Placebo Junkies Page 18

  It’s good that I’m here now. It’s calm in here.

  Also, I can’t hurt anyone.

  I was right to come. I feel better already—maybe what I needed all along was just a little escape.

  I unclench my hands, which keep sneaking into fists, and begin my long, blind float. I tell myself to accept the nothingness, the darkness, as a gift. The gift of total isolation. I bludgeon my thoughts into silent submission and try to just … exist. To extinguish my needs. To dissolve the memories of the day.

  I slow my breathing and try to empty my mind.

  It’s all very Zen for about half a goddamn minute, but who am I kidding? This is me we’re talking about, so ninety seconds later and I’m making little whirlpools with my hands and trying to come up with as many words as possible that rhyme with tank.

  dank, stank, rank. spank, tranq, yank.

  I’d make a shitty monk.

  “Om.” I chant it out loud. No one can hear me, so I draw it out, loud and long. Ohhhhhhmmmmmm. It goes downhill from there. I do mental cartwheels to keep away the unwelcome thoughts. Show tunes are involved, a sure sign that I’ve lost my mind completely.. I dictate a letter of complaint to the makers of the dissolvable sutures that still haven’t dissolved from my thigh. Sharp ends poke from the skin high on my leg, like alien pubes run amok.

  I cry in rough, unsatisfying bursts.

  With no point of reference, it’s impossible to tell how much time has gone by. Probably more than I think. Or possibly less. The only certainty of being truly alone with your thoughts is that whatever you’re thinking is probably wrong.

  Drunk on isolation, I sing one of Charlotte’s rewritten songs at the top of my lungs:

  Om, om on the range

  Where the beer and the Lexapro play

  Where seldom is heard

  A non-drug-addled word

  And your thoughts remain cloudy all day

  Only when I truly can’t avoid them, when I have completely, totally, thoroughly, strenuously emptied my mind of all other content, including the recitation of every phone number I’ve ever memorized, only then do I allow myself to think the forbidden thoughts.

  They’re ugly little gremlins, these thoughts. Sneaky, devilish bastards.

  They tiptoe in, bearing proof. Mental snapshots, a slide show of intimate moments captured by an unseen lens. At first glance, the images please. They’re of me with Dylan—freeze-framed smiles and caresses. Full-color bliss.

  Extended sensory deprivation may result in visual hallucinations warned the consent forms for this study. Hallucination: the perception of something that seems real but does not actually exist.

  What might the opposite be called? The perception of something that actually does exist, but seems unreal?

  At first, the images are vague.

  Click.

  Here, Dylan’s head tilted back, both our mouths open wide in a moment of shared laughter. A happy scene, yes, but why so fuzzy?

  Click.

  In this one a last-minute turn from the camera blurs the face. It’s Dylan, of course, but you’d have to know that to know it.

  Click.

  Here a passing shadow obscures his eyes. It’s like the best part of him is being hidden by a trick of the light.

  Click.

  Now the two of us sitting on a bench, legs intertwined, but an aggressive flash obliterates Dylan’s features. In each of the pictures, in each of the moments, my coy lover’s face hides in oblique angles and shadowy blurs.

  But as I float in my silent darkness the images eventually grow clear, and soon enough the truth becomes impossible to deny.

  Deprived of distractions, I can’t hide from it any longer. Here, now, I am naked and alone with the truth. I’m dripping in it, bathing in it. Hunted by it.

  Cornered.

  Here in the darkness, the truth takes on its true form: clawed and slavering. Red-eyed. Fanged. It’s a fast and vicious predator, covered in matted, stinking fur.

  Oh, Dylan.

  At first I try to fight for him. Because why should it matter? I love him in all his forms. In every image. With long hair or short. Dark skin or light. Tall, short, somewhere in between, heavyset or slight, I love him in every configuration. I love each version of him. I love each version of us.

  Click.

  Here: A tattoo on his left shoulder, a scar on his abdomen.

