This is my memoir about nothing
Night
The curve right after exit 31 going northbound looks like the best place to crash my car. When I pass it I think I could end it all right now. The steering wheel shakes when I accelerate around the sharp turn. But I’m not worried. Nope, not one bit. I’m too much of a flirt to let go; too pussy to give in. Even as leftover hurricane showers blanket the black tar at the end of the night. Even as Eddie Vedder hallelujah’s “I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life, I know you’ll be a star in somebody else’s sky, but why can’t it be mine?” have been the soundtrack of my life since I was eleven. And even as the anti-depressant tranquillizers fill me up, and the anti-anxiety buffers wrap around my nerves, I don’t worry; I don’t.
It’s almost nine and I take the curve as I always do. It keeps raining. Eddie is still screaming. My pills are dissolved and almost gone. But I keep driving. I’m going to my house where I live with my parents. I don’t speak to them much. I mostly ask them if there’s any food or if I have mail. Then I just walk up the staircase made for people under six feet, ducking my head to keep from smashing into the ceiling. I don’t care, really. It’s been like that since I’ve been here.
My room is the last one on the right. I close the door behind me – I always keep my door closed – and throw my bag on the recliner. There is a mirror behind my door but it’s only waist high. I drop to my knees to see myself. I un-button my pink Abercrombie button-down and throw it off my shoulders. I untwist my catholic scapular that hangs around my neck and I hand-comb my hair. I stare down my model physique, my pouting lips, inhaling and flexing, re-positioning my body to show the best angle off the light. I am a good looking kid, I think. My quarter-size tattoo of a black dove peaks above the elastic lining of my plaid boxers. I want to get fresh ink done. I want to get Edwardian script in black under my right arm, on my ribs. It’s gonna say “Mercy Misses You.” Yea, I think that would look sick. I bet it’s gonna hurt like fuck though, so I don’t know if I’ll get it. I exhale and stand up.
My jeans have so many holes in them in all the wrong places, my dick could fall out at any moment. I slide them off and leave them on the floor for tomorrow. My ankle socks lay right next to them. My watch keeps time off my wrist now, ticking on my desk, weighting down a wedding invitation and a few credit card bills. My cell-phone sleeps silent and empty on the window banister in its charger. I turn on the music and slither back into the skin of my unmade bed, kept cool from an early autumn wind blowing through my open window. I shut it. I turn on the TV and flip to the game – Chargers, Chiefs - I turn on my laptop; this is how it usually goes.
I set my alarm for my therapy appointment tomorrow. My therapist thinks the biggest problem I have is that I’m disconnected from my family. She wants me to talk to my parents about it, but having a conversation with my parents is like trying to detangle a knot that only gets knotted, tighter and tighter, over and over. No finger space, not even a midget with the smallest knitting needle fingers could untangle it.
“What if you talk to your sisters about it? Do you think you could talk to them?” She once asked me.
“Them more than my parents” I said.
My laptop reboots, the screen reflecting the frown on my face. I’ve heard frowning causes more wrinkles than smiling. I’m not sure if that’s true.
My sister sent me an email regarding my cousin’s bachelor stag: 60 bucks a head, down at Fios. It starts at 6:45 on Thursday. Go with dad so he will pay for you. I didn’t even know about it. I won’t go, especially if they aren’t getting strippers. I hit the reply button to both my sisters:
Hey guys. Just tell Danny that I can’t make the stag on Thursday because I’m gonna be at school all day. I’m sure he’ll understand. But I wanted to tell you guys something else. And Sue, I know you already know this, but Lu doesn’t. I’ve been seeing a therapist for about four months now, one right in Norwalk. And we’ve been talking and she thinks that I’m disconnected from you guys and dad, but mostly mom. And I don’t know what it all means, but I’m very depressed and bitter and it’s making me really distracted. I think I’ve been depressed at least half my life, but you guys knew that already from the last time I saw a doctor. Well, I’ve relapsed again. I should also tell you that I am taking Effexor, which is an anti-depressant. I even have anti-anxiety meds that I can take when I need to. I’ve been taking them for a little over three months now. My doctor thinks I also might need to start taking Ritalin for adult A.D.D. I don’t know. Sometimes I’m not even sure if the medicine or the therapy is working, but I’m too afraid to stop. I think I need more help, actually. Maybe a psychiatrist or something. But my insurance won’t cover it and I can’t afford it. Mom and dad both don’t know about any of this, so please, keep it between us.
