And there’s also gym class to attend. Basketball. I totally get into the game. I am on fire. I am seeing superhuman angles. I am understanding the ball’s trajectory like no one else on the court. People are passing to me because they can see I know exactly what to do. Sometimes I get distracted by what someone on the bench is wearing, or the color of their sneakers, because it makes me think about what kind of sneakers would look best on my feet, but most of the shots I take end up in the basket. As we’re walking back to the locker room, Alex Nevens, who’s actually on the basketball team, tells me I was on fire. I don’t disagree.
I can’t believe I haven’t written to Rhiannon yet, and I’m really wishing I hadn’t killed my email account as a way of killing the temptation to get back in touch with her. Then I realize it would be much easier to make a new email account than a new Facebook page, but I’m in math class and the same draconian phone rule applies, so I try to give my mind over to trigonometry, only my mind is bigger than that, and about halfway through the class a woman comes into the doorway and asks for me and I know immediately that this is Mrs. Schaffer and that even though there are only about twenty minutes left in the school day, I am going to be spending them with her.
I go willingly. She asks me how I’m doing, and I see she has my piece from art class in her hand. I tell her the truth, which is that I’m doing great great great great great. Which is maybe too many greats, because I can tell she doesn’t believe me, and she seems super interested when we get to her office in how super interested I am in how the framed posters are all a little bit askew, like she’s testing all the kids with psychological problems to see if they think the frames are crooked or if it’s just their perception that’s off. I know my perception’s not off, so I share my theory with her, and I have to say that for a second Mrs. Schaffer actually seems a little bit embarrassed, because clearly she had no idea all her frames were crooked, but now that I’ve pointed it out she sees it, but she can’t go and fix them with me watching, because she is very conscious about power dynamics and that would make my power a little more dynamic, as it were.
She asks me how much I slept last night, which seems to be a very popular question. I tell her I’m not sure, since I slept through it. But then I tell her three hours. Maybe four. She asks me if I could rate my energy level right now on a scale of one to ten, what would it be? And I tell her it’s normal. Which is a nine. Because a ten should be reserved for people like soldiers and astronauts.
I am trying to do the best I can, even though Alvin’s eyes can’t help but be drawn to the frames, and finally I can’t take it anymore and very reasonably I say to Mrs. Schaffer, “Excuse me for a moment,” and then I straighten every single one of them. You’d think I had a level or something, they’re so even. Then I sit back down.
Mrs. Schaffer says she’s concerned about me and that she is going to recommend to my parents that I get “an outside opinion.” I love that phrase because isn’t any opinion that’s not mine an outside opinion? I’m the only one inside. I’m the only one who knows. Even though I am pushing to remember that I am not actually the I here. As someone who’s supposed to be separate, who’s supposed to be an observer, I’m thinking, Yes, Mrs. S. Get Alvin some help. Because the inside opinion here doesn’t even recognize it’s an opinion. It thinks it’s the truth. And it’s wrong.
I want to tell her this, but she’s dialing my parents now—she didn’t even ask me for the number; she already had it on her desk. And I’m getting mad not only because she’s tattling on me but because I feel she asked me a question and then cut me off before I could answer it. So as soon as she hangs up and tells me they’re on their way, I start to talk to her about what happened in English class, including the injustice of both the teacher’s behavior and the system that keeps people locked in attics. Mrs. Schaffer finds this interesting but doesn’t seem to have much to contribute, and then it’s like I blink and my parents are there, and I’m a little annoyed because I don’t think I’ve gotten to the point yet, and then I’m resentful because Mrs. Schaffer thinks she can introduce a totally different point of her own into the conversation, and then she’s asking my parents all these questions about me as if I’m not actually in the same room with them, and she says casually that my friends are concerned, and I wonder who the traitors are. But no. I am not going to let this get in my way. I’m not going to let their failure of perception affect the things I can do. I am excited to get back to my room and redecorate. My dad is saying the word committed and Mrs. Schaffer is saying that’s not what she’s talking about, that’s not the first step, and I want to tell them, yes, I am very committed to a lot of things, like my room, and people stuck in attics, and Rhiannon, and the thought of Rhiannon kicks me back into my own head a little more, and even though Alvin and his body do NOT want my input here, I am thinking I am going to go along with whatever Alvin’s parents want to do, and my body actually shivers at that thought, which I try to hide, but all the adults in the room see it and I can see them all filing it away, another symptom for them to Google tonight, because somewhere along the way we opened Pandora’s box and found all this technology in there, and were all, HOORAY! THINGS! And then we realized or maybe only semi-realized—like, very occasionally realized—that the gods only left us this box because they wanted us to fragment ourselves, both as a society and individually, so now we’re all slaves to the fragmentation and some of us take it better than others and it’s not our fault that our bodies had all these circuits waiting to be blown, because it wasn’t until the box was opened that the circuits became vulnerable, and I just want to take Steve Jobs’s face and push it into some mud, although that’s not really fair because he was only giving us what we wanted, over and over and over again.
Mrs. Schaffer makes another call and my parents stare at me and Mrs. Schaffer says she can get me in for an evaluation tomorrow at ten a.m., and I feel it’s probably not the right time to point out I’ll probably be up way before that. My parents agree to ten a.m. and herd me away like it’s the end of the first day of kindergarten. School’s been over for almost an hour now but there are still kids around, and when Isabella sees us, she comes over and is real friendly and I find myself despising her. I’m not going to say anything, but then I say, “Et tu, Judas?” And at first I don’t think she hears me. But then she says, “This isn’t what you’re like, Alvin. This isn’t you, and all we’re doing is trying to get you back.” I understand what she means, but I laugh because she’s wrong, because what’s more me than my extremes? Or at least that’s what the body wants me to think as it drenches me in chemistry. I really have to get out of here.
It hurts that Rhiannon asked me to say something and here I am, saying nothing. I feel this so intensely that Alvin’s body relents a little—or maybe it just pours its chemistry into my own extreme thoughts. I realize I don’t have the right vocabulary to articulate what it feels like to be inside this body, because on the car ride home, Mr. and Mrs. Ruiz are asking me, and I don’t have anything to tell them except “There are just a lot of thoughts, all at once, all the time.”