Chapter 1

 

I WOKE UP on a cot-sized bed in a small room that smelled of disinfectant and pee. The sagging bed across from mine was stripped and empty. Dingy blue curtains with ridiculous white flowers hung limp over a window. The curtains tried their best to hide the bars on the window and somehow make the room cheery, but they failed miserably. Memories of how I got here kept surfacing. I tried to pull the soft blanket of denial over my brain, but the blanket that I had stitched to drown out my reality kept slipping off and panic would slam into me like gusts of a cold wind.

I lay on the bed for a long time, both trying to remember how I got here, and then trying to forget how I got here.

A nurse pushed through my door without knocking. She carried a plastic bag labeled Personal Belongings in one hand and balanced a tray with thick oatmeal, a carton of milk, a box of apple juice, and a tiny packet of white sugar with the other.

“Time to get up.” She adjusted her too-tight pink scrubs as she bent to set down the tray on the small table between my bed and the empty one next to it. “We let you sleep in this morning, but after today you’ll need to be up and at breakfast by eight. I’m nurse Lyndsay and you’ll be seeing me on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings.” She sounded as if she were reading from a script. Her mousy blond hair hung in a thin braid that flapped around each time she turned her head.

“This will be the last meal you take in your room. After this you will eat in the dining room with the other patients. We’ll issue you a toothbrush and other necessary toiletries this afternoon. If you’re in need of any feminine hygiene products, you may request them at the nurse’s station.” Flip went her braid.

Feminine hygiene products? I put my hand on my melon belly and rolled my eyes at her.

She raised one eyebrow as she glanced at my belly and then looked up at me. Neither of us spoke a word, but that moment of silent communication told me everything I needed to know about this place. She dropped the bag at the foot of the bed and was gone.

The lumpy oatmeal got stuck in my throat, but I forced myself to eat it—for the kid. I drank down the juice box like a deprived preschooler and fell back onto the bed.

The nurse returned. “Why aren’t you dressed? You need to get dressed and go to the day room. Your sleeping rooms are off limits during the day and don’t go trying to sneak back in. Understand?”

I stared at her. She turned and disappeared down the hall again.

I opened the bag and pulled out the clothes that I had been wearing yesterday when Mom abandoned me here. My Doc Martens and belt were missing, probably because they thought I would hang myself with my shoelaces or strangle myself with my belt. The thing was I wore all my clothes loose so my cargo pants didn’t stay up without a belt and with my belly getting bigger they really didn’t stay on without a belt tight around my hips.

I tugged on my brown cargos, considered the threadbare sports bra, and decided I had better wear it. My boobs had gone from kumquats to grapefruits almost overnight. I fished out the stained My Gay Banjo concert shirtthat Mom had given me last Christmas saying, How could I not? You are my gay Banjo after all. I suppose this shirt erased any chance of me staying closeted in this rat hole. I ran my fingers through my choppy hair, took a deep breath, and headed out into the “ward” with my shoulders slumped and my feet not quite wanting to work right. I wondered if that was because of the shot they gave me.

Thinking about the shot caused fear to tear through my body. My baby. They shot me full of drugs and what if it hurt my baby? What if it killed my baby? What if the baby was dead inside of me right now? When that panic hit I knew that I loved the baby and I felt closer to actually keeping her. But what if she was already dead like her other parent? Or maybe the baby’s brain was being turned into soup. Being a sixteen-year-old queer mama with a dead girl/boyfriend was pretty rad, but it would be even more fantastic if I had a messed-up kid to add to that mix of such a promising future.

I stumbled into the day room looking like a real live crazy person with my pants falling off my hips and my feet shuffling like an old lady. I felt groggy. The day room welcomed me with an aroma of yeasty feet and underarms. The room was large with tables here and there for playing cards or doing puzzles. The puzzles and games were stacked unevenly on a tall shelf bolted to the wall. There were a few ragged couches, an old-school TV mounted high up on one corner, and bright colored rugs on the floor to try to distract from the dingy blue walls and mismatched furniture.

