Chapter 2

 

I met with the staff psychiatrist just before lunch. He was about thirty-five and wore new skinny jeans, a tight, plaid button down, and an anatomically correct heart on a chain around his neck. It was hard not to roll my eyes. An invisible cloud of expensive cologne fumes clung to him. I guess he didn’t get the memo that chemical sensitivity was sort of a thing these days.

“So you’re Amanda,” he said in a hyperactive voice as he stood and leaned forward to shake my hand. His dry, smooth hands announced the fact that he hired other people to mow his lawn and scrub his toilets.

His office was painted a muted green, the walls speckled with diplomas and glossy pictures of—what I assumed was—his wife and kids. They all had perfect shiny smiles and the same perfect chestnut hair as the perfect psychiatrist. I wonder if it ever occurred to him that seeing all of these pictures of his perfect, shiny family doing perfect, shiny family things like posing on the beach in Hawaii or posing in their expensive ski gear on some perfect snowy mountain might make the residents of the juvenile psych ward feel like total shit. Although now that I thought about it, being his child might have been its own special hell and I bet his kids weren’t allowed to go crazy. He probably put Prozac in their sippy cups just to be safe.

He sat back down behind his polished wood desk that seemed to take up half the room. I bet the desk cost more than everything in the entire ward.

I hated him.

“Have a seat,” he said, motioning me to one of the cushy chairs in front of his desk. “I’m Doctor Jack Malone, but you can just call me Doctor Jack. And what about you, do you like to be called Amanda? Or maybe Mandy?”

“Banjo.”

“Um, okay, Banjo it is.” He smiled his perfect white toothed smile. “So, Banjo, it says here that you were thinking about killing yourself. That’s some pretty serious business.” He took off his glasses and set them on the desk as he leaned closer.

It all felt staged. Like the psychiatrist handbook states, when asking the patient about suicidal ideation always remember to remove your glasses and lean in with a look of compassionate concentration. Be sure to make eye contact and maybe touch your anatomically correct heart pennant in an effort to subtly remind them that you’re a caring guy who’s on their team.

“I didn’t want to kill myself. I never said I wanted to kill myself. I just didn’t feel like talking. I still don’t feel like talking.”

“Well, okay. But now, how are we going to help you get better if you won’t talk to me? I’m on your side, Banjo. I know what it’s like to be your age. It’s some tough stuff. It can be pretty scary, huh? Now I hear that your boyfriend committed suicide back in . . .” He put his glasses back on and flipped through the three pages of notes he had. “Back in November. Can you tell me about that? I bet that was really hard.”

And I swore to all that was holy, he fingered his stupid heart necklace.

“My friend was genderqueer.”

“Well now, it says here that he was your boyfriend and that you may be pregnant by him. Is that not the case?”

“My friend didn’t use the male pronoun. They used they or sometimes she. I didn’t try to kill myself. Now can I please go back to my room?”

I seriously hated this guy.

“Banjo, are you pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“By your friend who committed suicide?”

Heat overtook my body. My hands curled into fists and I could feel my nails digging into my palms.

“Do you identify as a lesbian?”

“I’m queer.”

“Okay, queer.” He paused and wrote something down on his notepad with his fancy silver pen. “That’s fine. I can live with that. And you’re pregnant. Can you tell me about this?”

I forced myself to relax my hands. I didn’t want him noticing me stabbing my palms with my nails. I picked at the dirt under my nails instead.

He sighed and stared at me for a minute. Then he smiled an exasperated smile. “Okay, Banjo, so let’s talk about something else for a bit. Is that okay with you? I noticed that you have some marks on your arms. Some look pretty danged raw. Can you tell me about that?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Banjo, I’m here to help you. Can you tell me a little bit about why you cut?”

I wanted to scream, I cut because of jerks like you! You! You are why I cut! I cut because the world sucks and people suck and some little kids, like Gray, are born into this world without a goddamn chance in hell, but jerks like you just want to figure out what’s wrong with them instead of giving them a goddamn hug or something.

He didn’t have a clue. I could tell him why I cut, but it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. It wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t bring Gray back and it wouldn’t make my need to cut go away. It wouldn’t change the past and it wouldn’t change the future.

