Last Night I Sang to the Monster

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

  Adam pointed his chin toward me. “Zach? You have something?”

  “I was born,” I said.

  Adam kept himself from smiling but I knew he was smiling inside. “I was born,” Adam repeated.

  My heart was beating as fast as a hummingbird’s. I took a deep breath. “I was born,” I whispered, “in Las Cruces, New Mexico on August 16th, 1990. I’m a Leo.” I smirked. Like I cared what sign I was. I looked down at the carpet, then tried to look up. “My mother once told me that the day I was born was the happiest day of her life. That sounds like something she made up. My mother was never happy. I wish I had a picture of my mother holding me—me and all her happiness. I’d like to have a picture of that.” I told myself I wasn’t going to cry. I was sick and tired of all the tears around this place—especially mine. I took a breath and kept talking. “My mother was depressed. My father drank. My brother was a drug addict. And I fell in love with bourbon the first chance I got…”

  I spilled the whole story out. Everything I could remember about my mom and my dad and my brother Santiago. I told them about the windshields and Mr. Garcia and how he’d played the trumpet for me. I told them about my friends and about the song I was writing, the one about the monsters of night. I told them about all my father’s bottles of bourbon and my brother and how he’d hurt me and how he’d managed to own the house we lived in, control it with his angry eyes and his angry fists and how my dad and mom just let him. I talked about all the sadness in our house and about my mom and how she wanted me to touch her in ways that wigged me out and made me go mental. I told them everything I could remember and I felt like a storm dropping wind and rain on the earth and even though I just couldn’t stand it, I kept talking. I must have talked for a long time because I looked up at the clock and an hour had passed by. “I should stop,” I said.

  “You need a break?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m okay.”

  “Then why do you need to stop?”

  “I don’t know. I think that’s all I have to say. I’ve been talking for a long time.”

  “Can I ask you a question, Zach?” I looked over at Rafael.

  Adam was about to say something but Rafael kept going. “Does that sketch—?” he was holding something in his head and was trying to push that thought out into the world. “Does that sketch have something to do with your story?” He pointed to the sketch that I’d pushed under my chair.

  I don’t know if Adam had noticed the drawing. Probably he had. He noticed everything. “Let’s have a look,” he said.

  I pushed out the drawing and placed it in the middle of the circle.

  There was a lot of quiet. The group just sort of studied it—though really there wasn’t much to study.

  “It’s lovely,” Lizzie said. “I didn’t know you were an artist.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.” Sheila said. “You really are.”

  I looked at my sketch and tried to see what everyone was seeing.

  “You want to tell us about it?”

  I shrugged and looked at Adam.

  “It’s all there,” I said.

  “What’s all there?”

  “My whole life.”

  I knew what Adam was saying with his eyes. I knew the words were there, but it was so hard to pull them out. “That’s me, lying on the side of the road. And that’s a dead dog lying next to me. I’m like the dead dog. And the road, it’s just going somewhere like roads do. They go on forever, but see, I’m not going anywhere. I’m dead, like the dog.”

  “Why a dog?”

  “I love dogs. I had one once. Did I talk about the dog in group? I don’t remember.”

  I saw everyone shaking their heads.

  “My dog’s name was Lilly. She used to sleep with me. I used to talk to her and it seemed like she always knew what I was saying. When I was around five, she died. I found her in the backyard. She wasn’t breathing. I ran and got my dad. He was drunk. ‘Dogs die,’ that’s all he said. And then he went back to his drinking. I buried the dog in the backyard.”

  “By yourself?” Adam was wearing a strange expression on his face. He looked sad. Like what I said made him sad.

  I nodded.

  He nodded back.

  “So maybe I was thinking of Lilly. I don’t know. Really, I wasn’t thinking anything. I just sketched it. I had a dream and I couldn’t fall back asleep so I just got up and sketched this, this—.”

  “Self-portrait.” Rafael finished my sentence.

  “Yeah, I guess that’s what it is.”

  “Why a desert?” Adam always asked all these questions when it came to our artwork. I mean, that was his thing.

  “That’s where I live. I live in the desert. That’s where I’ve always lived.”

  “Do you like the desert?”

  “It’s quiet there. And things grow. People don’t think that there’s anything in the desert. People think that it’s just this waterless and dead place, but that’s not true. It’s like a forest really. I mean, there aren’t any trees, but there’s all kinds of things growing there. It’s amazing really. The desert really tears me up. If you’ve ever spent time in the desert, you’d know how amazing it is. Once, I went hiking with my father in the desert. He knew the names of all the things that were growing there. It was the best day of my life.”

  “So,” Adam said, “you’re there—dead—along with a dead dog—in the middle of a desert where all sorts of things are growing. So there’s death. And there’s life.”

  “I guess so.”

  “You think you can tie this sketch to your story?”

  “Okay,” I said. All kinds of things were entering my head. “I think maybe I always felt like this in my family. You know, like I might as well have been dead. I was just a body on the side of the road. That’s all I was. That’s how it felt.”

