Chapter 8 run with scissors (7)

When I walked into the living room, Hope was still awake, watching TV in the TV room.She was kneeling on the couch with her legs pressed under her body.Seeing me coming back, she greeted me and said, "Hi!" "Hi, Hope." "How are you getting on with him?" I smiled: "It's not bad. He showed me his picture." Hope stretched his legs, put his hands behind his head and scratched. "Oh, is it? Very good, what are you talking about?" I walked into the TV room, and the TV channels were changing rapidly.Why did she switch channels back and forth?Why do people always like to watch TV like this? "Uh, we talk about everything." I thought of my conflict with Neil, and I was worried that my expression would show signs and be seen by the clever Hope.

"You don't seem very happy. You didn't quarrel, did you?" She stretches her legs under the fluffy body of her pet cat, Zuzu.When she wriggled her toes, it seemed that there was a small animal lying under Zuzu's body.The texture of the sofa has been exposed, and the surface of the sofa is smooth and oily due to long-term friction. I sat down and looked at the TV screen.I'd love to have a cigarette, but she and I must be very uncomfortable smoking it here; smoking is still a secret of mine, and Natalie smokes too, but she's braver than I am.If Agnes or Hope or Dr. Finch criticized her for smoking, she would tell them to shut up.But I feel like I'm a guest after all, and I'm bound by my politeness, so I can't be as reckless as Natalie.I finally said, "Seeing those photos of Neil in New York, I feel fresh. I think maybe one day, I will go to New York."

"I'm sure one day you'll be living in New York," Hope said, turning to look at me. "Really, do you really think so?" "Well, yes, I do." She picked up the Bible from the table by the sofa and put it on her lap. "Do you want to ask God about this?" I shrugged. "Well, maybe." She put the cushion on the sofa to her side and leaned on it: "Now let's do Bible divination." My body moves over. "Close your eyes," she told me. I closed my eyes and thought about how to express my question. "Okay," I said, "do I ever live in New York?"

She held the Bible in her hand and opened a page at will. "Okay," she said. I put my finger on the page and opened my eyes. She looked down to see what word I came across. "Power," she read. I leaned back a bit. "What does it mean?" She began to read the words around her, trying to understand the meaning of the context. "I think it means, you can live there. But before that, you need to have a lot of strength. You need to know who you are. I think God gave you an optimistic prophecy." "Really?" "I'm sure. I think God is saying that you're going through a tough time growing up right now, and once you get through it, you'll be strong enough to go anywhere you want to be."

For some reason, I feel better now.I love hearing Hope talk to God with ease, like good buddies.I like her because she really seems to be able to predict the future. Zuzu was sleeping soundly under her, snoring incessantly, like heavy and tired sighs. Hope yawned: "I'm sleepy too, Zuzu," she put the Bible back under the lamp on the table and turned it off. "We're going to bed." "Okay," I said, "me too." Hope carried the kitten out of the room. I sat there, staring blankly at the TV screen.The image of Neil appeared in front of my eyes again, I seemed to be able to smell the hot smell of Neil's body, and that smell permeated under my nostrils, I thought I should wash my face, preferably take a hot bath.

I picked up the remote control, and the TV screens began to change rapidly.I closed my eyes, only to see Neal's head leaning towards me again.I felt nauseous and really wanted to vomit. That table was in the middle of the room, and all the girls were sitting around her, in front of her and behind her, and everyone was her best friend in the world.They folded the notes they had written and handed them to her.She opened the note, looked at it quickly, giggled, and passed it on to someone else.I've often seen her leaning forward and whispering something in someone's ear that I'm sure would be funny, like, "We're going to surprise Heather after school—take her to the movies, it's her birthday."

She has jet-black curly hair decorated with several fluffy combs.I sat in the classroom, looking at those combs, and wanted to touch them with my hands.I think it must feel good, like touching a sheep.But they're much lighter than sheep, perhaps as light as marshmallows.But I knew that if I did reach out, across the two desks between us, and touch her head, she would scream.She was the fairest girl in the school, even though she was actually of black descent. She's the daughter of movie actor Bill Cosper, and I hate her for that. "It's so beautiful!" she exclaims exaggeratedly when her friend gives her a blue Smurf key chain to please her.Sometimes she is even more terrible, "Venus is the goddess of love." She will answer questions in Greek mythology class aloud, answering accurately and correctly, just like her actor father.Her white and cheerful smile fully occupied one of the three people on her face.

