Finding Alice (7 page)

She smiles a stiff smile and picks up her handbag and coat. I cling to my backpack as I tentatively head toward the front exit, still expecting someone to run up and stop me. I remember seeing a fairly burly looking orderly earlier today as I was waiting in the hallway for a blood test. He had to hold down an agitated man while a nurse injected the poor guy with what I’m sure was some sort of sedative. I felt sorry for the man but must also admit to feeling slightly relieved when his screaming finally came to a halt. I didn’t allow myself to look at him again after that. Not only because it seemed disrespectful, but also because I felt truly scared deep inside my soul. It seems so wrong to treat another human being this way.

“Did you get the samples?” she asks as I open the door and bolt out into the cool evening air.

I turn and hand the packets to her. “Here, you might as well keep them since you’re supposed to be managing my meds.” I am sorry to hear my sarcastic tone. I tell myself that it’s not my mother’s fault, that she’s not the enemy. But how can I be sure?

As she drives home in the semidarkness, I contrive an elaborate scheme that I will use to make her believe I am taking my pills. I imagine how I will “take them with food” as Nurse Kelly recommended, but somehow I will adhere them to the roof of my mouth, and then when my mother’s not looking, I will slip them into my napkin or a pocket or something. I’m not sure if it’s my idea or Amelia’s, but it makes perfect sense to me.

My mother is talking about my brother, Aaron, now, telling me how well he’s doing in football, how fortunate he was to get that full scholarship to the junior college. I nod and act as if I’m listening, as if everything is still perfectly normal, as if I still care about anyone or anything other than my messed-up little life.

But I’m still pondering Dr. Thornton’s words about schizophrenia and how it’s an illness that can be managed, if not cured. And I’ll admit that a small part of me actually wants to believe him, but that seems to be the BC part of me, the part that has been neatly sliced off and tossed away. Mostly I remember Grandma … how she sat in a chair with a blank stare and didn’t even recognize her own daughter. Do I want to end up like her? Locked up and doped up and totally useless? I don’t think so. No, I’m certain there must be another way out of this mess. Somehow my “messed-up” brain will figure it out. I’ll show them!

chapter
SEVEN

The Tiny Door

I
t seems there is a tiny door that I must walk through. It is called “normal.” But I am not. As a result I cannot fit through this door. And yet
they
keep telling me I must go through it.
They
being my mom, the doctor, and the medical profession in general—at least according to the literature that Dr. Thornton gave me to read. Now at times some of this actually makes sense, and then at other times it all sounds absolutely ridiculous. I wonder where they get this stuff. I wonder who invented “normal” in the first place. And I question whether or not it really exists. Or if it exists, perhaps it’s not for me. Because I am certain this is a door I will never be able to squeeze through.

Now the other
they
have been curiously silent these past couple of days. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m in my family home, in familiar territory, and
they
don’t feel quite comfortable here. Or perhaps, other than Amelia, they simply haven’t located me yet. I never did send my change-of-address card. Just the same, one can never be too sure. They may be waiting on my porch right now.

But back to the tiny door, the one I’m expected to force myself
through. As I recall, the only way the other Alice could fit through her tiny door was to take the pills that made her get very, very small. I guess that is what Dr. Thornton’s pills are supposed to do for me. Make me very, very small. Or, in a word,
normal
. But what if I don’t care to be normal or even very small for that matter? Shouldn’t I have a choice in these things? It is, after all, my life. Or rather it used to be. Sometimes I wonder who’s really running things here. And did I only imagine that God was speaking to me, that he gave me the golden key and all the answers? It seemed so real at the time, and at times still does, despite what everyone else keeps telling me. And I worry that these “normal” pills will undo something important and powerful. Yet at the same time I’m not so sure.

Anyway, I just don’t know who I can believe anymore. So naturally I balk at taking these suspicious pills. Not only that, but according to the manufacturer, these pills can have some pretty frightening side effects, like temporary paralysis or liver damage or even death. Of course, the fine black print assures me: “These reactions are statistically rare.” But can they promise me that it won’t happen? Of course not. And that makes me wonder why has this happened to me in the first place. Why was
I
chosen to get this insidious disease—if I really do have it—and did God have anything to do with that? Did I have to get this disease so that I could hear him and accept the golden key? Or have I only imagined all this?