  Click.

  There: Smooth, perfect, unblemished skin. Those same locations now uninked. Unscathed.

  Click.

  He’s always been there exactly when I needed him most. He’s always been exactly who I needed most.

  So what do a few little discrepancies matter?

  But truth is a hungry beast, and before long it tires of toying with me and goes for my throat. I scream and thrash about in the water as I am bled dry.

  As I weaken, the facts take on sound and form. Dylan’s voice goes high then low. His hands are smooth on Monday, rough on Wednesday. In one memory, his touch is firm and assured. In the next, it’s nervous. Hesitant. His eyes are dark. His eyes turn light. Amber, blue, brown then green. The rainbow effect of my Dylan’s eyes.

  Gradually his kaleidoscope face becomes clear. His faces become clear.

  None of them are Dylan.

  All of them are Dylan.

  a prank on the skank in the tank

  I scream until I choke, and I cry until my tears and the saltwater I’m immersed in mix together and I feel myself start to dissolve.

  Chapter 38

  When Lab Coat opens the tank, I have to shield my eyes from the light. He eases the hatch open slowly and gives me a few minutes to adjust to the glare of the real world before saying anything. He seems to realize that it’s a difficult transition to make.

  Or maybe he heard my howling histrionics in the tank and now he’s afraid of me.

  Either way, I appreciate it. When I finally emerge from my dark steel cocoon, I feel shrunken and dehydrated, and my throat is scraped raw from the crying. I know I look like an animal being pulled from a cage, so I’m glad that he doesn’t even ask if I’m okay, since it’s pretty obvious that I’m not.

  It’s amazing what you notice when the noise gets stripped away.

  Lab Coat guy, for instance. I see things about him I didn’t before. Now I see the way he turns his face away respectfully as he hands me a towel, then a robe. When my eyes finally adjust to the light, I notice that he has nice teeth. I can tell that he’s probably a decent person by the way he hands me an envelope with my payment for the study before I even have to ask, and then gently wishes me well. When he turns his head just so, his profile reminds me, just slightly, of someone I know and love.

  Let’s not say his name just now. It’s all confusing enough as it is.

  Now that everything has been stripped away, I recognize that this is how it happens. This is how so many faces and bodies and names become Dylan to me.

  Is it really such a bad thing to be able to recognize people’s best parts? To find something to love in everyone I meet?

  Because I’m aware of myself now, aware of the tricks my mind plays on me, I also notice when things start to go blurry around the edges. I force myself to read the name stitched on his breast pocket in navy thread. Jacob. I force myself to say it out loud. “Jacob.” Not Dylan.

  Because this is how it happens. This is how I fall in love.

  If you squint hard enough and hold your hand up just so, you can block out anything you don’t want to see—the past, the present, the future, or the changing color of your boyfriend’s eyes.

  Don’t judge me. Just because Dylan doesn’t exist doesn’t make our breakup any easier.

  It’s worse, really. Because he’s perfect. Was perfect. Whatever. Do you know how much it hurts to lose perfection? People toss out the phrase
soul mate so much it’s become a cliché. But Dylan was the real deal. Because he came from inside of me.

  He was my soul.

  Just try ripping your soul out of your body. That’s how much it hurts.

  Or if that’s too melodramatic, then at least grant me this more pragmatic explanation: my breakup with Dylan is really a breakup with AidenEricEvanLukeConnorDougieJonathan OrionPaul. It’s a dozen breakups, rolled into one. It’s one breakup splintered into multiples.

  It’s pain multiplied by each new face.

  The doctor gives you a sugar pill, and your headache is gone by dinner. The pill may be a sham, but the cure still counts, doesn’t it? The relief is as real to you as the pain was.

  So don’t tell me it doesn’t hurt. It was real in all the ways that count. Dylan: my perfect placebo boyfriend.

