Missing the Big Picture (10 page)

After I began hearing laughter, I looked at Gary to see if his body language would convey that something was happening between us. But Gary was doing his work and staying focused and not looking at his lab partner’s boobs. Then I heard Tyler laugh, and I thought to myself,
Oh, it’s Tyler I’m chatting with.

Although we weren’t talking at all, I was convinced that we were. It was the same thing that was happening between Eric, Carmine, and me; now I also thought that Tyler was involved. On the way home, confused about what was going on, I decided to buy something to distract myself from my new unbalanced mental health: an issue of
Penthouse
.

I was always the shy, quiet kid who played by the rules, so buying pornography was an awkward experience. I stopped at a local convenience store, and amid the steady flow of customers, I grabbed the
Penthouse
and covered it up with a newspaper. I was waiting in a very long line, and the store employees decided to open a second line. “Sir, anything else other than the newspaper?” an employee yelled to me over a group of customers. I stepped out of the line and pretended to shop some more. When I was finally checking out, as the cashier was ringing up my purchase, an older female customer tried to reassure me that there was nothing wrong with
Penthouse
and that she, too, had bought pornography. When I was driving the twenty minutes home, because I went to a convenience store far away from my house to ensure that nobody would see me, I saw a classmate from Saint John’s stuck in traffic with me. He had another male passenger in his car and actually smiled at me and beeped his horn. Since I was waiting in traffic, I held the magazine up against the window so he could see it. He started laughing, and I drove away.

As I was walking to homeroom the next day, I saw Tyler on the staircase. I had a song by Creed in my mind. As we passed each other, Tyler and I made eye contact. I heard Tyler’s voice in my mind say, “He is singing a Creed song.” I ran down the hall, frightened about what was happening.

During my senior year, first period was math class and second period was government class. I heard Eric’s voice in my head saying, “So Tyler thinks that he can read your mind, too.” I responded to Eric’s voice by saying, “Well, I thought it was him.” Eric then told me that the entire senior class had heard about what was happening to me.

Amid my change in mental health status, I decided to quit my job at the Gap and work for Friendly’s making ice creams and running the cash register. I left Gap for two reasons: first, retail business was slow after the holidays, and second, a lot of the preppy kids from my class had started working there and they made me feel uncomfortable. Of course, I now laugh at the fact that I actually wondered to myself,
Why are all the preppy kids working at the Gap?
When I started working at Friendly’s, I was working both Friday and Saturday nights, plus Sundays during the day, for a total of twenty-five hours a week. I also was taking four college courses.

On one Monday during math class, the white presence struck again. Now I was feeling the sensation with a fourth person. Tyler, Carmine, and Eric weren’t in this math class. There were a lot of boys in this class, so it took me a while to figure out who it was, but I eventually thought it was a friend of my cousin Alex named Gabe. Alex used to talk about Gabe a lot, since they both worked together at the same supermarket. I would hear Gabe talk in class and knew who he was, but I had rarely ever talked to him before. The first time I heard his voice, I was unsure. The next time this occurred, Gabe came in late and the only open seat in the class was in front of me. It was soon after I had bought the
Penthouse
magazine, and I told the kid sitting next to me that I was going to let him borrow it. So, in my mind, I told Gabe, “You know I’m going to give him the
Penthouse
right now. You better look behind you.” It must have been a coincidence, but at that moment, Gabe turned around. “So this is really going on between us,” I told him in my mind.

Still, it was about a week into this—whatever “this” was—and I hadn’t told anyone about the voices. I was trying to do my best to ignore them and push them out of my mind, but it was impossible. I dreaded going to school, and I would purposely stay up late so that I’d be tired for school—so tired that I wouldn’t concentrate on the voices. It didn’t work. By late March, I felt that I was communicating with Gabe during first period, Eric during second period and fifth period, and then Tyler during eighth and ninth periods.

Third period I had sociology, which once again had only a few boys in the class. Shortly after hearing Gabe’s voice in math class, I began to feel that I was communicating with Zach, who actually had the same last name as Carmine’s girlfriend. I knew they weren’t brother and sister, but they were related somehow. Soon after that, in English class, I began to hear another voice, that of a junior named Henry. Henry and I had never talked before. All I knew was that he was friends with Carmine; I didn’t know how they knew each other.

