Present: Loony Bin
Isaac had been gone away almost two months before any of us heard from him again. I had taken to spending most of my free time at his apartment. He hadn’t packed up or thrown out any of Taylor’s things, so most days I would sit in Tay’s old bedroom or the living room playing his guitar. I wasn’t very good at it, but it kept my hands and my head busy.
I didn’t touch anything else there once I had finished the cleaning, except to make sure all the old food was taken out and that the dust didn’t accumulate again. Disturbing the place any more than that just didn’t sit right with me, so I made sure to leave the least amount of tracks that I could. Maybe that’s why it surprised me so much the day the phone rang. All the times I had been there, no one had called. I guessed Isaac had gotten word out somehow that he was going away and there was no need for anyone to call.
When the phone did ring, I nearly jumped off the couch. I walked over to it slowly and just kind of stood there watching it, as though it might be actually something more terrifying than just a phone sitting on a table.
Finally, I decided the phone couldn’t really do me any harm and picked it up.
“H-hello?”
“Zac?”
“Isaac?”
I heard a soft chuckle on the other end. “Yeah, Zac. It’s me. I had a feeling you were at my apartment.”
“Oh. Mom didn’t tell you?”
“I didn’t ask her,” he replied. “I called you first.”
I realized I was still standing, but there wasn’t any reason to, so I walked over the couch and sat back down. Sitting down felt like it took a huge weight off me.
Feeling like I could start breathing again, I asked, “Why did you call me?”
“My doctor said I needed to start reconnecting with my family, and I didn’t feel like connecting with any of the rest of them yet,” Isaac said. “So are you sleeping at my place, or what?”
“Well, it’s not like you’re using it,” I replied, then regretted it. “No, I’m not.”
There was a silence at the other end that told me he didn’t believe me.
“Okay, only on the weekends,” I admitted.
More silence.
“It’s not like anyone cares that I’m gone, anyway!” I finally shouted, wincing a little as my volume surprised me.
Isaac sighed. “That isn’t true, Zac. They don’t all hate you like you think they do.”
“You’re the perfect son, Taylor is – was the lovable one. What does that leave for me?” I was almost whining by that point and it made me feel ridiculous.
I could almost hear Isaac rolling his eyes.
“Yeah, Zac. I’m perfect. Obviously that’s why I’m not allowed to wear a belt or use a toilet with a lid.”
That hurt a little, but he had a point.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “You’ve got a point. But I’d still rather be at your place than at home right now, okay?”
“Hey, it’s better than the loony bin,” Isaac said, laughing a little. I guess that gave me permission to laugh too, but I didn’t feel like it.
“So, what’s up? Other than the lack of a belt,” I said.
“I’d really love some non-loony company,” he replied, still chuckling softly.
I finally gave myself permission to laugh. “Sorry, you called the wrong number for that.”
Ike laughed at that, too. “Okay, but seriously, Zac. I need some company that isn’t a doctor, nurse or someone crazier than me.”
“Still not sure I qualify,” I replied, this time a bit more sincerely.
“Do you talk to the voices in your head?”
“Usually, no.”
“That’ll do.”
The conversation went on for quite a while, but it was mostly just to nail down all the details I would need to come visit him. I wasn’t really anxious to do it, although I did want to see him. We had a long weekend at school a week from then, so I knew Mom and Dad wouldn’t really miss me at all. They had almost stopped asking questions anyway. It really seemed like they didn’t care. Like they had already decided that I was a lost cause, too. I wondered if they had ever felt that way about Taylor or Isaac, but I doubted it.
When the time came to go visit Isaac, I was more than a little nervous. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I spent the night at his apartment, as usual, and got dressed the next day in the cleanest looking clothes I could find. I had picked them out of my floor and stuffed them in my backpack before I left for school the morning before, so they smelled a little like both my backpack and my van – neither of which smelled good – and they were kind of wrinkled, but it was about the best I could do.
I didn’t have too much trouble following Isaac’s directions, except for where my handwriting was smudged and hard to read. But that was my own and fault and not his, so I would tell him that the directions were no trouble at all to follow. I don’t know what I expected the place to look like, but it didn’t look like anything I had imagined. In fact, it looked just like a hospital. A regular one, for sick people. But I guess the people in it were sick. That shouldn’t have been such a strange thought for me, but it was.
