Chapter One : Adam
Beyond the whirring of the fan above my head I can hear shuffling. It sounds like it's coming from the living room but I can't be sure. I'm not so nervous at first. I assume its Jerry coming back from Hersey's; he always went out drinking late with his bowling buddies on a Friday night. My heart picks up the pace when I hear a creak from the floorboards. It was like somebody was trying to be quiet out there, tip toeing. It's unlike Jerry to walk into the house without turning some lights on and making a racket. He was pretty careless like that. Sometimes I'd get up and I'd hang out with him in the kitchen. He'd build me a sandwich with "the works". Tomatoes, cold meats, lettuce, cheese, mayo, pickles, anything he could find in the fridge. "The works" was always a raffle, decided by my mom's groceries. We'd top it off with a cold glass of milk and he'd tell me to go back to bed and not mention this to mom. It was a ritual of sorts. In the small hours of the morning, we could see eye to eye for a few moments. I hear the door whine shut and at that moment I knew that we had been robbed. I jumped out of bed, running out of the room and I started turning on all the lights. I looked around me in a frenzy, playing spot the difference from the picture in my head and the image I was seeing now in front of me. It didn't make any sense. The television was still there; the radio still perched on top of the ugly wooden basket by the door was still there. The video player was on the drawers. I run into the kitchen but it was untouched. I walk through the dining room, pacing back and forth, wondering if I was missing something. When I heard the door creak open again, I run to the television room, only to find Jerry returning from his boozy night. His cheeks were pinched red and he had a surprised look on his face when he saw me.
"What you doing up, kid?" he asked.
"There was somebody in the house" I say and his eyes widen.
"When?! Is everyone alright?" He demands and I nod.
"Nobody woke up except me. By the time I got out here, the guy was gone" I say.
"Well, what he take?"
"I don't know. I can't find anything missing" I say and Jerry studies me for a bit and then takes a look around the room.
"You probably just dreamt it" he says, lumbering into the kitchen. "Don't scare me like that again"
He makes me a sandwich, this time with cheese, pickles and mustard. It tastes all right. Mom hadn't gone shopping for a while so he was working with little to nothing. Instead of milk, he gives me a glass of water.
"Or else there won't be enough for tomorrow morning's coffee" he says, apologetically. He sends me off to bed and I sleep uneasily for the rest of the night. I was convinced I hadn't dreamt it. But how could nothing be missing? He must've gotten spooked or something. I know what I heard.
My mom and dad got divorced when I was nine. "Irreconcilable differences" seemed pretty reconcilable to me back then, but I was just a kid. Marriage looked pretty easy, like playing house. The only difference is the game ends on easy, definable terms. Nowadays I get it. Mom's better off with Jerry and Dad's better off in Seattle somewhere with his new family. I took the separation pretty hard, I knew it wasn't my fault but I still felt like there were things I could've done to make it easier for them. If it wasn't for the friends I had back then, I probably wouldn't have recovered.
Beau, my half-brother was born just after my mom remarried and he's now eight years old.
We live in Chambery. A small, underwhelming suburban town settled in between an underwhelming body of water called the "Sleepy Creek Lake" and an underwhelming highway that is travelled profusely to many other more interesting places. Chambery is your average American borough. You have your High school jocks with their over-bearing fathers, cheerleaders with their stage-mothers and dropouts without any real parents at all. You have one mayor that nobody ever sees until Game Day and Beauty Queen crownings. You have the delightful addition of the one town drunk whom spends his nights revelling in the darkest parts of his memories and running into traffic while the head hen of the PTO is trying to get him clean before the Virginia State Lady decides to show her face in this "nobody" town. Actually, just think of it like any other suburban town on those shows you watch. Its not like you weren't going to think about it like that anyway. Then there's me, a spectator, neither worse nor better than anyone else in this halfway-house town. I just stare into it, watching time go by as the world turns chaotically between two hands that seem to never be mine. It makes me wonder about how God must see us. The Big Man, with his big plans. Did He make this little town with the conclusion that it would just produce completely ordinary beings that would amount to completely ordinary nothings?
Or had He tried everything, done everything He could and we were just too stuck in our ways to become anything else but routine. These kinds of thoughts visit me often and make me feel like I'm bursting at the seams. I struggle to find a resolution with these contemplations, they consume me. I sometimes feel crazy, so crazy that I just want to shut my brain off like a switch. Because it were these thoughts that kept me up at night and I could feel no comfort in a town like Chambery. And no matter how many doctors I see or sleeping pills I take or how many half-assed sessions of painful repeat I endure with Dr. Greenfield and his one question "What do you think about?", I cannot sleep.