The only class periods that I didn’t hear somebody’s voice in were Spanish, sixth period, and lunch, seventh period. The last voice that entered my mind was Sam’s. This was different than the rest of the voices that I’d heard. Everybody else I would never talk to. Sam and I would talk occasionally, and I would see him when I worked at the Gap in Colonie Center. Ever since I made the move to Friendly’s, I didn’t see Sam as much. When I started hearing his voice in my mind, I hoped that he’d acknowledge that this was happening between the two of us and I would realize that I wasn’t a schizophrenic. The next day after I heard his voice, I said hi to Sam and he said hi back—then we stopped talking to each other.

On Thursday, April 12, 2001, it was Holy Thursday, the last day before our spring recess. I was so happy to have a break from school; for the past three weeks, I’d been hearing voices in my mind and had only one class period in which I felt that somebody wasn’t reading my mind. Since I’d begun to hear the voices, I’d had trouble concentrating in school and never talked to anybody, except Randy during seventh-period lunch, which we spent in the library. This day was also my mother’s birthday, but I got up in the morning and didn’t even say happy birthday to her—I was that engrossed in what was happening in my mind. I remember hearing Tyler’s voice at the end of the day say, “I’m a good son. I would never forget my mother’s birthday.”

I was able to spend my spring recess in peace; since up to that point I only heard the voices in school. I worked over the break at Friendly’s and spent some time hanging out with my cousins. I kept hoping that when I went back to school, everything would just be over. The funny thing was that for the past month, none of the boys that I felt I was communicating with were absent. On the other hand, I started making up excuses why I couldn’t go to school and was absent close to ten times in a three-month period. By spring break, Eric’s voice would tell me that everyone in school knew what I was thinking, and of course my thoughts were gay, and he was spreading gossip and lies about me. Eric always spread rumors about me, so it would make sense that his voice in my mind would tell me that as Eric did the same in real life. In my mind, and real life, Eric and Carmine did call me gay. I used the adolescent rumor mill to my advantage and said, “Carmine’s calling me gay, but he’s the one having anal sex.”

In my mind, I asked Eric why he was so mean to me when we were in school. He replied, “My friends idolize me; they would believe anything I said about you.” Regardless if this was real or not, Eric was David Koresh or Jim Jones to his friends. These were all masculine teenage boys, but they lacked enough confidence to think and act independently and to have healthier friendships with Eric. I remember once Eric actually injured Carmine in the hall when Eric ran up to him and said, “Give me a piggyback ride!” He then jumped on Carmine, hurting Carmine’s shoulder.

I returned to school from spring recess on April 23. In first period, I noticed that Gabe was late. I was praying to God and hoping that Gabe would be absent and that the voices in my mind had ended. About ten minutes into the class, Gabe took his seat and I heard his voice in my mind say, “I’m back.” On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of that week, I spent every period except lunch feeling as if I was communicating with one of my classmates. Eric’s and Carmine’s voices were telling me that everybody in the school knew, and that was why all the other students were laughing at me. I did notice some other kids laugh at me. Once when I was in gym, this tough, rugged hip-hop-savvy senior kept making jokes and trying to get me to steal a base when we were playing softball. I said to myself in my mind, “How does Rob know who I am?” Eric replied, “Everybody at school knows who you are now.”

On Wednesday, April 25, 2001, I went home from school and decided to relax on my couch. It was five o’clock when I began hearing Carmine’s voice. This was odd. I would hear Carmine’s voice every day in the hall but only when we were in the “range.” This time I wasn’t at school; I was at home. Now I felt like I was talking to Carmine through our minds when we were miles away from each other. Carmine told me that he was at work at a shoe store in Colonie. Eric worked at the same store, and Carmine said Eric would report to work at six. Before I knew it, at six o’clock, I felt like all three of us were communicating through our minds—Eric, Carmine, and myself. It just like three-way calling on the phone, but it was happening in my mind.

