Ordinary People (23 page)

He folds the newspaper carefully, holds it carefully on his lap, rocking slowly. He is dizzy and sick at his stomach.

“Conrad? What’s the matter?”

His grandfather stands over him, the newspaper in his hand. “Are you all right?”

“I’m all right,” he says. He can hardly hear himself, the sounds inside his head are so loud. His grandmother is there and there is more talking; broken pieces of conversation that he cannot follow. Her hand is on his forehead.

“You don’t feel hot to me. Is it a headache?”

“A headache, yes,” he says, getting up. “I need to go to bed. I’m tired.”

“Let me get you some aspirin. You see? You don’t get enough sleep, and then you work outside and get chilled and overtired.”

“You’re going to bed?” his grandfather asks. “At seven o’clock?”

“I’ll get you the aspirin,” she says.

“Never mind. I don’t need it.”

He heads for the stairway, holding himself stiffly upright. In his mind he sees himself putting his feet, one before the other, on the steps, carrying himself upward. His body feels nothing.

Fully awake, he lies on his side in the bed, memorizing the lines of the desktop, and above it, the half-inch ridge of desk pad, the chair beside the desk, the precise angles of his schoolbooks piled upon the chair. His eyelids feel dry and scratchy.

 

 

 

 

His body jerks awake. His hand reaches for the lamp. He turns it on; lies motionless in the sudden, bright light. He is in the narrow, twin bed in his grandmother’s spare bedroom. Blue bedspread, blue-and-white-striped wallpaper, blue-and-white rag rug on the floor, everything in order. No good. No good to think about it. About anything. It will not change. Just as before, it is done. He wills his mind to drop him under; to let him pass through into dreamless sleep.

 

 

 

 

He awakens to fear again; his mouth dry. For terror-filled seconds he doesn’t know if it is happening all over again. Or worse, that time has tipped backward and it is happening still. Numb with fear, he scrambles out of bed, pulling his clothes on over his pajamas.

The house is dark. It hovers around him as he fumbles for the stairway, fumbles for his jacket in the downstairs hall closet, quietly feeling for the handle of the front door, to let himself out.

He walks swiftly, without direction. To calm himself. To get away from dreams, because there are worse ones and he doesn’t want to remember them, doesn’t want to think at all, less intense, less intense, but how to do it? To concentrate on that is to at once accomplish the opposite. A phrase attaches itself to his mind: “... Why a kid would want to hurt himself ...” a swift, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he remembers another newspaper article. About him. The police chief was quoted. He couldn’t understand why a kid would want to hurt himself like that. Crawford had let him read it afterward. He had tried to explain that he had not been trying to hurt himself, he had merely been trying to die.

No. You do not slash yourself in a dozen places if you are merely trying to die. Nor do you overlook the full bottle of Valium beside the razor blades in the medicine chest. Not for him that quiet, dream-drifted road outward on sleeping pills. Too easy. And too neat.
Oh, God, why, then?

He stops walking. The sidewalk is shadowy; the air around him still and cold. Stiff, black limbs arch over his head. The black houses crouch, ready to spring. He is shivering, his skin clammy and wet underneath his pajama top, down his back, under his armpits. Freezing out here.

Ahead of him, a car approaches. It pulls to the curb opposite him. Police car. The door opens, and he has a sudden urge to run; swiftly he puts it down. He stands still, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets as the cop crosses the street.

“Where you headed?”

“Nowhere.” He wets his lips nervously. “Just taking a walk.”

“Pretty late, isn’t it? After two. Where do you live?”

“Fourteen-thirty Heron Drive.” He is surprised at how calm, how normal his voice sounds.

The cop frowns. “Long way from home, aren’t you?”

He has given his home address. He takes his hands out of his jacket pockets; lets them hang limp at his sides.
See? I’m harmless. I’m okay.
“I’m staying with my grandparents. On Green Bay Road.”

“Where do they live?”

For a moment, he panics. He cannot remember the number, and he stumbles over the words: “It’s a gray house with black shutters. On the corner of Green Bay and Booth. Fifty-one thirty-five—”

“What’s the name?”

“Butler. Howard Butler.”

“Yeah, okay.” The cop smiles, then. “I know the house. They know you’re out?”

He shakes his head. His hands are sweating. His wallet is back on the dresser, in the bedroom. Suppose they should ask him to prove who he is. Will they take him to the station? Call his grandparents?

“What’s your name?”

“Jarrett. Conrad Jarrett.”

“Well, listen, Conrad, I wouldn’t walk around here this late. Too many nuts in the world, these days. You want a ride back?”

“No, that’s okay.”

“You’d better head back, then. They might wake up. Be worried about you.”

“Yeah, I will.”

They drive off. He lets his breath out slowly, even manages a wave as they signal to him from the car window.
Too many nuts.
Meaning you aren’t one of them. All the outer signs must be right, then: hair cut to the right length, polite answers, expensive suède jacket made in Mexico.
You’re all right kid. Ordinary.
And this event, walking the streets at two o’clock is ordinary, too, but something is wrong about it, something not normal, what is it? He cannot remember. He is shivering again. He wipes his hands on his pants, zips his jacket up tight; turning, he follows the disappearing taillights, two red eyes in the darkness.

 

 

The door is unlatched, as he left it. He slips quietly inside; goes to the kitchen, to the sink, where he hunts in darkness for the faucet and a glass. He drinks greedily, then lets the cold water run over his hands. Still in the dark, he makes his way to the den at the back of the house. No lights. He doesn’t want to wake them. No going back to bed, either. Not safe there. He sits upright in the chair beside the door, his arms along the armrests, not leaning back.

He is awake again.
No more. No more.
He gets up quickly; goes to turn on the television set, kneeling beside it as it warms up. An old set; the images are snowy. The brightness hurts his eyes. He tunes the sound down and goes back to the chair, focusing his eyes in concentration on the screen. His hands smooth the worn denim of his Levi’s methodically as tears fill his eyes, run down his cheeks. He feels the sudden, chill prick as they drop from his chin on to his jacket. Nearly morning now. Outside the window he can see faint streaks of light, separating the trees from their background of sky. Six-thirty already. On the television, a
Sunrise Semester
course in astronomy. Soon the light inside the room will match the grayness on the screen.

He gets up again, to go to the bathroom, taking a leak, washing his hands, staring at himself in the mirror. He can barely make out the contours of his face. His heart is pounding slow and full, keeping time with the cracking headache that has ignited behind his eyes. He leaves the bathroom, going to sit in the hallway, beside the telephone. It will be seven soon. People get up, then. It is not too early to call.

He looks up the number in the book: on Judson Avenue in Evanston, his home number. Waiting, he stares at the faded wallpaper, a pattern of eagles and stars in gold and blue and dull red. As he traces it with his eyes another pattern emerges. Wings and talons, a sideways stripe across the wall. It begins to move and his stomach heaves. He quickly dials the number.