Ask me how I got here. Now there’s a story, and I don’t mind tellin’, if you’re willin’ to listen.
Doc sittin’ there, I’m sure he’d like to know, ‘cause, tell you what, he ain’t got a fuckin’ clue. Oh, he can tell you exactly what I took, and he can explain to you everything that’s on those charts in his hand and what all those squiggly lines mean and everything, but what really happened? He don’t know shit.
That reminds me of that joke… you know the one… if people accuse you of not knowing Jack Schit, you just tell them all about how he’s related to Bull Schit, and Deep and Dip Schit, and all the other members of the extensive Schit family. I’d tell that joke to the doc if I could remember it all, but something tells me that he wouldn’t be all that amused by it.
Anyway, as I was sayin’… it’s interestin’, ‘cause I’m sittin’ here listening to the doc talk to this guy Phil over here next to me… they don’t think I’ve been listening. He tries to get this guy to talk about why he’s there, how he could do things differently, and maybe get out of this place. I think about the guy over there watching the same stupid reruns on t.v. all the time (do they ever put decent t.v.s in these places? Tell me, when’s the last time you saw a t.v. in one of these places that didn’t look like a prop from “Leave it to Beaver”?), and then there’s the guy who keeps on guarding that blue crayon like it’s the Holy Grail. All the others come in to do their art, but can’t nobody make a blue sky or a blue lake because Jerry won’t give up the blue crayon! One of the nurses keeps on going on about how Jerry should share and let the others use the blue crayon, but the fact is, Jerry took that blue crayon as soon as he got here, and he ain’t giving it up, so she might as well prance herself off to the dollar store and pick up a new box of crayons if she really wants a blue one. Thing is… when I get to thinking about all these… well, really interesting people, I wonder just why in the world would you want to be back out there. On the other side of that window, I mean. Where the grass is green and there are plenty of blue crayons floating around. Out there is an endless sea of blue crayons. In here is one extremely meaningful crayon. Think of what all of those guys out there are missing out on.
The nurse comes in with one of those little white cups, and it has a pill in it. I find this funny as Schit, ‘cause, if you remember correctly, that’s precisely why I’m here. Fine. She puts the pill in my mouth, and I swallow it. She holds a cup to my lips, and I try to swallow the water without dribbling it everywhere, but I do anyway. They think I’m going to hurt myself, but they don’t know, if I really had wanted to kill myself, I’d have done it already. What I wish I could do is fly right out that window. At night when the stars are out. I want to fly to the moon.
Ain’t gonna happen. They put me here almost every day so I can see all the pretty things outside and the squirrels on the lawn dancing around in the sunshine. If I could, I’d tell them I don’t gave a damn about the squirrels and I hate the fuckin’ sun!
Which reminds me of something else I found funny. This guy I know… he built this bird feeder. He’s not just overly brilliant, and he put the bird seed out there on the patio, and the squirrels came up and ate it. He got really upset, and ran out the door every few minutes to yell at the squirrels to get out of his bird feeder. A few hours later, the squirrels were gone, and the bird feeder was full of the biggest damn crows you’ve ever seen. I was laughing my ass off! But he still didn’t get it.
But like I said, I’m glad I’m here and not there. Because life reeks, you know. I got sick of performing. Nobody wants to see you unhappy. Nobody wants to know your pain. I can go pretty deep, and you’d be amazed at just how afraid people are of really deep thinkers. Out there, it’s shallow. This here, man, is the bottom of the ocean. You get yourself together, and you go back out to what? The shallow end of the pool? Might as well put on a happy face and do that same old song and dance. You’re going to be doing that routine over and over.
One of the nurses is making Joey stop coloring on his chair. She’s holding his hand, the one containing the yellow crayon, and squeezing it tight. “No, Joey. That’s the rules. You know the rules.”
Rules. I hate rules. Glory, glory, hallelujah, teacher hit me with a ruler… I mean, you get down to it, what’s the most important thing in life? Really? Tell me, ‘cause I’d really be interested to know. Some people will say “family”. Some say “God”. Some say “God” and “family”, because, that’s what they all think they’re supposed to say, and they want to play it safe and cover all the bases. You know what? They missed the boat. I ask people like that, “What’s the greatest commandment?” “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Yep. You got it. There you go.