  “But you’re not dead, Zach.” Rafael’s voice was quiet but there was something very stubborn in it.

  I looked down at the floor. “It feels like I am. Most of the time.”

  “I see you, Zach.” Adam’s favorite expression.

  “I see you too,” I said. I gave him a look.

  He shook his head and smiled. “When was the last time you felt you were alive? Really alive?”

  I knew the answer to that question as soon as Adam asked. Only I didn’t tell him. I didn’t want to tell the group. I didn’t want to tell anyone. My lips were trembling and I couldn’t make them stop. And there were salty tears running down my face and I couldn’t see. I just closed my fists tight until I could feel my lips stop trembling. Then the tears stopped. And then I took a breath and then I unclenched my fists. I looked down at the floor. I could feel the words coming out of my mouth, could feel them, the words I didn’t want to speak. “The last time—the last time I felt really alive was when Rafael sang to me.”

  “What did he sing?” I could tell Adam was looking across at Rafael even though I was looking down at the floor.

  “Well, I didn’t even know he was singing to me. I mean I was having a bad dream and he came over and sat on my bed and sang to me until I was calm.”

  “So, if you were asleep, how do you know that Rafael sang to you?”

  “He told me.” I looked up at Rafael. I tried to smile but it wasn’t working, the smile thing. I hated talking about things that I felt. I hated it. It tore me up. I took another breath. “He told me the story and then he sang the song, the song he’d sung. He used to sing that song to his son.” I stopped. I couldn’t talk anymore. My lips were trembling too much. I just couldn’t talk.

  “That was a very beautiful thing. Don’t you think so, Zach?”

  “But I don’t want to feel alive. Don’t you understand! Don’t you get that? How many times do I have to say it?” I was screaming so hard my voice was cracking. “I don’t want to fucking feel alive.” I didn’t know I’d run out of the room. I just wasn’t in control of my own movements and everything was spinning. The only thi
ng I knew was that when the world stopped spinning, I found myself sitting in front of Rafael’s tree—the tree named Zach.

  -4-

  I was tired.

  God, I was tired.

  Everything seemed so dull and hollow and far away. I knew that if I didn’t rest I would just die, so I lay down on the ground and went to sleep and started dreaming. In the dream, I was waking up and it was summer and my eyes were as green as the leaves on the trees. I was so happy but I was so tired so I kept going back to sleep. Then I would wake again and look around at the summer world. The sky was blue and cloudless and the air was so clean and I could hardly stand it, all the happiness. So I would fall back asleep. Then I would wake again. I would sleep and wake and sleep and wake. But it was all a dream.

  When I really woke, Rafael was shaking me. “Wake up, Zach.”

  I got up slowly. I looked around. I was a little confused and I was trying to figure out where I was.

  “You okay, Zach?”

  “I guess so.”

  “It’s getting cold again. Let’s get inside.”

  “How did you know where to find me?”

  Rafael just looked at me like I’d just asked a really stupid question.

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to come and rescue me. I thought those were the rules.”

  “I’m not rescuing you.”

  “What are you doing then?”

  “I’m bringing you in from the cold.”

  “I think that’s still rescuing. Rescuing isn’t allowed.”

  Rafael looked up at the looming clouds. “It’s gonna pour, I think.” He looked at me. “You don’t even know enough to come in from the rain.”

  “I need a cigarette.”

  “Jesus, kid, get a coat first. Crazy guy, Zach. You’re a crazy guy.”

  -5-

  Amit handed me a cigarette, then gave me a light.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thanks for the story.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s what we do around here. You’re next.”

  “Fucking swell.”

  That made me laugh.

  “You’ve had it rough.”

  “That’s why we’re here.”

  “Yeah, well, I hate your brother.”

  “You don’t even know him.”

  “He beat on you, dude. I hate him for that.” That’s when it started to rain. Amit and I watched the storm in silence. Maybe we were addicted to storms. Maybe so. I finished my cigarette. Amit offered me another. I took it. “I feel like this fucking weather.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  “Rain wakes the world up.”

  “Where’d you get that idea from?”

  “My sister. She always said that to me.”

  “Is she nice, your sister?”

  “Yeah, she’s more than nice.”

  “That’s great, that you have a sister.”

  “She hasn’t given up on me. Not yet anyway.”

  “Maybe she never will.”

  Amit didn’t say anything after that. It was like he’d gone away. He was thinking of something, maybe his sister, maybe something else. I could see someone walking up toward the smoke pit in the rain. I could see the umbrella and as the figure moved closer, I could see that it was Lizzie. When she got inside the smoke pit, she kept her umbrella open, then tried to reach for her cigarettes in her pocket.

  “Need help?” I took the umbrella and held it above her.

  She took out a cigarette and lit it. “You asshole,” she said. “Leaving group. We didn’t even get to give you feedback. You owe us all an amends.”

  I shrugged and looked down at the ground.

  “Well,” she said. “I’m waiting.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just—I don’t know what happened.”

  “You know exactly what happened. You got scared. And you ran. Been there, done that.” She laughed. “Just don’t do it anymore, okay?” She shot me a smile. It was really beautiful, her smile.

