Zero Consequences
I am depressed. It is not just in my head, but a real depression. The air around me gets depressed just from touching me. The breaths are depressed. The thoughts, the movements, the colors. And it's not fair, because this isn't really my personality. I am not like this. It's like I'm being suffocated by a masking self that seals it's all over me like a plastic bag with a hairdrying blowing on it. Get out of my mouth, depression. Out of my hair, my eyes, from under my fingernails. Quit making people think I'm different than I am. Quit making me different than I am. I am afraid I will forget who I really am, and you will win forever.
I am sitting on the steps of the concrete place in the crummier streets of my already crummy neighborhood. You walk straight down the alley, past Kenilworth, past Parent, past one street so shitty there is no sign and only three houses are crumbling down there at the end of it by the tracks, then past the trucking company and you get here. It is a side door to the basement of the cement company, where you have to walk down like ten steps to get in there. So it's this little cubby hole bunker place with a concrete roof (the floor of the landing of of the upstairs side door) and concrete walls and crumbly concrete stairs and I feel like I fit here somehow. I almost said I feel safe down here, but that isn't exactly true for a few reasons. One, If anyone walks close enough to the side of the stairs where they can look down here, I am completely trapped and decidedly unhidden. Two, if that person is a creepy older guy, I am completely meat. Three, if that person or persons are Gigi Taylor or some other older girls like her, I am shredded meat. But that has never happened, I have to say. I know they all come down here, too, but I think they only come at night, and I can't go out after dark, so I'm here like before or after dinner, mostly. Four, because I really am not safe anywhere. The depression can go through walls, and there is no getting away. Not only that, I am only a kid, so how can I ever really be safe on my own, and I don't have any adults who are willing to make me safe. Mostly, they are either indifferent to those kinds of things, or irritated by the fact that I feel they have any responsibility on them for that kind of job, or they are doing happy dances of power in the face of my unsafeness and delight in stabbing me with meanness whenever they feel like it.
For example, it is a heady experience, an irresistable one, I can tell, to be able to have free reign to someone you can completely torture any time you want with zero consequences. My stepdad is like that, and it's like he just can't resist the glee he feels. Have you ever babysat for some kid you didn't know very well, and the sheer cartoon-like power you realized you had over that innocent kid blew your mind and made you feel sinister just in the recognition? It is like a drug, maybe, how it can make you feel so good, or at least so irresistably drawn, to being mean to someone with absolutely, zero, not one speck or avenue of recourse. The terror you see in their eyes... The sheer aliveness of their fear and helplessness.
Well, I guess my stepdad might be getting high off that from me a lot. Every chance he has. He is constantly jonesing for it, for a fix. And I really do my best not to give it to him, but that's the beauty of his all-powerful position, is that I really don't have any defense. How do you pretend not to be starving to death when your bones are sticking out? People can see hopeless situations, even if it's not phsycial like in that example. I either pretend I don't care and it doesn't bother me, which puts me right into the flames and straight onto the hot coals, or I avoid him as much as possible, which of course shows how bad the problem is, too. For instance, I hate having to get upstairs to my room, because he always sits on the couch, on his end of by the door. The couch is parallel to the living room wall that I have to walk along to get to the stairs, so it is like a hallway with wall on one side and the back of the couch on the other. And it is only like, I don't know, maybe three feet wide or something. So I can feel his hate fumes because I have to get so close to him to walk by, let alone that I have to see his stupid head and his bare shoulders because he probably doesn't have a shirt on, and his giant hairy mole that lives on his upper arm that we all have to act like is very charming and funny and doesn't disgust us like the sick fucking thing it is. Anyway, so trying to get to my room, or coming down from my room, it is a problem because he is right there. And the skin on my spine stands up and I want to scratch it all off with a metal brush or a brillo pad or something when I feel him that close to me. He is just waiting for any chance to prove my evilness. Or if there isn't a chance, he will make one up that he finds very convincing and that he will look at my mom and treat her like she is an idiot if she doesn't see and agree with. He tells her she gets fooled by my lies, and by my act. It is very hard because sometimes I don't know if there is an act or not. I am like this crazy person living in different dimensions at the same time, and both of them are right. Seriously, really right. I think I do have an act, maybe. Or not. I don't know. But I do know that he is a dick.
