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- Author: Mark Tullius
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* * *
SHARON TOLD ME TO TAKE a seat, then said, “I know it’s difficult.”
“I’m not suicidal.”
Joe...
I got loud when I said, “I’m not. Yes, I thought about Belinda. But she killed herself in my bathroom. It was just a thought.”
“Calm down.”
“I’m not going to kill myself.”
Sharon nodded. “I understand.”
“Is that something you have to say? That’s what they teach you?”
“I don’t say it unless it’s true.”
Sharon had seen me at my lowest, heard my darkest thoughts. I knew it wasn’t her fault, but I couldn’t stop myself. “This is a fucking joke. You love it here.”
“Not all the time.”
“Well, you act like you do. Is it better in Brightside because you didn’t leave anyone behind? No one back home gives a shit about you?”
You prick.
I felt like crawling into the chair.
Sharon opened her mouth to speak, then closed it and cleared her throat. After a second, she regained her composure and said, “I left everyone.”
Neither of us said a word. There were no pictures up. I’d figured her a lonely workaholic.
“Six years Tom and I were married,” she said. “Abby just turned one.”
I looked away from those eyes, down to her wedding finger, the white circle of skin.
“Don’t feel bad,” Sharon said. “No one here knows.”
I couldn’t get over how she could keep that from everyone.
“I don’t think about them during the day,” she said. “And no one’s ever asked. No one asks me anything.”
I said I was sorry. “Look, it was just a thought. Are you saying you’ve never even had the thought?”
“We’re not here about me.”
Again Sharon slipped. Thought about the first time she’d swallowed that bottle of pills, before she found meditation, inner peace.
For the first time, Sharon showed she was just as broken as the rest of us. I felt sorry for her, especially as that stupid mantra hummed in her head.
She sat up straight. “Let’s talk about your parents, about your mom.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“But you hold so much anger.”
“Pretty sure every kid does.”
“You’re not a kid.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I think it’s time you give them a call.”
“Why?”
“To get closure.”
“Closure?”
“You need to let go.”
“Fine. Sure. Whatever. I’ll call my parents. Can I go now?”
Sharon bit her lip. She’d let me into her mind, all those sad moments. She wanted me out of the room. She said, “Go down to the first floor to pick up a prepaid cell.” She filled out a form, gave it to me.
On my way out, I turned back. “I’m sorry about your family.”
She gave me a sad smile.
The clerk downstairs handed over the phone. He said it was monitored, that if I called anyone but the people on Sharon’s list, I’d be sent to the Cabin.
Outside the wind was whipping the trees, turning them into curled fingers, looking like they were ready to break. Snow falling in clumps from those towering pines.
I jogged into my building, headed down the hallway, walked soft on the creaky carpet. Vanessa, Sharon’s flunky, had the first room on the right. She probably had her ear to the door, waiting for me to walk by so she could get me one-on-one, smother me with good thoughts, try her hand at making me happy. Vanessa said all I had to do was listen, give her a chance. If she could see the bright side, anyone could.
Harry and his shitty toupee had six pairs of shoes lining the hallway, a proud display for everyone to see. His attempt to make people think he had friends, but the guy was a hermit who loved Lysol, the whoosh whoosh whoosh of that can always going.
It smelled like nothing outside Ivan’s bedroom, but that’s because he’d been taken to the Cabin for trying to steal a car, as if he could actually get through the gate. Alex, the first anorexic man I’d come across, was taking bets on if we’d see Ivan again.
The worst was Erica, the girl who doused herself in perfume to cover her lactose intolerance. She kept her stereo all the way up to hide the awfulness she poured into her toilet.
Every day was the same, the smells never changing. No guests staying over long enough to add their own scent. Everyone on this floor usually alone.
Some of my neighbors had been married, and some still were, probably the loneliest people I’d ever met. Brightsiders still went out, hung out, fucked their brains out. They just went about their business when they were done, something always keeping people apart. Things better left unsaid turning us into what we’d become, not trusting others enough to let them close. Not allowing ourselves to become vulnerable.
When I finally got to my door, I found another present. I threw it in the closet with the rest of the crap.