  Lab Coat—does his name even matter?—walks me to the door, where Pinch Face hands me my money. They stand shoulder to shoulder like two bouncers holding back a crowd until I walk away. Bruised and mute, I stumble home. I must fade out a bit, my feet on autopilot, because no time at all seems to pass before I arrive at my door.

  I remember too late that I’ve lost my keys, but Jameson appears out of the fog behind me almost immediately, bearing his own key. “Hey, Audie. You look like hell.” He unlocks the door, holds it open for me, but does not come inside.

  “Aren’t you coming in?” I ask him from the doorway, and he gives me a funny look, then starts to walk away.

  His clothes are clean again. So starched and pressed it almost looks like he’s wearing a uniform.

  He stops abruptly, looks left and right like he’s making sure no one is watching, then comes back. “Hey,” he says in a low voice. “Were you really serious about needing extra cash so bad? There’s a study going on tomorrow. I’ll be honest—it’s a nasty one. Bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. But it pays well.”

  He’s acting squirrelly, talking out of the corner of his mouth and keeping his body angled away from where I stand in the doorway. “But you have to swear you won’t dime me out to Dr. O’Brien. He’s already breathing down my neck and I don’t want to lose my job over this.”

  A dagger of pain and confusion twists in my head, and it’s all I can do to stay on my feet. “Who are you?” is all I can manage to say.

  Jameson tilts his head and studies me. “Audie? Are you slipping on me again, girl? Because you know I’m the last one on earth who wants to get O’Brien involved, but I will if I have to. I’m not going to be a part of you going down this road again.”

  I’m not so confused that I’ve lost my survival instincts. I force my mouth into the shape of a grin, reminding my eyes to play along. “No, I’m fine. I’m just messing with you.”

  He frowns at me. Scans me again with narrowed eyes. Judging, judging. “Okay, if you say so,” he finally says. “I’m off tomorrow, so meet me in the back parking lot at 10:30. Think you can behave long enough not to lose day-pass privileges before then?”

  I give him my best annoyed-teenager eye roll, which seems to convince him I’m normal enough to leave unattended.

  “Okay. Just don’t let anyone see you get in my car. I’ll get shit-canned for sure if anyone sees me with a patient on a day I’m not even scheduled to work.”

  His words are like little electrical currents cauterizing parts of my brain, obliterating whatever used to make sense. I just nod, too unsure of what’s going on to speak.

  Chapter 39

  May I tell you a story?

  It won’t take long, I promise. Mostly because the details keep shifting. Little earthquakes keep rattling my thoughts and shaking the words around.

  Have a seat. Yes, right here. Right next to me on this twin-sized bed. The one with the institutional linens and rounded edges and complete absence of exposed screws. It’s a remarkably safe bed, don’t you think?

  Did you know there are companies that specialize in making furniture specifically for crazy people? I mean, think about it: they can’t just build a plain old chair that looks and functions like a chair, and then call it a day. No, they have to consider some very un-chairlike things when they design their furniture.

  Things like the effects of bodily fluids and psychotic rages and creative suicidal tendencies. Things that tend to be tough on furniture. Also, potential lethal uses of screws and hinges and knobs. It’s amazing just how many things can be dangerous in the wrong person’s hands.

  Yes, that is very interesting. It’s also a good segue into the story. Shall I begin?

  Okay.

  Once upon a time, there was a young girl who was batshit crazy. She was stupid, too. Very, very stupid.

  She might have been pretty, were it not for the scars.

  She might have been smart, were it not for the pills.

  Anyway, our stupid, ugly girl was very lonely, as stupid and ugly people often are, so one day she set out in search of companionship. Having little to lose, she decided that she would do anything, anything at all, to find her one true love.

  She would go to the end of the world, if need be.

  She was unsuccessful, of course—that much goes without saying. How many crazy, stupid, ugly people do you know in happy relationships?

