Beads of Courage
Naman flipped the blinds in his bedroom window, his beaded leather wristband jangling, and peeped outside for the first time in days, fluttering his bloodshot eyes against the bright light of the September day. He watched through long, stringy hair that hung down like a waterfall across his pimpled face as heavy graphite clouds rolled over the neighborhood, a violent downpour drenching the trees, the flowers, the lake and nearby bench, and the rooftops of nearby houses. He felt the encroaching darkness envelope the world like a maw. Yet his neighbors outside sported sunglasses, shorts and tee shirts, jogged or walked along the shoreline, played, fished, mowed their lawns, and gardened without concern, a community of fit, tan people drinking in the warmth and glory of a late summer afternoon. He heard angry thunder roll in the distance as a light breeze followed youngsters on their bicycles cruising with delight, their shadows alive in the tilting sun. He turned away and recognized a ripe odor that he understood was himself, unbathed for some time he suddenly realized, his clothes dull and mildewed. He plopped onto a mattress on the floor. He couldn’t quite remember what had happened to his bed frame, the head and foot boards. Had he smashed them during one of his episodes? Why were there Sharpie doodles on the wall, ripped-up papers on the floor, assorted wrappers overflowing the waste basket and piled on the floor like a landfill? What time was it? What day was it? Why was he so thirsty? He’d lost his television privileges, his Switch, PS3, the Wii and MacBook, been grounded, forfeited his car keys, and ditched by his girlfriend Ivy. As such, there was no point to anything, really. So, he sat ad infinitum on the mattress, thoughts alternating between racing and empty, angry and numb, stewing and disconnected, and guzzled another Monster energy drink.
Suddenly, his stepmother pounded on his bedroom door and spewed words he thought sounded like venom: “Naman, honey, please come to dinner. I’m so worried you’re not eating.” When she received no reply Naman heard her turn and cry, in his mind like a scold, “I don’t know what to do to help him.”
His father, the Regent of Rules, Mr. Have Some Dignity, the Little Dictator, then banged on the door like a vice cop, “Naman, buddy, open up. Are you okay? We need to see that you’re okay. You can’t stay in your room forever, it’s not healthy. Please talk to me.”
Naman knew the drill, the routine. He would open the door and be interrogated like a criminal. “Why are you failing all of your classes? Have you been cutting yourself again? Are you taking your medication?”
He ignored his parents’ pleas, pressed his buds into each ear, and tapped his phone to bring up something mellow, meaningless, vacant, something that would evaporate their annoying voices. But the sensation didn’t diminish, the feeling his bones might break through his skin, as if an alien was attempting to punch its way out of his gut. He rested his hand on his chest to track the wild, arhythmic flutter, the pounding, the thumping of a malfunctioning machine. Was he having a heart attack? Was he, maybe, okay with that in some sick, twisted way? He attempted to steady his breathing with a technique he’d learned in a yoga workshop at school during Mental Health Awareness Week. He fumbled for one of the translucent orange bottles on his nightstand, shook out another capsule, and chased it with a gulp of Monster. He waited for calmness to spread like warm honey, to ooze through his body. But nothing happened, so he downed another little white log of Xanax. He let himself be swallowed by the music as it ushered him out to sea, floating him in a cozy embrace of oblivion, undulating away from life. To augment this feeling of release he opened another bottle and ingested some round blue capsules, then some of the tiny pink pills that looked like candy. After a while he thought he heard a sound, another voice maybe, familiar yet distant. He opened his eyes and looked across the room. The two Ninja action figures atop his dresser seemed to wink at him like giant eyes. The third drawer opened like a magic trick and began to speak. He sat up and leaned next to a small indentation he had punched in the drywall and a poster of the Joker in all his Joquin Phoenix unhingedness. The voice seemed far off like an echo, certainly not his father or stepmother, who stood in the hallway like stooges vexing over their next move. He recognized the soft warble of the words floating from the dresser’s mouth but could not understand them, almost as if they uttered a foreign language, but he believed them to be his mother’s voice from beyond the grave. He remembered it from his childhood, the way she pronounced his name Nay-Man, unlike anyone else. He believed she was perhaps singing a lullaby, his favorite one, about a mockingbird. Incrementally, the song faded.
