Help! I'm Alive, page 12
“You should try it sometime. It’s such a high — unless.” She digs through her backpack, retrieving a plastic bag. “Unless you prefer a different sort of high.” She opens the bag and hands Ash a brownie. “I made them.”
“I don’t know. That shit messes me up.”
“Come on, you have to. Think of it as my birthday cake.” She holds it out to him, singing a few bars of “Happy Birthday.”
“Okay, okay.” He takes a bite.
They lay out on the bleachers, until the sky seems fuzzy and the clouds form pictures at will. Winona’s arm is extended, moving to and fro as if she’s conducting a symphony. She points at the cloud-layered sky.
“It’s a cake!” She pretends to blow out candles. “Have you seen that movie?”
“What movie?” Ash is laughing. He can’t stop.
“That ’80s one. Sixteen Candles. It’s got that girl with the red hair in it — Molly somebody.”
“You watch a lot of old shit.”
“My mom’s movie collection. It’s funny. It has this guy; his name is Long Duck Dong. Jay and I watched it last year when I turned sixteen. Long Duck Dong — see if you can say it ten times fast,” she says, trying to string it together, her tongue tripping. She’s laughing so hard she rolls off the bleacher and onto the step. She’s still laughing but now it’s soundless and after a few seconds it turns into ugly crying. She repeats Long Duck Dong between sobs.
Ash tries to help her up, but she won’t move. She just lies there crying until the high softens and deflates. She wipes her eyes and sits up next to him, both of them staring out at the park.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me.”
“It’s okay. It’s just the brownie.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“At the airport when we were watching planes you said everything was your fault. What did you mean?”
“I don’t know. It just feels that way.” She pauses, eyes window-glazed. “Like, I can’t do anything right. Not at home, not at school — I wasn’t even there for Jay.”
“You were.”
“Not when it mattered.”
“You didn’t know. No one did.”
“I should have. He’d been talking about it. I should’ve gotten help.”
“How could you have known he was serious? People say shit all the time.”
“Yeah, but he was different. He’d been different for a few months — you know the whole blue whale thing?”
Ash nodded.
“He actually wanted to do it. He’d been looking for a way in, trying to find the game curator. He got mad at me for not going along with it. I let it go because the game was probably just a hoax. I figured he wanted to find it just for something to do, another adrenaline hit, you know.”
“You can’t blame yourself for what he did.”
“No? Then who can I blame?”
“Everyone else. The world.” Ash pauses for a minute and stares out at the boarders weaving and popping. “Yeah, blame the world for spinning like one of those fucking metal playground roundabouts. You know the ones?”
She nods.
“When we were little my brother and I went on one, and some fat fuck pushed it really fast. All of the kids were screaming and some jumped off, scraping their knees and bumping their heads in the process. But Anik and I, we just hung on, white-knuckled, until my mom saw what was happening and stopped it. Both of us staggered and tripped off, all dizzy. Anik threw up in the bushes and I just stood there, the world spinning. My hands were cramped up from holding on so tight,” he says, making a fist, “and when I unclenched them, they were pulsing, as if the metal and sweat of holding on had turned into an electric current.” Ash is quiet for a moment. “You hear that,” he says, gesturing toward the transmission towers beyond the park. “That buzzing . . . close your eyes and listen.”
Winona closes her eyes. A cool wind brushes over her. She’s calm, almost meditative, as she listens to the current, its linguistic clicks and zips.
“I figure that’s the sound the world makes when it’s humming along. That’s the sound of all of us holding on as we go around and round.”
She turns to him, her stoned face cracking with laughter. “That’s so fucking deep.”
“I know, right?” He shoves her and she shoves him back until their laughter softens.
“So what do you want to do now?” Her high feels thick, the fuzzy feeling turning into a low-grade headache. She rubs her temples and takes another bite of brownie.
“You decide. It’s your birthday.”
“Jay and I would have gone shoplifting for my gift. You know, like in true Winona Ryder style.”
