It's Kind of a Funny Story (25 page)

“About what?”

“It doesn’t matter what kind of surgery I have. I did it with half a scissor, Craig. It’s going to leave scars. I’ll have scars for the rest of my life. I didn’t know what I was doing. I just wanted to get off the world a little after this… this
thing
… and now I’m never going to be able to have a job or anything. What are they going to say when I go into a job interview looking like . . .” She sniffles, chuckles, and snot comes out. “. . . like a Klingon?”

“There are places in California where they speak Klingon. You can get a job there.”

“Stop it.”

We’re still holding each other. I don’t want to look up. I keep my eyes closed. “There are antidiscrimination laws too. They can’t not hire you if you’re qualified.”

“But I look like a
freak
now.”

“I told you, Noelle,” I say into her ear.
“Everybody
has problems. Some people just hide their crap better than others. But people aren’t going to look at you and run away. They’re going to look at you and think that they can talk to you, and that you’ll understand, and that you’re brave, and that you’re strong. And you are. You’re brave and strong.”

“You’re getting better at the compliments.”

“Nah. I’m nothing. I can barely hold food down.”

“Yeah, you’re skinny.” She laughs. “We need to fatten you up.”

“I know.”

“I’m glad I met you.”

“You’re bare and honest, Noelle; that’s what you are.” Words come into my head like they’ve always been there. “And in Africa your scarring would be highly prized.”

She sniffles again. “I didn’t like seeing you with that other girl.”

“I know.”

“You like me more, right?”

“Right.”

“Why?”

I pull away from her—maybe the first time in my life I’ve ended a hug—because a level of eye contact is required.

“I owe you a lot more than I do her. You really opened my eyes to something.” My actual eyes have been closed for so long on Noelle’s shoulder that the hall is blinding. But when they readjust I see the Professor, watching us from her door, holding the doorknob with one hand and her shoulder with the other.

“I wanted to show you this.” I reach under my chair to pick up something for our meeting—I had it down there as a trump card. I didn’t think the date would go like this; I thought it would all be Noelle yelling at me and I’d have to do something drastic. But now I can do something drastic and it’ll be like a cherry on top.

I pull out my couple’s brain map and show it to her.

“It’s beautiful!”

“It’s a guy and a girl, see? I didn’t do any hair, but you can see how one has a feminine profile and the other is masculine.” They’re lying down, not on top of each other, just side by side, floating in space. They have sketched-out legs and arms at their sides, but that’s the whole point of my brain maps—you don’t need to spend a lot of time on the legs or the arms. What they really have are
brains
—full and complete with whirling bridges and intersections and plazas and parks. They’re the most elaborate ones I’ve done yet: divided thoroughfares, alleys,
cul de
sacs, tunnels, toll plazas, and traffic circles. The paper is 14” x 17” and I had room to make the maps
huge;
the bodies are small and unimportant; the key thing that your eye is drawn to (because I understand now, somehow, that that’s how art works) is a soaring bridge between the two heads, longer than the Verrazano, even, with coils of ramps like ribbons mashed up at each end.

“It might be my best yet,” I say.

She looks it over; I see the red in her eyes, fading. There aren’t any tear streaks—I still haven’t seen actual tear streaks on anyone. Her tears went right into my shirt; they cool and chafe now on my shoulder.

“You were the one who suggested I do stuff from childhood,” I continue. “I used to do these when I was a kid, and I forgot how fun they were.”

“I bet you never did them like this.”

“No, well, this is easier, because I don’t have to finish the maps.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Thanks for getting me started. I owe you big.”

“Thank you. Do I get to keep it?” She looks up.

“Not yet. I have to fix it up.” I stand, stretch my back, and shrug down at her.

Do it, soldier.

Yes, sir!

“But, um, I kind of wondered if I could have your phone number, so I can call you when we’re out of here.”

She smiles and her cuts outline her face like a cat’s whiskers. “Crafty.”

“I am a guy,” I say.

“And I hate boys,” she says.

“But a guy’s different,” I say.

