Turtles All the Way Down

  The report was mostly "witness statements" from witnesses who had not witnessed anything. Nobody was there that night except Noah and Davis. The camera at the front entrance had captured two groundskeepers driving away at 5:40 P.M. Malik the Zoologist left that day at 5:52. Lyle left at 6:02, and Rosa at 6:04. So what Lyle told us about Pickett not having nighttime staff seemed true.

  One page was devoted to Davis's witness summary:

  Rosa left pizza for us. Noah and I ate while playing a video game together. Dad came down for a few minutes and sat with us while he ate pizza, and then went back upstairs. There was nothing unusual. Most nights I only see Dad for a few minutes, or not at all. He didn't seem anxious. It was just a regular day. After Noah and I finished dinner, we put our dishes in the sink. I helped him with some homework and then read on the couch for school while he played a video game. I went upstairs around 10, did some homework in my room, and looked at a couple stars with my telescope--Vega and Epsilon Lyrae. I went to bed around 11:00 P.M. Even looking back, there was nothing weird about that day.

  [Witness also stated that he did not observe anything unusual via the telescope, adding, "My kind of telescope isn't for looking at the ground. You'd be seeing everything upside down and backward."]

  Noah's statement came next:

  I played Battlefront for a while with Davis. We had pizza for dinner. Dad was with us for a bit, talked about how the Cubs are doing. He told Davis he needed to do a better job of watching out for me, and then Davis was, like, I'm not his father. He and Dad were always sniping like that, though. Dad put a hand on my shoulder when he got up to leave, which felt a little weird. I could really feel him holding on to my shoulder. It almost hurt. Then he let go and headed upstairs. Davis helped me with my algebra homework and then I played Battlefront for another couple hours. I went upstairs around midnight and fell asleep. I didn't see Dad after he said good night.

  There were also pictures--almost a hundred of them--of every room in the house.

  Nothing appeared disrupted. In Pickett's office, I saw stacks of papers that seemed to have been left for an evening, not for a lifetime. A cell phone could be seen on his bedside table. The carpets were so clean I could see a single set of footprints leading to Pickett's desk, and a single set leading away from them. The closets were full of suits, dozens of them perfectly aligned from lightest gray to darkest black. A photograph of the kitchen sink showed three dirty dishes, each with little smudges of pizza grease and tomato sauce. To judge from the pictures, Pickett didn't seem to be missing so much as he seemed to have been raptured.

  The report did not, however, contain any mention of the night-vision photograph, meaning we had something the cops didn't: a timeline.

  --

  After school, I got into Harold and screamed when Daisy suddenly appeared in the backseat. "Shit, you scared me."

  "Sorry," she said. "I've been hiding, because Mychal and I are in the same history class, and I don't want to deal with it yet, and also I've got a bunch of comments to reply to. It's a hard life for a minor fan-fiction author. Did you notice anything in the police report?"

  I was still catching my breath, but eventually said, "They seem to know slightly less than we do."

  "Yeah," Daisy said. "Wait. Holmesy, that's it. That's it! They know slightly less than we do!"

  "Um, so?"

  "The reward is for 'information leading to the whereabouts of Russell Davis Pickett.' We may not know where he is, but we have information they don't that will help them find his whereabouts."

  "Or not," I said.

  "We should call. We should call and be, like, hypothetically, if we knew where Pickett was the night he disappeared, how much would that be worth? Maybe not the full hundred thousand, but something."

  "Let me talk to Davis about it," I said. I worried about betraying him, even though I barely knew him.

  "Break hearts, not promises, Holmesy."

  "Just . . . I mean, who knows if they'd even give us money for that, you know? It's just a picture. You need a ride to work?"

  "As it happens, I do."

  --

  While eating dinner with Mom in front of the TV that night, I kept thinking about the case. What if they did give us a reward? It was valuable information the police didn't have. Maybe Davis would hate me, if he ever found out, but why should I care what some kid from Sad Camp thought of me?

  After a while, I begged homework and escaped to my room. I thought maybe I'd missed something from the police report, so I went through it again and was still reading when Daisy called me. She started talking before I'd finished saying "Hi."

