My Beautiful Failure (8 page)

Being normal. Having a normal day or a normal night. Going to the movies with my friends. Walking across the
parking lot. You know how you feel on a weekend night, like everybody’s more alive, like everybody’s looking at you. Like people expect something exciting or funny or unusual to happen, even if you’re just in the mall. Deciding what to get for snacks—pizza or Dibs? And then forgetting everything and watching a whole movie beginning to end, munching my snack, without having an attack or a flashback. . . . It would be, like, There’s a whole world out here, you know? Are you still there?

“A whole world.”

Yeah.
Jenney got quiet for a moment.

Melinda says to put everything on hold. She says getting to the bottom of my memories has to be my number one priority in life.

Jenney had said she repressed the memories because they were too painful. While she spoke, I tried imagining what it would be like to be afraid of your own memories. I had bad memories too, of last winter and other times, but I didn’t have trouble remembering them, because they were not as bad as Jenney’s. They were tolerable. I tried to imagine memories that lurked at the edge of other memories, ready to pounce like something from a horror movie.

“You must be very strong to get through something like this. Did you ever confront your parents?”

Of course.

“And what did they say?”

They said none of it was true. They said I was making it up. And then they blamed Melinda for ruining our relationship. Of course they’re not going to admit it.

I felt Margaret’s touch on my arm. It got more insistent, a strong pinch on my elbow. She had leaned across Richie’s station to signal me. I kept my cell phone on the table to time my calls. Six minutes had gone by, but Jenney seemed so upset that I couldn’t hang up now.

Have you ever been through a crisis?

“Well . . .”

You have. I can tell. Maybe you can talk about it sometime. And it’ll be my turn to listen.

“I hope you get your movie soon. It sounds like it’ll be fun.”

I hope so too.

“I have to go.”

You helped me a lot, you know, just by being there.

“I’m really happy you called. And I hope you keep feeling better today. And the day after that, and the day after that.” When I heard a smile in her voice, I would know it was time to stop.

You sound like a greeting card.

“I really meant it.”

Maybe I’ll call you Hallmark.

Margaret tapped me and pointed to the wall clock.

You’re actually cheering me up, you know that? I just laughed for the first time in a long time.

“I’m glad I could help. I’ve got to go now, Jenney. It’s been really good talking to you.”

Okay, but . . . Billy, I’m sorry for what I said.

“Meaning what?”

That you were a greeting card.

“That’s okay.”

If you are a Hallmark card, you’re one of the expensive ones. On the upper shelves. Four dollars.

“I’d like to think that’s true. I’m sorry you’re feeling down. Better days ahead, I hope.”

Maybe. Bye, Billy.

M
argaret and Richie put their phones on hold.

Margaret asked if that had been Jenney on the phone. I told her it was.

Jenney was a sweet person who got sort of down sometimes, Margaret said. But it wasn’t our job to entertain Jenney or cheer her up. The Incomings would make themselves feel better, she told me, if I let them take the lead.

I understood, I said, but I had to tell them something else. Something emotional.

Richie encouraged me to spill.

I said I felt bad that I couldn’t let on I remembered Jenney. I knew her feelings were hurt. And she had been through so much. I loved that I could put a smile on her face.

Richie thought that Jenney was playing me a little.

Jenney was pleasant and even fun, Margaret said. That was why I remembered our conversation. But what
if I got someone who wasn’t fun? Or what if I remembered part of Jenney’s story but not all? Someone’s feelings were bound to be hurt. Better to appear to remember nothing.

Besides, Richie said, the program only worked when it was consistent. The Incoming had to have the same experience whether she got me, Richie, or Margaret.

I reached for the hold button. I would be consistent, I announced. Like fast-food burgers.

Richie bumped my fist. He joked that next week we’d install the drive-through window.

A
t the end of my shift I popped into the front room to say good night to Pep. I was starting to get comfortable on the phones, I told her. I sat on the edge of her table while she kept the phone on hold.

Pep agreed. She had lurked in the doorway once or twice and thought I sounded good. But I had to limit myself to five minutes per call. Each phone had a device that counted how many calls we took, and Richie and Margaret each handled about twice my volume.

Didn’t the booklet say we could make a judgment call in some cases and allow ten? Only if it was a true cry for help, Pep said. If the Incoming was just de-stressing from the day or wanted company, I could accomplish plenty in five.

Pep squeezed my forearm and said good night. She probably meant to be encouraging, but the fact that she felt free to touch me accentuated the difference in our ages and reminded me again of June Melman.

I looked at the poster of an undercaffeinated man staring out the window. He seemed to be wondering when he would get a more visible modeling job.

I asked Pep if she had really ever gotten a Likely. She said she had had several. But how did she know whether they lived or died, I asked.

Pep stepped away from the table so the Incomings wouldn’t hear us. If the Likelies called back on another day, she said, they were still alive. And if they didn’t call back . . . Her upper body straightened like a coat going over a coathanger. If they were local, she explained, we might see something in the newspaper and put two and two together. Suicide was rarely listed as the cause of death. A family would rather say just that the deceased died suddenly than that he killed himself. And if an Incoming was from out of state, as they occasionally were, we would probably never know what happened.

Pep told me to head home. She hit her hold button and went back to womanning the phones.

I
t was good for someone like me to have someone like Mr. Gabler around. I was not chic or stylish, but Mr. Gabler was even less so. His clothes were thin and cheap-looking, and he was the last balding middle-aged man in America to comb his remaining hair in a long arc from ear to ear rather than shaving his head. When people made fun of him, I had the luxury of making fun too.

Despite his timid appearance, Gabler had taught music in prisons, and the classroom displayed posters of his single-sex productions of
Chicago, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,
and
The Threepenny Opera.