He woke slowly, like in a movie flashback, at first colorless, then sepia, then blurred. He lifted his head, which throbbed like a kettle drum, and surveyed the pale green walls, a trio of small, high-up, rectangular windows that almost touched the ceiling, and a small white dresser made of plastic, maybe, or rubber. Pure, unadulterated sunshine poured into the room filling it with promise and hope. He noticed a ceiling camera mounted in the corner nearest the door just as a nurse swept in. “Mornin’ my man!” a voice called out in a smooth baritone. The nurse was a tall man, built like a footballer with broad shoulders, a robust chest, and thick thighs barely constrained by his navy scrubs. His hair was military short, but he sported a ridiculous, untamed beard. His beefy left arm was engulfed in a sleeve tattoo woven with artistic swirls and tribal patterns, religious and Norse imagery. “I’m Clay. How do ya feel, dude?” He busied himself with a clipboard chart, positioned a paper cup of water on the nightstand, and stood, massive arms crossed, at the bedside and awaited Naman’s response.
“Where?”
“You’re at SCC, St. Cyril Center,” he anticipated the question. “Psych hold, duration unspecified. Settle in, pilgrim, you’re here with me for a while.”
“What happened?” Naman tried to formulate a coherent train of thought.
“All will be revealed. You know, we usually confiscate all jewelry,” Clay nodded at Naman’s left wrist, “but the only option for that was to cut if off, and that seemed mean and unnecessary.”
“Oh, that. Thanks.”
“I’m guessing it has sentimental value?”
“Not really.” Naman toyed with it, fondled the beads, twisted around the knotted leather string. “They gave it to me the first time I was in the hospital. After the voices started. I was ten. They’re called Beads of Courage. I got one every time they thought I did something brave. I have no idea why I’ve never taken it off.”
“I think that rocks!” Clay stood at the foot of the bed. “The doctor is anxious to see you, so let’s get you in some decent clothes, your parents have sent some sweats and slip-on tennies, and get you downstairs for some answers.”
Naman stood up slowly, unsteady as a new fawn, but then found his footing. Clay asked if he had any special requests for lunch, and, in fact, he realized he was hungry, an unfamiliar sensation of late. He requested Tylenol and egg rolls. Clay tossed the sweatpants and a tee shirt at Naman like a coach in a television commercial telling a new player to suit up. “I’ll wait right outside the door, which stays open, okay?”
As Naman shuffled down the empty, sterile hallway, he attempted to focus, to recollect what had happened to him, how he had come to be here, how much time had passed since he had last touched base with reality. Clay chatted away about sports and video games as if they were buddies walking the halls at school. After they had descended the stairs and passed through a waiting room, Clay sat Naman down in a chair next to a door and stood over him until the door opened and a voice called out, “Send him in, Clay. Thank you.”
Dr. Aramita surprised Naman. He was a wisp of a man who looked maybe twenty-five but was certainly much older than he appeared, his hair perfectly gelled, his pink button down accented by a sophisticated scarf. He wore crisp, creased jeans and canvas slip on shoes, rainbow socks, several bracelets, and a sports watch around his left wrist. He darted around the desk to greet Naman and the two sat on a pair of club chairs in the middle of the room. Naman braced himself for the inquisition, the plethora of questions, the judgy comments, the glib suggestions, maybe a self-help book or a pretty trifold with a chart for recording his thoughts, his fears, his hopes. He had seen this movie before. He had learned to meditate, envision a better life, journal, make lists, control his breathing. He had tried to play the game, follow the experts, channel his anxiety, his angst, his fury, his confusion. He had talked ad nauseum out his feelings of abandonment, distrust, inferiority, the overwhelming ideation that life was a shit show, a cruel joke, a meaningless wander through a desert. He had faced his sense of dread, isolation, nihilism, the belief that the world was closing in on him like a swarm of locusts and that he did not care to stick around to see how it ended. He was not suicidal, per se, not actively seeking to end his life, that all seemed so messy, so dramatic, but rather he was inclined to welcome death as it bore down on him like a drill.
