Michael v: Unnatural

“I’ll go,” Michael heard himself say.

“I told you to git upstairs!” his grandpa shouted back.

One of the paramedics said that his mother was in good hands, that she would be asleep for hours, so he should do as his grandfather said. Funny how a stranger was kinder to him than his own flesh and blood. Funnier still was how mean his grandpa could really be. “You’re the main reason she’s like this anyway! ’Bout time you faced up to it!”

He didn’t have to look at the other people in the room; he knew they had involuntarily cast their eyes away from him, their faces a mixture of shock and compassion. Michael was young, but he wasn’t stupid. He also wasn’t strong when it came to defending himself against his grandpa, so he didn’t deny what he’d said, he didn’t yell back. He accepted his words and felt their anger and frustration saturate his skin.

“Someone from the hospital will call you,” one of the men said to no one in particular. Michael looked at his mother, her face serene, already asleep. He wondered if she was content. Had she gotten what she wanted? Was it her plan to be taken from this house, taken violently because she didn’t have the strength to leave peacefully? He might never know. She had tried this before but of course had never given a full explanation as to why, at least not to her family. Perhaps her doctor, the psychiatrist, had a better understanding of why she harmed herself, but if he did know, he never felt obliged or compelled to share it with those closest to her. Her family was forced to guess.

As they wheeled her out on the stretcher, Michael noticed that the bleeding had stopped. That was a good sign. The cuts wouldn’t be so deep this time. She would stay in the hospital for a few days, recover, and then come home to resume her place in the family. No one would mention this night, and this disturbance while not forgotten would go unspoken.

One last look. His mother was sleeping now, her eyes closed, her expression blank but soft. The pain, wherever it came from, was sleeping now too. A sheet covered the straitjacket, so as she was wheeled away, if Michael wanted to, he could forget it was there; he could imagine that she was simply being taken to the hospital for routine surgery. Remove a gallbladder or an appendix. Something that wouldn’t return to destroy the fragile foundation this family was built upon.

He left his grandparents to their beer and rosary and went back up to his room. From his window he saw the ambulance drive away, down the dirt road and into the night. Despite everything, he couldn’t help but think how lucky his mother was. At least she, for a time, was elsewhere.

First day back to school was never a happy time for Michael. First day back to school when your mother was in the hospital under psychiatric evaluation made the day even worse.

Last year when Michael entered Weeping Water High School he thought things might improve from his grammar school and junior high days; he might find someone, anyone, who shared his desire for knowledge. He thought his new classmates might be a little smarter, might be a bit more interested in actually learning about world history or English literature and not just in figuring out the easiest way to cut class without getting caught. No such luck.

The majority of kids at Two W mainly fell into two camps—the jocks and cheerleaders who thought life should be spent on the football field, and the slackers who preferred to watch life speed by them. The only thing the two camps had in common was a desire to learn the least amount of studying they would have to do to produce a report card full of average grades.

Of course Michael wasn’t an anomaly; there were other kids in school who wanted to learn, who wanted to learn as much as possible in order to get accepted into a good college so they could have the kind of life and career that the Weeping Water public school system on its own couldn’t provide. Problem was that none of those kids wanted to be Michael’s friend.

In a small town, word travels fast, and before he had even put in one full day as a freshman, the entire student body knew that Michael Howard was the kid whose mother was in and out of psychiatric care and who was kind of weird himself. It didn’t matter that Michael was an excellent student, salutatorian of his junior high class. Not a star athlete but definitely not the most uncoordinated kid in gym class. He just didn’t fit in.

The whispers had begun about Michael well before his teen years. As a young boy it was noted that his diction was too refined; he didn’t sound like somebody who was brought up in Nebraska. His vocabulary was much too vast. “Nobody from around here uses words like that,” people would say. “Do you think he dyes his hair? No boy’s hair is that blond all by itself.” And then there was his attitude.

Michael knew that part of the reason he didn’t have any friends and was ostracized by his peers was because everyone thought he considered himself better than everyone else. It didn’t matter that he never once voiced this opinion, it didn’t matter that this wasn’t how he felt; all that mattered was that one group of kids interpreted Michael’s timidity and intelligence as arrogance and they then shared their assumptions with another group of kids and soon Michael had earned a reputation of being an egotistical jerk. An unjust reputation, but one he didn’t have the strength to fight.

“Heard your mother’s back in her own padded cell.”

He didn’t need to turn around; he knew without looking who made that remark. Mauro Dorigo had been taunting Michael since third grade, from the first day Mauro moved here from New York. Michael tried ignoring him, he tried tattling on him, he tried running from him, but Mauro ran faster, and when he caught up with him, he surprised him with a roundhouse punch that gave Michael his first black eye.

Mauro was a tough kid who grew up on the streets of the Lower East Side. The only way he knew how to take care of himself was with his fists, and the best way he knew to make sure no one messed with him was to mess with somebody else first. So on his first day at his new school in Nebraska, he searched the school yard for the weakest-looking kid and stopped when he cast his eyes on Michael. He had nothing against Michael at the time; it was just that he had that scared look about him, almost like he was waiting for someone to pounce. Mauro was more than willing.

Seven years later, not much had changed. Mauro was still more overweight than muscular, but he had the advantage because fear still clung to Michael. Fear that at any moment someone was going to attack, physically or verbally. That someone was usually Mauro.

“I hear they’re going to name the loony bin after her, she’s spent so much time in there.”

Now a group had gathered and some kids laughed, others whispered. He knew they knew what had happened to his mother; everyone always found out, so there was no sense in denying it.

“Yes, it’s going to be called the Grace Ann Howard Wing,” Michael said. “The ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for next week; you should put it on your calendar.”

When he turned to walk away he caught a glimpse of some of the kids’ startled faces; they looked impressed. Yes, they definitely were impressed with Michael’s comeback. He knew he shouldn’t joke about his mother’s condition, but what else was he going to do? Mauro was right. By the end of the year, his mother would be making another trip to the mental ward; might as well own up to it. But Mauro always had to have the last word.

“So, Howard! I guess that makes you a gaytard!” The kids who seconds ago were impressed with Michael’s wit switched allegiance and were once again back on Mauro’s side. “If your mother’s crazy, you must be a retarded homo!”