  "I had a highly hypothetical conversation with the tip line, and they said that the reward is coming from the company, not the police, so it's up to the company to decide what is relevant, and that the reward would only be given out after they found Pickett. Our info is definitely relevant, but it's not like they'll find Pickett just with the night-vision picture, so we might have to split the reward with other people. Or if they never find him, we might not get it. Still, better than nothing."

  "Or exactly equal to nothing, if they don't find him."

  "Yeah, but it's evidence. We should at least get part of the reward."

  "If they find him."

  "Crook gets caught. We get paid. I don't see why you're waffling here, Holmesy."

  Just then, my phone buzzed. "I have to go," I said, and hung up.

  I'd gotten a text from Davis: I used to think you should never be friends with anyone who just wants to be near your money or your access or whatever.

  I started typing a response, but then another text came in. Like, never make a friend who doesn't like YOU.

  I started to type again, but saw the . . . that meant he was still typing, so I stopped and waited. But maybe the money is just part of me. Maybe that's who I am.

  A moment later, he added: What's the difference between who you are and what you have? Maybe nothing.

  At this point I don't care why someone likes me. I'm just so goddamned lonely. I know that's pathetic. But yeah.

  I'm lying in a sand trap of my dad's golf course looking at the sky. I had kind of a shitty day. Sorry for all these texts.

  I got under the covers and wrote him back. Hi.

  Him: I told you I was bad at chitchat. Right. That's how you start a conversation. Hi.

  Me: You're not your money.

  Him: Then what am I? What is anyone?

  Me: I is the hardest word to define.

  Him: Maybe you are what you can't not be.

  Me: Maybe. How's the sky?

  Him: Great. Huge. Amazing.

  Me: I like being outside at night. It gives me this weird feeling, like I'm homesick but not for home. It's kind of a good feeling, though.

  Him: I am drenched in that feeling at the moment. Are you outside?

  Me: I'm in bed.

  Him: Light pollution makes naked eye stargazing suck here, but I can see all eight stars in the Big Dipper right now, if you include Alcor.

  Me: What was shitty about your day?

  I watched the . . . and waited. He wrote for a long time, and I imagined him typing and deleting, typing and deleting.

  Him: I'm all alone out here, I guess.

  Me: What about Noah?

  Him: He's all alone, too. That's the worst part. I don't know how to talk to him. I don't know how to make it stop hurting. He's not doing any homework. I can't even get him to take a shower regularly. Like, he's not a little kid. I can't MAKE him do stuff.

  Me: If I knew something...like, something about your dad? And I told, would that make it better or worse?

  He was typing for a long time. Much worse, came the reply at last.

  Me: Why?

  Him: Two reasons: If Noah can be eighteen or sixteen or even fourteen when he has to watch his father go to jail, that will be better than it happening when he's thirteen. Also, if Dad gets caught because he tries to contact us, that will be okay. But if he gets caught
despite NOT reaching out to us, Noah will be completely crushed. He still thinks our dad loves us and all that.

  For a moment, and only for a moment, I entertained the notion that Davis might've helped his father disappear. But I couldn't see Davis as his father's accomplice.

  Me: I'm sorry. I won't say anything. Don't worry.

  Him: Today is our mom's birthday, but Noah barely knew her. It's all just so different for him.

  Me: Sorry.

  Him: And the thing is, when you lose someone, you realize you'll eventually lose everyone.

  Me: True. And once you know that, you can never forget it.

  Him: Clouds are blowing in. I should go to bed. Good night, Aza.

  Me: Good night.

  I put the phone on my bedside table and pulled my blanket up over me, thinking about the big sky over Davis and the weight of the covers on me, thinking about his father and mine. Davis was right: Everybody disappears eventually.

  EIGHT

  DAISY WAS STANDING NEXT TO MY PARKING SPOT when Harold and I arrived at school the next morning. Summer doesn't last in Indianapolis, and even though it was still September, Daisy was underdressed for the weather in a short-sleeve top and skirt.

