Crazy (5 page)

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
I think you're stalling. You don't want our new audience member to meet your father.

SEXY LADY
:
Just remember, you're a chip off the old block, and you're hot!

I just want to say in my dad's defense that when he's in his right mind, he's the best dad in the world. He taught me to paddle a canoe and to ride a bike and how to write Jason Apollo Papadopoulos when I was five so my teacher wouldn't keep making me stand in the corner. He told me the stories of the ancient gods and heroes of Greece. We read
The Iliad
and
The Odyssey
together when I was nine and ten years old.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
Ah, the stories.

AUNT BEE
:
You treasure that the most. Sitting together under those bushes in the backyard of your old house, eating Oreos, drinking Cokes, and telling stories.

CRAZY GLUE
:
A totally cool, secret hideout—all those bushes, that

wide-open space underneath, and a nice, flat dirt floor.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
Stalling.

If only I could get those days back. If only he'd get better already.

CRAZY GLUE
:
I don't know, buddy. It doesn't look like he's getting any better. He's back on the meds and it ain't happening. And you're getting low on those pills. What will you do when you run out? You can't afford to buy more.

Just—just leave me alone. I'm handling it.

AUNT BEE
:
What are you so afraid of, dear?

Nothing! I'm not afraid. Everybody stop saying I'm afraid. I'm not. He's fine. I'm fine. It's all fine. And he's not going away again. Not on my watch. Not to some state mental institute where they'll tie him down again, or lock him in a room by himself. No way! No way! I put him there once; I won't do it again.

AUNT BEE
:
Now look what you've done. He's very upset, poor boy. You were just six years old. He was going to bury you alive! Oh dear, everything is very, very upsetting.

LAUGH TRACK
:
Isn't it a shame.

SEXY LADY
:
You're still hot.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
Buck up, kiddo, and get in there. Go on. Go take care of your dad. We're here. We're always here for you.

I cross the street. I taste tears and I didn't even know I was crying. I wipe the stupid mess off my face, walk up the steps, and open the front door.

There's no warmth in the house as I step into the hallway, no smell of dinner cooking, no sound of my mom's voice singing from the kitchen, or my dad's shouting "Hi-ya!" from his study. It's almost as cold inside as it is out. We heat with oil, and oil costs an arm and a leg, so we keep the thermostat set really low. There's a smell of mildew in the house, and wet plaster, and dad's B.O. It's quiet, too quiet.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Jeez, now what's your dad up to? Hope he didn't yank another tooth out of his mouth with that rusty set of pliers again.

SEXY LADY
:
Blood everywhere. And what a time you had on the bus getting him to the clinic. It was a mess.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
It wasn't
so bad. Jason
took care of it. He handled it.

"Dad?" I step from the hallway into the living room. "Dad? Where are you?" I head back to the kitchen, passing through the dining room on my way. He's not there. I check his study off the dining room and go around to the front of his desk to make sure he's not hiding under it the way he does sometimes. The room is small and square and jammed with books and stacks of folders filled with writing projects my dad has yet to complete. He's written two books. Both are about Greece. They don't make him much money and he hasn't completed anything new
in more than a year. We lived off the money my mom got photographing weddings and occasionally birds. The birds were for a bird watching magazine.

"Dad?" I call again. No answer.

LAUGH TRACK
:
Uh-oh! (Nervous laughter).

I run upstairs and I hear voices coming from the bathroom at the other end of the hallway.

"Dad?"

AUNT BEE
:
He's all right. Take it easy, Jason.

I hurry down the narrow hallway to the bathroom and push open the door.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Oh shit!

My dad's sitting up fully dressed with his helmet on in a tub full of water. His radio is plugged into the outlet above our sink, and it's resting on the edge of a plank he's laid across the top of the tub, ready to fall into the water and electrocute him.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Shit to hell!

"Dad, what are you doing?" I yank the plug out of the wall. "Huh? What are you doing? Are you crazy?" I grab the radio and set it on the toilet lid.

LAUGH TRACK
:
Uh-oh!

CRAZY GLUE
:
Time to go to the nut house.

AUNT BEE
:
He's going to kill himself one day.

Dad looks up at me, blinking. I shake my head. "Dad, you can't put the radio near the water. You could kill yourself! Jeez! What were you thinking?"

"I got cold. It's warm in here," he says, unconcerned.

He looks me over. "So you're back from the wars, are you, Apollo? What news have you from the front? Any Furies lurking about?" He presses the sides of his helmet as if to make sure no Furies can get in. "And Athena? Have you brought her with you this time?"

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
Tell him Athena's dead. Your mom's dead. That's who he means, isn't it?

AUNT BEE
:
Tell him no such thing. Tell him you brought him some food.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Man, your bird heart is flapping like a hundred flaps a second. Sure it's not a hummingbird you've got in your chest?

"Did you hear me, Dad? You can't have a radio on in here."

"But I need the music. I need the violins. It's the only sound that blocks the Furies' voices. They're singing. They're wanting to eat away my brain. Can you hear them?"

Dad presses his hands against his helmet and tries to squeeze it tighter about his head. His round gray eyes stare out at me from behind the masklike pieces of metal that hide his nose and cheeks. "Their song is ear piercing. They're tuned too high. Chalk on a chalkboard, metal scraping stone. You know it. You know their song. You know they're after me." He begins to chant:

"
Now by the altar,
Over the victim,
Ripe for the ritual,
Sing this enchantment:
A song without music,
A sword in the senses,
A storm in the heart,
And afire in the brain;
A clamour of Furies
To paralyse reason,
A tune full of terror,
A drought in the soul!
"

Dad hugs himself and rocks back and forth, repeating this, faster, and again, faster. A wave of water sloshes onto the floor.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Here we go! He's revved up now! You'll have to slap him to get him to stop.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
Pull the plug! Pull the plug!

