The Book of Drugs_ A Memoir - Mike Doughty [3]
There were plaques on the steps of each house with movable letters telling the name of the officer within. Most of the nameplates said something like “LTC Matthew J. Jones,” or “MAJ Simmons and Family,” or sometimes “The MacDonald Family,” which to me seemed manic in its profession of familial unity. I had a friend named Luke, whose dad was Mexican and taught Spanish to the cadets, a civilian; this gave him a certain liminal status, an outsider’s authority. Luke and I would sneak out at night and change the movable letters in the nameplates around, so they said “Captain Shit” or “Fuck My Ass.” Military police cars, painted pale green, cruised by every few minutes. We dove into bushes and behind cars, breathing fast, eyes bulging with delight at the danger.
I went to summer camp. There was an ostracized kid in my cabin called Jumpin’ Josh MacIntosh. He wanted to be a comedian, and he told weirdly pointless stories meant to be jokes: his sister’s bike hit a twig and she fell over the handlebars; one time he was walking to school and he was late; one time his cable TV went out. No punch lines. A cruel prank was started: whenever he told one, everybody in the cabin would burst out in fake laughter.
Jumpin’ Josh exulted.
The ruse spread. Even the first-graders were in on it. At the camp talent show, Jumpin’ Josh MacIntosh stood in front of the bonfire and told this joke:
I got detention, and I was sitting alone in class after school. Somebody had drawn football goals on the blackboard. A teacher came in and said, “Did you draw those football goals?” And I said, “No, I didn’t draw those football goals.” [In falsetto] “I think you did! I think you did! I think you did draw those football goals!”
A hundred kids broke out in fake hysterics. The camp director stood horrified. Jumpin’ Josh MacIntosh walked off, and we chanted, JUMPIN’ JOSH! JUMPIN’ JOSH! He came back and told another. The fake laughter doubled in intensity. The camp director walked up as Jumpin’ Josh started another, turned to us with a glare and said, “That’s enough!” He put his arm around Josh and said, “Let’s go; come on, Josh, let’s go.” Jumpin’ Josh MacIntosh burst into tears in front of the entire camp, struggling to pull away from the camp director, squawking, “But they want me!”
My parents expressed vicious grudges against each other openly, daily. We listened to them yowl at each other, and as years of shrieking fights passed, my terror that they’d divorce turned into Will you please, please just get divorced?
Much of the terror and the anger was focused on me. I was a fuckup for sure, but that’s not why. It was because the awfulness needed a place to go.
My mom screamed at me until I broke down in tears. My dad would pass by, get a beer from the fridge, glare at me, and then walk back to his TV. I made a couple of pitiable suicide attempts. I tied a guitar cable to a shower curtain rod and jumped off the side of the tub, bringing the shower curtain crashing down; I chugged a bottle of completely benign medication. Instead of taking me to the hospital, my dad made me stick my fingers down my throat to puke it up. He didn’t want to become the officer whose kid tried to kill himself.
He took me to a military shrink—all of our doctors were military, free to us because we were an army family—and loudly filled out my questionnaire at the nurse’s desk. “Drug use? No. Homosexual behavior? No.”
The military shrink told me my problem was that my parents were pushing my buttons.
I thought this was how it was