This girl has everything in life and I don't, most people don't, so my teeth itch with envy.She is smart, stuttering, optimistic and popular.She comes from the best family, and she never wears the same clothes two days in a row.And I'm sure she's not going to go out with a man twice her age like I am, a pervert and an asshole. Between me and her, someone has to leave. "I don't know what to do with you, you're driving me crazy!" said my mother, biting her thumbnail with pleasure. "Hmph, anyway, I don't plan to go to that school anymore, it's not suitable for me, and I will never adapt to it. I must leave from there, for sure!"

"But you must go to school until you are sixteen, that is the law." "I don't want to go, I can't stay in that bloody place for another three years." I shouted, "God, let me die, I should kill myself!" I was like a wild animal in a cage. My mom asked, "Suicide? You're not kidding, are you?" "Why do you think I'm joking?" Maybe I should really kill myself and that would solve the problem.This may be my only way out. She stopped tapping on the keyboard and reached for her correction fluid. "I don't have the energy to deal with your problems right now, you're terribly out of your mind right now."

I smoked and walked around the house all night.The thought of going back to school the next day fills me with dread.My mind was racing, I weighed and compared countless options, and the ultimate goal was simple: Get out of school as quickly as possible and never go back. Mom is in the middle of a creative passion, and she thinks she's writing an all-important poem. "It's about fifty pages long, and I'm fully convinced that it will make me a famous woman." She wasn't smoking her Moore cigarette as usual when the crazy words popped from the corner of her mouth. "I don't care about any goddamn poetry. I'm in pain right now and you've got to help me out."

