After six weeks on Prozac, Geno had enough of what he called “the brain zaps.” Mild nausea seemed to be a constant sidekick and he felt like he’d been fighting off a cold for a month.
“Get me off this shit,” he said to Dr. Stein. “I know I need to be on something but this isn’t it.”
Stein warned him switching meds could mean toughing out another six weeks. His body would be confused coming off the Prozac while accumulating citalopram, the next choice.
“You need to check in with me,” Stein said. “If your thoughts start turning violent or suicidal, I need to know. Any blacking out or severe dizziness. If Mos starts speaking up or you have any disassociation episodes.”
“I will.”
“No Ambien. Not when you got two antidepressants in your system. I’m sorry, it’ll be another thing to tough out, but…”
“It’s fine. I’ll catch up on my reading.”
Stein smiled. “You’ll probably feel worse before you feel better.”
“I can handle it.”
Stein’s expression turned stern. “And you’ll call me every morning while you’re handling it.”
Something fatherly was in his tone. A hint, just a hint of your ass will be grass and I will be the lawn mower. Instead of resenting it, Geno leaned on it, with a strange urge to tack a sir onto his, “I will.”
He started transitioning the meds the next day and felt fine for a week. Almost smugly fine.
“Brain chemistry is one of the most delicate things in the world,” Stef said. “Sometimes it’s more art than science. Finding the right combination and dosage that levels out your brain without making you numb and decimating your sex drive.”
“The latter isn’t exactly an issue for me lately,” Geno said.
“Have you had sex with anyone since the ordeal?”
Geno’s smug peace flickered like a light bulb on the fritz. “Kind of.”
Stef didn’t say anything and in the silence, Geno heard Mos’ dry impartial voice say, This isn’t allowed.
Geno flicked his head away from the warning. “Few times at college,” he said. “But I’d… It made me feel sick.”
We don’t talk about this, Mos said.
Shut up, Geno thought, feeling the disturbing pull of divided loyalty.
“Sick, like physically sick?” Stef asked. “Or anxious sick?”
“Well, I sure felt like being sick but I guess it was nerves. I mean, I’d be doing all right, getting worked up and everything. But sometimes not being able to catch my breath would trigger bad memories.”
We don’t talk about them.
This time, Mos got a hand around Geno’s neck and squeezed, making his voice waver. He cleared his throat hard. “I know I haven’t shared a lot of the details of the whole…thing. But I… My face was pressed into a pillow for a lot of it. Not being able to breathe puts me right back there.”
Stef nodded, his eyes heavy and serious. “Are you seeing the link between those two things in hindsight? Or were you aware of that trigger in the moment?”
“No, I could see it,” Geno said.
“What did you tell your partner?”
We don’t speak of it, Mos said.
Geno’s face grew warm and he shifted in his chair. “I lied and said I’d been in a boating accident. Almost drowned. So not being able to catch my breath made me anxious. Blah blah.”
Stef smiled. “That works.”
“I got really good at lying.” His mouth was dry around the words.
“You were protecting yourself. Thing about lies, though, they’re tiring.”
Geno nodded. “Remembering who you told what and when. Weaving the tangled web.”
“Did you ever have sex and not feel anxious?”
“Sure,” Geno said. “It would be all right, but I couldn’t…”
Say it, baby boy.
Geno pegged the paintbrush away. “It’s hard to come.” His heart beat thick in his chest and he swallowed against the pounding. “Really hard. I can’t…let go.”
“How about when you masturbate?”
“Jesus, could you be any more clinical?” He made a show of rolling his eyes. Beneath the table, his knees were knocking.
“Sorry. Professional habit.”
“I get we can’t do this over beers but, Christ, you can talk like a normal guy while you’re shrinking my head.”
Stef chuckled, holding up his palms and their ringed fingers. “Fair point.”
“Anyway.” Geno exhaled heavily. “Yes, even then. I can get hard, no problem, but my body just doesn’t know what to do.” He was shaking all over now. Panic began to rumble in the distance like an approaching storm. “Oh God, here we go,” he said.
“You just lost all your color.”
“Holy fuck,” Geno said through his chattering jaws. “This is a bad one.”
“Do you feel dizzy?”
“No.”
“It’s okay,” Stef said, pushing back his chair and standing up. “Come on. Let’s walk it out.”
Geno got to his feet, trembling within his pant legs. He could feel the fabric swishing against his skin. Stef came around the corner of the table and, for a bizarre instant, Geno thought about taking his hand. He stuffed his fists into his pockets. “Where are we going?”
“My office. I have something I want you to try.”
All was surreal and shouting inside Geno’s head. Putting one foot in front of the other gave him something to focus on. When they reached his office, Stef picked up a Chock Full o’ Nuts coffee can. He gave it a clanking shake before handing it to Geno. The weight of it surprised him.
“What’s in here?”
“Dump it out,” Stef said, sitting on the floor. Geno put a shaky knee down, peeled off the plastic cover and dumped out a mess of nuts, bolts, screws and washers.
“Now sort it all out,” Stef said. “Organize it.”
“For real?”
“I read about it in a journal. It gives your left brain something to do and helps you get out of the right brain free-fall.”
Geno reached with sweaty, trembling fingers and started moving things around, making piles.
“Keep breathing,” Stef said, elbows on his knees, chin on his folded hands. “I’m going to ask questions while you’re sorting.”
“All right,” Geno said, thinking, Please don’t. Don’t ask me anything about sex anymore. No more. Don’t ask me. We don’t speak of it, it isn’t allowed, it didn’t happen to us. Don’t ask. You’re not allowed to ask.
