Carraway Bay Press: Chapter One from "Saint Jude" --named one of the best reads of 2004 and 2006 by school librarians

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Chapter One

There’s an art to going crazy.

People think that it hits you all at once, but it doesn’t. Like regret, it builds up over time, until it drags you out to sea. You make a splash for a while, but eventually, people forget about you. Then pretty soon, you forget who you are or even if you had ever been.

November was not the time to see Brick House.

The empty, clutching trees and gray sky formed a perfect frame for its aching walls and chipping paint. The front porch was like the crooked back of a junkyard dog. The windows were dingy from lack of activity. The porch swing, broken.

Home for the leftovers. Some way to spend senior year.

It wasn’t even made of bricks. I don’t know why everyone calls it Brick House, unless it’s loneliness. Bricks are lonely. They sound like they ought to be lonely, anyway.

Mom shifted uneasily. It was her idea. We’d grown hoarse from shouting until it became too painful to even speak. So we stopped. It was just as simple as turning off the lights. Something had snapped, and we both knew better than to try to fix it.

Of course, Mom had the upper hand because I didn’t have my guitar. I was naked without it, and the fingers of my right hand imagined the grooves of the case handle. Mom wouldn’t let me bring the guitar until she was sure there was a place where I could keep it locked up. No telling what might happen to it, she said. After all, she had paid two hundred dollars for the thing. It would senseless for it to be stolen or damaged.

The porch boards creaked beneath my weight. Mom managed to pack all my things in two suitcases. She had the small one, and I carried the other one, letting the blue vinyl handle etch a design in to the crook of my fingers.

She pressed the doorbell, but instead of ringing, it made an awkward clank, as if something in its very core was broken beyond repair. A small, bent lady with gray hair tied tightly in a bun answered the door.

“Taylor Drysdale.” Mom cleared her throat. We’ve brought her stuff, I mean, we’re here to settle in.”

Her voice had an odd ring to the words, “settle in.” The words floated to my stomach and burned.

“Come in.” The lady opened the door wide—too wide—like an overly-anxious host who doesn’t get too many guests.

Inside, a Tar Heel beanbag fought gaudy furniture for attention. There was an impressive wide screen TV with bits of popcorn decorating the dark brown carpet in front of it.

Everything in the room looked as if it were all found at a yard sale; things that someone else didn’t want. The couch had an ugly orange, blue and yellow afghan across it that must have been made by a colorblind grandma. The ends of it weren’t tied very well, and it was starting to unravel.

“I’ll get Mr. Hopkins. He’ll be with you in a minute. Please have a seat.” With that, the lady trotted out of the room, gleefully, like she was heading to take some cookies out of the oven.

I didn’t want to sit on anything because it looked broken. I was afraid I’d get contaminated and then who’d fix me?

There was a cuckoo clock that fascinated me until I realized that it was a fake. It looked like a real cuckoo, but if you watched it carefully, you’d see that it was made of plastic. The bird in the center was impaled on a stick. It didn’t pop out; it just bobbed its head back and forth in a hypnotic dance.

“You need to sit down. You look tired,” Mother told me.

I couldn’t tell her that if you touched anything in this house you would become broken, too.

“Taylor, sit down.”

“I can’t. I’ll get broken, just like the furniture.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “That’s only your Condition talking.”

She always referred to it as my “Condition” with a capital “C.” Made me sound like I was having my period. “Parent’s note: Taylor can’t run in P.E. today because she has her Condition.”

“Well, where are all the people?” I asked. “If this place is so great, then where the hell are the people? Locked up in some room, somewhere.”

“Taylor, don’t swear.”

“But where are they?”

“They?” A deep baritone voice called from the stairs. “They are all in a group therapy session. You must be Taylor. We’ve been expecting you.”

To say that he was bald would be an understatement. He jumbled down the steps like a rag doll in a suit and tie. He came to me with an outstretched hand. Instead of shaking his hand, I thumbed through a hymnal that was on the coffee table. I found that “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” had been ripped out of its place and stuck in the middle like an odd bookmark. I missed my guitar. Mom promised she’d bring it later this week.

