Life's Golden Ticket

  I stared at him, dumbfounded. “Yes,” I said.

  “So the themes that have woven throughout your story sound like this: the world is a dark and dangerous place; other people are unfair and hurtful; you yourself are inadequate. Now, let me ask you something. Do you think these themes might have affected how you lived your life?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you think you adopted a positive or negative mind-set?”

  “Negative.”

  “Do you think you were more open with people or more closed with people because of your experiences?”

  “Closed.”

  “Did you believe you deserved happiness and love, or unhappiness and heartbreak?”

  The image of my dad smacking me to the ground after Grandpa’s death flashed in my mind.

  “Heartbreak, I suppose.”

  “Hmmm,” Henry muttered. “So the people and events in your life taught you to be negative, closed off, and doubtful of your worth. That’s a pretty good prescription for a tough life, huh?”

  “I guess,” I said, feeling myself close down even as I said it. It was also a prescription for running Mary right out of my life.

  Henry stood up. “Well, if that’s a prescription for a tough life, I gotta tell you something—you swallowed it whole. You let the themes in your life become your beliefs, and you let those beliefs guide your behaviors. You swallowed what the world taught you, hook, line, and sinker, without ever questioning it. Now, maybe you were too young to question those lessons then, but you should’ve questioned, or at least revisited them, as an adult. But you didn’t, and it cost you—big-time.”

  He must have seen the surprise on my face.

  “Sonny, I’m just calling it like I see it. You want to know why you lost Mary?”

  I stared at him blankly, afraid I already knew the answer. Why would she want to stay with a pessimistic, shut-off, moping schmo like me?

  Henry nodded as if he could hear my thoughts . . . then he shook his head. “She left because she felt even worse than you did.” He paused while his words sank in.

  Worse than I felt?

  “Why don’t you come with me,” he said. “There’s something you have to see for yourself. I can’t explain it to you—it’s too sickening.”

  7

  THE SCREAMING CARNIES

  H enry and I walked under the Ferris wheel, and images of Mary’s brother falling from the cart burned in my mind. We wandered past several snack booths, a teacup ride, and a mini–roller coaster for kids. So many people were on the walkway that we moved at a snail’s pace. The noise of the rides, screaming kids, and shouting barkers was overwhelming. For a few moments we were being pushed along by the crowd; then Henry grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side of the path.

  “Look,” he said, pointing with his thumb behind us.

  I looked down a long, deserted red gravel walkway. On either side of the walkway were a half-dozen tented game booths. The fronts of the booths had stuffed animals and other prizes hanging from them. I could see carnies manning the booths. The scene felt odd—not five feet away, a stream of happy fairgoers filled the path behind us, but this walkway was just dead.

  I glanced at Henry.

  “Listen,” he said.

  Suddenly, a tidal wave of shouting voices hit me: “Step right up, folks! Play the greatest game of skill ever invented! Everyone’s a winner here! Shoot seven ducks, win seven bucks! Land five rings on a bottle, win a bunny for your honey!”

  The screams of the carnies were piercing. I looked around as the crowd of people just kept on walking by. No one even glanced down the walkway. It was as if they didn’t hear the carnies at all.

  “Look closer,” Henry said.

  Looking down the row of tents, I felt a creepy chill come over me. I recognized every one of the carnies.

  In one booth was Mary’s brother. In the next was her mom. Another, farther down, was manned by Mary’s father. In one booth stood the girl I had seen scream, “Ugly brace-face!” at Mary in one of the scenes from the Ferris wheel. In another booth, Mary’s former fiancé was hawking softball throws. In the last booth—I squinted, disbelieving at first—I saw . . . myself.

  I turned to Henry, eyes wide, about to say something to him, when someone brushed past me and started down the walkway.

  It was Mary.

  She was dressed exactly as she had been when she walked out of the apartment, before she disappeared: black skirt, lovely blue blouse.

  “Mary!” I screamed frantically. “Mary!”

  I started toward her, but Henry grabbed my shoulder, stopping me.