“Maybe a little,” she says.

forty-two

Humble is back at dinner. He has entirely new clothes, a sparkly clean-shaven face, and eyes that won’t quite open all the way; he stations himself at his usual table under the TV in the dining room, which everyone left empty while he was gone. Noelle ‘s there too, at the next table, her back to him; I walk in, say hi to both of them, grab the tables, put them together, and sit between them, smiling.

“Noelle, I don’t know if you’ve had the chance to meet Humble.”

“Not really,” she says. She’s still grinning. From our date, I hope.

“Humble, Noelle. Noelle, Humble.”

“Uhhhhhh . .
."he says, squinting his eyes. “Those cuts on your face are
trippy.”

“Thanks?” They shake hands.

“You have a good handshake for a girl,” says Humble.

“You have a good one for a guy.”

My dinner is beans and hot dogs and salad, with cookies and a pear at the end. I tackle it.

“So where’d they take you?” I ask between bites.

“Across the hall to geriatric,” says Humble.

“With the old people?” Noelle asks.

“Yeah. That’s where they take you when they have to get you
whacked outta your mind.”

“Where’d you hear the term ‘wack’?” Noelle asks.

‘"Whacked?"’Humble picks a piece of salad out of his teeth with his thumb.

“No, she thinks you’re saying ‘wack,’like ‘that’s wack,’” I explain.

“Wack, wacky, whacked, it’s all the same word. This is an old word. I used to have an uncle named Wacky—what are you laughing at? Man, don’t start with me. This kid is a lot of trouble.”

“Yeah, I know,” says Noelle. And she bangs her knee against my thigh. Awesome. A girl hasn’t done that to me since like fourth grade. “He’s a mess.”

“I know,” says Humble. “It’s because he’s too smart for his own good. He comes in here; he’s burned out. I’ve seen it before. I see it all the time, but in people in their
twenties, thirties.
This guy is so smart that he got burnt out in half the time. He’s having like a midlife crisis as a teenager.”

“Forget the midlife crisis,” I say. “It’s all about the
sixth-life crisis.”

“What the hell is that?”

“Well…” I look at Noelle. She’s not going to hit me with her leg again? I’m not sure if I want to talk. I don’t want to bore her. But I know I won’t bore Humble, and if I don’t bore her
either,
that would make it like a major victory.

“Well, first there’s the quarter-life crisis,” I say. “That’s like the characters on
Friends
—people freaking out that they won’t get married. Twenty-year-olds. That’s probably true that people get quarter-life crises; I wouldn’t know. But I know that now things work faster. Before you had to wait until you were twenty to have enough choices of things to do with your life to start getting freaked out. But now there’s so much stuff for you to buy, and so many ways you can spend your time, and so many specialties that you need to get started on very early in life—like ballet, right, Noelle, when did you start ballet?”

“Four.”

“Okay. I started Tae Bo at six. So there are like— so many
people
angling for success and so many colleges you’re supposed to get into, and so many women you’re supposed to have sex with—”

“You gotta freak them,” says Johnny from across the room.

“Were we talking to you?” Humble asks.

“Huh, eat your salt.”

“What, tough guy? How about I knock your head off, how would you like that—”

“Boys.” Noelle stands up and pulls her hair away from her cheeks, which are red in addition to being cut up. Everybody shuts up.

“So now,” I continue, “instead of a quarter-life crisis they’ve got a fifth-life crisis—that’s when you’re eighteen—and a sixth-life crisis—that’s when you’re fourteen. I think that’s what a lot of people have.”

“What you have.”

“Not just me. It’s the . . . um . . . should I keep going?”

“Yes,” Noelle says.

“Well, there are lot of people who make a lot of money off the fifth- and sixth-life crises. All of a sudden they have a ton of consumers scared out of their minds and willing to buy facial cream, designer jeans, SAT test prep courses, condoms, cars, scooters, self-help books, watches, wallets, stocks, whatever … all the crap that the twenty-somethings used to buy, they now have the ten-somethings buying. They doubled their market!”