So far I’ve only taken two pills, one last night and one this morning, and only because my mother was so insistent. I’m sure I’ve never seen her so strong willed, so unmovable—like a boulder. She won’t budge until she’s satisfied that I’ve swallowed the pill. She even makes me open my mouth wide and stick out my tongue. It’s a
whole new side of her and not necessarily a bad thing, at least under different circumstances. She certainly wasn’t this assertive when my father was alive.

Still I can’t see that the pills have made much difference, other than muffling everything. I suddenly feel like I’ve got a head cold, both inside my head and out, like I’m wrapped in this fluffy gray cocoon. But I haven’t begun to shrink yet. And at this rate, I doubt that I’ll ever be able to make it through that tiny door. Maybe I am hopeless. But normal seems farther away than ever.

Now I’ve begun to suspect that the reason I must pass through the tiny door is to reach
the other side
. Sort of like that old chicken-crossing-the-road joke. But even this has me worried. For I have no idea what awaits me on
the other side
. Things could get even worse for me over there in “Normalville.” Or what if, like the other Alice, these magic pills make me shrink so small that I cannot be heard or seen—or, worse yet, I cease to exist at all? Or what if I am so minuscule that someone, say Pastor John, comes along and steps on me and crushes me like a bug beneath his boot? What then?

So whether or not to take these pills is not a simple black-and-white question. Like everything else, it’s just varying shades of gray. Everything’s confusing and frightening, and it seems I have absolutely no control over my life. So I stay in my room, imagining that I might possibly have some control up here.

Being in my little blue bedroom with its fussy eyelet curtains and dust ruffle brought some comfort—at first anyway. I just walked around and around and stared at everything as if seeing it all for the first time, and yet I knew each item, every picture on the wall, my violin case still leaning inside the closet, my stuffed rabbit with the
ear that flops down over his eye. It was like a déjà vu. Realistic and familiar but not really real.

Yet it wasn’t long before the dimensions of my old room became confining and slightly terrifying. And even now as I sit on my crisp white bed, hands folded neatly in my lap and telling myself just to chill, I still feel that I might totally lose it and that I will scream so loudly the whole neighborhood will step out to the street to see what on earth is going on in the Laxton house. Perhaps the whole town of Warren will be on alert—the KBDX noontime news will warn its citizens to be on the lookout for that crazy girl who went flipping mad on Persimmon Lane.

When I’m not sleeping, I count things—the panes in the windows, the pencils in the cup, the jigsaw puzzles in my closet, even the white flowers on the pale blue wallpaper. Soon my room feels like an itchy wool sweater that shrank three sizes too small. Everything in here is much too tight. The walls press in on me, closer and closer. And those little flowers on the wallpaper are growing to tropical dimensions and suffocating me with their sticky fragrance—just like an old woman’s overbearing perfume in a hot, stuffy elevator.

I must have become the other Alice, when she grew bigger and bigger and finally became trapped in the White Rabbit’s little house. My arms will soon stick out through the windows, my feet will protrude out the door, and my head will pop right out of the roof or maybe the chimney. I am totally confined and claustrophobic. I cannot breathe. I want to knock down these walls and break free and actually scream. Yes, it seems very clear; I must be going mad.

Like the other Alice, I decide I must take these stupid pills that will shrink me back down to size if I want to survive. Size: normal,
medium, regular, average, one-size-fits-all. Oh, I don’t really want to become small and shrunken and meaningless again. I would much rather be large and important and special. It frightens me to give in like this. And yet it frightens me not to.

What are my alternatives though? I vaguely wonder if it’s possible to break free from here—to escape my boulder mother and this stuffy little room? I imagine lacing up my old track shoes and sprinting right out the front door. I could run and run and run until there’s only fluid motion, like a horse across an open pasture. But where would I go? Where would I ever fit in? What if all the doors are just this small? What if I am too big to pass through any? What then? Must I always remain on the other side?

