All Around Me

I sit here in the dark writing this in non-toxic crayon for reasons that I don't quite understand. The only conclusion that I have is that this story must come out. Since conformity is not in my nature, I will start at the end. The end is me sitting in an all white room in a bed where I can't shave my legs nor can I have tie-shoes. They took me off intensive suicide watch a week ago so at least now I don't have to wear hospital gowns. I can wear regular clothes but with no belts or drawstrings. My brother brought me sweats with no drawstring which are falling off as we speak. I don't so much mind what I am wearing. I mind so much that I am still alive.
Last week I was under Duck Creek Bridge dangling from a rafter by a Metallica hooded sweatshirt. For some strange reason, I didn't die. I was out over the rocks which were piled up to the underpass. I should have aspirated. But some people are just rude enough not to let someone go to a better place in peace.
Peace, what a strange object. As an unmedicated bi-polar, I don't know much about peace. I am my own entourage. Never in one place too long, never in the same mood. The first time I ever felt peace was when I sat underneath Duck Creek Bridge. I used to sleep behind the piled rocks whenever I didn't feel like being in my life which was quite often. One night in particular, after watching "America's Sweethearts" (Which is where I got the line 'I am my own entourage' from.) I decided to go to the bridge. See the guy who I live with, my boyfriend, husband though not legally, whatever, was supposed to stop playing his video game and come to bed with me at 12:30. Well, at 1:15, I got tired of waiting. I opened the patio door and snuk out the back to go to the bridge, which was my pouting spot of sorts. If I ever get out of here, I am going to have to get another one because now people know where to look. I climbed up the rocks and my flip-flop slipped. I said "Fuck." and a male voice yelled down from my usual spot
"You mind shutting up, some of us are trying to rest in peace."
"Hey, fuck you buddy, that's my spot." I yelled back and climbed up closer. There was a guy about 25 years old wearing a Metallica hoodie and wide leg jeans. He had blue eyes and a shaved head. He was laying on his back leaning his hands against his forhead loosly clenched.
"I was here first."
"Tonight maybe. But I've been coming here for months."
"I live here." He said.
"You're too clean to be homeless."
"Just cuz you don't have a house don't mean you can't be clean." He said. "You look pretty clean yourself so why you judging me?"
"I'm not."
He sat up. "Grab some concrete. Looks like it's going to rain." I sat next to him and took out a cigarette.
"You want one?" I asked leaning the box in his direction.
"I dip." He said. "If you have some Cope I'll take it."
"Ew."
"You women are all alike."
"Oye. I just left a chauvanist, I don't need another."
"Left? You'll go back."
"When I get hungry." I said.
"Yeah, all y'all always do." He rubbed the back of his head.
"You get left?" I asked as I stubbed out my cig.
"Girl named Mary broke my heart. She never could make up her mind between me and some asshole that treated her like shit. Not that it matters now."
"Why doesn't it matter now."
"You can't figure it out?" He smirked. "You have a college degree and you can't figure this out."
"How'd you know I had a degree?"
"You are too analytical to just be a high school graduate." He started to laugh. "I'm not used to people being able to see me."
"Did you mean that literally or figuratively?"
"Quit using big words."
"Damn, temper much?" I asked.
"You do too."
"Have a met you before now?" I asked. "You seem to know too much about me to just be a stranger."
"You don't remember who you meet? What are ya a fucking drunk?"
I felt like someone punched me in the gut. "Actually, I am."
"I'm a crackhead. You should have seen me before now, I weighed almost 300 pounds and I was strong as an ox." He sighed. "Now, I'm just small. Do you think that I'm small?"
"You don't look small to me." I said. "It's not muscles that make the man."
"That's bullshit." He said. "Anyways, you still haven't figured this all out have you?"
"I didn't know that I was supposed to be figuring anything out?" I said looking at him like he was nuts.
He thumped my forhead but it felt like it bearly touched me. "Hello!"