I could tell Doctor Jack that I cut because sometimes the sad of the world was just too much for me and cutting was a pretty effective way of easing that sadness. I could tell him that I cut because I hated Gray’s dad. I blamed him for everything. I blamed him for my pregnancy. I blamed him for Gray being dead. I blamed him for the screwed up mess that was my current life.

I had never met him, had never talked to him on the phone, never even seen so much as a tattered, old photograph of him, but I hated him. I hated him with such intensity that sometimes it kept me awake at night. Some nights when I thought about Gray’s dad the rage built up in me like a tornado threatening to destroy everything. The hate became so violent that I had to take the razor blade out of my drawer and slice it out of me. Thinking about Gray’s dad was the only thing that cured the sadness because I hated him so much that when I thought about him all I could feel was poisonous rage and rage was almost always better than sad.

Gray’s dad left deep scars on them that nobody could see, but he also left the scars you could see. The scars on Gray’s arms were from when they would cut the pain of him out of them. Like how now I cut the rage at him out of me. He killed Gray and I will never forgive him for that. He killed Gray’s mom too. It took years for him to kill Gray’s mom, but he did it. It took even longer for him to kill Gray, but he did.

The scars on my arms were a tribute to Gray and to their mom. They said, I haven’t forgotten you. They said, I can’t save you, but I can carve your pain into my arms and release it and maybe that will free you somehow. Dramatic? Maybe, but I didn’t care.

I glared at Doctor Jack. What the hell was I supposed to say to this idiot? I cut for Gray. I cut for their mom. And I also cut for a lot of other reason too. I mean, I’m not going to pretend that I just cut for my dead friend, but sometimes, most of the time now, I do and sometime I do it because I’m afraid that if I don’t I might ruin this kid inside of me; that the rage that I carry against her grandfather might damage her. I worry that she can feel my hate and that it might infect her brain somehow, and so I cut it out. I cut it out and with each slice I imagine that I’m releasing Gray of a little of their pain too.

There was no way this shiny guy with his shiny teeth would ever get it.

“Amanda, can . . .”

“My name is Banjo.’

“Yes, of course. Banjo, I’m here to help you. I’m not your enemy, I’m your friend, but I can’t help you if you just sit there picking at your nails. Would you like to tell me about the boy that died?”

“Gray was not a boy,” I hissed. “I told you before that they were genderqueer.”

Doctor Jack fidgeted with his pen, tapped it twice on his notepad, let out a deep sigh, and smiled. “Okay, I’m sorry. This might take a little getting used to for me, so please forgive my mistakes, but for now how about you tell me a little about this boy . . . er this friend of yours, okay?”

I closed my eyes and found myself falling back in time to the night that Gray told me about their dad. It was one of those nights when we were just hanging out at their apartment, eating junk food and drinking pot after pot of coffee.

We sat on their lumpy bed. Gray leaned against the grimy wall with their hand resting on my knee as I carefully smoothed brilliant blue polish onto their nails.

“When I was little I spent a lot of time wanting to be a girl,” Gray said as they concentrated on the tiny brush in my hand. “I would beg Mom to buy me dresses and paint my nails with glitter polish, like you’re doing right now. When Mom and I were alone together she would fix my hair, and let me wear dresses, and sometimes she would even let me glob on makeup, but I was never allowed to do my nails. That was too permanent and risky.”

Gray took a deep breath. “Man, it’s hard to remember those times. She would pick me up and hold me to her, singing Patti Smith songs into my ear as she danced me through the house. I swear, Banjo, those were the best memories of my life.”

I nodded.

“Mom always made sure my face was scrubbed clean and I was back in my monster truck shirt and torn-up jeans before my dad got home though. No matter how many times we went through the same routine I always cried when it was time to change into my boy clothes, but even as a kindergartener I understood why I had to do it.”

Gray pulled their hand away from me and leaned over to grab their lukewarm coffee off of the nightstand, being careful not to smudge the wet polish. They took a long drink before settling back against the wall and replacing their half-painted hand on my knee. “My hair was my pride and joy. I had long hair back then. Long and beautiful and I would spend hours brushing it when my dad was at work. Dad allowed the long hair because Ted Nugent had long hair and Ted Nugent was this hero.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Oh, some asshole racist hillbilly rock star from back in the day.”

