The Sea-Wave Read online

  The laziness and stupidity of teachers is easily the most destructive thing in a child’s life. One time our science teacher instead of teaching us put on this video about genetic disorders and played with his phone for an hour. There was a segment about Down Syndrome, and exactly what happens to your body and brain, and Chad, who sat across from and behind me, just burst out crying and said: “That’s me.” We all knew he had Down Syndrome. But I guess no one had ever told him. I wanted to pick the TV up and throw it out the window. Mr. Ed just kept playing with his phone. Chad cried all morning. He’s never really been the same.

  Anything

  Iwould do anything to forget what the old lady said to the old lady.

  Isn’t that sad? Doesn’t that just break your heart? It breaks my heart that people are so stupid and selfish they’d keep a child like that alive. Just look at the poor thing suffering. She doesn’t even stand a chance.

  I would do anything to forget.

  Blue Magnitude

  I love most kinds of music but I need jazz to live.

  My favourite group is Blue Magnitude. When I’m depressed, when I’m more depressed than usual, I’ll put on Blue Magnitude, turn it up, and just close my eyes and listen without thinking for as long as I can. Because it’s only a matter of time before Mom will open the door and say: “How can you listen to that depressing crap?” and turn it down or off, not realizing she’s turning me down or off, or not caring. Or she’ll put on some oldies instead and say: “Now that’s happiness,” but it’s like cheerleaders bearing a casket and the instant she leaves I throw the lid open and they skip off.

  Blue Magnitude is depressing but life is depressing and it’s the right kind of fabric to patch me up. It’s camouflage. When I listen to jazz, I disappear. I’m not suffering; I’m not there.

  I listen to music every day. If I couldn’t . . .

  I’d die.

  Emotion

  I cry sometimes, though not from sadness. Mostly

  my crying is anger. It isn’t vocal crying, I can’t produce tears, but the emotion is the thing, right? I have so much emotion.

  The best thing about my crying is that I can do it any­where and no one can tell. I don’t have to inflate myself into a bigger spectacle.

  I could cry all day and no one would know.

  I sometimes do.

  Hazy and Lost

  The old man stopped. I could hear him — he walked

  in front of me. He was staggering around like the world was new. His chest was going up and down.

  When he turned and he looked at me . . .

  His eyes. They were so bright. Not hazy and lost like usual. Bright and clear.

  He looked at me and he took a step back. He took a second step and banged into a tree.

  Then he stood there with his back against a tree, breathing hard with his eyes closed, for a long time.

  His breathing slowed down.

  He opened his eyes.

  Hazy and lost. As usual.

  He wiped his nose on his arm and got back behind me.

  We kept moving.

  Gyokuro

  Tay-Lin gave me a box of gyokuro tea. She gave it to my mom but said it was a gift for me. This surprised me because I’d never actually met Tay-Lin. She might’ve seen me wheeling out of the room, or getting into the elevator.

  When I opened the box there was a note that read: “This is gyokuro, a relaxation tea. It’s something that’s helped me a lot. Tay-Lin.”

  She knew. She barely knew me, but she knew.

  I have panic attacks. I’ve never told anyone. My parents don’t know.

  Tay-Lin knew.

  I used up all the gyokuro. It really did help.

  I wish I had more.

  The Credits

  He was facing me, the old man, he was over top of

  me. I could only see his face. It was raining, there was no shelter, I think maybe he was trying to shelter me. His face was as big as a movie screen.

  One big pearl of water ran down his forehead, nose, around his lips, into his beard, then down off a long curling hair right into my mouth and down my throat.

  This is real.

  It’s a movie but it’s real.

  The credits are piling up at my feet.

  This is really happening.

  The Sea-Wave IV

  The tones of the sea, are so many. It is not one animal. It is so many. It can be, and it was so often, the deepest tone. The conversation of one thing, and another, more ancient, and greater. Imagining them. I could see them . . . beyond, the wall. I could picture them, and it would not even be imagination. But . . . a puzzling-together, of perception. As one assembling, with closed eyes, the bones of someone speaking. Some incredible skeleton. If it should brush the wall, this animal . . . I would go so far, as to wonder.

  Yet often, and more often, the tone was not so. It was little more than water. The tunnelling through water, of one fish. The murmur. Or a million fish, together. In their freedom, teeming, and so very near . . . one who was not free. The still prisoner of a stone aquarium. Who could float, only, as a fish in glass. And listen. And listen.

  Leaves

  I could hear the ocean.

  When I opened my eyes, I saw trees.

  We weren’t moving, I couldn’t see the old man, I was worried he’d abandoned me. I imagined a coyote jogging off with my femur. Even if it wasn’t healthy.

  I pressed forward on my control pad. The wheels just threw up dust. The motor wasn’t designed for off-road use. You have to charge the battery every day, too, which wasn’t happening.

  I felt panicky and giddy. I kept telling myself I wasn’t alone, that any minute now I’d feel the chair start moving and the familiar beard hairs rubbing the top of my head.

