell Rafael was getting a kick out of the guy. “What were you into?”

  “This a fucking interview?”

  Rafael shot him a smile. “Yes. If Zach and I don’t like you, they’ll move your ass to another cabin.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” Then Rafael just broke out laughing. Then Sharkey went at it too. And me too. So we were all there in Cabin 9, laughing our asses off.

  Then the room got real quiet.

  “Look,” Sharkey said. “I guess I was pretty much into everything. Cocaine, heroin, alcohol—you name it, I did it.” He seemed pretty proud of himself. He looked at Rafael. I mean the guy had no remorse in his voice. I know remorse when I hear it. Rafael, he had remorse coming out his ears. Sharkey, he had zero remorse. “And you, dude, what was your drink of choice?”

  “Wine.”

  “Wine? Shit, that’s lame.”

  “It did the job.”

  And then he looked across the room at me. “What about you, Zachy?” The guy already had a nickname for me.

  “Bourbon,” I said.

  “Just bourbon?”

  “Well, coke. I liked that too.”

  “Now we’re talking.”

  He got this look on his face. Euphoric memory. That’s what Adam called it. “Some of you guys even get high remembering.” That Adam, he had a name for everything. But that was exactly the look Sharkey had on his face. Euphoria. The guy was a disaster. But I liked him. He wasn’t normal. If you were normal, he called you an earth person. He didn’t care for them. No way. I think that’s what I liked about him.

  I wanted to ask him what he did to get himself into legal trouble, but I figured I’d find out soon enough. I figured I wouldn’t even have to ask. After a few days, I’d know more about the guy than God did. That was my thinking.

  Sharkey got quiet for a little while and looked around the room. But soon enough he started in again. “What is this bullshit of going through your stuff? It’s such bullshit. And what’s with this sex contract that we have to sign that we won’t have sexual contact with anyone while we’re here. What’s that about?”

  Rafael was trying like hell to read. He looked up from his book. “It’s a no-touch facility.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  Rafael kinda shook his head. “You know what it means, Sharkey. And I think you know why.”

  That seemed to quiet down Sharkey’s complaints. Not that Sharkey was happy about the whole thing. See, I was already getting it into my head that Sharkey just liked to complain. “You know,” he said, “there’s probably not any girl here I’d want to have sex with anyway.”

  Rafael looked up from his book and smirked. Rafael, that guy could smirk. “What makes you so sure there’s a girl in here that would want to have sex with you, buddy?”

  That pissed Sharkey off. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  See, I knew what Rafael was doing. Sharkey was a really handsome guy. You know, the kind of guy who thought everyone was in love with him because, well, a face like that went a long way—especially with girls. Guys like Sharkey thought they owned the world. Rafael, he didn’t go in for that.

  Rafael didn’t say anything. He just kept reading his book.

  “Look,” Sharkey said, “any girl would be lucky to have me.”

  “Maybe,” Rafael said, “but if I had a daughter, I wouldn’t let you past the front porch.”

  “Look, dude, you don’t know me. Maybe I’m a really nice guy.”

  “Yeah. You probably are a nice guy. Tell me something, how many girls have you been with?”

  “Is this still a part of that interview?” Sharkey sort of laughed, but I could tell Rafael was making him nervous.

  “I have a guess.” Rafael peered over his book.

  “I’m game, dude.”

  “How old are you? Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight?” Rafael, he was good with ages.

  “Twenty-seven.”

  Rafael nodded. “I’d say you’ve been with, let me see, more than fifty girls—more than fifty but under a hundred.”

  Sharkey smiled. “So what?”

  “See what I mean about not letting you past the front porch?”

  Sharkey laughed. He didn’t say anything for a while, but I knew he was thinking of something else to say. Finally, he looked at Rafael. “What is it with you and that book?”

  Rafael laughed. “We have a personal relationship.”

  That made Sharkey laugh. But then he said, “Doesn’t seem like you need to be in place like this.”

  “Trust me, I need to be here.”

  “Not me.”

  Rafael smiled. “Maybe not. Well, there is that thing about your legal consequences.”

  “Consequences? What’s up with you and that word, dude?”

  “What about that word don’t you like?”

  “What are you, a counselor? You’re not supposed to play therapist. It says so right in the rules.”

  “If you want to get technical, the rules don’t actually say that. And anyway, I’m not much interested in playing therapist. I’m a garden-variety drunk. Nothing special about that.”

  I hated to hear Rafael say that. I don’t know why. I just didn’t like to hear him talk about himself that way.

  “Look, they screwed me over. I didn’t do what they said I did.”

  Rafael nodded like, you know, he wasn’t going there. “Look, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I’m not upset.” Yeah, not upset. Sharkey was definitely upset.

