Untitled Chapter Five

Chapter five of my untitled project

The worst part of any mixed or manic episode was the hypersexuality. I was watching her twirl her hair around her fingers across from me at the conference table. She had that far-off look in her eyes that had drawn me to her in the first place. I loved a person that wasn’t totally conscious of the world they were living in. Jake was the opposite. Maybe that’s why this girl intrigued me. Something different than the practical person I usually fell for. But I needed someone who was tethered, because I myself was not. Needed someone. I didn’t need anyone. I was just fine on my own, but I wanted someone. I’d been single for five years, only complicated situations and hookups to punctuate the time of loneliness. I wasn’t lonely. I needed to stop framing it that way. Mom always said she needed Dad, that she was so lonely before she met him. God knows what man she was with then. I hadn’t seen her in over a year. She came around less and less after I moved away. I knew it hurt him.

Back to the girl. I got the sense that her parents helped her out. Not a bad thing, just an observation. For one, she lived alone. Second, she had a dining room set. I bent her over the table so I had a good look at all the pieces of it. Hayley and I didn’t even have matching chairs. This girl had it all. What was her name? The sex was alright, nothing to write home about and certainly nothing to repeat. But as I sat there staring at her, chewing gum, I couldn’t stop thinking about the toothy blowjob she gave me. In a fond way, though. Even though it didn’t feel that good. Okay, so I was horny. Like I said, worst part of the episode. Not the worst part, really, I guess that would be the suicide attempts. It was an inconvenient part of my episodes. And dangerous. It was a wonder I’d only caught the clap once. It was from some girl in Cambridge who told me I was her first. Yeah, right.

This girl had blonde hair, roots of brown showing through. And I guess the meeting was wrapping up because she was standing now, the dress that had been bunched up over her knee now falling down to kiss her ankles. Everyone was standing. I had no idea what that meeting was about, but probably the same pointless drivel as always. Make sales. Make a lot of them. I wasn’t great at this job and I was fiending for literally anything else. Maybe bartending. Sneak a few drinks on the job. I used to do that in college, before I dropped out. Maybe I should’ve gone back to college. I was majoring in journalism. Like everyone else that got inspired by English class. I wanted to write a book, though. Fiction. I had half a dozen short stories in my head that I had yet to put to paper. Well, I’d put outlines to paper. It was the opening my laptop and writing them out part that didn’t seem to happen. A journalism major wasn’t going to fix that. Maybe an English major. I could be a teacher, work on my book during the summer. Yeah, right. I’d be working this sales job until my eyes rotted out of my skull.

I walked back to my shared cubicle and put on that stupid headset. Those grey half-walls encased me and my co-worker—he never spoke to me. It was probably best that way. I had a habit of talking too much. That was probably why Jake left. I never really knew. He put up with it for four years though, so maybe that wasn’t it. I was surprised I wasn’t a better salesman with all the talking I did. My co-worker seemed to make sales with hardly a word. Maybe I was going about it wrong.

I got out of work early and decided to take a little journey on the regional rail. There was so much beyond Boston that seemed like untouched territory. I’d been to Salem with Hayley, a notorious lover of Halloween and all things witchy. Salem was a scam, I was willing to bet the tumbled malachite Hayley bought was fake, but I didn’t want to kill her vibe either. Hayley cherished her vibes. If you ruined them, you quickly got on her bad side. I’d been there many times.

In March, things were starting to bud, trees had little green capsules sprouting from their branches that would one day become the leaves that rustled in the sea breeze. Flowering trees carried pink and white buds and were abundant in the parking lots the train stopped in. Such a strange place for such a thing of beauty. In a week those buds would be flowers, and the air would be fragrant with their sweet scent. The smell of spring was dizzying and fresh, though it hadn’t quite arrived.

I rode the train through Salem, out to the coast. Cape Ann. Where the houses dwarfed everything in sight and had more bedrooms than a hotel. I wanted to set foot in one of those houses, just once. I didn’t need more than a second to absorb the affluence that no doubt resided there. Jake’s family had money, but not like that. Hayley’s family had money, but I wasn’t sure if it was like that or not. Issues and such. That was why she was struggling to make ends meet with me and my cat in a two-bedroom apartment in Southie and not living it up in a cushy one-bedroom. With my poor money management skills, exacerbated during episodes, she ended up covering part of my portion of the rent quite often. There were better roommates to be had, but she seemed to like me just fine. Besides, I was an easy roommate. I cleaned up after myself and cooked us meals sometimes. Sometimes she’d come home to a three course meal, other times she’d be lucky to have eggs on toast. She was a nurse, so I did what I could to give back. Her kind tended to me a lot over the years.

