When I Was Five I Killed Myself (12 page)

But I still haven't got any letters from Jessica. Every day I ask Dr Nevele if they came and he doesn't say anything.

Yesterday Dr Nevele said that he wanted me to see some of the other doctors at The Children's Trust Residence Center, and that maybe if I went around with the other children I would make some new friends.

“We have many special rooms here,” he said. “Rooms for learning to speak correctly, and rooms for acting out our feelings using playthings, and rooms for singing and playing and even doing gymnastics or wrestling.”

I told him I wanted wrestling because I could pretend I am Dick the Bruiser. He is mean, man, but he has a flat top.

So I went.

First we had breakfast. It was eggs but it had like pieces of things in it, it was an omelet. I hated it. Also I had tomato juice which I think is blood when I drink it. But I didn't have a tantrum. I ate it just. Then we went.

First we had the Music Room. Everyone sits on the floor and sings “She'll Be Comin Round the Mountain
When She Comes,” and they make you go like this with your hands and yell “Whoa Back!” after you sing it. I felt like an idiot.

Then we had the Play Therapy Room, where I have already been once, with Rudyard. This time I played in the play kitchen they have. It has wood refrigerators and a stove that is pretend. I made Beef Stroganoff. My mom made it once. I hated it.

Then we went to Speech Therapy. It is for children who can't talk right, like Manny, he can't say L. But during the whole time in the Speech Therapy Room somebody in the back of the room kept talking, and they couldn't figure out who it was. It was me. I talked using ventriloquism which I learned out of a book in Library at school. It showed me how to make a puppet out of a paper bag. It was cool. Then I got my own dummy, I got him for Hanukah. I named him Bixby, which was stupid because I couldn't say his name in ventriloquism. So I killed him. I operated on his stomach because he had pleurodynia and all the stuffing came out and my mom gave him to the Goodwill.

We got out of Speech Therapy. Then I saw someone in the hall, it was the postman, he had a bag he was taking letters into the office. I ran up to him and asked if there were any letters for me from Jessica. He didn't know what I was talking about. I said, “Jessica Renton, she said she was going to write.” But he just looked at me and said, “Well, I don't know anything about that.” So I asked him again, because he's the postman, and he said, “Look, kid, I don't really care who writes who,
I just have my job to do, so leave me alone,” and then I lost control of myself. I screamed, “Give me some letters, give me some letters!” and I kicked him in the leg and started to hit him. I grabbed his bag away and it spilled all over the floor and I jumped on the letters and started throwing them, looking for one from Jessica, and then he tried to grab me and I bit his hand. Everyone came out of the office and Dr Nevele grabbed me and pulled my arms around me and pulled me away to the Quiet Room, and I kept screaming to give me letters.

He dragged me into the Quiet Room and pulled a chair in it from the hall and pushed me in the chair and took his belt off and put it around me. He left me there. He didn't say even anything.

I sat by myself. I didn't take the seatbelt off. I knew I couldn't control myself, my tantrum. I sat and sat. Then I took it off and walked real good citizenship back to Dr Nevele's office.

“I'm sorry,” I said and gave him his belt back. He looked at me funny, like he was embarrassed about something, and took his belt and said ok. I said, “I just wanted my letters, she said she was going to write them.” Dr Nevele turned red when I said it. I don't know why. But he just nodded.

“I'm sorry, Burt,” he said. It was like he was going to cry.

I went back to my wing. I layed down on my bed. I stayed there until it got dark outside. I looked up at the ceiling, which has little holes in it, like at school. I
missed dinner. Then I did something. I went over to the window and put my hands together and looked out and said

And I said for Jessica to please write me letters so I would know that she was all right and that she remembered me.

Then I went to my bed and I layed down. I put my head inside the pillow. There weren't any stars outside, it was cloudy. And it was dark in my wing and I was all alone. I heard thunder, it started to rain.

When I opened my eyes somebody was sitting next to me smoking a cigarette, I saw the fire part in the dark. I was frightened.

“Is anybody there?” I said.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” It was Rudyard. He blew out smoke.

“No,” I said.

“Where is everybody?”

“At Special Activities,” I said. “A movie.”

