We All Fall Down

  The kid kind of purses his lips, nodding his head and then smiling as he sits down.

  His question is the last question.

  Everyone applauds like crazy, and I spend a good long time talking to different kids who’ve formed a line waiting to ask me some more questions or whatever.

  I try to answer as best I can and just to listen and be supportive and all, but I can’t help but be distracted by this sense of guilt at my own hypocrisy, biting and scratching at my insides like a rat trying to escape its cage. Christ, I mean, I know I’m a phony—a goddamn liar. The worst part is, I completely agree with everything I told that kid. It is pathetic that I’m still smoking pot. It’s pathetic that at twenty-four years old I still don’t know how to face reality without getting high. All the things I love to do, I only love to do when I’m able to smoke first. I can’t imagine my life without it—you know, watching movies, taking Tallulah on hikes, swimming laps at the community pool, hanging out with my friends, listening to music, drawing, any of it. I can’t do it sober—I really can’t. And pot’s the only drug I have left. If I get rid of that, then I’ll have gotten rid of everything. I’ll be alone with myself. There’ll be no more escape. I’ll die like that. Fuck, man, it really feels that way.

  But only I know the truth—the truth that back in Charleston I have a fucking eighth of weed hidden over the refrigerator—the truth that for the past two years I haven’t ever been really sober.

  Nobody knows I’m straight lying my ass off.

  These kids come up, one by one, telling me how great I am.

  The teachers tell me the same thing.

  Even the principal comes up. “Nic,” he says, smiling finally. “I just wanted to tell you that in all the years I’ve been with this school, your talk was absolutely the most moving and, I’d say, important assembly we’ve ever had. Thank you so much for taking time from your busy schedule to come share with us.”

  I smile back at him.

  I lie with my smile.

  I lie with my eyes.

  I lie with my words.

  I am a liar.

  It’s not exactly news.

  I’ve been a liar since as long as I can remember.

  But standing here, right now, with all these kids actually taking time out of their lunch break to talk to me, lying doesn’t really feel all that cool or clever. I mean, I used to respect good liars. I remember when Zelda and I first started hanging out, she was pressed up naked in bed with me, talking to her boyfriend on the phone, lying her ass off, while I kissed down her body at the same time. She seemed so above us all—so sophisticated and cunning. It was sexy then. I admired her for it. But then again, her lying did eventually tear us down till there was nothing left. Her lying was like an abscess spreading quickly beneath the skin. Her lying destroyed everything. And now I have a feeling that my lying is about to do the same.

  Still, I don’t let on.

  I keep on smiling and lying and smiling.

  I tell myself those familiar words, repeating them over and over in my head.

  So far, so good.

  So far, so good.

  So far, so good.

  The only problem is, well, things don’t actually feel that good anymore.

  The ground is coming up fast.

  If I blink, I’ll be there.

  And my body will shatter.

  And there’ll be no one left to piece me back together.

  Because I will have burned them all.

  Ch.30

  We’ve been traveling for over a month now, but as of today, well, it’s finally over. It seems fitting, somehow, that the last city on our tour is San Francisco, the place where this all kinda started in the first place.

  Of course, I’d like to say that I’ve returned here feeling triumphant—you know, having beaten the odds or whatever—getting a book published, being interviewed by NPR, appearing on live local news, having my meals and taxis and everything paid for. It’s all pretty crazy. I mean, the last time I was here, I was eating out of garbage cans, breaking into people’s houses. Now I have a swank hotel in Union Square where I can order room service and the people here call me “sir” and “mister.”

  But even more incredible than that is the fact that I haven’t actually had to sleep at the hotel at all because my dad and stepmom and little brother and sister all decided they felt comfortable enough to let me stay at their house instead. That’s really the biggest miracle of all. There was a time when I thought I’d never even see any of them again, let alone be allowed back in their home. So, yeah, being here, well, it is a triumph in a lot of ways. But for some reason I still don’t feel all that triumphant. If anything, it’s like I’m just being reminded again and again of all the fucked-up shit I put my family through. There are ghosts haunting every corner of this house. I shudder from remembering. And I know that as much as they all smile and tell me everything’s all right, my family will never truly forgive me. I mean, how could they? My little brother and sister were given this totally perfect-seeming, protected childhood. Their parents stayed together. There was no fighting or belittling or weird sexual shit or anything. They were loved and encouraged and supported, no matter who they were or what they did. Everything seemed absolutely idyllic—and it would have been, too, if it weren’t for me. I exposed them to all this terror and took their parents away from them and robbed them of the childhood they were supposed to have.

  Although it’s not like I ruined them or anything. I mean, they’re totally not ruined. They both turned out uniquely wonderful and kind and sensitive and brilliant and, being here, I couldn’t be prouder of them. We all play music together and draw together and take hikes out at the beach with their dog, Charles Wallace—who definitely makes me miss Tallulah. They tell me about school and their friends and their own feelings of isolation and uncertainty. They are beautiful, truly, and I’m so grateful to have them back in my life—in spite of the guilt I still feel. And, I don’t know, being with them, it does give me hope that maybe I haven’t fucked all this up beyond repair.

