“I’m going to throw a wild notion at you.” Dr. Minerva leans back, then forward. “Have you ever thought about going to a different school?”
I stare ahead.
I hadn’t. I honestly hadn’t.
Not once, not in my whole life, not since I started there. That’s my school. I worked harder to get in than I did for anything else, ever. I went there because, coming out of it, I’d be able to be President. Or a lawyer. Rich, that’s the point. Rich and successful.
And look where it got me. One stupid year—not even one, like three quarters of one—and here I am with not one, but two bracelets on my wrist, next to a shrink in a room adjacent to a hall where there’s a guy named Human Being walking around. If I keep doing this for three more years, where will I be? I’ll be a complete loser. And what if I keep on? What if I do okay, live with the depression, get into College, do College, go to Grad School, get the Job, get the Money, get Kids and a Wife and a Nice Car? What kind of crap will I be in then? I’ll be completely crazy.
I don’t want to be completely crazy. I don’t like being here that much. I like being a little crazy: enough to volunteer here, not enough to ever, ever, ever come back.
“Yes,” I say. “Yes. I have thought about it.”
“When? Just now?”
I smile. “Absolutely.”
“And what do you think?”
I clap my hands together and stand up. “I think I should call my parents and tell them that I want to transfer schools.”
forty-five
“Visitor, Craig,” Smitty pokes his head into the dining room. I slide my chair back from the table, where I’m playing after-lunch poker with Jimmy and Noelle and Armelio. Jimmy doesn’t really have any idea how to play, but we deal him cards and he plays them face down and smiles and we give him more chips (we’re using scraps of paper; the buttons are locked up due to our recklessness) whenever he pockets his or chews them up.
“I’ll be back,” I say.
“This guy, so busy,” says Armelio.
“He thinks he’s all important,” Noelle says.
“I woke up, and the bed was on fire!” says Jimmy.
We all look at him. “You okay, Jimmy?” I ask.
“My mom hit me in the head. She hit me in the head with a hammer.”
“Oh, wow.” I turn to Armelio. “I heard him say stuff like this down in the ER. Has he talked about this before?”
“No, nuh-uh, buddy.”
“Hey, Jimmy, it’s okay.” I put my hand on his shoulder. At the same time, I bite my tongue. You can think someone’s hilarious and want to help them at the same time.
“She hit me in the head,” he says. “With a hammer!”
“Yeah, but you’re here now,” Noelle says. “You’re safe. Nobody’s going to hit you in the head with anything.”
Jimmy nods. I keep my hand on his shoulder. I keep my tongue bit down, but I make little chuffing noises as I try to keep from laughing, and he looks up and notices. He smiles at me, then laughs himself, then picks his cards up and claps my back.
“It’ll come to ya,” he says.
“That’s right. I know it will.”
I excuse myself from the room and head down the hall. Right at the end is Aaron, holding the record I want. Dad didn’t have it.
“Hey, man,” he says sheepishly, and as I approach, he leans it against the wall. He’s a dick, but I’m not perfect either so I come up and hug him.
“Hey.”
“Well, you were right. My dad had it—Egyptian Masters Volume Three.”
“I so appreciate this.” I take the record. It’s got a picture on the cover of what looks like the Nile at dusk, with a palm tree lilting left, echoing the brightening moon, and the purple sky rolling up from the horizon.
“Yeah, I’m sorry about everything,” Aaron says. “I. . . uh . . . I’ve had a weird couple of days.”
“You know what?” I look him in the eyes. “Me too.”
“I bet.” He smiles.
“Yeah, from now on, whenever crap goes down, you can be like ‘Oh, Craig, I had a bad few days,’ because I will get what you’re talking about.”
“What’s it like in here?” he asks.
“There’s people whose lives have been screwed up for a long time, and then there are people like me, whose lives have been screwed up for . . . you know . . . shorter.”
“Did they put you on new drugs?”
“No, same ones I was on before.”
“So are you feeling better?”
“Yeah.”
“What changed?”
“I’m going to leave school.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m done. I’m going somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m going to talk it over with my parents. Somewhere for art.”
“You want to do art?”
“Yeah. I’ve been doing some in here. I’m good at it.”
“You’re pretty good at school too, man.”
I shrug. I don’t really need to explain this to Aaron. He’s been demoted from most important friend to friend, and he’s going to have to earn that, even. And you know what else? I don’t owe people anything, and I don’t have to talk to them any more than I feel I need to.
“What’s up with Nia?” I ask. Have to tread care fully here. “I got your message, about how things were bad.”
“They got worked out. It was my fault. I got all freaked out about her being on pills and we broke up for like, a few days.”
“Why did that freak you out?”
“I don’t need any more of that in my life, you know? I mean, it’s bad enough with my dad.”
“He’s on medication?”
“Every form of medication in the book. Mom, too. And then me, with the pot . . . when you come right down to it, there isn’t anybody in the household who isn’t seriously drugged except the fish.”
“And you didn’t want your girlfriend to be, too.”
“Her smoking is one thing; I just . . . I can’t really explain it. I guess you’ll have to go out with someone for a long time to understand. If you’re with somebody and then you learn that they need to . . . take something on a daily basis, you wonder—how good can you be for them?”
“That’s pretty stupid,” I say. “I met this girl in here—”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, and she’s really screwed up, as screwed up as me, but I don’t look at that as an insult. I look at that as a chance to connect.”
“Yeah, well.”
“People are screwed up in this world. I’d rather be with someone screwed up and open about it than somebody perfect and . . . you know . . . ready to explode.”
“I’m sorry, Craig.” Aaron looks at me deep and holds out a hand for me to slap. “I’m sorry I was a bitch to you.”
“You were a bitch.” I slap his hand. “This album partly makes up for it. Just, don’t do it again.”
“All right.” He nods.
We stand still a minute. We haven’t moved from the crux of the hallways near the entrance of Six North. The double doors that I came in through are eight feet behind him.
“Well, listen,” he says. “Enjoy the record. And—hey, they have a record player in here?”
“They still smoke in here, Aaron. They’re kind of back in time.”
“Enjoy it and be in touch, and I’m sorry once again. I guess you won’t be chilling for a while.”