“Why? Your dad’s loaded. You can have anything you want.”
“For the thrill of it! Come on.” She grabs his hand and starts running across the field, flapping her arms as she races toward the gulls pecking by the overturned trash cans.
* * *
The dollar store is wall-to-wall jammed with made-in-China crap, each aisle sign categorizing clutter: Baking and Food Storage, Party Planning, Housewares, Beauty, Candy and Food. Ash avoids looking directly at the security cameras but stares at his distorted reflection in the large surveillance mirrors in the corners of the shop. “Maybe we should just go?”
“Rookie,” Winona says, pulling him along, leading him down the toy aisle where she pulls a plastic sword from a bin and stabs him with it.
She laughs and says, “En garde, you swine!”
“Huh?”
She looks annoyed. “Sword fight.” She hands him a knockoff lightsaber from the same bin. He presses the button on the handle and it glows green.
“Game on,” he says, imitating the sound the saber makes as he strikes her. She grabs a nearby plastic shield and holds it against her chest. They pivot back and forth, up and down the aisle, jabbing each other in the ribs, slicing shoulders and arms, part sword fight, part Jedi battle.
“Hey, no playing with the toys unless you buy them,” yells the cashier from the front of the store. She’s staring at them, her arms crossed over her uni-boob, and if it wasn’t for her apron that says How can I help, she’d be a deterring force or at least someone to avoid, the same way you avoid the weird aunt who pinches your cheeks and hugs too hard.
“Sorry.” Ash puts the lightsaber down. Winona follows suit and they proceed down the cramped aisle, checking the surveillance mirrors as they drop random stuff in their backpacks and jam candy into their pockets. Just as they’re about to leave, Winona runs back to the toy aisle and grabs the lightsaber.
“Run,” she says to Ash.
They push through the doors as the cashier yells, “You have to pay for that!” Winona glances back as the cashier bolts through the door. “Stop, thief!” People in the parking lot look up, noting the commotion, but no one intervenes.
“Come on!” Ash is still running.
“It’s okay,” Winona says, her run slowing down to a jog and then a walk by the time they clear the parking lot. “No one even cares.”
* * *
When Winona gets home, Trish is asleep on the couch and the twins are in the playroom on their tablets. She likes it when they’re quiet like this, sedated by the lure and glow of screens and interactive games. She’s glad they’re over the Caillou phase. That cartoon kid was a whiny brat and what was with his bald head — it’s not like he had cancer or something.
“What’s going on, Thing One and Two?” Neither of them looks up from their device. “Hello!” she says, raising her voice.
“Mom was acting funny when she picked us up from school and then she came home, ate all the snacks and went to sleep.”
“She’s been sleeping since three?”
They both nod in their weird twin way that always makes her think of the little girls in The Shining.
“I’ll go check on her,” she says, trying to stay calm. She walks normally until she’s out of sight and then rushes to the living room, where Trish is sprawled out. “Trish, wake up.” When she doesn’t stir, Winona shakes her. “Wake up, wake up, wake the fuck up!” She pulls out her phone and dials her dad. No answer. “Shit, shit, shit.” She kneels down, her face next to Trish’s and listens to her breathing. “Good, still alive.” Winona tries to wake her again, shoves her, pokes her, pulls her hair, but nothing. She calls 911 and waits for the paramedics to arrive.
“Is Mommy dead?” Thing One asks. For a minute Winona disappears into the past, remembering when her mother was taken to the hospital for the very last time. How she watched from these very steps, her face looking out between the slats. Thing Two starts to cry.
* * *
While Jon is at the hospital with Trish, Winona orders pizza, plays I spy with the twins and watches Frozen for the millionth time. At nine o’clock, she tucks them in and reads them stories until they fall asleep. It’s the most time she’s ever spent with them and as she looks at their identical pale moon faces she thinks they’re not so bad.
She’s binge-watching when her dad finally comes in. “How is she? What did they say?” She turns off the TV and waits as he hangs his jacket up. “Well?”
“Tests came back positive for drugs.”
