Suicide Notes

  Cat Poop looked at me for a moment, then said really calmly, “You’re in a psychiatric ward because you attempted to commit suicide. You may think you’re fine, but you’re not. If you don’t want to talk about it right now, that’s your decision. You have forty-three more days to talk about it. Do you have any more questions?”

  All I could do was sit there for a minute or two, watching him watch me. “What do you mean I have forty-three more days?” I asked him finally.

  “You’re in a forty-five-day program,” he told me. “You’ve been more or less awake for two days, counting today, which leaves you with forty-three more to go.”

  “What kind of program?” I said.

  “To determine the cause of your distress and work on your healing process,” he told me like he was reading a brochure. “You’ll participate in individual counseling sessions with me and in group counseling with some of the other patients.”

  “Other patients?” I said. “What other patients?”

  “Other young people,” Cat Poop told me. “You’ll meet some of them tomorrow.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Are we having a sing-along?”

  “If you want to,” he said. “But usually the patients just sit in a circle and look at each other until someone decides to talk.”

  “I don’t have anything to talk about,” I informed him.

  “Then you have forty-three days of staring to look forward to,” he said. “Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?”

  “How about the environment?” I suggested. “Maybe the effects of greenhouse gases on the Amazon rain forests? Or what will happen when the polar ice cap melts? Did you know all the polar bears are drowning because they have nothing to sit on?”

  “Perhaps another time,” he said. “I have rounds to make. We’ll hold off on the rest of your evaluation until you’re in a more cooperative mood.”

  “Good luck with that one,” I called after him as he left.

  He’s wrong about the suicide thing, by the way. This is just a big misunderstanding. I’ll sort it out in the next couple of days and then I’ll be out of here. In the meantime, maybe I will take the ladybug pill. If I have to be here, I might as well get in a good nap. And, really, I kind of like how these pills make me feel. I’ll have to remember to tell Pinch. She’ll get a kick out of it.

  Day 03

  There are five of us. In the fun house, I mean. Well, five kids. There are a bunch of adult whack-jobs, too, but they have their own ward. We get our very own Baby Nuthouse all to ourselves. It’s just like at Thanksgiving, when all the kids get sent to the little table in the corner. No turkey legs for us. Just the parts no one else wants. Like giblets.

  Let me clarify. There are four of them and one of me. I met the others today in my first group therapy session. I wasn’t going to go, but I figured if I show everyone how completely sane I am, they’ll have to let me out. The group sessions are held in what they call the community room, which is just this big room with couches and a TV and games and stuff. I guess it’s where all the crazies hang out when they’re not busy being crazy.

  We sat in a circle on these hard plastic chairs. They’re orange—traffic-cone orange—like they’re a warning to anyone who might walk in. danger: crazy people talking. take alternate route. Besides being ugly, they’re also really unpleasant to sit on. After about five minutes my butt fell asleep, and I kept having to move around to try and get comfortable. Which I never did.

  Cat Poop introduced me by saying, “Everyone, this is Jeff.” And they all went, “Hi, Jeff.” Only their voices all sounded the same, like zombies mumbling, “Mmmm, brains,” and nobody really looked at me. I didn’t say anything. It’s not like I’m going to be here long enough to make friends.

  After that we sat in a circle just staring at each other, just like Cat Poop said we would. Nobody said a word until finally the doc pointed at this skinny girl with long blonde hair who was chewing at her fingernails and said, “Alice, why don’t you tell Jeff a little bit about yourself.”

  “My name is Alice,” said the girl. Duh. “What should you know about me? Well, my mother’s latest boyfriend kept coming into my bedroom when I was asleep and putting himself all over me, so one night I waited until he was sleeping and I went into his room with some lighter fluid and matches. He didn’t die or anything, but I got a little burnt.”

  At first I thought she was making it all up. But then she held up her arms so I could see. The skin was red and raw from her hands to her elbows. Alice laughed. Then she bent her head and covered her face with her long hair.

