november the band

chapter 2 - trouble with dreams

In life, none of their rich friends and family members really gave Laura and Jack much credit for taking on their fat schizophrenic son, and now it’s Amelia’s turn to carry the embarrassment. In the court documents that ended his life six years ago there was a contingency plan established that, in the event of the passing of his parents, Matt would be passed down to Amelia like a small fortune in credit card debt or a hereditary predisposition to rectal cancer. He wonders how they got her to agree to this at the age of twenty-one, but he wasn’t privy to the family meetings on the “what the fuck are we doing about Matt” topic. He reminds himself to ask Julia and Eric about it at dinner later, in front of their stupid spouses and stupid kids and their stupid great aunt or whoever the fuck they end up seated next to.  He tries to focus on the tactile sensation of his dress pants under his palms. The akathisia is enough to rattle your teeth out of their sockets. It’s all a perfect metaphor for his life, being asked to sit pretty and be a good boy while he feels like he’s having his fingernails ripped out one by one. Every muscle in his body is tensed and trembling with the effort required to keep it all contained to one place, from falling apart into disparate atoms. He has no clue how he hasn’t yet dissolved into a pile of sludge.  When Amelia touches his arm it actually hurts. “Matt,” she hisses.  Everyone around them is openly looking at them now. Rage throbs, dulled by the drugs but building with each passing moment. If they’re going to stare he may as well give them something to stare at, right? “Fuck this,” he mutters, shooting up before his siblings can register what’s going on.