The nurse informed me that they were setting up an appointment with the psychiatrist and I would be seeing him or her by the end of the day. “Art therapy is in an hour, lunch at noon, group therapy at two, dinner is at six. All are required. Until then you’re free to do as you please.”

Of course that was ridiculous because if that were true I would be at home or at the very least back in my “sleeping room” crashed out. Freedom was a matter of circumstance, I supposed.

I nodded and the nurse wandered off. There were about twenty teenagers scattered around the room. Most looked pretty much like me: some had piercings, some had different colored hair, a few had bandages on their wrists or crisscrossed scars on their arms. Only a couple actually looked crazy, most just looked like misfits that ended up here by accident. A few kids looked up from their games and conversations as I shuffled into the room, but nobody seemed to pay much attention to my entrance.

You heard stories about mental wards and how there were people pacing and screaming, but it wasn’t like that here. Maybe because it was the mental ward and not a full-blown mental hospital, or maybe because it was the juvenile ward and maybe the kids weren’t really crazy, maybe they were just tired like me. Maybe all crazy people were actually just people who got tired of how hard life was.

I made my way over to a faded plaid couch with beaded up fabric and curled up in a ball, facing away from the room. I put my face into the back of the couch, but instantly retreated when I smelled vomit. I wrapped my arms around my face and tried to shut down my brain.

“Who are you?” I heard from behind me. I ignored the voice. “Hey, who are you? What’s your name? Why are you here?”

I continued to ignore her, but she poked me in the back.

“C’mon, who the hell are you?”

I let out a loud sigh to let her know I was annoyed as I turned my head to look at her. I didn’t need this.

“What’s your name? Don’t give me that catatonic bullshit, I know you can hear me. What’s your name?”

I have no idea why I answered her. “I’m Banjo.”

“Banjo? What the hell kind of ridiculous name is that? Banjo?” She rolled her eyes at me.

I turned away from her and curled back into the matted couch, trying not to breathe in the vomit stench. I willed her to disappear. I was not in the mood for crazy people. I had enough of them at home.

“I’m Prunella.”

“Prunella?” I turned back around and sat up. For the first time in a very long time I felt something other than muted darkness. Was this chick joking me? “You make fun of my name and you go by Prunella?” The blanket was slipping to the floor of my brain. 

“Well actually, Banjo,” she said my name with a fake Southern accent, “my name’s Prudence, but I goddamn hate that name and I hate my parents so I renamed myself the worst name I could think of. It makes my mom cry when I introduce myself as Prunella unless, of course, she’s drunk and then it makes her furious. She’s furious a whole hell of a lot more than she’s dripping tears. But when Janice, otherwise known as Mom, is not around I just go by Pru . . . and I do like that name, so you can call me Pru.”

The words were spilling out of her mouth so fast that I was almost in awe.

“My parents sent me here because I keep slicing up my arms and being disrespectful and because I’m a big, fat homosexual and that freaks them right out the door.” When she said fat she grabbed her butt with both hands. “They convinced my whack-job psychiatrist that I was going to kill myself which, for the record, I was not going to do. I just like to cut my arms sometimes—not even that much actually—but apparently cutting your arms is a gateway to slicing your wrists, or so the overeducated, whack-job psychiatrist says. A harm to herself or others,” she said in a deep voice. “Check out my arms? Aren’t they beautiful? I love scars.”

She was right, they were beautiful.

I stared at her. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I looked around. For a minute, I thought that maybe this was a trick. Maybe this girl was part of the staff and they were just trying to get me to talk, but then I looked at her arms again and decided I was being paranoid. Realizing that I was being paranoid made me feel calmer because that must mean I wasn’t totally nuts. I had self-awareness, as my mom would say. Pru’s arms were zigzagged and crisscrossed with thin, pink raised lines that stood out on her dark skin. They reminded me of Gray’s arms and I felt my throat close up a little bit.

I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to feel yet.

“I’m adopted. My parents are whiter than you. All white and blond with perfect white people tans that come with a free side of skin cancer, all for just one easy payment of thirty dollars a month. They wanted a poor, black baby to make them feel like good white liberals, so they adopted me from Ethiopia when I was six, though they thought I was four. Long story.

