I'm Sorry You Feel That Way Read online

  Mitchell is now thirty-one years old, the director of a cardiac research lab, professionally successful, as was his destiny.

  His personal life, though, in my opinion, needs work. He wants to become a father. Mitchell wants to impress his future grandchildren with his three-foot-tall jar full of quarters. But first he needs to meet a woman. He worries that if he doesn’t find her, fall in love, marry, and impregnate her immediately, he’ll be too old to coach his kid’s soccer team.

  Part of the problem is, Mitchell doesn’t have much to say. This makes dating difficult.

  My brother and I sometimes go for months without talking. We’ve gone for as long as a year without talking, not because either of us is angry with the other—repressed, unresolved childhood pain and angst aside—but because Mitchell doesn’t talk. He’s not chatty, not verbose, his is not a bubbly, loquacious personality. He once told me he has days where the only person he speaks to is the kid at the drive-thru window. Do you want fries with that? the kid says, and my brother tells him yes.

  The last time I talked to Mitchell, it was his birthday, and our conversation went like this:

  “Happy birthday, you little turd!”

  “Thanks.”

  Silence.

  “Are you still there?”

  “I’m here.”

  Silence.

  “Do you remember that time at the carnival when you puked on people?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was hilarious!”

  Nothing.

  “Does your breath still smell like egg salad and feet?”

  Silence.

  “Do you still commit filthy and unnatural acts with barnyard animals?”

  Nothing.

  “I got an e-mail from this guy named Fabius Heishman. He’s a representative for a pharmaceutical company. He’s selling a penile enhancement product that’s guaranteed. I figured you might be interested, so I forwarded it to you.”

  Nothing.

  “Have you hung up yet?”

  “I’m here.”

  Silence.

  “Remember that time you got hit by a car?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was hilarious!”

  Nothing.

  “Don’t hang up.”

  “I won’t.”

  We spent several more minutes in silence, and then I asked my brother did he want to hang up. He said only if you do, and I said no, I didn’t want to hang up. I wanted to keep talking because even though talking to Mitchell isn’t really talking, it still counts for something. We’re on the same phone line at the same moment in time, we’re connected.

  While listening to my brother’s breathing, I thought about two specific moments from our childhood. In one, I’m six years old and Mitchell is three. He’s running, and just as he’s about to pass me, I stick out my foot, and he’s kissing the carpet and I think that’s hilarious even when I’m standing with my nose in the corner, punishment for tripping my little brother, and haven’t I been told?

  In the other, I’m sitting on the floor on top of the register; Mitchell is sitting on my lap. We have a blanket over our heads. Whenever the furnace kicks on, hot air billows out the blanket like a parachute. I’m reading my brother a book called Panda Cake. “Sit still,” I tell him, “and pay attention. Or I’ll kick you out of my school.”

  I read him the story about the panda siblings whose mother gives them money to buy ingredients for her famous panda cake, but they squander it somehow, though I don’t remember how, at the racetrack maybe, and it’s probably the older one’s idea. If they go home to their mother empty-handed, there will be hell to pay. Undoubtedly, it’s the younger one who finds a way to resolve this problem, probably through his charm, good looks, ingenuity, and intelligence. I wanted to ask Mitchell if he remembered Panda Cake, but I was afraid to because if he didn’t, I’d feel terrible. I must have read him that book at least ninety-seven times.

  In my memory, I just finished reading it to him. “Now it’s your turn to read,” I tell him, bossy-like, and though he opens to the middle, he recites the story from the beginning, and though our mother pooh-poohs my accomplishment, saying Mitchell just has it memorized, I’m pretty sure I taught the boy to read.

  “Good job, Mitchell!” I tell him, like he’s a puppy I’ve just house-broken. “Good boy!” Then for no reason at all, I give him a hard shove and tell him he stinks, go away. I will always believe if this kid is smart, he’s smart because of me. I will always be a little jealous of him, and I will always feel in charge of him, and when I grow up, a lot of guys I’ll date are some girl’s little brother. I’ll find myself trying to bully these guys, wanting to put my foot on their throats or karate-chop them across the back. “Did you just head butt me?” one of them will say. I’ll find myself trying to baby these guys, wanting to help them with their Christmas shopping, their tax returns, their home decorating.

