The Perpetual Motion Machine

by Brittany Ackerman

  He packed a bag: six 24-ounce red Gatorade sports bottles, a stack of black and white speckled notebooks (filled cover to cover with his writing), a change of clothes, all of his medication, and a small, silver handgun.

  He walks out of the sliding glass doors. We hug him and drive home. Once we get back, Skyler sleeps on the couch for a few hours, still under the influence. I go back to sleep as well, shut off my phone and wake up before he does. I watch him sleep. My mom has put his childhood, blue blanket over him. He still might be dead. The pills might be traversing through his system in a bad combination of ways. He might not wake up. He might not be sleeping, but drifting off into that other place. He lies there in perpetual motion. We’re all dying now because he wants to die. Leaves rustle as he turns over.

  I decide to go for a run and clear my head. When I open the front door, a police officer stands there about to knock on our door. He asks if Skyler is home. After the officer asks him a few questions and takes his gun, Skyler walks out to the terrace to think things over. He smokes cigarette after cigarette, filling up the ashtray, overflowing, pacing back and forth in his black jacket. Sweat is pouring off his forehead. He calls someone to come get him. When I come home from my run, he is still out there, waiting, waiting for something to pull him out of this life and into the next. Mom drags me outside and tells me to say goodbye. I know she can’t handle this anymore, the worrying, the suspense—and she just wants it to be over. I know what she means. I can’t handle it either. I can’t keep holding my breath for my brother. She leaves us out there for a while. I realize that this may be the last time I will ever see him in the flesh. The prodigy. The only brother I have. I start crying.

  “I really want a brother,” I say.

  “I’m sorry, Britt. I just don’t want to live.”

  I hug him. I don’t want to live anymore either. But I have to go to work. I have to move on with my life, like I have before, without my partner, without my brother. I begin to realize that death is real, and it is sitting on our terrace chain-smoking.

  He leaves the house before I get home. A few days later he goes missing again. This time, the cops get to him first, before the pain pills have time to kick in. They Baker Act him and put him in the hospital for a week.

  It’s the end of October. My brother is out of the hospital now, and everything that happened is almost last month’s news. But I am the one that will carry it forever. I will be the one that opened my front door to an officer, saw the silver gun glisten in his backpack, said goodbye to my brother before he again attempted to end his life.

  Everyone’s selling pumpkin-flavored everything. I stop at a breakfast place to have a pumpkin bagel and pumpkin cream cheese. I want to sit and enjoy this meal, not having eaten much all week, and I’m finally alone now. No police. No phone calls. No family chaos. I spread a lot of cream cheese on the bagel, it’s so sweet, even too sweet, and it reminds me of the apple juice, just like our childhood, and there was always too much of everything. Our backpacks were always full. Our clothes were layered on for the New York cold. Our heads were kissed and bodies tucked into fluffy comfortable beds. Our lives were so abundant.

  There were days when I wanted to be better. Back in college, I got a job waitressing at a sushi restaurant so I could pay for weed and clothes and the house I rented with my three best friends at the time. I would tie on my apron, change out of my boots, put my sneakers on, and really want that big table, work for that big tip, make the big money and be okay on my own out there. I was in Indiana, finishing up my senior year, and all of it felt so wrong. Every time my shoes slid into the snow or I took a sip of whiskey at the bar on a Tuesday night, I felt like I was moving further and further away from everything I wanted. I was always staring at people, trying to see who they were, never doing the same with myself, but I could imagine whole lives of people, whole stories, entire lifetimes. Some days, I would stare out the window at work and think about jumping. My body would land hard on the snowy pavement. My manager would find my body. But there were days when I felt optimistic. I could reason that if I graduated, finished, got out of there, I could start over.

