This Kid's not alright

[Roderic]

1996

"What brings you here today?"

"My mom brought me here in her car." I replied looking at the woman sitting across from me.

"No, I don't mean how did you get here. I mean why are you here?" I stare at her face, not sure what she means.

"I don't understand the question." I shrug, honestly.

"Well, your mother brought you here to talk to me. She said there are some things going on at home. Maybe you would rather talk to someone else, other than her. I won't tell her what we talk about. I can't. Legally." Now I understood her rationale.

"It was an accident." I began, not giving her much more than that as I slump down in the couch. She writes something down on paper not long after I move.

"An accident?" Her tone changes, slightly. It was as if what I said was the best thing she had heard all week. Or that she was proud of me. I can't tell, but she's interested.

"With the dog." I give her a little more than that, but that's all. I don't trust her. Why should I trust her? She could be lying. Adults do that. They lie all the time.

"She didn't mention that." More writing on the pad of paper before the woman continues. "She says your dad left a few months ago. How does that make you feel?" Her pen clicks and at first it doesn't bother me, or I hadn't paid it any mind, but when there was silence between us it stuck out like a shot from a gun.

"How am I supposed to feel? Statistics say that about 47 percent of marriages end in divorce." I reply with a shrug, not wanting to talk about it. She writes some more words down on her paper and I stop talking. I don't like her watching me and writing things down. I have feelings on it, but I don't want to talk about it. At least she knows I'm not stupid now.

"What's that?" I point to the paper.

"I keep notes. So that the next time we meet, I remember what we talk about." She smiles at me. It's warm and inviting, but I still don't trust her.

"Next time?" I echo. I didn't like the idea of coming back here.

"Why don't we talk about the accident? Would you rather talk about that since you brought it up?" She changes the subject and I shrug again.

"Like I said, it was an accident. I'm not used to the new house yet. I was coming up the stairs and the stupid thing got in my way. Mom said it fell and broke its neck. Didn't suffer." I watch her write more things down on the yellow paper, and I look around the room. She has pieces of paper all over the place. Degrees they're called. I think.

"How do you like the new home?" She asks me, her pen clicking again.

"I don't like it. But it's all mom can afford." I say, maybe a little too bitterly because she's writing on that paper and flipping the page to the next one.

"When you moved did you have to change schools?" She asks me and I'm sure she knows the answer to it.

"Well yeah. He still works there."

"Your dad?" She asked like she hadn't heard me.

"That's what I said." I reply, still looking around the room.

"I see." More writing on that paper. "We'll be meeting again next week Tuesday after school. Your mom already made the appointment. I want you to think about some things to talk about next week. What you did, maybe? New friends you made at school. Anything you want to talk about."

[Roderic]

"Want to tell me what happened?" I look at the woman that I had come to known for the last four months. Every week we would talk about things on my mom's dime. She thought it was important, so I tried to give it my all when I met with the therapist. I learned that was what she was on our second visit.

"I warned it not to come back." I cross my arms and sink in to the couch that had become a semi-permanent fixture in my life. "It was ruining the garden in the backyard. I threw a shoe at it last week and it ran off. Thought it got smart and wouldn't come back." I hate that pad of paper. It held her observations, but I too started observing the woman. The way she crossed her legs, any crease on her face as we talked, the type of clothes she wore, things like that. This woman helped shape me in more ways then she would ever realize.

"Why didn't you throw a shoe at it this time?" She asked, no tone of inflection in her voice. I shrug.

"I doubt it would learn anything. If it didn't the first time. It would get smarter and come back when no one was around. It would be as some of you doctor's like to say, ineffective." She clicked her pen and nodded.

"So what did you do?" That question brought out some tone in her voice. One of intrigue.

"I caught the rabbit and snapped its neck." I was casual about it. It was just a stupid vermin that no one would miss.

"How did it make you feel when you snapped its neck?"

I look at her like she was crazy.

"I didn't feel anything. I was tired of it eating our vegetables, so I taught it a lesson. I didn't know the rabbit, so why should I feel anything about it?"

