In other news, I forgot that Allie’s birthday was yesterday. Not that it’s really my fault. You don’t exactly keep track of the date so well around here. The days all kind of run into each other, like one big long one that never ends. But today I happened to look at the date on the newspaper at the nurses’ station and realized I’d missed Allie’s birthday. She turned sixteen. I’ll be sixteen this summer, so she’s got half a year on me. That never bothered her, though. She always called herself “the older woman.”
I wonder what she did for her birthday. Actually, I don’t wonder at all. I know what she did. She spent it with Burke. He’s her boyfriend. He probably took her to the movies or maybe out for pizza. I bet he bought her some stupid present she normally wouldn’t even like, and I bet she gushed over it like it was the best thing ever.
It makes me sick how she gets all stupid over him. She was never like that before. She never let a guy turn her into something she’s not. Then Burke came along and everything changed. Everything.
I don’t get how someone can become a different person overnight, but Allie did. It was like there was this whole other girl living inside of her, and one night that girl broke through and took over. One day we were doing everything together, and the next everything was over. She just threw it all away.
The worst part is, you know they’re not going to be together forever. I mean, come on, she’s fifteen. Okay, sixteen. Still. It’s not like they’re going to get married or anything. Even if they last a couple of years—which they won’t—she’ll go to one college and he’ll go to another, and pretty soon they’ll forget all about each other. That’s what always happens. That’s why teenage dating is so dumb, because it’s doomed to fail. You’d think people would have learned that by now, but I guess they haven’t. They go right on falling in love and thinking it’s going to survive high school. Allie and Burke, true love always.
Whatever.
Anyway, happy birthday, Allie. I hope it was a good one.
Day 18
As Sadie says, “And then there were four.” Again.
Today in group Cat Poop announced that it was Bone’s last day in the program. When he said it, Juliet’s face kind of fell, but she didn’t say anything. I don’t think she’s been quite so excited about him since he made fun of Alice.
Good for Bone that he’s getting out, I guess. I know he’s a little scared about it, because he said so in group. I was really surprised that he said anything. I mean, we’ve talked some, but it’s not like he’s ever said very much about himself. But today he did.
It turns out his parents don’t want him to come home. They don’t think they can trust him not to get into trouble. As usual, he didn’t explain what kind of trouble he meant. But by now I’m used to not knowing anything about Bone, and I didn’t ask. Nobody did. I think we like that he’s our Mystery Man. It means we can make up whatever story we want about him.
Anyway, he’s going to stay with his older brother and his brother’s wife. They live in a little town somewhere in Arizona and own a gas station. Bone’s going to work at the gas station until he figures out what he wants to be when he grows up. That’s not what he’s afraid of, though. He’s afraid that people will find out about him being in a psychiatric hospital and think he’s some kind of criminal or something. He’s afraid they’ll tell their kids to stay away from him and cross the street when they see him. “Don’t talk to the crazy man, honey. He might bite you.”
Coming from someone covered in tattoos, this seemed a little strange. I mean, you can see tattoos. You can’t see crazy. If I was him, I’d be more worried about people thinking he was in a gang or something.
Later, after my session with Cat Poop, I went into the lounge. Bone was in there watching a talk show, one of those with a host so perky you want to slap her. The topic was people who wanted to make over their friends who they thought looked too weird.
One of the girls on the show wanted her sister to stop dressing like what she called a punk. She said people made fun of her when she went outside, and that people thought she was a Satan worshipper and stomped on kittens or something. The host kept frowning and shaking her head. Then they brought the girl out. She was totally Goth. Her hair was all black, and she had on pancake makeup and blood red lipstick. She was a little overweight, and she looked like Robert Smith from the Cure. I thought she was kind of cute.
As soon as she came out, the audience started booing, like she’d murdered her best friend or slept with her dad’s new wife. Then the host asked her why she dressed like she did, and she said, “Because I like to.” The audience booed again, and her sister screamed, “People think she’s a lesbian!” The Goth girl covered her face with her hands like she was all embarrassed.