AUNT BEE
:
Shove some food in his mouth!

I kneel down and pull the plug to drain the tub. I shake off my backpack and open it. I pull out Pete's sack lunch and yank it away just before another wave sloshes over the rim. "Dad, would you stop it already?"

"'A clamour of Furies to paralyse reason!' To paralyse reason! To paralyse reason!"

I shove Pete's sandwich toward him. "Here. Eat this."

Dad takes the sandwich and shoves it into his mouth, plastic wrap and all.

LAUGH TRACK
:
(Laughter).

***

Twenty minutes later Dad has eaten Pete's lunch. The good food calms him. I help him out of his wet clothes, and when I get to his undershirt and pull it off, I find a long red zigzag running the length of his chest. I touch it. It looks like my mom's nail polish.

"Dad? What is this?"

"A wound," he says. He puts his hand over his chest.

"What wound?"

"All wounds. The world's wounds. I'm all wound up in the wounds of the world. They told me to do it."

I ease the helmet off his head, and Dad draws in his breath as if he's in great pain.

"Don't listen to those Furies, Dad. Just because you hear them doesn't mean you have to obey."

He puts his hands over his ears. "They were on the radio. They're in the airwaves. They got through. I had to purify myself with water and a wound, for your mother's sake."

CRAZY GLUE
:
At least he didn't use a knife. Be grateful for small miracles.

"Mom doesn't need you to do anything for her sake."

"For my sake, I mean. For my sake, to cleanse my sins against your mother."

CRAZY GLUE
:
Here we go again.

"You didn't kill Mom. I keep telling you. Don't listen to the Furies. You didn't do it. She had a stroke. You weren't even there."

"I should have been there."

"Dad, let's just drop it."

AUNT BEE
:
You need to talk about it sometime. I worry about you. A boy should cry for his mother.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Aunt Bee, I mean this in the nicest way—shut up!

I refill the tub with hot water and Dad has the first bath he's had in about a month. He looks better when he's all scrubbed and in a set of clean clothes. He's lost about twenty pounds, though, so his chest is lean and pale, and I can count all his ribs.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Have you taken a look at your own rib cage lately?

My dad's cheeks and eyes are hollowed out, and his hair has grown up and out—a white flame consuming his fragile skull. He has the look of someone who is being hunted, a wide-eyed, wary, hungry look. He creeps, slightly hunched, along the hallway, stopping at each doorway and tensing as if he's expecting something to jump out at him.

I get him comfortable on the living room couch and cover him up in lots of blankets. Then I sit down in a chair nearby, wrapped in my own pile of blankets, and read to him. I'm reading him
The Odyssey,
the same book he read to me when I was nine.

After I've been reading for a while, Dad interrupts me. "Did you see what I wrote today?" he asks.

I look up from the book. He sits across from me wearing aluminum foil over his ears because I've hidden the helmet.

"No. Did you write something?"

AUNT BEE
:
Thank goodness! Maybe the meds are starting to work. He's writing!

CRAZY GLUE
:
Hold your horses! We don't know what he's written yet.

"It's on my desk in my study." Dad nods and one of his foil ears drops off. "Didn't you see it? It's the story of everything." He quickly wraps the foil back around his ear.

I get to my feet and head for the study. I hold my breath. Is he really writing again?

SEXY LADY
:
I just know it's going to be good, whatever it is.

I grab Dad's old work-in-progress folder off the top of his desk and take it out to the living room. I hold it up. "Is this it?"

Dad's eyes light up. "Yes! That's the story of what happened—how I had to finish writing my book and how I couldn't go to the mountain." He swats the air. "So you Furies had better read it and leave me alone." He gets onto his knees on the couch, tangling himself with the blankets. While he wrestles with them and shouts at the Furies, I open the folder and read the top page. It's written in pencil. It begins:
Word whaf fork mountain mouth rain fraibe frube.
I scan the page. It doesn't get any better. My heart sinks. I look at my dad. His eyes shine with hope.

"What do you think? Will it save me? Will they leave me alone now?"

I've never lied to my dad before, but I look him straight in the eyes and say, "It's perfect, Dad. It explains everything."

I
KNOW WHAT
you're thinking. Man, is that dude crazy or what? Jason's dad needs a doctor. He needs help.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Good guess, Sherlock.

He's really not that bad. He'll get better. He always does. It's just that he was off his meds too long. Now he's back on them, so he'll be fine. It's okay. I mean, what else can I do, right? If he doesn't get better, he has to stay in the hospital, permanently. That's what my mom told me. So I ask you, could you put your dad away like that? Yeah, I didn't think so. And I'm guessing you think I'm a little crazy, too.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Because you talk to us.

Right.

AUNT BEE
:
But you know we're just a figment of your imagination, so it's okay.

That's right.

SEXY LADY
:
We're just voices in your head.

Right again.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Just like your dad's.

No!

LAUGH TRACK
:
Uh-oh!

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
He doesn't actually hear us. That's the difference. We're not coming out of the radio or rising up out of the ground.
Exactly!

CRAZY GLUE
:
Glad we got that all straightened out—again.
Yeah! Me too.

So, I'm supposed to go to those shrink-wrap lunch sessions twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays. I go two more times, and both times I don't say much of anything. Shelby's so irritated, she looks ready to choke me, and even Haze and Pete, I think, are getting frustrated. Dr. Gomez is harder to read. I don't know what she's thinking, but I refuse to talk. They can't make me, can they?

CRAZY GLUE
:
I'm with you, buddy
.

AUNT BEE
:
You can't get help if you won't speak up and ask for it.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Who says he needs help? He's fine. He's handling it.