"What?" I shrieked.
"You don't understand do you."
"No and I'm getting irritated."
"Never mind." He sighed. "So, I didn't catch your name."
"Didn't throw it."
"I'm Steve Row. Like Death Row, and you are?"
"Coco Jones."
"Coco? Why'd your mother give you a nigger name?" He asked.
I gasped. "That's an ugly thing to say."
"I'm not calling you Coco. What is your real name?"
" Sophia Nicole Migilorie is my birth name."
"So Coco came from Nicole. Where the hell did Jones come from? You married?"
"Divorced."
"How old are you?"
"23."
"You don't look a day over 20." He sighed. "You're cute though."
"Cute, my favorite thing in the world." I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms.
"That was a compliment."
"Yeah." The rain started to pound really hard and it was starting to drip through the drain holes. I started to shiver.
"You cold?" Steve asked.
"Nah."
"Maybe you should go home."
"I don't feel like it." I said. "I don't really want to be by myself."
"Don't you think your boyfriend will be worried?"
"Yeah I suppose so. You going to be down here tomorrow afternoon?" I asked. "Maybe I'll bring some food."
"You don't have to do that. But I'll be here." He said. "I know it's not far but be careful walking home."
"Yeah."
It wasn't until I started to walk home that I realized that something was off. He knew too much about me that I never said. After our usual weekend fight. My boyfriend Chris and I fell asleep. I felt warm all night even though Chris was on the other side of the bed. When Chris went to work, I went back to the bridge. I am not sure what my intentions were at the point. I was just tired of being by myself. Chris worked alot and we didn't have a telephone or cable. Steve was an okay guy. I wasn't so crazy that he used the N-word and was a crackhead, but he was the first person that I'd met in Parishtown. I walked under the bridge and yelled "Hello."
"I can tell that you're an Italian, you have a big mouth." He yelled from my usual sitting spot in the rafters. "You sure wake the dead with that noise."
"Are you always suck a dick?"
"Yep."
"I see." I sighed. I sat on a big rock at the bottom of the slope. He looked down at me.
"Come up here." He demanded.
"Why should I?" I asked."Especially if you're going to be a dick."
"Quit being stubborn."
For some reason I climbed to where he was. "I'm here now what."
"Get comfy because you're staying a while."
"I am?" I asked. "Are you sure about that?"
"No but I'm hoping." He sighed. "I hate being here by myself all the time."
"God, me too." I said.
"You have a boyfriend what do you know about being lonely?"
"Trust me, you can live with someone and be lonely." I sighed.
"So why do you stay there?"
"I don't know seems as good of an answer as any."
"That's a sorry excuse if I've ever heard one." He rubbed his gotee.
"Whatever." I stretched out on the ledge and leaned against the beam. The bridge was very cold that day. I wished that I'd brought my jacket. Every now and then a car would rumble over our heads. The engines all became distinct after a few hours. Steve could tell the make, model, and year just by hearing the engine. He never got my jokes but he was smart in his own way. He was from a small town in New York, oldest of 3 boys. He was Pennsylvania Dutch and German. He loved cars and FHM girls. He didn't go to school much, he said. He last finished 7th grade. He didn't like anyone that wasn't clean and white. After telling me his life story, he gave me a weird look. "What?" I asked
"You like me."
"Excuse me?" I scrunched my forehead.
"You heard me." He rubbed my head vigorously."That's okay. I like you too."
"I never said I liked you."
"You didn't have to." He smiled."I know these things."
"You're so concieted." I looked at the ceiling. When I looked back down, he was on the opposite side of me than he was before I had looked up. "Weren't you on the other side a second ago?"
"I don't know was I?"
"I'm not sure, I thought you were." I shook my head. "I'm too young to be going crazy."
"Yeah, that's what I thought about myself too." He said."I've been in and out of institutions my whole life. Especially jail."
"Jail? For what?"
"Drugs, some lying bitch, forgery, assualt with attempt to kill. And that's just what they caught me for."