“What? That’s got to be a mistake.”
“That’s what I thought, but then she told me she ate some of the brownies you made.”
“Oh fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck is right. What the hell were you thinking, making that shit and leaving it around. What if the twins ate it?”
“I didn’t leave it around. I put them in the basement fridge. I didn’t think she’d go in there.”
“Yeah, well. She did.” Jon sits down across from her. “What even possessed you to make them? Isn’t your life messed up enough?”
She doesn’t say anything.
“Well?”
“I thought it was a rhetorical question. Didn’t realize you wanted an answer.”
“Well, I do.”
“I don’t know. I just felt like it, I guess.”
“You felt like it?” He pauses, his jaw tightens as if he’s holding back. “Where did you even get the marijuana? Never mind, it doesn’t even matter. What matters is that you’re fucking up your life and you’re fucking up everyone else’s too. You know, if she hadn’t told me that she ate those brownies, the doctors would think she’s a user and could even report her to child protection or something.”
“You’re overreacting. Doctors are so used to seeing rich white women using way worse than that. Besides, edibles are practically legal now.”
“Can you even hear yourself? For God’s sake, Winona. Your mother would be so disappointed in you if she were alive.”
“Nice one, Dad. Real nice.” She gets up to leave.
“Sit down. We aren’t finished.”
“Then let’s skip to the end where you tell me that I’m a fuckup and that I’m grounded and then I’ll nod, take your bullshit and apologize.”
“Aren’t you the least bit sorry?”
“Of course I am. But you’re acting like I did it on purpose, like I force-fed her. How was I supposed to know she was going to stuff her face with my birthday brownies? Yeah, that’s right. It’s my birthday today. Happy birthday, Winona!” She runs up the stairs and slams her door. She just stands there, back against the wall for a minute, trying to get a grip, trying to keep herself from spiraling but nothing works, not the breathing techniques and not the mantras. She reaches under the bed and pulls out her cut box. She looks at the knife, runs her fingers along the blade and without thinking makes one quick swipe, striking the blade on her forearm as if she’s striking a match. She stares at the shallow cut, the dotted blood line, and palms it, applying pressure until she’s filled with the sweet relief of feeling on the outside instead of on the inside.
Her phone pings. It’s another message from Jay. A picture of a tiny gift-wrapped box captioned “Hope you liked it!” She wonders what was in the box and accepts that she’ll never know. There’s so much she’ll never know.
She scrolls back to his first message. “Chill, it’s your birthday.” She hurls the phone across the room.
Day 74
It’s Saturday morning sleep-in. Ash’s favorite.
His parents are out — getting groceries, running errands, all the weekly boring. They used to bug him and Anik to go with them, but Ash figured if he made a fuss or acted dumb the whole way, they’d leave him out of their ritual chores and for the most part he was right. Sometimes Ash feels bad about it. He thinks that he should be a better kid, especially now with Anik being the way he is. But usually, if he waits long enough the lazy part of him wins and he camouflages into the house like some slow-moving lizard, sliding by, shifting colors.
Ash reaches over and grabs his phone from the bedside charger. He scrolls, stopping to like and comment. He makes himself into an I woke up like this meme and snaps a photo of his bedhead, eye jam, surprise face and sends it out there. He waits for the hearts and smiles to roll in and when they do he feels good and accomplished, self-satisfied even. He hates that he feels that way, but it’s a natural reaction, a dopamine hit, an I can feel good even when I feel bad parachute. He turns on some music and drifts off into nothing thoughts. He’s light as air, feeling like sunshine against the crisp piano melody on Tyler, the Creator’s “Sometimes . . .” He listens to the first fifteen seconds over and over and thinks about going downstairs to ask Anik to splice it together and make him a personalized mix.
