Last Night I Sang to the Monster (14 page)

I entered the labyrinth and I focused on my monster.

What did the monster want?

What was I supposed to give it so it would go away?

I stared at the date on my calendar. February 2
^nd
.

I counted the days I’d been here.
Here
—at this place that’s supposed to heal me. I still wanted a drink.

Yeah, well, maybe I
was
an alcoholic.

You know if I wasn’t an alcoholic, I wouldn’t be craving a drink. Yeah, so maybe I was just eighteen. Maybe I hadn’t finished high school yet. But high school and age had nothing to do with addiction. I was thinking that maybe Adam was right.

I’d been here thirty-three days. Whatever my life had been, now there was only this place. There was only Cabin 9.

And what was the past anyway? What was it for? What did it mean?

“You know,” Rafael said, “my aunt had Alzheimer’s before she died.”

It was like I was overhearing a conversation he was really having with himself.

“Did she remember anything?”

“No, Zach, she was sixty-four years old and she didn’t even remember she’d had a life.”

“That’s really sad,” I said.

“Yeah, it
was
really sad. It was like she was dead.”

“I guess so,” I said, “but, you know, maybe that’s what we do before we die, we start forgetting.”

“Are you planning on dying soon, Zach?”

I knew exactly what he was trying to say to me.

Look, maybe I
was
like his aunt, dead, even though I was still alive.

Sometimes the blood in my dreams feels real. Last night I swear I heard my brother’s voice floating in the night or in my head and it didn’t sound at all like Mr. Garcia’s trumpet. There was a crack like thunder. There was a storm. I woke up shivering. I must have been screaming because Rafael and Sharkey were asking me if I was okay.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Are you sure?” Sharkey sounded a little freaked out.

“I guess it was just another dream.”

“You were talking to Santiago,” Sharkey said.

“I don’t remember.”

“Nights are tough on you, dude.”

“Yeah, my dreams are killing me.”

“Zach, it’s not what’s happening in your sleep that’s killing you.” That Rafael, he always said stuff like that.

“You’re full of shit, dude.” Sharkey was always so fierce. I liked hearing them talk in the darkness. Their voices made me feel like I wasn’t the only person in the world.

“It’s the way we live—that’s what’s killing us. Think about it, Sharkey. That should scare the holy hell out of us.”

Sharkey laughed. “Where’d you learn how to think, Rafe?”

God, I loved their voices. They didn’t sound like the night.

I fell back asleep listening to them talk.

When I woke, I felt as though I was standing at the edge of something,
maybe like the shore, you know right at the spot where the water begins and the beach ends. But I just couldn’t bring myself to jump in the water because, well, because I might drown. And that’s real to me because I never learned how to swim and the ocean scares me. And I got it into my head that the monster lived in the water. You know, in the water that was my memory. And if I got to remembering everything, then what would happen to me?

The dreams were living inside me now. Rafael’s drawing of the monster had made me feel small and scared and really I knew that Rafael had drawn himself in that painting. It was him as a boy and I kept picturing him reading to the monster. I thought that maybe reading to the monster was a way of feeding it. It was like if you fed the monster with stories, then he wouldn’t be all that interested in eating you. This is stupid, I know, but the monster feels real to me and I know I’m not nuts because the monster feels real to Rafael too and Rafael is an adult and he’s smart and he’s not all screwed-up like me. Well, okay, he’s sad, but after hearing his story, I can see that maybe his sadness is kinda normal.

I’m thinking too much. Adam says I’m always thinking too much and that thinking too much isn’t helping me out. Well, I don’t know how to stop thinking.

And another thing that was bugging me and that had me all torn up was all this Breathwork talk. I mean, I was always hearing how great it was, this Breathwork stuff, and to me, the whole thing sounded pretty screwy.
I was not interested in Breathwork.

Yeah, so of course, I go to see Adam for one of our sessions. You know, one of our friendly conversations and the first thing he says is, “I really want you to start doing some Breathwork with Susan.”

“I don’t like Susan.”

“Is that true?”

“She’s not real.”

“She’s not?”

“Hell no, she’s this white lady who’s all about this new age bullshit, you know? You know, I’m not into people who aren’t real.”

“So you’re not into white ladies?”

“You know what I mean.”

Adam just looked at me. “No, I don’t. Explain it to me.”

“Okay, she’s real—but not real in the way I like real to be.”

Adam nodded. But it was that kind of I-don’t-get-you nod. “Can I say something?”

I knew he had a theory. There was nothing I could do to stop his theories. “Sure,” I said.

“Is it that you don’t trust Susan?”

“I think this breathing stuff is, you know, it’s crap.”

“How do you know?”

“I just don’t like it.”

“And you don’t like it because—?”

“Because it’s crap.”

“Okay.”

I didn’t like the way he said okay. “And do you even know what it is, Zach?”

“I don’t need to know.”

“What do you know about trauma?”

“Nothing.”

Adam gave me this snarky look. Not that I blamed him. I was giving him a snarky look too.

“There’s a theory that the body keeps trauma. And Breathwork helps get at the trauma. I’m simplifying, but—”

“Fucking fascinating.”

Adam didn’t say a word. He just looked at me. I hated that look on his face.

“Look, Adam, if that breathing stuff helps Sharkey and Rafael, that’s very cool. But I’m different.”

“Terminally unique.”

I smiled. “Yeah, something like that.” I wasn’t liking this conversation.

“Have you talked to Rafael about Breathwork?” He knew Rafael was the only one besides him that I really talked to. He knew that. So why was he asking me stuff that he already knew?