  "I have a crisis," she announced once I was out of the car. As we walked through the parking lot, she explained. "So last night, Mychal called to ask me out, and I could've handled myself via text but you know I get nervous on the phone, plus I remain unsure Mychal can handle all . . . this," she said, gesturing vaguely at herself. "I am willing to give the giant baby a chance. But in a flustered moment, not wanting to commit to a full-on proper date, I may have suggested he and I go on a double date with you and Davis."

  "You did not," I said.

  "And then he was, like, 'Aza said she wasn't looking for a relationship,' and I was, like, 'Well, she already has a crush on this dude who goes to Aspen Hall,' and then he was, like, 'The billionaire's kid,' and I was, like, 'Yeah,' and then he was, like, 'I can't believe I got fake rejected by someone for a fake reason.' But anyway, on Friday night, you and me and Davis and a man-size baby are having a picnic."

  "A picnic?"

  "Yeah, it'll be great."

  "I don't like eating outside," I said. "Why can't we just go to Applebee's and use two coupons instead of one?"

  She stopped and turned to me. We were on the steps outside school, people all around us, and I worried we might get trampled, but Daisy had the ability to part seas. People made room for her. "Let me list my concerns here," she said. "One: I don't want to be alone with Mychal on our first and probably only date. Two: I have already told him you have a crush on a guy from Aspen Hall. I can't unsay that. Three: I have not actually made out with a human being in months. Four: Therefore, I am nervous about the whole thing and want my best friend there. You will note that nowhere in my top four concerns is whether we picnic, so if you want to move this mofo to Applebee's, that is A-OK by me."

  I thought about it for a second. "I'll try," I said. So I texted Davis while waiting for the second bell to ring and commence biology.

  Couple friends are getting dinner at Applebee's at 86th and Ditch on Friday. Are you free?

  He wrote back immediately. I am. Pick you up or meet you there?

  Meet us there. Does seven work?

  Sure. See you then.

  --

  After school that day, I had an appointment with Dr. Singh in her windowless office in the immense Indiana University North Hospital up in Carmel. Mom offered to drive me, but I wanted some time alone with Harold.

  The whole way up, I thought about what I'd say to Dr. Singh. I can't properly think and listen to the radio at the same time, so it was quiet in the car, except for the thumping rumble of Harold's mechanical heart. I wanted to tell her that I was getting better, because that was supposed to be the narrative of illness: It was a hurdle you jumped over, or a battle you won. Illness is a story told in the past tense.

  "How are you?" she asked as I sat down. The walls in Dr. Singh's office were bare except for this one small picture of a fisherman standing on a beach with a net slung over his shoulder. It looked like stock photography, like the picture that came free with the frame. She didn't even have any diplomas up on the wall.

  "I feel like I might not be driving the bus of my consciousness," I said.

  "Not in control," she said.

  "I guess."

  Her legs were crossed, and her left foot was tapping the ground like it was trying to send a Morse code SOS. Dr. Karen Singh was in constant motion, like a badly drawn cartoon, but she had the single greatest resting poker face I'd ever seen. She never betrayed disgust or surprise. I remember when I told her that I sometimes imagine ripping my middle finger off and stomping on it, she said, "Because your pain has a locus there," and I said, "Maybe," and she shrugged and said, "That's not uncommon."

  "Has there been an uptick in your rumination or intrusive thoughts?"

  "I don't know. They continue to intrude."

  "When did you put that Band-Aid on?"

  "I don't know," I lied. She stared at me, unblinking. "After lunch."

  "And with your fear of C. diff?"

  "I don't know. Sometimes it happens."

  "Do you feel that you're able to resist the--"

  "No," I said. "I mean, I'm still crazy, if that's what you're asking. There has been no change on the being crazy front."

  "I've noticed you use that word a lot, crazy. And you sound angry when you say it, almost like you're calling yourself a name."

  "Well, everyone's crazy these days, Dr. Singh. Adolescent sanity is so twentieth century."

  "It sounds to me like you're being cruel to yourself."

