It's Kind of a Funny Story

twenty-nine

I’m awakened by a guy in light blue scrubs taking my blood. That’s an interesting way to wake up. The guy comes into the room with a cart—carts are very popular here—as light creeps through the blinds.

“I need your bloods. For downstairs.”

“Uh, okay.”

I present my arm. I’m too beat to ask any questions. He takes a little bit of blood expertly through the back of my hand under my middle-finger knuckle—doesn’t leave any kind of mark—and rolls along, leaving Muqtada asleep, or awake and paralyzed by life; it’s tough to tell. I want to get more sleep, but once you’ve been stuck you’re inclined to get up, so I move out of bed and take a shower with the hospital-provided towels and my parent-provided shampoo and the generic soap that I pump out of the wall. The shower is searing and wonderful, but I don’t want to stay too long—I have to break my habit of languishing in the bathroom—so I dry off and drop my stuff back at the nurses’ station. Smitty isn’t there; instead there’s a big guy who introduces himself as Harold and tells me to dump the towels in a hamper that looks just like a garbage can by the dining room, something that I know I’ve seen Humble and Bobby dump apple cores and banana peels into.

“Hey, buddy, you’re up!” Armelio calls out, bounding down the hall at me. “How’d you sleep?”

“Not good. I needed a shot.”

“That’s okay, buddy, we all need shots once in a while.”

“Heh.” I crack the day’s first smile. Armelio uncorks one of his own.

“It’s time to wake everyone up for vitals,” he says, treading down the hall. “All right, everybody! Vitals! Time to take your vitals!”

A caravan of my fellow bleary mental patients—or wait, I think we’re called in-patient psychiatric treatment recipients, technically—emerge from their compartments, rubbing their eyes and staggering as if they have a job to get to and they just need that first cup of coffee. Surprised by my good fortune, I put myself at the front of the line and become the first to get my blood pressure and pulse taken. 120/80. I continue to be the picture of health.

“Craig?” Harold, the big guy, asks when everyone is done.

“Yeah?”

“You haven’t been filling out your menus.”

“What are those?”

“Every day, you’re supposed to put down what sort of meals you want. On one of these.”

He holds up what looks like a placemat, with columns of food: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner.

“You should have gotten this in your welcome packet the nurse gave you.”

Ah, the one I completely ignored. I nod.

“I just. . . didn’t. . .”

“It’s okay, but if you don’t mark up your menus, you’re going to get a meal we pick for you every time. So fill one out for lunch and dinner today. For breakfast you’re going to have to have one of the omelets.”

I put my elbows down on the desk and eye the menu choices: hamburger, fish nuggets, French-cut beans, turkey with stuffing, fresh fruit, pudding, oatmeal, orange juice, milk 4oz, milk 8oz, 2% milk, skim milk, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, split pea soup, minestrone soup, fruit salad, cottage cheese, bagel, cream cheese, butter, jelly . . . highly processed food. I’m not going to have a problem eating this. My eyes swim over the choices.

“Circle what you want,” Harold explains. I start circling.

“If you want two of anything, put two-x by it.” I start putting 2xs.

I wish the world were like this, if I just woke up and marked the food I’d be eating and it came to me later in the day. I suppose it is like that, except you have to pay for whatever you want to eat, so maybe what I’m asking for is communism, but I think it’s actually deeper than communism—I’m asking for simplicity, for purity and ease of choice and no pressure. I’m asking for something that no politics is going to provide, something that probably you only get in preschool. I’m asking for preschool.

“After breakfast, fill one out for tomorrow,” Harold says as I hand in my menu.

Breakfast comes to the dining room and the omelet is like a science experiment: is the lack of cheese explained by the mysterious holes that dot the alleged egg?

“Your first omelet,” Bobby says. Today, for a change, I sit with him instead of Humble. Johnny rounds out the table.

“It’s really gross.” I pick at it.

“It’s like a rite of passage,” Johnny says. He speaks slowly and without any accents in his words. “‘Everyone must eat the omelet.’”

“Yeah, you’re in now,” Bobby says.

“Huh.” Johnny exhales.

“How did everybody sleep?” I try.

“I’m anxious, real anxious,” Bobby says.

“Why?”

“I’ve got that interview tomorrow, with the adult home.”

“What’s that?”

“Huh.” Johnny exhales. “It’s where people like us live.”

