Mike | Chapter 7

Present - Back in the Black Box

“So who’s making you hurt so bad?” he asks me quietly.

The words reverberate in my head. I don’t really understand what the Gray Man’s asking me. Who? There’s no one left who can hurt me anymore. They’re gone and they left me with nothing but betrayals and burdens, and memories that make me ache. There is no one left.

“Nobody. Nobody.” I strike each word as though with a hammer, affirming what had been true from the day my father burned to death in his car; that I’ve missed him because he was gone, and hated him for leaving me with a ghost.

“There are people who can help you if you have a tough time talking to your parents, Mike…”

“Don’t you get it? They’re not here to talk to.”

“Where are they?”

“My father’s dead. A long time,” I say flatly.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I snap at him.

“What about your mom? Where is she?”

“Oh, she’s dead too,” I say, waving my hand dismissively. “Maybe you heard about her, she was all over the news. Victoria Watts. She took a bath with a plugged-in radio.”

He thinks for a moment. “Watts?” His expression changes as he makes the connection.

I smile. “You have heard of her. Everybody has.”

“That was a couple of weeks ago, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess, I don’t really remember,” I say, not much caring when it had happened.

“I saw the case file at the station, Mike. It was ruled accidental. Why do you think she did it on purpose?”

“Because she was sick of being nuts.”

He looks at me with a kind expression on his face. “That’s tough Mike, losing her like that. Was she having a lot of problems?”

I choke back a cackle. “When wasn’t she having problems?”

“I’m sorry. Were you close to her?”

This time I laugh out loud. “How close can you get to a psycho?”

“Mike…”

“No really. Let me ask you this. Do you know if a crazy person is able to love? Tell me, do you know?” I don’t wait for an answer. “They can, Mr. Gray Man. Really they can, but here’s the thing. Their love is as crazy as they are.” I laugh again.

“It would help you Mike, to talk to someone. They could help you sort out your feelings. Find out why you need to cut yourself.”

“Don’t you think I know?”

“It’s hard to lose a parent, I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose both. That’s not something most people can handle by themselves…”

“I don’t do it because my mother’s dead! I cut because she lived!”

He looks startled then nods slowly, agreeing with me, agreeing with everything I say. “You can talk about that too, Mike, tell them everything that’s on your mind…” He looks concerned. Worried. He feels sorry for me. Suddenly I hate him.

“Stop talking to me like I’m some kind of pathetic loser. I don’t need your pity!”

His expression changes with the quickness of a lightning bolt, jarring me with an unblinking stare, so unlike his kind look. He examines me, his expression unyielding and hard, the gray eyes that were previously soft and as insubstantial as vapor, suddenly turned into cold granite. Little lines form in the corners of his eyes.

“Then put the damned razor down!” he barks loudly. I jump. “If you don’t want pity, then don’t act like a helpless baby,” he commands me.

Anxiety begins to creep up into my stomach. “Screw you. I’ll do whatever the hell I feel like doing.” I tell him that, only I’m not so sure that I mean it. “I didn’t tell you to come in here. I wasn’t looking for some superhero to rescue me. I’ll deal with my problems my own way.”

“You call this dealing?” He has one hand resting on his knee, and with the other he jabs at me from several feet away. It feels like he is inches from my face, I can almost feel his hot breath in my eyes. “Just what the hell are you solving here, like this?”

I know he doesn’t understand; I thought I had said the right things, said the words that explained the cuts, the impulse that guides me through the worst moments. For some reason, I want him to understand. I try to explain; for the first time in years, I try.

“I don’t know!” I practically scream it; at him, since I can’t see anything but gray, piercing eyes. “This is how I don’t end up like my mother! This is how I stay alive!” He looks perplexed; I try one last time. “Cutting my arm keeps me from cutting my throat, Gray Man. What would the shrinks say about that?” And I feel the compulsion, I realize with an overwhelming sense of dread, and it is all I can do to stop myself from cutting again and again. But I want to tell him anyway; I want to tell him that I don’t really want to cut; that I hate it, but I can’t stop because it’s become the only way I know how to cope with what hurts me. In the end, I give in and cut again; two short cuts against the ones already there, crosshatching fat and blood and flesh. The razor slices like a knife through hot rubber.

Then a sharp knock on my forearm; the whole one, the one holding the blade, and my fingers pop open to drop the small sliver of metal. He binds my bleeding arm with a rag and then sits beside me, an arm around my shoulders. I lay my head against him.

“You didn’t have to hit me Gray Man, I was going to give you the razor.”

I hear a small laugh rumble through his chest. I hear his heart too; it’s beating very fast.

“My name’s Tom, Mike. Just call me Tom.”




I spent the night in the hospital. I don’t remember much about that afternoon and evening because I slept for fifteen hours straight, the longest I’d ever slept at one time. Tom was there when I closed my eyes, telling me that the pain would go away soon. For some reason my arm, the cuts, my entire body hurt like never before, as though a switch had been flipped.

Grammy was called from work; I saw her stalking down the hallway towards me with a fierce grimace on her face. I knew she was angry; furious, I’d seen that look before, and I wondered what to say, since all I wanted to do was sleep. Then Tom intercepted her, stepping neatly in front of her so that she disappeared from view and I only saw the fog again before slipping into sleep.

