Dead, Insane, or in Jail: A CEDU Memoir book series
Excerpt from the book We
clunked up wooden steps to the platform that the enormous tipi was
built upon. Our boots disrupted the silence of the forest. A torch
was lit beyond the tipi, and we instinctively approached the light.
In the torch’s flame I could see a couple of moths fight over which
would be incinerated first. They bounced off each other’s fuzzy
bodies, flicking moth dust into the blackness below the torch. The
light flickering off of also revealed a face that I already knew: It
was Jake Lively, the bearded shit-midget from Darlayne’s rap a few
weeks before. Instead of work boots and dirty jeans, he was decked
out in dress slacks and a white shirt, and a plastic brown belt. His
beard was tamer than when we’d been sitting in Darlayne’s rap
circle.
“Hello,
Tess is waiting for us. Follow me.”
The
two older students and my peer group, still holding hands in a long
row, followed Jake’s torch into the dark woods. We stayed on a path
for a long while. I didn’t know where we were going, or if Jake
should necessarily be trusted. How did I know he hadn’t arranged a
kidnapping? But lo, there was something coming into view finally.
More fire? I wondered if the secret of the Truth propheet was that my
PG would roast marshmallows and hang out by a campfire all night. No,
probably not. A large building was up ahead.
The
building must be named Walden, we discovered, because white light
leaked out of it and threw photons on a simple wooden sign swinging
from a beam on the porch. WALDEN, the sign pronounced, like “wooden,”
like the building itself, I thought. Maybe we were entering a small
town, or another dimension.
What
was in store for us, if they had to bring us to a building separated
from the rest of the campus? Jake unlatched a big metal handle and
weird music flooded out of one of the rooms as we entered. One door
was open – to the right. What
was to the left? We entered the room with the music to the
right – through a small hallway with bathrooms.
Inside
the darkened room, two large white paper signs were attached to the
walls with white headed pushpins. One sign proclaimed THE TRUTH WILL
SET YOU FREE. The second, as a sort of intellectual play on the first
pronounced TO THE DEGREE THAT WE FEEL SORROW, THAT SAME DEGREE WE
FEEL JOY!
Were
we going to feel joy tonight? Were we going to feel sorrow?
I found each option equally bothersome under the circumstances. An
indescribable feeling of apprehension accompanied us as we found
seats.
The
windows to the room were covered with large cardboard slats cut to
size. What the fuck? Aren’t
we already in one of the most underpopulated North American states,
in the middle of the woods, in a building hidden far from the nearest
road? Why did they have to cover the windows too? I didn’t
feel safer, I felt more imprisoned, and to me that equaled unsafe.
The dark room was was also bathed in whooshing and murky sounds. The
whooshing eventually turned into singing and then finally wailing.
I run. I am jarred awake. I stopped running and turn around.
The metaphor of a dragon that is real uncoils. A ferocious roar,
as if being scorned by god, breath smells of sour vomit, broken
dreams, and abandonment. I roar back; because, I always wake up
here.
Sound- feel rubber stretching around my body...tight and black and
smell like anesthesia. I did not wake up; I'm beside myself
screaming. There is a natural melting quality and a digital trace to
what I feel. In witnessing the frenzied mauling,
Flesh is torn,
blood is mingled with it,
as the dragon spreads clumps of my flesh about the area.
I can taste my demise and while I expect it to be slimy and wet on
me, it instead turns to ash...
Now I'm really awake and alive.
I'm in Brooklyn because I can't get across the bridge to
assist...gape really. The building dropped to its knees, one at a
time, in an impressive cloud to which new angels were drawn. People
flood over the bridge towards us and they are covered in pulverized
IBM. I coped nicely with the world crumbling around me; the
betrayal written in faces first with terror, then shock, immediately
followed by a primeval need for revenge was on everyone's mind. I
admit to feeling at one with the villainy.
("We're not
gonna take it! NO! We're not gonna take it...ANYMORE!) Twisted Sister
plays loudly in my head...No, It's the alarm.
I'll feed the cats. They hate me even when they're fed. Life is
good, I pet the softness.
It's a new year, and I've gotten the support of the universe for
me, and against.
Components of my dream are still with me, and then gone again. I
wash a dish.
I think about the new shrink interrupting me in 2002 while I was
raging about Opium production in Afghanistan. He's right. I'm going
to misinterpret him, but he surprises me with the simplicity of the
sentiment I was not expecting: "...You said the guy with the
ax got paid to make you listen to him tell you about having sex with
animals"? "I told you that last week". I replied
simply. "Go on, your check cleared" "What about
the fucking pipeline and china and iraq and blackboxes we've been
talking about this morning"? "What about it"? "Don't
be evasive, Dr. Nezzier!" That's when I knew I was crazy.
The story hadn't ended correctly but everyone in the bar
still looked at me. I had just lit the wrong end of a cigarette.
rancid. I pretended not to notice but just then I noticed my shoes.
They were on. I wasn't wearing pants either. OH MY GOD! How could
this happen? How embarrassing! Again, I think to myself: THIS IS WHEN
I WAKE UP...
what was I just talking about, anyway...
I back out of the bar after a curt bow.
There is applause following me out, but I am awake and stink and
have been missing an important garment.
I know my name, but no matter how I try to make sense of the
incident,
I no longer know what I do for a living.