“Anyway, I’m pissed off that I don’t really have an accent any longer. I think an Ethiopian accent would be rad. I used to try to fake an accent, but I sucked at it. I’m a big pain in their ass now and the whole gay thing bugs the hell out of them even though they pretend that it doesn’t when they’re around their hip friends. I mean, what could be cooler than a queer, black kid when you’re trying to be a progressive hipster, but really it freaks them right out the door. And to top it off I’m a chubby chubster of an Ethiopian and, oh my God, they hate that. So they stuck me here hoping that I’d get straightened out.” She laughed. “Get it? Straightened out?

“I get out in two or three days,” she went on. “My insurance only covers a four-day stay. What about you? What’s your story? When do you get out of this nut house?”

I felt myself smiling. I realized that I hadn’t smiled since Gray was alive. It felt good. First anger and now a smile. Weird. My blanket was gone. I wondered if it was the shot that was making me feel or if it was this strange girl.

Maybe both.

“Three-day observation . . . I think. Um, I’m not really sure actually.”

It occurred to me just then that I didn’t know how long I would be stuck in here and I felt that familiar feeling of my chest closing in on me. A three-day stay was the standard according to my mom, especially if you didn’t have insurance. We didn’t have insurance the time my sister got locked up, or rather the times my sister got locked up. She got put away twice. Mom fought like hell to get my sister out after the cops drug her in. Even if they had wanted to keep Sam longer than three days they weren’t willing to deal with my mom. We had Obamacare now, so that might mean they could keep me much longer than three days and I was a little afraid that Mom wouldn’t fight for me like she fought for my sister. I felt the panic seeping in again.

“Well, let me give you some advice. This place is just a holding tank. Do whatever you have to do to get out of here in a few days. If you end up having to stay for more than six days they send you to Stranton. There’s no school here, so they can’t keep us any longer than that without violating our right to an education.”She said this last part in a terrible English accent. “If you think this place sucks you should see Stranton. It’s a full blown looney bin. I was there once and, trust me, that ain’t gonna happen again.”

She took a breath. “So do your parents suck too? They ditch you here so they could have a few days off?”

“No. I just sort of freaked out and my mom got scared.” Thinking about my mom made me want to cry. I could feel my face get hot. It was my job to take care of my mom, not make things even harder. I was the good kid. “My dad ditched us years ago.”

“Whoa, don’t cry. Okay? Seriously, don’t cry. Does your mom have a lame-ass boyfriend? Is that why you freaked out? Does he try to get it on with you?”

“My mom’s gay.”

“Serious?”

“Yeah. She’s cool. I’m a lesbian too, or actually queer.”

“No shit you’re queer. You sort of gave it away with your My Gay Banjo shirt. Is that why you’re named Banjo? Are you like a groupie or something?”

I didn’t have any words for her.

“Silent again, eh? Whatever. Anyway, straight girls do not look like you. Hate to tell you that. And c’mon, why the hell do you think I’m talking to you? We homos gotta stick together. Plus, you’re sorta cute. I mean your hair’s a mess and your style could use some help, but you’re not so bad. By the way, I hate the word lesbian. It’s so old school. I like queer just like you. See we have something in common,” she said without taking a single breath.

I felt a smile come over me. “My mom calls herself a queer. She says lesbians have bad shoes and bad hair and closed minds and terrible taste in music, so she won’t claim the title, but I still think she’s a total lesbian. I mean we have a poster of Ani Difranco in our living room.”

“Lezzz beee an!” Pru yelled.

“And she drives a Subaru.”

“Oh. My. God. I love your mom. Do you think she would adopt me? I mean I’m familiar with the adoption gig. I could walk her through it. Would she like a crazy, fat, queer, black kid? So what kind of music do you like? Wanna listen to music?” As she said that, she pulled a tiny, green iPod out her pocket.

“How did you get that in here? I thought we weren’t allowed stuff like that in here?”

