Twisted Fate(33)
Kim is still convinced that he has a future as a filmmaker and it would be cruel to limit his use of the screening room or constantly monitor his activities. She’s found a very good way to keep track of what he is doing by setting up “studio visits.” These are things that real artists do to have their work critiqued. She regularly watches all the movies he’s made as part of these studio visits and I think it’s giving Graham a sense of creative purpose and allows us to keep track of his activities without seeming like we are spying on him.
I didn’t believe it could happen but I am feeling more confident than ever that he will be able to live a full life after the trauma.
He’s also started talking about Eric again. I don’t know if this is the result of something you are doing in therapy or if the creative work is making him take stock of his life and making him remember the bond the boys had.
He’s mentioned several times things that they used to do together, and he regularly expresses pride in how tough and smart Eric was. Yesterday he said he would give anything to just have something of Eric’s. It nearly broke my heart. If it wasn’t for the bad blood I would almost feel inclined to contact Eric’s family to see if that was possible. But I am sure once the settlement payment cleared they were happy to never hear from us again. Such a pity. We all ache for their loss. And no one feels it more profoundly than Graham.
Lately I get the sense that he is finally capable of expressing himself and maybe looking for another friend who he can bond with. These days that possibility seems most likely from the next-door neighbors.
They even invited Graham to go out on an early fall excursion on their boat. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him as happy as when he returned home, his cheeks red and hair windblown. He looked like he’d had some great epiphany. Raced up to his room, he said to take some notes. This move may be the best decision we ever made. The ocean is certainly an inspiration and maybe just the kind of combination of adventure and wholesome activity that can reach him.
Looking forward to meeting with you to discuss his progress this coming Wednesday.
Take care, Doc, and thank you.
1:34—Cleaning the decks
4:01—Tate tying knots close up
7:55—Coastline, lowering boom
15:03—Below deck
20:00–65:04—Talking with Julia
Dear Lined Piece of Paper,
She wasn’t kidding about being able to sail with her father! That girl is so at home on the ocean she’s like some superhero. I think I’ll tell Brian there’s a new superhero named Tate who battles sharks. That kid believes pretty much anything anyone tells him.
Mr. Tate is awesome. He actually smokes a pipe! I think he had it in the corner of his mouth the entire time we were out in the harbor. He doesn’t talk much at all—more like grunts and points to things. Mrs. Tate is like some kind of celebrity. They both have funny accents, but very different from each other’s. Mr. Tate actually built the ship himself and apparently li’l miss Tate used to go out on it with him when she was just a toddler.
That girl is amazing.
Her mother was not much of a sailor but she was very funny. She reminded me of the people who buy Kim’s paintings. And she was dressed in some kind of perfect sailing suit. She and Tate dressed alike. White shorts and blue-and-white-striped T-shirts and red sweaters with a picture of an anchor on them and Docksiders. It was really funny and kinda cool to film.
Sooo. Dr. Adams changed the drugs. Dad and Kim think he’s some kind of genius. But really the thing that is making me so happy is that I doubled the dose. Obviously. Whatever he changed it to did not take into account I had already changed the dosages of the other stuff like six months ago. I can buy all of it online—well, I don’t buy it myself; it’s on my private wish list, which I send out to people who buy more than one hundred dollars of my films. They pay and the stuff comes in boxes that look like books or prints. Dr. Adams started asking me about dosages and I figured eventually they’d figure things out—so this method works best because it doesn’t worry anyone. Anyway . . . all this is to say I guess this new doubling the dose is more like quadrupling it.
How can someone who is not me know how I feel just by things I’ve told him? It doesn’t make any sense. I know how I feel on this stuff and I know the kind of state I need to maintain to produce good work and I am not going to let that stop. Also—if they stop prescribing it I can just get shit online. He took me off the Xanax because he said I seem to have the anxiety under control. That’s because I already got myself some Librium and have been taking it for weeks! The Librium combined with Effexor, and the Adderall from Dr. Adams, is pretty sweet. Add to that the occasional half bottle of NyQuil to give things that floating sparkling effect that makes things beautiful and you’re good to go. But overall I am focused, relaxed, and ready to achieve greatness.
The kind of greatness Eric always talked about. After sailing with Tate, I started to feel like Rockland might have been one of the more beautiful places I had ever been and I started to think that maybe I could make enough films and sell them and not actually have to go to school at all. I would wander around looking for good subjects.
It’s amazing how much money people pay just for a simple little interview with a child. Near the skate park, near the elementary school, there’s always interesting subjects. For example, Julia Blair, who I talked to. She was playing on the swings and then she jumped off and was sitting by herself near the sandbox, clearly waiting for someone to pick her up. She was wearing a pink shirt and a little dark-green cardigan sweater with pictures of tulips on it. I sat on the swings. I had my camera attached to my hat as usual. And I was pretty sure I was getting some beautiful footage. The woods behind her—the contrasting colors of her clothes, the way she played absently by herself, looked distracted and thoughtful. I knew this would look good edited together with footage of things I had taken off the news or footage of cars driving really fast.