  One day when I’d had enough, I went into my bathroom and emptied the cabinets. I had medication left over from a surgery I had that past summer: Valium, Oxycodone, Xanax . . . I hooked my fingers around the pills, put them in my mouth, one by one, and felt like I was finally going somewhere, moving to that place where I could be better. My friends were outside on the porch, drinking before the Little 500, the big bicycle race on campus, and when I realized I didn’t want to die, I called to one of them. I said, “Call Skyler, call my brother, call him.” I hadn’t talked to him in four years, aside from “Hello” or “Happy Birthday.” I could never handle his addiction, so I distanced myself so far that I was now grazing the edge of death. She called him and handed me the phone. I fell down on my bed, the effect of the pills already set in motion. I looked out the window, melted snow on the ground, the day slowly turning into evening, the sky collapsing into night, and I pressed the phone to my ear. His voice shot through the other side.

  “Hey, Britt, are you there?”

  Smoke cigarettes on the porch until I feel okay. Indiana trees shift back into focus, their loud whistling, their swaying branches. Leaves fall into the wet street. Watch them soak up rainwater. The effect of the pills dissipates. The biggest tree at the end of the block towers over the houses on the street. Maybe it’s God. Maybe He has come.

  Birthday Girl

  I am turning twenty-three today at 10:30 a.m. I have to work, so I stop at McDonalds even though I know it will make me late. I don’t care because I hate my job. I don’t really hate my job, I just hate working there and being there and not getting to be creative with my writing. I’m at a point where the money is so good and the living is so nice that it’s extremely hard for me to find a way out.

  I order an egg and cheese sandwich on a biscuit and orange juice. I am fifteen minutes late to work and I throw away the greasy bag before entering the office building. It’s a high-rise on Wilshire, right next to the LACMA and walking distance to the La Brea Tar Pits. I’ve become accustomed to walking there every day on my hour lunch break, sitting on a bench, sometimes even lying down and looking up at the blue, blue sky. It’s always 70 degrees and sunny. There are children on field trips learning about dinosaurs and exploring the Tar Pits. There are families having picnics on the table. This is where I think about killing myself, when morning turns to afternoon and I know it will soon be night and I will be alone again. I have a fur coat and expensive shoes in my closet. I can buy whatever I want and go anywhere, as I often tell myself, but I stay here for some reason, on the bench, attempting to call my mom and tell her all of this, but getting too choked up and saying “I have to go, lunch is over.” Then I take my time walking back, looking for a good food truck on the street, getting hot chocolate instead and sitting in the lobby on the carpeted floor before I have to go back.

  None of this on my birthday though. Today I wear a floral dress and a fawn colored cardigan with my hair down, new boots, the greenish grayish leather ones I ordered online. Today there is happiness because the office wants to get me a cake and asks me what kind I like. They’re going to have a production assistant go out and buy one before the day is over. There will be candles and singing and ice cream cake from Carvel, which is my absolute favorite. Today I am the birthday girl and it is all for me.

  My mom texts me at 10:30 a.m. on the dot and I cry at my desk because I’m nowhere near her. My officemates know that I’m going through something, but they don’t know what and they’re too busy to really ask about it and get involved. I don’t want them to anyway, and especially not today, my birthday and all. “They’re getting you a cake, you know” one says. “That’s a big deal,” says the other.

  At lunch I go to the burger place where you can “create your own” burger. I order a turkey burger on a wheat bun with sweet potato fries and a vanilla shake. It’s a
ll so rich and tasty and a few friends call while I’m eating to wish me a happy birthday. “What are you doing today?” they ask and I see my reflection in the bar mirror. “Eating French fries alone,” I reply, and they laugh because I’m the funny, sarcastic friend that lives in LA now, and they’re in Chicago or still in Indiana or maybe back home in Florida at their 9-5 that they love and it’s totally working and they feel a part of things there, they really fit in.