“Oh okay, never heard of him,” I said.

“This one day my mom and I were twirling through the house with the music up loud, singing until our throats hurt. We didn’t hear my dad walk in. It wasn’t even noon yet and he wasn’t supposed to be home for like five more hours or something. I was wearing a dress that day—my favorite pink sundress with tiny gray roses on it. Mom kept my dresses hidden in the laundry room cupboard behind her cleaning rags and chemicals. Dad saw me, saw the dress, saw the pigtails and the dancing, and he exploded.” Gray swallowed hard.

“He threw down his lunch pail, grabbed the CD player, and smashed it on the floor. Mom and I froze. I don’t think either of us actually could understand what was happening at first, but it didn’t take long to sink in. I remember realizing for the very first time that my dad might kill us both, probably would kill us both. I was five.”

As Gray spoke, I concentrated on their fingers, methodically smoothing thick blue polish with the tiny brush.

“Mom reached for me, but she was too late. Dad grabbed me by the hair and tore the dress from my tiny body. He yanked off my underwear. He kept screaming, you have a cock, you disgusting little faggot! You ain’t no girl! You’re a boy! What the hell is wrong with you? I can still remember how purple his face was, how the veins bulged out of his forehead. All these years later and his words are still as brilliant in my mind as the day he flung them at me. Mom ran to me, but Dad shoved her down screaming, you little bitch, you come near me again and I will kill your disgusting little faggot with my bare hands!

“He drug me into the kitchen by my hair. I was naked and sobbing and so damn scared.” Gray pulled their hand away, closed their eyes, and took long deep breaths.

“You okay?” I asked.

They nodded and then went on, keeping their eyes closed. “He grabbed a butcher knife and I knew at the moment that he was going to kill me, but instead he started sawing off my hair. I was sobbing and he was just screaming, you little faggot, you little faggot, over and over again. He hacked and sawed off all my hair. By the time he was done there was nothing but jagged tufts of fuzz left on my scalp. Mom came after him, but he spun around waving the knife in her face. He was screaming at her that it was all her fault, that she made me into a sissy faggot. I thought for sure he would kill her. He shoved her against the fridge and stormed out. Maybe it would have been better if he had just killed us both right then.”

I remember when Gray said that I couldn’t imagine how it would have been better if their dad had killed them at five, but now I sort of got it. I mean in the end, their dad ended up killing both Gray and their mom. I guess if he had just killed them that day they would have went together and wouldn’t have had to have all those additional years of abuse. I hated him so much.

I was sure if I told Doctor Jack all of this he would just check off a few more boxes and add a few more diagnosis and that would just get me ordered to take a few more pills and so I just stared at my feet. My socks were really dirty. I felt ashamed and exposed as I realized that Doctor Jack probably formed a whole lot of assumptions about me just based on my gross socks and my shabby clothes. Shiny people like him liked to feel sorry for grubby people like me.

Gray was grubby too. Their socks were always filthy and covered in wiry, black dog hair because their apartment was covered in wiry, black dog hair. When Gray died, I inherited their dog, Rags, and now my grubby socks showed the evidence of that.

“Banjo, can we talk about your cutting?”

I shrugged.

Maybe I should tell him that I started cutting because I thought Gray’s cutting scars were beautiful. I used to like to trace my fingers over them and feel the pale pink, bubbly skin. I loved the way they looked, the way they felt under my fingers, and I loved how they were sort of a silent fuck you to the world.

I still remember the first time I dragged a razor across my arm and the sweet feeling or release and power that flowed through me as the skin split open.

There was this image of the dramatic cutter going into their room and lighting a bunch of candles and putting on emo music and sobbing as they sliced their arms. People liked to frame it as this romantic and beautiful thing, but it wasn’t like that at all, at least not for me. It was more like frantically needing a cigarette or something.