  After all, I am here, aren’t I? Lying curled in my sister’s tiny bed, staring up at the drawings and paintings and collections of images torn from magazines taped on the wall above me.

  It’s early morning—my last day—the light gray and oddly bright through the slatted window.

  The alarm on my phone goes off a second time, and I force myself to get up, supporting my weight on a wooden chest of drawers piled high with little sculptures and stones and dried flowers and hand-sewn dolls my sister made herself. I steady myself. A heavy, weighted sadness makes my arms and legs ache.

  I don’t want to leave.

  I want to be part of this.

  I want to belong.

  I want to be my little brother and sister’s real brother.

  I want to be their age.

  I don’t want to have to go back to my own life.

  I want to stay right here.

  But I can’t. I never could. I was always on the outside looking in, and that’s never gonna change, so fuck it, right? I get dressed and walk out onto the heated concrete floor.

  I make coffee and toast with jam and butter.

  None of it matters.

  I’m just fine.

  It’ll be all right.

  I remind myself that there’s an eighth of pretty decent weed stashed behind the refrigerator for me back in Charleston, so at least I have that. I mean, that’s one thing I can rely on—one thing that’s never let me down.

  So I drink my coffee down fast.

  The town car my publisher sent to drive me to the airport is already waiting outside and I feel bad, you know, holding ’em up.

  I eat the toast and go to collect my things, just trying not to feel anything at this point.

  I press the palm of my hand against the cold window.

  I can’t feel anything but cold.

  There’s nothing else there.

  I grab my bag and hoist it onto my sho
ulder.

  I’m ready to leave now.

  But then I hear the door to my parents’ room creak open, and my little sister comes walking softly up the stairs, followed by my dad. Her eyes swallow me up, absorbing everything and missing nothing. I give her a hug, and she hugs me back.

  “It was really good to see you,” I tell her.

  She lets out a little noise like a laugh and nods. She hugs me again.

  And then my dad tells me good-bye, and the sun is starting to burn through the thinning gray sky as I carry my bag out to the car.

  I still feel nothing but the cold.

  And everything is still.

  Driving through the winding, twisted roads, there is nothing but stillness.

  This past month has been so full and crazy.

  But now I’m still.

  If it wasn’t for Tallulah and that eighth waiting for me, shit, man, I might just ask the driver to stop the car in the TL and never come back. That is the sort of comforting thing about San Francisco. It’s the one city in the country where you can pretty much find any drug you want within ten minutes of looking for it. I don’t know why that makes me feel so, you know, at home, or whatever.

  Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I don’t tell the driver to stop. I go on to the airport and check my bag and wait to go through security and blah-blah-blah—take out my laptop, remove my shoes, make sure to show the security guy my stupid boarding pass.

  It’s the same everywhere.

  Everywhere’s the same.

  I wander along the faded carpet until I come to my gate. The plane to Atlanta, my connecting city, isn’t boarding for another twenty minutes or so. I go over to the magazine store and buy some flavored fruit drink thing, and then I head back—lying down right there on the ground next to the big, impossibly thick windows looking out onto the runway. I close my eyes and try to maybe sleep a little.

  I’m not sure how much time passes.

  I stay lying like that for a good long while.

  Maybe I even fall asleep for a minute.

  But then something jerks me awake very suddenly, and I open my eyes to see this girl staring straight down at me.

  I sit up a little, trying to get some kind of read on her.

  I’d guess she’s probably around my age, with black hair cut sort of jagged around her face and then hanging down long in back. She’s small, with sharp, angular features and blue crystal eyes that shine bright. She wears a simple black cotton dress cut short to reveal sun-browned legs and burned shoulders.

  “Hey,” she says, laughing, her voice coming out reckless.

  “Hey,” I answer back—sort of startled or confused or something.

  She leans in closer, still smiling, her eyes shimmering under the fluorescent light overhead.

  “I’m sorry,” she sort of giggles. “I don’t know why, but I just had to come talk to you.”

  “Um,” I say, sitting up a little more. “That’s okay.”

  There’s something very beautiful about her—pixieish—like she could vanish at any moment.

  She drops down next to me, her legs pressed together, rocking back and forth, still giggling a little. She offers me a cashew.

  I don’t take it.

  There’s what feels like a very long silence before I think to offer her some of my fruit juice drink.

  She laughs at that but then goes ahead and tries it, spilling some of the pink liquid on her wool sweater.

  She says she doesn’t like it very much.

  I can’t help but laugh along with her at that.

  “So, uh, what’d you wanna talk to me about?” I ask, taking the bottle back from her and accidentally touching my hand against hers. The feel of her skin is very soft. A crackling of electricity surges through my head.

