The Masochist Boy (2)
But oh, how she hated that rule. Oh, how she paid for it every day. "Vivien," snapped her mother sharply. "Are you paying attention?" "Oh…yes." "Well? How was school?" "It was alright, I guess. I sat next to-" "Did you tell your Science teacher that you have already taken second level physics? Did you tell your English teacher that you won the statewide championship for your essay-" "No, Mom." "Why not? I told you to tell them that!" "I didn’t want them to think I was a big shot, and anyway, I was late for the biology class." "Late?" her mother cried. "Late? Were you lost? How could you possibly be lost? I gave you a color-coordinated map! The fifth green was biology!" "I didn’t understand how you marked it!" "Vivien, how are you going to get anywhere in life if you can’t even interpret a map correctly? When your sister Penny was your age, she had already drawn out weather system maps for the entire northeastern part of the continent!" "I know. I got lost." "Vivien, what am I going to do with you? Did you meet any nice boys and girls? Tell me their names!" "I only met one person who was semi-nice to me," she said coldly, "and I don’t know his name. The rest of them just glared at me and laughed at me. I don’t think they like me. Maybe because they think I’m a goody-goody." "Because you’re smart and studious doesn’t mean you’re a ‘goody-goody’," said her mother automatically. "I want you to tell me the name of this boy tomorrow. Which class was he in?" "I don’t know. I only sit next to him in biology, but he might be in other classes with me." "Was he an active participant in the class discussion?" "I don’t know." Her mother said in alarm: "Surely you were an active participant in the class discussion?" She looked guiltily at the plate of cookies. Organic cookies, she thought. Organic cookies. "Vivien," her mother began, "when your sister Penny was your age, she-" Vivien stood then and left the room without another word. Her mother would punish her for such an act of disrespect later. She didn’t care. Oh, she didn’t care, she wished she wouldn’t care. Organic cookies. It was such a hateful thought. Organic cookies. She flung herself on her bed and laid there quietly, exhausted mentally and consciously, and was out cold before her head hit the pillow. There was something different about that day. Of course, he had still taken his drugs; he had taken less than he had the day before, which was new for him. He went over the day in his head again as he was lying there in his bed. For once in his life, he actually wanted to think about his day. Will and Tom had still beaten him up in the hallway; that was the same. The teachers had still denounced him for various evildoings such as writing in his notebook during class; that was the same. He had still starved through lunch because he hadn’t had any money to buy anything from the cafeteria; that was the same. He had still gotten a less than decent grade on his biology test- Biology. Something had happened in biology. What? Someone had sat next to him. He thought that was it. That desk had been empty for almost the whole year-no one wanted to sit next to him, ever-but there had been some one in it this time. A girl, he thought. Black hair and green eyes. She had been so nervous. Yes, she’d been very nervous and very sad. She reminded him of some one, but he couldn’t remember who exactly. But he did remember what had been so different now. She had talked to him. She had asked him how he was feeling. She had asked with something like actual concern in her voice. And then she’d gotten embarrassed by the teacher, but of course things like that always happened to the people who didn’t deserve it. She had even smiled at him. As far as he knew, the last person to smile at him had been his sister. His sister. Now he remembered who she’d reminded him of. She was like Jenny; anxious and sad and nice. Great. Now he felt even more guilty. He didn’t want to feel guilty, darn it. She’d chosen to talk to him, not the other way around. He didn’t know how to respond to kindness or concern. Those weren’t his specialties. Still, she was a new kid, and she was obviously nervous. Maybe, if she talked to him first, he would act a little bit friendly. Just a little. He nodded, satisfied for the moment, which was altogether unsettling since he’d never experienced even a temporary version of happiness; and he was almost smiling when Jenny found him a few minutes later flat on his face in the pillow. That was the beginning of a very unusual friendship. It was weird for both of them; an unspoken sort of thing. They didn’t talk to each other very much at all. But during class, when the teacher was denouncing Rob and yelling at Vivien for whatever trite thing she did, they would look at each other, and they would know; they would know there was one person who wasn’t smirking right along with their teacher. It was a strange sort of ritual; every day when she slid into the seat Vivien would pass him a little note that said: Are you alright? And he would write back, in that small, precise handwriting: I’m alright, thank you. Sometimes they would even exchange a small, knowing smile. Hey, whatever gets you through biology. They didn’t talk; never talked. Every day Vivien watched Rob walk home from the intolerable prison of her mother’s car; he didn’t see her, but she saw him. She saw him turn down a very run down, very vile looking street, running as fast as he could from the two bigger boys tearing after him. She wished, sometimes, that she could jump out of the car and run that fast from her mother. From her mother she had no place to hide. He’d seen her, too, as her mother pulled her arm first into the car, barking questions at her. He felt bad for her, it was true, but sometimes he wished he had her problem instead of his. They both had their problems. It was a silent exchange. But it worked. Whatever it was, it worked. He was even more weirded out, perhaps, than she was. He’d never had friends before; no one had ever been nice to him. He looked forward to biology class all day, and biology had the worst teacher of any he could think of. But