I guess I shouldn’t talk. I have Nick who wears leather jackets and motorcycle boots and chains around. He is an embarrassment. People can feel his meanness. My friends don’t even like to come over my house. Ever. Lana has said she just won’t every because Nick is too scary. Sandy still will sometimes, but she is boring and also used to adults who want to be ignored. I could never have a birthday party or anything like that. Or a sleepover. Give me a break. He is just too mean and too volcano-ish to ever risk something like that.
I am sitting on the steps of the concrete place in the crummier streets of my already crummy neighborhood. You walk straight down the alley, past Kenilworth, past Parent, past one street so shitty there is no sign and only three houses are crumbling down there at the end of it by the tracks, then past the trucking company and you get here. It is a side door to the basement of the cement company, where you have to walk down like ten steps to get in there. So it's this little cubby hole bunker place with a concrete roof (the floor of the landing of of the upstairs side door) and concrete walls and crumbly concrete stairs and I feel like I fit here somehow. I almost said I feel safe down here, but that isn't exactly true for a few reasons. One, If anyone walks close enough to the side of the stairs where they can look down here, I am completely trapped and decidedly unhidden. Two, if that person is a creepy older guy, I am completely meat. Three, if that person or persons are Gigi Taylor or some other older girls like her, I am shredded meat. But that has never happened, I have to say. I know they all come down here, too, but I think they only come at night, and I can't go out after dark, so I'm here like before or after dinner, mostly. Four, because I really am not safe anywhere. The depression can go through walls, and there is no getting away. Not only that, I am only a kid, so how can I ever really be safe on my own, and I don't have any adults who are willing to make me safe. Mostly, they are either indifferent to those kinds of things, or irritated by the fact that I feel they have any responsibility on them for that kind of job, or they are doing happy dances of power in the face of my unsafeness and delight in stabbing me with meanness whenever they feel like it.
For example, it is a heady experience, an irresistable one, I can tell, to be able to have free reign to someone you can completely torture any time you want with zero consequences. My stepdad is like that, and it's like he just can't resist the glee he feels. Have you ever babysat for some kid you didn't know very well, and the sheer cartoon-like power you realized you had over that innocent kid blew your mind and made you feel sinister just in the recognition? It is like a drug, maybe, how it can make you feel so good, or at least so irresistably drawn, to being mean to someone with absolutely, zero, not one speck or avenue of recourse. The terror you see in their eyes... The sheer aliveness of their fear and helplessness.
Well, I guess my stepdad might be getting high off that from me a lot. Every chance he has. He is constantly jonesing for it, for a fix. And I really do my best not to give it to him, but that's the beauty of his all-powerful position, is that I really don't have any defense. How do you pretend not to be starving to death when your bones are sticking out? People can see hopeless situations, even if it's not phsycial like in that example. I either pretend I don't care and it doesn't bother me, which puts me right into the flames and straight onto the hot coals, or I avoid him as much as possible, which of course shows how bad the problem is, too. For instance, I hate having to get upstairs to my room, because he always sits on the couch, on his end of by the door. The couch is parallel to the living room wall that I have to walk along to get to the stairs, so it is like a hallway with wall on one side and the back of the couch on the other. And it is only like, I don't know, maybe three feet wide or something. So I can feel his hate fumes because I have to get so close to him to walk by, let alone that I have to see his stupid head and his bare shoulders because he probably doesn't have a shirt on, and his giant hairy mole that lives on his upper arm that we all have to act like is very charming and funny and doesn't disgust us like the sick fucking thing it is. Anyway, so trying to get to my room, or coming down from my room, it is a problem because he is right there. And the skin on my spine stands up and I want to scratch it all off with a metal brush or a brillo pad or something when I feel him that close to me. He is just waiting for any chance to prove my evilness. Or if there isn't a chance, he will make one up that he finds very convincing and that he will look at my mom and treat her like she is an idiot if she doesn't see and agree with. He tells her she gets fooled by my lies, and by my act. It is very hard because sometimes I don't know if there is an act or not. I am like this crazy person living in different dimensions at the same time, and both of them are right. Seriously, really right. I think I do have an act, maybe. Or not. I don't know. But I do know that he is a dick.