“I’m Susan Drysdale.” Mom tried her best to make up for my lack of cordiality.

“Arnold Hopkins, director.” He said it like he was applying for a job. “Won’t you please have a seat?”

“Actually, we really don’t have a whole lot of time,” she said. She tried to make him think that she was in a hurry, but I knew it was because she was afraid of contamination and getting broken, too. I think he may have picked up on it as well, for he seemed very careful not to touch or brush against anything in the rom.

“Certainly, certainly. “ He had black eyes that shone from behind oversized glasses. He was stout, but not chubby. He made me nervous, probably because he didn’t stop wringing his hands together. His nose was too big, and he looked like a cartoon character drawn badly out of proportion. He reached out his hand again to shake mine. I just stared at him and put my hands in my pockets. He had these huge hands: you could fit a whole football field in there—and rubbing them together. Swish, swish, his palms made squeaky noises because they were obviously sweaty.

“I only brought two suitcases, but I’ll bring the rest of her things later on in the week, if that’ll be all right.”

“The room’s all ready, if you’ll follow me.” His body shuffled toward the staircase. “I think you’ll like this room. It has a nice view of the mountains, if you can overlook the junkyard. He gave a laugh that sounded as if it came mostly from his nose.

The room was clean and bare. There was a small desk in the corner of the room and etched onto one of the drawers were the initials “RS” and “JL.” There was a ceiling fan, although I doubted that it worked. There was a white dresser with a reading lamp, and, much to my surprise, a Gideon Bible.

“I’ll give you some time to get settled in,” he said, opening the closet door in case I hadn’t picked up on where the closet was located. “There’s a bathroom down the hall on your left. There’s a large cabinet in there where you can put your toiletries.”

“Thanks.” My voice sounded hollow and tinny. I wouldn’t have recognized it as mine.

He gave a crooked half-smile and left the room, arms dangling. He pulled the door, leaving it slightly cracked.

“We can go now,” I said. “We can get the deposit back and everything can go back the way it was.”

“That’s just it, Taylor. Have you forgotten the way things were?”

“But I can control it this time. Just give me a chance.”

“How many chances does it take? What is it going to take to prove to you that you can’t handle this? When you end up in an institution? That’s where you’re heading.”

I was determined for her not to see me cry. I bit my lip. Institution. She had no idea. Two weeks in the hospital. Big deal. I know people who’ve had worse.

She gave me an awkward kiss on the cheek and then left, closing the door behind her. I could hear the thud of her feet going down the steps. I stared out the window—which did have a lovely view of both the mountains and a junkyard—until I saw her thin, willowy form exit. I placed my suitcase on the bed and unpacked.

“You getting settled dear?” A voice called from the door. “If you don’t mind, we prefer for the first couple of weeks, you keep the door open. Except when you’re getting dressed.” It was the lady who welcomed us into the house.

“I’d like to have my privacy.”

“Of course, and we want you to have your privacy, but all in good time, dear. All in good time.”

I threw some panties into one of the dresser drawers. The drawer looked worn and musty. I briefly debated whether or not I wanted my underwear to be touching it.

“My name is Maria Lupe Rodriquez Merano,” she said. “But around here, folks call me Big Mama.”

“Hi.” There was no way in hell I was going to call her “mama” anything.

“Have you unpacked your things?”

“Just started.”

“I wish I had gotten up here before you opened your suitcase. It would have saved you some trouble.” She opened the drawers and started going through all my clothes, even my underwear.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for sharps, dear. Have to check everyone. It’s the rules, you know.”

“Sharps?”

“Scissors, nail files…” she pried into my toiletry case and triumphantly held up my razor. “…razors.” There was a hint of pride in her voice.

“So what? I shave my legs.”

“Not without supervision. You might want to consider getting an electric razor.”

“I am not going to have someone sit and watch me shave my legs.”

“It’s just a precaution, dear. Just for the first couple of weeks until we get a better profile of you.”

“I’ll just have hairy legs, then.”

“Suit yourself.”

She moved on to my hair dryer and curling iron.

“These have got to go, too,” she said, wrapping the cords around her wrist.