Crap just like the rest of my apartment. It came with the room, what Belinda left behind. The Ikea dresser with the 27-inch TV taking up the top of it. The light blue armchair with sweat stained armrests stuffed in the corner. The tiny table beside it, a place to put my drinks.
The cracks shooting out from the ceiling fan, which hadn’t worked since Belinda’s first suicide attempt.
Erica’s stereo was shaking the walls.
I sat on the bed, flipped open the phone, and powered it up.
* * *
I WAS EIGHT, SITTING Indian-style on our living room couch, just me and my Rubik’s Cube. The TV was off because Mom figured watching all that crap was part of my problem. She was in the kitchen waiting for Dad. He’d just pulled into the driveway.
The Rubik’s Cube wasn’t mine. Steven said I could borrow it until I figured it out. I’d had it over a year.
There were a bunch of people who couldn’t figure out the puzzle, but most of them said it was because they weren’t trying. If they wanted to waste a few minutes of their life, they could do it.
I’d been trying, failing. Steven even let me watch him solve it real slow. Five times.
I was staring at that stupid block, the center square a smudgy white, eight bright yellow ones circled around it. It was the closest I ever got, just two squares in the wrong place. The white one on one side, yellow on the other. No matter how many twists and turns, it was always those two squares.
The back door opened then slammed shut. Dad’s feet stomping into the kitchen. I held onto that cube and waited for him to toss his keys onto the table then say goddamn it when they slid right off. Like they always did.
Dad stayed in the kitchen where I couldn’t see, him and Mom talking too low to hear. Ice clinked, the fridge opened and closed. A soda fizzed.
They were way too far for their thoughts to be heard, but I knew they were talking about me. That I was such a disappointment.
Mom had her proof. My IQ test from school. Knowing Mom, she was gloating, shoving that paper in Dad’s face, saying I told you so. It made me keep trying with that cube. If I concentrated, I just knew I could get it right. I wasn’t an idiot.
She left the kitchen and stopped next to the dining room table in her green and white checkered sundress like she was a good housewife. She gave me one of her quick smiles and said, “That’s enough of that, Joey.”
I turned to the TV, saw my sad face staring back at me in all that black. I wiped off the tears and looked back at Mom. Mom was done with me, already to the hallway, closing the door behind her. A few seconds later, the shower started. There was no noise from the kitchen.
Up until then I was never a cheater. Partly because I thought I’d never get away with it. Partly because I just knew it was wrong. That’s what Dad always said.
A soft clink of ice cubes came every few seconds. Dad was still in there, drinking his drink, most likely figuring out what to say.
What I did next wasn’t hard. Corey did it all the time. He’d bet five dollars that he could solve it in under five minutes. He didn’t always get paid, but he never lost.
I put my fingernail under the corner of that white square and raised it up slow, careful not to scrape off the sticky stuff. I did the same thing with the yellow square on the other side.
The fridge opened again and Dad poured another drink. I concentrated real hard and laid down the white square, made sure it was lined up. The fridge closed. Dad headed for the dining room and I placed the yellow square, rubbed it smooth with my thumb and turned it over so the red, white, and blue sides showed.
Dad stepped into the dining room and stopped at the table, his wrinkled white shirt, his tired blue slacks. He set his wallet and keys down so quietly I barely heard them over the shower.
He took a drink and turned toward me. From his spot at the table, Dad spoke way softer than normal, like he might have to come close. “So, you want to tell me what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Dad took off his glasses. He needed the top of them for the TV, the bottom part for reading. I’d only seen them off when he was in bed. He set them next to his wallet.
He said, “You’ve been crying.”
I couldn’t look at Dad so I stared at the TV. “I’m not crying.”
Dad came closer and stood in the way, his white button-down my new screen. “Don’t do that, Joey. Look at me.”
What I liked about Dad was how he usually stayed on point, only speaking his thoughts. “It’s okay to cry once in a while,” he said.
I said okay because I wished he’d just leave me alone, forget all about me. But another part of me wanted him to sit down and see the cube, understand that maybe the numbers lied. I wasn’t as dumb as they thought.
Dad stepped right up to me. “Can I sit?”
I wasn’t used to Dad asking permission or him being close so I just sat there, didn’t say a word.
Dad picked up the
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