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SOME PEOPLE PICK THEIR noses or bite their nails. I place one finger on my neck for a few seconds. Usually I just want to see if my heart is racing at all but when I’m feeling really anxious I have to look at the long dial on my watch and count the beats for fifteen seconds. My parents didn’t notice this quirk when I was a kid and by the time I got to middle school it was too late. The thing had fully metastasized.
My dad, a heart surgeon, kept his old medical textbooks in his office. Medical Diagnosis and Treatment was my favorite. I learned about things like congenital heart defects and atrial fibrillation. Ventricular, atrial, paroxysmal, persistent, I memorized it all.
Soon enough I was experiencing the telltale signs. Shooting pains in my left arm, stabbing pains in my chest, heart palpitations, numbness in my face. Somatic symptom disorder. You focus too much on the sensations in your body and start to think that you’re sick. Common comorbidity: panic attacks. Let me tell you, not a good combination. Going to the emergency room feels like the only solution. I made sure my parents understood that.
Dad, I feel like I’m dying.
This only has to be real once dad. Please.
I’m not going to sleep. I can’t sleep. Let’s go.
Blood pressure cuffs, stethoscopes, EKGs, echocardiograms, full metabolic panels. My beloved ritual.
Every time we left the ER I felt high as a kite. Imagine the relief of finding out that you're not going to die. Now squeeze it into a pill that you can take whenever you feel anxious. That’s what the ER was to me.
I didn't get some kind of twisted enjoyment from driving my parents crazy. I really thought that I was dying. They took me to all kinds of therapies and treatments. CBT, EMDR, equine therapy, hot yoga. Hot yoga with goats. My dad didn’t mind paying as long as I stopped embarrassing him in front of his colleagues. In the end only one thing ended up helping. Simple exercise.
In high school I joined track and field. I didn’t like it. Running raised my heart rate which made panic set in. I had to learn to reason.
Max heart rate at 16, 200. Safety margin, let’s say 20%. 160. Stay at 160 and we’re good.
I did more calculations in my first week on the track than I did in math class. After a few more weeks I was in tune enough with my body to know when to slow down. The rituals stopped. Needless to say I didn’t set any records. As painful and embarrassing as running was, it kept my condition at bay.
IN MY FIRST SEMESTER at UCLA I met this guy named Ethan. We had a lot in common, attitude and all. He was a pre-law major and I was a literature major. Then I was pre-law and he switched to literature. We spent long nights in the quad talking about what both of us wanted to do with our lives. He did most of the talking.
You're obsessed with me aren’t you. It’s okay, just admit it.
Yes, I was obsessed. No, I’m not gay. I like women as much as the next guy. And, no, I’m not one of those repressed part-time gays.
We love putting each other in boxes don’t we. As soon as you start letting others do that to you? Your life is over. Mark my words. Done.
There’s a lot of people who would agree with me. Some of them are the same people that put out your fires and make your laws and defend you in court. They do all these things knowing that one day someone like Ethan might wander into their lives and they’ll have to make a choice. The choice between being a bigtime lawyer and being a gay guy in a suit. I made my decision a while ago.
He transferred to Stanford after our first year.
THE COMPULSION RETURNED FOR a while. Wherever I was, it was by my side. Waiting to talk to a professor. On the bus. Brushing my teeth. The next few years were rough. All the nurses at the nearby emergency clinic learned my name. Running didn’t help anymore. I started doing the things you aren’t supposed to do to keep your heart healthy. Binge drinking and smoking. Paradoxically, these helped.
On my twenty-first birthday my dad called me and told me to come out to the parking lot. He was waiting for me with a brand new race bike. Carbon fiber wheels, fifteen pounds, wireless gear shifter. I told him that I didn't need a new hobby and that he should take it back. He wouldn’t have it.
Are you kidding me? Do you know how much this thing cost me? You’re going to take it and you’re going to stop sitting inside all day.
As much as I hate to say it, that bike turned out to be the best gift I’ve ever gotten. There's this trail that goes across our campus. The white lines, that’s what we call it. I go all the way down, take a ten minute break, and go back. My compulsion has been dormant for a while now but sometimes a headline flashes in front of my eyes while mid ride.
UCLA Student, 23, Dead From Sudden Cardiac Arrest.
In the past I would pull over but now I just keep going. If I died, I think that people would say that I died doing what I loved and that thought makes me happy.
I know how all of this sounds. Depressing, right? I know. Here’s a question though. Can you do five miles in ten minutes? Let’s see it. Get on a bike. Any bike. Three gears, twelve gears, cruiser, whatever. How about five in twelve? Five in fifteen? You know why you can’t? Because you’ve never had to choose.
The high pitched whine of an old CRT television and the distant rumble of thunder. The picture on the screen was broken by green lines that passed up and down the screen. Bill Nye, Cosmos and Nat Geo Wild played for hours on end. The poor thing couldn't take the abuse.