It is starting to get pretty cold. I should have worn my winter coat. Whatever. I am wearing my blue hooded sweatshirt jacket. It getting pretty old these days.
I used to be "gifted," if you can believe it. Maybe they were wrong about that, but I guess I'm not anymore, either way. That was a few years ago, back when I was in elementary school, though.
*****
It was a time when I was forgetting how shitty my life was, and felt my real self getting a chance to stick it’s head out into the sunshine and breathe a little. It was the last time my real self surfaced before going under for good. Before the pavement and concrete poured over the top became completely impenetrable to the daisy of the human spirit. Of my spirit. Of me.
That last crack unfilled happened in Detroit, Michigan, in a new building complex called The Renaissance Center. Very futuristic, and a place my family would never have gone. It was downtown, for one, and fancy, for another. But I can’t tell you the story very well; it’s a weak spot of mine. I don’t follow storylines well at all, and just constantly veer off track into the weeds on either side. I can, however go there. So that’s what I’ll do.
....
I am smiling and there is nobody around me who hates me. Nobody is mean in the group I’m with, which is my teacher for the gifted class and my fellow five classmates. It’s not exactly a class, more like a Brownie troop kind of thing where we do activities sometimes, except we happen to meet during school hours. Twice a week, for like half a day or a few hours. It is kind of weird, because there are just like a few of us in the school who do this, so everyone wonders what is going on and why we are leaving regular class to go to our “special class.” We don’t really know what to say about it, either. What do you say? I don’t exactly get it, which makes it all seem kind of stupid and probably not worth it. Because it seems like I just get more work to do, so why go? I don’t know. I can tell they mean well, but I think they just don’t know what is going on, either. It is the first year they have ever had a program like this. There are two teachers doing it, and they seem to think we are definitely different in some way. I wouldn’t exactly say scared of us, but it is a weird dynamic. Mrs. Dudzik is the only one here today, though. She is really having a good time, I can tell. She likes us, and is really pretty nice. The other one, she’s stupid and mean. She doesn’t like us, I can tell. She should not be doing this job.
Mrs. Dudzik doesn’t know what she’s doing, either, but she tries really hard. And her frustration more would make her sad, not mad.
We are going up the escalator right now. It’s amazing in here. Like a whole Jetsons city with all these levels an walkways and stuff. And these little pod areas where you can sit. I want to get over to one of those eventually. There’s like a mall in here, sort of. And a food court where we’re going to eat lunch, I’m pretty sure. My mom gave me five dollars for lunch. I wonder what I’ll get.
We are on our way up now to go to the top of the middle building, which is very tall and has a restaurant on the top that rotates around in a circle. Mrs. Dudzik let us run up the down escalator and down the up escalators. Can you believe that? It blew my mind. Nick would never never never let something like that happen. If he knew what I was doing, cracking up and going the wrong way on an escalator in a fancy building, he would probably shoot me. It drives him to the edge if I am not worried or scared.
Life is easy right now, in this building with these people. Even though these aren’t my real friends. I guess being so far from home down here makes that not matter so much. Me and Andy have been joking around pretty good. And it’s not like I feel like I have to pair up with a buddy with these guys anyway. I don’t know; it’s just different somehow.
I am wearing jeans and tennis shoes. My shoes are pretty ratty when you compare them to this place. I did wear a good shirt since we were sort of having this field trip. My mom thought I should, but the truth is that she doesn’t know how to dress fancy, anyway. She doesn’t know how to do it, so I guess I don’t either. But Mrs. Dudzik seems okay with what I’m wearing. Paula is all dressed up, wearing an actual dress and stuff. Andy looks like a slob like he always does, except he has a tie on over his t-shirt. Linda is just Linda, wearing the same white kind of blouse and blue stretch pants she always does, too. We are all dressed like usual, I guess, except Paula who is like a little girl in all that pink. It’s not even the kind of dress-up dress I would wear if I was going to buy one; she looks like a little kid at a birthday party. Her parents are weird. They are always together and pick her up an drop her off at the school door everyday. And she is in 5th grade. It is weird. And her dad has this weird hair piled up that looks like one of those Russian hats, but is just his hair.