“It’s a place like this, basically, except you have to hold a job,” Bobby explains. “You don’t need a pass to leave; you can leave whenever you want, but you have to prove you’re employed and be back by seven o’clock.”

“Wait, you can leave here with a pass?”

“Yeah, once you have five days inside, they have to give you a pass if you ask for it.”

“I’m gonna try and be out in five days.”

“Huh,” Johnny exhales. “Good luck.”

I start in on my orange, which is about two hundred times more edible than the omelet. “Why are you nervous about the interview?” I ask Bobby.

“Anxious, not nervous. It’s different. It’s medical.”

“Why are you anxious, then? I’m sure you’ll get in.”

“You can’t be sure of a thing like that. And if I mess it up, I’ve got problems: I’ve been here too long; my coverage isn’t going to last. Once you’re giving the tours, it’s really time to leave.” He takes a slow bite of oatmeal. “The last place wouldn’t let me in because I’m too much of a picky eater. It’s not like this place. You can’t pick your food.”

“So now you know what not to say!” I point out.

“Yeah, that’s true.”

“See, when you mess something up,” I muse, “you learn for the next time. It’s when people compliment you that you’re in trouble. That means they expect you to keep it up.”

Bobby nods. “Very, very true.”

“Huh, yeah,” Johnny says. “My mom was always complimenting me, and look how I turned out.”

“This kid has some promise.” Bobby laughs. “He’s on the level.”

“Huh, yeah, on the level. You play guitar, kid?”

“No.”

“Johnny here’s a great guitarist,” Bobby says. “Really great. He had a deal in the eighties.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Shhh,” Johnny says. “It ain’t nothin’.”

Bobby continues: “He can play better than the guy they bring in here to play for us. But he’s a cool guy, that guy.”

“Yeah, he’s on the level.”

“He’s on the level. Is he coming in today for group?”

“That’s tomorrow. Today is art.”

“With Joanie.”

“Right.”

Bobby sips his coffee. “If there wasn’t coffee on this earth, I’d be dead.”

I scan the room: everyone’s here but Solomon, the Anorexics (who I’ve now seen peeking out of their rooms like, literally, skeletons in closets), and Noelle. I wonder where she is. She didn’t show up for vitals. Maybe she’s out on a pass. I hope she’ll be around tonight for our date. Technically, it’ll be my first date.

“You know, I’ll tell you why I’m really anxious,” Bobby pipes up, leaning in over his coffee. “It’s this stupid shirt.” He pushes forward his Marvin the Martian WORLD DOMINATOR sweatshirt. “How’m I gonna do an interview in this?”

“Huh.” Johnny exhales. “Never underestimate the power of Marvin.”

“Shhh, man. I’m serious.”

“I have shirts,” I say.

“What?” Bobby looks up.

“I have shirts. I’ll lend you a shirt.”

“What? You would do that?”

“Sure. What size are you?”

“Medium. What are you?”

“Uh, child’s large.”

“What is that in normal?” Bobby turns to Johnny.

“I didn’t even know children had sizes,” Johnny says.

“I think it would fit,” I stand up. Bobby gets up next to me and, although his posture is way different—backward, really—he looks like a decent match.

“I have a blue-collared shirt that my mom makes me wear to church every week. I can have her bring it.”

“Today? The interview’s tomorrow.”

“Yeah. No problem. She’s two blocks away.”

“You would do that for me?”

“Sure!”

“All right,” Bobby says. We shake hands. “You’re really on the level. You’re a good person.” We look into each other’s eyes as we shake. His are still full of death and horror, but in them I see my face reflected, and inside my tiny eyes inside his, I think I see some hope.

“Good person,” Johnny echoes. Bobby sits down. I put my tray back in the cart and Humble comes up behind me.

“You didn’t sit with me, I’m very hurt,” he says. “I might have to jump you for your lunch money later.”

thirty

Nurse Monica brings me into the same office that I was interviewed in the day before, to ask me how I’m adjusting. I look at the white walls and the table where she showed me the pain chart and think that I’ve actually come kind of far since yesterday; I’ve eaten and slept; you can’t deny that. Eating and sleeping will do a body good. I needed the shot, though.

“How are we feeling today?” she asks.

“Fine. Well, I couldn’t sleep last night. I had to take a shot.”