Ethan climbed on top of the couch and looked at the tiny mud houses he had built the day prior. Pummeled by the rain, their stick frames were beginning to show through. The local rolley-polley population would have to remain homeless.
- When is mom gonna get home?
- I don’t know, Ethan.
- She calls us when she’s going to be late. She didn’t call this time.
- She probably went out for drinks with her coworkers. She’ll be home soon, don’t worry.
Ethan went to the kitchen to refill his cereal bowl for the third time.
He had recently gained ten pounds and Raisin Bran wasn't only to blame. Baked salmon, mini meat loafs, honey mustard chicken. Buttermilk pancakes for breakfast. Mom had been putting extra effort into the homemade meals.
- How many bowls have you had? You're going to get a stomach ache.
- I never get stomach aches. It's not in my genes.
- It’s not about your genes Ethan, you’re eating too much sugar.
NatGeo chimed in.
- When lava pours out near the sea surface, tremendous volcanic explosions sometimes occur. In time, submarine sea-mounts, or islands, are formed.
Geysers of red lava reflected in Sofia's eyes.
Images of her mom dying in a fiery car accident. Red tail lights and the front end of the family car compressed like an accordion. She squirmed. She thought of her grandparents. Was there enough space in their spare bedroom? Ethan wouldn’t mind sleeping on the living room couch. But what about Bungie? Her grandparents weren't dog people. Bungie would have to find a new home. And she would have to learn how taxes worked. Not being able to forgive herself for the thoughts, she got up and started to look through her backpack.
Math homework, a pencil bag, a worn out copy of 1984, a lab report. The lab report was about owl pellets. Mostly blank. She flipped through the pages. Pictures of a mouse skull, a femur, a collection of ribs, tiny appendages, a broken pelvis. The pelvises never came out in one piece. She emptied the rest of her backpack. Split pencils, leaking pens, lint and sand.
She went to the kitchen, opened the trash can, and shook out the rest of the contents. Sand, lint, pieces of graphite, a folded piece of paper.
She took the paper out of the trash and unfolded it. An extra credit assignment from English class.
Write a poem about your favorite day of summer break. (Minimum 100 words)
Looking over at Ethan she produced a deep sigh.
She sat down next to her brother and started to write. After a few minutes she put down her pen and read over her work.
We visit the endless river of fishes and noise
Brother skips rocks and dad makes a tent
He tells us about how the carp go upstream
The water is calm but the sound is steady
Nature speaks in ambient tones
And joins us for the weekend
The tent is sturdy and our dinner is simple
Warm beans and summer sausage
Finish your food, he says
We’ve grown so much
The forest whispers to us through the crackle of the flame
We take it with us on our smokey sweaters
And wash it out when we get home
As she read the passage her rigid posture failed and she was forced to lean on the couch behind her. A silent anger momentarily dissipated and quietly, so as not to startle her brother, she began to cry.
Her gaze slowly shifted to the window and through the rainy glass to the unkempt garden. Outside, the mud houses. Their roofs beginning to cave in and their entryways crumbling. In place of the openings she saw mouths and in place of stick frames she saw skeletons. These were tiny mud gremlins. Once enchanted by the magic of the forest, they were sinking into the earth around them. She imagined one of them calling out to her.
- I’m always with you.
I sit down at the bar and tell the waitress that I’d like a menu and that I’m ordering for takeout. I never eat out, but when I do I prefer the comfort of my own home. My dad always said that eating alone in public isn’t anything to be ashamed of. We shared a resiliency to loneliness but in different ways. He always let things come to him. I always ran away. The waitress keeps asking me in broken English if I could leave a review mentioning her.
The restaurant is mostly empty. It's too late for lunch and too early for dinner. The wall in front of me is covered with a lucrative assortment of liquor. A standard midtown bar collection of ornate bottles with an accent on Japanese and Thai whiskeys. Past the fishtank and the decorative palmtree are a few groups of people. Businessmen, from the looks of it. I consider ordering a shot as the waitress walks away. And then he sits down next to me.
“Waiting for take out?”
“Yeah, I just ordered.”
“Nice. Makes sense, you don’t look like the dining in kind.”
“Yeah, I don’t like to eat alone in public, you know?”
“Oh, I get you.”
“Yeah…”
“Well, if you want to come up to my hotel room and eat there, I’m just two blocks away on twentieth. Here’s my card.”
“Oh, thank you. I’m alright but I’ll text you if I change my mind. Thank you.”
“Yeah, text me. I’m in town for the rest of the week. Let me know.”
“Alright, have a nice one.”
He leaves and after a moment I wonder where he could have been from. Texas? Georgia? No trace of an accent but an unmistakable southern hospitality. I look at the bartender and he smiles back mischievously. I smile and squint at him, confused.
“What?”
“Buddy just got cruised.”
“What?”
“You got cruised.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.”
“Clearly.”
He taps away at the digital register in front of him with a grin on his face. I eye the wall of liquor one more time.
“Hey, can I get a double whiskey on the rocks?”
“You got it.”