  “It’s just an image, son,” he said. “She’s not really there.”

  That didn’t stop me. I tore loose from Henry and ran toward her.

  “Mary!” I shouted, “Mary!” But when I reached out to grab her shoulder, my hand passed right through her.

  I jumped back and looked at her. She was so beautiful.

  I reached out for her again; again I grabbed only air. I waved my hand in front of her. She couldn’t see me—she was just staring wide-eyed at the booths.

  “It’s just an image!” Henry called out. “Look. And listen close.”

  I turned back to Mary and saw tears welling in her eyes. She was staring past me. I turned to see what she was looking at, and there was her brother, screaming at the top of his lungs, “MARY, DON’T LEMME GO! MARY, DON’T LEMME GO! . . . DON’T LEMME GO!”

  Her mother was wailing, “NO! NO! NOT MY BABY! PLEASE, NOT MY BABY!”

  Her father cried out, “MARY, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”

  The scowling girl taunted, “UGLY BRACE-FACE! STUPID, UGLY BRACE-FACE!”

  Her ex-fiancé yelled, “YOU’RE SO BORING. . . . I’M SEEING SOMEONE ELSE, MARY!”

  The carnie who looked just like me shouted, “WHY SHOULD WE GO, MARY? YOUR PARENTS DON’T LIKE YOU ANYWAY!”

  Suddenly, Mary collapsed to the ground next to me and covered her ears. “Stop it!” she screamed. “Just stop it!”

  The carnies persisted.

  “MARY, DON’T LEMME GO!”

  “MARY, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”

  “STUPID, UGLY BRACE-FACE!”

  “I’M SEEING SOMEONE ELSE!”

  “YOUR PARENTS DON’T LIKE YOU ANYWAY!”

  Mary screamed, “Stop it! Please stop it! No more . . . no more!”

  The walkway fell silent. I looked into the booths and saw that they were empty. I looked back to Mary. She was curled up on the ground, crying and rocking back and forth.

  “Oh, Mary,” I said, and kneeled down beside her. “I’m so sorry, baby, I’m so sorry.” I reached out to touch her face, but my hand passed through her again and touched only gravel. I crumpled to the ground beside her.

  Mary wiped the tears from her face and stood up. She looked at the booths, clearly surprised that they were empty.

  I opened my mouth to speak to her, but the sound of whispers behind us interrupted me.

  Mary and I both turned around.

  In the booths behind us were more carnies. This time they all looked exactly like Mary, and instead of screaming, they were whispering.

  Mary stepped forward, and I followed. As we neared one of the booths, the whispers amplified.

  “Mary,” one carnie said softly, “it was your fault. You should’ve held on to Todd tighter.”

  Another said, “You shouldn’t have let him kneel on the Ferris wheel. That was dumb. . . . You killed your brother, Mary. You killed him.”

  Another looked at Mary compassionately and said, “You can’t help it, Mary; you’re just an ugly girl. Might as well accept it—you are ugly.”

  Another frowned. “You’re boring, honey. You’ve never had much of a personality. . . . No one is ever going to love you.”

  Another murmured, “Yep, you’re going to be alone forever.”

  Another Mary hissed, “They’re right. You’re ugly and you’re boring and you killed your own brother and no one is ever going
to love you because of it.”

  Mary’s lower lip quivered, and she shook her head violently, as if this might make them all disappear. Then she put her hands over her ears and turned and ran.

  I chased after her, but as she reentered the stream of people on the walkway, Henry once again took my shoulder.

  “It’s just an image, son,” he said. “And I’m sorry, but she’s gone.”

  I sat cross-legged on a patch of grass next to a lemonade stand, waiting for Henry. The voices of the carnies still echoed; the image of Mary crumpled on the walkway lingered in my mind.

  “Here you go,” Henry said, handing me a cold lemonade.

  He sat down next to me, and we watched the crowd of people walking by.

  Minutes passed.

  The noise of the crowd had faded, and I could hear only the scolding, taunting, blaming voices of the carnies in my mind.