"Yeah crime is really something to brag about." I started to play with a piece of dried out grass.
"It ain't but I'm just saying."
"I'm a straight-edge. The worst thing I do is drink."
"How much do you drink? I bet you are a lush."
"I'm not a party-girl. You've never seen me on Girls Gone Wild with a beer thinking I'm the shit. I drink in private."
"You didn't answer my question."
"Enough." I said. "Just when I get upset."
"I bet you get upset alot."
"Only when I breathe." I sighed. "Of course having no money nor job makes it kind of hard to drink."
"Yeah." He was trying to throw a rock at a bird a few feet away. He almost hit it.
"Stop that!" I yelled.
"What? I didn't do nothing." He smirked.
"If you throw one more thing at another animal, I'm leaving after I punch you in the face."
"I was just joking. Besides I wouldn't have hurt it anyways." I moved to near the other support pole."What the fuck is your problem." He asked me.
"You really are a dick." I said. "I wish you'd move to the other side of the bridge this is my spot and I was here first." I looked down the bank to the creek. There was a brown leaf floating down the creek. I watched it so I didn't have to look at him while he was speaking. I was annoyed with him for trying to hurt that bird.
"No you weren't. I've been here since February 23, 2002."
"Then how come I've never seen you before yesterday?" I asked. I looked up and he was gone. "Hey!" I yelled. I climbed over the rock to where the bridge met the ground. He had somehow managed to walk all the way the width of the bridge and was leaning against the far guardrail. He was walking along the side of the bridge. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"Uh-oh, I might fall." He kicked on foot out on purpose and almost lost his balance. He was cackling."You gonna stop me Halo?"
"Steve get down! What the fuck are you nuts?" I tried to cross the bridge and for some reason the cars wouldn't stop coming. They were honking and I couldn't get across the street all the way. When I got halfway, he jumped. I screamed and ran out in front of a Honda which nicked my leg. When I looked over the edge, I didn't see him. It probably wouldn't have killed him if he jumped. It was about 10 feet off the ground. I walked around the edge of the bridge and down the pathway to where I usually sat. It was dark and my heart was pounding in my ears. Before I had gotten all the way back to my usual spot, I felt someone tap me on my shoulder.
"You should have seen the look on your face." Steve laughed. "I had you going."
"You fucking asshole. Why did you do that?" I tried to sock him in the arm but I missed him.
"You told me you wished I'd go to the other side of the bridge. I was just doing what you wanted." He smiled."Ha-ha."
"That was so fucked up.I can't believe you thought that was funny." I sat back down on my spot against the far rafter.
"Eh smoke one of your nasty Newports and be quiet."
"I'll remember how nasty they are next time you want one." I glared at him. The darker it got the easier it was to see him. In retrospect something else that should have tipped me off about what he was.
"Aw c'mon, I was just joking, don't get mad."
"You could have got hurt by jumping off the bridge." I said.
"Would you have been sad?"
"Of course. I would have felt bad."
"I told you that you liked me." He smiled. "I wish you could stay with me tonight."
"Sorry I don't put out after being scared to death."
"I don't want to have sex with you, I just want someone to hold." He put his arm around my shoulder. Something about the weight of his arm felt weird. It wasn't as heavy as I thought it should have been. "You smell fruity."
"You smell like Irish Spring."
"That's the soap I use."
"I use it sometimes too."
"Does it bother me that I have my arms around you?" He asked.
"Not really." I said. "As long as you aren't grabbing my chest, we're cool."
"Why can't I grab your chest."
"Because then we cross the line into cheating." I sighed. "And I am not a cheater no matter how bad things get."
"You'd like to think so wouldn't you?" He tussled my hair. "All you women are all alike."
"No I'm not like anyone else. That I can promise you."
"I can see that."
I yawned and stretched my arms. "I'm tired."
"So take a nap." I checked my watch. It was 9:30.