  And when my son is born, all I can see is my brother Mitchell. Those two look a lot alike. Oh, those long eyelashes wasted on a boy. Oh, that sweet smile and those pink cheeks, and what a dreamy, starry-eyed boy. Sometimes, my son is just standing there, he’s gazing at the heavens, he’s studying the stars, there’s a beam of sunshine casting its golden light on him and him alone, and a chorus of angels sings a single holy note, and even though the boy is minding his own business, he’s thinking his own thoughts, when I look at him and see my brother, I am almost overwhelmed by the urge to reach out and give that kid a hard shove. I don’t, of course, but the impulse is still there.

  Humping the Dinosaur

  He was a red puppy with a blob of white at the tip of his tail, as if he planned to paint a portrait with ranch dressing. He had white freckles on his paws and on his chin. He had a black spot on his cheek, like a lady’s beauty mark. His ears were pointy, his snout was long, his nose a good stretch from his face. He was cute, white-tipped with fuzz, pink-tongued, and he had that warm and fleeting puppy smell. He was so tiny, and he seemed so sweet and helpless and dear. I saw him in the window at the pet store, a border collie-German shepherd mix, eighty bucks, shots included. On impulse, I brought him home. I thought a pet would distract me from my problems, but instead the puppy behaved in ways that reminded me of them.

  The puppy seemed neurotic. Antisocial. He seemed obsessive-compulsive. He was always scratching at himself and snarling at the other puppies in obedience school. He growled at small children. He prodded his nose toward human female crotches. He lunged at bearded men who were of above-average height.

  He could be a very smelly puppy.

  He reeked like something forgotten, something rotten, something feral and fecund and musky. Like rotting leaves and synthetic raccoon urine. The smell pulsated off of him when he was growling or barking or showing his teeth. He smelled bad a lot.

  The puppy snarled at people on bicycles and rollerbladers and skateboarders. He didn’t much care for pregnant ladies, either, like the one who strolled past our house daily. She crossed the street if she saw us on the front lawn: me trying to teach the puppy to Sit! Stay! Be nice! and the puppy emitting a menacing vibration from deep in his throat if he happened to see her and snapping at imaginary flies or clicking his teeth against his groin if he didn’t.

  I had to walk him at five in the morning so we could avoid running into other dogs. The puppy attacked other dogs. He’d fight fearlessly, though he never won, always going back for more, even after getting his ass kicked by a three-legged cocker spaniel.

  But when I think back to this time, what I remember the most is the puppy humping things.

  Even though I’d had him neutered, he was always humping something. The blue pillow from the couch, the couch cushions, the couch. The cloth yellow dinosaur with a voice box sewn in its belly that squealed I’m the baby! with each thrust. My sandal. A pile of laundry. My son’s leg.

  I’d hear the boy hollering for me from the living room—Mom! Mom!—and when I went to the living room, I’d find the boy with his hands
in the air like he was showing the cops he meant no harm. The puppy’s arms would be wrapped around the boy’s knees; the puppy would be partying his privates against the boy’s calf. Help! the boy would yip. Get him off of me! Help me! and I’d shout, You rotten little mutt! You mangy mongrel! You nasty little cur! You bad, bad puppy! I’d whack the puppy with a fly swatter until he let go. Or I’d use a rolled-up newspaper. Or the sandal he had recently made love to.

  My son was in fifth grade when I brought home the puppy. I wanted the two of them to love each other, but it was more like jealous sibling rivalry. Sometimes, the puppy ran into the boy’s room and snatched his socks or his favorite hooded sweatshirt or the really hard math homework the boy had just completed. Then the puppy ran under the dining room table to shred these things.

  Other times, the puppy ran into the boy’s room, jumped up on the boy’s bed, and rubbed his stinky, musk-scented doggie body all over the boy’s sheets. It would make the boy yell and stomp his feet and maybe even cry. I hate that dog! he said, while the puppy hid under the dining room table.