That last crack unfilled happened in Detroit, Michigan, in a new building complex called The Renaissance Center. Very futuristic, and a place my family would never have gone. It was downtown, for one, and fancy, for another. But I can’t tell you the story very well; it’s a weak spot of mine. I don’t follow storylines well at all, and just constantly veer off track into the weeds on either side. I can, however go there. So that’s what I’ll do.
....
I am smiling and there is nobody around me who hates me. Nobody is mean in the group I’m with, which is my teacher for the gifted class and my fellow five classmates. It’s not exactly a class, more like a Brownie troop kind of thing where we do activities sometimes, except we happen to meet during school hours. Twice a week, for like half a day or a few hours. It is kind of weird, because there are just like a few of us in the school who do this, so everyone wonders what is going on and why we are leaving regular class to go to our “special class.” We don’t really know what to say about it, either. What do you say? I don’t exactly get it, which makes it all seem kind of stupid and probably not worth it. Because it seems like I just get more work to do, so why go? I don’t know. I can tell they mean well, but I think they just don’t know what is going on, either. It is the first year they have ever had a program like this. There are two teachers doing it, and they seem to think we are definitely different in some way. I wouldn’t exactly say scared of us, but it is a weird dynamic. Mrs. Dudzik is the only one here today, though. She is really having a good time, I can tell. She likes us, and is really pretty nice. The other one, she’s stupid and mean. She doesn’t like us, I can tell. She should not be doing this job.
Mrs. Dudzik doesn’t know what she’s doing, either, but she tries really hard. And her frustration more would make her sad, not mad.
We are going up the escalator right now. It’s amazing in here. Like a whole Jetsons city with all these levels an walkways and stuff. And these little pod areas where you can sit. I want to get over to one of those eventually. There’s like a mall in here, sort of. And a food court where we’re going to eat lunch, I’m pretty sure. My mom gave me five dollars for lunch. I wonder what I’ll get.
We are on our way up now to go to the top of the middle building, which is very tall and has a restaurant on the top that rotates around in a circle. Mrs. Dudzik let us run up the down escalator and down the up escalators. Can you believe that? It blew my mind. Nick would never never never let something like that happen. If he knew what I was doing, cracking up and going the wrong way on an escalator in a fancy building, he would probably shoot me. It drives him to the edge if I am not worried or scared.
Life is easy right now, in this building with these people. Even though these aren’t my real friends. I guess being so far from home down here makes that not matter so much. Me and Andy have been joking around pretty good. And it’s not like I feel like I have to pair up with a buddy with these guys anyway. I don’t know; it’s just different somehow.
I am wearing jeans and tennis shoes. My shoes are pretty ratty when you compare them to this place. I did wear a good shirt since we were sort of having this field trip. My mom thought I should, but the truth is that she doesn’t know how to dress fancy, anyway. She doesn’t know how to do it, so I guess I don’t either. But Mrs. Dudzik seems okay with what I’m wearing. Paula is all dressed up, wearing an actual dress and stuff. Andy looks like a slob like he always does, except he has a tie on over his t-shirt. Linda is just Linda, wearing the same white kind of blouse and blue stretch pants she always does, too. We are all dressed like usual, I guess, except Paula who is like a little girl in all that pink. It’s not even the kind of dress-up dress I would wear if I was going to buy one; she looks like a little kid at a birthday party. Her parents are weird. They are always together and pick her up an drop her off at the school door everyday. And she is in 5th grade. It is weird. And her dad has this weird hair piled up that looks like one of those Russian hats, but is just his hair.
I guess I shouldn’t talk. I have Nick who wears leather jackets and motorcycle boots and chains around. He is an embarrassment. People can feel his meanness. My friends don’t even like to come over my house. Ever. Lana has said she just won’t every because Nick is too scary. Sandy still will sometimes, but she is boring and also used to adults who want to be ignored. I could never have a birthday party or anything like that. Or a sleepover. Give me a break. He is just too mean and too volcano-ish to ever risk something like that.
<< Home