His brother used to do that all the time when he started music school. He could rip apart any song and put it back together, attaching his own piano melodies, backing up a harmony with a new beat, choosing weird intervals and loops that repeated and snaked, like a symphonic infinity symbol. He was god tier at it. He’d post them on YouTube and had millions of views. His best one was him playing a hang drum, layered with piano and violin, and a looped Sinatra vocal from “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” He posted under the name GOD is DOG and was so internet famous that for a while he even got death threats from a right-wing evangelical group. His parents got all weird about it and asked him to stop posting under that name. He’s only posted under his real name once since he’s been a shut-in. When Ash texted that he’d listened to the new track, Anik replied that “3.14159” wasn’t really a song, it was more like long-form sound, an unending narrative to match our own mortal coil. Ash simply replied “big brain,” explosion emoji and then waited for Anik to text back. He saw the three dots but then after a few seconds they disappeared. He feels like those dots all the time — waiting, anticipating and then nothing. Those dots are everything. Every time he sees them, he holds his breath, wondering.
He gets out of bed in his sloth-like way, taking too long to go through the basic motions of brush teeth, have shower, get dressed. Truth is, the bathroom is his favorite place, not just because it has a lock but because of the small luxury inside the utility. The seashell-shaped hand soap meant for guests, the vanilla-scented after-shower lotions, hair products that smell like coconut and the plush Egyptian cotton towels that make him feel like he’s living in a hotel. It’s all steam and dream in there and for a while it makes him feel good and new until eventually he has to open the door and leave the warmth behind.
He picks the wet towels up off the floor so his mom doesn’t freak and heads downstairs to throw them in the laundry room. As he tosses them into the machine, he strains to hear what Anik might be up to, but there’s nothing — not the one-sided talk of him gaming, no music playing, not even the sound of nature loops. The silence is weird; Anik’s always needed ambient sound. When he was little he slept on the couch in front of the TV until Pavan bought him one of those dream machine clock radios that had endless loops of birds chirping, rainstorms and ocean waves. Most people would just pick one sound and listen to it on repeat, but he cycled through every setting endlessly. He doesn’t use it anymore; he can download pretty much anything and now prefers binaural beats. He says the frequency patterns of the delta, theta, alpha and beta reduce his stress and help him sleep.
He’s always into some new thing. When he was seventeen he collected crystals and ordered them from eBay, spending all of his burger-flipping money on them. Sometimes he’d work twelve hours on Saturday and Sunday just to pay for a dumb rock. He totally geeked out on them, and like any little brother would, Ash wanted in on it. Every week he’d sit and watch Anik unpack the boxes and reveal his newest geologic find. Ash’s favorite was a giant amethyst Anik bought from a guy in Brazil. While Ash turned the rock over in his hands, examining the jagged lavender, Anik read out the one-page document about the spiritual and chakra-balancing qualities. For Ash’s birthday that year, Anik bought him an amethyst amulet to help with his anxiety. He wore it until some dumb kid at school called him Gandalf, and ever since then he kept it in his bedside drawer. It never helped with his anxiety anyway and none of it ever balanced Anik’s chakras. So after blowing all of his savings on rocks, Anik moved on to aromatherapy. His room smelled like witches’ brew his whole senior year. “It’s probably why you don’t have a girlfriend,” Ash told him after Anik smudged the house with sage and cedar. “You smell like a fucking hippie.”
By the time Anik started university he was more normal. Full into his music again, he left the weird New Age shit behind. Until this past year. Pavan’s convinced Anik is special because when she was pregnant, she had her tarot cards read and got some high priest card. Ash thinks Pavan’s like Anik that way, sometimes super normal and practical and then completely flaked out in auras and fate. He’s more like his dad. Grounded. Peter’s into everyday stuff and helps people. He’s basic and common sense. He whistles while he does yard work, talks to neighbors, makes small talk matter and likes cooking. He takes actual pleasure in watching cooking shows, practicing his knife skills and trying new recipes. When he’s in the kitchen, he even walks around with a tea towel on his shoulder as if he’s Gordon Ramsay. He seems genuinely happy with life and that is a mystery to Ash, because although he feels grounded, it’s more in a tied-down, wearing-cement-shoes kind of way.
