CHAPTER 13

Sperm, Justin, and Choking on Pizza

In school and life, concentrating and staying on-task never ranked high on my skills list. My new medically-induced thinking ability changed that, and my focusing power amazed me. Unfortunately, when I wasn't working on homework or reading a book, my uncluttered mind enjoyed replaying my last conversation with my aunt Mildred. Over and over, I heard her disgusting words, 'Ella wanted to live in that hospital.' And with acute clarity, I pictured myself choking Mildred.

The weather on the Tuesday morning before Thanksgiving was unseasonably warm and comfortable enough for me to walk to campus. It presented the perfect opportunity to rehearse the speech I planned to deliver during Thanksgiving dinner. Sure, my common sense recognized that avoiding all conversations with her would be prudent, but not fun. Swallowing a pitcher of her own medicine could choke some nastiness out of her.

Already in the holiday spirit, my professors cut short their lectures, and a few assigned less homework than usual. I was home an hour earlier than I planned. With the increase in energy furnished by the miracle pill, I cooked myself a real dinner--chicken, rice, and frozen corn. As I sat in front of the TV eating, Stephanie called to tell me that she was ditching Mildred's dinner. Her boyfriend, of the week, invited her to Thanksgiving dinner at a swanky Long Island country club. She asked me to back up her lie, and tell Aunt Mildred she stayed in New York because of school work. If Mildred found out she chose a boyfriend over her--well, let's just say that, under certain circumstances, plucked turkeys could fly great distances.

Mildred functioned as the meddling, self-appointed family matriarch. Steph and I joked behind her back that our quality of life would dramatically improve if she had grandchildren of her own or a dog. According to Mildred, her lack of offspring resulted from Uncle Max's low sperm count. Of course, fertility clinics didn't exist when they were trying to conceive, so Aunt Mildred conjured up this diagnosis. She'd drone on and on about Max's alleged sperm issues with anyone willing to listen. Max stopped cringing over the subject years ago. Now he just nodded as if it was the truth.

Later that evening, I logged onto Facebook and saw this posting. "Ellwood for Thanksgiving. Look out, family, I'm coming home."

I stared at the screen, perplexed. Justin is coming to Ellwood for the holiday? I quickly typed on his wall, "Did you hit the lottery?"

Within fifteen minutes, I received an e-mail. Hey, Mags, no lottery. Your bro felt guilty for treating me like shit when we were kids. He sent me a ticket and a hundred dollars. Did I mention that I love the asshole? Can't wait to see everyone. Especially Mildred. She's going to shit bricks when I walk in. Mark said you can drive me to Ellwood. He and Amy are going up early Wednesday morning to visit your mom. Can you pick me up at the airport late Wednesday night?

The Times New Roman twelve point font on the screen smirked at me. Biting my bottom lip and drumming my fingers on the table, Justin and Mildred, together--better buy more wine. Finally, I typed. No problem, Justin. I'll be happy to pick you up. Send me the details and I'll meet you at baggage. Can't wait to see you.

I hit the send button with my right hand and reached for my phone with my left. My finger punched number three on speed dial.

My corporately indoctrinated brother answered the phone promptly on the first ring. The words were out of my mouth before he even finished his "Hello."

"Mark, I can't believe that you sent Justin a plane ticket. Why?"

"Our dinner conversation when you and Steph were here. I didn't treat Justin very well when we were kids. He always trailed around behind me, and I hated it. When he got a little older, I dismissed him as obnoxious and spoiled. After the mental health discussion, guilt got the better of me, so I bought him the ticket and invited him to spend the weekend with Amy and me."

"Mark, that is so sweet." I said.

"Not really, I'm doing it more to ease the guilt than a desire to spend time with him. I promise not to refer to him as a jerk, loser, degenerate, or any other derogatory word that occurs to me. From this day forward, I will only refer to him as Justin."

"Right, you'll call him an ass within the first hour. Mark, do you realize how high the explosion potential will be at that table?"

"No," he replied. His tone dripped with impatience--obviously an important game of some sort was on TV.

"Now there will be another person pushing for Aunt Mildred to come clean with the hidden relative stories."

"That's fine, Maggie, but don't hit too hard on the mental illness stuff. Let's get through the event with as little friction as possible. As Dad always said, 'Keep the peace.'"

