A Million Little Pieces - James Frey [158]
We separate and my Mother steps toward me. Her eyes are tearing again I used to hate her crying I don’t now. She feels and she cries. It is to be admired. She puts her arms around me I put mine around her. We hug each other she holds me like I am her Baby. I am not anymore, but I still am.
We hug each other and I fight the Fury. It cannot beat me or control me right now. My Mother hugs me in a way that lets me know I am forgiven and that she wants me to live and be happy. I hug her in a way that lets her know I am trying to be different and I am trying to be stronger than my rage. We are trying to forgive.
We separate and she looks at me and she tries to speak, but she can’t. My Father opens the door of the Car and she steps toward it and she sits down on the black leather seat. She is crying and she is smiling. She raises a hand to say good-bye. I raise mine.
My Father, who is standing next to the door, looks at me and speaks.
Keep up the good work.
I will.
He climbs into the car next to my Mother and he shuts the door. The Car pulls away down the wooded drive that leads in and out of the Clinic. I can’t see through the darkened windows, but I know my Parents are watching me and I stand and I watch them. We are a Family saying good-bye. For now good-bye.
When the Car is gone from view and my Parents away, I turn and I go back into the Clinic. It is time for lunch, so I walk to the Dining Hall. I get a tray and a plate of French-bread pizza and a glass of red fruit punch and I see my friends in one of the corners. I sit down with them.
They are talking about fighting. My fight this morning and the Heavyweight Championship, which is a few nights from now. They ask me what happened this morning I tell them it was not really a fight it was more of a discussion that got heated. Leonard laughs. They ask me what the man said to me and I tell them I don’t want to talk to about it. They ask me if I am going to go after him again and I tell them that I hope that the entire situation goes away.
We talk about the real fight. Leonard and Matty know the most about it, so they do most of the talking. Matty likes the smaller of the Heavyweights, who is still a very large man, Leonard likes the bigger Heavyweight, who is massive. The men have fought twice previously, with each of them winning one of the fights, and they don’t like each or respect each other, and each have promised a knockout this time. We want to see the fight. All of us want to see it. We want to see it because we like sports and we like boxing, because all of the newspapers and television sports shows have been running stories about it, because it will be something to talk about after it is over, and mostly we want to see it because it would allow us, if only for a couple of hours, to feel normal.
In here, anything resembling normalcy is coveted. The phone is always busy because men want to be in contact with the normal outside world. Letters are eagerly awaited and opened because they are physical contact with it. Television is watched and newspapers are read obsessively because they give us glimpses, magazines are thumbed until the pages fall apart. Our Jobs here, as stupid and menial as they may be, allow us to pretend that we are, if even for just a few minutes a day, just like other people. That is why the Jobs get done. Not because we are told to do them, for most of us have spent our lives doing everything but that which we have been told to do, but because the Jobs make us feel normal. Normal people have Jobs. For a few minutes a day, we get to pretend.
All of us started out normal. All of us started out as functioning human beings with the potential to do almost anything we wanted, but somewhere along the paths of our lives, we got lost. Though we are here at this Clinic trying to find our way back, we all know that most of us will never get there. Things like the fight allow us to dream, and take us away from here, and