"I think I'm just gonna go home."
"Can I go to?" He laughed. "Just joking."
"I'll see you later." I said and I walked home.
That night I had a really weird dream. I dreamt that I was riding in a car on a snowy road. All of the sudden out of no where a house appeared straight ahead the driver swerved to miss it and let out a familiar cackle. Then it went to a flash of Steve in a bathtub with a syringe out of his arm. I woke up abruptly and Chris did too. "It was only a dream Coco."
For the next few days, I spent all day at the bridge with Steve just talking. Odd things like him moving without me seeing happened more frequently but I didn't pay attention. We were getting really close and it got harder and harder to go home every night. Chris was becoming more and more distant but how could I blame him when I was too? I didn't want to deal with the fact that I had indeed made a giant mistake in coming back here to Parishtown. But I wasn't ready to take the next step because I didn't know what that was. So I wasted my days not looking for meaning but in spending all of my time with someone else to distract me from the inadeqacy that was my life.
Call it attraction, call it borderline, I got really attached to Steve. Maybe because he made me forget reality.Whatever it was, I was devastated when I found out he wasn't real.
I had gotten in a horrible fight with Chris and I went to the Bridge to sulk. Steve was walking back and forth across the bridge and I yelled to him. A car was getting very close to him and he didn't seem to notice nor did he hear my voice. Just when the car looked like it was going to hit him, I screamed. The car drove through him. I wasn't sure I had seen things right because I was hungover from the night before. But then he walked through another car in the opposite lane. As if he noticed me all of the sudden, he turned around. It hit me like I was the one who had walked through the car. The next thing I remember, I felt arms around me and heard the sound of tires overhead. I was in my usual spot against the support beam. "Where are you?" I yelled.
"Right here." He was next to me. "You know now don't you?"
"It all makes sense. Why I get cold down here, why you didn't get hurt when you jumped off the bridge, why your arms look big but are feather light. Yeah, so what, you're dead?"
"Yep for 6 years."
"How?"
"Meth overdose."
"Did you mean to do it?"
"I don't know. I didn't feel much living after Mary left." He sighed. "Now, I'm stuck here."
"Why are you stuck underneath this bridge, did you die here?"
"Fuck no. I'm a farm boy from New York. I died in my bathtub."
"I dreamt about it."
"And it took you this long to figure out that I'm a spook huh?" He grinned. "What a waste of a degree."
"You being dead also explains how you know things that I don't tell you." I rubbed my palms together. "Figures that you'd be dead."
"Why?"
"I was starting to have feelings for you." I sighed and bit my lower lip.
"Just starting to?"
"Fine, I've had them for a while. But still, there's nothing that I can do about it."
"So what are you going to do, stay with Chris and be miserable? We could be happy together."
"You're dead." I said. "How is that even possible?"
"It's possible. When your time comes, you just come to me."
"I don't plan on it being anyday soon."
"Sunshine you are a suicide waiting to happen."
"That's a foul thing to say."
"You taking your medicine?"
"It's 150 bucks a month."
"You still drinking like a fish?"
"No." I lied.
"It was Friday night last night, don't lie to me." He messed up my hair and for the first time I noticed that when he did that he didn't even touch my head.
"So what, I drink and I don't take my medicine, that doesn't mean that I am suicidal." I laid all the way down. "Listen if it's all the same to you. I kind of want to be by myself to process this."
"Why?" He asked. "I don't feel like going anywhere."
"Well, whatever then, just don't talk. I'm trying to sleep."
"God, you can be such a brat."
"And this is why I don't want to spend eternity with you." I said. "I'd never get any piece or quiet." I yawned. Soon I was in trance like state. I thought I was dreaming but I was still under the bridge. There was a fire at the edge of the bank. It was small like a campfire. I walked down towards it as if I had no control over my feet. Once I got there a very tall tanned Indian was standing there. He had eyes that almost looked black. He spoke but his lips never moved. It was like I was reading his thoughts. "Do you know why you are here?" I was fixed on his gaze.