“Why? They aren’t sharp.”

“Choking.” She stretched out the cord to illustrate her point. “We had a girl nearly commit suicide by rigging up a noose with a hair dryer cord.”

“I’m not going to do anything like that.”

“Of course you’re not, dear. It’s just that we want to be sure that you’re safe.”

“Safe from what?”

“Yourself.”

She picked through my stuff like a shopper at a K-mart blue light special. She checked the pockets of all my blue jeans and even felt down in my socks in case I was stashing a grenade in there.

“Are those the only pair of earrings you brought with you?”

“Yes.”

She tilted her head and took a loser look at them. Then she stretched out her hand.

“You’ll have to give those to me.”

“You’re afraid I’m going to choke on it or something?”

“It’s the backs.” She took the earring and ran the back of it up and down her arm, making a pink streak. “You’d be surprised how people can cut themselves on these.”

“Okay, okay, just do what you have to and get out.” I sat on the corner of the bed.

Big Mama sat beside me.

“I know you didn’t want to come here. But forget about what you’ve heard about this place or what you think that it might be. It sounds hokey, I know, but we really are a family here. And here you’ll have little friends who are struggling with the same things you are.”

I wanted to tell her to kiss off, but I was afraid if I told her, she’d only stick around to argue, and I wanted to get rid of her as son as possible.

She shuffled through the rest of my things as dutifully as a prison matron. She took my compact because she said the mirror inside could be broken to form sharp edges. I noticed the clothes hangers in the closet were permanently attached to the rod, like the kind you see in hotels.

I didn’t hear her leave. I crashed my fists into a pillow on the bed, looking out the window over the junkyard.

Even with the spectacular view of the mountains, it was the junkyard that fascinated me. On the heap was an old blue Pinto, cinder blocks replacing its wheels. I felt sorry or it because I realized that it and I were the same. The forgotten. Tossed into a scrap yard for improvements. Of course, everyone told me this was for my own good, yet I felt that someone fed that same line to the Pinto and look at it---a pathetic wash of nuts and bolts that couldn’t go anywhere unless God Himself had a hand in it.

I can’t even say I was really upset when the diagnosis came down. Bipolar disorder. Of course, I had heard of manic depression, even studied it in my psychology class, but the faces in the videotape seemed so unreal, surely they couldn’t apply to me.

Then came the spending sprees and the cold nights of crying …

“What do you want on your pizza?” It was a boyish figure sporting John Lennon glasses and short red hair that was styled in a man’s haircut.

“What?”

“It’s Friday,” she said impatiently. “Pizza night. What do you want on it?”

“I don't know. What everybody else has will be okay.”

“Better not say that. Isaac likes anchovies on his.”

“Anything except black olives.”

“Gotcha. By the way, I’m Reno. You’re the new admit, aren’t you?”

“Word travels fast.”

“Boy, are you lucky. Just missed the most murderous hour of group therapy I’ve ever been through.” She grabbed her throat and made gagging noises. “What’s your name? Never mind, I’ll find out soon enough. Oh by the way, Big Mama wants you to help her set the table.”

“Great.”

“Hey, be nice to Big Mama. She’s the one you need to drive you around places. Think she’s a sweet little old lady? Piss her off and see how far you get. It’s worse than being grounded.”

Reno tucked her head out the door and I heard her brisk footsteps dart down the hallway. I pulled out of bed. My head had a particular ache to it, the kind you have when you’re getting the flu.

I was stumbling down the steps when I first heard the humming in the walls, like there was machinery inside them and the house was starting to come alive.

I followed the voices to the kitchen. There was a small dining room with a long table with mix-and-match chairs. A picnic bench filled in for some of the missing chairs. A pink table cloth seemed to be linen, but on closer examination it proved to be cheap plastic, like the kind used to paper church fellowship hall tables during covered-dish dinners.

