Impulse (4 page)

I feel like mewling now. At least here, they can't

slap you around to shut you up. Not that they don't ever touch you at all. Takedowns. Cavity searches after visits from home.

Once in a while, when someone "in charge" is in a bad mood, you might even catch a "playful"

kick in the seat, or a teeth-

rattling shoulder shake.

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But Bloody Cuts and Bruises

Are not something you're going to see here. No sir. Except maybe for Vanessa's. And why is she in my thoughts again? I have to admit I'd like to peek beneath that bandage.

I'll probably see her at dinner tonight, not that they let the guys and the girls sit anywhere close to each other. I guess they think crappy food is an aphrodisiac.

A time or two or three, I have seen some serious make-out sessions-- male/female, male/male, female/female. Love. Lust. The need to feel close.

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The need to feel safe because someone dares to wrap their arms around you in this cold, sterile place. The need to feel. I even half-believe the story about Dahlia and Dr. Starr. What better way to grab preferential treatment?
Oh my lovely, deep-creased psychologist, let me stick my tongue down your throat.

Nothing new for Dahlia. Would be nothing new for me, either. What's new is that I haven't strayed down that path since I've been here. 86

91

Mostly Because

For once in my life, I don't have to have sex. No one demands it in exchange for drugs, ten minutes of disgust for a well-deserved rush.

No one expects it in exchange for food, just a burger and fries, please; for a hot shower to wash off the streets, a warm bed to crash in.

Most of all, no one is forcing me to. I try not to look back on the moment when my pitiful life turned unbearable. Unthinkable. 87

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Try to blot it out, scrub it out, rip it out of my brain completely. But you can't forget something like that, no matter how much you

drink, snort, or shoot into your veins. The memory stalks you forever and creeps up to maul you like a rabid dog, when you least expect it.

Like now.

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Vanessa

Thank God

The intercom squawks.

Okay, Happy Campers, dinner is served.

Happy Campers? Must I join that sorority? Doesn't much matter. My days of dinner arriving by burly butler have come to a Level One end. My (non) performance at group today has netted me a trip to the communal dining room. Mmmmm. Can't wait to share meat loaf or fish sticks with a table of friendly, smiling faces.

Like Dahlia's and Lori's. I wonder how you make friends with people who think everyone is out to get them.

What is friendship, anyway? I have no clue, never lingered long enough in one place before, 89

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not with Dad in the military. We only settled down in Reno when Mama got so bad she couldn't find enough white space to grocery shop or get us to school, let alone make sure we bathed and brushed.

Grandma, the fool, stepped up to the plate, volunteered to look

out for Bryan and me. Poor woman had no idea what she was getting herself into--

that Daddy had not only married a gear shifter but fathered one too. 90

95

I Didn't Realize It Myself

Until a couple of years ago. Interesting, considering I'd watched Mom straddling that seesaw for as long as I could remember. Except her highs and lows lasted for days. So when I started shifting gears three or four times in a twenty-four-hour period, at first I blamed hormones.

Didn't PMS make you irritable? Didn't boy trouble drop you to your knees (in more ways than one)? Normal adolescent feelings, right? Well, no, see ... not when your mother's a stark raving psycho. For years she went undiagnosed. 91

96

"Bipolar" had no meaning when I was a little girl, and "schizo"

wasn't short for schizophrenic, not in the clinical sense.

It only meant that some

days Mama was fine--

eyes not muddied, hair

combed into submission, speech precise. Those days, her hugs and kisses were warm as summer rain, washing away the hurt.

The hurt that was sure to fall again. We just couldn't guess

exactly when.

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When It Fell

It was a rock slide, crushing, smothering, bruising, bone twisting. By the time I was ten, I knew to hide when Mama started talking to the air.

Don
'
t worry, Nessa, He
'
s an angel. Can
'
t you see

him, standing just there?

I figured if someone was there, invisible and all, he must be more demon than angel, especially when Mama started yelling.

Go away, you bastard. I
'
m tired of listening to you. You make my head hurt.

That was the thing about her manic phases. 93

98

They didn't always make her feel what you might call good. Sometimes they made her head hurt.

He
'
s pounding nails into my brain. Stop!

Make him stop!

Angel. Demon. Whoever he was, inside her head, his pounding made her rage. Rant. Weep. Sometimes, to make herself feel better, she took to hitting things with her fists.

Walls. Doors. Herself.

Me. 94

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Ten Days Now

All by myself in this peppermint green room, nothing to do but read, eat, collect lint, reflect on afternoons lazily spent, in the arms of my

Emily. Yeah, yeah, I'm focused. Bent. Obsessed.

I have to see her again, which means I've got to lie

my way out of here, make the perfect self-sales pitch.

Dr. Starr will never buy into "Conner the saint," but Dr. Boston might award me that honor.

I've almost got her right

where I want her--on her knees, my hands caught in her silky blond hair as she

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whispers,
I want you, Conner

Let me chase away thoughts of your Emily. Come to me

when you get out of this place.

I
'
ll show you how a real

woman makes love to men

such as you, and I don
'
t give a damn how high the stakes are.

Think it's all smoke and mirrors? Perhaps. But at our last session, I noticed a small lapse of judgment. 96

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It Was Our Second Session

The first session, I'd pouted, told her nothing except that life was tough at home, and I was sick of being controlled.

She didn't give much ground.
Rules are a part of our lives, Conner: Only children and fools believe they
'
re immune.

I also noticed her slate gray eyes and how they kept assessing me, in an intensely provocative way.

I mulled that over for two days, decided it must have been sexual attraction, plotted the coming chase.

