Present: Laughing
When I walked into the apartment and saw my older brother unconscious on the kitchen floor, an empty bottle of sleeping pills in his hand, I did the unthinkable – I laughed. I know that’s terrible of me. Maybe I just couldn’t handle it, anymore. I don’t know. I could almost feel something inside me just snap and break into a million pieces. And I felt like every emotion I had ever felt might come rushing out of me all at once. I wondered if that’s how it had felt for Isaac, too, before he did it.
But I didn’t ask him that. Not then.
I stumbled over to the phone and picked it up. The dial tone buzzed in my ear and it felt like the loudest thing I had ever heard. I had to try four times before my big stupid fingers pressed the right buttons and I finally heard the 911 operator on the line. I don’t even remember what I told her, but I must have said the right things because soon the paramedics came bursting through the door. The whole time I don’t think Isaac moved at all and part of me thought he was already gone. I just stood there and watched them put him up on the stretcher and wheel him out. My knuckles were turning white gripping the kitchen counter and I kept thinking it was good thing he lived on the first floor or they would have had a time trying to get him outside. It’s funny how my brain likes to wander like that.
When they had him all loaded up in the ambulance, one of the paramedics told me I could ride with them, but I said I would rather just drive my van to the hospital behind them. He gave me a funny look but didn’t say anything. I just couldn’t be that close to Isaac as long as he was so still and closed eyed. I didn’t need to see another brother that way.
It only took about twenty minutes to get to the hospital, but I don’t really remember the drive. An old Janis Joplin was stuck in the cassette player and it kept making weird noises all through Me and Bobby McGee. I stood outside while they wheeled Isaac inside and tried to find a spot in the parking lot where my cell phone had service. It had been Taylor’s a few years ago, before he moved out and our parents refused to pay for him to have a phone anymore. I was surprised they would let me have it since they always seemed to like him better, but the phone barely worked anyway.
I finally found a spot under the main ER entrance where I had two bars of signal and dialed my parent’s house. The ringer droned on forever and I counted the rings. Seventeen. Then a click and the answering machine’s robotic voice.
“Mom, please pick up, if you’re there,” I spoke into the receiver. “It’s Ike. We’re at the hospital. I think he’s…”
My voice cracked after that and I jabbed the “end” button on my phone. I didn’t want Mom and Dad to hear that. I didn’t even want to think it. I don’t know how long I paced around the parking lot. I walked up and down the big yellow AMBULANCE printed on the pavement, tracing the letters with my steps. For a minute, I laughed at the thought of an ambulance careening into the parking lot while I still stood over their special, designated spot. I suppose laughter still wasn’t the right response. I don’t know how long I walked up and down those letters, but I think I could have traced out the pattern with my eyes closed. I was still clutching the old cell phone in my hand, tracing the letter B, when I heard the door open and a muscular guy in baby blue scrubs peeked his head out and looked at me.
“Are you Mr. Hanson?”
That made me pause. I was only 17 and I don’t think anyone had ever called me that before. The nurse looked at me funny, like maybe he had asked the wrong person and Mr. Hanson was still wandering around somewhere. Finally, I nodded my head and said, “Yeah. I guess I am.”
“Your brother is awake, now. You can see him. Room 210.”
I gave him a small nod and slipped the phone back into my pocket. He had already turned and walked back into the building, so I was left to find Ike’s room all on my own. I didn’t think that would be too hard. The hallway smelled like bleach and that weird smell hospitals always have. That smell seemed like it hadn’t left me for months. I hoped I would never have to go near another hospital again after that day, but I knew that was a stupid wish. Wishes like that were bound to never come true.
It didn’t take me long to find Isaac, but I froze at the doorstep. I guess I was afraid to walk in. He was in a private room with a big, thick window that I could look inside because no one had drawn the blinds. The doctor stepped outside and told me that Ike had swallowed five times the normal dosage, that his stomach had been pumped, and that he was lucky I had found him when I did. I wondered if Isaac would agree. I just stared blankly at the doctor. I didn’t know what he wanted me to say. What could I say that wouldn’t just sound dumb or silly? He nodded knowingly and walked away. I pressed my hand to the glass, contemplating tapping against it to get Ike’s attention. But I wouldn’t have known what to do if he did look my way. So I just stood there looking stupid, my hand getting all sweaty against the glass.
