He was thirty-seven. Pretty young to die.
I find that with most stories, at least the ones I’ve read in school, trains nearly always mean something. They are adventure or death.
In the corner of my room, I see a man standing in shadow. He’s wearing a black bowler hat and carrying a cane with a curved handle. Every few minutes, he checks his watch and looks at me.
“It’s almost time,” he keeps saying under his breath. “Get ready to run. Train’s coming.”
“Almost time for what?” I want to ask him.
But he just smiles and says nothing. He doesn’t have to.
And even though he’s creepy and I wish he’d leave, he isn’t what I’m afraid of.
I’m afraid of the way things used to be when I believed he was real.
I’m afraid that someday I won’t be able to watch the parade of hallucinations without doing what they tell me to do because I’m afraid the drug will stop working. And everyone might have good reason to be afraid of me.
DOSAGE: 1.5 mg. Same dosage. No change.
OCTOBER 3, 2012
The naked guy visits once in a while. He’s probably the weirdest hallucination I have. Taller than me. And stark naked. Cheeks to the wind. In my head I call him Jason. No reason, he just looks like a Jason.
He’s actually a pretty nice guy. He reminds me to hold doors open. To say thank you. That kind of stuff. But we don’t have a relationship beyond that. Jason is just a giant, naked presence wandering the halls in my school. So that’s crazy even for a hallucination.
I’m not supposed to call myself crazy anymore. It was in one of those books my mom bought after I was diagnosed. They all talk about loving your freak-show kid no matter how many imaginary friends he’s got.
So anyway, Jason-the-naked and I were sitting outside homeroom when Ian walked by with one other guy carrying a bucket marked WASTE from the biology lab. They were clearly on their way to dispose of the chunky leftovers they couldn’t pour down the sink, and I didn’t look up until two seconds before they passed. I didn’t even have time to register what had happened when they sloshed a third of the stuff into my lap and took off running down the corridor like idiots with what was left dripping all over the floor. I could still hear their laughter ringing in my ears. They’d deliberately poured that shit all over me. Even Jason, the nicest guy I know, who makes excuses for everyone, could only say, “Dude, that’s messed up,” before disappearing completely.
Trying to get cleaned up in the bathroom proved useless, so I walked to the nurse’s office. After looking at me like I’d doused myself with frog guts and formaldehyde on purpose, the nurse handed me some “loaner” uniform shorts that fit around the waist but were at least two inches too short. A woman with long, curly black hair stifled a laugh when I walked out of the bathroom.
“Sorry,” she said, still smiling. “There’s nothing longer.”
“Awesome.”
“Only two more hours to go, though. Don’t worry.”
I like how people only tell you not to worry about stuff when it’s something they don’t care about. The new shorts did not entirely remove the faint smell of science drifting off my pants, and since my underwear had been soaked through, I took the opportunity to ditch them in the trash when I changed.
I had an hour of English class to sit through before gym. Dwight had seen me walking to the nurse’s office, so I told him what happened. He kept up a stream of commentary throughout class about Ian being a jerk, which I appreciated despite the fact that if I moved the wrong way I could hear the squelching sound of moisture between my butt cheeks.
Going commando at school is weird.
Going commando during gym is wildly uncomfortable.
The mesh net in my running shorts didn’t help much. I could feel my balls chafing against the elastic. Ian and the other guy from earlier (I think his name is Zane? Or Blane? Or something equally obnoxious) turned around to look at me a few times during class with faces that were just asking to be smooshed into the ground. Rebecca shook her head at me from the bleachers.
I walked with Maya back to our lockers afterward. Dwight had raced back to church for an altar boy meeting, so this was one of the few times since saving her life that we were actually alone together. She sniffed the air curiously for a few seconds but didn’t say anything. What was originally a faint chemical odor had become a faint chemical odor with a hint of sweaty balls.
“I think Ian is jealous that you’re taller than he is.”
“What?” I asked. The comment was so completely out of nowhere.
“You’re tall. He’s average height, and his brothers are all really tall. I think he’s messing with you because he’s jealous.”
“Why would anyone mess with someone because they’re tall?”
“Well, you’re also better-looking than he is,” she said.
“Oh,” I said.
“See you later.”
She turned a corner before I could think of anything clever to say, and as a result, I spent the rest of the day feeling like an idiot. Oh.
I said “Oh”?!?
I could have said almost anything else. Like Thank you.
Oh.
My level of stupidity has reached epic proportions. Even now, I have no idea what I should have said.
—
I’m not supposed to think of my disease as something to deal with. I’m told it’s better to think of it as a piece of me that does not communicate well with the rest of me. But that’s bullshit.
The important thing about being crazy is knowing that you’re crazy. The knowing part makes you less crazy.
I wonder if you’ve ever had a patient who refused to speak to you before. This must be the easiest money you’ve ever made. To read my notes, nod smugly for a while, and try to engage me in conversation.
Do you feel guilty taking money from people with mental illnesses? I guess you don’t actually, just their families. The people who trust you to make them better. Kind of like people who waste all their money on psychics who tell them what they want to hear.
Still, but I don’t blame you for choosing your line of work. People with mental problems are fascinating. Once, when I was ten, Paul and my mom took me to San Francisco, which, it turns out, is filled with homeless people. So, a lot of crazies.
It’s hard not to stare when they’re having a moment. This one guy in the park had managed to blow bubbles by mixing his spit with a little bit of soap. He was sitting on a trash can lid, blowing spit bubbles at everyone who passed him, having a wild conversation with someone none of us could see.
I remember laughing at the time and my mom giving me the most severe look I’d ever seen. I don’t think I’d laugh now. Well, maybe. That shit is still pretty funny.
I don’t waste time feeling sorry for people with mental problems, because I don’t want people to waste time feeling sorry for me. I don’t need the pity—it doesn’t do anyone any good. We see the world differently and make up our own rules. That’s what terrifies everyone. Maybe they’re jealous. But probably not.
That’s why I like reading about the saints. They ban a lot of books at St. Agatha’s (like the Harry Potter ones because they supposedly lead children to believe in the occult), but they have endless volumes of saint biographies, which are actually more scandalous. It’s nice to read about people who were batshit crazy and got away with it.