I decided to get off at Gloucester. It was the last stop before the end of the line. Riding to the end of the line was generic. And I’m not generic. Seagulls still cawed above me against a tangerine sky even in the cold of March. I looked up to see them in formation as I meandered down the street aiming for the beach. It was full dark by the time I reached it, having walked at least two miles by calculation of my internal pedometer. When I felt this way, I could walk aimlessly for hours. Sometimes it cleared the racing thoughts from my head. They had been quieted as I crossed a bridge that spanned the tide pools that spilled out onto the sand. On a rocky point that jutted into the Atlantic, stood a great house, squared with a room up top composed of windows on all sides that I could see. A light was on up there. Such a space would be good for art or writing. That was a house I wanted to step into, just for a moment, to feel its grandiosity. On the beach under the stars, I felt the grandiosity of the universe instead. The milky way wasn’t quite visible, but its constituent parts were. I was in God’s house, whoever that may be. I didn’t believe in a god, I guess I just believed in the universe. I believed in something as I stood there alone on that beach, feeling the sand beneath my sneakers as I stepped off the last sandy step of the bridge. The Atlantic rolled in on ferocious waves that had tired themselves to low breakers as they reached the beach.

I walked down the beach a ways to be certain I was alone and took note of the houses on the hill on the opposite side of the beach, where an entrance of stairs led down the hill. A parking lot sat vacant. On the moonlit sands, I sat down, looking out into the vastness of that deep blue that presented as black. The waxing moon was low in the sky, its light reflecting off the waves that continually broke the surface.

Out in the distance, I could see an island with two lighthouses, a span of land between them. I wondered if there’d been many shipwrecks there, enough to justify the two lighthouses. And how many lives lost, how many letters never received by lovers. Being lost at sea sounded great to me in that moment. They’d all grieved you, and yet your soul still persisted on another plane from theirs. I’d live on that boat with no idea as to the time that passed, just in a state of bliss that was unending. I’d fish for my food. And I’d live between islands where I’d pick up provisions, seeing no familiar faces and no familiar faces seeing me. But instead, I was lost on land, on an empty beach in a ghost town where the hill of houses was darkened aside from the lights of a few cottages, those of full-time residents. I bet it snowed out here. I’d always wanted to experience snow on the beach, a phenomenon that seemed like a sort of juxtaposition. The sand of beaches was supposed to be sun-warmed and not cold, like the sand that drained through my fingers. I watched it blow in the breeze, moving my hand higher to let the breeze carry it further. Even in the dim light of the crescent moon, I could see each grain of sand passing in the breeze. Everything seemed brighter.

It was nearly nine when I picked my frozen body up from the sand and made the trek back into town, where I’d scoped out a bed and breakfast with a “vacancy” sign. They all had vacancies this time of year. It had a spectacular view of the harbor, all the boats moored for the night. On the approach, I saw a woman sitting on the porch. Her hair was long, dark, streaked with grey. It seemed she was finally accepting the transition of her hair’s color, or lack thereof. She was wrapped in a cardigan, rocking back and forth in a crisp white rocking chair, eyes on the harbor. She didn’t see me with my humble backpack over my shoulder until I was climbing the stairs. “Hello! Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for a room for tonight,” I said modestly, feeling it was obvious that I’d fled the city on a whim with no plans or arrangements.

“You’ve come to the right place.” She stood and we worked out the details, she took my payment and led me to my room.

The salt air called me, even though the stench of fish lingered by the harbor. I joined her on the porch and she offered me a cup of tea, which I accepted. When she returned, we shared a moment of silence. “What brings you out here this time of year?” she asked.

“Oh, I just decided to hop on the T and see where it took me this afternoon.”

She nodded. “Too late to head back.”

I rested my elbow on the arm of the chair, head on a hand as I realized how tired I was. “Yep. I was thinking maybe I’d go to the beach for the sunrise too.”

In the darkness, I could see her smile as I sipped my tea. “You love the beach, don’t you?”

I nodded.

“People who really love the beach can appreciate it in any season. Not like all these people who own summer homes out here.”

“I grew up in Arizona, so I never really knew the beach until I moved out here.”

“What brought you here?”

“School.” I replied concisely to imply that I’d finished and had gainful employment.

“What do you do for work?” She noted my khakis and button down.

“Sales.”

“Is that what you studied?” She eyed me over the rim of her mug as she sipped the dregs. My cup was still full.

I shook my head, accepting the truth that had been laid out before me since I dropped out of school. You’ll never finish anything. And I never did. It seemed my life was an amalgamation of unfinished projects. “I studied journalism.”

“Would you want to do anything with that?”

I shrugged. “I thought about maybe teaching English. Have the summers off to write.”

“You’re a writer?”

“I’m a dreamer.” It was the best answer I could come up with that disguised the fact that I rarely actually wrote anything.

She chuckled, seeming to know what I meant or at least to put up the facade that she did.

