Crying

        They tell him not to cry. It is very hard to hold it back. But he tries. They ask him why. But he cannot say without crying. So they resort to speculation. Is it because Charlie (his dog) died? No. Or at least he convinced himself so. Is it because his parents divorced? No, or at least not anymore. That was ten years ago. He says that he moved on from that a long time ago. Is it because May (his mother) died? Again, not anymore. He has no more tears for her.

        So why cry, then? Does his father beat him? Does he have friends? The questions keep coming.

        I was walking down the street, gazing at the successive mailboxes I passed by. A milky white one, of a generic construct, with the rounded top. A murky green one, matching the paint of the rest of the house as well as the fence. I hate that color. I passed many more mailboxes, perhaps twelve or thirteen, before arriving at mine. It is black, with cobwebs on its corners, shaped like a miniature house. I opened it. There were three, four, five, six items. Most of them were ads, which I promptly threw out as I went through the main door. It is quiet.

        I was at my room, sifting through the pages of an old magazine. When I got bored, I set everything down, and I listened. It is quiet.

        I met Greg at the library the next day, in the nonfiction area, the aisle for books on history and politics. I saw him picking out, from the shelf, I believe the third one up, around eye-level, a thick hardcover book colored red with white block letters splattered over it. I, standing some three feet away, leaned in his direction, curious about his book choice. It’s a book about President Lyndon B. Johnson. You know, Great Society and all, Vietnam War crap. I nodded, silently, and my smile left me. I have to go. Now. And I hurried out the library, ran down a few blocks, until I was out of breath, gasping, stomach cramping.

        Is it because his grades are bad? Does he get bullied at school? They looked at me strangely. They can’t decipher his eyes. They can’t understand his words. They can’t read his face. They don’t know him.

        I was sitting in the third row in math class. The teacher was doing a problem on the board, but I wasn’t listening. I should have, because I have a C-, but I didn’t. The guy behind was annoying me. He was whispering, or rather chatting quietly and annoyingly, to another boy next to him. I don’t know why I cared so much, I wasn’t paying attention to the teacher anyways. I wanted to be able to think. I wanted him to shut up. I reached into my backpack, and took out a scissor. I felt the cold blade, gripped it firmly. Then I reached over and stabbed him in the arm.

        He needs help, they say. He — he can’t keep on doing this. There has to be something we can do, they say. But the medications don’t help; neither does the therapy, or the continued efforts of the exhausted adults. He just sits there, and keeps on doing—

 

        I was pressing the same button on my computer over and over again. Nothing was happening. I pressed it some more. Still nothing. I left my computer and got a glass of water and came back, sat down, and took a sip. I stared at the redundant screen. Won’t budge. I kept pressing, and waited, and pressed again, with more force and vigor and annoyance. I swore at the screen, and it responded with a flicker, but nothing more. So I pressed the button a thousand more times and screamed at the mundane screen a thousand times simultaneously. Meanwhile, I remembered a quote: “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”

They bring him to a room, lined with industrial lighting and void of any decoration. They make him sit down on a cold metal chair. Everything is cold — the air, the floor, the gazes.

I was eating ice cream, vanilla flavored, when it happened. It happened very quickly, very suddenly. It jarred me; I dropped my ice cream and screamed. I think I was flailing my arms when someone grabbed my wrist and told me, sternly, to stop. It took a long time before I realized it was all in my head.

        He fills out a questionnaire in front of discerning men with glasses and clipboards. He cooperates, going through the questions thoroughly until he gets to one that asks “What causes your frequent crying?”. He looks up, sets down the sheet of paper and the pen, turns the paper towards the clinician, and points at the question. “Why?”, he asks...

   I was looking at them and their inquisitive looks, thinking about that question. They were anticipating, and I was thinking. I realized I had no answer. I sat there for a while in silence, my eyes drifting between my hands and their faces. At last, I decided. But not consciously. Perhaps it was somewhere in my guts that drove it out of me, some unconscious impulse: I laughed. I laughed until my stomach hurt, my throat dried, a hearty laugh that made the windows shake a little and made them uncomfortable in their chairs. I laughed louder, tears streaming down, my eyes red, looking at their pale faces, blank stares, and they were prepared to stand up and restrain me. I continued laughing, pounding my fists on the armrests, and in between bursts I managed: “There’s no reason! There’s no goddamn reason — why the hell — you hypocrites!” I laughed until they threw me in, when they took out their nightsticks and beat me until I was bleeding and bruised and it hurt to breathe.