“What’s Morning View?” I asked.
“It’s where they send all the nuts who are never going to get better,” Bone told me. “She’s a lifer now. I guess she wee-wee-weed herself all the way to a padded cell.”
“And then there were four,” said Sadie.
I looked at her. “What?”
“And then there were four,” she repeated. “You know, from the nursery rhyme.”
She started to recite in a singsong voice.
“Ten little soldier boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine. Nine little soldier boys sat up very late; One overslept himself and then there were eight.
Eight little soldier boys climbing up to heaven; One fell down and then there were seven. Seven little soldier boys chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in half and then there were six. Six little soldier boys playing with a hive;
A bumblebee stung one and then there were five. Five little soldier boys on a cellar door; One fell in and then there were four.”
She stopped. “It goes on until they’re all dead,” she said, spreading butter on a piece of toast. “But right now we still have four.”
“What happens to the other four?” Bone asked her.
Sadie took a bite of toast and grinned. “We’ll have to see,” she said.
“You guys are sick.”
It was Juliet. She was sitting a few seats away, her eggs and bacon getting cold on her plate. She hadn’t touched them. She was looking at us, and all of a sudden she started to cry.
“Why do you have to be so horrible?” she said.
Sadie put her toast down and wiped her mouth on her napkin before answering her. “Maybe because that’s how we deal with it,” she told Juliet.
Juliet shook her head. “You’re all just afraid,” she said. “You’re afraid you’re going to end up like Alice.”
“I’m not,” I said before I even realized it. Everyone looked at me. “I’m not going to turn out like Alice,” I repeated.
“You already are like her,” Juliet said. She was staring at my hands, which were resting on the table. Actually, she was staring at my wrists, which were still bandaged. “You just don’t know it yet.”
I put my hands in my lap. “What I know is that nothing was going to stop Alice from being crazy,” I said.
“And what’s going to stop you?” Juliet asked me.
To tell the truth, I was getting a little creeped out by Juliet. At first I thought she was just delusional. You know, with the whole Sex and Violence thing, and her crush on Bone. But now I think there’s something even more wrong with her. It’s like she thinks she can see inside people. She just comes out with this weird stuff, and you can tell she really believes it.
Well, she’s wrong about me. She can stare all she wants, but she’s never going to see inside me, because there’s nothing in there. Everyone could tell that Alice was loony tunes. I’m not blaming her for that or anything, but she was. I, on the other hand, pretty much just had one bad day and now everyone is making me pay for it.
“Don’t listen to her,” Sadie said. “My guess is that she’s the next to go.” She gave Juliet a look. “How’s it going to happen, Juliet?” she asked. “How are you going to go?”
Juliet stood up and slammed her chair against the table. As she stormed off, Sadie and Bone laughed. After a second, I did too.
“That chick is out there,” said Bone.
“Seriously,” Sadie agreed. “I wonder what she’s in here for. That whole bulimia story was a crock.”
“She told me,” Bone said. “I guess she thought it might make me love her or something if she shared.” He rolled his eyes.
“So?” Sadie said. “Out with it already. What’s little Miss Juliet’s curse?”
“She’s a junkie,” said Bone.
“Get out,” Sadie exclaimed.
Bone nodded. “No, she is. She was all into heroin and stuff. I guess she ODed a couple of times.”
“Wow,” Sadie said. “I’m actually kind of impressed. I thought for sure she’d be into something really girly, like cutting herself.” Then she looked at me and said, “No offense.”
“I didn’t realize there was a ranking,” I said.
Sadie frowned. “What do you mean?”
“A ranking,” I said. “You know, what’s crazier than what.”
“Oh, sure there is,” Sadie said. She sat back in her chair. “First you have your generic depressives. They’re a dime a dozen and usually really boring. Then you’ve got the bulimics and the anorexics. They’re slightly more interesting, although usually they’re just girls with nothing better to do. Then you start getting into the good stuff: the arsonists, the schizophrenics, the manic-depressives. You can never quite tell what those will do. And then you’ve got the junkies. They’re completely tragic, because chances are they’re just going to go right back on the stuff when they get out of here.”
“So junkies are at the top of the crazy chain,” I said.
Sadie shook her head. “Uh-uh,” she said. “Suicides are.”
I looked at her. “Why?”
“Anyone can be crazy,” she answered. “That’s usually just because there’s something screwed up in your wiring, you know? But suicide is a whole different thing. I mean, how much do you have to hate yourself to want to just wipe yourself out?”
“Maybe that’s just about wiring, too,” I suggested.
“I guess sometimes,” Sadie agreed. “But sometimes it’s more than that.”
“I don’t know,” Bone said. “I don’t see anything so special about wanting to kill yourself.” When we didn’t say anything, he looked up at us. “Not that I’ve ever tried it. I’m just saying.”
“You’re just saying that because you’ve never tried it,” Sadie said. She was quiet for a minute, and her eyes got this faraway look in them, like she was remembering something wonderful. “You don’t know what it feels like,” she continued. “You don’t know what it’s like to make that decision—to go from thinking about it to doing it. Most people can’t do it.”
