Нед Виззини - It's Kind of a Funny Story

“Wonderful,” Mom says.

“Of course”—J/C gestures to us—“it’s a lot better when you have family support. They want to make sure they discharge you into a safe environment. I don’t have that.” He shakes his head. “Craig, you’re very lucky.”

I look at them: my safe environment. I frankly wouldn’t be surprised to find any of them in Six North.

“Well, I’ll leave you guys to your afternoon,” J/C says. He walks away slowly.

Jimmy makes an indecipherable high-pitched whining noise.

“That’s applause, isn’t it?” Dad asks, throwing a thumb behind him. “I like that.”

“Those are awesome pants,” Sarah says.

“Okay, so let’s get down to business, Craig,” Mom is like. “What do you need?”

“I need a phone card. I need you guys to take my phone and leave it plugged in so the calls register. I need some clothes, like what you were bringing before, Mom. I don’t need towels; they have those. Magazines would be good. And a pencil and paper, that would rock.”

“Simple enough. What kind of magazines?”

“Science magazines! He loves those,” Dad says.

“He might not be up for science magazines right now,” Mom answers. “Do you want anything lighter?”

“Do you want Star?” Sarah asks.

“Sarah, why would I want Star?”

“Because it’s awesome.” She reaches into her purse—her first one, black, a recent Mom purchase—and unrolls a glossy pink monstrosity, complete with pictures of the most recent spectacular outing of a celebrity breast in public.

I hold it up for Jimmy.

“Mmmmmm-hmmmmmm! ” he says. “I tell you! I tell you! It come to ya!”

“That’s very nice,” says the professor woman with bugged-out eyes, who I somehow didn’t realize had migrated right behind me. “Oh, excuse me,” she looks up. “I wasn’t listening to your conversation at all.” She walks to her room.

“Um . . .” Sarah says.

“I’ll take it,” I say. I put it under my seat. “I think the floor will enjoy it.”

“Is it just me, or are you starting to develop a sort of allegiance to the tribe?” Dad asks.

“Shhh.” I smile.

“Craig, the next order of business: have you called Dr. Barney?”

“No.”

“Have you called Dr. Minerva?”

“No.”

“Well, they both need to know where you are, for health insurance reasons and because they’re your doctors and they care about you and this is going to be very important to them.”

“Their numbers are in my phone.”

“Well, let’s call them; we picked up your phone from the front,” Mom reaches into her bag—

“No!” Dad grabs her hands. “Don’t take out the phone!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, honey. Craig’s the one who’s not allowed to have it, not us.”

“Well, uh, I don’t think we want to be getting our son in trouble. This isn’t the kind of place you want to be getting sent to a time-out.”

I look at him. “That’s really not that funny.”

“What? Oh, sorry,” he says.

“No, Dad, seriously. It’s not . . . I mean, this is serious business.”

“I’m just trying to lighten the mood, Craig—”

“Well, that’s what you’re always trying to do. Let’s just, not do it here.”

Dad nods, looks me dead in the eyes; slowly and regretfully, he banishes all the smiling and joking from his face, and for once he’s just my dad, watching his son who has fallen so low. “All right, then.”

We stay quiet.

“Is that the truth, Jimmy?” I ask without looking at him.

“It’s the truth, and it come to ya!”

I smile.

“We’ll handle the phone later,” Dad sums up.

“Next order of business?” Mom asks.

“How long I’m going to be in here, I think.”

“How long do you think?”

“A couple of days. But I haven’t seen the doctor yet. Dr. Mahmoud.”

“Right, how is he? Is he good?”

“I don’t know, Mom. You met him for as long as I did. He makes rounds soon, and I’ll get to talk with him.”

“I think you need to stay here until you’re better, Craig. You don’t want to come out early and have to come back; that’s how you get ‘in the system.’”

“Right. I won’t. I think that’s actually a big part of places like this: they make them so you don’t want to come back.

“How’s the food?” Sarah asks.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” I look at my family. “I’m . . . I know I shouldn’t be proud about this; it’s like really sad that this is my big accomplishment of the day . . . but I ate everything at lunch.”

“You did?” Mom stands up, pulls me up and hugs me.

“Yeah.” I pull away. “It was chicken. I actually ate two helpings of it.”

“Son, that is a big one,” Dad gets up and shakes my hand.

“No, it’s not, it’s really simple, everybody does it, but for me it’s like a stupid triumph—”

“No,” Mom says, looking me in the eyes. “What’s a triumph is that you woke up this morning and decided to live. That’s a triumph. That’s what you did today.”

I nod at her. Like I say, I’m not a crier.

“Yeah, cause if you had died . . .” Sarah is like, “that would have sucked.” She rolls her eyes and hugs my leg.

I sit back down. “Once the food is in front of you it’s just like, eat. I mean, they’re professionals here; they know how to take people and put them in a routine that gives them something to do.”

“That’s right,” Mom says. “So what are you going to do now?”

“I think there are activities—”

“Hey, Craig, is this your family?” President Armelio steps on the scene. His half-harelip and hair shock my sister, but his relentless enthusiasm for just—I don’t know— living —would knock the fear out of anybody. He shakes all the hands and says we’re a beautiful family and I’m a good guy, he can tell.

“Craig’s my buddy! Hey, buddy—you want to play cards?”

President Armelio holds up a deck of playing cards like he just fished it out of the sea.

“Yeah, absolutely!” I say. I stand up. When was the last time I played cards? Before the test, probably—before high school.

“All right!” Armelio says. “My kinda guy! Let’s do it. I’ve been looking and looking: nobody here likes to play cards like I do! What do you want to play? Spades? I’ll crush you, buddy; I’ll crush you.”

I look at my parents. “We’ll call you,” Mom says. “And hey—what about sleeping?”

“I’m wired right now,” I say. “But I’ll crash. I’m starting to get a headache.”

“Headache? Buddy, once I crush you in spades, you’re going to have a lot bigger headache!” Armelio toddles away to the dining room to set up the cards.

“See ya,” Sarah says, hugging me.

“Bye, son.” Dad shakes my hand.

“I love you,” Mom says. “I’ll call you with the doctors’ phone numbers.”

“And bring a phone card.”

“And I’ll bring a phone card. You hang in there, Craig.”

“Yeah, I will.” And as soon as they’re around the bend, I head into the dining room and learn how to play spades for the rest of the afternoon, which Armelio absolutely does crush me in.

I’m afraid of making phone calls. The phone on Six North is a hubbub of activity, with Bobby and the blond burned-out-type, who I learn is named Johnny, fielding calls from, I assume, their respective female counterparts. Bobby starts off his calls happy and says “Baby” a lot, but then he gets angry and slams the phone down saying “bitch”; Smitty tells him not to do that; Bobby walks away leaning back with a particularly potent aura of not caring. Five minutes later, another call comes in for him, and he’s back to “Baby.” He doesn’t ever answer the phone, though; President Armelio has that job. When he answers, he always says “Joe’s Pub,” and then finds whoever the call’s for.