  The key to get into the office is on a separate key holder that I bought on Melrose, a giant mouth that looks like a chattering teeth wind-up toy with red fleshy lips and white, white teeth that unzip to reveal a pink tongue inside. Back in the office I watch episodes of a TV show for a promo we are doing but I don’t take notes, I just watch. My big headphones are on and I can’t hear anyone in the office as they plan where to put my cake and what time to sing to me. There is a feeling that today is all about me, an illusion that I create, a simulation of what a “birthday” is and that I’m supposed to feel “special.” But I still feel like dying. I feel like I came here to LA and now I know too much. I know what happens inside of offices and how things get from videotape onto a television screen, a movie screen, how an idea takes shape and transforms to become a box-office hit. I know how long it takes to realize someone won’t call you back, and then how long it takes them to text you in the middle of the night because they thought about you because you really are “special.” I know what the inside of a hot nightclub looks like on a Saturday, on a Tuesday, at the VIP table, on the dance floor. I know the drive from here to Newport, from here to San Diego, from here to the Hollywood Hills and out past the Valley and Ventura, from here to anywhere out there that I can go because I have money and all the time in the world. It’s sad though. It is a sad, sad thing to be able to see the world when you are so miserable. My officemate stands in front of my desk and signals me that it’s time for cake.

  The icing is blue on the white cake. “Happy Birthday” with some colored jelly balloons. No name underneath. The PA didn’t know my name because she’s new. People sing to me. I stand there in my dress waiting to blow out the candles on a cake that is for me, but without a name it could be for anyone, and so I decide it’s for all of us. We all need the cake and the happy birthday song and so I even sing along a little. I lean over and blow out the candles. I am served the first piece, a big square with icing and sprinkles and a pink balloon.

  My boyfriend wants to spend my birthday with me. We technically broke up many times since I’ve been in LA, but I remember the day he came back from Vegas and put a note in one of my Reese’s Cups in the fridge asking if I would be his girlfriend. I almost didn’t find it because I insisted that I wasn’t hungry and didn’t want to eat the candy yet, but he said, “Fine, I’ll have one, open it for me” so I opened the package and the note was inside somehow already. He’s not really my boyfriend, but he is in some ways. We spend a lot of nights together. We watch a lot of movies. We are sad together and don’t admit it because the presence of another person can sometimes make you feel happier for a time.

  He comes over after work in his black Chevrolet and hands me a card, oddly enough the same exact one my mom had sent me in the mail this week. It is Mickey Mouse on the front wishing me a happy birthday and holding a bouquet of balloons. We drive into Westwood and get pizza, my favorite, have beer at the bar next door and then go home back to my place.

  My apartment is a studio that looks promising or plaintive, depending on the light. It’s one room with a separate little area for the bathroom and a kitchen around the corner. There’s a balcony, which is everything, but it overlooks the parking garage. Still, it’s hosted many wine nights and strange men. Many joints have been smoked on my couch and many cigarettes have been shared on the balcony. I tried to hang lights during the holiday time, but gave up because I was too stoned and tired.

  From the shower he yells and reminds me of the ecstasy we have left over from New Year’s. We never ended up doing it; we got too drunk and stumbled to Santa Monica beach to watch fireworks. It was so cold that we couldn’t hold our bottle of whiskey and had to bury it in the sand. I take the white capsules out of my drawer in the bathroom. They’re in a Ziploc bag next to my hair ties. I scored them from a kid who lives in my building, which is mostly UCLA students with a lot of money who like to do drugs. He is also in love with me but I don’t like him because his upper lip is always sweaty and he consistently smells of hot dogs. I kissed him once and we watched a movie about modern-day vampires, but now he’s just my drug dealer, or one of them.

  I take a white pill out of the bag and he opens the shower curtain and flashes me. He sticks out his tongue and I pop the capsule and sprinkle the white powder on his tongue. “Now do yours quick!” He yells and finishes his shower.

  When I moved to Los Angeles I was under the impression that everything would be just fine. Palm trees, pot, a real pleasure of a place for a twenty-two-year-old to frolic in and really get to know herself. The thing is I quickly developed a taste for all things previously forbidden and was making up for lost time. I’ve never done ecstasy before and don’t know what to expect. He’s already taken his dose though, so I take mine.

