My Year of Rest and Relaxation (21)

“What’s your favorite movie?”

Then one day I woke up to discover that I had dug out my digital camera and sent a bunch of strangers snapshots of my asshole, my nipple, the inside of my mouth. I’d written messages saying that I’d like it if they came and “tied me up” and “held me hostage” and “slurped my pussy like a plate of spaghetti.” And there were numbers in my cell phone log I didn’t recognize. So I made up a rule that whenever I took my pills, which was roughly every eight hours, I’d put my computer in the closet and power down my phone, seal it with packing tape in a Tupperware container, and stick the container in the back of a high kitchen cabinet.

But then I woke up with the unopened Tupperware next to me on the pillow.

The next night, the phone was on the window ledge, next to a dozen half-smoked cigarettes stubbed out on an Alanis Morissette CD case.

“Why are you killing yourself?” Reva asked, seeing the butts in the trash can when she came over uninvited a few days later. Reva’s mother’s cancer had started in her lungs.

“My smoking has nothing to do with you or your mother. My mother’s dead, too, you know,” I added.

By this point, Reva’s mother was in hospice care, in and out of consciousness. I was tired of hearing about it. It brought back too many memories. Plus, I knew she’d expect me to go to her mother’s funeral. I really didn’t want to do that.

“My mom’s not dead yet,” Reva said.

I didn’t tell Reva about my Internet proclivities. But I did ask her to change my AOL password to something I could never guess. “Just some random letters and numbers. I waste too much time online,” I told her.

“Doing what?”

“I send e-mails late at night and regret it,” was the lie I knew she would believe.

“To Trevor, right?” she asked, nodding her head knowingly.

Reva changed my password, and once my AOL account was inaccessible, my sleep stayed low stakes for a while. The worst I did while I was unconscious was write letters to Trevor on a yellow legal pad—long petitions about our romantic history and how I wanted things to change so that we could be together again. The letters were so ridiculous, I wondered if they were written in my sleep to keep me entertained while I was awake. By the end of the month, my blackout excursions down to the bodega had become less frequent, maybe due to the onset of winter.

Reva’s visits became less frequent, too. And her attitude shifted from melodrama to polite posturing. Instead of venting, she gave well-articulated summaries of her week, including the latest current events. I appreciated her self-control, I told her. She said she was trying to be more sensitive to my needs. When she would once have given me advice or commented on the state of the apartment, she now bit her tongue. She complained less. She also started giving me hugs and air kisses whenever she said good-bye. She did this by bending over me on the sofa. I imagine she got in the habit because of her bedbound mother. It made me feel like I was on my deathbed, too. In fact, I appreciated the affection. By Thanksgiving I’d been hibernating for almost six months. Nobody but Reva had touched me.



* * *



? ? ?

I DIDN’T TELL Dr. Tuttle about my blackouts. I was afraid she’d cut me off out of fear of potential lawsuits. So when I went to see her in December, I just complained that the insomnia had crept up with a vengeance. I lied that I could stay down for no more than a few hours at a time. Bouts of sweat and nausea made me dizzy and restless, I told her. Imaginary noises shook me awake so violently “I thought my building had been bombed or struck by lightning.”

“You must have a callus on your cortex,” Dr. Tuttle said, clucking her tongue. “Not figuratively. Not literally, I mean. I’m saying, parenthetically,” she held up her hands and cupped them side by side to demonstrate the punctuation. “You’ve built up a tolerance, but it doesn’t mean the drugs are failing.”

“You’re probably right,” I replied.

“Not probably.”

“Parenthetically speaking, I mean, I probably need something stronger.”

“Aha.”

“Pillwise, I mean.”

“You’re not being sarcastic, I hope,” Dr. Tuttle said.

“Of course not. I take my health completely seriously.”

“Well, in that case.”

“I’ve heard of an anesthetic they give to people for endoscopies. Something that keeps you awake during the procedure, but you can’t remember anything afterward. Something like that would be good. I have a lot of anxiety. And I have an important business meeting coming up later this month.” Really, I just wanted something especially powerful to blindfold me through the holidays.

“Give these a try,” Dr. Tuttle said, sliding a sample bottle of pills across her desk. “Infermiterol. If those don’t put you down for the count, I’ll complain directly to the manufacturer in Germany. Take one and let me know how it goes.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

“Any plans for Christmas?” she asked, scribbling my refills. “Seeing the folks? Where are you from again? Albuquerque?”

“My parents are dead.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. But I’m not surprised,” Dr. Tuttle said, writing in her file. “Orphans usually suffer from low immunity, psychiatrically speaking. You may consider getting a pet to build up your relational skills. Parrots, I hear, are nonjudgmental.”