Voices were everywhere. Scurrying, building around me in vague crescendos of blue and green. Somewhere among them was the familiar street-tough whine of Reno, muttering something about mushrooms and black olives. It’s all misty-like, kind of wispy and warm like the bathroom when you step out of the shower. Then the break:

“Hey, it’s what’s-her-face,” said Reno, ending her conversation with Big Mama and heading toward me. “May I have your attention, please?” she said in a voice that sounded lower than natural. “May I give you the obvious pleasure of introducing to you the charter member of the Reno Shepherd Fan Club? What’s-her-face fro Lickskillet, Oklahoma.”

This was greeted by a round of boos and hisses.

“Hey now, I know you all wanted to be charter members, but we had to leave that to Linda here.”

“Linda?” asked a skinny, sandy-haired guy in the corner. “Is that her name?”

“Ah, ah, ah.” She covered my mouth with her hand. “Just how much is it worth to you? Who wants to place bets on what her name is?”

“You’re crazy,” he said.

“No shit, Sherlock. Why do you think we’re all in Brick House? Now who wants to place a bet? I’ll place thirty minutes on Linda.”

“It’s fixed,” a squatty guy chimed in. “You’ve looked at her records.”

“You know Big Daddy Warbucks would prefer to be gift-wrapped naked and sent to hell than to let any of us get our paws on those records.”

“Daddy Warbucks?” I asked.

“Mr. Hopkins. We call him that because he’s bald, in case you didn’t notice. We also call him Big Daddy.”

“I mean I have seen bald men in my time but that guy is bald.” The squatty guy got a Coke from the fridge. “I mean balder than bald. It’s like his head has some kind of nuclear fallout that kills the hairs before they even start to grow.”

“The woman’s wig we gave him for Christmas. That was cruel.” It was the sandy-haired guy again. He’s almost blonde and his long bangs reveal where the sun had streaked its fingers across his hair.

“And you are?” I asked because he was kind of cute.

“Allow me.” Reno stepped in with a flourish of her arm. “This is my esteemed colleague, Brad Pitt. Mr. Pitt, I loved your latest movie, but sound, sadly, that you did not show your butt nearly enough. For your next film perhaps, oh, just do your next film in the buff. And this…” she jumped over to the squatty guy, who had already downed his Coke and was starting on another, “…this is Elvis. Yes, he’s alive and has been at Brick House to keep out of the limelight.”

“And Princess…” Reno’s voice trailed off. “Princess is late as usual because Princess has extra leave privileges and is probably wreaking havoc on a shopping mall somewhere.”

“Who’s Princess?” I asked.

“A rich bitch,” Brad Pitt replied flatly.

“Now Blaine,” Big Mama admonished as she trotted into the kitchen. I could tell everyone was wondering how long she had been listening. “Deana is no different from anyone else. And she hates it when you call her Princess.”

“But that’s what she looks like,” Reno squealed. “How can you look at that two-inch waist and those boobs that should be national landmarks and not think of some skinny, spoiled, rich, Barbie doll, fairy-tale-till-you-throw-up princess?”

“Falsies don’t you bet,” Brad Pitt chimed.

“Now, now, children,” Big Mama was not pleased.

I went through the cabinets, looking for silverware to set the table, but all I found were those plastic spoon/fork combinations you get at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

“Where’s the silverware?”

“In here,” Brad Pitt rattled a drawer at the far end of the kitchen. “Locked. You see, they’re afraid we might get a hold of one of the knives or forks and get a little crazy.”

“But what I don’t understand is why they keep the spoons locked up as well,” Reno complained. “I mean, who ever hurt someone with a spoon?”

She took one of the plastic “sporks” and grabbed Brad Pitt from behind, as if she were holding a knife at his throat. Brad went along with it and started crying hysterically.

“Don’t anyone move. I’ve got one of the plastic spoon/ fork things.” Reno tried to muster up a gangster voice. “One false move and pretty boy here gets it.”

There’s a round of laughter, but it’s nervous laugher, as if laughing really isn’t allowed in the house. So everyone just let out a half-hearted chuckle, then looked anxiously around to see if someone heard it.

“Let’s go, Taylor,” Big Mama gathered some dishes and headed for the dining room table.

“Taylor! Aha! So her name isn’t Linda after all. You lost the bet.” Elvis suddenly became very animated.

