Everything beautiful has been trapped by the night sky and its myriad exploding synapses. Through autoimmune contemplation that seeps into their fingertips as they stare at the canvas hanging out of their bedroom windows. Through commitments and denials of every out of place hair and every blood red fingernail. That traces the outline of a man along the inside of its breast. Looking up through locked clouds at the growing rebellion and the two towers whose eyes search the Ramble for [him] and [her] out past curfew. As the steely ivy tendrils of Bellvue wind and wind, harvesting their souls’ ejaculations.
“Michael, are you ready yet?We’ve only three quarters of an hour until the press conference goes live and we must not arrive late.”
“Alright, Mom.I’ll be down in a minute,” I yelled from the bathroom.I had just stepped out of the shower with a towel wrapped around my waist.
“Jonathan and I are waiting, Michael,” I heard her say as I was again entranced by the small orange cylinder, which now held two fewer pills than it had that morning.
I barely slept that night, and each time I woke up gasping in a cold sweat from another nightmare.As soon as I heard rustling coming from downstairs, I got out of bed to avoid falling back asleep and went down to the kitchen.There I found my mother brewing coffee.
“Good morning, Michael.How did you sleep?”She seemed excited about something, but I couldn’t quite tell what.
“Fine,” I told her.
“Well, starting tonight you’ll be sleeping better than you have in a year,” she declared, pushing an orange bottle across the counter.“Prozac.I went down to Dr. Schrieber’s office last night and he wrote out a prescription.I brought it down to the pharmacy just in time to pick it up this morning,” she said proudly, “just in time for the press conference.”
“What press conference?”
“What press conference?” she asked mockingly.“The one to assert your father’s innocence.”How does she speak through that plastic smile? “Our entire family will be there to support him, and that includes you, of course.”
“No, but Mom. My teacher, Mr. Brown.He died.And he’s being cremated tonight.I have to go.”My eyes begged hers for the smallest bit of empathy.None came.
“I don’t understand.Haven’t you been watching the news?” she asked dumb-founded.“You’d be tarnishing your father’s image.People would no longer see him as a loving father.”
“It’s all an act anyway,” I almost yelled, feeling myself beginning to get worked up.
“How dare you?Your father is an honest man.He has worked his way up from nothing.”
“Wow, it looks like you’ve been feeding that bullshit to the media so well you’re actually starting to believe it yourself. Or are you just too stupid to see through the lies?” I asked with a smirk, “and besides, when did the upper middle class become the depths of poverty?”
“You’re disgusting.You dare speak of your own father that way? And to your mother no less.We have loved and cared for you every day of your life, and this is the thanks we get.”
I responded calmly and deliberately, feeling that I had taken control of the situation. “Fuck you.You stopped loving me the day I endangered daddy’s political career.As soon as I became an eyesore.Look at yourself.You’re force feeding your own son Prozac because you can’t stand who he’s become, while telling him that you love him.All you are is a hypocrite.”
In an instant, she straightened up and made a feeble attempt to fix her distraught hair, and said, “Well, you’re the one who makes it difficult to love you.You can never support this family.Why not try to be more like Jonathan.”
The last phrase crashed into my consciousness like a bulldozer, crippling me.“I’m gonna go back to bed,” I managed to say while turning and heading back to my room.But as I walked up the stairs, I looked back at the translucent orange cylinder for one long, thoughtful second.And by the time I turned away, I realized that my soul came with a price tag that read “Mommy’s Love.”
Some kid from my English whose name I’ve always had trouble with came up to me before class one day.“Did you hear?” he asked jittering.
“Hear what?”
As if prepared for that exact response, he reached out and handed me the Times.I was almost as shocked by my teardrops falling on the page as I was by the page itself:
Christopher Brown, 76
Devoted father and teacher of thirty-six years
Christopher Brown, 76, who never compromised on his commitment to his family and students, died yesterday in his apartment on the Upper East Side.