“Oh yeah.”

Rudyard sat on the bed next to mine. My eyes got used to the dark and I could see. He was bent over like he was hurt or something.

I watched him. He didn't say anything. He got up
and walked around the room. He looked at things in the dark. Then he went to the window and looked out, and the light from the parking lot came behind him and he was all black to me. He was an outline.

“You could say a wish upon a star, Rudyard,” I said. “You can order stuff.”

“There aren't any stars.” It was raining.

“I know.”

He stood there looking anyway. Then he started to talk. He talked to himself.

“Sixteen years ago I was walking home from the grocery store down the alley behind my house. I used to go to the grocery store just to look around. I only had maybe fifteen cents but I'd shop all day, trying to decide what the very best thing I could buy for fifteen cents was. When I would finally decide and buy it, I really enjoyed it after all that.

“I noticed that day at the grocery store they had a new display. It was for cookies. The kind that are chocolate on one side and chocolate stripes on the other. I hated them, actually, but they were good for dunking. They got just soggy enough without falling apart. This display had a picture of a boy on it, jumping. He was cut out of cardboard.

“That day I decided to buy a bar of soap because it would last longer than candy. I was going to carve it when I got home. But on the way home it started to storm, the wind blew and the rain came down. I started to run but it caught me. I was pretty scared. I ducked under a tree behind the grocery store, in the
middle of some bushes, to get out of the downpour. Then I noticed that someone had thrown out one of those displays, thrown it in the alley. The little cardboard boy had come loose. He was blowing against the bushes in the wind. His legs and arms were flapping and twisted, like he was throwing a tantrum.

“I finally made it home. I just closed my eyes and ran. On the way I dropped the soap. But to this day when I walk along sometimes and look around, I think I see cardboard boys throwing tantrums in the bushes. It's just that the night reminds me.”

He sat down again on the bed next to mine. I watched the end of his cigarette. He didn't say anything for a long time. Then he said, “I think I'm going to get fired, Burt. The Board of Directors has asked me to leave.”

A
FTER THE
A
IR
R
AID
D
RILL IT WAS ONLY A WEEK UNTIL
Thanksgiving vacation, I couldn't wait. I love Thanksgiving, it is a holiday but there isn't any praying and you get to eat like crazy. I eat very much for my age. I eat and eat. I eat more than anybody except Shrubs. My dad says, “Even a train stops, Burt.”

The day after Air Raid Drill we had elections for Drinking Fountain Captain in Homeroom and I got nominated by Bobby Cohen who I hardly know, it surprised me. We put our heads down and raised our hands to vote, no peeking. I voted for Ruth Arnold because it is selfish to vote for yourself but Miss Iris said you should, it shows you have confidence, but I think it is bad manners.

I won. I was Drinking Fountain Captain for our class. Every time we had lavatory time I got to stand next to the drinking fountain and hold the handle down and count to three-one-thousand and then tap
the children on the shoulder which means time's up. (I give Shrubs extra though, and Marty Polaski said that if Jessica was in our room I would let her drink up all the water and everyone would die of thirst. I socked him.)

Finally it was Thanksgiving vacation. That day after school I saw Jessica walking out the Marlowe door but she didn't say anything to me so I didn't say anything. I watched her walk down Marlowe. Then suddenly she turned and waved at me. So I waved at her. We waved at each other. I smiled. Then she walked back toward me. I was waving and smiling and waving and smiling, but she was waving at Marcie Kane who was standing behind me, not at me. I was embarrassed. I started to go. But then she said, “Don't say hi or anything, Burt.”

I turned around. I said, “Ok, I won't.” And I left.

That night I made a puppet. I built him out of pieces of wood my dad had in the basement. His arms were little ones and the rest of him were bigger ones. He had loops for elbows, they screwed in, and his head was a ball that you make Christmas tree ornaments from, I got it from Shrubs last year. I painted him skin colored with red circles on his cheeks. I made yarn for hair, and I sewed him a little suit with red shorts and a white shirt out of rags. I painted shoes on him. It took me all night almost. My dad came down to see, but he let me stay up past my bedtime until I finished because there was no school the next day.