“I saw on your chart. Why do you think you couldn’t sleep?”

“My friends called. They were kind of . . . making fun of my whole situation.”

“And why would they do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe they are not your friends.”

“Well, I told them . . . ‘Screw you,’ basically. The main one, Aaron. I told him ‘Screw you.’”

“Did that make you feel good?”

I sigh. “Yeah. There was a girl too.”

“Who would that be?”

“Nia. One of the friends.”

“And her?”

“I’m done with her, too.”

“So you made a lot of big decisions on your first day here.”

“Yes.”

“This happens to many people: they come and make big decisions. Sometimes they are good decisions, sometimes bad.”

“Well, I hope good, obviously.”

“Me too. How do you feel about the decisions?”

I picture Nia and Aaron dissolving, replaced by Johnny and Bobby.

“It was the right thing to do.”

“Wonderful. Now, you’ve made some new friends here as well, isn’t that true?”

“Sure.”

“I noticed you talking with Humboldt Koper outside the smoking lounge last night.”

“Is that his real name?” I laugh. “Yeah, well, right, you were talking, too. We all were.”

“Yes. Now, you might not want to become so friendly with your fellow patients on the floor.”

“Why not?”

“That can distract people from the healing process.”

“How?”

“This is a hospital. It’s not a place to make friends. Friends are wonderful, but this place is about you and making you feel better.”

“But . . .” I fidget. “I respect Humble. I respect Bobby. I have more respect for them after a day and a half than I do for most people . . . in the world, really.”

“Just be careful of forming close relationships, Craig. Focus on yourself.”

“Okay.”

“Only then does healing take place.”

“All right.”

Nurse Monica leans back with her moon face.

“As you know, we have certain activities on the floor.”

“Right.”

“On your first day you are excused from activities, but after that you are expected to attend on a daily basis.”

“Okay.”

“That means you start today. This is an opportunity for you to explore your interests. So I ask you: what are your hobbies?”

Bad question, Monica.

“I don’t have any.”

“Aha. None at all?”

“No.”

I work, Monica, and I think about work, and I freak out about work, and I think about how much I think about work, and I freak out about how much I think about how much I think about work, and I think about how freaked out I get about how much I think about how much I think about work. Does that count as a hobby?

“I see.” She takes some notes. “So we can put you in any activity group.”

“I guess.”

“And you’ll go?”

“Can I play cards with Armelio in the groups?”

“No.”

“Will participating in them get me out of here on Thursday?”

“I cannot say for sure. But not participating will be viewed as a step back in the healing process.”

“Okay. Sign me up.”

Nurse Monica marks a sheet in her lap. “Your first activity will be arts and crafts this evening, before dinner, with Joanie in the activity lounge, which is through the doors behind the nurses’ station.”

“I thought those doors didn’t open.”

“We can open them, Craig.”

“When does it start?”

“Seven.”

“Oh. I won’t be there exactly at seven.”

“Why’s that?”

“I have to meet with someone at seven.”

“A visitor?”

“Sure,” I lie.

“A friend?”

“Well, yeah. So far. I hope so.”

thirty-one

At 6:55 P.M. I position myself at the end of the hall where I met with my parents yesterday and again today—around three, without Sarah this time; she was at a friend’s house. Dad didn’t crack any jokes and Mom brought the shirt for Bobby, who shook her hand and told her Your son is great and she told him she knew that. Dad asked whether we got to watch movies, and I told him that we did, but that since so many people were older, it was really boring movies with Cary Grant and Greta Garbo and stuff, and he asked if I wouldn’t enjoy him bringing over Blade II on DVD. And I checked with Howard and it turned out the hospital had a DVD player like everyone else in the world and so Dad and I made a date for Wednesday night, in three days, when he didn’t have to work late. He’d come by with Blade II and we’d all watch it.

The place I’m sitting in is the part of the H that mirrors the part next to the smoking lounge; Noelle said she didn’t smoke, so I think she wants to meet here. I didn’t tell my parents about her. I did tell them that I talked to my friends, that it didn’t go well, but that they were probably part of the problem anyway and it was good to stay away from them for a while. Mom said she knew my friends smoked pot and they were probably a bad influence anyway. Dad said Now you yourself haven’t smoked pot, right, Craig? and I told him no, no I hadn’t, not before the SATs like he told me. And we all laughed.