  But after five, ten minutes, nothing. Twenty minutes. I tried turning my head very slowly to the left, like I was doing my exercises, then to the right, as far as I could, which is only an inch or two, on a good day. But there was no sign of him. No sound, either, except that ocean sound of the wind in the leaves.

  Then I saw a face. A reflection. On the inside of my glasses.

  It was the old man. Frozen. He was on his knees. The branches were jumping all around him, it was windy, but he was as still as a tree trunk. Covering his ears. And the look on his face . . .

  He looked terrified.

  Smart

  If I have a talent, if it counts, it’s that I’m smart. I became smart. I was just a dumb kid until I started reading. Not just dumb kid books, but books nobody even looked at or knew existed. If you read a book and you understand it all the way through, it’s probably not doing much for your brain.

  I read Dickens pretty early on. The first time I read A Tale of Two Cities I maybe understood fifty words of it. I understood every dull word of Chuzzlewit. David Copperfield, though, is the best thing I’ve ever read. Reading anything else is a disappointment. I’d rather be illiterate than not read David Copperfield. Most people are illiterate. Because if you don’t read good books, or you can’t read good books, either way, you’re not reading good books. Most people don’t realize they can’t actually read.

  I read good books, I became smarter, I became unhappy. Probably lots of people do. Knowing more just makes you sadder. Maybe I could still be that happy-go-lucky kid in a wheelchair, trying hard to smile, if I really tried.

  Sorry Mom and Dad. I’d rather read David Copperfield.

  Soft Room

  Okay.

  One time I was wheeling down the hallway at the Rehabilitation Centre, waiting for my dad to pick me up. He usually goes for coffee across the street till I’m finished my exercises.

  There was an open door that’s normally closed. I went through it down another hallway that was darker. I turned once, and just before the second turn I saw one half of a long glowing window in the wall that went down alm
ost to the floor. There were a man and woman standing in front of the window, looking through it. They seemed pretty worried and caring like parents. As I moved closer I could see more of the window, and a man in a lab coat standing beside an empty wheelchair. He was looking through the window too and sometimes writing something on a clip-board.

  This was all none of my business, but I was curious. I went closer. The people didn’t seem to notice me. They were talking in quiet voices. I just wheeled up quietly behind them until I could see through the window, too.

  It was a big white room. The walls and floor were white foam. There was a guy, maybe ten years older than me, with a beard, on the floor. He was rolling on the floor groaning. That was all he could do. If he came to a wall he just kicked it or flailed against it. Then he rolled the other way.

  The mother said: “I really think this will help with his rage.”

  Then she waited a while and said slowly: “If only he’d had this when he was younger. He really could’ve used this. Things would’ve been . . . so different.”

  The father shook his head. Then he said, quietly: “No. They wouldn’t’ve, Helen. They wouldn’t’ve one bit.”

  Then the man with the clipboard looked at me. He was about to say something, I think, but I just kept going around the corner like I had somewhere to go. Also, I felt sick to my stomach and wanted to at least get to a water fountain.

  The empty wheelchair was sitting next to a door. As I passed by it I looked up. The sign on the door read: “Soft Room.”

  I’ve always thought I’d be a happier kid if I’d never seen the Soft Room.

  In Dickens

  If I lived in Dickens, my name would be Cripplewitch. I love Dickens but what I don’t get is that if your name is your major character flaw why someone would still marry a Murdstone, or trust a Krook. If he was trying to say that people are just dumb, he’s kind of stating the obvious. But it must’ve been a riot, being this wiz­ard who could turn anyone who irked him into a Peck­sniff or a Barnacle. It was kind of like word murder; he was Dickens the Ripper. If you’re observant and super-popular, you can actually do a lot of damage. I’m pretty observant, too. Once I lost twenty pounds before any­one noticed, and that was a waitress. I think if I spontaneously combusted my mom would keep talking to the ashes as she dusted the living room. Then she’d sweep me up and wonder what happened to me.

  If my mom lived in Dickens, her name would be Oblivia Grimsack.

  Pessimism

  One night I woke up, I was so dizzy. We were in the middle of nowhere. It was raining. I was sick and so dizzy. It was — I imagine it’s what being on drugs is like. I counted the stars, but then I realized, with the rain, I shouldn’t even really be able to see any stars. Then I couldn’t see any.

  I guess that’s pessimism.

  The Leaning Tower

  I love books but I was once murdered by books just about.

  I call the white bookcase in my room The Leaning Tower. It’s where I keep English Literature, including all my Dickens. I have everything by Dickens except Chuzzlewit, which I threw out the window.

  At first the white bookcase didn’t lean, but as I added more books it started leaning. I tried putting the heavier books on the bottom shelf but over time, I just needed the space. I don’t do paperbacks, I kept putting hardcovers higher and higher. That made the tilting worse but after reaching the one o’clock position the bookcase basically stabilized. So I stopped thinking about it.