“Yeah, I’ve talked to Rafael.”

“You think Rafael’s an idiot?”

“You know what I think of Rafael.” I was getting mad.

“What do you think of Rafael?”

“I like him.”

“When you say you like him, what does that mean?”

“It means I like him.”

“Like a friend? Like a brother? Like a father?”

I really didn’t like that he brought this father thing up. I really was getting pissed off. I’m talking seriously, tear me up, stun me out
pissed off.
“Rafael’s my friend.”

“Rafael’s fifty-three. You’re eighteen.”

“So?”

“So you see yourself hanging out with him?”

“Well, I
do
hang out with him.”

“Would you hang out with him if you lived in the same city?”

“I don’t know.” I looked at him. I didn’t like his eyes just then. I didn’t. “Look, Adam,” I said, “what are you getting at?”

“I’m making up that maybe you see Rafael as a father.” Making up. Adam loved that phrase. It meant he had a theory. Like I wanted to hear about all his theories.

“Is that right?” I gave him a look. That really pissed me off. “What’s wrong with you?” I said.

“What do you mean what’s wrong with me?”

“You know what I mean. Don’t play dumb, Adam. That really pisses me off.”

“Why are you angry, Zach?”

“Because.”

“Because why? You look like you might want to hit me.”

“I don’t hit people.”

“I don’t think you do. But you’re really angry with me.”

“Okay, I’m angry with you.” God, I
did
want to hit the guy.

“Do you want me to tell you what I think, Zach?”

I did not want him to tell me what he thought.
But I said, “Yeah, sure.” But it was a kind of
fuck you
yeah sure.

He shot me back the same snarky smile I shot him. “Okay,” he said, “this is what I’m making up. I’m making up that you love Rafael. I’m making up that you’d like him to be your father.”

I didn’t say anything. And then I said, “I have a father.”

Adam was quiet for a long time. He was thinking and thinking. I could see that. Even though I was mad at him, I could see he was having a hard time. I didn’t know what that was about. “Have you talked to your father since you’ve been here?”

I shook my head.

“Why not?” He whispered it. He seemed like he was being very careful and I was really confused.

“I don’t know,” I said.

And then we just looked at each other for a long time. “Is your father alive?” he asked. He had this look on his face. It was such a soft and kind look. I just kept looking at his eyes—and then I just turned away from them.

“I don’t know,” I said. And then I started crying. I didn’t know why.

Adam didn’t say anything. He just let me cry.

And then I said, “Okay,” I said. “I’ll go. I’ll go see Susan. I’ll do it. Can we just move on?”

He smiled. God, his smile tore me up. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I said I’ll go.”

“You sound really angry.”

“I’m not angry. I’m not. I just need a cigarette.”

Adam smiled. He looked at the clock. “We still have twenty minutes. Any dreams?”

“Yeah.” Look, I was glad to not be talking about Breathwork. I was glad not to be talking about Rafael. I was glad not to be talking about my father. “Yeah, I always have dreams.”

“You want to talk about any of them?’

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

We both laughed. God, that Adam, he was fucking relentless.

“I dreamed Rafael’s monster.”

“Rafael’s monster?”

“Yeah, he was in my dream.”

“What was the monster doing?”

“He was hanging out.”

Adam gave me that you’re-being-a-wiseass look.

“I was scared.”

He nodded. “I get bad dreams too,” he said.

“Any monsters?”

He smiled. “I guess you could say that.”

I liked Adam’s smile. It was real. And then I asked him. “I’m serious, Adam. Have you ever had a monster?”

He looked at me and his face was serious. Very, very serious. “Yeah, Zach, I’ve had monsters.”

And right then I got that part about getting honest. I mean, Adam was my therapist and he was really honest. He was right about Rafael. I hated that he was right. I
did
love Rafael and I wondered why it had made me so mad when he asked me if I loved him. Why did that make me mad? I
did
want him to be my father. But see, this is how screwed-up I am, on some days I wanted Rafael to be my father and on other days I wanted Adam to be my father. Okay, yeah, I know that these thoughts constitute unhealthy behaviors.

A few nights later, Rafael was working on a painting in our room. He had all these art supplies he’d bought at the art store on one of our weekly outings. The guy knew what he was doing. He was patient and he could sit there for hours just working on his painting. I’d never seen anyone who could concentrate like that. So I asked him, “When you paint, what goes on in your head?”

“I’m not sure, Zach. Painting, for me, it’s not about thinking. When you start working on a painting—” He stopped himself and smirked, “When
I
start working on a painting.” We both laughed. We couldn’t stop laughing. I mean we were really laughing. And I got to thinking that the whole thing really wasn’t that funny, but we were laughing because there was all these feelings inside us and we didn’t always know what to do with all the feelings that were like knots that needed to be untied, so sometimes we just, well, we laughed. That’s how we untied the knots.

And then Rafael said, “See, painting, sometimes it’s like laughing. It’s not just about the technical thing. It’s not just about the plumbing. I mean, you can learn how to draw and not be an artist. You can memorize the color chart and know how to mix colors and not be an artist.” He nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s true. For me. Look, I’m not an artist, Zach. I just have this chaos inside me and I just can’t live in all that chaos. I tried drinking. I’ve tried a lot of things and most of those things were killing me.”

I walked over and looked at his painting. There was a monster lurking in the background and there were all these things in the painting, things like books and a field of growing crops and the face of a man who looked like he was as large as God and flames in the sky and broken letters that seemed like they wanted to become words. It was like music, like Mr. Garcia’s trumpet.