They asked how I was eating and I told them I was eating fine, which was true.

They asked how I was sleeping and I told them I was sleeping fine, which I hoped would be true tonight.

Now I sit with my legs crossed, only I think that looks weird, so I uncross them, only now I’m cold and nervous, so I cross them again. Right at 7:00 P.M. Noelle, in the same clothes I saw her in yesterday—dark Capri pants and a white wife-beater—comes down the hall.

She sits in the chair next to me and moves the hair away from her face with small fingers with no nail polish on them.

“You came,” she says.

“Well, yeah, you passed me a note. That’s like the first time a girl passed me a note.” I smile. I try to sit up and look good in my chair.

“We’re going to make this quick,” she says. “And it’s going to be a game.”

“Five minutes, right?”

“Right. Here’s the game: it’s just questions. I ask you a question, and you ask me a question.”

“Okay. Do you have to answer?”

“If you want, you can answer. But no matter what, you have to end with another question.”

“So we’re trading questions. Like twenty questions. Why do we have to talk like this?”

“It’s the best way to get to know a person. And in five minutes we can do way more than twenty questions. If we don’t dilly-dally. I’m starting. Ready?”

I concentrate. “Yeah.”

“No, answer with a question. Don’t tell me you’re stupid. Are you stupid?”

“No!” I shake my head. “Uh . . . are you ready?”

“There you go. We’re on. First question: Do you think I’m gross-looking?”

Gosh, she cuts right to the chase. I look her over. I’m a little ashamed of how I do it, because I look at her from the bottom up, like I would if she were on the Internet. I look at her feet ending in simple black sneakers and her small ankles and her pale lower legs and the indentation in the Capri pants where the pants start, under her knee, and up her body to her small waist and then the sharp bulge of her breasts and then her neck, coming through the uneven, distended neckline of her wife-beater, and her small chin and lips. The cuts on her face line her cheeks and forehead: little parallel slashes, three together in each place, with clumps of white skin on the ends where they’re healing. They don’t look like very deep cuts, and they’re thin—I have a feeling that when they heal up she’ll look just fine. And she’s beautiful. No question. Her eyes are green and knowing.

“No, you look awesome,” I say.

“What’s your question?”

“Uh, why did you pass me the note?”

“I thought you were interesting. Why did you do what it said?”

“I . . .” I can’t think up a fake answer quickly enough. “I’m a straight guy, you know. So if a girl talks to me or whatever, I’ll do exactly what she says.” Wait, now: make it a compliment. “Especially if it’s a pretty girl.” I smile.

“You’re not very good at this game. What’s your question?”

“Oh. Right. Ah . . . are you straight?”

She sighs. “Yes. Don’t get too excited. You don’t have a boner, do you?”

“No!” I cross my legs. “No. So . . . how’d you get here?”

“Oh, that’s a big one. Crossing the line. What do you think?”

“Someone came in on you while you were cutting your face?”

“Ding ding ding! Afterward, actually. I was bleeding all over the sink. How’d you get here?”

“I checked myself in. When did you get here?”

“Why did you check yourself in? Twenty-one days ago. Whoops. Reverse those. Pretend I ended with the question.” She rubs her arms.

“I wasn’t doing well. I called, you know, the Suicide Hotline, and they told me to come here. Why have you been here so long?”

“They’re not sure I won’t hurt myself again. What medication are you on?”

“Zoloft. What about you?”

“Paxil. Where do you live?”

“Around here. Where do you live?”

“Manhattan. What do your parents do?”

“My mom designs greeting cards and my dad works in health insurance. What about yours?”

“My mom’s a lawyer and my dad’s dead. Do you want to know how he died?”

“I’m sorry. How? Do I want to know?”

“That’s two questions. Yes, you do. He died fishing. He fell off a boat. Isn’t that the stupidest thing you ever heard?”

“No. Not by a long shot,” I say. “You want to know what I think is the stupidest way to die?”

“What?”

“Auto-erotic asphyxiation. You know what that is?”

“When people put ropes around themselves while they’re jerking off, right?”

“Right. I read about it in the DSM. Have you ever read the DSM?”

“The big book of psych disorders?”

“Yeah!”

“Of course. Have you ever heard of Ondine’s Curse?”

“Oh my God! I thought I was the only one who knew about that. Where you forget how to breathe. Uh . . . where did you first see the DSM?”