  But she wanted this one thing so very, very much that the crazy part of her mind took over, and she managed to fool herself into believing that she had succeeded in finding happiness and love. She tossed in some friends and lots of money, too, because, why not? If it’s all imaginary, you might as go all out.

  Just think of it as a form of mental alchemy: where you or I might see shit, she saw gold.

  For quite some time she was a very happy crazy girl, since, in her mind at least, she had everything she had ever wanted. She even started to look prettier, or at least less ugly, on account of that special glow true love brings.

  Perhaps she wasn’t so crazy after all.

  But, alas. Crazy or not, her happiness was not meant to be.

  One day, an evil wizard came along and decided to test the strength of his magic against the strength of the girl’s crazy. He spent a long time studying her crazy lies and her stupid mind tricks, and he spent many nights stroking his pointy white beard, pondering. Pondering and stroking. Stroking and pondering. Finally, after all this time studying and stroking and pondering, he developed a potion that he was certain would defeat the demons in her mind, and he used his powers of enchantment to make her to drink it.

  Wait—where do you think you’re going?

  I don’t care if you don’t like fairy tales. Sit your ass down, shut the fuck up, and listen.

  Besides, the door is locked from the outside.

  Did you happen to notice these subtle little slots on the side of the bedframe? They’re designed to accommodate restraints. Isn’t that clever? Sometimes a bed isn’t just a bed. Now, where was I?

  Oh yes.

  The potion was very powerful, and the wizard watched proudly as it did its work—as everything in the poor girl that was crazy and happy vanished in a puff of smoke.

  In no time at all, our newly lucid girl was once again alone and miserable, once again surrounded by shit instead of gold. Worse still, she was now fully aware that true love did not, in fact, exist. The wizard declared her cured; his experiment, he decided, was a smashing success.

  But.

  Of course there is a but. What kind of story would this be without one?

  But, unbeknownst to the wizard, there was still a tiny little glimmer of crazy deep within our girl. It was on account of her stupidity, actually. She was so stupid that, while she was taking the potion, she became distracted and accidentally spilled a few drops. Embarrassed by her stupid clumsiness, she mopped up the spilled liquid with a handkerchief and hid the evidence under her mattress so that no one would be the wiser. And since the wizard had given her only just enough to do the job—he ha
dn’t wanted to kill her by mistake—that last, hidden ember of crazy remained aglow.

  And because she now really had nothing left to lose, the girl decided to use that last tiny spark to do something truly crazy. So in her darkest hour, in the depths of mourning for a life that never was, she began to transform herself into something altogether different. In one final hurrah of insanity, she turned herself into a giant snake.

  If she couldn’t be happy, then perhaps she could be fearsome.

  If she had to be lonely, then at least she could be strong.

  The wizard, of course, was terribly disappointed. In a fit of rage he sealed her into her chambers, bricking over the door and windows so that his failure would never be known to the outside world.

  Locked away from any source of comfort, the girl who was now a snake quickly began to starve. And because she was crazy, and because she was hungry, our stupid girl who was now a snake decided to nibble on her own tail, just to see if it might satisfy her, even for a moment.

  Surprisingly, it did.

  So because she was crazy and stupid and hungry, she bit down again and again, barely even noticing that she was destroying herself in the process. That’s how great her hunger was. How empty she felt.

  Her snake body coiled into a giant, infinite loop, her head consuming her tail, and her tail nourishing her head, until finally, she was happy once again. And perhaps not quite so stupid after all, because she no longer felt alone, though, technically of course, she was.

  She had found the solution, don’t you see? She had to consume herself in order to survive. It was all within her; it was all within her control: love, power, sustenance, will.

  Because she was both the source and the outcome.

  The cause and the cure.

  Don’t bother with that button on the wall. It hasn’t worked for ages. A vicious cycle? Really? That’s how you interpret the ending of the story?

  Not me. No, definitely not. I mean, can you even think of a more literal act of self-sufficiency than that? I think she was her own hero. She saved herself, don’t you see? She took control of her life and her death.