I named him Jerry the Puppet. When he was dry I
took him upstairs to the kitchen. It was dark, and my mom and dad were in bed. I folded up a dishtowel and put it on the yellow counter for his bed and then I folded up a washcloth and made it like a pillow for Jerry the Puppet. Then I went upstairs to bed but I thought of something and I came back down. I took another dish-towel and made him a blankee so he wouldn't be cold. Then I kissed him.

“Goodnight, Jerry the Puppet,” I said. “I'm glad I made you.”

But the next morning I woke up extra early because it was Thanksgiving and I wanted to watch the parade on tv. I went downstairs and turned on Oral Roberts. (I like to watch him, he yells.) I had on my slippers with dog faces on them.

Jeffrey came down. I asked him if he wanted to play Three Stooges with me. I play it frequent with Shrubs. He is Curly. I am Moe. I bop him. Curly is my favorite, he is bald. He goes like this with his fingers, I can do it. Sometimes he is absent and they have Shemp. Shemp looks like Moe only uglier. Sometimes I am him. But no one is Larry. No one ever wants to be Larry.

Jeffrey wouldn't play. Then the parade came on tv. It was exciting. It had floats. My favorite was Bullwinkle. Who is a moose. He is cartoons. I said, “Hi Bullwinkle!” He waved at me.

Then Mom and Dad got up, they had robes on and we had breakfast and we even got to eat in the den so we could watch the parade. We had pancakes and
Little Boys' Coffee, which is coffee with mostly milk and sugar in it for children. (I gave some pancakes to Jerry the Puppet but he wasn't hungry.) Then Mom started cooking Thanksgiving dinner.

We have company on Thanksgiving, it is uncles and aunts and cousins on my mom's side. My dad has a side too only not on Thanksgiving. His side is for Passover. We go to Bubbie's house. She is my grandmother. Her name is Bubbie. She is very old and talks Jewish which I don't understand, only sometimes she talks English which I still don't understand. I feel she should have subtitles. She calls me Baby Cocker because once I went over in my Davy Crockett suit. I don't have a Zadie on my dad's side. He is passed away, I never even saw him except pictures. He looks like my dad only brown because of the picture. On my mom's side I have a grandfather. He is named Gramps. It is Gramps on my mom's side and Zadie on my dad's side, only Gramps isn't dead. Only I don't have a Bubbie on my mom's side, she is dead. Her name was Grandma. It is very confusing. I think Gramps should marry Bubbie. They could go to a restaurant and talk Jewish to each other.

For Thanksgiving my mom made turkey. She also made stuffing which I helped her make, I tore up toast. Also she made candy sweet potatoes which are sweet potatoes only like candy and they have a cherry on top which I don't like so I give them to Jeffrey who gives them to Cleo our dog and she eats them and pukes. This is how we celebrate Thanksgiving.

After breakfast my dad said, “How would you fellows like to go see Santa Claus today?”

I said, “No thanks.”

“Why?” said Dad.

“Because we're Jewish,” I said. “It's wrong.”

“Just get dressed, Burt, don't worry about it,” he said. But I folded my arms up and wouldn't, I frowned.

So Dad came over and said, “Burt, Santa Claus is for everyone. He is all religions, now hurry up or we'll be late.”

I said, “So he's Jewish?”

“Yeah,” said Dad. “He's Jewish, ok. Let's go.” So we went.

Santa was at the Ford Rotunda, it is a big building that's round. It is far. It has cars in it. I asked my dad how Santa got there so fast when I just saw him on tv in the parade downtown and he said he took a helicopter.

At the Ford Rotunda was Santa's Magic Forest. It had lights and trees with colors on them, you walk through and there are elves that are statues that move like real elves. Also they had a part with reindeers, you could pet them. I couldn't see the part they have on them for flying, I think it goes in like. I fed one of them a peanut. He ate it. He was brown.

Then we went to see Santa. He was at the end. There was a big line, it went around and around, you couldn't even see Santa. We waited and waited. Then we got there. Jeffrey went first, he sat on Santa and
said, “I want you to buy me a model Thunderbird, you can get it at Maxwell's, ok?”

Santa said, “Ho ho.”