His words pissed me off. "I don't understand you, Mark. Why? Why should I want to keep the peace? I've suffered alone for most of my life and lived in shame, believing I was incapable of controlling my own emotions. Don't you understand? If I had known about our family history, maybe I would have gotten help sooner, and Sam would still want to marry me.

"I accept I'll never be as mentally stable as you, but I don't have to torture myself with guilt anymore. It's better to be genetically defective than to live with the belief that I caused the episodes." My throat constricted, and my eyes misted. "Ella, what about her, Mark? Since our family dumped her in that awful place, can we show a little respect for her memory by clarifying that she didn't choose to live her life in an institution."

"Can't we respect her memory without upsetting Mildred?" he asked.

"Why? She's enjoyed torturing us for years," I responded.

"Maggie, you're doing this out of spite. That's not like you. You're the sweet one in the family."

I imagined him sitting in his leather recliner, remote control in left hand, phone in the right. In that position, he looked so much like my father. The image calmed me down a bit. "I don't know, Mark. I'm so confused. I started taking this new medicine, and it's unbelievable. I don't even have the words to explain it. Just trust me when I say that it's a miracle. But, in a way, it makes me angry, because if this is the way normal people feel every day, then I've been so ripped off. Everything is easier, everything is clearer. I want a life do-over, and that's impossible."

"Maggie, it's great the medicine is working. I'll never be able to comprehend the difference between you and 'normal' people, but hear my advice--relax, enjoy Thanksgiving dinner, and be thankful for the person who invented the drug."

"Ella didn't get the drug. Maybe George wouldn't have been a drunk if he had the drug."

"Maggie, both were born at the wrong time, and we can't change that," he replied.

I accepted the reality of his words. "It all really sucks, Mark. I wish I could have met Ella and talked to her. I would tell how sorry I am she had to waste her life that hospital."

"Maggie, your affinity toward this lost aunt is noble, but counterproductive. If you create controversy and upset Aunt Mildred, she'll give you the silent treatment for six months. The best way to learn anything about Ella and George is by using the sugar approach. Aunt Mildred really does have good intentions."

"Okay, I'll watch my tongue. However, I can make no guarantees for Justin, and if he starts something, I will back him up."

I pushed the end button on the phone, thinking about Mark's words, "Keep the peace." Did our family ever honestly have peace to keep? Tired, I closed my computer, locked the door, and went to bed.

***

Justin arrived at eleven-thirty Wednesday night, exactly forty-five minutes behind schedule. He looked fantastic, suntanned, streaked shaggy blond hair, clean clothes, and sober. As we walked to the parking lot, I noticed a few girls turning their heads.

When we reached my car, he climbed directly into the passenger side. There was no need to open the trunk. He brought a beat-up black gym bag and tossed it into the backseat. "Maggie, I promised your brother I would stay stone, cold sober all weekend--no booze, no weed. I really want to keep the promise, so keep an eye on me, okay?" he asked, and before I could answer, he added, "Usually I can't get through the day without one or the other."

"Justin, I will watch you as closely as I watch Kelsey when I babysit. You're in good hands." He fidgeted in the seat and ran his fingers through his hair. "Justin, relax, you're here to have a good time."

Finally, he smiled.

It was too late to go to Ellwood, so we drove back to my place. It only took a few minutes to get past the basic "How are you?" and "What's going on in your life?" conversation. The silence was not a comfortable one. "Hey, Justin, do you remember the Thanksgiving Aunt Mildred force-fed you stuffing, insisting you would have a year of bad luck if you didn't eat it?"

He rolled his eyes. "That one was a real winner of a holiday."

Over time, some awful memories become humorous. His short, sharp reply informed me this one had not. Justin, barely a teenager, told Aunt Mildred the only thing he had to be thankful for was not eating her stuffing. She walked over to his chair, picked up his fork and shovelled the stuffing into his mouth. He clenched his jaws together, squirmed, flailed, and tried to hit her. She won. When she yanked the fork out of his mouth, she punished him by sending him to the guest room. My Aunt Dori sat in her seat, stunned.