That night I just took the voices in stride. I later went to the gym, and I remember Eric’s voice telling me to go into the locker room for some strange reason. Then when I was lifting weights, I heard Eric ask Carmine, “I could lift that. Couldn’t you do that, too?” That night I went back to sleep around ten. So for six hours during the day and about five hours during the night, I felt that I was having telepathic conversations with my classmates. It totally preoccupied my mind. When this was happening, I looked like I was daydreaming and I couldn’t focus on anything. It was affecting my school life, and now it was affecting me at home. I still didn’t tell anybody that this was going on.

The next day, my mother woke me up since I had my physical for college. The first thing I remember hearing in my mind was Eric’s voice saying, “Luke, it’s 7:00 a.m. You should be getting ready for school.” I was ready and drove to my physician’s office, still hearing Eric’s and Carmine’s voices in my mind as I was driving. I remember sitting in the doctor’s office in a gown when I heard Eric’s voice say, “He’s going to feel your balls and make you cough.”

After my doctor’s appointment, I went home and tried to read a book but found that I couldn’t concentrate. That night, I had to work at Friendly’s. I had only been there a month and was still learning the job. It was very fast-paced, and I had to make all of the ice-cream orders. I managed to check people out at the register, make the ice-cream orders, and bus tables—all while hearing Eric’s and Carmine’s voices.

Friendly’s offered me a break from the high school drama. Most of the seniors had part-time jobs where their friends worked, so some of the grocery stores and restaurants around the high school were saturated with seniors. My co-workers at Friendly’s were great. The only part of the job that I didn’t like was that some of the seniors hung out at the restaurant. Most girls in the senior class considered dinner at Friendly’s an upscale date. One time, my co-worker got into an argument with some of my classmates about not being able to eat off the children’s menu. Afterward, she reassured me by saying, “Those girls are natural-born bitches.” It was good for me to be in different atmosphere where those types of girls who fought about ordering off the children’s menu were seen as absurd, rather than funny.

On Thursday night, I kept wondering what was going to happen the next day at school. Would I hear Eric’s and Carmine’s voices all during the day as well? Or would I just hear the other boys in my class that I’d been hearing for over a month now?

The next day, I woke up again to Eric’s and Carmine’s voices. By the time I got through homeroom and into my math class, not only was I hearing Eric’s voice, but also Carmine’s and Gabe’s, as well. It was like the four of us were having a conversation, but it wasn’t in person. The same thing happened during all my class periods when the other boys were there. Eric actually got upset at Sam when Sam said he didn’t believe any of the rumors that Eric was spreading. At the end of the day, during AP Chemistry, Tyler said, “You guys should be nice to each other. You have to live with each other, and Luke, don’t kill yourself.”

It was that Friday that I had actually started thinking about killing myself. The voices were too unbearable to live with. When I finished AP Chemistry, I went to Spanish to make up an exam I had missed during one of my absences. When I accidently wrote on my paper
me toca la,
the teacher told me that
me toca la
translated as “I touch myself.” I could hear Carmine and Eric laughing in my mind. As I drove home, I noticed that Eric was in a car a few feet in front of me, and I could see that he was smoking. Eric didn’t have his own car, and he didn’t need one. Plenty of people were available to give him a ride. When I noticed that Eric was smoking, I could hear his voice inside of my mind. “Of course I still smoke. I started in eighth grade, and you better let us out.” We were both in cars waiting to get out of the school parking lot.

When I got home that Friday from school, I sat on the couch and began seriously thinking about how I was going to end my life. I had a plan: I was simply going to drive my 1994 Chevy Cavalier into the garage, close the door, and go to sleep. Then I would never have to hear another voice in my mind, and I could be free of all the torment that I was going through—going to school every day with this happening, not being able to live a healthy life. I could sense that both Eric’s and Carmine’s voices were scared, and Carmine actually said to Eric, “If he kills himself, the joke is over and I am never going to talk to you again.” After some contemplation, I decided not to do it and went to work at Friendly’s as scheduled. It wasn’t that I had decided not to ever do it; I just put the idea on hold. Plus, I think I knew my work needed me for that shift that Friday night. When I got home from work, I kept praying to God that my mind would be clear and that I would never hear the voices again.