She was also pissed off: "I'm telling you, I care so much about this damn poem right now - like you said. I put all my energy into writing it! I've worked so hard my whole life to make it Your own creations can be recognized by others.” "Well, what about me, what should I do?" I growled.I want to shove her typewriter on the floor, I hate that thing and I hate her too.I aspired to live like the Cosbers. "You're an adult," she said, "you're thirteen, you should have your own mind and willpower, and I have my own needs now. My writing means a lot to me, and I hope it means a lot to you. It's also important." For some reason, she has always focused on her creations, everything has to be arranged by her, she really has a way. "I'm not your admirer," I yelled.That's what Christina says to her mother in the movie Lovely Mom, and I know my mom hasn't seen the movie, so she must have been surprised and fresh to hear that. "Tell you, right now," she said, "I'm not your admirer either." She turned her back to me and started typing away. I unplugged the typewriter and it stopped working. "Asshole! Augustine, what do you want to do? Why are you doing this to me? What I need now is support, not your trouble." I told her to shut up, then stomped out of the room and sat on the porch steps sulking.After a while, she appeared. "Dr. Finch would like to speak with you on the phone." Her voice was as calm and composed as a professional receptionist's. "Okay." I said.I was actually worried too: confronting my mom might lead to trouble.Dr. Finch had warned me that if I pushed my mother too hard, she might relapse into psychosis and undo all the work he had done with her. "Hello." "Hello, Augustine, I hear you don't want to go to school. What's going on?" I thought I had misheard; he was talking about myself. I told him how miserable I am now, how poor I feel that I don't fit in that school environment.I was depressed and felt like I was in prison.I just want to get out of there so I can go to the movies whenever I want, or focus on writing in my journal. He has been listening to me venting my dissatisfaction, and rarely interjects, only occasionally saying "um, um", or "I understand." As soon as I finished speaking, he said: "But the compulsory education law stipulates that before the age of sixteen, you must go to school." "I know, but I can't do it." I said, I was going crazy, he had to help me. "Okay," he sighed heavily, and I could just imagine him leaning back in the chair and massaging his scalp with his free hand. "I can help you to leave school for a period of time, and the only way out, or way, is to have suicidal motives. If you try to kill yourself, I can help you leave school in good standing." "You... what do you mean?" "Well, if you have a suicide attempt, I can explain to the school authorities that you are not mentally fit enough to continue at school and you need intensive treatment. I don't know how much time they will grant, maybe a month Well, maybe two months, three months." "Ah, so..." I was a little dizzy, "Well, what is going to happen? I mean, I have to do something, right? Didn't you say that I have to cut my pulse or something?" "No, no, that's not what I meant. It's just a fake suicide. It's a gimmick." "Oh." I was relieved. "However, you have to be sent to a mental hospital. Generally speaking, after your accident, your poor mother must find you." He lowered his voice and said to me with a smile. He was obviously dramatized by himself. Arranging for an infection, "then, she'll drive you to the hospital, where you'll have to stay ... say, about two weeks, for observation and treatment." I told him I didn't find life in a mental institution any fun, it was just as unbearable as school, but perhaps better? "It's like a short vacation," he continued. "Where's your sense of adventure?" Sounds all right, although not being free to go to the movies, or talk to Neil, is better than staying at school.Dr. Finch was right that it would be an adventure. "Okay, let's settle that." "Now I have to speak to your mother," he said. After my mother hung up the phone, she said, "Now, the doctor is coming to us." She looked happy, and I immediately understood why.I can get away from her for a while so no one in the family tells her, "Stop listening to that damn song! You've played it fifty times in a row." And she no longer has to defend her right to eat Well, she could just throw away the pastry part of the mustard sandwich, as she always did in the old days, and just eat what she thought was the essence of the middle.So it seemed, for both of us, that Dr. Finch's plan would be the ideal outcome. I went upstairs and entered a room I seldom visited.I looked out the window and stared at the street.I thought of the little bitch at the Cosbergs.She sure doesn't need to choose, as I do, between a mental hospital and seventh grade.Why can't I be as relaxed as she is?I said to myself: All I want, is to live a normal life.But is this the nature of the matter?I can't be sure.Anyway, being bored and dropping out of school makes me happy, and all the consequences of it fascinate me.I'm drawn to the unknown, and I'm even thankful because I think about how messed up my mother's life was.Have I fallen into some kind of crisis from which I cannot extricate myself?My fingers slid back and forth along the ledge. "I want to live a normal life, normal, normal, normal," I said to myself. Although going to school makes me miserable, there are actually many interesting things in my life that can satisfy me.Putting aside the usual entertainment, just talking to Neil was a lot of fun for me.Neil does not have a regular job. He sometimes replaces Hope, who is out on errands, as a receptionist in the doctor's office, so he is free most of the time, and after I leave school, I can chat with him. Eat, watch movies, play video games.Isn't this kind of life great?Why am I still not satisfied? After that slap on my face, he stopped trying to physically assault me.He said he would wait patiently for a few years until I was an adult and I made an offer to him, but I didn't say a word about what he said. One day, he said, "It was all my fault last time, and I'm really sorry." His tears rolled down his face. "It's nothing, it's all over anyway." I reminded him repeatedly that his tears didn't move me, but seeing his virtue made me feel disgusted.If I was strong enough, I would even have kicked him away, but, considering I was alone, I needed his company more, and the latter prevailed. Yes, I was lonely and had few friends, but Neil gave me enough attention.We could go for long walks and talk about everything, like how nasty the nuns at his mission school were when he was a kid; he even taught me how to kiss women, which of course didn't seem to interest me much . When I sat in a school classroom surrounded by kids who spoke and acted quite normally, I just didn't fit in, and it was always a pain in the ass.All I could think about was get out of this place as soon as possible, and I'd either go see a movie, or talk to Bookman Neal, or whatever.How could I possibly sit here obediently fixing a butterfly's wings to a test plate, or racking my