We continued our conversation until I caught myself flirting and retired to my room. It was well after midnight. Hayley had me on a strict ten o’clock bedtime since I’d gotten out of the hospital. I dug through my backpack, coming up empty handed in my search for pills. I supposed there was no reason I would’ve packed them for the work day. I sat down on the bed, accepting that I’d paid for a room on a night I wouldn’t be sleeping. At least it was shelter. I would’ve frozen to death if I spent the night on the beach.

I pulled my notebook from my backpack, the one I carried with me everywhere. Its brown leather cover was starting to wear around the hard edges. I had an abundance of stories outlined within.

#

I must’ve fallen asleep at some point, pen in hand, because there was a line across a wall of words that I didn’t remember writing. It was the first night I’d slept soundly in almost a week. I was amazed that I had gotten there without the help of my antipsychotic. Maybe I was coming down. My phone was vibrating on the nightstand. I’d finally responded to Hayley’s frantic texts the night before and quelled her fears that I was dead in a ditch somewhere. It was nine on Saturday morning. “Hello?” I said, answering the call that was evidently from my dad. It was six there.

“Hey, Con. I’m catching a flight out to you.”

“Wow, a lot of warning.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. Just given recent events, it was kind of an impulse.”

“Right.” I didn’t know what else to say. Had it been the nineties, I would’ve been twirling the phone cord between my fingers, but my iPhone didn’t have any such fidget device.

“Well, my flight gets in about two your time. I can catch a cab to your place.”

“I’ll borrow Hayley’s car,” I said with a promising tone that sealed a promise I certainly didn’t have the information to make.

“Let me know. I’m fine with a cab.” Dad always insisted on being as minimally intrusive as possible.

“I’ll pick you up.”

We wrapped up the conversation and I figured I’d better head out. I bid goodbye to Theresa, who asked if I wanted breakfast or a ride to the train station. I declined both, thinking better of it as I felt my stomach growl as I embarked on the walk to the train station. It was only about a mile. Nothing compared to what I’d walked the night before. I shot a text to Hayley, asking if I could borrow the car. She responded affirmatively and asked when I’d be home. Her question grated me and gave me the feeling of a scribble in my brain, the feeling I always got when anger started to color my vision. It was the residual hypomania that had yet to leave me. Knowing that didn’t calm down that red pencil in my mind. Sometimes when the red was worn down to a nub, the black pencil came out. That was when the bad stuff happened.

My train ride back into the city was scenic for the first half, until the train crossed into the suburbia that spilled out from the city’s limits. The ride wasn’t nearly as satisfying as my ride the prior night. I still relished in seeing the buds of leaves and flowers on trees, ready to burst forth from their cocoons. I wanted to shed my cocoon, but I didn’t know if I was destined for some kind of transformation. It was all I could hope for at that point, that something drastic would change. It wasn’t as simple as emerging from a hibernation though. Change was something that needed to be worked for, something I wasn’t sure I was ready to work for.

When I arrived home, Hayley was on the couch with the remote loosely in hand, as if she were indecisive about what was on the television. It was an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. That was the show Jake always had on in the background when he was studying or drawing. I could always hear the voices of Benson and Stabler on the phone when we’d talk. Back when we were together, obviously. “Hey,” she said and flipped the television off. Uh oh. She wanted to talk. And by talk I meant really talk, like have a serious talk. Which was something I wanted to avoid at all costs. I knew I’d already have to talk with my dad when he got there. That I was already mentally preparing for.

“Hey, I’m gonna go shower.” I beelined for my room, but I heard her heavy footfalls behind me. I tossed my backpack down on the bed, feeling the moss in my mouth as I inhaled deeply before turning to face her.

“What happened last night?”

I shrugged. “I got on the T after work. Went out to this place called Gloucester. Spent the night in a B and B.”

“You didn’t text until two.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Just didn’t think to.”

She leaned against the door frame, arms crossed over her well-endowed chest. Yeah, I’d had a thing for Hayley at one point. “You think you’re still manic?”

It was a question but it felt like an accusation. “Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t care. My dad’s getting here in a few hours, I need to shower.” I pushed past her into the bathroom.

“I don’t think that hospital helped you very much.”

“Yeah, well,” I said with my toothbrush vigorously scrubbing, “they never do.” I spat into the sink and resumed my brushing. “You know they never do.”

“You don’t ask for help.”

My brushing stopped. I took a hard stare at myself in the mirror, feeling that scribble start up again. “I did what I could.”

“Were you honest with the doctor? About the self harm?”

I scoffed. “I had no choice. They strip you naked in those places.”

“You always tell them it’s old.”

I gritted my teeth, jaw flexing. Jake’s did that when he was mad too. Sometimes I felt like we were the same person. Especially when my own mannerisms reminded me of him. I closed the door, effectively ending the conversation, and stripped before turning on the shower, cold, like I always did when I needed to hurt. You get used to it. That’s not just something they say.