“Call me Drew,” the doctor patted the arm of Naman’s chair. “Would you like some water?” he offered. Then he stared into Naman’s face, cocked his head just a tad, and asked, “Do you ever just want to hit somebody? Just punch someone, kick a guy in the balls, or strangle someone? You know, wrap your hands around their fucking neck and just squeeze with all your might? Of course, you can’t. That’s wrong. But wouldn’t it be a rush to do it, just once?” Naman couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This guy was psycho, he determined. How ironic. “I would punch my brother right in the nose. Break it if I could. Send his blood gushing. Listen to him cry out in pain. For all the times he tortured me when we were growing up. He was so cruel to me. Locked me in closets. Tried to drown me. Set me on fire once. Pushed me out of a goddammed moving car. Called me a fairy all the time.” Naman just stared at the doctor in disbelief. “Messed me up good.” Dr. Aramita paused, leaned forward, his hands on his knees. “Life can be a giant pile of shit, can’t it, Naman?”
“Yeah, the boy nodded.
“Well, I can’t fix that, okay? Nobody can. But I can help you navigate it. If you let me. If you trust me. I know I have to earn that trust and that takes time. This work takes time, sometimes years. But I promise you, I can help. My life was fucked up. Drugs, alcohol, sex, denial, self-loathing, you name it. I’ve been there. I’m not just some PhD. dickhead spewing psychobabble. I wanted to die. Thought about how to do it. Made plans. But I pulled through. I came out on the other side. You can too. We can do it together. What do you say?”
Naman pressed his hands in a tent and held them before his face, his leather bracelet sliding up his skinny wrist. He studied this graceful, willowy man, so confident yet so unafraid to be vulnerable. So candid. He looked genuine, honest. Naman took comfort from Dr. Aramita’s body language, the fact that he wore his sense of self like a tailored suit. The man’s eagerness, his energy was palpable. “Okay, I guess I can try,” Naman mumbled.
“Marvelous!” Dr. Aramita gushed. “This will take time. It will be rough sometimes, painful, uncomfortable. But let’s get started.”
Over the next few days, the two sorted and assembled, constructed and demolished together. Naman talked and cried, screamed and whispered, unspooling his story as best he could. He growled through gritted teeth, reflected with glassy eyes, sometimes lying on the floor, sometimes leaning against the wall on his haunches, sometimes gazing out of Dr. Aramita’s office window at the undulating green knolls, the line of white pine trees along the front of the property, the railroad tracks in the near distance, heavily trafficked State Highway 41 beyond that.
The next day Naman joined a group session. He sat silent as a mute, his hair in a man bun, his eyes visible for the first time since his arrival. That night he ate dinner, a cheeseburger, French fries, and a cookie. On Thursday Dr. Aramita adjusted Naman’s medication, which backfired and had to be recalculated. On Saturday, Naman spoke up in group for the first time. The leader, Jodi, thought she saw him sprout a smile as he glanced at Pheobe, a shy goth girl in her second tour at SCC. Jodi reported Naman and Pheobe had begun to sit together in the dining hall. His morning sessions with Dr. Aramita became the lynchpin of his days, of his life, this safe space where he truly could say anything and not be judged, where he could feel comfortable spouting off ridiculousness en route to helpful, productive progress. Often patient and doctor played chess. One day they held a wastebasket basketball tourney with wadded up pages from Naman’s records (or so Dr. Aramita claimed). They sometimes veered off into political discussions,, one day they focused on the Holocaust and modern-day antisemitism. They ruminated over the Kennedy assassination, which fascinated Naman for some reason as did Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster. They debated plot holes in superhero movies and discussed Catcher in the Rye, which Naman had found in the St. Cyril Library.
One day Dr. Aramita (Naman never once called him Drew) pointed at the leather bracelet, its twelve verily colored beads rolling around his wrist. “Tell me about the beads.” Naman explained their history. “They mean a lot to you?”