  I’m not sure if she’s for real or not. My guess is that she just burnt her arms playing with matches or something stupid like that. I bet she made up the thing about torching her mother’s boyfriend. I mean, that’s a lot more interesting, and I wouldn’t blame her for going with it. If I did something dumb like set myself on fire, I’d lie about it too.

  The thing is, I don’t think she did. I don’t know why, but I believe her. What’s even weirder is that it doesn’t freak me out. I can totally see why she would set that guy on fire, which maybe makes me as crazy as she is. Then again, I didn’t do it; I can just imagine doing it. Maybe that’s the difference between crazy and not crazy.

  Alice didn’t say anything else, so we moved on to the girl beside her. She was almost the exact opposite of Alice: fat, curly red hair, a face like the moon. When she saw me looking at her, she actually smiled, like we were on a bus and not in a hospital.

  “My name’s Juliet,” she said, all happy and chirpy like a cartoon bird. “I’m Bone’s girlfriend.”

  She paused, like I was supposed to know who Bone was, like he was some rapper or actor or something whose name was all over the magazines and I was going to congratulate her on having a famous boyfriend. When I didn’t say anything Juliet nodded at the guy sitting beside me. The whole time people had been talking, he’d been looking at his feet. He barely looked up now.

  “That’s Bone,” said Juliet, beaming like she was showing me her new car. “We’re in a band. Gratuitous Sex and Violence?” she added, as if she wasn’t sure herself. “Bone plays guitar. I sing.”

  Next to me, Bone sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. He was wearing a white T-shirt, and he had lots of tattoos, even though I don’t think he’s a whole lot older than I am. My parents would never let me get a tattoo, so it’s kind of impressive that he has so many. I looked at them for a second, but none of them were really interesting. Just lots of flaming skulls and naked girls on motorcycles and stuff like that. He had hair he obviously dyed because it was too black to be natural, and eyes that didn’t seem to focus on anything. His eyes were black, too, like his hair. He looked like a comic book drawing.

  “Which one of you is sex and which one of you is violence?” I asked.

  “What?” Juliet asked, her smile slipping.

  “Gratuitous sex and violence,” I said slowly, as if I was talking to a really little kid. “Which of you is which?”

  Juliet looked at Bone, like he was going to give her the answer. He just kept staring at his feet. Juliet ran a hand over her mouth as if she was trying to wipe something away that wasn’t there. Someone else started to laugh, but stopped.

  “Um, it’s not really . . . ,” she said, sounding confused. “It’s just a, you know, a name.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” Bone said suddenly, looking up for a second. “She just thinks she is. There is no band. I don’t even know her, okay?”

  Juliet looked at him and started to say something, but Cat Poop spoke before she could. “Why don’t we move on,” he said. He reminded me of a tour guide at one of those historic places where they take you through in little groups to make sure you don’t touch the eight-million-year-old candlesticks or whatever. “Why don’t we move on” isn’t really a question, because you don’t have a choice; it’s just a passive-aggressive way of saying, “Get the hell out of here. There’s another bunch of tourists who want
to see the candlesticks.”

  So Cat Poop made us leave the bedroom where Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and go to the kitchen where they were baking bread just like they did two hundred years ago. Actually, he just nodded at the next person, a girl sitting beside Juliet.

  “Okay,” she said. “My name is Sadie. I’m a Libra, I like sunny days and kittens, and think pollution and negative people are real downers. Oh, and I tried to drown myself and this guy saved me and so I’m not dead.”

  She looked right at me, like she was daring me to ask a question. Her eyes were this really intense blue, like the ice at the North Pole. She had black hair, cut short and spiky, and pale skin, which made her eyes look even bluer. The best way to describe her is to say she looked like an evil pixie, or at least a troublemaking one.

  Bone was next, but all he did was say “I’m Bone” and go back to his feet. I was hoping he’d say more about the girl who wasn’t his girlfriend, or what it was like being a walking cartoon, but I guess he thought he’d told us enough already.