Then they went to a commercial, and when they came back from telling us about how fresh we’d all feel if we used panty shields with wings, they’d done the makeovers. They hauled out all of these people whose friends thought they looked too strange, and now they all looked like they’d been trapped inside a J.Crew store for a night and come out different people.
They saved the Goth girl for last, and when they brought her out she was wearing this flowered dress and big dangly earrings and Mary Jane shoes. When her sister saw her, she started crying, and the audience gave her this standing ovation because she didn’t look freaky anymore. When she sat down, the host flashed this series of pictures of her, starting with her baby picture and going on up until high school. The audience oohed and aahed at how pretty she was as a little girl—all blonde curls and wide eyes. Then the last photo was of her all Gothed-out, and the audience hissed.
The Goth girl looked really unhappy, and the host asked her if she liked her new look. She said she hated it, and everyone got really angry, like they’d paid for the makeover themselves. Then this guy stood up and said, “I’d never ask you out looking the way you looked before.”
The girl looked at the guy for a minute, and then she said, “What makes you think I’d ever want someone like you to ask me out.” Then she turned to her sister and said, “So, now that I look like this, I’m okay? I’m not a freak because I look like you do? Well, you can go fuck yourself.” Only of course they bleeped out the good part because it’s daytime TV, and we all know that no one in America swears.
The guy she’d talked back to just stared at her like she’d kicked him in the balls, and her sister was crying her eyes out. The girl looked at them both and said, “What a bunch of losers.” Then she walked off the set. The host started smiling again, and they cut to a commercial for pork, the other white meat.
It was great. Bone and I were dying. Then Bone said, “Jesus Christ, people still think what you look like is who you are.”
I looked at the tattoos up and down his arms. I’d seen them before—you can’t miss them—but I’d never really looked at them. When I did, I saw that between the flaming skulls and hearts were the characters from Alice in Wonderland. He has the Red Queen and the Dormouse on one arm and the Mad Hatter and March Hare on the other one. One forearm has that picture of Alice with her neck all stretched out from eating the magic mushroom.
“Is that who you are?” I asked Bone, pointing to Alice.
He laughed. “No,” he said, “This is who I am.” He lifted his shirt, and on his back was the White Rabbit, wearing his waistcoat and looking at his watch. It was just like the illustration from the book. Only standing next to him, back-to-back, was another White Rabbit wearing a leather motorcycle jacket and boots and smoking a cigar.
“That’s me,” said Bone. “Always running. Always late. I had it put on my back because no one can see it unless I show it to them. The ones on the outside are for people to stare at. But I keep the one I really love hidden.”
“Why two of them?” I asked him.
“Yin and Yang,” he said. “Dark and light. One’s the good rabbit and one’s the naughty rabbit.”
“Which one is which?” I asked.
He laughed again. ??
?Both,” he said. “It’s kind of a bipolar thing. Like me.” Then he got up and left before I could ask him anything else, just like the Rabbit does to Alice.
I sat there for a while thinking about the Goth girl. Actually, I was thinking about the opposite of her—how people think that if you look “normal,” then you are.
One time Allie and I skipped school and went to see this foreign film called Los Diablos, where these villagers found a glowing blue ball and peeled pieces off of it to see what was inside. Only the ball was really radioactive, and they all died from the poison. I think that’s what happens when you look too deep inside for the truth. The poison comes out, and you die, even though you have beautiful glowing pieces of blue truth in your fingers.
And anyway, the truth isn’t all that great. I mean, what’s the truth? Planes falling out of the sky. Buses blowing up and ripping little kids into millions of pieces. Twelve-year-olds raping people and then shooting them in the head so they can’t tell. I can’t watch the news anymore or look at the papers. It’s like whoever sits up there in Heaven has this big bag of really crappy stuff, and once or twice a day she or he reaches in and sprinkles a little bit of it over the world and it makes everything go crazy, like fairy dust that’s past its expiration date.
