A Tapless Shoulder (13 page)

He lifted his
head, “That was a great analogy. Maybe you should write that down;
you could start with that.”

“
Well,
thanks, thank you, that’s nice of you to say, but I would, you
know, have to remember it, and then write it down, and, it’s just
so hard to, I don’t know, I guess, do stuff. I mean, I’m barely
making it to the end of sentences here. Pretty sure that’s a big
part of why I’m here. There was a time when it wasn’t like this,
and if it was, it wasn’t nearly this bad.” I paused and wondered
why that was.

He looked at
me with his pen just above the paper like he wanted me to say
something else worth writing down. “Right, well,” I exhaled, “As
far as I’m concerned, the timeline to being thoughtless crosses the
point to being stupid very quickly. And it is likely that, with me,
that timeline measures even shorter. I just don’t know. I don’t
know if I listen too well or if people talk too much. I often feel
like saying to so many people, ‘
at this moment you should be the smartest you’ve ever been
in your life: you are screwed! Try harder or
hide.’
” I said and
wondered;
how was
that
? He scribbled something
in his book and I wanted to spring forward with a vigorous fist
pump.

I moved my
gaze from him to the floor. “It’s not even about intelligence. It’s
about effort. I’m
trying
and I am smart
enough to
try
. I feel like
that’s the defining difference between me and the people I’m
shaking my head at. I have my eyes open and I see where I’m going.
Now
the moment
matters most. To remember, to me, is
like saying, pretend you cared then. And contrary to how it sounds;
I don’t hate people. I think there should be companionship between
us, one and all… with a designated area for common sense, and we
should drag each other there like fallen soldiers if need be.” I
paused. This line of thinking was usually going the other way, in
my head, toward the dark. Now it seemed the more I opened my mouth,
the longer that line would become.

“
I’ll
volunteer to do this every week if you volunteer to listen, maybe
that’s all I need,” I said jokingly. Without looking up he gave me
a small and neatly packaged laugh I imagined contained all kinds of
thoughts, though I hadn’t any guesses, not without shaking him
really hard. I almost laughed, but thought that may have somehow
gone against me.

“
Don’t get me
wrong: I am happy, but… it’s like I’m swimming. There’s that effort
to keep my head up, and on occasion I stop for a moment because
it’s so tiring and go, oh yeah, I am sinking and I can’t breathe.
Then the effort begins again. I try to read a lot too, anything
that may lead to something more. I feel like there’s a significant
discovery just over the mental horizon I’m thinking my way toward.
Maybe it’s not depression; maybe suffering is life’s design to
bring about the effort to make it better. Maybe a lot of us are
just plain lazy. Any difficulty in life should be worth it if it
means I’m using what I have to be who I am, right? I mean, one
should feel their soul as it lifts the weight of its resources,
should they not? Maybe that’s the reward I’m failing to see, maybe
my effort is quitting just before the trial’s end.” I shrugged and
shook my head like I wasn’t going to figure it out sitting there
with him all day. He mumbled, I thought, or maybe sighed. He might
have been humming whatever was in his head. Since I’d been there
he’d been studying me, nodding and writing in his book. He was
probably working on a song, maybe him and his doctor buddies had a
band.

“
Maybe
there’s some kind of an artist syndrome,” I mused, and inched in my
seat toward him, as if to draw him out in the open on this song
writing business, “just humans that are inside out, you know,
ill-suited for an ignorant and dangerously jagged world.” His
response was zero, a little nod, either as an agreement or he
nearly drifted off. I sat on the edge of my seat; he didn’t move.
Was he asleep with his eyes open?

“
Sometimes I
poo when I’d only planned to pee,” I said, testing him and seeing
he indeed was paying attention as his face quickly showed great
confusion. His eyes were blinking as his head tilted to the side.
“I’m just, um, was just, so you…” I said and cleared my throat. I
wished Katie could have been there to hear everything I had been
saying, well, minus that last part. She was privy to hearing bits
and pieces, as they came while I was reacting to this or that, but
never was it so much and so clearly. This was the clearest I had
been about anything in a very long time.

He squinted
at me as though still trying to read what I had said from a sign
way off in the distance. I tried to indicate with a shake of my
head that, no, he hadn’t heard that, nor had I even said it. My
prescription had likely just grown in length and substance. I could
see my morning routine now beginning with a handful of sedatives,
antidepressants and something opposite to what a laxative would be.
At least I knew I had only myself to blame.

“
I’m just tired of being angry. I am. I am tired of standing
in lines, wanting to punch all the blank faces ahead of me and
behind me simply for seeming dull,” I said earnestly. “Most of all,
I’m tired of not being patient. Being impatient contradicts who I
am or at least who I’m trying to be. And I try so hard but seem to
give up at the worst possible moment.” I leaned forward with my
elbows on my knees and my hands together. “I just, I don’t know,
feel like it’s getting harder. I’m tired of that too. And I’m so
very tired of feeling tired.” I sat up straight. “There you have
it; that’s kind of how I feel, at the moment. Life just feels heavy
for me, like I lug it around. Is that normal, like how I should
be?” He sighed, I sighed; we had a
thing
.

“
Is that
everything?” he said with a short and playful laugh.

“
Um… and it
hurts when I go like this,” I said with sarcasm I was fairly
certain would go unnoticed. I stared at him and just sat and
breathed.

Katie came
home with the kids shortly after I had gotten in from seeing the
doctor. Knuckle Butt was crying. He’d fallen asleep and woken up
upon their arrival home. This had him terribly upset. He wasn’t
ready to be awake, O
h, my
poor little guy, none of us ever are
, I thought. Ding Ding was huddled up like he may have been
trying to take off his coat and shoes at the exact same time. I
went over to the door to help Knuckle Butt out of his coat and
shoes; Ding Ding was convinced he didn’t need any such help. Katie
smiled at me like only she could. I hugged her, kissed her cheek
and then her lips. I was very glad to have her in my life, and
happy she was home.