I stood there for a long time. At some point, Ike did look over at me but I couldn’t read his face. His eyes looked dark and blank. It scared me a little. Our parents walked in a little while later. I could feel them walking up the hallway behind me before I saw them. They walked right past me and into his room, like I wasn’t even there. A ghost.
Dad slammed the door shut behind him and I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was obvious that they were arguing. Isaac was supposed to be the good kid and I guess they didn’t expect this from him. No one would say it, but I don’t think any of us were really surprised when Taylor burned out early. He was too much for the world; he couldn’t have lasted long. And as for me, no one expected anything good from me. When I was little, they filled me to the eyeballs with Ritalin just so they could stand to be around me. Now it’s sleeping pills and anxiety pills and anti-depressants and all kinds of things that are supposed to “help me.” But it all makes me feel hollow, like someone took all my emotions and scraped them right out. Then again, sometimes it felt like all those feelings were locked up in a little box, tucked away deep inside. Either way, I didn’t remember the last time I had felt anything that I knew was real. Not until Taylor died and I stopped swallowing all those pills.
After several minutes, my parents walked back out of the room. Dad came out first and stalked on down the hallway toward the double doors without even looking at me. Mom always had more sympathy, even if she didn’t really understand. She stopped next to me, standing too far away for me to reach out and touch her. Her eyes were almost as blank as Isaac’s, but I could see a tear growing at the corners of each.
“Ike is going away for a while,” she said and her voice was almost even, but I could hear the cracks around the edges. “He needs to get better.”
That was the only explanation she gave me. Like I was too young to understand the rest. Like she was explaining death to a five year old whose dog was just hit by a car. I understood well enough. I nodded my head dumbly and watched her walk away, her hands shaking as she clutched her handbag to her chest like it was anchoring her, keeping her above the current.
Once they were both gone out of my sight, I opened the door and walked into the room. The air inside it was oddly heavy compared to the hallway. Isaac lay in the bed looking deflated and defeated. He had tubes in both arms and his face was pale, almost green.
“Ike…” I said, and my throat clenched around the word. I sounded on the verge of a sob, and maybe I was, but I didn’t want him to hear that.
“Did they tell you?”
I nodded. “Mom tried to.”
He scratched at the hospital band on his wrist, careful not to touch the gauze wrapped around his hands. I guess that was there to hold all the tubes in place. Maybe they had to do that for anyone they considered a suicide risk. I never thought Isaac would be the one of us to be labeled that. Finally, he looked back up at me and cleared his throat. “I need to do this, Zac. I need this time for me. To clear my head.”
“To clear your head,” I repeated, turning the words over in my mouth. I didn’t like the way they tasted heavy in my mouth.
That’s what I wanted. To clear my head of all the static and noise and everything bearing down on me all the time. I almost envied him. I was stuck here. Isaac could do what he wanted now that he was out on his own and twenty-two. But me, I was stuck with our parents, in a house so full of people and silence at the same time.
Isaac nodded toward the tray attached to his bed. I picked up the papers laying on it. It was an assortment of brochures about depression and suicide, and one for a mental treatment place out in Broken Arrow. I shuffled the papers and set them back down. I didn’t want to read the details.
“Where did you get these?”
“Doctor brought them in. I guess you were still outside calling Mom and Dad,” he replied. “I don’t know for sure when I’m leaving. He’s gonna come back in later, probably send in a specialist, and we’ll figure out all the details. But I know this is what I need to do.”
“They didn’t take it well, did they?” I asked, shrugging my shoulder toward the door. I knew he would understand that I meant our parents.
He shook his head. “No, but what can they do? I’m an adult. And they don’t want a repeat of this. I guess it feels like either way, they’re losing another son.”
Maybe they are, I thought to myself.