story boy — chapter 1

I’m watching the guy in the next bed not in a Rear Window kind of way but also not not in a Rear Window kind of way I am only lightly scrutinizing him my head doesn’t turn easily since the cartwheel I took down those stairs I think that's how people who can’t swim must feel in the water, I didn’t know which way was up, there was blood from my wrist I don’t know what opened it but it’s still pink and pocked from the vertical slice, not the horizontal strum of amateurs they said when I was drowning in the ambulance that I knew what I was doing.

I ended up in Tower Ten my situation suddenly interpreted as attempted suicide which was just as ludicrous as my attempted gymnastics but the more I protested the more aggressive they became until I got a shot in the ass like a movie, and like when movies say X MONTHS LATER I woke up and things were different, I was missing a tooth for one and further inventory revealed a convict haircut and a raised area on my neck like paper mâché. I have been a nail-biter all my life. My index fingers are curved from my obsession all my fingers are like carrots and I shove them like wings into my armpits to hide them but now I feel the hard shingles of nails. I press each one into the pulp of my thumb and my thumb into the pads of each finger I go through this many times before I pry my eyes open and look. If not for my index twist I would not believe my own hands I am only 27 they are pale thin old and healed, my one arm at its inside elbow is attached to a drip, my wrist is itchy I turn it over and see the pink landing strip and I scratch, successfully, for the first time in my life.

My gape-mouthed roommates are sleeping and like I said I’m watching the guy next to me I could touch him he’s so close I wonder how crazy he is there’s a twisted kids’ blanket like a snake over his waist, he’s skinny and long, darkly shaded like Tim Burton drew him I look for the knobs at his temple and there they are he’s been fried like Jack Nicholson. I find the button on my bed and rise enough to see the bare-soled feet of my other two roommates, one pair stacked and gnarled with age the other splayed pink and pudgy Jesus Christ what’s next and then next comes through the door I close my eyes I hear wheels against the floor they come right at me and a voice says somebody’s been fuckin’ with your bed again he returns it to flatness the wheels kiss the other way and the voice says things to my roommates I cannot make the words out but they’re like what you say to a cat if you have one or when you water a semi-neglected plant.

I am suddenly conscious of my body I feel I have to hold it together – normal is a struggle when you try – I begin to wonder about my stupid job my incomplete taxes my horrible little apartment my expired licence all the overdue bills pile up in my chest and then about my mother and all the times I wished her dead, for real I mean, I go through the whole process, sometimes it’s an illness, aggressive mostly, I prefer the final-stages, other times it’s an accident involving the good old basement stairs. I imagine getting the news, my voice answering the telephone like Anthony Perkins hello? or the streak of my face as I open the front door to a police officer one eye visible above the o of my mouth my shock of dark hair and I go all the way to the funeral right there in my head I wonder if anybody looks at me and thinks I am having a little daydream.

I keep still in the flat bed thinking about her funeral when an idea pops up like a blister – it never occurred to me that things could be fixed until now – I finally see a way out. I will let the intravenous drip for a couple more days while I plan this thoroughly and properly for once.

Jesus Christ after reading this you probably don’t think crazy's much of a stretch. 

Day three I wake up, sweetly, I am Robert DeNero in Awakenings I know just how to act so they’ll let me stay I know what to do how to look what to say but you see, I needn’t have bothered, they've no intention of letting me out. They’re not so overjoyed to find me awake, the orderly just lets a noise out like he’s losing air he doesn’t run for the nurse or the doctor but pushes the button to lower my bed I look at him his eyeballs are shadowed he seems a little haunted and I get a rise in my chest not quite panic but the tracks for it, for a moment I want my fucked-up life back, I want my psycho mother to darken the doorway she always vouched for my sanity she had to explain it to every teacher I ever had she had a way of immaculate intimidation she could scare anybody shitless with a smile on her face.

I turn and there’s Tim Burton giving me a look but it’s like how my dog used to sleep with her eyes open, there’s nobody home but I can see – it’s invisible but I can see there’s a struggle going on – I know he's fighting for normal, he flexes his jaw and chews a couple of times it’s so quiet I can hear the slick stickiness of it I don’t know what's next if he’s going to speak or spit and it’s a little of both he says soft as can be tell me a thtory, Thtory Boy.

I’ve heard that madness can involve high levels of intuition, my grandfather couldn’t figure out jokes or socks or the toaster but he always knew when I was up to no good, and old Tim Burton here appears to have the same insight. I’ve been thinking for three days how I will take this opportunity to write a story, my mother said don’t be daft when I said I wanted to be a writer she said you know you’d be horrible at it Sam, she always wrote my name like it was a time – 5am – the most active hour don’t you think for the monsters beneath our beds.

We used to watch American Idol together and some of those contestants were so awful it’s like they didn’t have a mother to curb them and at first I was grateful she stopped me, for writing was unbelievably difficult I got into irrecoverable messes what with narration and plot and contradictions I just couldn’t get the swing of it, she sort of gave me permission to give up but lately that’s the very thing I’ve been throwing her down the stairs about.