  So then it was my turn. I really didn’t want to say anything, but Bone had already done the silent and mysterious thing, and I knew if I did it too I would look like I was trying to be like him.

  “I’m Jeff,” I said. “I’m here because they think I need to be. But I don’t. There’s not much else to tell.”

  “What’s with the bandages, then?”

  Sadie was nodding at my lap. I looked down and saw that the cuffs of my shirt had ridden up, and some gauze was sticking out of the bottom.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just a cut.”

  “Okay,” said Cat Poop. “Now that Jeff knows a little more about you, today I want to talk about what it means to tell the truth.”

  That’s when I zoned out. Actually, I just kind of settled into this warm, foggy place where everything faded out and voices sounded like planes flying somewhere way faraway. I knew people were talking, but I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t interested in anything anyone had to say. I mean, telling the truth? What a lame thing to talk about. The truth is that I don’t belong here.

  Eventually the airplane noises stopped, and I realized that group was over. Everyone was standing up. Cat Poop came over to me. “You didn’t contribute much today,” he said.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I have a lot on my mind.”

  “Like?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Like whether the whole boy-band craze is really over,” I said. “I know people say it is, but I think they’re wrong.”

  “Why don’t I show you around,” said Cat Poop. “This is the lounge. You’re allowed in here as long as there’s a staff member present. There are usually four people here during the day, two nurses and two orderlies, and we always have at least two nurses and a security person on at night.”

  “Security,” I said. “Sounds serious. Is that to keep the Gratuitous Sex and Violence fans out?”

  “Meals are also served in here,” he continued, ignoring me and pointing to two long tables surrounded by more plastic chairs. “You’ve been allowed to eat in your room, but from now on you’ll eat with the rest of the floor. Food is brought up from the hospital cafeteria.”

  “Just like one big happy family,” I remarked as we left the lounge and walked down the hallway toward my room.

  “You each have your own room,” Cat Poop said. “Boys on this end, girls on the other. You may not be in another person’s room unsupervised. There are bathrooms on either end of the hall.”

  “Can we be in there with each other unsupervised?” I asked. “Or is peeing at the same time frowned upon?”

  “You’ll be given a schedule for each day,” he went on. “You’ll be keeping up with your schoolwork while you’re here. We’ll see about getting your books and assignments from your school.”

  “You’re telling the people at my school that I’m here?” I said. I was already imagining Principal Matthews giving the morning announcement. “Today’s lunch will be spaghetti and meatballs, cheerleading tryouts will be held second period in the gym, and Jeff is in the nuthouse.”

  “They’ll be told that you’re going to be out for some time,” Cat Poop said. “That’s all.”

  “Great,” I said. “And here I thought I’d found the perfect way to get out of that algebra test.”

  “As I told you earlier,” Cat Poop continued, “you’ll participate in group sessions, as well as individual sessions with me.”

  “Are those supervised too?” I asked him. “I mean, what if you try to, you know, touch me inappropriately or something?”

  Cat Poop stopped and turned to me. He handed me a sheet of paper. “Here’s your schedule for today. You have some free time now. I suggest you spend it getting to know the other people here.”

  “Sure,” I told him as I folded up my schedule without looking at it. “They seem like swell kids.”

  “Give them a chance,” he said. “You might be surprised.”

  “I’ll take your word on that,” I said. “You know, if this whole shrink thing doesn’t work out, you should look into getting a job at Disneyland. You’re good at this guide thing. You’d rock the safari ride.”

  “I’ll see you later this afternoon for our session,” he said, without missing a beat. “My office is at the end of the other hallway off the lounge. One of the nurses will bring you down there.”

  After he was gone, I unfolded the schedule and looked at it. My therapy session was scheduled for three thirty. I looked at the clock on the wall. It was only twelve thirty, which meant I had three hours to kill before the Amazing Cat Poop tried to open up my head and see what was inside. Three hours to spend doing nothing.