  Then one day I was in my room reading, and a book fell over my shoulder, onto my lap, then a hundred more. Then the top shelf of the bookcase stabbed me in the back of the neck. My angry head now occupied the top shelf space, like a bust of Beethoven. I realized I was the vertical part of an acute triangle, and in acute pain. Also, if I pressed forward on my directional pad, all that would happen would be that my head would keep bending back, the top of the bookcase would scrape up my forehead and possibly my head would snap off. So I decided to just wait there till my mom found me. Which wasn’t too long because of the loud sound of all the books falling.

  My mom helped me put the books back on the shelves. The way we arranged them the bookcase didn’t tilt as bad; it hasn’t fallen since. I still have a mark like a birthmark on my neck.

  The first book that fell on my lap was Martin Chuzzlewit. That’s partially why I threw it out the window.

  Anxiety

  When my anxiety gets the better of me it’s like my nerve cells are doing hard arithmetic. I think of them holding pencils and checking the clock. I can’t wring my hands, I wring the inside of my stomach like it’s a hateful dog. Or I try my breathing. I learned these breathing tips on TV, though they don’t generally work. I basically just have to wait. It’s like, if a prince spills hot soup on you, you have to just grin till your skin stops burning.

  It’s hell.

  Goliath

  My parents went to church before I was born. They got married in a church.

  If a ninety-pound kid can kill god, god can’t be up to much.

  I’m the kid with the slingshot.

  Angry

  I get angry. When I get angry I can’t control my anger. It won’t burn out. I don’t know if that means there’s something wrong with me or it’s just because of my life, I have a lot of compressed rage. My throat feels like fire climbing a ladder. I suffer. I can’t go for a run, I can’t make it go away.

  I hate my anger. But I just can’t do anything.

  Will you help me please because I’m stuck?

  Thunderstorm

  It was storming and we were going really fast downhill. There was a river at the bottom of the hill and some trees. I was soaked. My glasses were soaked; I could barely see.

  I wondered how the old man could run so fast. Then I heard something that was like far-away screaming. Oh god, I thought. It’s happening. I’ve gotten away. I’m rocketing down a steep hill, into deep water. My nightmare.

  My teeth were rattling, so I pressed them hard together. I squeezed my armrests. That was the wrong thing to do. I should’ve tried to fall off my chair as soon as possible, and let it drown. But I was scared of falling off, I was going so fast. The rain made it confusing.

  I hit something, the wheelchair hit something. The chair stayed still but I went flying. I’m not a god type but I remember thinking god don’t let me fall in the river and drown.

  Then I fell in the river.

  Water flowed into me like I was the Titanic. I choked. I just about blacked out, but then I was in pain because someone grabbed me by the hair and pulled me up out of the water.

  The old man was crying. He hugged me but didn’t say anything and put me back in my chair. Then he pushed me back up the hill. The whole time he pushed me, he was crying. Eventually he stopped crying. It stopped raining, too.

  I just about died.

  The Sea-Wave V

  There was in one corner of the floor, a hole. The sewer. Though it soured what little there was of air, from such a place came something . . . wonderful.

  Singing. The brothers, singing. In some hidden chamber. It seemed . . . there were not even words to their hymn, but emotion, only. As if they fingered the strings . . . of emotion. And whichever they touched, touched me.

  I could only listen. The singing. It was a very great wave. Taking . . . me. A sea-star, on the dark waters. Its mystery. Though sorrowful, so wonderful. In tone so beautiful. They must have been singing, the men, in some cavern of stone. Echoing, as several thousand men. Down corridors. In dark corners. From pipework emerging. As a tone, from an organ.

  It was . . . holy. Their sorrow. It was in itself religion. Their emotion. It could have been my own . . . emotion. Then. Listening. Bowing over, the hole.

  My tears fell into the very sound of singing.

  Don’t Talk

  Don’t talk to me. Because you never really talk to me. You talk over me, around me, down
to me, through me, but never to me. Your words go through me, like x-rays, without sticking to me, because they were never meant for me, but for the people standing next to me. The pharmacist and his wife are really keen to see what doting parents are like in the face of adversity, and I’m so glad you have the extra time to show them. To demonstrate. You have hardly any time for me, but you at least have time for somebody. And that just makes me so happy.

  I am so happy.

  Just don’t ever talk to me again.

  My Devices

  My parents took me to Dr. Fritz, a prosthetist. He went on about devices, what great, great devices they had these days, and wouldn’t I be so much happier and more complete if I owned one or more of these devices? He faced me and his words hit me in the face, but his eyes were always stuck on my parents. He talked in a fake-ly gentle way about his devices, rubbing his hands along them like he was selling reams of the finest silk, only it was Arm Buddies or the Motorized Claw. He did these demonstrations where he’d first try to pick up a glass of water, pretending I guess he was a typical spastic kid, without the aid of a device, and, of course, knocking it onto the floor. Then he’d strap on an Arm Buddy and lift and drink the whole glass down, not spilling a drop. And I’d be sitting there grinding my teeth in silence. One of my other doctors told my parents that teeth-grinding was a sign of a vitamin deficiency. They gave me magnesium powder, though it didn’t work. That should’ve been their first clue.