  “I won’t.”

  “I’m watching you,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I see you too.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  And then at the same time we both said, “I see you. Yes, I do.” We laughed and laughed. But what was so funny? I see you, Zach. I see you.

  REMEMBERING

  “What does the road represent?”

  “What does any road represent?”

  Adam shot me that famous snarky smile of his.

  “I know, I know. What does the road represent for me?” I stared at the picture of his two kids. They looked happy. I thought of Santiago.

  “Staring at that picture of my sons again, huh?”

  “Yeah.” I tried to concentrate on our conversation. Sometimes that was hard. “The road? I don’t know, Adam. I mean that. I mean, it’s a road. It’s going somewhere. But I don’t know where.”

  “In your other drawings, the ones you do at school, do they have people in them?”

  “No.”

  “What do you draw?”

  “Cityscapes. That’s what Mr. Drake calls them. Buildings and alleys and streets.”

  “Empty streets?”

  “Yeah. But sometimes lots of cars.”

  “Any drivers in those cars?”

  “No. Just cars.”

  “No people in your cityscapes?”

  “Guess not.”

  “Guess what cities are full of?”

  “Yeah, okay, they’re full of people.”

  “But no people in Zachland.”

  “I don’t know, maybe I don’t like people.”

  “I don’t think that’s true. I’m making up that you like people a lot.

  You like Rafael. You liked Sharkey. You like Mr. Garcia. You like Amit—I think you do.”

  “Yeah, I like him.”

  “You liked Mark. You like Lizzie and Sheila and Kelly and—is there anyone in Group you don’t like?”

  “No. I like our group.”

  “Any of the therapists you don’t like?”

  “Just one of them. He’s a prick.”

  “Fair enough. So out of all the therapists here, you only dislike one?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “You like people, Zach. That’s not your problem.”

  “What is my problem?”

  “Well, let’s get to that.”

  “You know what my problem is?”

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “But you have a theory?”

  “I have a lot of theories, Zach. My theories don’t matter a damn.” And then he took the conversation to exactly the place he wanted to take it. Like I didn’t notice. “Where did that sketch come from?”

  “That’s where they found me,” I said. “By the side of a road.”

  “Do you remember which road?”

  “Yeah. There’s a road that leads to Carlsbad. An old highway going east out of El Paso. That’s where they found me.”

  “Do you remember anything else?”

  “I was shivering.”

  “Were you cold?”

  “I was dying.”

  “Were you?”

  “Yeah. Alcohol withdrawal. Really bad. It can kill you, you know?”

  “Yes, I do know. Do you remember who found you?”

  “A cop. I don’t remember anything much after that. I was in a hospital. I dream it a lot.” I took my eyes off the floor and looked at Adam. “I almost died.”

  I HATE THEM FOR LOVING ME

  -1-

  Every hour or so, I’d wake up and look around the room. It was just one of those nights. I’d stare at the clock. 12:45. 12:46. 12:47 and then I’d fall back asleep. But then I’d be at it again. 1:48. 1:49. 1:50.

  Rafael was reading. When he couldn’t sleep, he’d just read. Around 3 o’clock in the morning, Amit was up. Let me out, he mumbled. Let me out. He looked like he was headed towar
d the door. It was raining and thundering and being out there in your underwear didn’t seem like a good idea. Sleepwalkers didn’t bother Rafael one damned bit. He got up and gently led Amit back to bed. But Amit didn’t stay put. He sat up on his bed and mumbled, “I didn’t do it. Just let me out.”

  “Okay,” Rafael said, “we’ll let you out as soon as the sun rises.”

  “Now. Let me out now.” He looked like he was about to get up and out of bed again so Rafael walked over to his bed and shook him awake.

  Amit looked up at Rafael, confused.

  “You were talking. You were going to get up again, so I thought I should just wake you up.”

  Amit nodded. “I didn’t do anything—I didn’t do anything, did I?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Sometimes I do things that I’m embarrassed about.”

  “Like what?”

  “I urinate in corners of the room. Embarrassing things like that.”

  “You were saying Let me out. From where? Do you remember?”

  “No, I don’t remember.” He stared at Rafael. “Don’t you sleep?”

  “Yeah. Just not tonight.”

  “I hate this fucking place,” he said. “They’re overmedicating me. That’s why I walk in my sleep.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. You might be sleepwalking anyway—even if you weren’t overmedicated.”

  “What the fuck do you know?”

  Rafael smiled one of his clear-your-throat smiles. “Sleepwalking can be a symptom of PTSD.”

  “You a fucking therapist or what?”

  He picked up his book. “Nope. It’s called reading. You should try it.”

  “Fuck you.” And then Amit got real quiet. “Are you serious? Sleepwalking? It can be, you know, a part of this trauma thing?”

  “The guy before you, Sharkey, he was a serious sleepwalker. So I read a book about it.”

  “You still have the book?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Will you let me borrow it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Will you teach me how to paint?”

  “Just paint.”

  “I’m not any good.”