“No, I mean, I guess so. I’ve never taken it off, I don’t know why. I guess I just like it,” Namana stumbled around a coherent answer.
“Do the beads give you comfort?”
“I guess I do look at them or feel them when I’m stressed and they calm me down, take my mind off things. It’s kind of stupid, babyish.”
“Not at all. Whatever works. Symbols can be quite powerful in our lives. They connect the concrete to the abstract, short of like a lifeline when we can’t make the connections ourselves.” They sat in silence for several moments, then Dr. Aramita leaned forward to examine the leather strap more closely. “Our society often misunderstands courage. We associate it with physical strength, stoicism, bravado. But it dwells deep inside people. I think it manifests itself as much in what we don’t do as in what we do. How we control ourselves, refrain, avoid, overcome, stand our moral ground.” Naman leaned back and clasped his hands in contemplation. “I think you’re very brave.” Naman laughed nervously. “No, I mean it. You could just give up. Others do. But you’re here, doing the work, putting yourself out there, taking risks with your emotions, trusting me. That’s courage, my friend.” He rose, opened his mini-fridge, and handed Naman a contraband soda.
Then, with seamless genius, Dr. Aramita steered his patient into the darkness toward memories of his dead mother, of times she placed him in frightening and dangerous situations to satisfy her cravings, leaving him with strangers, allowing him to cook his own meals or swim in the neighbors’ pool all alone. He finally opened his mouth and let fall out the story about that last day, the day she took him to the local park, then left him, hopping on the back of a strange man’s motorcycle, cooing, “I’ll be back in a few minutes, sweetheart. You just play with the other kids. I’ll be back before you know it.” But, of course, she did not return and as afternoon morphed into evening and the sun began to set, he used his eight-year-old reasoning and followed along Memorial Parkway toward home. He still remembered vividly how the traffic zoomed past him with big whooshes of hot air, sometimes almost toppling him. He remembered crying but then convincing himself tears were useless. Finally, a patrol car stopped. He was scooped into the backseat and, eventually, his father claimed him. He remembered leaping into those strong arms and squeezing with his total might.
On Monday, Dr. Aramita invited Naman to sit at the big desk and write a letter to his mother. “Say everything you feel?” the doctor urged. “Tell her about your pain, your grief, your anger, your worry. All of it. Spare nothing. I’m right here if you need me.” Then the doctor opened a book and sat reading on the far sofa. When Naman had scrawled his final thought, when the maelstrom of emotions had wrung itself like a wet washcloth onto the paper, Dr. Aramita said, “Now, place it in this envelope and follow me.” They walked out of the office, down the hallway, into the reception area, and out the front door, the doctor swiping his badge to activate the always locked doors. Naman clasped the letter like a talisman. Dr. Aramita carried a small metal box that Naman thought looked like the cash boxes used at small-time events. They walked through the parking lot, past the pine tree grove, and toward the woods that buffered the hospital from a set of railroad tracks and the roaring Highway 41. At the edge of the woods, Dr. Aramita stopped before a small fire pit surrounded by stones, heaped ashes, black burn marks.
“I want you to burn the letter,” Dr. Aramita said.
“What? Why?”
“All these problems, these horrors, these unspeakable memories are no longer yours. You have discharged them into that letter. They are no longer your mysteries to solve, your demons to banish. Burning the letter will set you free.”
“I don’t think it’s that simple.”
“Sure, it is. We can make it so.” He pulled a lighter from the box and held it out. “Here, light it.” Naman thrust the letter forward, it ignited, and he dropped it into the firepit where, apparently, many other such letters had burned before. Naman wrestled with his feelings. Was he relieved, sad, confused? Did he, in fact, feel different in any way?
“Now,” Dr. Aramita instructed, “Let’s bury this nightmare for good.” He walked over to a nearby tree and grasped a rusty shovel he apparently housed there for this very purpose. “Go on,” he urged, and the youth began to dig a hole next to the tree and several small mounds of dirt where other nightmares had been entombed like something from a Poe story.
“Now, scoop the ashes into this box and bury it.” Naman was dubious. He hesitated, felt silly.