  Finally, Henry spoke. “D’you know she’s heard those voices in her head nearly every day of her life?”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, pretty much every day. Maybe the voices didn’t always say those exact words, but they still got the message across. Those voices have been playing in her head over and over, and she’s suffered guilt and inadequacy and fear of being alone her whole life because of them.”

  I shook my head. “I just didn’t know. . . . Are they always that loud?”

  “Not always. As you heard, sometimes it’s a scream, other times a whisper. But for Mary, those voices are always playing, like a tape loop somewhere in the back of her mind.”

  “But . . . can’t she stop them?”

  Henry gave me a smile that was at once kind and uncompromising. “No more than you can.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You hear voices too—voices that scream negative comments to you, voices that whisper, ‘You’re not good enough.’ Have you been able to shut them off?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Really? Do we need to go back to the booths so you can hear a few voices screaming at you?”

  “No.” I shook my head vigorously. “No.”

  “Okay,” Henry said gently. “Think about it. Do you ever hear a negative voice in the back of your head?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Close your eyes. What does it say?”

  I closed my eyes and thought for a moment. I heard a soft but insistent voice in my head, repeating all the same themes from my life: “Be careful, the world is dangerous. . . . Don’t trust anyone. . . . Stay out of people’s way. . . . You’re an idiot, a pest. . . . You’re not good enough. . . . You’re a real jerk.” A sea of negative voices washed over my mind.

  Henry nodded. “Yep, you can hear them too. And they always talk to you at the least opportune moment—when you’re about to try something new or when you’re falling in love.”

  “How do I make them stop?” I asked.

  “You tell me. If you could have sat down with Mary after she heard all those voices and ran away crying, what would you have said to her?”

  “I’d tell her not to listen to them. I’d tell her to argue with them or tune them out. I’d tell her that her mom and dad were just reacting to the situation, that they didn’t mean to blame her. I’d tell her that it wasn’t her fault. I’d tell her that in school sometimes people say mean things about us and we can’t get stuck on them. I’d tell her that her ex-fiancé was a fool and she should forget about him. I’d tell her that I . . .”

  Henry looked at me patiently.

  “. . . that I didn’t mean to be such an awful jerk and a fool too.”

  “You think you behaved that way to her?”

  I lowered my head. “Just like her ex.”

  Henry leaned in close. “Why do you think you acted that way to her?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t know about her past. I didn’t know my words would hurt her like that. I don’t know what I was thinking or doing. I just wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Ah,” Henry sighed. “Then I know just the person we need to visit next.”

  8

  THE HYPNOTIST

  H enry and I walked down the midway. The smells of hamburgers and pretzels and pizza and cotton candy wafted from the food huts crammed tightly on either side. I was too sick to my stomach over the things I had said to Mary to feel any hunger.

  At one end, the midway opened into a wide grassy field, with little tents full of trinkets for sale dotting its perimeter. In the middle of the field sat a stage and two sets of bleachers. Recorded music bellowed from speakers on either side of the stage. When a man wearing jeans and a red T-shirt hopped onstage and announced that the show was about to begin, people browsing among the tents ambled over toward the bleachers.

  “Are we going to watch a show?” I asked Henry.

  “No,” he replied. “You’re going to be in it.”

  I stood outside a tent to the left of the stage while Henry chased down the man in the jeans and T-shirt. When they returned, Henry took my elbow and, without a word, walked me into the tent, which was bare except for a dark, elderly man, Indian perhaps, sitting on a metal folding chair. He wore a red embroidered waistcoat with a long, loose, collarless dress shirt underneath. His pajama-style white trousers were hiked up to reveal red embroidered shoes to match the waistcoat. His gray hair was cut short, and he was clean-shaven. He sat with his eyes closed, drawing in deep breaths.

  “Harsh?” Henry whispered.

  The man didn’t respond.

  “Harsh?” he said again. “Harsh the Hypnotist, I have an assistant for you.”

