Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs 1: The Never Hero (8 page)

He didn’t know how long he’d been in bed sometimes. He lost track as days and nights ran together. He took the sedatives the doctors prescribed. He knew he was abusing them, but he didn’t want to be awake. Being awake meant remembering, feeling. He didn’t want to see the syringe again, he didn’t want to remember crawling through that puddle. He didn’t want to let himself relive his powerlessness in the hallway.

His friends didn’t lecture him for it, they had understood.

“You hurt an ankle, you take some pain killers and stay off it, and you don’t jump straight into physical rehab. Who am I to say the same might not be true for an injured mind,” Collin had said.

He’d been talking to Paige, whispering in her room down the hall. They didn’t know Jonathan had heard. They’d started to take for granted that he was asleep. It didn’t matter, he wasn’t offended.

An injured mind,
he’d thought; it sounds as apt as any way he could have put it.

At times, when he couldn’t will himself to stay in bed, he came down and sat on the couch. They’d talk to him, try to make him smile, but he seldom did. Usually he was only half paying attention to the minutia of their conversations as he was too caught up in his own head. The energy needed to listen was too great and quickly wore him out.

Once, he picked up his school books like he was thinking of doing some homework. He lost his drive before he’d even gotten the bag open. The University had given him a special dispensation; he wasn’t expected to attend classes. He felt that he wanted to care, wanted it to be more difficult to cast off all the work he’d put in that quarter, yet he couldn’t. Wanting to care simply didn’t make it real.

They had tried once or twice to see if he’d talk about the attack, but he’d just shake his head. It only drained him. Sifting through what he remembered, trying to find the pieces he felt he could trust to be real. It was like trying to fix current reality with memories that had to be broken.

One morning, sleep evading him, he stood at his bedroom window locking and unlocking the latch, wondering if this was how the man had entered into his room.

Did I ever lock this window? Had I ever checked?
he wondered.

As he stood there, unable to remember, he noticed a moving truck in the driveway next door. Curious, he watched to see if he could get a glimpse of the new neighbors. The house had been vacant almost as long as Jonathan had lived next door.

All he saw were two large men in gray jump suits, hired movers. Whoever had rented the place must have been well off if they could afford to hire professionals. He watched for a while, trying to get an idea of the new occupants from the furniture he saw. The only telling item was a bed frame that looked like a race car. Must be a family with a child, he thought. When the movers ran out of furniture and only had boxes left to haul he lost interest.

Absent a distraction, the memories he didn’t want returned. He took some pills, made sure the window was locked, and pulled the shade down to block out any light that might threaten to wake him.

Something strange was happening in all their down time. If Hayden was being honest with himself, he and Collin might have been home anyway, but a week and a half of feeling trapped at home was suddenly making them productive.

He was holding open a copy of the New Testament he hadn’t read since catholic school, and it had become an unmanageable cluster of rainbow sticky notes. At first it was just a distraction, a way to pass the time as they played bodyguard for Jonathan. They’d picked up their conversation about writing a graphic novel Bible reboot and soon forgotten they weren’t supposed to leave. Hours flew by unnoticed while they brainstormed.

Occasionally Jonathan would walk through the middle of one of these sessions when he was hungry enough to bother eating. In one instance Collin had actually started drafting some of the comic book panels.

“So when Mary gets impregnated, should we draw an angelic sperm flying into her uterus, you know with a halo and everything, or just a magic embryo?” Hayden asked.

“Well, which one do you find more offensive?” Collin asked.

“Halo Sperm,” Hayden replied. “Oh! and give it a cape!”

Apparently since he was the resident Christian it was his job to gauge what would be considered more controversial in the retelling. They tried to be more boisterous about it when Jonathan was around, hoping they might pull a smile out of him.

“What should be Jesus’s Kryptonite?” Hayden asked once while Jonathan sleepwalked through the living room.

Lost in thought, Collin looked up at the ceiling for inspiration.

“Radioactive pieces of heaven? Heavon-ite?” Hayden asked.

“No, Heaven didn’t blow up like Krypton,” Collin said. “How about science?”

“Too obvious,” Hayden said.

“Doubt-inite?” Collin said, cringing at the sound of his own suggestion.

“No,” Hayden said. “Hell no, jeez.”

“Wait, okay, the name sucks, but if Superman gets his powers from the sun, then Jesus must get his from faith.”

“Okay,” Hayden replied. “I guess it’s an angle.”

“Well, think about it; a God without faith is just a superhero anyway,” Collin said.

Hayden’s eyes narrowed, “What are you implying, Ass Hat, that without faith the New Testament is a comic book?”

“If it’s any conciliation,” Collin smiled, “it would be a seriously boring one.”

Hayden mocked a frown. “If it’s any conciliation, why don’t you go punch yourself in the dick.”

Jonathan would just walk out of the room, like he hadn’t heard a word of it, no reaction at all.

He woke suddenly. In the darkness, he looked for the clock to see it was six at night.