  “I have arts and crafts at one o’ clock.”

  I looked up and saw Sadie standing by me. She waved her sheet. “Maybe I can make my dad that wallet he’s always wanted.”

  “I was kind of hoping for archery,” I told her. “But I think I’m stuck with nature trail and capture the flag.”

  She laughed. “Welcome to Camp Meds,” she said. “Where the campers are crazy and the counselors want you to take drugs.”

  “Yeah, well, this camper isn’t sticking around long,” I told her, crumpling up my schedule.

  “How’s that?” she said. “You have a plan or something?”

  “Sure,” I said, throwing the ball of paper into a trash can. “And it’s really simple—I’m not crazy.”

  Sadie laughed again. “Right,” she said. “None of us are.”

  “I’m serious,” I said.

  “So am I,” she told me. “You think I’m nuts?”

  “You’re here, aren’t you?”

  She nodded. “And so are you. You think you’re the only mistake they’ve made?”

  I looked at her face. She seemed totally serious. Then I remembered what she’d said in group about trying to drown herself. She was crazy all right, and the last thing I needed was more crazy.

  “I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” I said. “I’ll see you later.”

  Day 04

  Here are the basic facts. My name is Jeff. I’m fifteen. I have a sister named Amanda who’s thirteen, my parents are still married to each other, and all four of us live in a perfectly nice house in a perfectly nice neighborhood in a perfectly nice city that’s exactly like a billion other cities. My parents have never beaten us, I’ve never been molested by a priest, I don’t hate the other kids at my school any more than is normal for a kid my age, I don’t listen to death metal, have an obsession with violent video games, or cut the heads off small animals for fun.

  That’s pretty much everything I told Cat Poop in our session today, which is a lot more than I told him yesterday, when I basically sat silent in the chair across from him until he told me I could go. Today, though, he tapped his pencil against the pad of paper he was holding and just stared at me. Apparently that’s what therapists do to get you to open up. The thing is, it works. The longer he stared at me, the more I wanted to talk, if only to make him
stop tapping.

  I didn’t want to talk about me, though, so I talked about everyone else in the group and how weird they were. This was after our second group session, in which I learned that Alice chews her hair, Juliet still loves Bone, and Bone still loves his shoes. Very deep stuff.

  “I don’t belong here,” I informed Cat Poop, thinking maybe this just hadn’t occurred to him. “These people are seriously demented. It’s not good for me to be around them. I might catch something.”

  He didn’t answer me for a minute. He just kept tapping—tap, tap, tap, tap, tap—until finally I told him if he didn’t stop I was going to grab the pencil and stab myself in the throat. Then he put the pencil in his pocket.

  “Why don’t you think you belong here?” he asked.

  “Why do you think I do?” I said.

  He started with the staring thing again but didn’t answer me. It’s amazing how that guy can go forever without blinking. I tried not to blink either, but my eyes got really dry. Finally I started talking again.

  “Are you a real doctor?” I asked him. “I mean, with a diploma and everything?”

  “I’m a psychiatrist,” he said.

  “So you’re not really a doctor,” I said.

  “A psychiatrist is also a medical doctor,” he told me. “A psychologist isn’t.”

  “So what you’re saying is that you think you’re better than a psychologist,” I said. “That’s not very nice. I mean, I bet they worked hard too.”

  “They’re two very different things,” he said.

  “Where did you go to school?” I asked. “A real college or one of those schools in the Caribbean?” I heard somewhere that people who can’t get into real medical schools all go to the Caribbean, where apparently all you have to do is drink fruity drinks and sit on the beach for four years and they give you a diploma.

  “I did my undergraduate work at the University of Chicago and got my doctorate at the University of Toronto.”

  “Canada,” I said. “So you did have to go to a foreign country.” I shook my head like this was a big disappointment. “I’m sorry, doc, I’m just not comfortable with your credentials. I think I need a second opinion.”