“My first thought was, he lied in every word.”
—ROBERT “SUNDANCE” BROWNING
The gunslinger is the truth.
Roland is the truth.
The Prisoner is the truth.
The Lady of Shadows is the truth.
The Prisoner and the Lady are married. That is the truth. The way station is the truth.
The Speaking Demon is the truth.
We went under the mountains and that is the truth. There were monsters under the mountain. That is the truth. One of them had an Amoco gas pump between his legs and was pretending it was his penis. That is the truth. Roland let me die. That is the truth.
I still love him.
That is the truth.
“And it is so very important that you all read The Lord of the Flies,” Ms. Avery was saying in her clear but somehow pale voice. “And when you do, you must ask yourselves certain questions. A good novel is often like a series of riddles within riddles, and this is a very good novel—one of the best written in the second half of the twentieth century. So ask yourselves first what the symbolic significance of the conch shell might be. Second—” Far away. Far, far away. Jake turned to the second page of his Final Essay with a trembling hand, leaving a dark smear of sweat on the first page. When is a door not a door? When it’s a jar, and that is the truth. Blaine is the truth.
Blaine is the truth.
What has four wheels and flies? A garbage truck, and that is the truth. Blaine is the truth.
You have to watch Blaine all the time, Blaine is a pain, and that is the truth. I’m pretty sure that Blaine is dangerous, and that is the truth. What is black and white and red all over? A blushing zebra, and that is the truth.
Blaine is the truth.
I want to go back and that is the truth. I have to go back and that is the truth. I’ll go crazy if I don’t go back and that is the truth. I can’t go home again unless I find a stone a rose a door and that is the truth. Choo-choo, and that is the truth.
Choo-choo. Choo-choo.
Choo-choo. Choo-choo. Choo-choo.
Choo-choo. Choo-choo. Choo-choo. Choo-choo. I am afraid. That is the truth.
Choo-choo.
Jake looked up slowly. His heart was beating so hard that he saw a bright light like the afterimage of a flashbulb dancing in front of his eyes, a light that pulsed in and out with each titanic thud of his heart. He saw Ms. Avery handing his Final Essay to his mother and father. Mr. Bissette was standing (reside Ms. Avery, looking grave. He heard Ms. Avery say in her clear, pale voice: Your son is seriously ill. If you need proof, just look at this Final Essay.
John hasn’t been himself for the last three weeks or so, Mr. Bissette added. He seems frightened some of the time and dazed all of the time . . . not quite there, if you see what I mean. Je pense que John est fou . . . comprenez-vous? Ms. Avery again: Do you perhaps keep certain mood-altering pre-scription drugs in the house where John might have access to them? Jake didn’t know about mood-altering drugs, but he knew his father kept several grams of cocaine in the bottom drawer of his study desk. His father would undoubtedly think he had been into it.
“Now let me say a word about Catch-22,” Ms. Avery said from the front of the room. “This is a very challenging book for sixth- and seventh-grade students, but you will nonetheless find it entirely enchanting, if you open your minds to its special charm. You may think of this novel, if you like, as a comedy of the surreal.”
I don’t need to read something like that, Jake thought. I’m living something like that, and it’s no comedy.
He turned over to the last page of his Final Essay. There were no words on it. Instead he had pasted another picture to the paper. It was a photograph of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He had used a crayon to scribble it black. The dark, waxy lines looped and swooped in lunatic coils. He could remember doing none of this.
Absolutely none of it.
Now he heard his father saying to Mr. Bissette: Fou. Yes, he’s defi-nitely fou. A kid who’d f**k up his chance at a school like Piper HAS to be fou, wouldn’t you say? Well . . . I can handle this. Handling things is my job. Sunnyvale’s the answer. He needs to spend some time in Sunnyvale, making baskets and getting his shit back together. Don’t you worry about our kid, folks; he can run . . . but he can’t hide.
Would they actually send him away to the nuthatch if it started to seem that his elevator no longer went all the way to the top floor? Jake thought the answer to that was a big you bet. No way his father was going to put up with a loony around the house. The name of the place they put him in might not be Sunnyvale, but there would be bars on the windows and there would be young men in white coats and crepe-soled shoes prowling the halls. The young men would have big muscles and watchful eyes and access to hypodermic needles full of artificial sleep.
They’ll tell everybody I went away, Jake thought. The arguing voices in his head were temporarily stilled by a rising tide of panic. They’ll say I’m spending the year with my aunt and uncle in Modesto … or in Sweden as an exchange student … or repairing satellites in outer space. My mother won’t like it. . . she’ll cry . . . but she’ll go along. She has her boyfriends, and besides, she always goes along with what he decides. She . . . they . . . me . . . He felt a shriek welling up his throat and pressed his lips tightly together to hold it in. He looked down again at the wild black scribbles snarled across the photograph of the Leaning Tower and thought: / have to get out of here. I have to get out right now.
He raised his hand.
“Yes, John, what is it?” Ms. Avery was looking at him with the expression of mild exasperation she reserved for students who interrupted her in mid-lecture. “I’d like to step out for a moment, if I may,” Jake said. This was another example of Piper-speak. Piper students did not ever have to “take a leak” or “tap a kidney” or, God forbid, “drop a load.” The unspoken assumption was that Piper students were too perfect to create waste byproducts in their tastefully silent glides through life. Once in a while someone requested permission to “step out for a moment,” and that was all. Ms. Avery sighed. “Must you, John?”