Нед Виззини - It's Kind of a Funny Story

I think about what Humble would say. He would say Yeah, absolutely, because he’s the alpha male. I try to develop and drop my words, keeping my voice deep and level: “Yeah, absolutely.”

“Good,” she says, and there’s a heat on my knee and a hand moving up my leg. She leans in. “I think you’re really hottt.” The hand encloses my thigh. “I have my own private room because I’m so messed up they won’t let me sleep with anybody else.”

“You have your own private room because you’re a slut!” Becca corrects, and Jennifer kicks her.

“Ow!”

Without warning, the blond girl with the cuts on her face gets up and speed-walks out of the room. I look through the window for her: nothing.

“Forget her,” Jennifer says. “She’s no good for you.” Then, sparking an out-of-body experience that truly makes me question whether I’m dreaming this, or have died and gone to some kind of awesome hell, she flicks her tongue around her lips in a perfect O.

Something flashes out in the hall. The blond girl streaks to the window. I can’t be sure it’s her. I mean, it is a her—it has breasts. And I think I recognize her small body and wife-beater. But I can’t see her face because she presses up a piece of paper against the glass:

BEWARE OF PENIS

The sign slides down as if on an elevator.

“What are you looking at?” Jennifer asks, turning back. I eye her body as she swivels; from the waist up she doesn’t look like she has a penis. I keep my peripheral vision on the hall in case the messenger returns.

“Ha!” Becca is like. “Noelle did it to you again.”

“She what?” Jennifer stands. She has a round and totally female shape. Her legs are encased with jeans that have frills around her butt.

“I can’t be lieve her . . . hey.” She turns back. “You looking at my pants?”

“Yeah,” I gulp. I’ve lost all alpha maleness. Could I be like a theta male? They have to get lucky sometime. Being on top of the sexual food chain is a lot of pressure.

“I made them myself,” she says. “I’m a fashion designer.”

“Wow, really? That’s like a real job.” My mind spins; it’s somehow fallen off the sex track into grade-school logic. “I thought you were my age; how’d you learn how to design clothes—”

“All right,” Smitty strides in. “Playtime’s over. C’mon, Charles.”

“What the hell!” Jennifer jumps a few inches in the air and stomps her feet. Then, horror of horrors, her voice drops two octaves. “You guys won’t let me have any fun!”

It’s a bad voice, even for a guy, like a frog croaking. Becca laughs and laughs, doubling over on herself, and all I can do is catch my breath and stare goggle-eyed at Jennifer for signs. It can’t be. She’s flat, that’s all. She has big hands; lots of girls have big hands. She doesn’t have an Adam’s apple—oh, wait, she’s wearing a turtleneck.

“C’mon, don’t bother Craig,” Smitty says.

“But he’s so cute!”

“He’s not cute, he’s a hospital patient like you. You’re supposed to get out tomorrow; don’t jeopardize it. Have you taken your medicine yet?”

“Hormone treatments.” Jennifer/Charles winks at me.

“C’mon, enough.”

Becca laughs, sighs. “Oh, she got you good. I’m getting my meds.”

I look down at the table as they leave. I need some meds. I glance up and see patients lined up at the desk next to the phone, the nurses’ station, eagerly passing the time in their own little ways—President Armelio bopping from foot to foot, Jimmy holding the hand that refuses to work—before getting pills in little plastic cups. Jennifer/Charles and Becca eventually appear at the end of the line, chatting and gesticulating, and Jennifer/Charles blows me a kiss. I don’t think I need to be in line behind them right now. Besides, all I take is Zoloft in the morning; if they wanted me on something midday, they would have told me.

When Becca and J/C are gone and I’m still sitting shell-shocked at the table, another sign appears at the window, this one inching up from below as if hoisted by spider threads:

DON’T WORRY. HE/SHE/IT GETS EVERYBODY, WELCOME TO SIX NORTH!

When I go out to find her, she isn’t there. I ask the nurse wrapping up her dispensing duties if I need any meds, and she says I’m not scheduled for any. I ask her if I can have some. She asks what I need them for. I tell her, to deal with this crazy place. She says if they had pills for that, they wouldn’t need places like this in the first place, would they?

“So what’s it like?” Mom asks, holding a tote bag of toiletries, with Dad and Sarah next to her. We’re at the end of the right H leg, me in one chair facing the three of them. Visiting hours are from 12 to 8 on Saturday.

Sarah doesn’t let me answer.

“It’s like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest!” she says, excited. She’s dressed up in jeans and a fake suede jacket for Six North. “I mean, all these people look like . . . serious crazies!”

“Shhh,” I tell her. “Jimmy’s right there.” Jimmy is behind her at the window, sitting with his arms crossed as usual, out of his shirt and into a clean navy robe.

“Who’s Jimmy?” Mom asks eagerly.

“The guy I came in with downstairs. I think he’s schizophrenic.”

“Doesn’t that mean he has two personalities?” Sarah asks, turning. “Like, he’s not just Jimmy; he’s also Molly or something.”

“No, you’d be surprised, that’s a different one,” I raise my eyebrows. “Jimmy’s just a little . . . scattered.”

Jimmy sees me looking at him and smiles. “I tell you, you play those numbers, it’ll come to ya!” he chirps.

“I think he’s talking about Lotto numbers,” I explain. “I’ve been trying to figure it out.”

“Oh my gosh.” My sister covers her face.

“No, Sarah, don’t do that, watch,” Mom says. She turns around. “Thank you very much, Jimmy.”

“I tell you: it the truth!”

“I like this place,” Mom turns back. “I think it’s full of good people.”

“I really like it.” Dad leans in. “When can I join?” But when no one laughs, he leans back, clasps his hands, sighs.

“Is that a transvestite?” Sarah asks. J/C is down the hall, like forty feet away, and I don’t know for the life of me how Sarah suspects something out there that I couldn’t see at point-blank range.

“No, now listen—”

“Is it?” Dad squints.

“Guys!”

“Trans- vestite !” Jimmy shrieks. He does it at top range—I haven’t heard him that loud before. The entire hall, which admittedly is just me, my family, J/C, and the older professor-type woman with the glasses, stops and stares.

“I tell you once, it’ll come: it come to ya!”

J/C starts walking toward us. “Are we talking about me?” he asks in his guy voice. He waves at Jimmy. “Hey, Jimmy.” He comes right up between me and my sister. “Craig, your name is, right?”

“Yeah,” I mumble.

“Wow, is this your family?”

“Yeah.” I tip my palm at each of them—it’s at the level of the frills on his pants. “My dad”—he juts his lip out—“my mom”—she nods, all smiles—“and my sister, Sarah”—she reaches out a hand.

“Oh my God, so lovely!” J/C says. “I’m Charles.” He shakes with everyone. “They’re going to take really good care of your son here. He’s a good guy.”

“How about you; what are you in for?” Dad asks. I kick him. Doesn’t he know what not to ask?

“It’s okay, Craig!” J/C touches my shoulder. “My gosh, did you just kick your dad? I never even did that.” He addresses Dad: “I have bipolar, sir, and I had an episode, and they brought me here. I’m going back upstate today. But the doctors are very attentive here, and the turnaround time is great.”