"Yeah, that dinner should be stricken from the family archives," I said. Justin stared out the window as I scanned my memory bank for something with the potential to make him laugh. "Hey, do you remember that summer at the shore, when Steph and I were about ten years old and we stayed up after everyone else was asleep, sneaked out the back door, and ran up to the boardwalk because we wanted to see what time the shops closed? When we got there, the boardwalk was dark and empty. Steph started crying, and I begged you to take us back to the house. Finally, the cop patrolling the boardwalk found us and walked us home?"

"Yeah," he replied, his voice a bit monotone. "Actually, that is one of the few memories I have of those shitty trips," he said as he opened my glove compartment and began rifling through my papers.

I looked at him stunned. "Shitty?"

"Hell, yes. Ten days of torture every year. My mom rode my back constantly. Don't do this, don't do that. Every time I farted, I ended up banned from the beach and forced to stay in the house. The only good thing about being punished was getting a few hours of peace and quiet."

"I never knew you hated being there," I said.

"Actually, Maggie, I've blocked most of it from my memory. I don't carry that shit anymore. It's hard enough dealing with the new shit."

Mentally, I could recreate every moment spent on the beach, the feel of the sunshine warming my bones, the smell of the salt air, and the sensation of sand glued to every inch of my body. It saddened me to hear him say such awful things about experiences I held sacred.

Suddenly, I heard him laugh. "Maggie," he snorted. "I do have one good memory of Jersey. One year, Mark and I got into this really big sand fight on the beach. We were so into it that we ignored my dad's screaming for us to stop. Needless to say, I got into a shitload of trouble, banned from the beach for two whole days. Mark, of course, blamed me for starting it and got off easy with kitchen cleanup duty. Since part of my punishment included no TV, I stayed in the bedroom reading. But on the second day of my banishment, in the afternoon, if I remember correctly, I walked downstairs to go to the kitchen." He stopped talking and started laughing--tears streaming from his eyes. "Okay," he said taking a breath. "Sorry, but I can still picture this way too clearly. To get from the steps to the kitchen, I had to walk through the living room. When I stepped into the room, I about pissed myself. Greeting me was Mark, sitting on the couch with a strange topless girl on his lap. The girl whipped her head around the moment Mark stopped kissing her and groped desperately to find her shirt. Mark screamed and chucked pillows at me." Justin actually held his side. "I blackmailed him for about fifty bucks before the trip was over."

For a few moments, we both laughed. As we approached the Fort Pitt Tunnel, Justin's memory turned morose and focused on strange details. He described the color and print of the dress my grandma wore to the Christmas dinner that ended with my grandfather rushing her to the hospital. He vividly described the inside of our grandfather's casket.

"Hey, Maggie, do you remember the Christmas everyone got mad at you because you started crying and wouldn't stop?"

"Yeah, I remember. Aunt Mildred suggested someone beat me." I shook my head, and a feeling of disdain coated my stomach. It was not a memory I wanted to dredge up.

"That's the day that I realized you and I were alike," he said.

"How could you tell, Justin? We were really young. I don't think either of us could have comprehended mental illness."

"You're right. At that age, I didn't, but what I did understand was the pain I saw in your eyes. Maggie, you cried from your soul." He turned his head and stared at the walls of the tunnel, his voice choked. "Maggie, would you like to hear the rest of the stuffing story?"

"Sure," I said, keeping my eyes focused on the road.

He pushed his body back into the passenger seat and continued looking out the side window, as if purposely avoiding any potential eye contact with me. "About fifteen minutes after I was sent to the guest room, Aunt Mildred burst into the room to continue her tirade. I was sitting on the floor in the corner of the bedroom, still crying. She demanded to know why I wouldn't eat the stuffing. Then she accused me of always causing scenes and screwing up all the family celebrations. She got really pissed when I stared at the wall and didn't look her in the eye."

Justin stopped talking and began gesturing wildly with his arms. Glancing quickly at his face, I tensed. A wild animal glanced back at me through Justin's eyes. It took me a moment to realize he was imitating Aunt Mildred. When he spoke again, he did a lame imitation of her barking at him, so many years ago. "Justin, if you don't stop this anti-social behavior, you're going to grow up and be a criminal. Don't think I will visit or write to you when you're sitting in jail. If you don't end up in jail, you'll end up being nothing but a bum like my brother."

