I read the letter again three times on the bus.
The guitars are like a ringing in my ears, loud, constant, but when I’m not thinking about them, I forget. Until I remember and then they’re loud again.
My voice hasn’t said anything since I yelled at her and now I have questions.
HEY! I try, but I can tell: She’s not with me.
Dig out the drain under your brain.
I’m not sure what she means, but I close my eyes and search hard for her. At first I don’t know what I’m looking for, but when I go really still I get a feeling like there’s a way through the bottom of my brain, that there’s a world underneath. There’s a barrier between me and it, a membrane. I can feel myself bouncing against it, searching it for a way in.
There’s a hole, small, a drain. A drain in my brain. It’s dream-clear to me—not something I can see, but something I know is there—a feeling of a picture—the idea of something solid and real.
And there’s something down there, under the drain.
The bus shifts as we get off the freeway, and I open my eyes, feeling alone.
I read about people who went off their medication because they missed the company of their voices and hallucinations; they said it was easier to think without the drugs. I thought that was ridiculous, but now I’m beginning to get it. Once you’ve had people in your head, when they’re gone it feels like your house after a party—messy and empty and lonely.
I get off the bus at the Cal State LA Station and walk up to campus. Julio’s school is on the college campus and his school friends eat in the student union every day, so I stand by the union door like an idiot and wait for him. When he sees me he raises his eyebrows.
“Plugzie?”
“I need to talk to you.”
He nods, puts his arm around me. “What’s up?”
“I think I’m going crazy and I’m freaking out.” My eyes start to burn. Stupid. I blot them with the back of my hand and hold my lips tight to keep from making noises.
He pulls me around the corner to a small set of empty tables. “Talk to me.”
I clear my throat and start to talk. I begin with the guitars that have been happening since Monday. I tell him about the Skywriting Voice on the stairs and my freak-out, and I keep going through the letter this morning. I show him the letter and he reads it.
I show him the picture. He looks at it, then at me. “That’s you?”
“Yeah, but I don’t even know that girl and I’ve never been there.”
He puts his hand on my leg, squeezes it. It’s weird having him do it because we don’t ever touch each other, but the rules have changed and I don’t want him to stop.
“Listen, man, I got to get my food or I’m not going to eat. Have you eaten?”
I shake my head. I can’t even think about food right now.
He pulls his hand from my knee. “Give me a minute.” He’s around the corner before I can ask him not to leave.
When he gets back I don’t notice until he says my name because I’m deep in my own head, trying to get down the drain. When I get really still and I picture myself folding inward like a flower in reverse, it feels like maybe I can slip down the drainpipe, but something’s stopping me.
I think my Voice is down there.
When I come back up to the surface, Julio’s looking at me and holding a burrito encouragingly.
I take it to be polite. “Thanks.”
We sit and talk about other things while we eat. I realize how hungry I am and it’s all I can do to keep from shoving the whole burrito in my mouth at once. Being with Beems, having him listen and just be normal with me makes me feel better than I’ve felt since it all started.
He’s telling me about some drama at his school when I happen to look over his shoulder.
My dad is crossing the quad toward the student union.
He’s bent forward, walking like an old man walks, but there’s no doubt it’s him. Beems sees my expression change and looks where I’m looking.
“You need help, man,” he says softly.
“You called my parents.” It comes out like a screech. I back off the bench and stumble into the bushes behind me.
“You’re scarin’ me. You tell me you’re hearing things and that there’s some invisible mind-voice telling you what to do—you need help.”
“But the letter.” I wave it at him.
“You wrote it, man!”
He thinks I faked it. I thought I’d faked it, too. Right up until the moment Julio did exactly what it said he would do.
It all falls apart in my head. I don’t have any proof of anything. I have a letter I wrote and an envelope that I filled out. I have a bus ticket I could have bought myself.
But the letter told the truth, and for the first time I begin to think that maybe I’m not going crazy. I think hard for something that I can use to prove that it’s all real. “The picture of me!” I shout at Beems. “I didn’t do that!”
He shrugs and shakes his head in reply. “I don’t know what you did or didn’t do, man, but you need help.”
My dad is closing in. I see him through the glass in the doors. He looks small and old, his face creased up like a paper ball.
For a moment I’m nearly overwhelmed with a need to tell my dad I’m sorry, but it passes and I need to get away.
“Fuck you, Beems.” I push backward through the bushes and out onto the walkway that leads up to the gate on the side of the university. Julio and my dad are shouting and running after me, but I’ve always been faster than Julio, and my dad is out of shape.
It doesn’t take long before I can’t hear them anymore, but I keep running anyway, out the gate and up the street. My denim jacket is heavy, stiff and hot. Sweat sticks my shirt and backpack to my spine. My jeans chafe against my legs, but I can’t stop. I end up on the far side of Lincoln Heights when I just can’t go any farther and fall against a retaining wall. My heart feels like it’s going to break my ribs and I’ve got a thirst like I’ve never had before.
I pull out my screen to check the time. Both my parents have blown up my pod and so has my tía. I have a dozen missed calls and a half dozen messages from each of them. My dad tells me that he’s sorry and that he loves me. My mom’s long messages are filled with crying, and my auntie just keeps saying to call her. I stop them because I can’t listen without crying.
I pull my pod from my ear and disable my screen. I can’t stay here, so I start over the hill.
I want to steer clear of main streets, but I don’t know the neighborhood. I don’t know who’s likely to mess with me or which blocks are bad, but at this point I don’t really care. Getting taken in an Incursion or killed by some Lincoln Heights bangers couldn’t make my day any worse. I begin to fantasize about getting shot.
I picture my funeral as I walk. My mom’s crying and my dad’s swimming in pain. My auntie keeps moaning about me and her Alex and that she doesn’t have anything left to live for. I picture Julio, too, sitting there silently, wishing he hadn’t called my parents, thinking that maybe I’d still be alive if he hadn’t.
Fuck Julio.
I spend the rest of the walk thinking about all the things that won’t happen anymore if I’m crazy and put in a psych ward. My mom took me to Vegas once, just me, when I was young, before Pete died. It was amazing because we went up to the top of the Stratosphere and rode the roller coaster and went to a show with wild acrobats and clowns that blew my eight-year-old mind.
Never again for crazy me.
By the time I make it to Union Station, it’s full dark. I’m hungry again and I’ve got a heat rash on the inside of my legs that burns with each step.
I catch the bus at Hill Street and collapse in the air-conditioning, able to close my eyes for the first time since running away. I try the folding-in thing again. I picture my mind like a piece of flat paper and begin to pull the edges in toward the center, which opens up. I can feel myself beginning to drop down the drain, pulling the paper surface of my mind in over me like a security blanket.
The opening is too small, though. I can’t get through, but I can feel my voice on the other side.
The bus jolts to a sudden stop, throwing me against the seat in front of me. Pain. I’ve hit my head hard on the plastic frame of the seat and I’m back in reality.
I’ve ridden beyond the stop near Mousie’s place and I’m going to have to walk back.
I pull the cord.