People like to gossip here. Everyone wants to hear a good story. Chatter dawns between busybody mothers, which fall into conversation between spouses, that treacle into the ears of their litter, until everyone is feeding one another stories of everyone else. And even though gossip is the burden of small towns, it is also the liberator, for no one is safe from gossip in a little place like Chambery. But only news of tragedy spreads as quickly as forest fires. They say Mr. McCallan- from down the street- is a drunk. They say our high-school cheer-captain, Trudy Burnham is a whore. They say that Deena Ghul is a lesbian. They say that I am a nutcase.
"Adam…?" I'm torn out of my train of thought and my eyes focus on Dr. Greenfield sitting behind his desk, studying me as he taps his pen against his palm. "Are you okay?"
I run my hand through my hair. "Yeah, yeah. Sorry" I reply.
"Its alright. What were you thinking about?"
"Nothing, nothing important. Could you repeat the question?" I ask.
"Have you gone to see your father yet?" he asked, folding his hands together.
"You already know the answer to that, Doc" I say, getting up to look out his window.
"Why do you think that?"
The practice has a small garden in the back; he's one of the lucky souls that face it. My mom's window looks out onto the parking lot.
"My mom works with you. I'm sure she's already told you" I answer.
"What we do here is confidential, Adam. What you say to me in these four walls stays here" he tries to reassure me.
"No I haven't" I reply.
"Are you planning on it?"
"Isn't really in the books for me, Doc"
"Why don't you want to see your father, Adam? Are you anxious?" I sigh and turn to face him.
"No, I'm just a little preoccupied at the moment" I say, a little too forcefully. "You know, with the whole "introversion complex" and all that"
"You aren't crazy for thinking those things"
"Frankly Doc, that's a load of bullshit. If I'm not crazy, then what am I doing in your office?"
"Everybody has had these kinds of problems before, it doesn't make them crazy. You should come to me or go to someone you trust when it becomes too much for you. We can work out a way to support you. It doesn't help you by keeping all those things bottled up; it weighs too heavy on a person" Dr. Greenfield says, leaning back in his chair.
"So if I come to you, like I do now, twice a week. I sit on this couch and I tell you all about it and you sit there behind you desk and you listen, what's going to happen? Is it finally going to click and you'll say 'well my boy, its simple' and diagnose me with that Oedipus thing or whatever? Well then I can save you some time, I am crazy but God knows, I wouldn't come to you with it"
"Well.., are you really interested in killing your father and having sex your mother?" he smirks and I give him a look. I wasn't up for his jokes today. He doesn't shift or break his stare. "You don't have to talk to me about it if you're not ready to. You could try another way of externalising those thoughts, maybe write them down if need be"
"Are you going to read them?" I ask.
"Only if you want me to" he answers and sighs, sitting forward. "Adam, whether you like it or not, your mom's paying a lot of money for you to be here. She cares about you, I think you owe it to her to make an effort"
I hated it when he said stuff like that. He's trying to guilt me into opening up. I grab my backpack and I tell him I got to go to school. I skip last period chemistry and get in my car, I won't bother to try and focus in class. I can hardly stay conscious. Sure my eyes are open, but I start dreaming like they were closed. It's dangerous to drive like this but if I was dead, maybe I could finally get some sleep. I laugh darkly to myself. I need to stop being so melodramatic.
As I pull out of the parking, I hit a blind spot and almost miss the two black eyes glaring at me through my side mirror. I slam down on the breaks and the car jerks, adrenaline pours into my veins and heat rises up my back in embarrassment.
Sylvie Gifford gives me the finger and kicks the back fender of my car. I get out quickly, apologizing as I move closer.
"Watch where you go with that damn hearse of yours!" she hisses at me. I can't help but smile at this and correct her with "It's a Lincoln"
"It's a tragedy" she replies. I stare at her, my mouth going dry.
"Let me help you with those" I say, reaching for her spilled books but she slaps my hands away.
"Don't worry about it, Jackass" she spits in my direction as she swoops down and grabs them.
"I really am sorry" I repeat. "I didn't see you"
She looks up at me, her eyes dizzying. For a moment, all she does is gaze at me. "Don't worry about it, Adam" she mutters and my heart stops. She remembers my name. I entertain the idea for a few moments until she shakes me out of my daydreams.
"You good?" she asks and I nod. "You're not high, are you?"