I arrived at our second session prepared to win her sympathy. I opened my head, bared my brain-- 97

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or what was left of it after a major dose of Prozac. "When Emily refused to see

me anymore, it almost

broke me in two. I loved her like Romeo loved his Juliet, and I know that lightning won't strike again."

Her eyes held sympathy.

Feeling loss is normal,

Conner. Attempting suicide

isn
'
t dealing with it so well.
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She Wanted to Know

All about Emily, exactly what made her so outstanding, so necessary, that I'd rather die than unknot myself from her.

"She made me feel like the world turned in my hands, like I could walk on clouds." Talking about her, my body churned desire.

Dr. Boston took notice, on one level or another. Her own hands trembled, and she spun her chair toward the bookcase. When she turned back around, the top button on her Jaclyn Smith blouse had found a way to open.

A hint of cleavage drew my stare. Why disguise my obvious interest? I swear she did it on purpose. 99

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Lots of guys lose girlfriends,

Conner Most just go out and find someone new. Please try to trust me enough to explain.

I closed my eyes, ignoring both request and décolletage. "I can't think about her anymore." Distressed, I stood.

Dr. Boston rose, neck-

line dipping.
It
'
s hard to share

secrets. Trade, next time? One of yours for one of mine.

Right. 100

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Toy, They Tell Me

My dad is coming to visit. Wanting an accounting of what his money's buying, is my best guess. No doubt he'll be disappointed. I'm still just crazy Tony.

I remember the last time I saw him. I was nine, and peeing my pants, waiting for the judge to tell me what a bad boy I'd been. Oh yes.

I'd been very bad, and Dad stood at the back of the courtroom, hat in hand, a tear in his eye. 'Course, if he'd really cared, I wouldn't 101

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have been there to start with. He never once came to visit after he heard my sentence:
Nine years
(the max)
in a juvenile detention facility.

They let me out early due to good behavior and funding cutbacks. Seemed the voters didn't give two cents about feeding and schooling hardcore kids. Rather than build

bigger facilities, so they could lock up more kids longer, as space was needed, they cut delinquents loose early. Lucky me, they didn't care who the kids happened to be. 102

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I Learned a Lot

In juvie, before they sprung me. Learned when to shut my mouth, when to scream; how to glom on to the guys with power, tap into it and suck real hard, suck them inside out. Learned to play-- sports, people, the system; learned that there was no such thing as love, only lust. I knew about lust already. I'd grown up immersed in it, and it was at the core of my young incarceration. Ma never admitted her part in that, never even acknowledged that the whole thing happened. 103

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Larry is a decent man,
she said, when I told her about it the first time.
A bit rough around the edges, yes, but he
'
d never ever do such a thing, little liar

Like an eight-year-old child could make up something so evil and perverse. She wouldn't even believe it when I pulled down my jeans.

The proof was right there on my underwear, streaked pink with blood.
You sat on something, that
'
s all. Or maybe you did it to yourself Pig!
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Enough Fond Memories

The clock hiccups "two forty--five," almost time for the meet 'n' greet with Tony Sr. Fuck me, what will I say? "Hey, Pa, thanks for making time in your busy schedule to drop by once in the last eight years." Part of me wants to turn my back and walk away, like he did, so many years ago.

And what do I remember of that day, a major turning point in my minor life? Shouts. Accusations. Denials. Nothing new, except that day, he walked out the door 105

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and never came home, except to pack his things, escorted by a policeman to keep him safe from Ma.

He called a few times, asked about school, friends.

He sent a birthday present once--a baseball glove and a hardball or two. Like I ever had anyone to play catch with. Like I'd ever make a team.

But once Dad decided enough was enough,
I
wasn't enough to make him face the ugly truth of Ma. And Tony Jr.

would always remind him of her. Severed ties.

Severed me. 106

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Saturday, Visiting Day

Grandma's here, somewhere, and I'm on my way to see her. Half of me feels like I'm walking a high wire. The other half feels like I'm fighting my way through quicksand.

I've missed her so much, but I don't want to disappoint her. I mean, I'm not exactly sane and sober. Definitely not ready to go back home, back to school, back to me. Right now my brain feels like a soggy sponge.

At the end of the hall,

Dr. Starr shadows a doorway.
In here,

Vanessa. Your grandmother
'
s

waiting to see you.
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Without meaning to, I slow my pace, try to picture Grandma's

face. Will it look exactly the way it used to--smooth and pink, despite all the care it's wrapped around?

Or will she wear a brand-new set of worry

lines and creases, and will she look even older than she is, because of me?

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She's Waiting Just Inside

The door. Definitely a new wrinkle or two, but she's beautiful anyway.

She hugs me into her.
How have you been? We
'
ve missed you. Bryan, especially.

I gulp down guilt. "I've missed you, too. And Bryan. How is he? What's he been up to?"

She shrugs.
School. A science fair project. Mostly, he c got his nose in his books.

Dr. Starr allows several minutes of small

talk, finally reels us in, asks us to sit opposite each other across a narrow table. 109

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Vanessa has done very

well, at least on the surface.

But sooner or later we
'
ll hove to scratch that surface, crack her she'll, and look inside.

Grandma's smile falls away.
Will you want me here for that?

Dr. Starr nods.
Eventually. For some of it, anyway.

Anxiety deepens Grandma's creases. Somehow, she feels responsible.

"Don't worry, Grandma. You're not to blame. 'Crazy' runs on the other side of the family." 110

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Grandma's Face Drains

You
'
re not crazy, Vanessa. You
'
ve had some rough years, is all. We
'
ll get you through this and everything will be just fine.