  I too, behaved in ways that suggested I had issues. Most of my issues aren’t that unusual among those of my race, class, gender, and level of education—white, middle, female, college—and these issues include low self-esteem, panic and anxiety attacks, unre-solved anger toward my mother, and general bitchiness.

  But my main issue was, and to some extent still is, a kind of eternal hiccup of the crowded mind. No tiny sips of water can cure it. No breathing in a paper bag can make it go away. It’s what happens when I zero in on a particular thought, how I can worry that thought until I am worn out.

  For example. If the cashier rings up my order, and it comes to six dollars and sixty-six cents, I will purchase a roll of Life Savers or I will put back the brick of Colby Jack, but either way, for the hours and days to come, I’ll worry about what it means that my groceries totaled up to that number. Is it a sign? If so, from whom? I don’t want to think about it.

  Then this will happen: Because that number has appeared to me in the grocery store, I’ll see it again on a license plate on the car ahead of me in traffic. It will turn out that the car just happens to be going where I’m going because they stay ahead of me for a really, really long time. This will make me nervous. The thought will occur to me that the car with that number license plate is leading the way. My heart will pound.

  Then that number will be part of somebody’s phone number, and it’s imperative that I make the call. Then I’ll see it on a billboard advertising sandwiches: each meatball sub is three dollars and thirty-three cents, and if you buy two, like I’d have to, well, there it is. That number will turn up when I’m playing poker, and somebody beats my pair of kings with triple sixes. A switch in my brain flicks on and off and on and off. A light in my head is flashing. A bell is ringing ding! ding! ding! I won’t want to think about it, but I can’t not think about it, then in the middle of the night, I will wake up to think about it some more.

  I’ll obsess about whether or not I turned the coffeepot off. The curling iron. The gas on the stove top. A voice in my head will say, You better go check! You’re gonna burn the house down! I’ll obsess about whether or not I locked the door. Are you sure you locked it? Are you positive? Better go check. There could be a rapist hiding in the basement already! I’ll obsess about if that thump I heard while driving was me running over someone: an old man with a walker, a little kid on a tricycle, a bum and his GOD BLESS sign. You better go check!

  I’ll obsess about how I smell too strongly of perfume, putrid perfume, an especially loud and stinky kind I received for Mother’s Day, and thus feel obligated to wear. You reek! the voice says. You are offending people! I’ll obsess about whether or not the shirt I’m wearing is too tight—You’re a slut!—and, upon deciding it is, I’ll obsess about my motives for buying a too-tight shirt—You’re a slut!—and how, maybe, in Lost and Found, there will be a sweater I can borrow. You’re a slutty slut slut, the voice says. And you smell like a whorehouse in France!

  And later, after I return the sweater to the cardboard Lost and Found box, I’ll think I feel itchy. Like on my arms. My shoulders. My neck.

  Fleas, I’ll think.

  Body lice.

  Cooties.

  The puppy did not have fleas. He had melty brown eyes the color of chocolate. He stared at me with them. He watched my every move. Sometimes, I’d glance up from the book I was reading or glance away from the movie I was watching to find the puppy staring at me, his eyes shiny and unblinking.

  When he fixed those eyes on me, I did his bidding. It was like he put a hex on me, he worked his mojo. I got up at five in the morning to take him for long walks. I brushed his coat. I brushed his teeth. I ate my dinner with the puppy’s head on my lap. I gave him the cheese I was about to put in my mouth and the cheese I was about to lay across my son’s sandwich. In bed, I didn’t dare shift my position because it might disturb him. I surrendered the softest pillow to his cause, and when I spread a blanket across the most comfortable chair, no one but the puppy sat on it ever again.

