Carmiel Banasky - The Suicide of Claire Bishop

Is that the moment of original pain? One of the tableaux? They made us go to family therapy after the hair-pulling day, and right after that, Jules moved out because they thought she’d be safer with my dad. Jules has said that isn’t true. She said we went to counseling because of their marriage trouble, and it was at least a year before she moved — a custody issue, nothing to do with me. Jules said, “You think I moved because I was afraid of you? Did Mom tell you that? You’re always trying to protect her.” Jules has always wanted me to be the good guy. But I’m not. She’s never gotten that through her thick skull.

I feel like hurting her again. “Jules is a religious nut now,” I tell Ralph and Miles. “She cut her hair off and wears wigs.”

“That sounds badass. Like G.I. Jane,” Ralph says.

“No,” I say.

“She was always Demi Moore hot,” Miles slurs.

I say, “But that’s not the worst part.”

“Hey.” Ralph sits up straight like a brilliant idea knocked him sober. “So what kind of drugs do they got you on? Do they make you better?”

“Yeah, totally. They did,” I say.

“Would it do anything, you know, to someone like us?” Ralph asks.

I reach in my jacket pocket and pull out the pill bottle and rattle it for effect. “Ho-ho-ho. A Zyprexa for you, and a Zyprexa for you, ho-ho-ho,” I say, one hand on my belly, handing them each a pill. My last two.

“You sure it’s okay?” Miles asks.

“Probably illegal,” I say.

They down the pills with beer. “I mean do you have enough? You aren’t going to run out?”

“Nope.” I don’t tell them which question I was answering. “Anyway, I barely need them anymore. Today I didn’t take one. Or yesterday.”

“But what if?” Miles says.

“I just feel super awake. More awake-awake than I’ve felt all year.”

“I don’t feel anything,” Ralph says.

Miles says, “It’s not in your bloodstream yet.”

Ralph grabs two bottles from the fridge. Out of homebrew and onto High Life.

“That’s your number eight,” I say to Miles.

“So?” Ralph says. He bends over the stereo on the floor and puts on Pink Floyd.

“So I was saying,” I say, “the most awful part about the Hasid thing is that they’re worse than the mafia. The Hasids have their own mafia and they have spies all over the place and do all sorts of covert stuff. Not bad stuff like the Italian mafia. Good stuff, usually.”

“Are you serious? There’s a Jewish mafia?” Miles hiccups.

“Yeah, they followed me here.”

“Who’s their arch nemesis? The German mafia?” Miles whoops and slaps his knee.

Ralph sits back down and laughs loudly. “You’re fucking batshit,” Ralph says.

Then I say, “Do you think it’s my fault? About what happened to Helen Morgan?”

Ralph stops laughing. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”

“I know, but what if?”

“Because you fucked her once?”

I’m about to say, what if I gave her my disease somehow, but something red-level dangerous is throbbing behind Ralph’s eyelid.

“Hey, let’s see the scars,” Miles says, sticking out the top of his left hand to us. We examine each other’s cigarette burns and then our own.

We burned twice before, back in high school. All that’s left of our past “brotherhood” ritual is an embossment of spongy skin.

“They’ve faded,” Ralph says, grinning. “Let’s do it again.” It was Ralph’s idea years ago, too. But he’s always burning himself on purpose anyway.

I laugh. “We’re too old for that now, right?”

“Hell, no,” Miles says. “We can’t ever be too old. Okay?”

We each light a cigarette and stand in a circle. Miles holds his hand out to me, I hold mine to Ralph, and Ralph holds his to Miles. I wonder, if aliens came to Earth right now and observed this, what would they think? This thought isn’t so weird that it won’t make them laugh, so I say, “I wonder if aliens came to Earth right now and observed this, what would they think?”

“They’d think we’re shitheads,” Ralph says. “Ready?”

Pain works the way empathy works, the same neurons shooting around in my brain now as they did the first time, or when witnessing someone else’s pain. My inner clock is off time. Something shifts. This scene, this moment — it’s another key to open the portal. The pain causes a schism. In the circle, three hands violate and three are victims. One hand and one part of my brain is focusing on causing pain and the other on receiving it and the two parts are having trouble coexisting and I’m not sure which hands are which. When you hurt someone you feel bad, but not as bad as getting hurt, but here all that’s transferred and overlapping because the searing pain I’m receiving on my left hand feels like the pain of causing pain with my right. How much time passes for the aliens watching us? Time slows. Am I controlling time? This is part of the original physical pain and my brain fires the same pink and blue lights as before because I’m physically experiencing the same event, physically going back in time. I am a slow-burning gnarl of tobacco leaf.

Miles flinches first, drops his hand away from mine, which causes his hand to lift off Ralph’s which causes his to lift off mine.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” we yell and laugh. “That fucking hurts!” Miles looks close to tears but instead of crying he punches a wall with his unburnt hand. “You’re such a weirdo,” he says and lunges in to give me a noogie. I slip out of his grip and go to the bathroom. All of this could have happened any year of our lives, but we haven’t time traveled.

I run my hand under cold water and look for burn cream but Ralph doesn’t have anything like that. The mirrored medicine cabinet door is off its hinges and leaning against the wall on the floor like in a shoe store, so I look at my feet. Through the door, I hear Ralph ask, “Shouldn’t I be seeing shit with these pills?” and Miles replies, “It’s an anti psychotic, dumbass.”

When I come back out, Ralph is switching from Pink Floyd to the Doors and Miles is passed out on the futon. I sit next to his feet.

“What year is it?” I ask Ralph.

“The year is twenty-fifty-one and we are all computer simulations.”

I try to laugh. It’s now or never. “Do you remember that girl Nicolette?” I say, all casual. “From school. I think.”

Miles leans up to say, “Yeah, that sucked.”

Miles remembers her. Everyone remembers but me.

“That’s the girl who killed herself?” says Ralph.

“No,” I say.

“What are you talking about?” says Miles. “You’re the one who saw it happen.”

“No I didn’t.” I stand up and look down at him. “That was a different girl.” Did I really cause Nicolette to go back in time and jump by telling her about seeing a girl who jumped? Is that the place she dies? If I caused Nicolette to die—

“Why are you bringing this shit up anyway?” Miles says, closing his eyes again.

Of course they’re wrong. I saw someone jump. But no Nicolette I knew ever threw herself off a cliff. And they never found the body. Just because a father said his daughter had gone missing didn’t mean anything. How could they be sure it was Nicolette?

“You know what I just realized?” Ralph says. “You never asked what we’re up to.”

“What?”

“I mean, you got me thinking. We’ve been talking about you all night, and Helen and some dead girl. I know you’re sick and all, so you should get some attention. But it’s like, don’t you want to know how we are?”

Miles lifts his head up from the couch, eyes closed. “Leave him alone,” he says, then plops back down.