“
How are
you?” she asked, appropriately I thought.

“
I’m good,” I
said, “aside from being tired, I think I’m good. He gave me a
prescription. I’ll start there and see how things go. Doesn’t hurt
to try, right?”

She smiled
warmly in agreement. I picked Knuckle Butt up and brought him over
to the couch and sat with him on my lap.

Ding Ding was
out of his coat and shoes and moving about the room. He stood
beside me, leaning against the couch, and said, “Nukkobuh cried for
oatmeal last night,” his sense of time slightly skewed.

“
Yeah,” I
agreed because I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was way off;
that it had actually been closer to a week ago. “I think he’s sad
because he’s tired. He fell asleep on your way home and I don’t
think he was ready to wake up.”

“
Yeah,” he
said, agreeing with me now, which was only fair, and then looked at
me gravely serious and said probably as fast as he could, “I gotta
go pee,” and went running off just as quickly as he could up the
stairs to the washroom. I sat with Knuckle Butt still on my lap,
who was holding tightly onto his blanket. I kissed the top of his
head.

“
NO,” he
shouted and waved his hand erratically above his head in an attempt
to ward off any more. I rubbed his back. He didn’t seem to mind
that. I rubbed his cheek, which was almost acceptable, but he then
thought he’d best prefer not to enjoy any affection and pushed my
hand away.

“
Okay, sorry,
do you want to go sit in your room and come out when you’re ready?”
I asked softly. He sat still for a moment before looking up into my
face. He stared at me, seeming to be weighing my offer. He turned
on my lap and climbed up to rest his head on my shoulder. I leaned
deeper into the couch.

Katie was
putting things away in the kitchen. Ding Ding had returned from the
washroom and settled beside me, playing a game on my phone. Knuckle
Butt moved his head from shoulder to shoulder, and then finally
climbed off of me and sat beside Ding Ding to watch a monster truck
game. While the game was loading Ding Ding looked at me and said,
“I’m so big; I have too much bones in me.”

“
Wow,” I said impressed, “and you’re only going to
get
bigger
, what are we going to do?” I laughed and got up
to go join Katie in the kitchen. I stood behind her and rubbed her
back. “Hi Lirv,” I said into the back of her neck. She turned from
the cucumbers she’d been cutting, and smiled.

“
Lirv?”

“
Yeah,” I
nodded, “Lirv, it’s like Mirv, but after its been kicked real hard
by true love.”

She giggled,
“Okay, so… why then? I guess.”

“
Beats the F
out of me, I just channel the stuff, I don’t understand
it.”

“
Maybe you
should channel a book.”

“
Oh, I am. It’s a story that takes place in the future of my
childhood, called
what’s for
dinner?
But I don’t have the
ending yet.”

“
Why do I
even talk to you?” she asked theatrically.

“
I know, eh,
sheesh, and why don’t you stop is an even better
question.”

“
Um, you do
see that I’m holding a knife, don’t you?”

“
I’m kidding, I love you, oh God, don’t hurt
me
,” I blurted as fast as I
could.

“
That’s what I thought,” she said, adding, “I really
Lirv
you too.” She set the knife down and hugged me. “Oh, before
I forget, I found your keys in my shoe this
morning.”

I shook my
head, and laughed. “Okay, and if you’re looking for your brown
shoes, they’re on the floor on my side of the bed.”

We got the
kids ready for bed and into their room. They were playing quietly,
bound to fall asleep at some point. The television was on and to it
I was making a face that suggested I’d ingested something
sharp
and
rancid
. “Maybe the doctor’s
right, maybe you should write all those things down,” Katie
suggested, as if it would be that easy.

I shook my
head, awful face and all. Katie looked at me as though I wasn’t
making any sense, and I looked at her as though that were her
fault. Like a pouting child I opened my mouth. “I don’t write
anymore, writing is stupid. I just… be tired… and talk English.” I
threw my empty glass on the floor. Had the boys been up they would
have thought that to be a great game for us to play, and Katie,
rightfully so, not so much. I picked my glass up and set it with
much exaggerated care back on the coffee table. While bent forward,
I passed gas loudly. “Uh,
that was you
,” I said
as though she might believe it. I sat back, looked at her, then
towards the television. Her face was unimpressed.

“
Um,
really?”

“
Probably
not, if not that, then yes and sorry. Definitely something, I would
think,” I answered somewhat cryptically.

She shook her
head before letting it go, “So what else did the doctor
say?”

“
Uh, he said I’m just paying the price of awareness or I
maybe need to buy awareness rice, I don’t know; he was very quiet
and I didn’t want to bother him with something like
volume
. Basically, he said it’s a gift and I should enjoy the
happy moments and be thankful for the painful ones, otherwise I
wouldn’t know one from the other.”

“
Wow, he
sounds so much like you, what did he really say?”

“
I don’t know; something about Zoloft and goofballs,” I
shrugged. “Are you ever saddened by this? I don’t mean our
THIS
, I mean, sitting side by side and watching the stories
unfold on a shiny box. It sometimes seems like the wrong thing to
be doing, like awfully opposite to something
purposeful
. We should be insulted by half of these commercials. What
the hell was that? Half if we’re lucky.”

She paused
the show, and turned to face me, “Okay, I like this show and you
need to turn your brain off. Maybe if you let yourself be
entertained once in a while, you’d, I don’t even know, not quite
feel like
that
about everything quite so much. All
of this, that you’re saying should go in a book. Go write a book,
book wad.”