I am so lonely. Exceedingly lonely.

chapter
EIGHT

Advice from a Caterpillar

I
t’s been three days, and I’ve only managed to fool my mom about not taking my pills twice. She’s sharper than I supposed. Sometimes it almost seems like she’s on my side too, although I can’t really be sure. I’m not sure what I think about these pills either or if I even care. Mostly they just make me sleep a lot, and when I’m not asleep, it’s almost as if I’m sleepwalking since I sort of shuffle around in this thick green fog. Sort of like I’m numb, like my whole body’s been shot with Novocain. Naturally, my mom acts as though everything’s just groovy. She keeps up this positive front and says things like she’s “so thankful that God is healing me.” What does that mean?

She thinks life is wonderful because I’m finally eating “real food.” Of course, I can’t taste it and don’t feel the least bit hungry. But, hey, if it makes her happy …

Before I got up this morning, I was thinking, or maybe I was dreaming—it’s hard to tell—about the old grape arbor that used to grow in our backyard. I remember how I used to sit beneath that sweet smelling green canopy and dream big dreams, back in my
childhood, back when I was too little to know any better. I wonder if it’s still there—the arbor, I mean.

When I finally make my way downstairs, moving my thick feet in slow motion, it’s nearly noon, and I shovel down a bowl of soggy cornflakes. Then as my mom watches, I pop a pill into my mouth and pretend to swallow. She smiles and turns away, and I manage to extract the soggy pill and slip it into the back pocket of my jeans before she even looks back. That makes three times!

After this private little victory I trudge out to the backyard, imagining that I am more myself than usual, but it’s probably just an illusion. Still, I am relieved to discover that the grapevine, although somewhat overgrown, remains intact. Not only that, but after a careful search I find that it still has several bunches of fat purple grapes, and they appear to be ripe. I pick a bunch and then just stare at their frosty looking surfaces in wonder. For some reason they seem surprisingly familiar. In fact, they remind me of me. Kind of hazy but with the promise of something good underneath. Or at least I hope so. I wish it were so.

“Whazzup?”

I glance over the cyclone fence that separates our house from the Fosters to see a long-haired, gangly man peering down at me. I squint up at him, trying to figure out why he looks vaguely familiar, then suddenly remember.
Brent Foster
, the pervert who enticed me up into his tree house and then attempted to rape me—well, something like that. I was about five at the time, and he was probably around seven. As I recall, he wanted to “play doctor,” and naturally I was supposed to be the patient. But even then I knew what he wanted to do was wrong, and somehow I managed to push him away and run home.
I never did tell my parents about it. I was too embarrassed. Besides, I felt certain they would get mad at me and say it was all my fault. I feel myself flush with embarrassment as I look at Brent now.

Then I wonder why I should even care. It was so long ago, and we were just stupid kids anyway. How small it seems compared to the larger scheme of messed-up grownup lives. I study his shaggy brown hair, leaning toward dreadlocks, and his baggy and raggedy clothes. Not that I should be one to pass a fashion judgment these days. I notice that he’s wearing a goofy smile and actually looks fairly harmless today. Plus he’s safely on the other side of the fence. Curious for a better look, I stand up and walk over to the fence.

“Been playing doctor lately?” I ask with an air of nonchalance.

He laughs. “Nah, but I wouldn’t mind another go-round. Ya interested?”

“Yeah, you bet.” I roll my eyes at him with disgust, then return to examining my lovely bunch of grapes.

“Wha’d’ya got there?”

“Grapes.” I pluck one off and hold it out temptingly before him. Then he takes it and pops it in his mouth.

“Not bad.” He nods his head with satisfaction. “Wanna get high?”

He sits down on an old stump now, carefully rolling out a joint on the knee of his threadbare cords. He expertly twists the ends, then holds it up in triumph. He grins, and I am suddenly reminded of the smoking caterpillar in the Alice book, the one who wanted to give her “advice.” Brent pulls out a cheap plastic lighter, and puckering up his face with an almost religious intensity, he ignites his precious reefer. Then his eyes flutter closed, and his face relaxes as he slowly
inhales. I watch in fascination as he holds in the smoke, his eyebrows lifting as if he’s about to enter a new dimension. Then slowly he exhales, opens his eyes, and holds out the joint.