“But I honestly don’t know!”
“The things I’ve done,” he said, “the diseases I have from them.” He stumbled on, hating himself. “It’s disgusting; I’m disgusting.”
“Jude,” Andy began, and as he spoke, he paused between every few words, and he could feel Andy picking his way across a mine-pocked lawn, so deliberately and slowly was he going. “You were a kid, a baby. Those things were done to you. You have nothing, nothing to blame yourself for, not ever, not in any universe.”
Andy looked at him. “And even if you hadn’t been a kid, even if you had just been some horny guy who wanted to fuck everything in sight and had ended up with a bunch of STDs, it still wouldn’t be anything to be ashamed of.” He sighed. “Can you try to believe me?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“I know,” Andy said. They were quiet. “I wish you’d see a therapist, Jude,” he added, and his voice was sad. He couldn’t respond, and after a few minutes, Andy stood up. “Well,” he said, sounding determined, “let’s see them,” and he took off his sweater and held out his arms.
He could tell by Andy’s expression that it was worse than he had anticipated, and when he looked down and tried to view himself as something unfamiliar, he could see in flashes what Andy did: the gobs of bandages applied at intervals to the fresh cuts, the half-healed cuts, with their fragile stitchings of still-forming scar tissue, the one infected cut, which had developed a chunky cap of dried pus.
“So,” Andy said after a long silence, after he’d almost finished his right arm, cleaning out the infected cut and painting antibiotic cream on the others, “what about your extreme weight loss?”
“I don’t think it’s extreme.”
“Jude,” said Andy, “twelve pounds in not quite eight weeks is extreme, and you didn’t exactly have twelve pounds to spare to begin with.”
“I’m just not hungry,” he said, finally.
Andy didn’t say anything else until he finished both his arms, and then sighed and sat down again and started scribbling on his pad. “I want you to eat three full meals a day, Jude,” he said, “plus one of the things on this list. Every day. That’s in addition to standard meals, do you understand me? Or I’m going to call your crew and make them sit with you every mealtime and watch you eat, and you don’t want that, believe me.” He ripped the page off the pad and handed it to him. “And then I want you back here next week. No excuses.”
He looked at the list—PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICH. CHEESE SANDWICH. AVOCADO SANDWICH. 3 EGGS (WITH YOLKS!!!!). BANANA SMOOTHIE—and tucked it into his pants pocket.
“And the other thing I want you to do is this,” said Andy. “When you wake up in the middle of the night and want to cut yourself, I want you to call me instead. I don’t care what time it is, you call me, okay?” He nodded. “I mean it, Jude.”
“I’m sorry, Andy,” he said.
“I know you are,” said Andy. “But you don’t need to be sorry—not to me, anyway.”
“To Harold,” he said.
“No,” Andy corrected. “Not to Harold, either. Just to yourself.”
He went home and ate away at a banana until it turned to dirt in his mouth and then changed and continued washing the living-room windows, which he had begun the night before. He rubbed at them, inching the sofa closer so he could stand atop one of its arms, ignoring the twinges in his back as he climbed up and down, lugging the bucket of dirtied gray water slowly to the tub. After he’d finished the living room and Willem’s room, he was in so much pain that he had to crawl to the bathroom, and after cutting himself, he rested, holding his arm above his head and wrapping the mat about him. When his phone rang, he sat up, disoriented, before groaningly moving to his bedroom—where the clock read three a.m.—and listening to a very cranky (but alert) Andy.
“I called too late,” Andy guessed. He didn’t say anything. “Listen, Jude,” Andy continued, “you don’t stop this and I really am going to have you committed. And I’ll call Harold and tell him why. You can count on it.” He paused. “And besides which,” he added, “aren’t you tired, Jude? You don’t have to do this to yourself, you know. You don’t need to.”
He didn’t know what it was—maybe it was just the calmness of Andy’s voice, the steadiness with which he made his promise that made him realize that he was serious this time in a way he hadn’t been before; or maybe it was just the realization that yes, he was tired, so tired that he was willing, finally, to accept someone else’s orders—but over the next week, he did as he was told. He ate his meals, even as the food transformed itself by some strange alchemy to mud, to offal: he made himself chew and swallow, chew and swallow. They weren’t big meals, but they were meals. Andy called every night at midnight, and Willem called every morning at six (he couldn’t bring himself to ask, and Willem never volunteered, whether Andy had contacted him). The hours in between were the most difficult, and although he couldn’t cease cutting himself entirely, he did limit it: two cuts, and he stopped. In the absence of cutting, he felt himself being tugged toward earlier punishments—before he had been taught to cut himself, there was a period in which he would toss himself against the wall outside the motel room he shared with Brother Luke again and again until he sagged, exhausted, to the ground, and his left side was permanently stained blue and purple and brown with bruises. He didn’t do that now, but he remembered the sensation, the satisfying slam of his body against the wall, the awful pleasure of hurling himself against something so immovable.
On Friday he saw Andy, who wasn’t approving (he hadn’t gained any weight), but also didn’t lecture him (nor had he lost any), and the next day he flew to Boston. He didn’t tell anyone he was going, not even Harold. Julia, he knew, was at a conference in Costa Rica; but Harold, he knew, would be home.
Julia had given him a set of keys six years ago, when he was arriving for Thanksgiving at a time when both she and Harold happened to have department meetings, so he let himself into the house and poured a glass of water, looking out at the back garden as he drank. It was just before noon, and Harold would still be at his tennis game, so he went to the living room to wait for him. But he fell asleep, and when he woke, it was to Harold shaking his shoulder and urgently repeating his name.
“Harold,” he said, sitting up, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry; I should’ve called.”
“Jesus,” Harold said, panting; he smelled cold and sharp. “Are you all right, Jude? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, nothing,” he said, hearing before he said it how absurd his explanation was, “I just thought I’d stop by.”
“Well,” said Harold, momentarily silent. “It’s good to see you.” He sat in his chair and looked at him. “You’ve been something of a stranger these past few weeks.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Harold shrugged. “No apologies necessary. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m okay.”