“So you’re saying you should get first prize because you did it?” Bone said. He laughed. “You’re crazy.”
Sadie looked at him. “That’s exactly what I am,” she said, then laughed. “But I’ll have to share that prize with Jeff.”
She looked at me. “What?” I said.
“You win, too,” she said. “You tried to kill yourself, too.”
I knew everyone had been thinking that. I mean, how could they not, what with the bandages and everything? But hearing Sadie say it out loud was kind of a shock. I shook my head. “I just did something stupid.”
Sadie turned away. “Sure you did,” she said.
I couldn’t tell if she was making fun of me or not. I sort of don’t think she was. And I don’t think she wants to share her prize with me. She wants to be Queen Whack-job around here. Or maybe she knows that I’m not like her and the rest of them.
I’m not one of her ten little soldier boys.
Day 13
One day later and we’re back to five. It’s like there’s a line of crazies outside, and as one of us leaves they let in another one. Like at those supposedly cool clubs where some idiot in sunglasses stands at the door with a list while a bunch of posers beg him to let them in. But he only picks the really beautiful people. In this case, I guess he’d be picking the unbeautiful people.
Anyway, there are five of us again. Well, maybe four and a half.
I’ll explain. This morning at group there was a new person with us. A girl. At first I thought she was, like, seven or eight, but it turns out she’s twelve. She’s so small and skinny, though, that she looks like a little kid.
Her name is Martha. She sat in her chair hugging a stuffed rabbit. Her arms were wrapped around its middle and her chin rested between its long, floppy ears. She didn’t say a word the entire time. Cat Poop told us her name, but that was about it.
I asked him ab
out her later, though, during our session.
“Can’t she talk?”
“She can talk,” he said. “She just doesn’t at the moment.”
“Why?” I asked him.
“You know I can’t discuss her case with you,” Cat Poop said.
“Come on,” I prodded him. “How am I supposed to make her feel like one of the family if I don’t know anything about her?”
“I notice you’ve been spending a lot of time with Sadie,” he said.
“What do you guys do, spy on us all the time?” I asked. “Or do the nurses secretly film us? Does Nurse Goody have a camera hidden in her hair?”
“Do you feel like we spy on you?” he countered.
This is another therapist trick, answering your question with a question, so that you have to keep talking. I decided to throw it back at him, so I asked, “Why, do you think I feel like you spy on us all the time?”
Cat Poop actually smiled a little when I did that. “You know we don’t,” he said. “We keep an eye on you, but we don’t spy.”
“That’s big of you,” I said. “It’s not like there’s much we can do around here, though.”
“You seem angry today,” he said, ignoring the fact that I was being a smart-ass. “Are you angry?”
Once he asked, I realized that I was angry. I hadn’t really noticed, but I was. And now I was even more angry because he’d realized it before I had.
“I’m fine,” I said.
We sat there for a while with neither of us saying anything. I figured I could probably go the whole session that way, but Cat Poop had other ideas.
“Does Sadie remind you of someone?” he asked me. “Maybe a friend?”
I knew what he was getting at. He wanted to know about Allie. I could have kicked myself for ever having mentioned her around him.
“She’s nothing like Allie,” I said, just to let him know I knew what he was hinting around about.
“How is she different?” he said.
“Well, for one thing, Allie isn’t locked up in a psych ward,” I suggested.
“Is that the only difference?” asked Cat Poop.
“You think I’m in here because of Allie, don’t you?” I said.
“I think you’re in here because you hurt yourself,” he said.
“But you think I did it because of Allie.”
“Did you?”
“No,” I said.
“Are the two of you close?”
“Can’t we talk about my dysfunctional family dynamics?” I suggested. “Or my fear of intimacy?”
“Is Allie your girlfriend?” he asked.
“Can we please stop talking about Allie?” I practically shouted. “Jesus, can’t you just get over that?”
Cat Poop wrote something down on his stupid pad. I thought maybe he’d finally given up on the Allie questions, but he wasn’t done yet.
“Have you and Allie been sexually intimate?”
Like that’s any of his business. I wanted to slap him. I hate to admit it, but I’d actually almost started to think old Cat Poop wasn’t so bad. But as soon as he asked me that, I knew he was a dirty old man. I mean, he’s only like thirty-five or something, but that’s old enough to be a dirty old man. The point is, he just wanted to hear about teenagers getting it on.
“What kind of pervert are you?” I asked him. “Can’t you just look at some porn? Or do you like hearing people talk about their sex lives?”
He didn’t answer the question. I didn’t expect him to. I’d caught him, and he was probably embarrassed. He should be. I mean, some stuff is just private.
“How many times do I have to tell you that nothing is bothering me?” I said.
“If nothing is bothering you, then it shouldn’t be too difficult to talk about why you tried to kill yourself,” said Cat Poop. “Can you do that?”
“Sure,” I shot back. “If I wanted to I could. But I don’t want to. Not with you.”
“Are you saying you’d like another therapist?” he asked me. “I can arrange that if it would help.”
