It's Kind of a Funny Story

“I waste at least an hour every day lying in bed. Then I waste time pacing. I waste time thinking. I waste time being quiet and not saying anything because I’m afraid I’ll stutter.”

“Do you have a problem with stuttering?”

“When I’m depressed, it won’t come out right. I’ll trail off in midsentence.”

“I see.” She writes something down on her legal pad. Craig, this will go on your permanent record.

“I don’t—” I shake my head. “The bike thing.”

“What? What were you going to say?” This is another trick of shrinks. They never let you stop in midthought. If you open your mouth, they want to know exactly what you had the intention of saying. The party line is that some of the most profound truths about us are things that we stop saying in the middle, but I think they do it to make us feel important. One thing’s for sure: no one else in life says to me, “Wait, Craig, what were you going to say?”

“I was going to say that I don’t think the stuttering is like, a real problem. I just think it’s one of my symptoms.”

“Like sweating.”

“Right.” The sweating is awful. It’s not as bad as the not eating, but it’s weird—cold sweat, all over my forehead, having to be wiped off every two minutes, smelling like skin concentrate. People notice. It’s one of the few things people notice.

“You’re not stuttering now.”

“This is being paid for. I don’t want to waste time.”

Pause. Now we have one of our silent battles; I look at Dr. Minerva and she looks at me. It’s a contest as to who will crack first. She puts on her poker face; I don’t have any extra faces to put on, just the normal Craig face.

We lock eyes. I’m waiting for her to say something profound—I always am, even though it’ll never happen. I’m waiting for her to say “Craig, what you need to do is X” and for the Shift to occur. I want there to be a Shift so bad. I want to feel my brain slide back into the slot it was meant to be in, rest there the way it did before the fall of last year, back when I was young, and witty, and my teachers said I had incredible promise, and I had incredible promise, and I spoke up in class because I was excited and smart about the world. I want the Shift so bad. I’m waiting for the phrase that will invoke it. It’ll be like a miracle within my life. But is Dr. Minerva a miracle worker? No. She’s a thin, tan lady from Greece with red lipstick.

She breaks first.

“About your bike riding, you said you wanted to be a messenger.”

“Yes.”

“You already have a bike, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you ride it a lot?”

“Not that much. Mom won’t let me ride it to school. But I ride around Brooklyn on weekends.”

“What does it feel like when you ride your bike, Craig?”

I pause. “. . . Geometric.”

“Geometric.”

“Yeah. Like, You have to avoid this truck. Don’t get hit in the head by these metal pipes. Make a right. The rules are defined and you follow them.”

“Like a video game.”

“Sure. I love video games. Even just to watch. Since I was a kid.”

“Which you often refer to as ‘back when you were happy.’“

“Right.” I smooth my shirt out. I get dressed up for these little meetings too. Good khakis and a white dress shirt. We’re dressing up for each other. We should really go get some coffee and make a scandal—the Greek therapist and her high school boyfriend. We could be famous. That would get me money. That might make me happy.

“Do you remember some of the things that made you happy?”

“The video games.” I laugh.

“What’s funny?”

“I was walking down my block the other day, and behind me was a mother with her kid, and the mother was saying, ‘Now, Timmy, I don’t want you to complain about it. You can’t play video games twenty-four hours a day.’ And Timmy goes, ‘But I want to!’ And I turned around and told him, ‘Me too.’”

“You want to play video games twenty-four hours a day?”

“Or watch. I just want to not be me. Whether it’s sleeping or playing video games or riding my bike or studying. Giving my brain up. That’s what’s important.”

“You’re very clear about what you want.”

“Yeah.”

“What did you want when you were a kid? Back when you were happy? What did you want to be when you grew up?”

Dr. Minerva is a good shrink, I think. That isn’t the answer. But it is a damn good question. What did I want to be when I grew up?

three

When I was four, this is how things were: