Impulse

Impulse

Ellen Hopkins

This book is dedicated to my daughter, Kelly, who helps young people like these, and to my friend Cheryl, who always puts others first.

Without Warning

Sometimes you're traveling a highway, the only road you've ever known, and wham! A semi comes from nowhere and rolls right over you.

Sometimes you don't wake up. But if you happen to, you know things will never be the same.

Sometimes that's not so bad.

Sometimes lives intersect, no rhyme, no reason, except, perhaps, for a passing semi. 1

6

Triad

Three separate highways intersect at a place

no reasonable person

would ever want to go.

Three lives that would have been cut short, if not for hasty interventions by loved ones. Or Fate.

Three people, with nothing at all in common except age, proximity, and a wish to die.

Three tapestries, tattered at the edges and come

unwoven to reveal a single mutual thread. 2

7

The Thread

Wish you could turn off the questions, turn off the voices, turn off all sound.

Yearn to close out the ugliness, close out the filthiness, close out all light.

Long to cast away yesterday, cast away memory, cast away all jeopardy.

Pray you could somehow stop the uncertainty, somehow

stop the loathing, somehow stop the pain. 3

8

Act on your impulse, swallow the bottle, cut a little deeper, put the gun to your chest. 4

9

Arrival

The glass doors swing open, in perfect sync, precisely timed so you don't have to think. Just stroll right in.

I doubt it's quite as easy to turn around and walk

back outside, retreat to unstable ground. Home turf.

An orderly escorts me down spit-shined corridors, past tinted Plexiglas and closed, unmarked doors. Mysteries.

One foot in front of the other, counting tiles on the floor so

I don't have to focus the blur of painted smiles, fake faces.

A mannequin in a tight blue

suit, with a too-short skirt

(and legs that can wear it), in a Betty Boop voice halts us.

10

I
'
m Dr Boston. Welcome to

Aspen Springs. I
'
ll give you the tour. Paul, please take his things to the Redwood Room.

Aspen Springs. Redwood Room. As if this place were a five-star resort, instead of a lockdown where crazies pace. Waiting. 6

11

At Least

It doesn't have a hospital

stink. Oh yes, it's all very

clean, from cafeteria chairs to the bathroom sink. Spotless.

But the clean comes minus the gag-me smell, steeping

every inch of that antiseptic

hell where they excised the damnable bullet. I wonder what Dad said when he heard I tried to put myself

six feet under--and failed.

I should have put the gun to my head, worried less about brain damage, more about getting dead. Finis.

Instead, I decided a shot through the heart would make it stop beating, rip it apart to bleed me out.

12

I couldn't even do that right. The bullet hit bone, left my heart in one piece. In hindsight, luck wasn't with me that day. Mom found me too soon, or my pitiful life might have ebbed to the ground in arterial flow.

I thought she might die too, at the sight of so much blood and the thought of it staining her white Armani blouse.

Conner what have you done?
she said.
Tell me this was just an accident.
She never heard

my reply, never shed a tear.

13

I Don't Remember

Much after that, except for speed. Ghostly red lights, spinning faster and faster, as I began to recede from consciousness. Floating through the ER doors, frenzied motion. A needle's sting. But I do remember, just before the black hole swallowed me, seeing Mom's face. Her furious eyes followed me down into sleep.

It's a curious place, the Land of Blood Loss and Anesthesia, floating through it like swimming in sand. Taxing.

After a while, you think you should reach for the shimmering

surface. You can't hold your breath, and even if you could, 9

14

it's dark and deep and bitter cold, where nightmares and truth

collide, and you wonder if death

could unfold fear so real. Palpable.

So you grope your way up into the light, to find you can't move, with your arms strapped

tight and overflowing tubes.

And everything hits you like a train at full speed. Voices. Strange faces. A witches' stewpot of smells. Pain. Most of all, pain. 10

15

Just Saw

A new guy check in. Tall, built, with a way fine face, and acting too tough to tumble. He's a nutshell asking to crack. Wonder if he's ever let a guy touch that pumped-up bod.

They gave him the Redwood Room. It's right across from mine--the Pacific Room. Pretty peaceful in here most of the time, long as my meds are on time.

Ha. Get it? Most of the time, if my meds are on time. If you don't get it, you've never been in a place like this, never hung tough from one med call till the next. 11

16

Wasted. That's the only way to get by in this "treatment center." Nice name for a loony bin. Everyone in here is crazy one way or another. Everyone. Even the so-called doctors.

Most of 'em are druggies. Fucking loser meth freaks. I mean, if you're gonna purposely lose your mind, you want to get it back some day. Don't you? Okay, maybe not. 12

17

I Lost My Mind

A long time ago, but it wasn't exactly my idea. Shit happens, as they say, and my shit literally hit the fan. But enough sappy crap. We were talking drugs.

I won't tell you I never tried crystal, but it really wasn't my thing. I saw enough people, all wound up, drop over the edge, that I guess I decided not to take that leap.

I always preferred creeping into a giant, deep hole where no bad feelings could follow. At least till I had to come up for air. I diddled with pot first, but that tasty green weed couldn't drag 13

18

me low enough. Which mostly left downers, "borrowed" from medicine cabinets and kitchen cabinets and nightstands. Wherever I could find them. And once in a while--not often, because it was pricey and tough to score--once in a while, I tumbled way low, took a ride on the H train. Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about. A hot shot clear to hell. 14

19

I Wasn't Worried

About getting hooked, though I knew plenty of heroin addicts. I didn't do it enough, for one thing. Anyway, I figured I'd be graveyard rot before my eighteenth birthday.

It hasn't quite worked out that way, though I've got a few months to go. And once I get out of here, I'll have a better shot at it. Maybe next time I won't try pills.

I mean, you'd think half a bottle of Valium would do the trick. Maybe it would have, but I had to toss in a fifth of Jack Daniels. Passed out, just as I would have expected. What I didn't 15

20

expect was waking up, head stuck to the sidewalk, mired in puke.

Oh yeah, I heaved the whole fucking mess. Better yet, guess who happened by? You got it. One of the city's finest.

Poor cop didn't know what to do--clean me up, haul me in, or puke himself. So he did all three, only dispatch

said to take me to the ER. Hospital first. Loony bin

later. 16

21

Cloistered

I can't remember when it has snowed so much, yards and yards of lacy ribbons, wrapping the world in white.

Was it three years ago? Ten?

Memory is a tenuous thing, like a rainbow's end or a camera with a failing lens.

Sometimes my focus is sharp, every detail clear as the splashes of ice, fringing the eaves; other times it is a hazy field of frost, like the meadow outside my window. I think it might be a meadow.

A lawn? A parking lot?

22

Is it even a window

I'm looking through, or only cloudy panes of vision, opening on drifts of ivory

linens--soft cotton, crisp percale-- my snow just a blizzard of white

noise?

23

I Hate This feeling

Like I'm here, but I'm not. Like someone cares. But they don't. Like I belong somewhere else, anywhere but here, and escape lies just past that snowy window, cool and crisp as the February air. I consider the streets beyond, bleak as the bleached bones of wilderness scaffolding my heart. Just a stone's throw away.

But
she
'
s
out there, stalking me, haunting me. I know she can't get me in here. Besides, I'm too tired to pick myself up and make a break for it. So I just sit here, brain wobbling. Tipping. Tripping on Prozac. 19

24

I wonder if they give everyone Prozac on their twice-

daily med deliveries. Do they actually try to diagnose first, or do they think everyone is depressed, just by virtue of being here?

My arm throbs and I look at the bandage, a small red stain beginning to slither. Did I pop a stitch? Wouldn't that be luscious? 20

25

The First Cut

Wasn't the deepest. No, not at all. It was like the others, a subtle rend of anxious skin, a gentle pulse of crimson, just enough to hush the demons

shrieking inside my brain. But this time they wouldn't shut up. Just kept on howling, like Mama, when she was in a bad way.

Worst thing was, the older I got, the more I began to see

how much I resembled Mama, falling in and out of the blue, then lifting up into the white.

That day I actually thought about howling. So I gave myself to the knife, asked it to bite a little harder, chew a little deeper. The hot, scarlet rush felt so delicious I couldn't stop there. 21

26

The blade might have reached bone, but my little brother, Bryan, barged into the bathroom, found me leaning against

Grandma's new porcelain

tub, turning its unstained

white pink. You should have heard

him scream.

27

Pain Isn't the Worst Thing

At least you know you're not just a shadow, darkening someone's wall, a silhouette thrust haphazardly into their lives.

My fingers trace the sunken scar as I pace the plain room, counting steps from near wall to far, right to left. Eight by ten.

Eighty square feet to call my own for the next how many days? Eighty square feet, with no television or phone, only two

tiny beds, a closet, and one vinyl chair near the window-- a window that doesn't open, not even a crack for air.

Two beds. Does that mean I might get a roommate soon? Some paranoid schizo, rambling on through the suffocating night? 23

28

Well, hey. Maybe he'd think

that he was the one who drew the short straw, having to share a room with some totally

whacked-out freak. I wonder

how long it would take him to realize I'm right as sin-- it's the rest of the world that's wrong.

I'm not even sure how I qualify for admission to Aspen Springs. Does wanting to die equal losing your mind? 24

29

It Doesn't Seem

So incredibly insane to me. In fact, it seems courageous to, for once in your life, make

others react to a plan you set in motion. Not that I meant to cause anyone pain, only to make them realize that everyone has flaws. Even me.

Especially me. Hell, I'm so flawed I wound up here, with sixty defective humans. Odd, to think I made the A-list.

I open the dresser drawers, start to put away my neatly folded clothes. No Sears. No Wal-Mart, but Macy's. Nordstrom's.

I can see my mom, stalking aisle after aisle of designer jeans, intent on the latest style, perfect eye-catching fit. 25

30

I hear her tell the silicone

saleslady,
Nothing for me

today. I
'
m shopping for my

son. He fails to comprehend

fashion. If it wasn
'
t for me,

I swear he
'
d choose nothing but T-shirts and khaki. Now

where will I find the Calvin Klein?
26

31

I Reach

For a lavender Ralph Lauren shirt, ironed into submission, collar starched into crisp, straight

Vs, no hint of dirt or sweat.

Back at school, clothes like this

made me the cream of my senior

class, at least in the eyes of twisted dream girls and cheerleaders.

Oh yes, Mom's expensive tastes

went a long way toward getting

me laid. Did she have a clue that all those dollars spent on haute couture allowed her sweet

young son to feed his appetite for carnal pleasure--to divvy himself among a stable of fillies?

As the vile green walls defy my stare, some evil makes me wad Lauren shirt and Jockey underwear into a wrinkled lump. 27

32

Okay, maybe that's a little crazy. Maybe I belong here, after all. Maybe crazy is preferable to staying strong

when you just want to break down and weep. But big boys don't cry.

Do they? So instead I'll just keep jamming clothes into drawers, grinning.

33

When You Try

The big S, the first thing they do is lock you away by yourself, like you might try to do someone else in, 'cause you didn't do yourself good enough.

Then some lame nurse's aide checks in on you every fifteen minutes, probably hoping you've found a way to finish yourself off and save them a whole lot of trouble.

After a couple of days the main person you want to strangle is the annoying dude who keeps poking his head through your door.
How ya doing? Okay?
29

34

So by the time you finally get to see your shrink, you're irritated to begin with. And she asks you to tell her how you feel and all you can think to answer is "pissed." Then she wants to know just whom you're angry with and you decide maybe you shouldn't tell her the friggin' nurse's aide, in case they worry