"Well, you took the life of something. Most people would feel something. Maybe relieved? Maybe sad? Maybe not as frustrated anymore? It was getting in to your mom's garden." She didn't have to remind me, I know why I killed the damn thing.

"I just did what I had to do." I watch her write a good sized paragraph on the yellow paper and turn it to wait for more to write based off what I said.

"I see. And what about Macy?" She asked, leaning forward a little.

"The dog was an accident." I remind her.

"Didn't your dad buy that dog? For your mom for an anniversary present?"

"So?" My tone gets slightly defensive.

"Just curious is all." She shrugs, leans back and smiles at me. "I think that wraps up our session. Same time next week, same day."

[Roderic]

"He's been bugging me for a couple weeks now." I pull the paper towel off my lip and set it down on the couch.

"Did you report it to a teacher?"

"No. You and my mom wanted me to try and make friends. Snitches get stitches." I shrug and look away.

"Where did you hear that from before?" She sits forward and I know she's interested in what's going on upstairs.

"On the television. Some movie." I couldn't remember which movie, because I hadn't really been watching it. It had just been noise in the background. "It was just one bully out of a dozen in my school. He deserved it. I read somewhere that about 25 percent of kids are involved in bullying each year. Some sites say 30. That's almost a third of my classmates."

"You like to look things up online a lot. What do you do at night when you get home?"

I still don't know what I'm doing

"Stuff." I reply, a little guarded now. "What other kids do." I add on.

"What are you currently reading?"

"In school? Catcher in the Rye." What does that matter?

"Not in school. For your own personal leisure."

"Nothing really." I shrug knowing that's not true.

"Your mom says you've been picking up a lot of books at the library lately. She's concerned."

"I'm concerned at what she reads." I use a big word that I understand back at her. "Romance novels. Waste of time, don't you think?"

She laughed, shook her head and then changed the topic. "So what's the penalty for your first offense?"

"Mom says I can't check out books for a month from the library. No internet for just as long and three days at home."

"And the other guy?" She looks up after writing some things down.

"He got suspended too."

"And how does tall this make you feel? The suspension? The fight? Being bullied? No internet or books?"

Troubles coming for the free men.

"I don't feel anything about no internet or books. They aren't people. They're just things that I can get back later. I don't feel anything about bullying. I was bullied and I won't be anymore. I fixed a problem. We both got in a fight and got suspended for the same time. Seems fair." I move in the couch, look around at her books and point to one. "You got a new book."

"I did. But these sessions aren't about me." She commented.

This kid's not alright.

"What did you say?" I look at her when I heard her say something.

"I said, I did. But these sessions aren't about me."

"No, after that."

"Nothing. I was waiting for you to talk about something. Anything." She wrote a few words down on that yellow paper and I stand.

"What are you writing? You're lying. I heard what you said." I stand and go over to her to look at the paper. She shields it of course, but it was too late. I saw it. Saw what she wrote.

This kid's not alright.

In big, dark letters. It stands off the yellow paper like a sight for sore eyes.

"This is wrong. All wrong. This isn't how this went. I remember." I blurt out. I remember things pretty well and I never remember her saying or writing that down.

The visage is altered. They drop and fade away.
I'm sitting on a couch, only it's dark and it's not familiar.
I don't know where I am.
Not at first.

Then I remember.
I died.
Jules killed me.
I guess we could die.

Now what?

[Roderic]

1997

"How long have I been coming here?"

"Over a year now. Fourteen months, I think." She looks at me. I bet she's wondering what my reply to that will be. So, I don't say anything. I change the subject.

"Saw my dad this weekend." She nods, knowing it already.

"Want to talk about it?"

"I brought it up, didn't I?" I shrug, thinking it was kind of obvious.

"Alright. What did you two do?" She clicks her pen, a sign that she is about to write something down.

"You know. Stuff. Since the courts decided he can have me one weekend a month for now. Until things get figured out."

"Things? You mean the divorce?"

"Yeah. Duh." I reply in a typical teenager fashion, which is quite untypical of me. She notices it and writes away.

