Читать книгу Madness: A Bipolar Life - Marya Hornbacher - Страница 12

1985

Nothing is going fast enough. At school, the teachers are talking as if their mouths are full of molasses. Their limbs move in slow motion. Pointing to call on someone, the teacher lifts her arm as if it is filled with wet sand. I swear to God I think I am going insane, it is so slow, while my thoughts whistle past like the wind, so fast I can barely keep up. I turn my mind inward to watch them. They move in electric currents, crackling, spitting, sending out red sparks.

The other students are slow, stupid, asleep. In the hallways, they move like a herd of slugs, wet and shapeless, inching toward the door. I explode out of school, dancing as fast as I can across the playground, whipping in circles around the tetherball pole, dashing off across the yard, trying to shake off this incredible energy, this amazing energy. I’m ten years old and I might as well be on speed.

My parents are on their way out the door. Eat dinner! they call, but I am too fast for them, their voices recede in the distance as I race through the house, bouncing off the walls. I’ve been pleading with them to let me stay home by myself, and so they do, heading off to their meetings or dinners or places unknown. Maybe not a great idea to let a ten-year-old stay home alone, but I’ve twisted their arms, and they’re immersed in work and in their own nightmare marriage, avoiding each other, avoiding the fights, thinking up reasons to be gone. They work compulsively, and when they’re not working they see friends, putting on the face of the happy couple. Everything’s fine. We’re the perfect little family. People tell us that all the time.

And I am home alone with a raw steak on the counter, hopping up and down, my mind jetting about. Time for homework! I reach into my bag and throw my books and papers up in the air, ha ha! Watch this, ladies and gentlemen, the amazing Marya! Look at her go! Can you believe the incredible speed? My homework covers the kitchen floor, and I crawl around picking it up, talking to myself: Hip-hop, my friends, never liked rabbits, must get a tiger, it will sleep in my bed, take it for walks, I need new shoes, fabulous shoes, I will show all of them, hark the herald angels sing! Christmas is smashing! Love it, people, just love it—I hop up, slap my hand to my chest, salute the refrigerator, click my heels, make a sharp turn, and walk stiffly over to the kitchen table, where I whip through the papers, laying them out perfectly in a complex system, the most efficient system, each corner of each page touching the corner, exactly, of the next. Having arranged the papers, I gallop up and down the hallway, slide into the kitchen as if I’m sliding into third, yank open the refrigerator, pull out some mushrooms, chop them up, my knife a blur, toss them into the frying pan, sauté them—but they need a little something. A little zing. I pull open the cupboard beneath the sink, pull out the brandy, splash it in the pan. But now that I think of it, what are all those bottles?

I turn off the burner, bouncing up and down, and open the cupboard again.

Booze.

I pull out a jug of Gallo, stagger underneath its weight. A little wine with dinner, the very thing, don’t you think? I pour it into a giant plastic Minnesota Twins cup and collapse with my mushrooms and tankard of wine at the dining room table.

I get absolutely shitfaced. I am shitfaced and hyper and ten years old. I am having the time of my life.

I lope up and down the hallway, singing Simon and Garfunkel songs, juggling oranges. I do my homework in a flurry of brilliance, total efficiency, the electric grid of my mind snapping and flashing with light. I am in the zone, the perfect balance between manic and drunk, I am mellow, I’m cool, cool as cats. I’ve found the answer, the thing that takes the edge off, smoothes out the madness, sends me sailing, lifts me up and lets me fly.

It’s alchemy, the booze and my brain, another homemade mood stabilizer, and it stabilizes me in a heavenly mood. I am in love with the world, gregarious, full of joy and generosity toward my fellow man. My thoughts fly, but not up and down—they soar forward in a thrilling flight of ideas, heightened sensations, a creative rush, each thought tumbling into the next. It’s even more perfect than eating and throwing up.

My future with alcohol is long and disastrous. But at first, it works wonders for me. No longer low, not yet too high. Just on a roll, energetic, inspired. I truly believe the booze is helping. I’ll believe this, despite all evidence, for years.

Eventually I stagger into bed and, for once, fall asleep.