When My Heart Joins the Thousand(3)

“Yes.” At least, it’s preferable to the alternative.

Before I got this apartment, I stayed in a group home for troubled teenagers. There, I shared a room with a girl who chewed her fingers bloody and woke me up at odd hours by screaming in my ear. The food was terrible, the smells worse.

I ran away on three separate occasions. On the third, I was caught sleeping on a park bench and was dragged to court for vagrancy. When asked why I kept running, I told the judge that homelessness was preferable to living in a place like that. I asked her to grant me legal emancipation—which I had been researching—so that I could live on my own.

She agreed, but only under the condition that someone check up on me regularly. Hence, Dr. Bernhardt became my guardian, at least on paper. He’s obligated to meet with me at least twice a month, but outside of that we have very little to do with each other, which suits me fine.

Still, there’s always an awareness in the back of my mind that he has the power to send me back to the group home. Or worse.

“May I ask you a personal question, Alvie?”

“If I say no, will that make a difference.”

He frowns at me, brows knitting together. He’s frustrated. Or maybe hurt; I can’t tell. I avert my gaze. “Fine. Ask.”

“Do you have any friends?”

“I have the animals at work.”

“Any friends who can talk? And parrots don’t count.”

I hesitate. “I don’t need any.”

“Are you happy?”

It’s another rhetorical question; obviously I’m not what most people would describe as happy. But that has nothing to do with anything. Happiness is not a priority. Survival is. Staying sane is. Pointing out that I’m not happy is like pointing out to a starving homeless man that he doesn’t have a sensible retirement plan. It might be true, but it’s entirely beside the point. “I’m stable. I haven’t had a meltdown for several months.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I don’t understand the point of this question, Dr. Bernhardt.”

He sighs. “I’m not a therapist, I know, but I have been charged with looking after your well-being. I realize you like your independence, but I’d feel a lot better about your situation if you had at least one friend to rely on. When was the last time you actually started a conversation with someone outside of work?”

Until now, he’s been content to ignore my social life, or lack thereof. Why is it suddenly an issue? I rock back and forth on my heels. “I’m not like other people. You know that.”

“I think you overestimate how different you really are. Maybe to start with you could, I don’t know, try a chat room? Online communication is often easier for people with social difficulties. And it might be a good way to meet people with similar interests.”

I don’t respond.

“Look. Alvie. I’m on your side, whether you realize it or not—”

That’s a line I’ve heard before, from many adults. I’ve long since stopped believing it.

“—but the way you’re living now . . . it’s not healthy. If things don’t change, I’ll have to recommend to the judge that, as a condition of your continued independence, you start seeing a counselor.”

Panic leaps in my chest, but I keep my expression carefully neutral. “Are we done.”

He sighs. “I suppose we are.” He picks up his briefcase and walks toward the door. “See you in two weeks.” As he steps out into the hall, he pauses, glancing over his shoulder. “Happy birthday, by the way.”

The door closes.

After he’s gone, I stand in the center of the room for a few minutes, waiting for the tightness in my chest to subside.

I unwrap the cupcake I bought from the convenience store, set it on the coffee table, and stick a candle on top. At exactly 7:45 p.m., I light the candle and then blow it out.

One more year to go, and I won’t have to deal with Dr. Bernhardt or any interfering adult from the state. All I have to do is make it to eighteen without losing my job or missing rent. Then I’ll be fully emancipated. I’ll be free.





CHAPTER TWO


At the Hickory Park Zoo, there’s a sign standing next to the hyena exhibit: Happy? Sad? Mad? And beneath that, in smaller letters: Attributing human feelings to animals is called anthropomorphizing. Instead of asking, “What is it feeling?” ask, “What is it doing?”

I see this sign every day when I come to work. I hate it.

Elephants grieve for their dead. Apes can learn to use sign language as skillfully as a five-year-old human child. Crows are magnificent problem solvers; in laboratory experiments, they will use and modify tools, such as pebbles or short pieces of straw, in order to obtain food. When animals do these things, it’s rationalized away as instinct or a conditioned response. When humans do these same things, it’s accepted unquestionably as evidence of our superiority. Because animals can’t vocalize their thoughts and feelings, some people assume they don’t have them.

I sometimes fantasize about breaking into the zoo at night, stealing the sign, and throwing it into the nearest river.

I sit on a bench in my khaki-colored uniform, eating a bologna sandwich with mustard, the same thing I always eat on my lunch break. The hyenas snuffle around inside the cave-like enclosure, scratching at the rock-textured walls. Kiki, the dominant female, is chewing the bars.