I minimize the email, pulling up a video of a 40 year-old woman fucking two twin brothers that look about my age that I downloaded. Her husband videotapes, directing two other men snapping pictures of her. “We’re real swingers, honey!” he laughs while his wife gets double-stuffed by two dudes half his fucking age. “I love you baby!” she yells back. I lower the volume on the T.V. I lower my boxers down to my ankles. I fast-forward to my favorite part where she is laying naked on the bed. Her skin looks her age - sun-damaged and leathery. Her red hair with split ends - all brittle and broken – has the bangs women wore in the 90’s. Her beauty is undeniable though. She was probably hot in her teens. Her legs are spread. Her huge breast’s sag in symmetry. I grab for my ankle sock on the floor and come inside of it.
My phone never hesitates, not even once. It doesn’t bother me at all, honestly. It beeps because it’s charged. I throw my sock back on the floor and x out the video. I pull my boxers back up and flip the covers over me. They have cats on them, black and white ones with big kiss marks on their cheeks. I don’t know where my mother found them. Maybe I should be embarrassed but I’m not. I just don’t care. I pull the email up again, backspacing over everything except for the part about not being able to make it to the stag, and send it. The Chargers are kicking the shit out of the Chiefs. I turn off the T.V. I fold my laptop in half. I turn off the light. I lay face first, my head cemented in my pillow and my hands half-asleep; the blood cut from the weight of my chest. Through my stereo speakers, the lullaby’s of someone’s train-wreck past feeds me like turkey after Thanksgiving dinner. Sleep calms the falsetto of my pain.
Day
There’s about fifteen seconds in the morning when you wake up where you don’t feel a single thing. My cell phone alarm cries. My eyelids peal open from the morning guck. A small beam of sunlight leaks through the beige blinds. I lay in unison with the air conditioner duct. My lips stretched to my ears. It hits me like a bird shitting on your head; your friends scrambling to tell you it’s good luck when it really isn’t. The fifteen seconds are over. Like water collapsing a dam, pain rushes from my brain through my veins, biting at the heels of my nerves, caking everything in its path. My swollen endorphins bounce out of control. My lips fall back into place. And so starts another day.
The music still plays in rotation from my mp3 player through my stereo speakers. I raise the volume. I piss with the door open. I flush the toilet. It hasn’t been cleaned in weeks. I slide open the desk drawer and brush a few receipts over to the side that covers up two bottles of medicine. I put the pills in my hand, tightening my fist. Upstairs in the kitchen, I pour myself a bowl of cereal. Downstairs sounds of ruckus: kids screaming and crying, Italian accents, pots clanking and water running. I make out with the pills. They go down politely.
There isn’t a single missed call or voicemail on my cell phone. Nothing. I put it on vibrate and slip it into the pocket of my hole-y jeans. I pull on a grey Abercrombie v-neck and I pack my life into my bag. Downstairs my mother has made me a few lunches for the day: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fruit, cookies and juice boxes. I’m twenty-three years old.
My basement looks like a nursery school. A children’s video thumps from the T.V speakers. Coloring books and crayons scattered across the floor. Toys flood the carpet like a sea of plastic.
“When will you be home?” my mothers asked, spoon feeding my nephew.
“I’m not sure. I will see you later.” I pull out a sneaker from under the table. I find the other one behind the long blinds of the door. I slip them on, get my keys and leave.