Bobby has pulled up a chair next to me. “This kid is a freakin’lunatic,” he says.

“I hope they keep him in here,” says Humble.

“So pretty soon.” I keep thinking. “There’ll be seventh- and eighth-life crises. Then eventually a baby will be born and the doctors will look at it and wonder right away if it’s unequipped to deal with the world; if they decide it doesn’t look happy, they’ll put it on antidepressants, get it started on that particular consumer track.”

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmm,”
Humble says. I think he’s going to follow it up with something, but instead he says:
“Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.”

Then:

“Your problem is you have a worldview totally in formed by depression.” He leans in. “What about
rage?”

“I was never big on rage.”

“Why?”

“It’s so much more angry in my head than it could ever be outside.”

“Extra cookies!”

It’s one of the nurses. We all get in line; it’s oat meal and peanut butter. As I shuffle forward, Noelle nudges me from behind; when I turn to her, she turns her face away as if I were trying to kiss her but she wouldn’t let me.

“You’re trouble,” I say.

“You’re silly,” she answers.

I did it. I talked and she liked me; she thought I was smart. I start to develop a plan. Once I get my cookies, I go to the phone to call Dad, who’s already bringing
Blade
II tomorrow night. I want him to bring something else too.

forty-three

This is your last full day at the hospital, is what I think when I get up—no one’s taking my blood today (it’s only happened once since Sunday) so I don’t get up super-early, but I’m still the first one in the halls. I take my shower and think about how much life would suck if hot water didn’t come out of the show-erhead when you wanted. I’ve tried to take cold showers and they’re wonderful when they’re over, but during the process they feel like some form of animal torture. But then again, that’s the point—when you take a cold shower you’re supposed to get in and out as fast as possible; that’s why they do it in the army.

That’s right! Want to take a shot, soldier?

I don’t think so. Sir.

C’mon, what’s the matter with you? You got a lot going for you; you don’t want to keep it going?

I need a cold shower to keep things going?

That’s right. Less time in the shower, more in the battlefield.

Fine.

I can do this. I reach out and twist the temperature knob slowly to the left, then decide that I’m never going to get it done gradually so I’ll have to do it like a Band-Aid—I jerk it over. The water goes from toasty warm to frigid so quickly that it feels like it burns me. I bend my groin out of its path but I know that’s cheating, so I stick it back in as I furiously lather myself. Leg: up! Down! Other leg: up! Down! Crotch: uh, scrub scrub scrub. Chest: wipe. Arm: down! Back! Other arm: down! Back! Neck, face, turn around, wash your butt, and I’m out! Straight to the towel. I wrap it around myself and shiver.

I’m so desperate to put my clothes on that my socks stick to my wet feet. I go out to talk with Smitty.

“You okay?”

“First cold shower.”

“Of the day?”

“Of my life.”

“Yeah, that’ll knock ya.”

“What’s the news?”

Smitty holds up his paper. It seems that a new candidate is running for Mayor of New York promising to give everyone who votes for him a lap dance. He’s a multibillionaire, and at $100 per lap dance, he thinks he can lock up the vote. A lot of women are supporting him.

“That’s crazy.” I shiver. “It’s like . . . Who’s out there and who’s in here, you know?”

“Absolutely. Better music in here, though.” Smitty turns up the radio.

“By the way, that’s a question I have—can I play some music on the hall tonight? At the other end?”

“What kind?”

“There’s no words, don’t worry, nothing offensive. It’s something one of the people on the hall will like. Like a gift.”

“I’ll have to see it first.”

“Okay. And you know I’m bringing that
Blade ? movie tonight to watch with the group.”

“You think about that a minute. You’re bringing a vampire movie onto a floor full of psych patients.”

“They can handle it.”

“I’m not gonna get any nightmares?”

“Promise.”

“Nightmares are a big problem in my job, Craig.”

“Understood.”

Smitty sighs, puts his paper down, and gets up. “You want me to do your vitals?”

He straps me in on the chair, pumps me up, and puts his soft fingertips on my wrist. Today I’m 120/70. First day I haven’t been perfect.