Cameron and the Girls (16 page)

It's as if you're the dad and I'm the mom.

And I'm the bad son.

Great, I'd like to introduce myself to everyone. You can call me chopped liver.

Something gnaws at my stomach as I get up and pull down two plates from the cupboard. I put one in front of me and one at my right side. I scoop out some mac and cheese and spoon it onto the other plate.

“There you go,” I say.

You've beaten the odds, and they were pretty stiff odds. Sadly, the odds of getting out of this particular situation are zero. Please, Cameron, let's think about this.

I get up and retrieve yet another plate from the cupboard. I lay a piece of beef on this one and shove the plate to my left. “Don't you want me to be happy?” I ask The Professor.

This is what you call happiness?

You've still got work to do, bud.

“Work?”

The best you can be. Remember? Before we're through, you'll be driving all the way to Mexico.

Instinctively, I take another plate out. On this one, I put on a little of each. I take aim and push it down the length of the table like a shuffleboard game. It stops a foot from the end.

My hands shake. There's a pounding in my head. The voices keep screaming and I can't get a word in. And I don't know who's on my side.

I
have
opened the floodgates.

You were just going to make life better for her.

That's rude and you know it. Cam, who is this guy? Isn't that rude? You'd never be cruel to her. She's a friend of ours.

Oh, what's a friend, anyway? Do it with her and then move on. Who cares whether she wants to or not? That's what I say. Then your troubles are over and your new life can start. You, of all people, would like that.

What is that supposed to mean?

“Enough,” I say. But this doesn't work. And I feel my mind start to break, the pieces, like drifting ice floes, occupied by these voices. I put my hands on my head and try to squeeze the pieces back together. And then it is absolutely quiet. Even the ticking of the furnace has stopped. Just like in Nina's bathroom, I feel myself rise from the table and clutch desperately at its edge to hang on.

“What's happening?”

I rise but the chair moves with me. I lift above the chattering voices. I climb higher and higher to where they sound like little mouse voices, like the little rabbit girl at school. I have risen above them, but in actuality I haven't moved at all. I close my eyes and start spinning, like a diver who has leaped from the board and tucked his knees into his chest. Faster and faster I go until I believe that I can spin right out of my life into some great void where people like me spend eternity just spinning. I spin so fast that the voices resemble different strings of color in a blender.

And now I can see without opening my eyes. I can see through my eyelids, and I see them all. I see The Professor with his carefully shaved goatee. I see The Other Guy with his torn T-shirt and baggy pants and the way he slouches in the chair. His voice disengages from the blend and says:

I'll take you where you want to go.

“Go away,” I say. But I sense a weakness in my voice.

And then I see The Girl. I see her so clearly that it makes me suck in a big breath. I've been waiting and waiting, and here finally is the love of my life. I want to drink in what I see. I want to reach out and feel her tender milky skin. She's everything I dreamed of: the lips, the eyes, the body all rolled into one beautiful girl. And there's so much I want to say. I want to quote all the poets I've ever heard of, all of Shakespeare's sonnets, but all that comes out is, “I wish, I wish.”

Then I hear another voice, a new one at the table.

“Cameron?”

Against my will, I finally stretch out of my spin. My body lengthens and I point my hands straight ahead of me. Soon, I will cut into the water in a perfect dive. But before that happens, I open my eyes to find myself still sitting at the table. All around me are the plates humped with food. Something taps me on the shoulder. I turn to see my father standing there.

“Cameron?” he says. “Settle down, son.” He pats me and it feels like a cool rag on my forehead.

“Pop,” I say.

He holds my shoulder tighter. “We've been looking all over for you. Your mom has been scared out of her wits.”

I look around for her and he reads my mind.

“They're all at the hospital, hoping you'll come back. I was sent out to see if I could find you. Only I couldn't even find our car in the parking lot. Where it was supposed to be, I found this.” He holds up one of

my shoes. I look down and see its match on one foot.

I cough and my throat feels raspy. “Nina?” I ask.

“I don't know,” he says as he hands me the shoe, and when I get it on, he starts steering me toward the door. “Is there anything you want from here?”

“Peace,” I say.

We ride the way we usually ride—not much is said. I'm easily distracted, and I can feel my head shooting side to side, back and forth. Dad is humming, but not loud enough for me to recognize the song. He's in his work clothes, and there's a crease down his pant leg. When we get to the railroad bridge, I point to it and say, “Climbed that once.”

“Did you, now?” he says. “That's a ways up.”

“Yeah, the wind was blowing hard and the rails were slick—”

“Cam,” he says. “That's enough now.”

He might as well have stuck me with a knife. He checks his rearview mirror and speeds up. He looks scared. The strongest people in the world can still be afraid.

I feel myself being pushed aside. Soon, I can't tell what is real. Am I really traveling down the West Side Highway with my dad, or am I just making it up, or is somebody making it up for me?

It doesn't matter. Life is all made up.

“No,” I say.

My dad sneaks a peek from the corner of his eye.

“I mean yes,” I add.

What if my dad isn't real? What if all of life isn't even real and your real life takes place on some alternate planet? Where only voices live? I think of what The Girl said. What if we are the voices in
their
heads?

“That would suck,” I say out loud.

We get to the hospital, and my dad parks almost exactly in the same spot as before. He holds on to me extra tight as we walk toward the ER. Instead of glass, the door looks like a solid dark entrance, covering up something evil that's going to happen inside.

“Oh my God,” my mom shouts as she sees us come through. She runs up and pulls my head into her. I can hear her sniffling in my ear. “I thought you were dead.”

“I should be,” I say. And I can feel her pull back just the tiniest bit.

“Don't say that,” she says into my shoulder.