He’d been dreaming, but could only remember fragments. His father had been there again, speaking to him, but it wasn’t clear. Jonathan felt so ashamed, but wasn’t sure why.

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too.

They weren’t his father’s words; it was a line from a poem Douglas had read to him as a child, the same poem that Jonathan’s grandfather had read to Douglas as a child. It was all he could remember of the dream. It was enough.

Just get your feet on the floor
, Douglas used to say to him, when he woke Jonathan for school and he was struggling to fight off the urge to go back to sleep.

He rose in his bed, forcing his feet to touch the wood floor. He looked to the cigar box on his desk, and he knew where the shame came from, even if he couldn’t remember the details.

His father had been a big man, strong. He wasn’t the type to have a vague poem framed in his office, not something left up to interpretation of the reader. His father would never have hidden like this, wouldn’t have drugged himself into a coma just to flee his own mind. If his dad were here beside him now, Jonathan would not have let himself do whatever it was he was doing to himself.

With the thought of his father there watching him, he couldn’t bring himself to take another pill. He looked at the bottle for a moment, deliberating on it, and then thrust them into the pocket of his robe. He forced himself out of the bed and down the stairs.

They were gathered on the living room couch waiting for him. Collin and Hayden said nothing, but Paige walked across the floor to him, put her hand on his shoulder, and leaned in close to his ear.

“Jonathan, I think it might be time you took a shower,” she whispered, “and maybe changed out of the robe and pajamas. At least wash them.”

Jonathan hadn’t had the honest inclination to bathe for days. He realized she must be right, that he must smell terrible by now. A look over Paige’s shoulder to Collin and Hayden was met with nodding.

“Um,” he replied, “right, probably a good idea.”

He headed back up the stairs to shed the clothes. He started the water and stayed there longer than he’d planned. The shower was a small walk-in. Tiled with a glass door, it was a tiny chamber. It reminded him of the MRI, the cocoon, the safety of the small spaces he kept trying to hide in. He sat on the floor and let the water run over him. He lost track of time listening to the sound of the running faucet, the trickling of the drain below him.

The water washed away the buildup of human grime. It poured over him, waking the nerve endings that had been numb and unfeeling; the hot steam helping to leach away the prescriptions built up in his system.

He remembered what his mother had said when his father had died. Her words seemed as apt now as they had then.

For now you’ll just have to redefine what you consider normal
, he thought.

He had to find a new measuring stick, a new normal; hiding in bed while his roommates stood guard on the house had to end.

Tomorrow,
he thought.
At least leave the house. Try.

When he finally turned off the water, he stood in front of the mirror. He was halfway to having a beard as thick as Hayden’s. So he shaved. By the time he was done with that, it was just a little more effort to brush his teeth and comb his hair. He realized he hadn’t worn any of his real clothes since the episode. The hospital had given him scrubs and he had tossed those for his pajamas and a bathrobe upon arriving home. Jeans and a t-shirt actually felt pretty good, sturdier somehow.

He went back down and joined his roommates who, obviously planned, gave him a standing ovation. He pretended to smile, at least it was a start, then handed Paige the pills he’d been prescribed.

“I’ll try not to ask for them,” he said. “Can’t guarantee anything.”

She nodded.

“If you really want them,” she said. “I’ll understand.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

MONDAY | JUNE 27, 2005 | 9:15 AM

JONATHAN
pulled himself out of bed. He hadn’t slept well. His body had lost all sense of rhythm and he couldn’t tell the difference between night and day without looking out a window.

The new normal,
he remembered.

He decided to go for a jog. It was exercise, it would force him outside, and he knew he needed it. He put on shorts and a ratty t-shirt, pulled his sneakers out of his closet and got them laced on. He looked back at his bed longingly, fighting the urge return to it.

His eyes wandered to the cigar box on his desk, and like a ghost watching him, his father stood between him and the bed. Douglas shook his head, as if to say,
you can’t allow yourself to crumble this easily.
He turned away, making his way downstairs, surprised by how powerful the thought of failing that ghost had been.

It was clear his friends approved. Paige and Collin were both packing their bags, heading out the door to get to class. Hayden said he would be home for the next few hours, finishing some assigned reading he needed to write a paper on. Jonathan hadn’t had to ask, Hayden had volunteered the information. He could see they understood. He was trying to ease himself into being alone again, even if at first alone only meant out in a populated area during broad daylight with no one he knew personally. It wasn’t as though he thought he might be assailed in his driveway.

He was surprised after a few blocks, he was able to run longer than he’d expected. After hardly moving for two weeks he expected to be easily winded. It didn’t seem to be the case; too much pent up energy he supposed. It was morning and other joggers passed him, people with dogs and baby strollers, the city alive with the comings and goings of everyday humanity. It was surreal to Jonathan; the degree with which his internal world could change so drastically and the external world couldn’t know or care. Life went on no matter what happened to any one person.