第 12 页

The main character, Esther, has a good internship at a New York City magazine, but she is depressed. She uses fake names with the men she meets. Esther sort of has a boyfriend named Buddy, but he treats her horribly and makes her feel as though she should have babies and be a housewife rather than become a writer, which is what she wants to be.

Eventually Esther breaks down and is given electroshock therapy, tries to kill herself by taking too many sleeping pills, and is sent to a bad place like the one I was in.

Esther refers to a black man who serves food in her bad place as “the Negro.” This makes me think about Danny and how mad the book would make my black friend, especially because Esther was white and Danny says only black people can use controversial racial terms such as “Negro.”

At first, even though it is really depressing, this book excites me because it deals with mental health, a topic I am very interested in learning about. Also, I want to see how Esther gets better, how she will eventually find her silver lining and get on with her life. I am sure Nikki assigns this book so that depressed teenage girls will see there’s hope if you just hold on long enough.

So I read on.

Esther loses her virginity, hemorrhages during the process, and almost bleeds to death—like Catherine in A Farewell to Arms— and I do wonder why women are always hemorrhaging in American literature. But Esther lives, only to find that her friend Joan has hung herself. Esther attends the funeral, and the book ends just as she steps into a room full of therapists who will decide if Esther is healthy enough to leave her bad place.

We do not get to see what happens to Esther, whether she gets better, and that made me very mad, especially after reading all night.

As the sun begins to shine through my bedroom window, I read the biographical sketch at the back of the book and find out that the whole “novel” is basically the story of Sylvia Plath’s life and that the author eventually stuck her head in an oven, killing herself just like Hemingway—only without the gun—which I understand is the implied ending of the book, since everyone knows the novel is really Sylvia Plath’s memoir.

I actually rip the book in half and throw the two halves at my bedroom wall.

Basement.

Stomach Master 6000.

Five hundred crunches.

Why would Nikki make teenagers read such a depressing novel?

Weight bench.

Bench press.

One-hundred-thirty-pound reps.

Why do people read books like The Bell Jar?

Why?

Why?

Why?

I’m surprised when Tiffany shows up the next day for our sunset run. I don’t know what to say to her, so I say nothing—like usual.

We run.

We run again the next day too, but we don’t discuss the comments Tiffany made about my wife.

An Acceptable Form of Coping

In the cloud room, I pick the black recliner because I am feeling a little depressed. For a few minutes I don’t say anything. I am worried that Cliff will send me back to the bad place if I tell him the truth, but I feel so guilty sitting there—and then I’m talking at Cliff, spilling everything in a wild slur of sentences: the big Giants fan, the little Giants fan, my fistfight, the Eagles’ loss to the Giants, my father smashing the television screen, his bringing me the sports pages but refusing to speak with me, my dream about Nikki wearing a Giants jersey, Tiffany saying “Fuck Nikki” but still wanting to run with me every day; and then Nikki teaching Sylvia Plath to defenseless teenagers, my ripping The Bell Jar in half, and Sylvia Plath sticking her head in an oven. “An oven?” I say. “Why would anyone stick their head in an oven?”

The release is powerful, and I realize now that somewhere in the middle of my rant I had begun crying. When I finish speaking, I cover my face, because Cliff is my therapist, yes, but he is also a man and an Eagles fan and maybe a friend too.

I start sobbing behind my hands.

All is quiet in the cloud room for a few minutes, and then Cliff finally speaks, saying, “I hate Giants fans. So arrogant, always wanting to talk about L.T., who was nothing but a dirty rotten cokehead. Two Super Bowls, yes, but XXV and XXI were some time ago—more than fifteen years have passed. And we were there just two years ago, right? Even if we did lose.”

I am surprised.

I was sure Cliff was going to yell at me for hitting the Giants fan, that he would again threaten to send me back to the bad place, and his bringing up Lawrence Taylor seems so random that I lower my hands and see that Cliff is standing, although he is so small his head is not much higher than mine, even though I am sitting down. Also, I sort of think he just implied that the Eagles were in the Super Bowl two years ago, which would make me very upset because I have absolutely no memory of this, so I try to forget what Cliff said about our team being in the big game.

“Don’t you hate Giants fans?” he says to me. “Don’t you just hate ’em? Come on now, tell the truth.”