it was worth it to be able to sit next to her. Sometimes, he even felt an urge to talk to her, but somehow or other he sensed that that would be violating the sacred rule that their strange friendship was bound to, so he said nothing. Rob sensed also that he was sinking deeper into the black hole. He hadn’t been addicted at first, but he was addicted now. Heaven, was he addicted. He shot his veins with heroin sometimes three time a day, and he was going through more than a bottle of sleeping pills a week. And the effects showed. There was a pattern to it now; the first few days he would throw up everything he ate, and the last few he might even throw up blood. Then he would start a new bottle. Over and over and over again. He hadn’t had another seizure yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time. During the day he had trouble breathing at the slightest provocation, and even when he had none he was in a crazy half-delirium. Feverish, pale and wide-eyed. He imagined things that weren’t there and heard things that people had not said. His sister had called the hospital and sometimes he had his stomach pumped, and sometimes he didn’t, and sometimes he just flung himself over the bathtub and was sick until he passed out altogether. But the physical pain spared him the mental, and thus he considered himself about even, however desperate he was getting. He wasn’t even high, it wasn’t even pleasurable; he wanted to kill himself. He talked to himself. His mother didn’t notice. Of course not. The teacher didn’t notice. The girl in biology noticed. Her "Are you alright"s were getting more and more anxious. He knew he worried her. He didn’t care. He didn’t care if he killed himself. In his eyes, it would be nothing more than a pleasant surprise. So the full impact of what his life really was didn’t hit him until one night when he was lying on his bed, listening to a Nirvana song. He had written something, but left it unfinished on the desk. He was just lying there, with his eyes closed. It was a song Kurt Kobain had written only a few months before he killed himself, and it was a tortured song. The chords were strangling dying as you listened to them, and the words were screams of pain. He was listening with his eyes closed, and somewhere during the course of the song he realized that that song was a perfect representation of how he felt. And the words were somehow or other the same ones he’d written on his notebook. Sick, twisted and screaming. He pressed the stop button on the CD player. He sat up straight in bed in a cold sweat, barely breathing. He had a fever again. He felt disgusted with himself and disgusted with everyone around him. He could have killed himself then. He threw his notebook across the room. He grabbed a paperweight on his dresser, for lack of anything better, and started bashing it against his head. Then he threw it to the ground, picked up his precious notebook, pressed play on the CD player, and fell back on his bed, screaming. Jenny called the ambulance again. They came and took him and treated him. But one of the nurses noticed right away the bitter ugliness in his eyes, and the hateful expression on his face as she helped to save his life. She said as much to the secretary. He stopped going to school after that, and he stopped eating. His head ached. He laid in bed all the next week, taking pills and shooting his arms up with heroin and contemplating self-hatred and bitterness and suicide and sweet sweet pain. He cut his arms until they were bloody. He collapsed every day from one thing or another. Jenny locked herself in her room and wept into her stuffed rabbit. And the secretary was horrified to find out that this boy was the one her daughter Vivien called a ‘friend.’ "Well?" barked Mrs. Llewelyn, sliding Vivien a plate of cookies over the table. "Anything new today?" Vivien shook her head, staring down at the pastry with a troubled look on her face. He hadn’t been there for a week now. She was so scared. She’d seen him last week, he had been the color of wax, even almost green; his eyes were wide and fervent, and she noticed he’d lost a significant amount of weight. He was barely breathing during class, like anyone noticed. She’d asked him repeatedly if he was alright-was he sick-maybe he should go home-but he’d just laughed a sort of cynical laugh and shook his head, then bent back over his little notebook again, writing frantically. He was always writing frantically in that thing. He was shaking. And now he was gone. Maybe he was too sick to go to school. Maybe he was dead. She sucked in her breath. She felt miserable. Of course, she had to know; biology class would not be the same without him. Nothing would. He was a part of her day, as simple as that, a land mark, almost, and the only person she knew as a friend. She was very, very sad. She didn’t even know his last name. But she could look it up in the school roster. And then-she knew he lived somewhere on Sixtieth; Sixtieth and North. Even if he wasn’t there, which she somewhat doubted, his parents would be able to tell her…what had happened. She had to know. "Vivien?" said her mother sharply. "Answer me, Vivien!" She shook her head and said suddenly: "Don’t you understand anything?" Then she ran out of the room, flung herself on her bed, kicked the door closed and cried. He was lying on his bed, looking straight up at the ceiling. It was strange. It was so unreal. He had the sense that he wasn’t really there at all; just watching the world spiral to the ground all around him. Just watching everything tear to pieces. He had resigned himself now to the bleakness that came with realizing your entire existence is a disgusting thing. He didn’t need drugs to make him numb; but he took them anyway. He took them and threw them all up. He was dying, or at least he thought he was, and there was a certain kind ecstasy in that. He’d written, as always. His words had become as ugly as he was. He thought he wouldn’t write anymore. He was too bitter, now, to go through another day. The thought of anything made him want to be sick. He was sick. He was always throwing up. He was worrying Jenny out