“We never officially bet on it. I made the offer, but no one was interested. So there was never really any bet. Deal with it,” she responded.

I tried to avoid Big Mama’s eyes. They were cold and gray. There was something hard-headed about her, like a woman who had spent one too many years living and was now paying the price.

The dishes weren’t real dishes. They were these plastic plates that were a sickly shade of orange. Once again, unbreakable.

Big Daddy or Daddy Warbucks or whatever they called him returned with the pizza and spread it on the table like a Thanksgiving turkey. It had black olives. We dutifully took our places at the table, with Big Daddy at the head and Big Mama across from him.

“Would anyone like to volunteer to say grace?” he asked.

Sensing my puzzled look, he quickly added, “Not that we push a certain kind of religion over another, but the local Catholic church makes many valuable contributions toe the home and, well, we figured the least we can do is say grace.”

Brad Pitt volunteered.

“Yeah God. Boo, Devil. Amen.”

And everyone was okay with that.

The pizza tasted cold and stale even though I knew it was fresh. I spent most of my time picking off the black olives and piling them in an odd pyramid on the side of my plate. There was some talk of school, of homework, of how it sucked to be dateless on a Friday night. But Friday night was movie night, and Big Daddy insisted that they would like the feature that he had picked for the evening. There was a collective grown.

“Just once, would it kill you to pick up an R-rated movie?” Reno asked.

“Don’t you think your minds have been polluted enough?” Big Daddy seemed unfazed. “You see Taylor, here was see ourselves as a community, a family, if you will. Because we are all dealing with a wide range of psychological problems, it is important that we take daily temperature readings to see how we’re getting along as a community, so we can stop any problems before they start. Our community meetings present a good time to vent any frustrations you have with the way the home is run. It’s an open forum.”

Later, dishes were cleared and we set chairs in a circle in the living room. A tall, thin blonde entered the room. I could only assume that she was Princess; she had breasts that were large and menacing.

Big Daddy took the helm and waited for the others to be seated. He scratched his head and set a legal pad on his lap.

“Well,” he cleared his throat, “as we all know by now, this is Taylor Drysdale. She will be staying in what was Joan’s old room. Taylor just joined us today.”

There was a unified grumble through the group.

“How are we all doing? Isaac, how was that chemistry test?”

Elvis answered. “I was a bit distracted.”

“Did your affective disorder cause problems?”

“No, the blonde in the third row.” He winked and elbowed Brad Pitt.

“And speaking of women, how are you dealing with your break up, Blaine?”

“It's her loss,” he said. “She didn’t want to go out with me when she found out that I was crazy. At first that bothered me, but now, I don’t care who knows. If they can’t deal with it, screw ‘em. I don’t need them messing with me.

There was a short silence. The tall blonde that had joined the group lit a cigarette and took a long drag.

“Deana, there is no smoking in the house.”

“Cut me some slack, okay? Let me have my thrill.” Her clothes looked as if they had been taken from the mannequin at The Limited. Everything matched, from the pale pink of her lipstick to the pink of her nail polish and the pink of the broach she wore on her collar.

“Deana, please introduce yourself.”

My name’s Deana Hays and I’ve been at Brick House off and on for five months, and that’s five months too long. I can’t tell you what’s wrong with me, because nobody really knows.” She paused and took another drag on the cigarette, in open defiance of Big Daddy. “And if you ever, ever call me Princess, I will scratch your eyes out.”

As if they had been given a cue, the group began to chant, “Princess…Princess… Princess.”

“Oh knock it off!” She flipped some ashes in their direction. “It’s bad enough I have to live with you nut cases.”

“Reno?” Big Daddy looked at her hopefully, think it that she would provide a change to the tension that Princes unleashed upon the group.

“Smooth sailing. I’m the Prozac poster child.” She smiled---a wiry, toothy grin.

And so the wheel rolled to me. I looked at the gallery of faces. What did they want from me? It was all a game. Brick House, the group therapy sessions, everything was a game.

“I’m manic depressive,” I said curtly, as if that should be all they needed to know.

“Is there any community business that needs to be brought up?”