"You have come because I have called for you."
"Do you remember me?" He asked, still without speaking.
"You are my love. Ojaina."
"Will you come with me, Owkojko?" He asked. "Back to our home?"
"I cannot. I am bound to the Earth on which we stand. Stay with me."
"I am bound to our home. Why does your heart wander from me?"
"My heart is with you. My body is still alive and is bound here."
"I long for you. Do you not feel my love?" A tear slid down his cheek and I reached up to wipe it away and when I touched it, Ojaina, changed from an Indian to a pirate. I felt like I had changed too but I couldn't see myself. "Wilhemina." He said my name.
"Pedro." The tear fell down my cheek and when he touched it, he turned into a World War 2 German solider. "James." I said.
"Sarah." I touched his cheek and he turned into Steven. "Sophia."
"Stephen." I leaned across the fire without it even getting hot and I kissed him. I finally snapped out of my trance and I was sitting on the ledge where I liked to sleep.
"Do you understand any of what just happened?" He asked me.
"Who in the fuck are all of this people?"
"Funny I asked the same question." He sighed. "About 500 years ago, maybe less. Ojaina and Owkojko, were members of the Iroquios nation of Indians, New York Tribes. Owkojko, who called herself Koko, was in love with a white man named Christopher. Ojaina knew plenty of Christopher and knew Koko was going to get hurt or at the very least whored out. Koko and he, had a huge fight and she left the village for a number of years. Ojaina tried to forget her and married Owjimari, but he never loved Owjimari the same way he loved Koko. In this story, Koko dies first. She wrapped herself in a tunic that Ojaina made for her and she went to sleep outside in the cold New York winter. There's the questionable suicide in this one. And upon hearing of her death Ojaina died of a broken heart."
"So basically, we've been these people before."
"Yeah. The only difference from all of their stories is that I didn't know you until I was already dead. But little parts of all of them come out in us. That's part of why I know so much about you. I bet if you took some guesses about me, you'd be right." He sat behind me and wrapped himself around me. "If you sit quietly enough you can hear all of them talking and they'll tell you everything you need to know."
Next, I heard Wihemina's voice. "Pedro misses his children. 3 girls and a boy."
"You have kids, 3 girls and a boy." I whispered.
"Just a girl and a boy."
"You didn't see them much."
"My daughter was 8 months old when I last saw her, my son was a year old." He wasn't holding me as tight."What else are they saying?"
Sarah's voice said "James loves his dog."
"You had a dog?"
"What was his name?" Steve asked.
"They didn't say."
"You know it, even though you never saw him."
"Scrappy?" I asked.
"Yep." He wrapped me tighter."You'll learn to love the voices. My favorite is James. He was a Nazi Soldier and I was an Aryan."
"Aryans suck."
"Shut up. So which one is your favorite?"
"My favorite guy is Ojaina. I felt more from him than the others."
"More than me?" He brushed his lips against my hair.
"No."
"So will you come to me?"
"It's not my time." I said, and with that, I was alone.
For the next few months, all that I did was sit and listen to the voices. I figured out that I got all of my personality from each of the girls. I got my promiscuity from Owkojko. I got my shyness from Sarah. And I got my alcoholism from Wilhemenia. Each night, Ojaina would come to me in my dreams. Even if I was dreaming about something completely irrelevant, he would be in the corner watching with eyes that I knew saw right through me. Throughout all of that time, I stayed away from the bridge. I didn't want to go back there because I knew if I did, I wouldn't be coming back.
One day, Christopher and I got into the worst fight ever. He told me that I was lazy, nothing, and a waste of time. He threw me out of the apartment. I grabbed a sweat jacket on my way out and I looked down. It was a Metallica hooded sweatshirt. As if they were in a chorus all of the voices clamoured "It's time to be with our love."
"NO." I yelled to no one in particular. "I love no one." I walked under the bridge.