  “Good,” Rafael said.

  “Look,” Sharkey said. “Why don’t you go back to your personal relationship with that book?” He looked up at me. “Aren’t you a little young to be acting like him?”

  I guess Sharkey thought that reading books was an old people’s thing. I didn’t know what to say so I just sort of shrugged.

  “Hell,” he said, “I think I’ll go to the smoking pit.”

  That’s when I decided Sharkey and I were going to be best friends. “You smoke?” I said.

  “Yup.”

  “Can I buy a smoke from you?”

  He smiled. Look, if the guy would sell me some smokes, I’d listen to him complain till the leaves grew back on their trees.

  It was funny, when we walked out to the smoking pit, Sharkey got real quiet. We stood out there in the cold and smoked a couple of cigarettes.

  “Life sucks,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Rafael says it sucks better sober.”

  That made
Sharkey laugh. “I can’t decide if I like that guy.”

  “I like him,” I said. I didn’t know why I said that. Well, it was the truth. I did like Rafael. So, what was wrong with saying you liked someone when you did like them?

  “He’s a helluva lot nicer than my father.” He took a really deep drag off his cigarette. “Don’t get me going on my father.”

  I guess his father really tore him up. God, it was cold. I hated winter.

  “You have dreams?” I heard Sharkey’s voice in the dark.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I don’t like having them.”

  “I have them too,” he said. “I want to get rid of them.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  I wondered if he had a monster. Yes, he had a monster. Sharkey definitely had a monster.

  Maybe everyone had one. Maybe I was just making that up. It was strange and funny and sad that we were standing there smoking and thinking that we could get rid of our bad dreams. Maybe we were both hoping that something would happen and things would be different. Maybe the changed Zach and the changed Sharkey would have different dreams. It wasn’t good for me to think these things. I knew that. Thinking things like that only made me sad. It was like that time when I thought that things between me and my dad could be different.

  I kept the smoke in my lungs as long as I could, then just let it out slowly.

  I hated winter.

  I hated dreams.

  I hated remembering.

  I hated talking to Adam.

  And I hated the fact that change was a word that existed in a dream I would never have.

  REMEMBERING

  There was this guy at school. His name was Sam. He was really tall and kind of a jock. Not that he hung with other jocks. I guess he was like me, kind of a loner. You know, like some coyotes. Coyotes really stun me out. They’re very fantastic animals. They’re really good parents for one thing. They take care of their pups and they raise them and they play with them and they teach them all the things they need to know in order to make it in the mean world. And even though coyotes like hanging out with each other and sing and howl at night, some of them like to just go off and be alone. They’re okay with being alone. I was one of those coyotes who liked to be off by himself. I think Sam was like that too.

  He was always trying to talk to me and stuff. I talked to him too. Not that I’m all that good at talking. Talking is fantastically overrated. Too many people do too much of it. It stuns the hell out of me how so many people like to talk. Sharkey, for example. If talking is so good for you, what the hell is Sharkey doing here? The guy tears me up. Talking does not heal you. Talking just adds to the noise pollution in the world. If we were really serious about going green, then maybe we’d all just be quiet.

  Maybe that’s why I felt connected to Sam. He was friendly and all of that and even though he wasn’t an extreme introvert (that would be me), he was quiet about the fact that he was an extrovert. I mean, God did not write anxiety on Sam’s heart. That really stunned me out.

  One day Sam goes by my locker at school and asks me if I wanted to go hang out. I said sure. It was a Friday, and normally on Friday I’d go and get stoned out of my mind with my friends. I thought it might be good to change it up, you know? So Sam picks me up in his car and we go riding around and we’re listening to music and talking and I’m trying not to want to smoke because I knew the guy didn’t smoke. And then he says, why don’t we go to a movie, and I say cool and so we go. I don’t remember what we watched but I knew that Sam was watching me more than he was watching the movie. And that was really stunning me out. But I pretended not to notice. I mean, what the hell did he see?

  So, when he takes me home, he says to me, we’re just sitting in his car, and he says to me, “Listen, Zach, have you ever kissed anybody?”

  And then I see where we’re going with this, but I want to play it cool because, well, I liked Sam, and I didn’t want to freak out because I freak out way too much and really it’s no big deal that the guy wants to kiss me because, well, it wasn’t as if he was scary or anything. But I have to say I started to feel really anxious and I wasn’t about to kiss him. I mean, the guy was good looking and smart and he had these serious green eyes and he was all the things most guys really want to be and all of that and I knew a lot of girls that would have really liked to kiss the guy, but I, well, that just was not going to happen.

  I just sat there and finally I said, “Why would anyone want to kiss me?” It was a really stupid thing to say. I don’t even know why I said that. I mean, the words just came out of my mouth. I really tear myself up sometimes.

