Lakewood(63)

I told him I was going to barf. My voice sounded 9 again—high, almost squeaky. I opened my eyes. My grandmother stood behind him. Not as she was when I knew her, but as she was in the photograph. She told me my life was cracking open. Sticking out of her left arm were—I don’t know the precise medical name for them—needles used to inject vaccines.

Hello, I said to her. Tell me. I’m not sure if I said this aloud or thought it. Tell me that I’ll have my life back.

She took my hand but didn’t smile. Tell me, I thought I said to her, to go home. My grandmother took a needle from her arm and put it in my own. It’s just a pinch, baby. Look at me. Together we can get through anything.

I reached for her hand, but there was only air.





28


And then, Tanya, I woke up and I was at Long Lake. Across, on the other side, was the meadow with my grandmother’s tree. But I was near the docks, where people could launch canoes and have picnics. I watched as the observers threw metal containers into the water. It smelled like a mixture of cotton-candy perfume and cleaning supplies burning on a stove. The air hurt my nostrils, my lungs. I put my hands over my mouth and nose, but my fingers stunk of it. The containers sank into the water and I had a coughing fit. I bent over from the force of it. There was an empty pop bottle near my feet, and I picked it up when I was done. I threw it in the recycling bin and coughed again.

I walked back to a car and Dr. Lisa was waiting for me. The night was so clear. I asked her if I was going to be stoned for eternity. She turned on a song and started up the car. The song was about being on fire or asking someone for fire. Or maybe it was about being a match and begging to be struck, to crumble, to die. I was sure the song had been written for me. I opened the window and stuck my head out. The wind was sprinting to keep up with the car. A bug smashed itself on my forehead. I howled at the clear skies, the stars that didn’t give a shit about anything. They were just light. Dr. Lisa laughed, told me to put my seatbelt on.

Sacred is an anagram of scared, I said.

Being high is so embarrassing, the doctor said. I miss it.

I don’t know how much time passed, but the next thing—and I’m not sure if it was before or after being at the lake—was I was wearing a wig and red lipstick and a black dress. I was paying close attention to every conversation that was happening around me, while pretending all my attention was on the crab cakes I was eating. I knew everything I heard I was expected to discuss later. I wiped my hands on a tablecloth. I was a white woman’s date and she kept asking if I was having fun. You’re being so quiet and polite. She had three braids wrapped around her forehead like a crown. I wondered who she was. We were wearing matching bracelets, thin and gold, that clacked together when we moved our wrists. I asked her where she was going next week, and she said back to the oil. I laughed a little, hoped she couldn’t tell I was so confused. There was a gun in my handbag. A list of names next to it, some red lipstick, and a small sprayer of perfume.

Another memory: I was binge-eating ice cream. Strawberry. I didn’t care how it tasted. I needed the cold in my mouth. It hurts, I said. The darkness from the woods was standing in the corner. It came over and stood at my side. I refused to acknowledge it, shoved more ice cream in my mouth. It shuddered, as if it, too, was getting an ice cream headache. There was a frozen chunk of strawberry in my mouth. I held it there until it rehydrated a little. Plump and half-alive again with my spit.

Days or minutes later, Dr. Lisa was talking to me. I was on a treadmill running faster than I ever have before. She sounded almost envious. Do you feel great? You have so much energy. And I was telling her in a strained voice that my brain and heart are moving faster than ever before, and it is fucking terrible. I am also feeling great because running is fucking fun. And I think I was supposed to start menstruating four days ago, but that hasn’t happened yet. The small part of me that was still Lena was so uncomfortable at the rapidness of my speech, at the way it seemed I must at least be having some kind of manic episode. It’s the only possibility I could think of. And don’t a lot of mental illnesses really get going in people’s twenties? Then I thought, Oh, maybe it’s because of the drugs. The closest I can come to describing how I felt at that moment was I was sentient champagne. I loved the feeling of being exposed to the air, fizzing over my bottle’s edge. I was doing what I was meant to do and was sure that soon I would be all used up and that was okay. Everything dies.

I was sitting in a room and a man punched me in the eye. He said something like, Tell us, tell us, and this will all stop. I had no idea what he was talking about. The inside of my mouth was tender. I remember saying, I don’t care if you do this to me. He stopped, shook his head. I threw myself at him. Hit me, I said. Hit me. I don’t fucking care. Do it. He was much bigger than me. I was slapping him and screaming. I could tell I was scaring the shit out of him. Do it, I said. My voice suddenly quiet, calm like I was answering a question in a classroom.

Last night, or a week ago, I was sitting in a room filled with animals. They were all speaking in human voices. They were talking about celebrity gossip. A celebrity was caught cheating with the maid. Two of her kids were his. One of the animals was Bigfoot. His teeth were yellow. Leaves were caught in his face fur. You look much more authentic, I told him. There were different raccoons. A bat. I wondered if they were all robots I had seen before. My nose was bleeding. It stained my shirt. You’ve gotta take care of yourself, one of the raccoons said to me. I laughed. The blood ran down my nose and chin, but I stayed and listened to them talk.