“On my shrink’s bookshelf. You?”

“Same. You call them ‘shrinks’ too?”

“That’s what they are, right?”

“What does that even mean?”

“I think ‘headshrinks,’ because they shrink people’s heads. You think I have all the answers?”

I stop. I need a break. I put my hands on my knees and rock forward. This game is hard. “Is your name really Noelle?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“After the whole thing at lunch yesterday, I don’t know what to believe. Do you know what my name is?”

“Of course. Craig Gilner. You think I’m an idiot?”

“How’d you know my last name?”

“I read your bracelet. You want to read mine?”

“‘Noelle Hinton.’ Hey . . .” I think, “So here’s one: Did you know what was going to happen at lunch yesterday?”

“With ‘Jennifer’? Of course. He does that to everybody. What I’m curious about is this: why’d you come over?”

“I thought she—uh, he—was, y’know, a girl. And I got asked—”

“Why did you come here?”

“Wait, I forgot to ask you a question.”

“That’s okay. You have one point. Why’d you come here?”

“Um, I thought I said: because you’re a girl. And you asked me. And you seem cool?” You already said she’s beautiful; now show you’re not shallow and say she’s cool.

“Watching you try and answer these questions right is hilarious. You’re a silly boy. You know you’re silly, right?”

Noelle leans back and stretches. Her hair falls away from her face and her cuts scream up into the light. The lines of her wife-beater echo her hair.

“You know those cuts on your face really aren’t that bad?”

“How long have I been here, Craig?”

“You told me twenty-one days. Is that true?”

“Yeah. Can you imagine what they looked like when I came in?”

“Are they going to scar?”

“I have to have surgery to clear them up. You think I should?”

“No. Why hide what you’ve been through?”

“I don’t know if that’s really a question. It’s too obvious. Wouldn’t I be happier without scars?”

“I don’t know. It’s tough to tell what would make you happy. I thought I’d be happier in a really tough high school, and I ended up here. Wait, where do you go to school?”

“Delfin.” That’s a private school in Manhattan; I think it’s the last one where they have to wear uniforms. “You?”

“Executive Pre-Professional. Do you have to wear uniforms?”

“Are you like a school-uniform pervert?”

“No. Well . . . no.”

“Two points. You didn’t ask a question. Do you like this game?”

“I like talking to you. It’s like a math problem. Do you like talking to me?”

“It’s all right. Do you like math?”

“I thought I was good at it, but it turns out I’m a year behind everybody else. You?”

“I’m bad in school. I spend most of my time in ballet. But I’m not tall enough for that. Have you ever been not tall enough for anything?”

“Maybe some rides, when I was a little kid. Why?”

“I’m still too short for those rides. It sucks to be short. Remember that.” She stops.

“One point for you.”

“That’s three for you. Game over.”

“Okay, cool.” I sit back in my seat. “Phew. What now?”

“That’s a good question. I have no idea. I’ve got to go to arts and crafts.”

“Me too.”

“You want to go together?”

“Sure.” I stop. That’s a come-on, isn’t it? “Can we . . . uh . . . can I like kiss you or whatever?”

Noelle leans back and laughs and laughs. “No you can’t kiss me! What, you think we play the game once and you get to kiss me?”

“Well, I thought we had a thing going.”

“Craig.” She leans in and looks me right in the eyes. “No.” She smiles. The cuts crinkle.

“Do you know when you’re leaving?” I ask.

“Thursday.”

My heart jumps. “Me too.” I start to lean forward—

“No. No, Craig. Arts and crafts.”

“Okay.” I get up. I hold out my hand for Noelle. She ignores it.

“Race you!” she says, and sprints down the hall into the activity lounge, with me following, trying to keep up—how can I not, when my legs are so much longer? Does ballet teach you to run? Howard yells at us as we pass the nurses’ station—“Kids! Kids! No running on the floor!”—but I really don’t care.

thirty-two

“So who here likes to draw-awww?” Joanie asks. Joanie is a big smiling lady with lots of makeup and bracelets. She rules the activity lounge, which is exactly like the art room I had when I was in kindergarten. There are patient-contributed paintings of hamburgers and dogs and kites on the walls and then there are posters—OBSTACLES ARE THOSE FRIGHTENING THINGS THAT APPEAR WHEN WE TAKE OUR MIND OFF OUR GOALS; DREAMS ARE ONLY DREAMS UNTIL YOU WAKE UP AND MAKE THEM REAL; THINGS I HAVE TO DO TODAY: 1) BREATHE IN 2) BREATHE OUT. The alphabet, thankfully, is nowhere to be seen; if I saw Aa Bb I’d probably start the Cycling again. There is one interesting poster: PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS CONTRIBUTE TO OUR WORLD. It lists Abraham Lincoln, Ernest Hemingway, Winston Churchill, Isaac Newton, Sylvia Plath, and a bunch of other smart people who were kind of nuts.