  “Why wouldn’t somebody want to kiss you? I mean, you’re really beautiful.”

  That really wigged me out. Stunned the hell out of me. In a bad way. In a very bad way. I mean, I didn’t like that he said that. Why did he say that? I hated that. I really needed a drink and I really needed a cigarette. Look, I didn’t know what to do and he was bigger than me and he was a jock and what if he hit me? I didn’t like that. I mean, I’d had enough of that hitting crap with my brother.

  I just got out of the car and reached in my coat pocket and lit a cigarette. I took a drag and walked inside the house. And then I found myself walking around some street, smoking and drinking. I mean, my feet didn’t have to ask my brain when they took me places. I got really drunk and I stumbled home. I don’t even remember how I got into bed.

  But the next night, Sam was in my dream. He kept looking at me. God, I hate that I’m lying here in Bed 3 of Cabin 9 and remembering a guy named Sam. Sam with serious green eyes. I didn’t even know the guy. This doesn’t feel good. Nothing feels good. Nothing.

  THINGS I DON’T WANT TO KNOW

  -1-

  There are things I don’t know that I really know. That’s one of the categories of things around this place—at least in our group. We keep lists and categories for things so we can keep track. It’s weird. Of course it’s weird. Everyone in here is weird. And it stands to reason that most of the things we do are equally weird. Weird people have weird behavior. And if we weren’t weird we wouldn’t be here.

  There’s this lady in our group, she could be my mom. Her name’s Elizabeth, but she likes to be called Lizzie. She calls this place “Trauma Camp.” I like Lizzie. She has her issues but I like her voice and she says funny things and she’s not all checked out like my mom.

  See, that’s the thing in our group. We all suffer from trauma. Only, I’m not exactly sure what my trauma’s supposed to be. Everyone else in our group pretty much knows what their trauma is. Except me. I pretty much keep quiet about that. Well, I pretty much keep quiet about everything. Look, at least I listen. I don’t think we all have to participate in the same way. That’s my thinking. Sometimes, Sharkey tells me I have to speak up in group. “Look, dude,” he says, “we’re not here just for giggles and grins.” Sharkey, he’s not at all consistent. One minute he’s all into this place and says he’s ready to do the work. And the next minute he’s carping and whining and calling this place a shithole. But Sharkey, he speaks up in group, I’ll tell you that. Some days, he stuns the hell out of the whole group.

  Our group is called Summer. You know, the season. There’s a big painting that hangs on the wall of our meeting room. There’s a huge tree in the center of the painting. And I mean to tell you that this tree is seriously full of leaves. And there’s a group of people sitting under the tree and they’re all talking and smiling. And instead of fruit, the tree is growing letters and the letters spell out Summer. Adam says that summer is the fullest season, the season of the sun, the season when the sky is bluest, the season when the whole world is most alive. I guess that’s a nice thing. Yeah, okay, nice. Summer. The thing of it is that right now it’s the middle of winter. Winter, it’s the empty season. It’s the season when the sky is the grayest. The world is leafless and dead. Winter tears me up.

  There are other groups and the people in the other groups have other things going on. You know
, other issues. We all have issues. Like Sharkey says, “We’re not here for grins and giggles.” The world has stunned the hell out of us, torn us apart, beat us down. Sharkey says we’re lucky to be walking around.

  Some people have eating disorders and there’s a special group for that. Some people have more than one person living inside them and there’s a special group for that. That’s serious stuff. That really does stun the hell out of me. I mean, I only have one of me living inside me and that’s bad enough. If I had more than one of me inside me, I’d off myself.

  Look, let’s say I had two other guys inside me. That would make three of us. That would mean that God would have written sad three times on my heart. Just think about that. Man, I would be smoking for three and drinking for three. It would not be good.

  Some people are addicted to love or to sex and there’s a special group for that too. I mean, that’s kind of weird too. Look, I’m not into touch so it’s hard for me to think too much about sex. I know I’m not normal. What’s normal? And anyway, at this place, normal doesn’t count. Not even the therapists are normies. Sharkey says that the only really cool thing about this place is that there are no earth people hanging out.

  And there’s another group. I’m not sure what that group is all about. I think maybe the people in that group are like the people in our group. A trauma group. Maybe in that trauma group, they’re not addicts. That’s the other thing about our group, we’re all either alcoholics or drug addicts or both. And then it gets a little complicated because each group has other kinds of troubled people. I guess that’s how I like to think about us, we’re troubled. Sharkey likes to say we’re damaged. But he’s way into drama. I mean, I think the guy is addicted to having a crisis. Okay, so God wrote troubled and damaged on our hearts. That really tears me up, that God did that to us.