“Yeah, I do,” I say. “A lot. So do my brother and father.”

“Why would this man wear a Giants jersey to an Eagles game?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did he not think he would be mocked?”

I don’t know what to say.

“Every year I see these stupid Dallas and Giants and Redskins fans come into our house wearing their colors, and every year these same fans get manhandled by drunken Eagles fans. When will they learn?”

I am too shocked to speak.

Does this mean Cliff is a season-ticket holder? I wonder, but do not ask.

“Not only were you defending your brother, but you were defending your team too! Right?”

I realize that I am nodding.

Cliff sits down. He pulls the lever, his footrest comes up, and I stare at the well-worn soles of his penny loafers.

“When I am sitting in this chair, I am your therapist. When I am not in this chair, I am a fellow Eagles fan. Understand?”

I nod.

“Violence is not an acceptable solution. You did not have to hit that Giants fan.”

I nod again. “I didn’t want to hit him.”

“But you did.”

I look down at my hands. My fingers are all squirmy.

“What alternatives did you have?” he says.

“Alternatives?”

“What else could you have done, besides hitting the Giants fan?”

“I didn’t have time to think. He was pushing me, and he threw my brother down—”

“What if he had been Kenny G?”

I close my eyes, hum a single note, and silently count to ten, blanking my mind.

“Yes, the humming. Why not try that when you feel as though you are going to hit someone? Where did you learn that technique?”

I’m a little mad at Cliff for bringing up Kenny G, which seems like a dirty trick, especially since he knows Mr. G is my biggest nemesis, but I remember that Cliff did not yell at me when I told him the truth, and I am thankful for that, so I say, “Nikki used to hum a single note whenever I offended her. She said she learned it in yoga class. And whenever she hummed, it would catch me off guard. I would get really freaked out, because it is strange to sit next to someone who is humming a single note with her eyes closed—and Nikki would keep humming that single note for such a long time. When she finally stopped, I would be grateful, and I also would be more aware of her displeasure and more receptive to her feelings, which is something I did not appreciate until recently.”

“So that’s why you hum every time someone brings up Kenny—”

I close my eyes, hum a single note, and silently count to ten, blanking my mind.

When I finish, Cliff says, “It allows you to express your displeasure in a unique way, disarming those around you. Very interesting tactic. Why not use this in other areas of your life? What if you had closed your eyes and hummed when the Giants fan pushed you?”

I hadn’t thought of that.

“Do you think he would have continued to push you if you had closed your eyes and hummed?”

Probably not, I think. The Giants fan would have thought I was crazy, which is exactly what I thought about Nikki when she first used the tactic on me.

Cliff smiles and nods at me when he reads my face.

We talk a little about Tiffany. He says it seems as though Tiffany has romantic feelings for me, and he claims she is most likely jealous of my love for Nikki, which I think is silly, especially since Tiffany never even talks to me and is always so aloof when we are together. Plus Tiffany is so beautiful, and I have not aged well at all.

“She’s just a weird woman,” I say in response.

“Aren’t they all?” Cliff replies, and we laugh some because women truly are hard to figure out sometimes.

“What about my dream? Me seeing Nikki in a Giants jersey? What do you think that means?”

“What do you think it means?” Cliff asks, and when I shrug, he changes the subject.

Cliff says Sylvia Plath’s work is very depressing to read, and that his own daughter had recently suffered through The Bell Jar because she is taking an American literature course at Eastern High School.

“And you didn’t complain to administration?” I asked.

“About what?”

“About your daughter being forced to read such depressing stories.”

“No. Of course not. Why would I?”

“Because the novel teaches kids to be pessimistic. No hope at the end, no silver lining. Teenagers should be taught that—”

“Life is hard, Pat, and children have to be told how hard life can be.”

“Why?”

“So they will be sympathetic to others. So they will understand that some people have it harder than they do and that a trip through this world can be a wildly different experience, depending on what chemicals are raging through one’s mind.”

I had not thought about this explanation, that reading books like The Bell Jar helped others understand what it was like to be Esther Greenwood. And I realize now that I have a lot of sympathy for Esther, and if she were a real person in my life, I would have tried to help her, only because I knew her thoughts well enough to understand she was not simply deranged, but suffering because her world had been so cruel to her and because she was depressed, due to the wild chemicals in her mind.