I know times like this are supposed to feel comforting, but the truth is, I still can't feel anything right now. My emotional pump, the machine that dredges up the right way to feel, has completely broken down.

Beth and Dylan are standing back near the nurse's station. Beth has her hand in Dylan's. She smiles at me, but I close my eyes.

Just reach right up and put your hands around her throat. Then they'll know you mean business.

“No,” I say loudly, and I pull back from my mom. “Not what I want.” She tries to get ahold of me, but I slap her hand away.

“Cameron,” she barks. “Stop that.”

My dad's big hand comes out and clamps on my shoulder like a vise. “That will be the end of that, young man.”

“I've got to find Nina,” I say.

“Then we will go with you,” Dad says.

He steers me with his tight grip. Dylan and Beth part to let me pass.

I whisper “Benedict Armpit” as I slip through them. I am determined to find Nina. That is, until I turn the corner and there stands Dr. Simons, wearing a white coat and holding the end of the world in his hand.

“You told me,” I say. “You said I could make up my own mind.”

“Cameron,” he says as he steps toward me, carrying the syringe. “I said that's true as long as you can take care of yourself. If you can't take care of yourself, then the law provides for the state to take over.”

I step back and run into my father. I can feel the heat from his body. “This is a free country,” I say. I expect my dad's hands to hold me again, but instead Dr. Simons holds up the syringe.

“You need rest,” the doctor says.

“No, wait. Not yet. Where's Nina? Got to talk to her first.”

“Cam.” It's my mother lurking behind my father.

“Don't talk to me,” I say.

“It's best if you come along,” says Dr. Simons.

I look at him and then to my family. I see fear in everybody's eyes, but it's not the kind of fear that makes them run the other way. It's more the kind that's worried about what I might do to myself. It makes my dreams sag.

“Okay,” I say to Dr. Simons. “But they have to stay out.”

I know I've hurt them, but this is too important for me to have them looking over my shoulder. Dr. Simons takes me by the arm, and we walk down the hall. About halfway down, he motions me to a room.

The lights are bright and twinkling off shiny yellow walls, and I have to shade my eyes till I get used to them. Dr. Simons motions for me to get up on the examining table. The paper crackles as I do.

“I don't want to do this,” I complain.

“I know,” he says. He starts rolling up my sleeve, but I pull it away.

“No, I really don't want it to be over.”

“What don't you want to be over?”

I look back on the last few weeks and think about what I've done. “My good life.”

Your good life? You mean the best life ever. It doesn't have to go away, and you know it.

Dr. Simons nods and looks down at the syringe before catching my eye. “From my point of view, your face doesn't look all that good. Actually, you look scared.”

“But that's good,” I plead. “At least I feel something.”

Although I do feel afraid of the voice that keeps getting stronger and meaner, I also know Dr. Simons knows absolutely nothing about living with fear and how much better it is than living with nothing. But I've never gone this far before, and I just don't know for sure.

“I want to ask you one question first,” I say. “You never did answer it before.”

“All right.”

“Is it possible to keep only some of the voices, or do I have to keep them all?”

Keep them all, big boy. You can handle them all.

Dr. Simons sets down the syringe and pets his chin with his fingers. “I can't exactly say for sure, but my guess would be that you can't pick and choose. You get what you're given.”

Pick it up. Pick up the needle and . . .

I want to trust Dr. Simons, and it feels like he's talking from the heart. “But that's not fair,” I say. “With everything wrong with me, can't I have just this one thing?”

“You're right, Cameron. It's not fair.”

It's as if I've exhausted all my options. No pardons for the crazy boy. “Can I have a few minutes by myself?”

He is skeptical and I don't blame him.

“I won't do anything,” I say. “I promise.”

He nods. “But this time there'll be someone right outside the door.” He picks up the syringe as he leaves.

 

He's gone and I can breathe easier. Around me I see jars filled with absorbent swabs and tongue depressors. The walls tell stories about how to prevent the flu. My body feels jittery, as if I've had too much caffeine for three weeks. I kick at the base of the table. I am a hostage here. The rest of the world is outside the door. The rest of my life lives in that syringe Dr. Simons is guarding.

Hello, Cam. That was a close one. There must be some way out of this.

“God, I've been waiting forever to really talk to you.”

What's the plan, Cam? Is it a good one like the railroad bridge?

“We have to talk,” I say.

My favorite thing.

“I don't think I have a plan,” I say.

There is a silence like death. Now it seems as if the whole world has its ear pressed against the door.

Are you just going to let them do this to us?

“No. Course not,” I quickly say, but then, more slowly, “but I don't know what to do.”

So you're giving in? Listen to me—it doesn't have to be this way.

“It's all changed.”

What's changed?

“The Other Guy. I saw him at the table. I don't know what to do with him, and he's getting worse. It's as if he's taking control. Can't you feel him?”

He's not that bad.

“He almost made me hurt Nina.”

Oh, her.

“Nina's a good person. I don't want to hurt her.”

But you want to hurt me, Cam.

I take a moment to collect my thoughts. They are a jumble still, and I have to pick and choose the words that float by. “But Nina's real,” I finally say.

And me?

I hear sniffles.

“You? You're perfect.”

Perfect isn't enough for you?

“I don't know,” I say. “All I know is that I don't want to hurt anybody.” I struggle for the words. “But it's too hard to be normal right now.” When I say this, a strange feeling occupies my mind, as if I were shaking, but my hands are calm. “Are you okay?”

I've just heard I'm not good enough. And I'm about to go away forever. Would you be okay if that happened to you?

I can't talk because of the big rock in my throat.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I was just being, you know, me.

“I love you,” I finally say. “I've never known anyone like you before.”

Oh, Cam. We've been through so much together. Remember the bridge?

“Yes.”

And the roof? Sleeping in the same bed?

“I do remember.”