"What do you want to happen?"

I think long and hard. This seems like a trick question. I know it is, but she said I could tell her anything and she can't tell anyone and so far, she hasn't from what I told her. My mom never says anything I've said and I haven't have any problems with the cops, so maybe she couldn't legally tell anyone anything.

"I want that ***** to die." I spit out bitterly. "And her baby too. He's not my brother. He's some ******** kid that ruined the marriage or my mom and dad."

"I feel like we're really making progress here." She comments outloud. Maybe to herself, or maybe to me. So I continue with what I'd like to see happen.

"I want him to die too. I hate my new school and my new home. I liked my old home and school better. It's his fault everything sucks and I hate the guy."

"Anger's a typical reaction to a situation like yours. It's perfectly acceptable and understandable to be angry. To not be angry would indicate something else." She lets me know it's alright to feel alright. That it's perfectly acceptable to want things to die. She doesn't know what she did in these crucial moments.

"Like what?" I ask her, not knowing what it would indicate.

She smiles at me. "Something going on up here." She points to the side of her head. "Something we would have to look at more carefully, Roderic. Sometimes, it just takes time to be truthful with ourselves, but it's a big step that you took today." She writes more things down on her yellow paper.

Silence lingers between us. I'm not sure what to think or say.

"I would like for you to think of some ways to channel that anger in to something positive for next time. I won't see you for two weeks. I think we're really progressing nicely, so a break won't do anyone any harm. It's well deserved."

I stand up and nod.
A strange sensation washed over me.
It was almost comforting.
I didn't know it was alright to feel this way about things.
That it was alright to want to kill someone.
I could have told her this months ago, if that was what she wanted to hear.

[Roderic]

"We should start with what happened. Before the event with your brother. What your day was like, all the way up to what triggered the series of events."

"Went to school, came home, watched some tv and did the homework for English." I sigh and crouch down in the couch as my arms cross over my chest.

"You know if you aren't going to talk to me, I may need to reassign you, Roderic." She also sighs as she pulls off her glasses.

"Will they ask me less questions?" I look around the room, knowing that if I don't say much of anything this was going to be a very long hour. "I didn't mean to do it. He just wouldn't shut up. He's always crying. I can't ever get anything done or watch tv or anything. I hate living with him. I hate the summer time. I'd rather live with my mom forever. All the time." I stop because this is a side of me I've not seen and neither has she. I can tell because the pen is working hard on that pad of paper that's now gone from yellow to white.

"So he was crying again?" She looked up at me.

"I just wanted him to be quiet. I thought..." I shrug. I don't know what I thought, I just wanted the kid to shut his yap. He's got a wail on him that could drive anyone up the wall. "I just wanted to scare him a little bit. Just a shake and maybe he would be quiet."

"Infants are not like you and I, Roderic. They express themselves in various means, but usually by crying. Shaking them isn't going to get them to stop. Normally." She doesn't go on with that thought. She moves to a new one. "What were you thinking when you were shaking him?"

"I was thinking about quiet. How nice it would be for there to be quiet in the house." It's half the truth, but I'm not sure I should tell her the other half. Her answer lets me know she's not buying it.

"You know if you keep up with this, your parents could press charges."

"She's not my parent." I say sharply.

"You don't want to go down this road, Roderic. What happened to drawing when you were angry about things? Do you have your sketch pad on you?" She sits forward and extends a hand.

I do, but I don't want to show her the things I've drawn. I don't think she would approve. "I think I left it at school in my locker." I lie. I'll rip out the pages later and bring it with the next time we get together.

"You like to read. Maybe that is an avenue you can try." She suggests with a shrug, her pen moving from the paper as she puts it down on the table next to her. "Roderic, I would like for you to think about what it is you want from these sessions of ours. Instead of seeing it as a meaningless task set by your dad, come to think about this as time to talk about what you like about your life, what you don't like and what you would like to see happen after your parents are officially divorced. Which will be next month if the court date keeps this time."

"Whatever." I say as I stand up, letting my age show again. I know what I want and if she really listened to me, she would know too.