  The man opened his eyes and looked up at us. When he seemed to recognize Henry, his eyes opened wider.

  “Henry? Is that you, old man?” he said, his inflection rising with obvious delight.

  “It’s me, old friend.”

  Harsh jumped from his seat and wrapped Henry in his arms. He towered over a foot above Henry but was much skinnier. “Old friend!” he shouted. “What are you doing here?” Then he abruptly pulled away, looking at me, then back at Henry. Concern was written all over his face.

  “Henry, now just what are you doing here?”

  “I’ve brought the kid in, to help him out.”

  Harsh seemed almost panicked. “Goodness, Henry! Do you know what that means? Is it time? Are you sure?”

  Suddenly I remembered what big Betty had said at the entranceway, that it was a big deal that Henry was helping me out. Henry, too, had said it was a big deal, though he never told me why.

  “What does that mean?” I asked. “What does it mean that you’re helping me out, Henry?”

  The two men just looked at each other as if I hadn’t spoken.

  “Geez,” Harsh breathed, staring at Henry in disbelief. “You are sure.”

  Henry nodded.

  Harsh looked at the ground and kicked the earth.

  An awkward few moments passed. I felt as though I were on the outside of a big secret.

  “Okay,” Harsh said. “How can I help?”

  The show started. After a brief introduction, Harsh bounded onto the stage like a teenager. The crowd of about a hundred clapped politely, the way crowds do when they’re interested but have no clue who the performer is.

  Harsh launched into his act: “Ladies and gentlemen, tonight you’re going to be stunned by the power of your subconscious mind. You’re going to laugh at your friends; you’re going to learn to control your thoughts and actions; you’re going to be hypnotized!”

  The crowd clapped, harder this time, and a few people whistled. Standing to the right of the stage, I chuckled at the crowd. They were excited about being hypnotized?

  Harsh asked the crowd to close their eyes and start counting back from fifty. He told them he was not hypnotizing them but just testing to see if they were able to be hypnotized. While they were counting down, he explained what hypnosis was, stressing the word control several times. “. . . You are the one in control of your mind. . . . If h
ypnotized, you will still be in control of yourself.” At the end of the fifty seconds, Harsh asked who in the crowd absolutely believed they could not be hypnotized. “Who among you believes you are in complete control of your mind?”

  About half the crowd raised their hands.

  “Great!” Harsh said. “We’ve found our pool of volunteers!”

  Harsh chose ten people—five men and five women—and asked them to come to the stage.

  As they arrived, I told them to stand shoulder to shoulder, facing the crowd, just as Harsh had instructed me to do before the show.

  Harsh looked at the ten people and asked, “Now, how many of you are shy? How many of you are truly embarrassed to be standing in front of the crowd right now?”

  A skinny, short woman in a black skirt raised her hand. So did a heavyset woman in a red sweater and a tall man in a white jersey.

  The hypnotist asked those three people to come to the front of the stage. “Now, everyone give a hand to these three brave souls.”

  The crowd clapped, and Harsh scanned all the volunteers’ faces.

  “Now, the truth is, I know that all ten of you are a little nervous right now,” he said. “So tell you what: I want all ten of you to just close your eyes for a second and take a deep breath. . . . Good. . . . Now let it go. Good. Breathe in deep again and hold it: one, two, three, four. Now exhale slowly: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Now, just calm yourselves down. Tune out all the nervous thoughts and just tune in to my voice. . . . Tune out all the thoughts running through your head. . . . Turn off your thoughts. . . . That’s it . . . just listen to my voice. Now, release all the feeling in your body. Feel your face and shoulders and neck relax. . . . Good. No thoughts. No feelings. Now, pretend the crowd isn’t even there. Right now you’re completely alone on this stage. . . . Good . . . no thoughts, no feelings, just my voice.”

  He walked in front of the seven people at the back of the stage and brushed his hand on each one’s shoulder as he passed. He said, “If you just felt a touch on your shoulder, I want you to stand still, eyes closed, breathing deeply for a while.”