Justin sat silently, staring out the front windshield, biting his bottom lip. I reached for his hand.

As we exited the Parkway, I looked at him and finally comprehended why Justin avoided family functions. All of his memories lacked happiness.

I resisted the urge, swelling inside of me, to ask questions about Mildred's brother. My better judgment said it was not the right moment. Instead, I asked him if he remembered anything good about his childhood. He thought for a long time, and then said he liked fishing with his dad and when his mom read him books at bedtime. He told me his whole life consisted of mood swings and profound loneliness. I let go of his hand and clutched the steering wheel. I turned my head slightly to the left, as if to look at something important reflecting from the side mirror. I didn't want him to see my eyes water.

Neither of us felt tired, and he mentioned being hungry, so I called out for a pizza. As an appetizer, I pulled out a bag of chips, a half eaten bag of Oreos, two glasses, and some orange juice. Between bites, we talked about drugs--rather he talked, I listened. "In middle school, I was either bored or getting into trouble. The first psychiatrist convinced my mom I was under-challenged at school and depressed. He prescribed the original anti-depressant. It seemed to help. My grades got better, and I even played on the school baseball team. In eleventh grade, the shit hit--mania. My dad rushed me to the emergency room. They admitted me to the psych ward, and I honestly believed I was going to spend the rest of my life locked up there. Finally, the doctor found a pill combination that stabilized me. After that, life became a series of mood stabilizers, antidepressants, and hell, for all I know, I could have been swallowing birth control pills. My mom filled the prescriptions, and I would dutifully down them."

"I didn't know you were hospitalized in high school," I replied, flabbergasted.

"Of course, you didn't. And you probably didn't know that when I left Penn, my parents drove me straight to the hospital. You see, Maggie, telling anyone would violate our family policy. The combo stopped working and the doctor finally confirmed the diagnosis as bipolar and promptly put me on Lithium. Lithium and I cannot live together in the same body. The shitty side effects were worse than the stupid disease. Right now, I'm on a cocktail that helps. Hopefully, it will last longer than the standard six months."

"What do you mean by 'the standard six months'?" I asked.

"Of the drugs that actually helped, the effectiveness only lasted months. Then it was on to another mix," he replied.

"What about the antidepressants in middle school, didn't they work until high school?" I could hear the fervor in my voice and feel fear spreading through me.

"Yes and no. They worked, but I switched brands a lot," he explained.

"The drugs I recently started taking seem to be helping. My brain has never been so quiet." I said.

"Enjoy it while it lasts. For people like us, feeling normal is just an illusion that goes up in a puff of smoke every six months. Except for weed," he replied, and grinned.

The doorbell rang, and I paid the pizza delivery guy. After I placed the pizza box on the coffee table, I walked to the kitchen and continued talking, trying to make sense of his words. "I hoped that if these drugs worked, Sam would come back. Now you're telling me that my future is jumping from one drug to another?"

As I carried the paper plates and napkins to the living room, fingers of anger crept across my brain, Not the rage of an episode, but a boiling pissed-off type of anger. Justin seemed to read my expression because he shifted in the chair and reached his hand out to me.

"Sorry, Maggie, I wish I had something to say that would let you keep your hope, but I don't. Bipolar 1 or Bipolar 2, it doesn't matter. It's just shit that never goes away. For Christmas one year, I got this junior Swiss Army knife. To test it out, I cut a hole in the top of my mom's sofa. She tried to hide the hole by throwing a blanket over it. With the blanket in place, the sofa looked perfect. Come evening, we would all gather to watch TV. My mom was always cold, so, she grabbed the blanket off the couch, and wrapped it around her shoulders, exposing the gaping hole for the world to see. The medicine, Maggie, is our blanket. This disease has no cure. Hell, I'm not sure if anyone really fucking understands what happens in our brains. The drug companies knit the blankets, and the doctors wrap us up in them. The blankets cover the disease for a while. When it's covered, we go to school, get jobs, and fall in love. Then something causes that blanket to fall off the back of the couch. Good-bye school, so long job, and welcome back loneliness. Don't get your hopes up, Maggie. The fall is too hard."

We ate our pizza in silence, and then Justin gave me a hug and walked to the bedroom. For a long time, I sat on the sofa and stared at the blank TV screen.