  After a moment, I said, "How can you be anything to your self? I mean, if you can be something to your self, then your self isn't, like, singular."

  "You're deflecting." I just stared at her. "You're right that self isn't simple, Aza. Maybe it's not even singular. Self is a plurality, but pluralities can also be integrated, right? Think of a rainbow. It's one arc of light, but also seven differently colored arcs of light."

  "Okay, well, I feel more like seven things than one thing."

  "Do you feel like your thought patterns are impeding your daily life?"

  "Uh, yeah," I said.

  "Can you give me an example?"

  "I don't know, like, I'll be at the cafeteria and I'll start thinking about how, like, there are all these things living inside of me that eat my food for me, and how I sort of am them, in a way--like, I'm not a human person so much as this disgusting, teeming blob of bacteria, and there's not really any getting myself clean, you know, because the dirtiness goes all the way through me. Like, I can't find the deep down part of me that's pure or unsullied or whatever, the part of me where my soul is supposed to be. Which means that I have maybe, like, no more of a soul than the bacteria do."

  "That's not uncommon," she said. Her catchphrase. Dr. Singh then asked if I was willing to try exposure response therapy again, which I'd done back when I first started seeing her. Basically I had to do stuff like touch my callused finger against a dirty surface and then not clean it or put a Band-Aid on. It had sort of worked for a while, but now all I could remember was how scared it had made me, and I couldn't bear the thought of being that scared again, so I just shook my head no at the mention of it. "Are you taking your Lexapro?" she asked.

  "Yeah," I said. She just stared at me. "It freaks me out some to take it, so not every day."

  "Freaks you out?"

  "I don't know." She kept watching me, her foot tapping. The air felt dead in the room. "If taking a pill makes you different, like, if it changes the way-down you . . . that's just a screwed-up idea, you know? Who's deciding what me means--me or the employees of the factory that makes Lexapro? It's like I have this demon inside of me, and I want it gone, but the idea of removing it via pill is . . . I don't know . . . weird. But a lot of days I get over that, because I do really hate the demon."

  "Yo
u often try to understand your experience through metaphor, Aza: It's like a demon inside of you; you'll call your consciousness a bus, or a prison cell, or a spiral, or a whirlpool, or a loop, or a--I think you once called it a scribbled circle, which I found interesting."

  "Yeah," I said.

  "One of the challenges with pain--physical or psychic--is that we can really only approach it through metaphor. It can't be represented the way a table or a body can. In some ways, pain is the opposite of language."

  She turned to her computer, shook her mouse to wake it up, and then clicked an image on her desktop. "I want to share something Virginia Woolf wrote: 'English, which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear, has no words for the shiver and the headache. . . . The merest schoolgirl, when she falls in love, has Shakespeare or Keats to speak her mind for her; but let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry.' And we're such language-based creatures that to some extent we cannot know what we cannot name. And so we assume it isn't real. We refer to it with catch-all terms, like crazy or chronic pain, terms that both ostracize and minimize. The term chronic pain captures nothing of the grinding, constant, ceaseless, inescapable hurt. And the term crazy arrives at us with none of the terror and worry you live with. Nor do either of those terms connote the courage people in such pains exemplify, which is why I'd ask you to frame your mental health around a word other than crazy."

  "Yeah," I said.

  "Can you say that? Can you say that you're courageous?"

  I screwed up my face at her. "Don't make me do that therapy stuff," I said.

  "That therapy stuff works."

  "I am a brave warrior in my internal Battle of Valhalla," I deadpanned.

  She almost smiled. "Let's talk about a plan to take that medication every single day," she said, and then proceeded to talk about mornings versus evenings, and how we could also try to get off the medication and try a different one, but that might be best attempted during a less stressful period, like summer vacation, and on and on.

  Meanwhile, for some reason I felt a twinge in my stomach. Probably just nerves from listening to Dr. Singh talk about dosages. But that's also how C. diff starts--your stomach hurts because a few bad bacteria have managed to take hold in your small intestine, and then your gut ruptures and seventy-two hours later you're dead.