“Ah my dear little Banjo, so much to learn, so much to learn. I knew my jackhole parents were bringing me here so I crammed it in my vag before they hauled me in. I will not live without my music.” She must have seen the look on my face because she quickly added, “Oh don’t worry, I put it in a plastic bag first. I didn’t want to pull the damn thing out and then have to stick it in a bag or rice for days. Try getting a bag of rice in this hell hole.” She grinned at me. “You can touch it and not get my vag germs on your tender dyke fingers.” She winked and sat down next to me. “We gotta keep it under wraps though. They don’t like the crazies having fun in this place.

“And by the way, if you’re into top forty bullshit music, or mindless heavy metal, or God forbid, country then just move along. Nothing pisses me off more than crappy music. And for the love of all that is holy please do not tell me that you like lesbian-hippie-folk music. Just keep that your own dirty little secret, mkay?”

She closed her eyes and put her hand over her heart. “Come to my window, I don’t know the rest of the words, but your unironic, lesbian mullet looks great under the moon,” she sang in mock passion.

I smiled again. I didn’t want to like her, but I did. She stuffed the iPod back into her pocket, pulled the headphone up through her Black Lives Matter t-shirt, and stuck one earbud in my ear and the other in hers. We sat there with our bodies barely touching; the music flooding my ears. I hadn’t listened to music since Gray died. It was a Death Cab for Cutie song—the one about following the person you love into the dark after they die—and the minute the words hit my ears all the fear and sadness that I had been working so hard to ignore overtook me. The tears broke loose again. I punched at the tears. Stop being such a dramatic idiot. But I couldn’t stop the thoughts and my quiet sobs turned to hiccups. I hated letting this girl see me like this.

“Oh wow, I’m sorry,” she whispered. “You’re actually here for a reason, not just because your mom sucks, huh?” She smoothed my wild hair, looking around nervously. “Shhh, Banjo, shhhh. Don’t let them see you like this. It’s okay. Please stop crying. Do you want me to change the music? Something happier? It’s okay if you like top forty bullshit music. I even have some on here. Some Bruno Mars? I have a secret crush on little Bruno. I bet he’s gay.”

She barely got one word out of her mouth before another one spilled out.

“And,” she looked around dramatically, leaned in close, and whispered, “I love Celine Dion.” Her breath smelled like bubble gum toothpaste. “Don’t you ever tell anyone that. I mean it. But seriously, should I change the music?”

I shook my head. “No, I love Death Cab. This song . . . it . . . it just reminds me of . . .”

A sob swallowed my words. I rubbed my belly, hoping the kid would kick me. She was finally big enough that I could feel the fluttering kicks and I loved it when she kicked. I hoped she wasn’t dead or somehow messed, but even if she was I knew that I would still love her. I knew the kid was a girl. I knew that my friend or girlfriend or boyfriend whatever Gray was to me had given me a girl. In that moment I knew without a doubt that I was keeping this baby, maybe I wouldn’t know that in the next moment, but right now I knew.

“A baby, huh? Your chub is actually a baby?” Pru asked as she touched my belly for just a second before jerking her hand away. The last time someone other than my mom or my sister or my sister’s kid, Henry, had touched me was the night when Gray died. The night we made this baby. That night seemed like yesterday and it seemed like a thousand years ago. Time got all jacked up when people died.

Pru slid her hand over mine. Her hands were so much bigger than Gray’s were. Pru’s hands were solid and thick, where Gray’s had been so tiny and fragile. I looked at her dark hand on my pale, veiny one. She glanced around the room again and then scooted her body away from me. The ear bud fell from my ear. She pulled hers out as well and crammed them back in her pocket.

“Look,” she whispered. “Gotta be careful around here. Touching isn’t allowed. They freak out if the inmates form attachments.”

Her eyes were still searching the room for staff members. “So how’d you get knocked up? I mean, damn it. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you that. That’s probably why you’re here. Damn me. I’m sorry. I have a big mouth. It’s none of my business. I hate myself sometimes . . .” Pru pounded herself on the forehead.

“Pru, it’s okay. Stop. Seriously it’s okay.” The tears were still running down my face, but I felt calmer. Thank God the hiccupping had stopped. “I’m not here because I’m pregnant or because of the way I got pregnant, or maybe I am. I really don’t even know why I’m here. To be honest with you I really don’t know anything anymore.”