Today he walked from desk to desk collecting the first phase of our music history paper. People seemed psyched as they handed in their ideas. Gordy had selected the Dobro, a guitar with a built-in resonater that functioned as an amp. Part of his research would be an e-mail interview with B. B. King. Nathan Brandifield was researching the theremin, an eerie-sounding electronic instrument
that’s played without being touched. Brenda Mason would write about handbells, since she played in her church bell choir.

“Oh, man,” I said, holding my notebook in front of my face. I had meant to do this last night, but I did my shift at Listeners and then fell asleep on the couch.

I saw fingertips pry my notebook away, and Mr. Gabler appeared in front of my desk.

“Forget something?” he asked.

“I don’t have my phase-one ideas. I’m sorry, Mr. Gabler.”

“Can you e-mail them to me at the end of class?”

“I don’t have them at all. It completely slipped my mind.”

“What instrument are you writing about?”

“The harmonica.”

“What sources?”

“The Hohner website, the Smithsonian CD series, a music encyclopedia, the guy at the music store, and an old recording on YouTube,” Gordy suggested.

“That’s right,” I said. I wrote them on a piece of paper and tore it out for Mr. Gabler.

“No handwritten assignments,” he said, laying the paper on my desk. “Get some specifics down and make sure you have your paper finished next Friday with everyone else.” He propped my notebook up again to block my face.

——

“School success is so random,” I said to Gordon on the way to lunch. We had passed a poster saying
IF YOU FAIL TO PLAN, YOU PLAN TO FAIL
. “What difference does it make
in the long run? It seems more about generating status for your parents than about genuinely helping you create a happy future.” I was thinking about Jenney, how her mother had only seemed to care whether Jenney moved like a robot through the stages laid out for her.

“It doesn’t help at all to look at school that way,” Gordon said, stopping inside the door of the cafeteria.

“Then how should I look at it?” I shifted my books from one side to the other.

Gordon lowered his voice so a group of Generic Laughing Guys headed to the food line wouldn’t hear. “You’re smart, right? So am I. So how hard is it to do the work they’re asking for? This stuff is easy. Just finish it and save the rest of your brain for something else.”

“But all the time they’re asking us to put into it,” I argued. “What if you spent your time on stuff like school assignments and in the meantime life—real life—was passing you by? How do we know that our real life, the big life we were meant to have, isn’t now rather than in the future? What if nobody realized that about you? And what if you never got a chance at a big life again?”

Mitchell had sneaked up behind me. He stuck his face between mine and Gordon’s. “They stick us here to isolate us from the rest of society,” he whispered. “Because they’re afraid of us. And no matter what they say, there is no other reason.” He nodded at Gordon and me like he had figured out a big conspiracy, then he slid along the wall like he was escaping from someone. I couldn’t help thinking about CIA Debra and the people she thought were after her.

Actually, I was glad to be stuck at school for so many hours of the week. The only places I wanted to be were at school, on my bike, or, preferably, at Listeners. I didn’t like being at home anymore, since Dad started painting again. I felt like he didn’t even want me there.

E
ach day, Dad became more inspired. He went to the town dump and scavenged wooden panels that had been ripped out of shelves or bookcases. He got worked up over political issues he had never mentioned before, particularly immigration law, the Federal Reserve Bank, gay rights, and drilling for oil in the Arctic wildlife refuge. Strangest of all, he was working on a group of paintings that looked just . . .

There was only one word for them: bizarre. At least two of them showed sad, bodiless heads, with faces of different colors, arranged in fruit bowls. Another was an orange largemouth bass jumping over a rainbow in which the colors were only black, white, and gray. I hoped he wasn’t planning to show them to anyone.

Without indicating that I supported or liked Dad’s work, I found an excuse to check on him every day. This time I found him not in his studio but in the conversation area, where he cursed over his notebook computer
and deleted e-mails one after the other. Linda was lying on the other couch with her feet over the end, reading a dystopian novel.

“I’ve officially sent photos to twenty galleries and museums,” Dad said. “And I haven’t heard a word back from anybody.” I cringed when I heard this. I hated the idea of Dad making a fool of himself. I pictured someone at the Peabody Essex Museum pulling up a JPEG of the fish painting and getting everybody in the office to gawk at it. Dad’s activities could be especially harmful to Mom, because she worked in a museum and was supposed to know better. “I’m no longer waiting for life to act on me. I have to act on life.”

“Meaning?” I asked.

“I’m giving myself a show.”

“Wow,”
Linda said, sitting up and moving closer to Dad.

“Where? Here?”

“In the garage. On December fourth.”

“
This
December fourth?” I asked.

“I want to make the most of my time on this earth. Not sit around taking up space and valuable oxygen. I feel a need to justify my existence, you know?”

I felt like a hand had slipped between my ribs. It reached into my chest and started squeezing my heart. “What would be involved? It sounds like a huge deal.”

“The biggest part is getting my work done—making the paintings. But I’ll also have to get the garage ready, frame the paintings, display each piece, and—last but maybe most important—get the word out. Get the right people to show up.” His legs stretched out on the ottoman,
and his feet moved like puppets while he talked.

“I don’t think this is a good move, Dad,” I told him.

“Why not?”

“You’re not allowing enough time,” I said. “If you want to do a big project like this, why don’t you wait till next summer and have everything just the way you want it?” I sat on the edge of the ottoman, next to Dad’s feet. I wished I could grab them and do something funny with his toes that would lighten up my message. Mom and Linda both communicated with Dad in playful ways. Guys couldn’t do that, other than punching.

“That will be part of it. The race to finish will be part of the process. The name of my show will be
Bill Morrison: Forty Paintings in Forty Days
.”

“That’s a good gimmick,” Linda said. “It almost sounds like a reality show.”

“That’s right. I hope curiosity will bring people in. Maybe I could get national media attention.”