  We decide to walk. We walk from my apartment down the hilly streets to Westwood Boulevard. We’re in jackets in January. We move through town swiftly. I feel good all of a sudden, but I’m not sure if he feels it yet so I don’t say anything. He says we should karate chop the air and so we do. He says he feels like something is happening, like it’s working, and I agree, and then we’re both excited. My ears pop and I can hear everything in the night. My shoes on the street, his hair moving in the wind, the neon lights of storefront signs. We beeline into CVS because he needs a lighter. I stand in line with him under the bright white lights. He wants to keep moving and I want to keep moving too. When we are standing still we feel too much, like our bodies are working out something inside and we can feel the gears clinking, the mechanism going.

  We float around the city streets happy and alive. We find a gypsy woman who wants to tell my fortune. She says my friend must wait outside. I give her my palm.

  “Someone in your life is not who they say they are.”

  “Is it him?”

  “I’m not sure.” But she looks at me like she is sure. I’ve never been more sure of someone else’s certainty. I give her twenty dollars and feel different, like a weight has been placed, like a light has gone out, one that’s so small it’s almost unnoticeable.

  We walk back to the apartment and take pictures and find souvenirs, which cheers me up as I can collect things in my pocket; a ribbon from a mailbox, crepe paper from a house party, a warning sign fallen on the ground. Back at my apartment we smoke a joint because it will make us feel better. We’re both bored but can’t admit it because the drug might take a bad turn if we do. We’re lying to each other endlessly. We smoke pot inside and cigarettes outside because there needs to be a separation of the two. I can tell he wants to be alone on the balcony so I let him be, but I’m going crazy so I take out paper and markers and crayons and draw things until he gets back. He looks improved after he smokes, the color back in his face, he lies down on the carpet with me to draw and we laugh and it’s better. He puts on music and we dance a little, then undress and make love and it’s not my birthday anymore. It’s well after midnight and I pour us two glasses of water that I force us to drink. I say I have vitamins for the morning that will help our bodies adjust. I’m not sure what it means, but my drug dealer told me to say it and I trust the science behind it.

  In bed we exhibit a sort of restless tiredness that only comes from psychoactive drug use. We talk for a while and get the kinks out of our system, like smoothing out an unruly comforter. He falls asleep first. I stare at the walls, beige and boring, unaltered by me living there for eight months now. Stagnant, like me in Los Angeles.

  I replay the day over and over in my mind. I almost feel like myself again. Then I realize I haven’t spoken
to my brother today. He didn’t call me on my birthday. I wonder where he is and what he’s doing. I wonder if he ever liked doing MDMA. I try to picture what tomorrow looks like, but it’s filled with holes, and I can hear my brain shifting, refocusing, I can feel my mind still moving forward without me.

  Much Needed Prayer

  The sky opens up. I stare into the swirl of rain and lightning and try and catch my breath. He makes a phone call. The wind is howling. I ask the universe a question and I wait for the answer. When the meeting is over, I follow him.

  The power goes out when the lightning hits. A tree branch barrels over. Blue and white sparks fly out of the transformer. I jump up in bed and run out into the living room. He was supposed to come to bed a while ago, but a movie was on and just shut off suddenly. He’s not scared. He says it is God, showing us how powerful He is.

  He lights a candle and it makes us look big on the walls. He says we should read a little more before going to sleep. He opens up with prayer and holds my hand while he works his way from his family’s needs to mine, from his past to his present, from him to me, from me to God, from God forever on and on and on.

  Summer. Delray Beach. We want to go out on the weekends to nightclubs and dance. He doesn’t drink, but he likes to sip Red Bulls while I drink Red Bulls and vodka. He’s still in a halfway house. The house mom doesn’t like me because we close the door to his room when we watch movies. His roommates like me because I’m from the other world, the other side of the tracks, east of Military, east of I-95, all the way east of A1A. They like when I talk about God. They like that I’m hopeful and holding onto something, something I can’t see or understand.