Hours later, I woke up to find Bryan sitting by my bedside. He was staring out the window, his eyes red-rimmed and puffy, just like they had been at Dad’s funeral.

“Did Grammy die?” I ask curiously.

His eyes widen and flicker in my direction. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think you wanted to know.”

A muscle twitches in his cheek. “You stupid little princess.” And with that statement, I knew that things would be alright between Bryan and me.

I talked to a psychologist before going home. She was big and friendly and shook her head a lot. I thought she was going to hug me so I sat as far away from her as I could. She didn’t seem to mind; and scheduled to meet with me during the week. I was going to have to try to open up, she said, so that I could learn how to deal with stressful situations without cutting. I didn’t think that was possible I told her, remembering Grammy’s severe scowl the night before, but I said, okay, what the hell, I would try.

Grammy, Bryan and Ethel took me home, Bryan talking about how his new girlfriend Brittney was so the one. I thought he was trying to be funny, trying too hard maybe, and that was strange because he had never tried before. Ethel sat quietly in her corner of the car, with a pained look on her face. Occasionally she would reach over and pat my knee. Grammy sat as still as a statue in the front seat, not saying a word. I knew a storm was coming from her direction, the air around her fairly crackled, making the tips of my fingers itch with the urge to grip a blade. I rubbed my bandages instead, picturing Tom and remembering the pain of the cuts. It would never feel good again; something had changed or maybe it was just that I didn’t have an excuse to cut in secret anymore. There were too many people wanting to listen to me. Everything had changed.

Grammy waited, at least until the front door closed behind us, before whirling around and confronting me. Her head stuck out at an unusual angle from her neck, towards me, like an arrow just before it strikes. Her features were in rictus, the tendons sticking out of her neck as stiff as twigs strewn in the forest. Spittle formed into lather at the corners of her mouth, reminding me of a kettle of soapy clothes left soaking in the backyard. She was mad; really, really mad.

“Just had to have more attention, didn’t you? It wasn’t enough, that the whole town knew about your mother? You had to go do this,” she said with revulsion, pointing at my arm. Her expression was so cold and brittle, that I almost expected to hear the crackle of ice laden tree branches. Her eyes glittered brightly; winter sky blue and quite beautiful, in a scary kind of way. I wished that she would look at Bryan instead of me.

“That’s all it is, isn’t it, you ungrateful child! As though I have nothing better to do except coddle you.” She was tightly strung, trembling with the effort to stay where she was and not throw herself at me.

“No, Grammy,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s not like that. I didn’t want anyone to know, I wouldn’t have told anyone unless I had to.”

“Then it’s defiance, plain and simple, just to get back at me. You knew what you were doing was wrong! How dare you act like her, just so you could torment me.”

Support came from the unlikeliest place.

“She wasn’t being defiant, you ignorant old bitch,” Bryan said, face etched in fury. “She’s sick, and she needs help, just like Mom needed help that you decided not to get for her. You’ve got a fucking nerve to stand there and criticize!” He threw his hands up in the air. “The hell with you. You’ve never cared about either one of us, so why should you care now?”

Grammy turned towards Bryan, her head jerking so hard that her loose curls bounced. “Do you think you’re the only one to have it hard? To have lost someone you cared about? Bury your only child, then talk to me about hurt!” She sucked in a ragged breath. “You say it’s been so bad. Tell me one night you didn’t have food on the table, or money for all those school functions, money Granddad and I worked for all of our lives! There’s nothing left, nothing for me to live on, all of it gone to feed you and you.” She pointed an accusing finger at Bryan, then at me. “What more do you want from me? I’ve given you everything…everything…I have.” She ended in a whisper, her last words barely audible. She sank into her reading chair.

“Then you should have let us go,” Bryan said quietly. “To live with someone else. You should have put Mom away where she couldn’t drag us down into her hellhole. That’s what you should have done.”

I watched as a tear slowly rolled down Bryan’s cheek, large and perfectly shaped, and a memory of a distant Sunday morning popped into my head. It was a time when we slept late on weekends and laughed a lot and only fought about the last cookie. I just wanted to sleep, but Dad woke me up with a kiss me on the forehead. Mom was standing behind him with a cup of coffee. He said, ‘Princess, what are we going to do today?’ And Bryan walked in and sipped from Mom’s coffee cup and then jumped on the bed and listened to Dad too, because he was always good around Dad. Then we got up and Bryan launched himself at Dad and hit the ground instead, fracturing his wrist. A large, perfectly shaped tear rolled down his cheek. Dad picked him up, and Mom wiped away the tear.

He missed them. Maybe that’s why Bryan got in trouble later on, because he missed both of them. That thought had never occurred to me.

I reached over and carefully wiped the tear off his cheek.

“She couldn’t do that Bryan. We belong to her.” I looked at Grammy. “Don’t we?” She didn’t answer but turned towards the wall, her back as rigid as I’ve ever seen it.

“Even Mom. Even Mom belonged to you."

She didn’t answer, and I knew she wouldn’t turn around until she was ready. That was okay, because I understood now; I understood why she had kept Mom at home. Mom had belonged to all of us.

Bryan stared at the ground, his hands stuffed into his pockets, looking like a ten year old instead of like a senior in high school. I wanted to hug him, but he would probably hit me, so I sat down between them and waited until they were ready. It would be a long time, so I got comfortable.