Day 19
I woke up this morning to a snowstorm. A full-blown blizzard. It’s so white outside my window it looks like the hospital is flying through the clouds. It’s beautiful. The snow just keeps coming and coming. Those crazy naked trees I can see from my room look like they’re juggling cotton balls.
Goody and the other day nurse couldn’t get in because the roads aren’t plowed, so Nurse Moon and the rest of the night shift had to stay on, and they were not happy about it. They just wanted to go home and get some sleep. Cat Poop couldn’t make it in either, so basically we all had the day off. We were making the staff crazy because we were so hyped-up about the snow.
It was Sadie’s idea to go outside. Juliet said something about how the snow looked perfect for making snowmen, and the next thing you know, Sadie was asking if we could all go out in it for a while.
At first Nurse Moon said no. But then the other night nurse (Nurse McCutcheon, who always looks like she’s forgotten something but can’t remember what it is) said she would supervise us. Then Moon said it was okay, as long as two attendants went with us and we all stayed in a group.
I haven’t been outside since I came here. We can’t even open the windows more than a couple of inches. So I was excited about getting away from the stuffy rooms for a while. Only then I remembered that I didn’t have any outside clothes with me. My parents had brought me some jeans and shirts and stuff, but no boots or coat or anything. I mean it’s not like we go on nature hikes or anything. No one else had any either.
It turns out the hospital had some. I don’t know if they were left over from other patients or what, and I didn’t want to ask. I mean, if they were, why did they leave them behind? That’s the kind of question that really doesn’t have any good answer.
Anyway, we bundled up in the coats and scarves and mittens and stuff. Not everything fit us exactly right, but it was good enough. My only gripe is that the coat they found for me was bright yellow. Like some dog had peed in snow. But hey, it’s not like I was shopping at Macy’s.
Once we were dressed, we filed downstairs. We had to go through two sets of locked doors, and it felt like we were prisoners being transferred from one jail to another. But finally we made it out into the big square formed by the four wings of the hospital. As soon as we were in the yard, Sadie scooped up a bunch of snow, made a snowball, and threw it at Juliet. It hit her in the back of the head, exploding into a million flakes. Juliet made her own snowball and threw it back at Sadie. Only she missed and hit one of the attendants.
That was all it took. Within seconds it was a full-on snowball war. There were no teams or anything; it was everyone for themselves. We didn’t have anything to hide behind, so basically we just kept making snowballs and throwing them at whoever was closest.
I thought for sure Nurse McCuthcheon would make us stop, but she just got out of the way and watched, with a little smile on her face. I made a mental note to be nicer to her from now on. Not that I’ve given her any trouble, but you know what I mean. I could be less of a pain sometimes.
I pegged one of the attendants in the back, and while I was laughing at him, I got hit in the side of the face myself. I turned to see who had thrown the snowball, and I saw Martha smiling from ear to ear.
After we were all worn out from the snowball fight, Juliet started making that snowman she’d been talking about. She made a small ball of snow and then pushed it across the yard, making it bigger. Sadie and I helped her, making smaller balls for the middle and head of the snowman. Martha stood watching us but not joining in.
I went over to her and said, “You want to see an angel?”
She looked up at me with those big eyes and nodded. I walked over to a part of the yard we hadn’t trampled on yet and lay on my back in the clean snow. I moved my arms and legs up and down in a jumping-jack motion, then stood up, leaving an imprint.
“See,” I told Martha. “It’s a snow angel. Do you want to make one?”
She nodded and threw herself into the snow. She kicked her arms and legs crazily, then got up. Her angel was a little lopsided, like it had fallen out of Heaven or something, but it looked really cool. Martha laughed when she saw it. I think it was the first time I’d ever heard her laugh. It sounded like Christmas.
“Let’s make some more,” I told Martha.