  Her eyes stay focused on mine.

  “I don’t know,” she says, not blinking or anything. “I felt like I had to. You’re a great communicator. You have this power in you that is like nothing I’ve ever seen. You’re going to do great things with your life. You’re going to help so many people.”

  I laugh another laugh until I realize she’s being serious.

  That Twilight Zone music plays in my head, and I start looking around, not really focusing on anything, suddenly thinking I better find a way outta this.

  “Come on,” I tell her, smiling to try ’n’ make a joke out of it. “What are you talking about? You don’t even know me. I gotta say, you’re sounding a little crazy.”

  She smiles big at that.

  “Right? I know. It is totally crazy. But I just feel this, like, energy coming out of you. Are you an artist? Or, no, a writer. Isn’t that it?”

  I swallow something down in my throat. “Yeah,” I say. “Well, I guess I am. Did you, uh, see me on TV or something?”

  Her eyes just won’t let go of mine.

  “No, wow, you’ve been on TV? That’s so cool. No I, uh, had a feeling I needed to come talk to you is all. What kind of stuff do you write?”

  I can’t help but look away, even though all the tension in my body seems to have drained out all at once. It’s a feeling like giving in—like being wrapped in a thick comforter, finally letting sleep overtake me after years of restless wandering. I feel disarmed, wonderfully helpless. I tell her about my book and what’s been going on with me. It’s like the words just keep coming out before I can stop them. I know that’s a cliché or whatever, but really, I mean, that’s the way it is.

  Anyway, when I’m done with my stupid monologue, I finally give her a chance to say something, and she goes on to tell me that she’s leaving on this sort of mission thing to Nicaragua with a bunch of kids from her school—a ministry program out of northern California. They’re going to pray over people there and shrink tumors and restore eyesight to the blind and hearing to the deaf and all that faith-healing bullshit. She’s gonna bring God to them. She says all this to me super casually—like it’s just assumed, or whatever.

  And then she asks, you know, real simple-like, if she can pray over me.

  I laugh.

  It’s all so totally ridiculous.

  I mean, I figure, why the hell not?

  It can’t hurt.

  Plus, she’s beautiful, like I said.

  So I tell her, “Sure.”

  Now, look, I’ve read stuff about the power of suggestion and mind control and whatever. After being involved in a very sort of extremist sect of a twelve-step program when I was younger, I’d become fascinated with the way desperate people are picked up by these groups, exploited and manipulated, and then tricked into having so-called religious experiences where they feel something they imagine to be God.

  But, I mean, I don’t really believe in any of that shit—I mean, not really.

  Dostoyevsky wrote that man can find meaning wherever he looks for it. We can make any situation into whatever it is we desire it to be.

  Still, you know, the thing is, with this girl, I really don’t want the situation to be anything.

  At least, I don’t think I do.

  So the girl prays over me.

  I don’t close my eyes. I just stare, sort of out of focus, at the ugly, frayed carpeting.

  She puts her hand on my shoulder and begins to speak out loud—asking God to be with us—to show us his heart for us, whatever that means.

  And then this crazy rush of energy comes like an electrical storm running through me. My breathing comes on me in great gasps, and I feel like the two of us are just floating here—her and me—me and her. It’s like the world has faded out, leaving only her, this girl, ripped wide open, transparent, with light and energy and the most beautiful, shimmering voice speaking out of her core to me. I feel love and awe for her like I’ve never experienced in my whole life.

  When I look up into the pale blue of her eyes, she seems almost as shocked as I am. My hands tremble.

  “Do you feel that?” I ask, stupidly, I guess.

  She nods, speechless, staring into my eyes. I swear it’s
everything I can do not to lean over and just kiss her mouth or hold her pressed against me.

  We both just radiate out to each other, and I feel her all over me—like her skin is covering mine, and I know in that instant, I know that I love her. I can’t help it. She’s like the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, or felt, or been in the goddamn presence of. We move closer and closer together. There are tears burning my eyes.

  I mean, what the fuck is happening?

  I almost can’t take it—the intensity is cutting into the very center of me.

  I gasp, feeling her warmth and the pressure of her hand on me.

  And then, suddenly, she jerks away.

  Someone’s calling her.

  “Fallon, Fallon, it’s time to go.”

  She looks shaken, and then she turns to face me again, and we both just start laughing and laughing so uncontrollably—like little children.

  There’s really nothing I can do.

  Just sort of instinctively, I reach into my bag, handing over a copy of my book—the last one I have.

  “Look,” I say, “I wrote this. I mean, this is my life. You don’t have to read it or anything. But, uh, I feel like I have to give it to you.”

  And then I write my e-mail address on the front page, only I can barely make it legible—my hands are shaking so goddamn badly.

  “Hey,” I tell her, my voice shaking along with my hands. “Write me if you want. I’m Nic, by the way.”

  Her eyes shine. “I’m Fallon.”

  She sprints away, obscured by the crowd.