Figuring Things Out--An Introduction
Hello everyone. I am sorry for my sporadic nature in my scheudule. Today is the first day I've had available to begin work on Zee's story. This is going to be a multi-part segment. Essentially, I'm going to post as pieces become available. This is about the period between Zee's attack of the preacher and the point at which I left Luca and Zee at the end of Chapter 20. Once this is caught up, Luca's Story will continue on. I just felt it important that we see what Zee has gone through since his arrest.
Figuring Things Out
I don't know what the hell I was thinking when I punched that guy. In fact, I'm not sure I was thinking at all. In my mind, those words were still burning bright and hot. God still hates you, fag. Who are they to pass on God's judgment? Every time my fist connected with that preacher's face, it felt good. Even as I felt the blood pouring from my knuckles, the sheer fury that boiled inside me only made me want to see more. It wasn't until a police officer stopped me on my way back home and put me in the back of his squad car that things in my heart and mind started to calm down. When the steel bars of my cell slammed closed, things started to really hit home.
My name is Zee Polaski, and I don't know who I am anymore.
I was in that cell for an entire day before my father finally posted bail. I guess I couldn't blame him for it. He doesn't care what gender I am, for which I am so thankful. He just cares that I am the thoughtful, upstanding citizen he taught me to be in life. I don't think anybody like myself is really so lucky to have parents like that.
As for Luca, I can't help but feel such anger. I feel guilty for it, though. Rationally, I know she wasn't trying to hurt me. She was not actively trying to out the two of us. She was just trying to be a normal girl, just like I want to be a normal boy. But while rational thought tells me this, my heart and my soul scream out in tremendous fury. Memories of how zealous she had been to win that court position, of how I was found out in the restroom at a dance I never intended to attend until Luca pushed me into it.
Then there were the days following that dance. The questions, the stares, the glares... and the threats. Luca received some of the heat. But she wasn't the one fighting for their right to compete in the big track meet. No, for the longest time, the country's eyes were drilling in on me. Luca was nothing more than an addendum to thicken the plot for the media's coverage. I grew to hate everything and everyone, even myself.
The stress was making me gain weight, even to the point where my breasts started to develop. How could I have ever let this happen? The distractions of constant requests of interviews, of protestors making a point of gathering in front of my school at least three times a week, and the threatening emails all piled up to make me ready to snap at any second. The only thing I had at the time was running.
My therapist keeps telling me that I need a vent. I guess that's why I'm writing this. But at that point, I think the running was the only thing keeping me stable. I was pushing myself further than I ever imagined I would want to, much less try to. I knew I was going to really push barriers at that meet, but I never imagined just how far. I hadn't been bothering with timing myself, and I was mostly ignoring what the coach was telling me about taking it easy and not putting my body through so much stress. I think he worried much more about my capabilities after he found out the truth, like I was suddenly more fragile for it. I hated him for that, too.
The moment of the race is the only happy memory I can really recall having since the dance. I don't even remember the start, or hurling myself over each hurdle. What I remember is the blankness. It was like spending a year in Maui without a care in the world. There was no crowd; there were no protestors outside the track and field area. There wasn't even a track beneath my feet. I was just flying. I was free.
Which is what made things seem so much more terrible when I came back from my flight. To be so free, so blissful, only to turn around and see people hating and judging you for it... I was seething. I can't remember a lower point in my life than how I felt on the other side of the finish line. I broke barriers that day when I broke that record. I was supposed to be standing on the top of the world. I've never felt lower.
My therapist thinks she's making so much progress with me. Honestly, I can't stand sitting in her office for more than ten minutes. I don't care what my friends have said about how sexy skunkettes can be. Put yourself in an enclosed space with one for an hour and you'll never want to look at them the same again. Some people say the smell is intoxicating. Others say they get used to it for the sake of being with their beautiful ladies. I say I'd rather be on the receiving end of a javelin toss.
Most of this that I've written was what I was considering when I sat inside that prison cell. The cops had segregated me from both the male and female cells--another thing I felt hatred about, despite the tiny bit of gratitude I had for not having to be around other teenage thugs--so I had a lot of time to just think on my own. I was able to extract myself from the hatred and anger, at least for a little while, and see myself from the outside. Mr. Grubbs--my world history teacher--says that is called Socratic thinking. I had been trying it out a year or so ago, but never bothered to exercise the process again until a few weeks ago in that cell. I was surprised to see what I saw. A year ago, I saw the mental projection of myself. I was a young teenage boy. I had a smile on my face, and a forward-thinking attitude. I had the world at my fingertips, as my elders say. I was energetic, I was passionate about so many things. I loved myself.
What I became since is chilling, to say the least. In that cell, when I faced myself, I was hardly recognizable. I felt old. I felt worn. What I imagined of myself was an old, beaten and weathered piece of androgynous feline. The future felt dark. Actually, it still does. I keep speaking in those kinds of past terms, I realize, but I'm still feeling these things. I just can't bring myself to face them just yet. I can't stand the darkness. I hate every moment of it. I fear for what I am becoming.
I wish I could write that I'm getting better. I wish I could say that I'm on my way to recovery. All I feel right now is like I'm idling and not going anywhere. Maybe I'll try to go and talk to Luca at some point soon. I've avoided her ever since the day I attacked that preacher. She's probably furious with me. Somehow, I have to get over this anger I keep feeling towards her.
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Zee put down his pen on top of the pad in which he was writing these words. To the right of it, there was another pad of identical make with more words written in it. Those were the words he would give his therapist, the words he knew she wanted to hear. He had been plugging away at his research to figure out the best combination of things to say so that she would believe he was making some significant progress. He needed to get out of those sessions as soon as possible, and didn't need additional suffocating hours with her looming over him with her psychotherapy babble.
Pushing himself away from his desk, Zee tore out the pages he'd just written in his secret journal and took a lighter to them. Watching the flames curl and blacken the pages, he finally let it drop into his metallic trash bin. His windows were open and his parents were out for the day, so Zee just let the smoke idly drift its way through his room and out into the chilling air, enjoying the smell of the smoke.
Standing up, Zee latched his bedroom door with a sliding piece his own parents didn't know he had. They'd removed the lock ever since the incident, but Zee wasn't the top of his carpentry class for nothing. The piece melded with the door perfectly in color. When he pushed it to the side, a metal piece slid home a few inches above the doorknob. It wasn't much, but it would at least buy time to hide whatever he had out.
Zee then moved to his bed, kneeling by one end and sliding out his art supplies case that had remained largely untouched for the past five years until this point. He dug down and pulled out a small box. Once he opened it, the reek of pot caressed his face like a familiar lover. He pulled out a small glass piece he'd gotten from a friend as a gift, a small baggie, and a vial of salvia extract.
Once Zee lit up, he took three deep drags, holding each one as long as he could before breaking down into a fit of hacking coughs that made him sound like he was working up a hairball. He then tapped the contents into a small bowl which he carefully laid aside, then filled the glass pipe with salvia. Using a miniature acetylene torch his father had for minor welding fixes in his garage, he burned the salvia at a superheated temperature, inhaling quickly. He then laid back, lungs full of the smoke. It wasn't long before Zee was flying again.