forty-two

My mother was very excited the other day. She told me I may be able to get my diploma before Christmas if I keep doing the work I’ve been doing. It was good to see her happy. The poor thing has been through so much. I asked her about final exams and she said they won’t be necessary, I just have to keep completing the work she brings me every week. I am convinced my mother wrote the school a big check. Next year there will probably be a plaque on a desk somewhere in my school with my grandfather’s name on it.

Mom also brought some brochures for colleges (Boston College, Columbia, and Fordham). This took me by surprise. I hadn’t been thinking much about college. I’m not planning on going anytime soon and was hoping to take a year (maybe two) off, but she thinks it couldn’t hurt to start exploring options. I don’t know. Not sure what I want to do besides get the fuck out of here.

I turn eighteen soon and will be moved upstairs to the adult ward. My mother has hatched a plan, bless her heart. She is convinced that the head of security has a crush on her and she thinks she can enlist his help and get me out of here so we can celebrate my birthday someplace special. She whispered all this in my ear in view of the nurses and orderlies. She was holding me tight, pretending to hug me, but revealing her caper in detail.

She thinks she can get Mr. Ruffalo, the security chief, to leave the rear stairwell door unlocked for a ten-minute span right after lights-out on Friday. I would slip downstairs and out the emergency door where my mother would be waiting in a limousine. She would have packed a suitcase for me and we would go straight to the airport and fly to Italy to visit Rome and Naples. Two cities she’s always wanted to see. We’d tour the Vatican and the excavated city of Pompeii.

I didn’t want to burst her bubble but I reminded her that neither one of us had a passport and there was no way to leave the country without one. She suggested Miami as an alternative. I squeezed her tight and told her that if I escaped it would work against me and they would probably keep me here longer. And that it would be best to go to Miami or maybe even Italy after my release, which looks like it will be before the holidays.

I haven’t shaved since I’ve been here and I have a scraggly black beard. When I see myself in the mirror it doesn’t look like me. Not the me I remember as me. I look more like the man in the only postcard Veronica ever sent me. It was a self-portrait of Picasso as a young man. During his blue period, I think. She wrote on the back of it, Matt, you are so much more than you think you are, and so much less than me. Ha ha ha! Just kidding. Happy 17th. Veronica. P.S. If you grew a beard you might look like this. Think about it.

* * *

My best friend here is a girl named Nicole. She plays Bach and Brahms on the flute. They only allow her to play one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. The rest of the time they keep the flute locked up. God knows why a flute would need incarceration but those are the rules here at the Waldorf Hysteria.

When Nicole plays her face gets clear and quiet, like a serious child. But when she’s just hanging out she can be wicked and sarcastic in a very funny way. And she knows the filthiest jokes.

I think I might be in love.

I want to come clean. I really do. I have nothing left to hide.