Нед Виззини - It's Kind of a Funny Story

I need a cold shower to keep things going?

That’s right. Less time in the shower, more in the battlefield.

Fine.

I can do this. I reach out and twist the temperature knob slowly to the left, then decide that I’m never going to get it done gradually so I’ll have to do it like a Band-Aid—I jerk it over. The water goes from toasty warm to frigid so quickly that it feels like it burns me. I bend my groin out of its path but I know that’s cheating, so I stick it back in as I furiously lather myself. Leg: up! Down! Other leg: up! Down! Crotch: uh, scrub scrub scrub. Chest: wipe. Arm: down! Back! Other arm: down! Back! Neck, face, turn around, wash your butt, and I’m out! Straight to the towel. I wrap it around myself and shiver.

I’m so desperate to put my clothes on that my socks stick to my wet feet. I go out to talk with Smitty.

“You okay?”

“First cold shower.”

“Of the day?”

“Of my life.”

“Yeah, that’ll knock ya.”

“What’s the news?”

Smitty holds up his paper. It seems that a new candidate is running for Mayor of New York promising to give everyone who votes for him a lap dance. He’s a multibillionaire, and at $100 per lap dance, he thinks he can lock up the vote. A lot of women are supporting him.

“That’s crazy.” I shiver. “It’s like . . . Who’s out there and who’s in here, you know?”

“Absolutely. Better music in here, though.” Smitty turns up the radio.

“By the way, that’s a question I have—can I play some music on the hall tonight? At the other end?”

“What kind?”

“There’s no words, don’t worry, nothing offensive. It’s something one of the people on the hall will like. Like a gift.”

“I’ll have to see it first.”

“Okay. And you know I’m bringing that Blade II movie tonight to watch with the group.”

“You think about that a minute. You’re bringing a vampire movie onto a floor full of psych patients.”

“They can handle it.”

“I’m not gonna get any nightmares?”

“Promise.”

“Nightmares are a big problem in my job, Craig.”

“Understood.”

Smitty sighs, puts his paper down, and gets up. “You want me to do your vitals?”

He straps me in on the chair, pumps me up, and puts his soft fingertips on my wrist. Today I’m 120/70. First day I haven’t been perfect.

“How’re you doing?” Dr. Minerva is like.

It’s 11 A.M. I sigh. After vitals was breakfast, where the guy who was afraid of gravity and Rolling Pin Robert were gone—Humble told me and Noelle that they got discharged. Toward the end of the meal, Noelle touched her leg against mine for as long as it took me to drink the first sip of my after-breakfast Swee-Touch-Nee tea, which was a big sip. Then Monica announced that we’d be screening Blade II tonight opposite the smoking lounge and everybody got excited, especially Johnny: “Huh, that movie is cool; a lotta vampires die.” No announcements about my music, but then again it hadn’t arrived yet.

I took my Zoloft in my little plastic cup and drew some brain maps by the window in the corner of the hall next to Jimmy. I handled my phone messages, started thinking seriously about what I’d do the moment I got out—would I buy a cup of coffee? Walk to the park? Go home and start in on the e-mail?—and that got me started thinking about e-mail, and all of a sudden I was really glad to have Dr. Minerva to go to.

“I’m doing okay, I think.”

She looks at me calm and steady. Maybe she’s my Anchor.

“What’s got you in doubt, Craig?”

“Excuse me?”

“You said you were okay ‘you think.’ Why do you just think it?”

“That’s an expression,” I say.

“This isn’t the place to be leaving if you’re not feeling better, Craig.”

“Right, well, I’ve been thinking about my e-mail.”

“Yes?”

“I’m really worried about getting out there and having to check it. The phones I’m caught up with, but the e-mail might be pretty deadly.”

“Deadly . . . How can e-mail be deadly, Craig?”

“Well.” I lean back, take a deep breath. Then I remember something. “You know how I had a lot of problems with starting and stopping my sentences before?”

“Yes.”

“Not lately.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s like the opposite, like words can just pour out of me, the way they used to, when I used to get in trouble in class.”

“Which was. . .” She focuses on her pad to write this down.

“A year ago . . . Before I went to Executive Pre-Professional.”

“Right—now tell me about the e-mail.”

“The e-mail.” I put my hands on the table. “I hate it. Like, right now, I haven’t been checking it for five days, okay?”

“Since Saturday.” She nods.

“That’s right. Now, what are people thinking while they’re trying to reach me? These are people who probably already have some idea where I am because Nia told Aaron the number and he figured it out.”

“Right: a big source of shame for you.”

“Yes. But even if someone has no idea where I am, what are they thinking? Five days. They’re like: He’s crazy. He must have OD’ed or something. Everyone is expecting me to answer them instantly and I’m not able to.”

“Who e-mails you, Craig?”

“People who want homework assignments, teachers, school clubs, announcements about charities I should volunteer in, invitations to Executive Pre-Professional football, basketball, squash games . . .”

“So they’re mostly school-related.”

“They’re all school-related. My friends don’t e-mail me. They call.”

“So why don’t you just ignore the e-mails?”

“I can’t!”

“Why not?”

“Because then people will be offended!”

“And what happens then?”

“Well, I won’t get to join clubs, get credits, participate in stuff, get extra-credit. . . I’ll fail.”

“At school.”

“Right.” I pause. No, it’s not exactly school. It’s what comes after school. “At life.”

“Ah.” She pauses. “Life.”

“Right.”

“Failing at school is failing at life.”

“Well. . . I’m in school! That’s the one thing I’m supposed to do. I know a lot of famous people didn’t do well at school, like James Brown; he dropped out in fifth grade to be an entertainer, I respect that. . . but that’s not going to be me. I’m not going to be able to do anything but work as hard as possible all the time and compete with everyone I know all the time to make it. And right now school’s the one thing I need to do. And I’m away from the e-mail and I can’t do it.”

“But your definition of school isn’t really one thing, it’s many different things, Craig: extracurricular activities plus sports plus volunteering. That’s not to mention homework.”

“Right.”

“How anxious would you say you are about all of this, Craig?”

I think back to what Bobby said, about anxiety being a medical thing. The e-mail has been in the back of my mind since I got here, the nagging knowledge that when I get out I’ll have to sit on the computer for five or six hours going through everything I’ve missed, answering it in reverse order because that’s the way it comes in and therefore taking the longest time to respond to the people who e-mailed me in the most distant past. And then as I’m answering them more will come in, and they’ll sit on top of my stack and mock me, dare me to answer them before digging down, telling me that I need them, as opposed to the one or two e-mails that are actually about something I care about. Those will get saved to the end, and by the time I have the time to deal with them, they’ll be so out of date that I’ll just have to apologize: Sorry, man. I haven’t been able to answer my e-mail. No, I’m not important, just incapable.