The only thing that was really different, at first, from any other hospital was how much security it had. I passed through the first door by pushing a button, then I had to speak into a microphone through a big glass window to a very tired looking woman in nurse’s uniform. Once she was sure that I wasn’t going to do anything bad, I guess, she pushed some buttons and the second set of doors opened with a loud woosh.
From there, another nurse stood waiting to walk me down the hall to a lounge area where Isaac sat by himself at the window. He was reading a book that I was pretty sure had been one of Taylor’s – Atlas Shrugged. I remembered Tay reading it over and over again, and the worn cover looked familiar. I didn’t know what to say, so I just stood by the nurse shuffling my feet a little.
Luckily, the nurse came to my rescue, clearing her throat and saying, “You have some company today, Isaac.”
Ike looked up at me slowly, like he had almost forgotten to expect me and was nervous to see who his visitor might be. His face relaxed a little when he saw it was me, but I could still see the tension in his forehead.
He stood up and turned to the nurse. “Do we have to stay inside?”
She nodded. “Your doctor would prefer that, yes. Just for this visit. You can talk about courtyard visits next time, okay?”
Isaac nodded and I could see the tension in his face growing. He didn’t say another word to the nurse, though, just sat back down in his chair and closed his book. He motioned to the other armchair that sat with his, and I took a seat in it. The nurse seemed to take this as her cue to leave.
“This place doesn’t look so bad,” I said. It was a stupid thing to say, just one of those things you say when you don’t have anything better.
Isaac traced the lines of the picture on the cover of his book, then shrugged. “It could be worse. They let me paint and play piano. I feel like a little kid here, though.”
I didn’t know what else to say, so I just asked, “How is the food?”
“You know the cafeteria food at school?”
“That bad, huh?” I replied, scrunching up my nose.
“Worse,” Isaac said, almost grinning. I figured he had been planning that joke since the doctor told him he could have visitors. At least he could still crack a joke, but his face looked like he had lost his sense of humor completely. He looked older than I remembered.
“So, are there like… certain things we’re supposed to talk about? I mean, if your doctor thinks we should do this, what does he think it will do?” I asked. The words just sort of came tumbling out, not really at all what I had planned to say, or at least not how I had planned to say it.
Ike frowned, picking at the corner of the book, and replied, “I guess we’re supposed to talk about why I’m here. Like that will help me or something.”
“Will it?”
“I’m not the doctor, am I?” Isaac replied. He was almost grinning, just a little bit at the corners of his mouth.
I shook my head, not thinking that was really funny enough to laugh at. “I mean, do you think it will?”
“There isn’t really much to say about it, is there?” Isaac said, waving his hand through the air, like he was dismissing the whole thing as silly. “It’s kind of a black and white thing. You take a bottle of pills ’cause you want to stop. Just stop. Stop thinking, breathing. Stop being. End of story.”
“Yeah, but why? What makes you want to stop?” I asked.
“What makes you?” He replied.
I didn’t think that was a fair question. Sometimes I wasn’t sure I’d ever wanted to be, in the first place. That it hadn’t been a change of heart, like he had, but just a fact of who I was. I knew that was wrong, though. But I couldn’t remember much else except the emptiness.
I shook my head again, more forcefully this time. “This isn’t about me. I’m not the one in here, at least not yet.”
“You won’t be,” Ike said. “You’ve still got a chance.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” I replied softly.
“You’re not as bad off as I am, I can promise you that,” Isaac said. His voice had an edge to it that told me not to argue with him, even if I didn’t agree. He had made up his mind and I was going to hear it.
“What makes you think you’re so bad? You never were…” I trailed off, thinking back on how I had called him the perfect son. He was. Taylor may have been the charmer who could win anyone’s heart, but Ike was always the golden boy, doing everything he was supposed to.
He was quiet for a long time. He picked up the book and kneaded it in his hands, looking like he was going to rip it apart. Finally, he looked like up at me.
“Because it’s my fault.”
The nurse walked back up then and cleared her throat just like before, then said, “Sorry, Isaac dear. But your visitor needs to go now. It’s time for your group session.”
Isaac nodded to the nurse, then looked wordlessly back at me. I didn’t know what else to say, so I just stood up and followed the nurse back to the doors. I was surprised that my feet were willing to carry me. Even though he hadn’t said, I knew Isaac was talking about Taylor. I just didn’t understand what he could possibly have meant.