"Nah" is all I can manage with my heart still silent. "You?" She laughs but doesn't answer.
"See you around, Stoner Adam" she says, throwing a peace sign at me behind her back. I scratch my head, looking at my car, to her and then back at my car again. I can't recall the last time I spoke to her or stood so close to her. We'd share wavering glances in the hallways sometimes but other than that, she hasn't spoken to me in over a year. Come to think of it, the last time we spoke, all she could manage were a few words; "I'm sorry". I get back into my old Lincoln and grip the steering wheel a couple of times before driving off. I spend two hours behind the gas station, getting high with Darrell Carter, alumni of our High school and one of Chambery's finest. He now works for his dad as a used-car salesman. I bought my Lincoln from them so I can't really judge but something about this guy gives me the creeps. You just can't trust him. He talks a lot and goes on and on about girls and cars and money and now and again lends a stoner anecdote about life. I'm the quiet type; all I do is listen and nod.
I head out the store to grab some food, taking Hopsons Road. It was so odd driving on that road, a strange concoction of giddiness and fear. Part of me wants to look for her ghost, another wants to shut my eyes and not look at all. As I drive, I feel like I'm not completely alone. Of course, I know its all garbage and it's just my head playing games with me but it feels wrong not to acknowledge what took place on that street. I pull over by the tree that Sylvie's car ploughed into and I get out. Its chilly outside, I can see my breath lull out of me. The road is silent. I am alone. I walk to the tree, a hulking thing whose roots have surpassed the grass and is now unearthing the tar road. Its big, dark wood splays out into a myriad of leafless branches that stretch into heaven like veins climbing up an arm. Even though it has taken a life, it is not menacing. There is something almost sad about its leafless branches, something protective about its shape. I rest my hand on the rough bark, running my fingers through the cracks where the car scraped against it. I'm left with goosebumps covering the lengths of my arm and the hairs raised on the back of my neck. My stomach twists into knots at the sight of this eerie place.
When I arrive home, the hair on my arms and neck still stood stiffly in the air, like a porcupine that'd been startled. My mom's back from work, already fixing dinner.
"Adam, is that you?" she asks when I close the front door.
"Yeah" I reply.
"Where have you been?" she asks.
"Out" I say.
"Were you with that Carter boy?" she asks, now chopping the carrots with force. I don't say anything and she glares at me out of the corner of her eye.
"Listen, I know I might look like a the rest of those oblivious moms at your school, but looks are deceiving. If I hear or see you getting toked up with that boy again, I'll call your principle and get you drug tested at the school. It'll go on your record"
"What kind of gang were you running with that called it getting toked up, mom?" I joke to break the awkwardness and she cracks a smile but her eyes don't leave mine.
"I mean it, Adam. I love you too much to see you deal with people like him" she says and I shrug.
"Mom, I do it just to get a little high, that's all" I say and she shakes her head.
"Honey, Darrell is the one who does it to get high. You do it so you won't reach low"
I look away, not liking the serious direction this conversation has taken. Usually I'm able to sidestep her inquiries but she seems adamant on getting her point across today. I put the junk food in the cupboard where I always put it and she grimaces.
"I wish you wouldn't put all those toxins in your body" she says. "That junk food's going to ruin your pretty face with pimples"
My mom is a GP working at the town clinic. She's big on the healthy eating. She likes to say that the only thing that separates Americans from heaven is another 4 pounds. She grabs my arm and turns me to face her. She clutches my chin and looks at me in that troubled way she always does and says, "No more drugs"
I didn't know if I could promise her that. I wasn't bent or anything, I just liked the way it made me feel, it made it a little easier to sleep. I nod anyway and she gives me a small smile.
"Here" she says, handing me a skinned carrot. I take a bite, look at her at the corner of my eye and say, "What's up, Doc?"
She giggles and slaps my arm lightly, "Go do your homework, Bugs"
I finish about half of my homework, screw the rest and flip through the channels on TV before lingering on MTV. That night, the hair on my neck and arms were still standing up, even after a hot shower. I rub my arms, lying in bed, wide-awake like every other night. I stare up at my white ceiling, like I do so many of my nights and contemplate the immensity of the world, the immensity of my thoughts and the thoughts of others. I felt like I was the only one who ever stopped to think about these things, that I was the only one scared about how quickly time moved and how it seemed to engulf everyone into the frivolous things, instead of letting them see what life really is. I think I lied like that for hours until my eyes were so heavy, I couldn't keep them open.