We lay in the snow next to each other and made our angels. I was going to get up, but Martha took my hand and held it. She was wearing these red mittens they’d found for her, and I could feel her fingers gripping mine through my gloves. We just stayed like that, looking up at the sky while the snow came down. It kept falling, and for a little while it felt like we were flying through space and the snowflakes were stars rushing all around us.
That made me think about the astronauts again, about how the air on Earth smells so bad to them. I took a deep breath and filled my chest with the cold air. It didn’t stink. It smelled great for a change.
Martha and I finally got up and helped the others finish the snowman. We’d brought a carrot for his nose, and Nurse McCutcheon had gotten us two cookies to use for his eyes. Juliet took off the purple scarf she’d found in the clothes closet and wrapped it around the snowman’s neck.
“What are we going to name him?” Sadie asked when he was done.
“How about Frosty?” Juliet suggested.
“Too obvious,” said Sadie. “It should be something unique. Like him.”
“How about Cat Poop,” I said.
Sadie laughed, but Juliet looked confused. “I don’t get it,” she said.
Neither Sadie nor I enlightened her. Sadie’s the only person I’ve told about my special name for the doc, and I kind of like that it’s our secret.
“What about Bone?” said Juliet.
“What about him?” Sadie replied.
“The snowman,” Juliet said. “Why don’t we call him Bone? Or Boney. Like Frosty but different.”
Sadie raised one eyebrow. “Boney the snowman,” she said. “It’s ironic.” She looked at Juliet. “And fucked up. I like it.”
Juliet grinned. Sadie turned to me and Martha. “Are we all in agreement?” she asked.
I nodded, and so did Martha.
“Then Boney it is,” Sadie said. “Welcome to the world, Boney.”
We stood around looking at Boney for a while. Then Juliet started humming. A few seconds later, she started singing to the tune of “Frosty the Snowman.”
“Boney the snowman, was a crazy, whacked-out guy, with tattooed skin and a goofy grin, and he liked to get real high.”
Sadie and I laughed. Then Sadie sang some more.
“There must have been some acid in the soda that he had, ’cause when he went and drank it, it screwed him
up real bad.”
“Excellent,” I said, applauding the two of them.
“Your turn,” said Sadie.
I thought hard, trying to remember another verse of the Frosty song. It had been a long time since I’d sung it. It took a moment, but then I sang, badly, “He led them to the psycho ward, right to the dear old doc. And when they asked him what was wrong, he told them . . .” I couldn’t think of how to end it.
“Suck my cock,” Juliet said. “He told them, ‘suck my cock.’”
Sadie turned and high-fived her. It was exactly what Bone would have said. Then all of us threw ourselves into the snow, laughing so hard I was afraid Nurse McCutcheon would think we were having fits. Even Martha did it, although I don’t think she really got why our song was funny.
After that we all went back inside, took off our snowy clothes, and sat in the lounge drinking hot chocolate, just like those goddamn perfect families you see in holiday commercials.
Day 20
I’ve got a little bit of a cold today from being outside in the snow yesterday. That’s okay, though, because it was totally worth it to get out of here for a while. When I looked out the window this morning, I saw Boney still standing in the yard. There was a cardinal sitting on his head, picking at the carrot, and something—probably squirrels—had taken the cookies during the night. But he still looked pretty good. He was still holding up.
Even better: I’m not the only guy anymore. There’s another one. I guess the person who controls the guest list decided we needed a new face at our party.
Anyway, his name is Rankin. He’s a big guy, pretty normal looking. He reminds me of the guys who play football at school, the ones who think they rule the place because they can toss a ball around. I’m not a big fan of the jocks, I have to tell you. It’s like God knows they’re going to have crappy lives when high school is over and nobody cares anymore that they can score a goal or touchdown or whatever, so he makes them the big heroes for a few years to make up for it. The only problem is, the rest of us have to put up with them, which is totally not fair.