“So you’re not mad at me?” I ask when I see Cliff look at his watch, which signifies our session is almost over.

“No. Not at all.”

“Really?” I ask, because I know Cliff is probably going to write all my recent failures down in a file as soon as I leave. That he probably thinks he has failed as my therapist—at least for this week.

Cliff stands, smiles at me, and then looks out the bay window at the sparrow washing in the stone birdbath.

“Before you leave, Pat, I want to say something very important to you. This is a matter of life and death. Are you listening to me? Because I really want you to remember this. Okay?”

I start to worry because Cliff sounds so serious, but I swallow, nod, and say, “Okay.”

Cliff turns.

Cliff faces me.

His face looks grave, and for a second, I am very nervous.

But then Cliff throws his hands up in the air and yells “Ahhhhhhhhh!”

I laugh because Cliff has tricked me with his funny joke. I immediately stand, throw my hands up in the air, and yell “Ahhhhhhhhh!”

“E!-A!-G!-L!-E!-S! EAGLES!” we chant in unison, throwing our arms and legs out in an effort to represent each letter with our bodies, and I have to say—as stupid as it may sound—chanting with Cliff makes me feel a whole lot better. And judging by the smile on his little brown face, he knows the value of what he is doing for me.

Balanced Very Carefully, As If the Whole Thing Might Topple When the Heater Vents Begin to Blow Later This Fall

From the basement, I hear my dad say, “It goes right here, on this table.” Three sets of footsteps are moving across the family-room floor, and soon I hear something heavy being set down. After fifteen minutes or so, the sounds of college football explode through the floor above—big bands playing, drums galore, fight songs being sung—and I realize my father has replaced the family-room television. I hear the deliverymen’s footsteps exit, and then Dad increases the volume so I can hear every play call the commentators make, even though I am in the basement and the basement door is shut. I don’t follow college football, so I don’t really know the players or the teams being discussed.

I do some curls and simply listen, secretly hoping Dad will come down into the basement, tell me about the new television, and ask me to watch the game with him. But he doesn’t.

Suddenly, maybe a half hour after the deliverymen leave, the volume is turned down, and I hear Mom ask, “What the hell is this?”

“It’s a high-definition television with surround sound,” my father replies.

“No, that is a movie screen, and—”

“Jeanie—”

“Don’t you ‘Jeanie’ me.”

“I work hard for our money, and I won’t have you telling me how to spend it!”

“Patrick, it’s ridiculous. It doesn’t even fit on the end table. How much did you pay for that?”

“Never mind.”

“You smashed the old television just so you could buy a bigger one, didn’t you?”

“Jesus Christ, Jeanie. Will you please stop bitching at me for once?”

“We’re on a budget. We agreed—”

“Oh. Okay. We’re on a budget.”

“We agreed that—”

“We have money to feed Pat. We have money to buy Pat a new wardrobe. We have money to buy Pat a home gym. We have money for Pat’s medications. Well then, the way I see it, we have money for a new fucking television set too.”

I hear my mother’s footsteps exit the family room. Just before my father turns up the game again, I hear her stomp up the steps to her bedroom, where I know she will cry because my father has cursed at her again.

And it’s my fault their money is stretched.

I feel awful.

I do sit-ups on the Stomach Master 6000 until it is time to run with Tiffany.

When I finally go upstairs, I see that Dad’s television set is one of those new flat-screen models they advertised when we watched the Eagles play Houston, and it is literally almost the size of our dining-room table. It’s huge; only the center third rests on the end table, making it look as if it is balanced very carefully, as if the whole thing might topple when the heater vents begin to blow later this fall. Even still, while I do feel bad about Mom, I have to admit that the picture quality is excellent and the speakers set up on stands behind the couch fill the house with sound, making it seem as though the college football game is being played in our family room—and I start to look forward to watching the Eagles on the new set, thinking the players will almost appear life-size.

I stand behind the couch for a second, admiring my father’s new television, hoping he will acknowledge my presence. I even say, “Dad, did you get a new television?”

But he doesn’t answer me.

He is mad at my mom for questioning his purchase, so now he will sulk. He will not talk to anyone for the rest of the day, I know from experience, so I leave the house and find Tiffany jogging up and down the street.