My car whines from a near empty tank. I push it to the interstate getting off in Norwalk. Weeds grow from out of the cracked pavement of my therapist’s office, which looks more like a two-story house, blending in with the others on the dead end street. The dirty shingles match the peeling paint on the front door. I enter, delicately closing it behind me. The waiting room is the size of a stand-in closet. Psychology Today and Money line the tiny coffee table. A radio chirps of birds and rushing water, camouflaging the secrets in the next room. The bathroom sounds of constant flushing too, though no one is using it. I sit and wait my turn.
“Come on in.” Nancy holds the knob to the flimsy barricade, motioning me to enter. The room is hot and sticky. The air conditioner grinds away, pumping out enough cold air to fill a fish bowl. The stale stench of old lingers in the air. Dust rises from the couch when I sit, repositioning the pillows to my long back. The brown, wooden walls remind me of my basement when I was four years old.
“How are you doing?” I ask, as if I truly gave a fuck. “Good, thanks. How have things been since the last time I saw you?” She was always hesitant to ask since I had switched my appointments to every two weeks rather than every one. She was losing confidence too, if the therapy was working or not.
“Okay I guess. I saw my doctor yesterday.”
“Oh, did you? What did he say?” My doctor had been keeping in touch with her to make sure we were all on the same page with my medication.
“He thinks I might have adult A.D.D. He wants me to read this book first to see if I think I really need medication. He gave me numbers of some doctors that can run a few tests on me if I really think so. Otherwise, he is gonna up the dose on my medication.” But I’m sure she already knew that.
“What’s the book called, Driven to Distraction?”
“Yea, that’s the one.” Lucky guess.
“So, what else has been going on?” She knew I didn’t care so much about this A.D.D shit.
“I wrote Lauren a letter today.”
“Did you? Do you miss her still?” I could see her looking at me as I stared at my sneakers; my multi-colored laces were tangled in knots. I crossed my leg so I could fix them.
“Yea, I miss her a lot.” I said with an uncomfortable half-smile.
“I bet you do. What did the letter say?” I’ve had the letter written in my head for almost three months now, but I waited to send it to her.
“Well, I wanted her to know that I don’t hate her and that I miss her and I’ve been thinking about her.”
“Uh huh.” She scribbled in her notepad.
“I let her know that I was hoping she had mended things with her ex-boyfriend and that she was finally happy, because that would make me really happy.” I un-crossed my legs, planting my feet on the floor.
“Would that make you happy if she was happy again with her ex-boyfriend?” My mouth went suddenly dry. The air conditioner grinded, pushing the rats to spin the wheel faster.
“No, not really. But I want her to be happy. That’s all.” It was true. I felt selfish for complaining about being unhappy when I knew how unhappy she was.
“But what about your happiness. Doesn’t that matter anymore?”
“Of course it does, but I want her to be happy too. At church, I pray to God that he takes care of her before he does me. When I leave, I light candles for her, not me. And I know she’ll think what a mistake, he was a great kid, he really did love me.” My eyes swelled, glossy like the surface of a newly printed photograph, fresh from the printing press. She didn’t have to come into my life, but she did. I was better then, I swear.
“And what will happen when she answers back?” Nancy knew I had been doing my best to avoid her and that meant not going downtown, not looking at pictures, not calling her, not saying her name; nothing.
“I left a p.s at the bottom that said ‘It would probably be best if you didn’t respond. I know you’ll understand.’” I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt.
Moths fly out of my empty wallet when I hand her the co-pay and schedule another appointment in two weeks. I thanked her and left for school. I pass the walk-in closet, the toilet still flushing in the vacant bathroom, the paint still chipping away on the door, the sunlight showering the dirty shingles. My car gnarled at me this time when I turned the ignition. I got back on the interstate, taking the connector to the parkway. I blasted the music to drown out my stirring thoughts. I pass exit 31 southbound.
I’m so unhappy. I live in pain. So, if on the way home tonight when I come up to the curve right after exit 31 northbound, I decide to crash my car, it would be all right. I could be all right.