brains to recite those grotesque prepositional phrases? Neil was the only one who cared about me besides Natalie and Hope.Even my mom didn't give me enough attention unless I was holding the typewriter's long ink ribbon in both hands for her so it didn't drag on the floor, or standing next to the record player because she needed me to put the stylus back on for a song the starting position of .Other than that, I'm useless to her. Where is my dad?The cheapskate, he won't even answer my collect calls to him. When I peeled off a piece of paint on the window sill, I saw an unfamiliar pickup truck parked in front of the door.The engine died and no one went down.I watched for a few minutes until the window glass on the passenger seat fell, and a pink hydrogen balloon floated out, slowly rising into the air.I'm curious: where did he get the hydrogen balloons?Does he have many more of these balloons? Dr. Finch rang our doorbell. My mother called me downstairs.Dr. Finch shook my hand. "You've got a lot of independence, young man." Mom said: "Of course he is independent." He asked me. "are you ready?" "Ready for what?" He cleared his throat and rubbed his hands together. "We're going to take a little trip in the car. We have to get a little something from a friend to complete our plans. We can talk about our plans in the car." My mother kept her eyes on her typewriter, as if the typewriter was desperately calling her.I know it hurts her to be away from the typewriter for even a few minutes. "You need to come with us," said the doctor. My mother looked startled, opened her mouth, and said nothing, as if she had been diagnosed with a disease that would render her speechless rapidly.She hesitated, and finally said, "Okay, but I have to get my bag." Dr. Finch was driving, my mother was in the seat next to the driver, and I was in the back seat.I leaned my head against the car window, vaguely apprehensive about my commitment.God knows how the doctor will treat me and handle my affairs well?We had just left Amherst on the highway when my mom opened her purse, looking for something. She pulls out some printer paper and spreads it on her lap.She coughed a few times and said to the doctor, "Would you like to hear a new poem I wrote recently?" Dr. Finch said, "Of course, Deirdre, if you will." "Can I smoke?" My mother held a mole between her lips, picked up the lighter, and was about to start a fire. "casual." "Thank you!" Her tone was almost flirtatious. For the next half hour I was forced to listen to a forced peddling of poetry.When she reads, she has a smooth voice, a standard southern accent, clear words and passionate emotions.I knew she wished there had been a microphone tied to her collar, or a camera that would have locked onto her facial expressions. I can't help feeling resentful that this car, which was supposed to take me to a mental institution, was being used by my mother as a literati Greenwich Café, where people gathered to hear her spout poetry readings. The pickup truck drove to the gate of a farmhouse in the countryside, surrounded by pastures.The doctor pulled the car into the semicircle of the cobbled driveway and stopped.He looked at me in the rearview mirror. "You promise," he said, "that you'll never tell anyone about it." Wiping my sweaty palms on my jacket, I agree, though I don't know what medicine he sells in his gourd. "If you tell, my business license will be revoked," he said. What the hell is he trying to do?Why did we come to this farmer's house?I am a little uneasy and a little curious.I want to know what's going on right away, but I'm sure I shouldn't ask any more questions, I just have to wait, wait for what comes next. My mother sorted out her poems and put them back in her bag.She looks out the window. "Oh, what a lovely house," she said, "and look at that old barn over there, how pretty it is!" "I'll be right back," said the doctor, "you two just sit in the car and don't leave." After he got out of the car and left, his mother said, "Okay, you have found an adventure for yourself." She rolled down the window and took a deep breath: "The air here is so clean and fresh. It Reminds me of my days in Georgia, when your mother was a little girl." Then she pulled a Moore from its case and lit it. Dr. Finch left for about half an hour.When he came back, he had a small paper bag in his hand.He got into the car and started the engine.I thought he would pull onto the freeway, but he just turned a corner and parked in the driveway.Then he handed me the paper bag. I picked up the paper bag and saw a pint of jackDaniel inside. Then he reached into the pocket of his jacket, took out a medicine bottle, unscrewed the cap, and poured some small pills into the palm of his hand. "I want you to take three pills," he said, "with that bottle of bourbon. Swallow them down." I tried my best to hide my panic.Actually, I always get drugs and alcohol for free from the doctor, and now I have to swallow them in the car in front of my mother and him, which is beyond my expectations and makes me feel awkward .I'd love to save these for later, like when I get a chance to take them on a trip with Natalie, wander around Smith University, find a corner where no one is around, and we'll have a good swoon .Forget it, let's talk about it later. I put the pills in my mouth, took a few sips of wine, and downed them into my abdominal cavity.At first, my throat seemed to slip through a line of fire, and then, a rare warm and comfortable feeling quickly melted all over my body.Before this, I had only experienced the high of beer and wine, and this feeling was obviously much better. Dr. Finch reminded me again: "Now, you need to promise me that you will not tell anyone what happened today. The whole story is that you are going to commit suicide. Fortunately, your mother found out in time and sent you to the hospital quickly. .Do you understand it?" I nodded. "That means I don't need to go to school, right?" "At least for a while," he said. "That's good..." I tilted my head on the seat. I wake up.A blond-haired woman, sweating all over her face, was shoving something down my throat. She is a nurse.Her words confirmed it.She said to me, "I'm a nurse. You're in the hospital. We have to get these pills out of your stomach. You don't really want to die, do you?" Of course I don't want to die, I just want to go to sleep.But when I closed my eyes, she grabbed my arm again, and continued to hold the candle-like thing, stirring it back and forth in my throat.I feel like throwing up, I'm teary eyed, and she just goes out of her way, trying to clear the contents of my stomach. I finally fell asleep. I woke up again.I lay motionless on the bed, the head of the bed was empty, and no one made me suffer anymore.There was a window in the room, but I couldn't open my eyes because the eyelids were heavy and heavy, as if the light had weight and oppressed my eyes. "Hi!" Someone beside the bed greeted me, the voice was very close. "Are you awake?" It was a man's voice. I turned my head in the direction of the sound, and saw a naked man sitting cross-legged on the bed, wearing a pointed green hat. I almost suspected that I was dreaming.