Back in the day when my dad still lived with us, if he got even slightly stressed out he couldn’t seem to go more than ten minutes without needing to go have a cigarette. Sometimes I wondered if my dad didn’t smoke if he actually might have spent time with us instead of always being out on the front porch with his smokes and his Coors Light. So having witnessed my dad, I think needing to cut was sort of like having a nic fit.

When things in my brain got too far out of control I turned to cutting the way my dad turned to cigarettes and cheap beer. I locked my bedroom door, grabbed the razor blade from under my stash of candy in my top nightstand drawer, and put a lighter to it or held it over one of my many candles.

Maybe I should tell Doctor Jack that. Maybe I should tell him how I liked the blades to be real hot when I cut into my skin; how I loved the way the blade sort of seared my skin like a steak in a fry pan before it broke through to the blood, and how as soon as I felt my skin sear my mind melted into calm. I could say, Hey Doctor Jack, cutting for me is sort of like having an infected finger and it hurts so much you think you are going to die and then you jab it with a needle which hurts so bad you almost throw up, but then the puss runs out and suddenly it’s like the best feeling in the world—so good that you almost want your finger to get infected all over again just so you can stick that needle in one more time.

Cutting is like that only instead of pus oozing out of you it’s that acid feeling that sits in your guts and reminds you just how terrible the world really is. After I cut the world always seems to be a little easier to live in.

I wonder what Doctor Jack would have to say about that? He would probably say that Gray got their mental illness from their mom and I got mine from my mom. Things like that run in the family, he would say. But he wouldn’t be doing that because I didn’t plan to tell him a thing. I knew how it worked, as soon as my insurance ran out I was free, so I just had to bide my time.

Doctor Jack cleared his throat.

I forced myself not to look up.

“Banjo, let’s change the subject. Would you like to talk to me about your family? Tell me a little bit about yourself, your parents, your school?”

I studied my dingy socks.

I wondered if Mom would bring me some clean socks. I wondered if my mom would even come and see me. I was really afraid she won’t. I thought that maybe Mom had finally hit the breaking point. I felt hella guilty for not being able to hold it together, but I never expected her to bring me to the hospital. She was completely anti-hospital, but I guessed after all she had been through with my sister going crazy and having to raise Sam’s kid, Henry, she just couldn’t take it any longer. It scared me. What if Mom ditched me here?

Back in the day when Sam would go crazy and my mom would be consumed with her, I would get stuck with Henry. I got really good at the art of distracting Henry with silly made-up games, fort building, and letting him eat his weight in soy ice cream until he passed out, oblivious to the drama down the hall.

Later when Mom and my sister finally emerged from the bedroom, their blotchy faces told the story of all the crying that had been going on. Sam would crawl into our fort and snuggle up to Henry all passed out with his ice cream face and kiss his sweaty head before she left.

After Sam was gone, Mom would hug me while crying and promising that soon things would be back to normal and how she would make it up to me some day. It always kind of felt like she was talking to herself more than she was talking to me.

I looked up to see Dr. A. staring at me. He let out a loud sigh. “So, Banjo, you’ve been pretty quiet. It seems like you were lost in thought, do you care to share with me?”

I shook my head.

“Do you hear voices? Were you just engaged with a voice? Just now, I mean?”

What was this guy even talking about?

“No.”

“You can tell me. I’m here to help you. I’m on your team.” With this, he flashed his look of compassionate concern.

“Do you ever see things that other people don’t see?”

I sighed.

“Look, you claim to be gay and you’re pregnant.” He was suddenly irritated. “You tried to kill yourself. You were involved with a boy who claimed to not be a boy. Don’t you think this is all a little ridiculous?”

I concentrated on my breathing.

“I’ve worked with girls like you before. This ain’t my first rodeo, Ms. Logan. Keep playing your little game and see where it gets you. You’ve wasted enough of my time today. You can go now, but take these.” He reached under his desk and pulled out another plastic bag marked Personal Belongings and pushed it towards me. “Your mom dropped these off for you this morning.”

My hands shook as I took the bag from his desk. Cold fear ran through my veins. Mom was here and didn’t come and see me? Was she not allowed to or did she choose not to? And what did he mean by girls like me?

I opened the bag. Clean clothes.

I barely made it out of his office before the tears broke loose.