Born and raised on the Lower East Side, Mr. Brown attended Regis High School, where he developed a love of learning.He then went on to Fordham University for his Bachelor’s in Psychology.
He dabbled in odd jobs, before finding his true love, teaching.He was first hired by the Immaculate Conception School in his native Lower East Side, where he met his future bride, the then Barbara Gibbons.Soon after their marriage, he found a job at Collegiate School, where he has taught for the past thirty-two years.
Sadly, his one son, Geoff, died in a car accident nineteen years ago, so is survived only by his ex-wife, Barbara.
The cremation service will be held this Friday at seven o’clock in the evening.
In the few weeks that he and I had been meeting we had grown incredibly close.I could talk to him.I could tell him what I thought without worrying whether I had given the “correct” answer.That dark loneliness that falls after one hears of a close friend’s death weighed down my every move, and, in a frenzy to relieve the pressure, I dialed Jenny’s number and pressed “send.”
While I listened to the phone ringing, I imagined how the conversation would progress.How she would be my shoulder to cry on.How she would take me back and love me again.How she would do everything she could to make me happy.Until her sharp, “What?” snapped me back into reality.
“Umm… Hey, I really just need someone to talk to.That history teacher died yesterday.”
“Okay…” She dragged out the last syllable, as if waiting for something.
“And… I don’t know… I guess it just hit me hard.”I waited anxiously for her reply.
In the background, I heard a man’s voice.“Come back to bed, babe.”
“Honestly, I’m kind of in the middle of something right now.Is there anyone else you can go to?”
“Oh… uhh, yeah… sure… Sorry to bother you.”I hung up, fell onto my bed, and wept.
Andinothernews gubernatorialcandidateandManhattandistrictattorney Arthur Grant wasseenleavinghis Battery Park City apartment thismorning with an unknown woman.Theself-proclaimed “family-oriented man” seemstohavebroughtthisimageintoquestion.Mr. Grant offerednocommentsexceptthata press conference willbeheld tomorrow afternoon.Hisentirefamilyisexpectedtoattendinashowofsupport.
“She wants you to do what?” Mr. Brown asked angrily.
“Start taking Prozac.It’s supposed to… like… make me happy, but it messes around with your brain chemistry,” I explained.
He rocked back in his chair and said firmly, yet nicely, “I don’t think you should do it.Don’t fall into their masquerade.Don’t where their mask.Stay true to who you are, because compromising yourself is just like selling your soul.”His chair fell back to the floor and the soft thud it produced seemed to complete the hypnotic effect of his words, and they echoed in my head until I had memorized them.
After my fight with Jenny we didn’t talk for a couple of days and even then our exchanges consisted of no more than a few scattered text messages.But once I was presented with the prospect of putting my consciousness on the line, I needed someone to talk to, so one night I called her.
I heard her pick up but she said nothing.“Hello,” I ventured.
“Hey, so you finally made time for me.”
“Oh, come on.”
“No it’s fine.I’m just glad that tonight I fit into your schedule,” she said bitterly.
“I’m sorry, but, ya know, having your father run for governor can take a lot out of you,” I declared, turning on the charm.
“Whatever.”
“And plus, I’ve been seeing Mr. Brown almost every day after school.”I was excited.I could feel her beginning to acquiesce.So I continued.“He’s really been helping me work through a lot of that stuff I’ve been telling you about.”
“Oh… You mean the stuff that I’m never allowed to know about?”Her accusing voice dashed my spirits and left me speechless, so she went on.“So you’re willing to spill your soul to some cretin of a history teacher, but not your girlfriend of eight months?”
“No… come on, stop,” I stuttered.
“No.Mike, I’m done.We never talk and you obviously don’t trust me.I can’t go on like this.”
“Please, no.”
Silence.Dial-tone.
I collapsed onto my bed in disbelief and stared at the ceiling for what must’ve been most of the night.I don’t remember falling asleep, but I woke up with memory still fresh in my head.Soon, though, my shock wore off and tears began flowing down my face.
