night fluorescently, playing the demo PlayStation 3, eating Oreos, drinking Game Fuels. Michael pretended, of course—pretended it wasn’t stealing, pretended this was normal and kind of awesome, actually; so the make-believe was Patrick’s real life, and the happiness Patrick felt was real, and that was the only thing that could ever make Michael feel something good. And so when he was asked first by a cashier and then a manager, were they okay, he was not pretending when he said, “Hunnert percent, good buddy.” And Patrick loved that—giggled inside his hoodie—but even still they had to duck suspicion, so when the manager went away, they did, too, to the bathroom handicapped stall, where after playing Hot Hands, for a couple hours, they slept. In peace.
Which never lasts.
Guess how many nights?
(“A lot” doesn’t count as a guess.)
No guesses?
Huh. How ’bout instead of a game, I tell you a story.
So there’s this little kid, right, and he thinks his mom is awesome. The strongest, best person on Earth, in his humble opinion. And the mom and the kid are so close that they’re each other’s entire world; the kid doesn’t even really want any friends. But they’re poor, and sometimes the kid can tell his mom is lonely, and he fantasizes a lot about someone coming into their lives and lifting away that sadness in Mom that is becoming harder and harder to soothe with a joke. And then—stay with me, this is where the story gets good—then a Someone actually does come into their lives. Name o’ Ron, this fella, and he’s got muscles and this sense of humor that always feels wonderfully/scarily on the edge of becoming too dirty for a kid to hear. At first, Ron is magical. Like one time when the kid—Michael, let’s call him—is in fourth grade and gets an earache, Ron blows a gentle puff of pipe smoke into his ear, and the pain evaporates. But Ron’s best magic? Taking away that little bit of fear that always seemed to hang behind Mom’s eyes. Then he and Mom get married. Michael takes Ron’s last name, and he thinks, This is who I am now; I’m this man’s son; he’s going to take care of us. This man, who builds houses for a living, builds a home for all of them. This man pats Mom on the butt in front of Michael sometimes, and Michael, of course, groans, but every time he sees Mom smile, it’s like feeling the sun on his back. Soon little cross-stitches hang on the walls of their house: FAMILY IS THE BEGINNING, MIDDLE, AND END.
But soon . . . sometimes . . . the man comes home at night feeling mean.
And the kid learns to tread carefully, then, yes-yes. Learns to look into Ron’s eyes and gauge the man’s moods. Learns to walk into a room and instantaneously detect the emotional temperature. Learns to know how to act and speak to diffuse Ron when the kid senses Ron’s countdown ticking.
Neat tricks.
But then the economy goes downhill. And Ron doesn’t have anything to build anymore. So—just as another little boy, Patrick, is born—Ron begins to tear everything down.
The thing is, this little boy does not know how to stay quiet inside. He does not understand why their “big happy home” is getting filled more and more with screams. So yeah, Patrick is scared; yeah, he starts hitting himself. And so Ron puts him in this psychiatric place, sometimes for weeks, and Patrick doesn’t get to go to preschool or kindergarten, doesn’t really ever get the chance to realize much of what outside life is like. And nobody seems to realize that the only reason Patrick has this terrifying emotional pit inside of him is because Ron has put it there. Nobody understands that once Patrick is in a home that makes sense, he will be fine forever.
And Michael thinks: we need someone to rescue us.
And Ron starts hitting Mom, too.
And one time, Patrick sees Mom getting hit before Michael can get him out of the house. And for the first time, Patrick Freaks.
Punches and slaps and bites himself, yes, but that’s not the worst of it. The worst is, after Patrick makes himself bruise and bleed, he vanishes. His body is there, nothing else; Patrick’s eyes go glassy and he will not speak or eat or flinch, ’cause he’s fallen down that emotional pit into his own secret hell. Drugs don’t bring him out of it. For weeks, Patrick is just a