It’s depressing, though. I mean, this room is what I expect a mental hospital to look like. Adults reduced to children, sitting with finger paints; a jolly supervisor telling them that everything they do is great. But isn’t this what I was asking for when I was filling out my menus?

You wanted preschool, soldier, you got preschool.

I wanted the comfort of preschool, not the ambience.

You gotta take the good with the bad. Like your little chicky here. I bet you didn’t think you’d come in here and find a fine filly like that.

Well, she’s not a filly.

I have a feeling filly means girlfriend. I look at Noelle. We’re trying to decide where to sit.

I only talked with her once.

She likes you, boy, and if you can’t tell that, you aren’t going to be able to tell a rifle from a cap gun in this war.

What war is that, again?

The one you’re fighting with your own head.

Right, how are we doing?

You’re making gains, soldier, can’t you see that?

Noelle and I sit with Humble and the Professor.

“I see you two have made each other’s acquaintance,” Humble says.

“Leave them alone,” the Professor says.

“Where were you?” Humble continues. “Were you in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G?”

“No.”

“Nothing’s happening,” Noelle says.

“We’re just sitting together,” I say.

“‘Craig and No-elle, sitting in a tree—’” He gets up and puts his hands on his hips, sashaying.

“Hold on, now, what’s going on here?” Joanie comes over. “Is there a problem, Mr. Koper?”

“No. What? What are you talking about?” He holds up his hands, sits down. “You mean me?”

Joanie scoffs and announces: “This is free-period arts recreational therapy, for all you latecomers!” Humble points at me and Noelle, making a little shame on you gesture. “That means you can draw whatever you feel like. It’s a great chance to explore your creativity and find out what you like to do for leisure! Leisure is very important!”

Joanie comes up behind me when she’s done announcing: “You’re new. Hi, my name is Joanie. I’m the recreation director.”

“Craig,” I shake her hand.

“You want pencil and paper, Craig?”

“No. I don’t have anything to do. I can’t draw.”

“Sure you can. It doesn’t have to be representative. You can do abstract. Do you want crayons?”

“No.” God, it’s so embarrassing. Being asked if you want crayons.

“How about paints?”

“I told you, I can’t draw.”

“Paints are for painting, not drawing.”

“Well, I can’t do that either.”

“What about markers?”

“No.”

“Everyone?” Joanie turns to the room. “Our new guest, Craig, has what we call an artistic block. He doesn’t have anything to draw!”

“That’s too bad, buddy!” Armelio yells from his table. “You want to play cards?”

“Armelio, no cards in here. Now, can anyone give Craig something he can draw?”

“Fish!” Bobby yells out. “Fish are easy.”

“Pills,” Johnny says.

“Johnny,” Joanie admonishes. “We do not draw pills.”

“Salad,” says Ebony.

“She wants you to draw it, but she sure as hell can’t eat it,” Humble guffaws.

“Mister Koper! That’s it. Please leave the room.”

“Ohh-hhhhhh,” everybody says.

“That’s right!” Ebony calls. She makes the umpire gesture. “You’re outta here!”

“Fine,” Humble stands up. “Whatever. Blame me. Blame the guy who has total respect for everybody else.” He gathers his things, which is nothing, and steps out of the activity lounge. “You’re all a bunch of yuppies!”

I watch him go.

“You can draw a cat!” the guy who’s afraid of gravity says. “I used to have one. It died.”

“Rolling pin,” the bearded man says. It’s the first words I’ve heard him say since I saw him in the dining room on my way in. He still rocks and he still paces the halls whenever he isn’t shuttled into a room.

“What was that, Robert?” Joanie asks. “That’s very good. What did you say?”

But he clams up. He won’t say it again. Rolling pin. I wonder what that means to him. If I had one thing to say, I don’t think it would be rolling pin. It would probably be sex. Or Shift.