  When I poured kibble—lamb meal and rice, good-quality protein, no artificial fillers—he refused to eat it unless I thumped him on his haunches and said encouraging things. There, there! Aren’t you a special man? and Who’s a pretty baby doggie boy? Why, you are! Yes, you! and Eat your kibbles, honey! Yes, eat your kibbles! Only when the puppy’s confidence was up and he had been adequately praised would he eat. He’d eat, and I’d applaud—Hooray!—and he’d crunch his kibble and growl while wagging his tail.

  The puppy didn’t like to be left alone. He didn’t like to be ignored. There were days when it seemed like he could never get enough attention to satisfy his need for attention. The puppy would get depressed. He’d sigh. He’d stare at the wall or at his feet in an impassive way. He’d burp like a human burps. Or he’d shred something. He’d take a book, a sweater, a twenty-dollar bill under the dining room table, and he’d shred it.

  I understood him completely.

  It happens when I feel nervous or worried or anxious or angry or stressed. My thoughts get taller and heavier, stronger. They grow arms and legs. They get up, stretch, take a walk around. My thoughts bully me. The boy was saying he had a stomachache, they say, and his bathroom habits seem different. It’s Crohn’s disease. He’s going to die.

  They say, You were moving kind of stiffly after that Godfather Trilogy marathon, and ever since you started drinking coffee again, you’ve been feeling trembly. Hate to tell ya this, but it’s gotta be Parkinson’s.

  They say, That kid seems unusually tired for an eight-year-old, and his short-term memory is lousy. It is definitely chronic fatigue.

  They say, That weird brown spot on your toe? Cancer. Of the big toe. You’re going to die.

  I keep this noise in my head a secret from others. During the hours of my life away from home—when I’m at work, the grocery store, the bank, a party—there is no noise. I look and act and appear normal. I go about my day and take care of the tasks at hand. I smile. I nod. I wait my turn. I say Yes, please! and Why, thank you! and You have a great day, too! No one would ever know it to look at me that as soon as I’m alone I am busy busy busy in the head.

  Chasing thoughts will eventually tucker a girl out. It’s exhausting, and it always leads to crying. Crying because the girl thinks she’s crazy, wacko, a real nutcase. Because she thinks she’s alone. Because she forgot to turn on the Crock-Pot, she forgot to turn down the thermostat, she forgot to turn off the oven, so it stayed at 350 degrees all night long. She’ll cry because it’ll occur to her that nobody has ever loved her, nobody ever did, and nobody ever will. She’ll cry because when she hugged her beloved, he tolerated her embrace, then unhooked her to ask is there any Swiss cheese in the fridge. All she wants is something that will let her hug it for as long as she wants. But she doesn’t have that. So she’ll cry. She’ll also drink too much, smoke too much, eat too much, weigh too much, want too much. S
he’ll worry that she’s boring. She’s stupid. She’s needy. Instead of hiding under the dining room table to shred twenties, she’ll spend them. Instead of shredding sweaters, she’ll buy them. Instead of sleeping, she’ll spend the night on WebMD.com, researching rare diseases she’s certain will strike the people she loves. She’ll cry because there’s a gray hair at her temple and a weird brown spot on her big toe.

  She’ll also cry because, let’s face it, she’s a fucking mess.

  When I brought home a prescription for Xanax, the people who love me cheered. “Bitch-Be-Gone pills,” they said. Some of them told me to be careful because that stuff’s habit-forming, while others showed up at my door, hands outstretched, saying gimme, gimme, gimme. “It’s not like you had dental work done,” they said. “Then you’d have Vicodin. But Xanax is good. Xanax’ll do the trick. You wanna know what goes good with Xanax?” they said. “Bourbon.”

  Xanax does go good with bourbon, and also with Scotch. And vodka. Gin. Wine is okay, but whiskey is better. A couple Xanax, a couple shots of Maker’s Mark, a few hours on the computer playing Spider Solitaire: heaven. I can gobble up a one-month supply in about a week. I had to tell my doctor you cannot give me these ever again.

  I thought obedience school would do the puppy some good. I also thought the idea of it was cute. Tie a Harley-Davidson bandana around his neck. A wide orange and black Harley collar with a matching leash. A leather vest. The puppy was bad, but he was also badass.