“I have a question,” Isaac said. “Why is it we have to get up at eight on Saturdays? I mean, couldn’t we sleep late one day a week?”

“That is an excellent question, Mr. Peterson,” Big Daddy crossed and uncrossed his legs. “A great deal of time and planning went into the schedule. We thought it would be best to get up early so you could do your chores and get them over with so you could enjoy Saturday night with your little friends. After you finish your chores, it’s a free day. You can go back to bed if you like.”

“Besides, sleep too late and you’ll miss bugs Bunny,” Reno said.

“But if you like, Big Mama and I will review the schedule and see if we couldn’t allow some extra hours here and there for sleep.”

“That would be great.”

“Is there any further business? Deana, for the last time, put out that cigarette before I assign you some hours. Nothing else? Okay, movie starts at eight.”

“What did you get?”

“Mary Poppins.”

“Warbucks.” Blaine waves his hand in the air. “How many times do we have to tell you that past a certain age, Disney is just not cool.”

“Would you like to have a film committee?”

“Definitely.”

“Then head one up. Next week someone else can get the move. I’m tired of hearing you whine.

I placed my chair back to its original position at the dining room table.

“Taylor, may I see you for a moment in my office, just to go through some orientation stuff?” Big Daddy said it as if I had no other option.

His office was located in the back side of the house near his bedroom. It was bleak and bare, save for a full color map of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He motioned me toward a seat that gave a soft poot as I sat down.

“I know we’re hitting you with a lot of informational at once,” he began, “but you’re a smart kid and I know you can handle it. Let’s see, Drysdale. Taylor Jay Drysdale…” he pulled a file from his desk. “You are eighteen years old. You had a sister who died in a car accident when you were nine. Your parents divorced when you were twelve. You started seeing a doctor three years ago for severe chest pain. After all tests came back normal, he ruled it psychosomatic and sent you to a psychiatrist. At times you can stay up for three days at a time and on other occasions, all you want to do is sleep.

“Psychological testing revealed atypical bipolar disorder, or manic depression. Started taking lithium two months ago, but still having problems. “ He peered at me over his glasses as if waiting for approval to go on. I nodded slightly.

“Taylor, do you know how Brick House operates?”

I shook my head. I decided the less I said, the better.

“First of all, it’s not Brick House. I know that’s what everybody calls it. I think it’s taken from an incident three years ago when the football team got suspended for throwing bricks through the windows. Its real name is Saint Jude’s Academy. We’re an experiment, really. We’ve only been around for four years. We knew some young people with mental illnesses were slipping through the cracks in the mental health system. Many are not bad enough to go to a hospital or group home. Many are able to function in society. But they are volatile and their balance rests on a small hinge. We have immediate access to a psychiatrist if you have a relapse. We offer group therapy and individual therapy every day, just like a hospital would.”

“When can I go home?” I uttered the words before I could hold them back.

“You are free to come and go as you please. However, we must maintain a strict account of where you’ll be, when, and for how long. We reserve the right to keep you from going places that we deem psychologically unhealthy. All transportation must be arranged with Big Mama a week in advance. Since you are new, you do not have leave privileges yet. As we develop a deeper sense of trust toward you and evaluate your psychological condition, we will start with three hours a week and then take it from there.

“You will be assigned hours, or chores, which you must do every week. If you violate the rules of Saint Jude’s, you will be assigned extra hours of work or your leave privileges will be revoked. Here's a booklet with the list of rules. Take some time to read them over.”

“I’ll need to go home and get my guitar.”

“Please do not think of this as a group home,” he prattled on without skipping a beat. “We like to think of Saint Jude’s as a family. Now are there any questions?”

His words seemed to hover in the air for a long time after he had spoken them.

“When can I go home?” It was worth repeating.

“Once we determine your mood has been stabilized for a sufficient period of time. But Taylor, for right now, this is your home.”

Home? I was in foreign country. I was hovering somewhere in between the real world and this pseudo-hospital ward. Big Daddy removed his glasses and wiped off a spot with the edge of his tie. I knew those eyes would be watching every move I made.

Chapter One from "Saint Jude" --named one of the best reads of 2004 and 2006 by school librarians

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