“He can draw something from his childhood,” Noelle says next to me.

“Oh, there’s a good one. Noelle, you want to speak up?”

She sighs, then announces to the room: “Craig can draw something from his childhood.”

“That’s right,” Joanie nods. “Craig, do you like any of these suggestions?”

But I’m already gone. I’ve got the river started at the top of the page, looping down to meet with a second river. No, wait, you have to put in the roads first, because the bridges go over the water, remember? Highways first, then rivers, then streets. It’s all coming back to me. How long has it been since I did this? Since I was nine? How could I forget? I slash a highway across the center of the page and make it meet with another in a beautiful spaghetti interchange. One ramp goes off the junction through a park and ends in a circle, a nice hubbub of residential activity. The blocks start out from there. The map is forming. My own city.

“Oh, somebody got Craig’s mind unblocked!” Joanie announces from the other end of the room. I glance back. Ebony, who’s been sitting over there, goes through the arduous process of getting up with her cane and walks toward me. “I want to see.”

“Huh, thanks Ebony,” I say, turning back to the map.

She looks over my shoulder. “Oooh that’s pretty,” she says.

“What is it?” Armelio yells.

“Let’s not yell across the room,” Joanie says.

“That is extraordinary,” the Professor says next to me.

“I deserve half-credit,” says Noelle, sketching out a flower to my right. She glances at me through the sides of her eyes. “You know I do.”

“You do,” I tell her, taking a break to look at her. I go back to the map. It’s flowing out of me.

“Is that somebody’s brain?” Ebony asks.

I look up at her, rolling her mouth and smiling down. I look at the map. It’s not a brain, clearly; it’s a map; can’t she see the rivers and highways and interchanges? But I see how it could look like a brain, like if all roads were twisted neurons, pulling your emotions from one place to another, bringing the city to life. A working brain is probably a lot like a map, where anybody can get from one place to another on the freeways. It’s the nonworking brains that get blocked, that have dead ends, that are under construction like mine.

“Yeah,” I say, nodding up at her. “Yeah. That’s exactly what it is. It’s a brain.” And I stop my map in the middle—this was always a problem for me, finishing the damn things; I always ran out of energy before I got to the edge of the page—and draw a head around it. I put a nose and two paired indentations for lips and a neck running down. I draw the head so that right where the brain would be is this blob of city street map. I make a traffic circle the eye and bring down boulevards to lead to the mouth, and Ebony giggles above me, taps her cane.

“It’s so pretty!”

“It’s all right,” I say, looking down. I decide it’s done. I can do better. I put my initials in the bottom—CG, like “computer-generated”—and put the picture aside. I ask for more paper and start the next one.

It’s easy. It’s easy and pretty and I can do it. I can make these things forever. For the rest of arts and crafts, I make five.

I get so concentrated that I don’t even notice when Noelle leaves. I only find her note, sitting next to me, decorated with a flower, as I gather up my things from the room.

I’M TAKING A BREAK FROM YOU. CAN’T GET TOO ATTACHED. THE NEXT MEETING WILL BE TUESDAY, SAME TIME AND PLACE. DON’T BE WORRIED THAT IT’S SUCH A LONG WAIT. I THINK YOU’RE LOVELY.

I fold the note and put it in my pocket next to the other one. After arts and crafts is dinner, where Humble tells me he forgives me for getting him in trouble, and I thank him, and after dinner is cards with Armelio, who tells me that now that I’ve gotten a little experience under my belt, I might be ready for the big card tournament they’re having tomorrow night.

“Do you play with real money?” I ask.

“Nope, buddy! We play with buttons!”

I hang outside the lounge during cigarette break—I basically just follow the group; wherever they go, I go—and talk with Bobby about my day. Then I go into my room with my map/brain art. My bed hasn’t been made during the day—they don’t pamper you in Six North—but the pillow has returned to its normal shape, no longer dented in by my sweaty head, and when I lie down it lets out air in the most slow, soothing hiss I’ve ever heard.

“You are feeling better?” Muqtada asks.

“Quite a bit,” I say. “You’ve really got to get out of the room more, Muqtada. There’s a whole world out there.”

“I pray every day that someday I will get better like you.”

“I’m not that much better, man.”

But I’m good enough to sleep. No shot necessary.