“I’m serious. Go on.”
Like a pirate stashing his booty, Naman covered over the secured letter, his strong words, his loving words, his brokenhearted sentiments, everything he wanted to say to his mother. And they were gone.
“Now, we start to rebuild your life,” Dr. Aramita put his arm on Naman’s shoulder, and they began to walk back to the building. “A whole new life. It starts today!”
That night Naman slept peacefully. He drifted off in a miasma of new sensations that might have included hope or a longing for the future. This might be, he considered, what wholeness feels like. He let himself contemplate graduation from high school, college even, maybe a career, someone to share his life with. The notion of having a life was somewhat foreign to him, but he enjoyed wondering about it as he drifted off in tranquility he had perhaps never felt before.
He woke the next morning to Clay’s booming voice. “Get up, you ruffian, early session with Aramita today!”
“Not ‘til ten,” Naman rose and stretched, anxious to begin the new day.
“Not today!’ Let’s go.”
Naman dressed, slid on his ridiculous stringless tennis shoes, and the two strolled down the institutionally drab hallway. “What about breakfast?” Naman wondered.
“I was told to have you at the doc’s office first thing. Don’t ask me, I just work here,” he chuckled.
Dr. Aramita’s office door was open, which was unusual, and he stood in the threshold, his face bordering on a scowl. “Come in, Naman,” he said, and the boy was startled by the figure of his father standing by the window.
“Hello, son.” Naman grew queasy, his knees gave a bit.
“What’s going on?” Naman wondered.
“You’re going home. Isn’t that great?” his father exclaimed but in a tone that betrayed his words, like when Naman was ten and his father tried to convince him a tonsillectomy wouldn’t be traumatic, that the post-op ice cream would make the experience an adventure.
Dr. Aramita sat behind his desk, something he never did during therapy sessions, looking like a deflated balloon. “I have always been honest with you, Naman, and I’m not going to start lying to you now. Your dad’s health insurance carrier has determined, for some reason I cannot comprehend, that you are better, and they have determined you can go home, back to your life.”
“You mean, you’re done with me? Just like that?” Naman was confused.
“Not at all. I mean, I don’t want to be. I fought this like hell, but I lost. But I’ve arranged for you to see a colleague who’s very good. As an outpatient. You’ll like him. Twice a week. I’m doing the best I can here,” the doctor seemed on the verge of breaking down.
“Look, Naman, nobody wants this. I know you and Dr. Aramita are making great progress, I can see it. I’ve never been more hopeful. But insurance will no longer cover your treatment here and I can’t begin to afford to pay for it myself. There’s nothing we can do.” He wrapped his hand around Naman’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
“Clay has collected your things and will escort you out of the building,” Dr. Aramita struggled to regain his professional poise and demeanor. “Please, keep moving forward, Naman, always forward. You’re done with the past. Only the future matters. Only the future will serve you now. Courage.”
They all shook hands like polite gentlemen, like upstanding members of a civilized society where people are healthy and strong and invincible and have no need of mental health treatments. Clay met them and walked with them to the front doors, chatting as always, painting a bright, cheery picture of the situation. He carried a large Ziplock baggy of medications and instructions and handed Naman’s dad a gym bag. He swiped his badge and turned to bid Naman farewell and good luck. But Naman ducked as if avoiding a thrown fist and turned to flee. Clay dropped the giant baggy and grabbed Naman’s wrist. The teen squirmed out of Clay’s hold. His leather bracelet snapped, the beads splattering to the ground as if shot from a BB gun. Naman dashed outside, sprinted through the parking lot, and cut through the pine tree hills and dales. “Oh, shit!” Clay mumbled as he gave chase. Naman’s father downed the gym bag and scrambled in pursuit. Naman sped toward the railroad tracks, his arms pumping, his legs wheeling, his long hair flagging behind him so that he looked like a doomed hero in Greek mythology, his lungs burning, his eyes stinging, his throat parched. He ran in the hope his skin would peel off, that his bones would drop to the ground, that his head would twist off like a lid, that his heart would explode. He ran until Highway 41 came into focus. And just kept running.
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