of her mind. She was ten years old, the poor kid, she didn’t know what to do. He didn’t care; he was too sick to care. He was a hateful thing. He was a despicable, contemptible waste of air. He hated everything; he hated everything. The days blurred together. It didn’t matter to him. It all seemed like one long moment, one long, never-ending nightmare. He wasn’t high, but he was always so low, low, low. He was taking enough heroin to be in constant danger of overdose; in his hallucinations, he saw his body, stretched out on the floor, heart burst, Jenny frantically dialing an ambulance that would come too late. He didn’t know what day it was, or what time of day, when Jenny knocked on his door and told him that some one had come to see him. It wasn’t blood that ran through his veins, it was drugs; it was all drugs. His sense of time in general was so completely screwed he couldn’t tell at the moment whether he was coming or going, sitting or standing, sleeping or awake. His heart beat five times too fast in his throat, and he couldn’t breathe. He thought he saw, through the double vision and mist and haze, a girl with black hair and green eyes come and sit by his bed. He thought she said: "Hello. Are you alright?" Hallucinations, he thought suddenly. His vision blacked out once and then came back. Yes, he was hallucinating; he must be. It was the girl from biology-what was her name? He didn’t know…didn’t remember, in any case. Drugs will do that to you. He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t have if he had somehow got his mouth to work, which he couldn’t. The ghostly apparition said anxiously: "Listen, I don’t even know your name, but I think you remember me. I’m the girl who sits next to you in biology. Remember me? My name’s Vivien-" Vivien. Vivien. Viv-ee-ehn. Viiiiiiiiivvvvvvvvvvviiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnn. Going…going…going…go-ing… "What’s your name?" His name. His name was Rob. Robby. He tried to talk, and couldn’t. Jenny would have known what he was talking about. She wouldn’t, this Vivien. The bitterness echoed in his head. Swaying, he motioned her to one side, leaned over the bed and was sick in the bucket again. He threw up blood. He thought he saw her eyes widen. She cried: "You’re sick, aren’t you? You’re very sick. Are you taking any pills?" Are you taking any pills. He began to laugh, suddenly, hysterically, without mirth, and slurred bitterly: "There aren’t many I amn’t." Her eyes widened again, and she said numbly: "You’re taking drugs?" He nodded loosely a few times. His head rolled. He fell back against the bed. His skin felt clammy and cold. He knew he would pass out again soon, and half-hoped he would die; it would be good if he could die in front of her. She actually cared, and it would make a difference to her if he died. She was a nice girl. She said abruptly: "I’m calling an ambulance. You need help! I wish I knew where your mother was-" "On the couch. She doesn’t care. Don’t-don’t call an ambulance." "You need help! Please don’t pass out-" "Rob. My name…Rob." "Robby. Robby, I don’t know what’s happening to you, but I’m going to call a doctor, you need help-" "I don’t want help," he shouted thickly. "I want to die, don’t you understand? If I wanted help I could have gotten it a long time ago!" It was a lie. She sat down heavily on the bed. He thought he saw tears of disbelief in her eyes. She didn’t understand. There was a bird outside in the window, singing loudly an altogether inappropriate song in the silence. She did something strange then, and he noticed it was strange even through his drugged mists. She took his cold, clammy hand in hers, looked him in the dark, glaring eyes, and said seriously, in a moment you would look back at later and laugh at: "Don’t die, Robby. I couldn’t get through biology class. You’re my only friend." He blinked. "I’m nobody’s friend." "You’re my friend, aren’t you? I like you. You understand-you understand me, I think. No one else does, not even my own mother. If you died I’d be all alone in that entire school, it would just be me. Please don’t die. School wouldn’t be the same without you." "Everything would be the same without me. I don’t mean anything. I’m nothing. I should never have been born." "Why are you saying things like that? Why are you saying that?" She squeezed his hand pleadingly, and said, as if it solved everything: "I like you." He sank back into his bed with the dark walls and the dim room. It was not what he expected to hear. He wished she hadn’t come. She was screwing everything up. She let go of his hand, stood, opened the shades, let the sunlight stream into the room. It burned his eyes; he squeezed them closed. "Come," he heard her say. "Let’s get some fresh air. How long has it been since you were outside?" When he said nothing, she said again: "Let’s go." He laid on the bed, motionless. He could hear his pulse pounding in his head. He wanted more than anything for her to go away. "You can’t walk, can you," she said. "I’ll help you. Come on." She put her arm across his back and pushed him up. He said fiercely: "I don’t want to go…go…leave me alone. Can’t you just let me alone to die already?" "I don’t want you to die; I like you. Come sit outside. It’s nice; it’s pretty out. Maybe if you get some fresh air you won’t throw up again." He squinted to see her through the heaviness of the drug. She was shaking. He was fighting the drug now, and it was wearing him out. He’d never tried to fight a pill before. He didn’t know why he let her do it, but he did. Somehow or other they managed to get onto the porch. She sat him by the steps, with his back against the rotting wooden platform and his feet in the waist-high grass, and she sat next to him. The sky was pure blue, even though it was already October. There was a cleansing breath of breeze in his lungs. For the first time in weeks, he breathed, really breathed. The slight wind ruffled the grass and stirred their hair. He was even a little cold; but the feeling of the air on his skin was, not drugging, but soothing all the same. He closed his eyes.
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