“What’s your father’s name?”
Geno looked up. “Nathan?”
Stef’s eyes crinkled. “Are you sure?”
“Nathan. Nathan Benjamin Caan.”
“What’s his father’s name?”
“Jerome.”
“Who’s Jerome’s father?”
“Um, I don’t know. I think Benjamin?”
“Keep sorting.”
As pieces of hardware were moved into neat groups, Stef kept up a running demand for factual information. Birthdays. Middle names. Hair color. Eye color. Teachers from elementary school. Front men for bands. The nine times table. The capital of South Dakota. The more Geno had to think about the answers, the more the knot in his chest and stomach loosened.
“This is working,” he said, scooting backward to make more room on the rug for his piles.
Stef looked ridiculously pleased as he rolled the empty coffee can around on its rim. “I’ll make you one of your own,” he said. “In the meantime, I’ll keep this one there.” He pointed to the credenza. “You need it, you come get it. You don’t have to ask first.”
“What if it’s the middle of the night?”
Stef gave a laughing shrug. “Between you and me, the lock on the door doesn’t work.” His gaze around the room was thoughtful, as if noticing for the first time its bare walls, the desk piled with papers and magazines. No personal touches or artwork. “I take my laptop home at night,” he said. “Everything in here’s pretty boring. Really I think of the art room as my office. This is just a glorified coat closet.”
Geno pulled in a deep breath to the bottom of his stomach.
“There you go,” Stef said, looking even more pleased. “Now you’re back.”
“Yeah,” Geno said. “So was Mos. For a minute.”
“Was he?”
“Yeah. I’m supposed to say when he comes around. So. I’m saying.” He looked away. “I feel so stupid and weird talking about him. Telling about my imaginary friend.”
Stef moved a screw into its proper pile. “Did he say something?”
Geno shrugged. “Usual shit. Don’t talk about it. Don’t say anything. This isn’t allowed.”
“As far as friends go, he’s pretty protective of you.”
“Dude, I don’t know how to handle someone talking about Mos like he’s a real person.”
“I’ll rephrase. As far as super-egos go, it’s pretty protective of you.” Stef began to stack washers. “And it showed up when we started talking about sex.”
Stef made a rectangular frame with his thumbs and fingers and looked at Geno through it. “Right now,” he said. “Right this second, you’re being forbidden on a deep, deep level. Aren’t you?”
Geno had to consciously separate his lips and unclench his teeth. “I obviously have…things to talk about,” he said. “I don’t know if I can yet.”
“I understand.” Stef dropped his hands. “And I give you my word, I won’t push you.”
“All right.”
“All I want you to know is you are allowed.”
Geno nodded but said nothing. Stef reached on his desk for a pad and a pen. He wrote something down and handed it to Geno. “Take this. It’s my home number. You shouldn’t have to use it, but I want you to have it.”
“Why?”
Stef flipped the pen in his fingers. “A lot of this work is instinct. I’ve learned to listen to hunches. Right now, one is telling me we’re getting close to some really tough, really traumatizing shit. Another hunch wants you to have another option of getting hold of me if you need me.”
Putting the square of paper in his pocket, Geno felt he owed something in return. “Right now,” he said, “my hunch is saying if I tell anyone what happened in the basement, I’ll tell you.”
As they cleaned up screws and washers and nuts, fatigue wrapped around Geno’s bones. He went to his room and slept for three hours. Groggy and hungry, he went down to the kitchen and made a peanut butter and banana sandwich. He ate it with the radio tuned to NPR.
He missed his mother.
He wanted his father.
And because he was alone, he slid his back down the stainless steel fridge, sat on the floor and felt sorry for himself.
“I’m allowed,” he said to the quiet, dark stove.
He sat a long time. Staring. Eyes in and out of focus. Gazing a long time at a book underneath one of the work counters before realizing it was an odd thing to be under there. He scooted over, fished it out and knew immediately what it was. He’d seen it so many times before, this notebook with the brown leather cover. Pages held open under Jav’s fist as his pen flowed back and forth. To see it alone was strange. Like it was a dismembered hand.
The leather cover had been cool when he first picked it up, but quickly warmed in his palms. His thumb ran along the edges of the pages. They were interrupted by folded pieces of paper. Newspaper and magazine clippings. Bits of this and that. All of Jav’s ideas.
Did Jav know he lost it?
He must. He always had it. He said everything in his weird mind went onto the pages. He must be freaking out. Tearing apart his apartment, retracing his steps through the day. Growing frantic. His life was in there. His weird mind was in there. His heart was in there.
Geno wondered where he lived. He hesitated, then peeked at the flyleaf to see if any identifying information were there. If found, please return to…
Nothing. Geno didn’t even know Jav’s last name, let alone have his number. He could text and be a hero. He could fix something for once, instead of being the broken loser around here.
He imagined how Jav’s face would light up. Dude, he’d cry, swooping in for his lost treasure. He’d look it over, then hook an arm around Geno’s neck and pull him in. Gracias. Eres increíble.
His mind embellished the scene, re-setting it on the porch of a little red house. Thank you so much, Jav would say, and then he’d open the door wider. Come in. Come sit down. Stay awhile.
Geno took the book up to his room and put it carefully, almost reverently in the center of his little desk. He’d give it back Friday when Jav came in. He’d be so glad.
Gracias, hermanito, he’d say, patting Geno’s head.
Thanks, little brother.