I almost told him to go ahead and do it. Then I thought about having to answer the same stupid questions all over again. As annoying as he was being right then, at least I had Cat Poop trained a little bit. If I got a new therapist, I’d be starting all over again.
“No,” I said finally. “I don’t want a new one.”
“I’m honored,” said Cat Poop.
“But I’m not talking about Allie, or sex, or anything else that isn’t any of your business,” I warned him. “Just so we’re clear on that.”
“Well, think about what you do want to talk about,” he told me. “We’ll pick up tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait,” I said as I stood up. “Oh, and by the way, you need a haircut.”
As I turned to leave, I saw him reach up and touch his hair. Score one for Jeff, I thought as I shut the door behind me.
When I got back to the lounge, the new girl, Martha, was there. She was sitting on the couch, still holding that rabbit in her lap. She was staring out the window at the snow.
I was going to go back to my room, but something made me go over to Martha. She didn’t even look at me when I sat down next to her. I kind of wanted to say hello to her. I mean, I know it’s not easy your first few days in the nuthouse.
“I like your rabbit,” I said.
Martha stopped rubbing the rabbit’s ears and looked at me.
“Does he have a name?”
She nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“He’s your best friend, isn’t he?” I said, and she nodded again.
“I have a best friend, too,” I told her. “Her name is Allie, and I tell her everything. Do you tell your bunny everything?”
Martha nodded and held the bunny close to her, like she was protecting him.
“I bet he’s a good listener,” I said. Then I told her, “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. We can just sit here together.”
She buried her face in her rabbit’s fur, but I could see she was smiling. We sat like that for about an hour. I talked about some stuff, nothing important, and she sat there and listened. It didn’t matter that she didn’t say anything. I think she was happy just having company. I guess having a stuffed bunny for your only friend can get a little lonely.
Day 14
My bandages came off today. I didn’t know they were coming off, so it was a little bit of a shock when Goody Two-shoes called me into the medical room after breakfast and pulled out her scissors. And it was even more of a shock when she unwrapped the gauze and I saw the stitches. I don’t know what I thought would be there—maybe some tape or something—but there were little black crisscrosses along my wrists, like tiny railroad tracks. Or animal prints. It looked like a mouse had run across my arm with muddy feet.
The stitches came out, too. That hurt a little, because the skin had healed around them. But Goody’s a whiz with her scissors and tweezers, and she got them out pretty quickly. Now I just have these reddish scars there. I guess I always will, although Goody says they’ll fade over time.
I don’t know if I want them to fade. That probably sounds totally freaky, but part of me doesn’t want to forget what it felt like, even though it hurt. If I forget about the pain, I might also forget that it was a really stupid idea to do it in the first place.
My mother told me once that having babies is like that. I guess she was in labor for something like sixteen hours when she had me. Also, it was the middle of July, and being super fat in the hottest part of the year wasn’t her idea of fun. All in all, she said, it wasn’t as beautiful an experience as they make you think having a baby is, and afterward she told my dad she would never do it again.
But she apparently forgot how much it hurt, because two years later she had my sister. Although that time she planned it so she’d be her fattest in the winter, when she could wear a bunch of clothes to cover it and she wouldn’t mind being warm all the time. And she had them lo
ad her up on painkillers the minute she started having contractions. Amanda only took, like, two hours to pop out, anyway, a fact my mother reminds me of whenever she wants to make me feel guilty. Then I remind her that nobody told her to go and get pregnant.
Not that I’m really comparing having kids to trying to kill yourself. I’m just saying that sometimes forgetting how much things hurt makes you do them again. And that’s not always such a hot idea.
I’m not even sure I want kids, by the way, even if I’m not the one who has to be pregnant. It seems too risky. I mean, what if you end up with a kid that’s just plain bad? Or stupid? It’s not like you can give it away or put it in a garage sale or something. You’re pretty much stuck with it for a long time.
I know now they have all these tests they can do so you can find out if your kid has three arms or is retarded or whatever, but you can’t test for everything. You can’t test for crazy, for example, or for bad taste in music and clothes and stuff. You can’t know if your kid is going to be someone you would actually want to have hanging around. You just have to take your chances. That seems like a pretty big gamble to me.
Not that I’d be having any kids right away, anyway. I’m only fifteen. I know, there are a lot of fifteen-year-olds out there having babies, but not me. I don’t need to mess up my life any more than it already is. So no babies for me. I’m glad we got that straightened out.
I don’t know how I got from my stitches to babies. Sometimes my mind goes in weird directions. Or maybe it’s the meds, which I’m still on. But Cat Poop says these are just antidepressants, and nothing too heavy-duty. Not like the Pez.
Anyway, after I got my stitches out, I went to show Sadie. I know I kind of freaked out the other day when she mentioned them, but the truth is, she’s really the only person who hasn’t treated them like they’re a big deal, and that’s sort of cool.
She asked if she could touch my scars, and I said it was okay. She ran her fingers over them like they were puppies, really softly, like she was afraid she might open them up again.