Think about it. Love is the most important thing. But when it all comes down to it, people don’t really believe that. Love. That’s what it’s all about. That’s why we’re here. That’s why I’m here. In here.
I’d tell the doc all of this if I could. I’d tell him how I loved somebody more than life itself. I’d tell him how the rules didn’t mean shit when it all came down to it, because love is the most important thing. I’d tell him that it seemed like the whole damn world was going to get into my business and tell me that it didn’t matter what I felt or how I felt, but I had to go by some rules that were more important than love. And I watched these people, and their rules, destroy the one I loved. Watched them fence him in. Watched them starve him of the thing he wanted, pushed their damn rules down his throat. Might as well have killed him for the shitload of guilt they dumped on him. Made him think, when all is said and done, it’s not about love. Like we live for the fuckin’ rules.
You’d have thought I had something to gain from it. The way they looked at me, like I was a most evil person for loving him. For him loving me back. They said what is the world coming to? Looked at me like I was a damn whore.
They didn’t have the eyes to see that he was starving before I came along. They’d rather see him starve than break the rules.
He was brilliant and full of passion. I walked in to his life that day, and I felt the universe shift like a Rubik’s cube. I felt like something was going to happen. Something big.
Something did happen. We were like the yin and the yang. Fireworks went off. But others put an end to that.
Somebody saw something. Somebody said something. And even though what they saw and heard was love, they judged it as something else. Something evil. In the end, they were telling him that he couldn’t do this thing. I saw his eyes. He wanted to. I could tell we meant something. That he really did love me. I left messages, but he didn’t call me back.
I spent most of my life looking for this love. Was my search all for nothing? Can we live without love? Can we just get away with telling ourselves that we actually do love that person we’re with, the one who is annoying as hell, to deny these yearnings deep inside our souls? Are the yearnings righteous or evil in nature? If evil, are we evil by nature? Do we achieve something noble by denying ourselves that nature, such as by committing to loveless rules? Like love means nothing. Nothing at all.
Commit. Now there’s a word that comes up a lot around here. You get committed. A man gets jailed for committing a crime. Then somebody has to wonder why the other doesn’t want to make a commitment. Makes me want to sing out, “Let’s conjugate!”
He was in awful pain the last time I saw him. I think he’s really sick. I think he’s afraid of letting go of the rules right now. He finds comfort in the rules. In the way things are “supposed” to be. I think he’s afraid of dying.
I’m not afraid.
I want to write my own eulogy. I want the last word. The last thing I want is everyone getting up there and sayin’ how my life could have been successful had I done this or that. Like when you go to those funerals where you feel like the preacher might as well be sayin’, “Now what we got here, folks, is a chief example of what not to do.” I wonder what it must feel like to have your death ceremony used as a commercial. I spend a lot of time thinking about what mattered most in life. I don’t want someone up there preaching against everything I ever stood for.
Even if it didn’t work out the way I planned.
I didn’t do this trying to kill myself. I didn’t. No one would listen, and so I made a decision. I thought maybe it’d be me and the doc having this conversation about the important things of life and the meaning of a blue crayon, not me sitting here unable to speak, saying nothing, and having to listen to the doc talking to Phil.
I don’t really want to die. I just want somebody to listen.
The meds are kicking in again, and I’m getting sleepy. The sky outside is getting darker. Here comes the nurse to wheel me back over to the t.v. What makes her think I have developed a taste for outdated sitcoms since I got in this place? I was a writer, for God’s sake. As she wheels me away from the window, I silently yearn to see the stars. I love stars. But the nurse is speaking in that sing-song “teacher’s” voice, saying she’s going to bring me back over to sit in the sun tomorrow. I’ve been here long enough to hate her for this, and I think she is a pawn of Satan. Did I ask for daily tanning sessions when I got here? Why not just nuke me? She parks me next to Jerry and the blue crayon. “Different Strokes” is on the tube. I’m just wondering, does anyone around here watch “Nova”?