CHAPTER 5

He has a pin attached to his suit jacket.

I noticed it when he walked up to me inside the gallery. There's a sense of regalness about him. An air of upper class-ness.

Gallery 180 has been in operation for eight years. I've worked here for nearly six, after I dropped out of college. Mostly, our visitors are friends and family members of the artists, coming out to show their support. Our paying clients are those looking for a beautiful painting from an artist who hasn't yet proved their worth, hoping a painting they"d bought for a few hundred dollars would, one day, be worth more.

Either way, none of us here mind. But in all the time I've worked here, never has a customer offered to pay five times the asking price for an unknown artist"s work.

The door leading out to the smoking zone on the side of the gallery, where I've been hiding, creaks open. Terri comes up behind me, swinging her legs over the concrete bench as she takes a seat next to me.

I've smoked three cigarettes already just trying not to think about the customer.

"Why am I not surprised that the first time you actually hang up one of your pieces, it would be sold to, like, the hottest man on earth for more than double the price we asked for?" she says.

I give her a weak grin. My stomach is still in knots after my brief encounter with said hottest man on earth. "Tell me again how the fuck that happened, Ter, because I've got no fuckin' clue."

She pulls me into a side hug. "I'm not trying to romanticize Bipolar Disorder, Levi. I know how exhausting it is for you when you're manic – you've told me many times. I won't claim to understand what it must take for you to produce such incredible art, but I want you to know that even though it comes at a terrible cost you never agreed to pay, beautiful things can still come from this part of you. And that speaks to people."

I shove down the sudden lump in my throat. What a sad conundrum. That part of me – the manic part responsible for such glorious accomplishments – is the part of me that often leaves so much destruction in its wake. Still, I appreciate Terri's sensitive honesty. "Thank you. You're a good friend."

She smiles. "We need to meet people in their struggles. That's what real compassion is."

My lips tick up. "You sound like a psychiatrist."

"Well, thank you. That's the goal one day." She nudges me, smiling. "You're a good friend too."

I would have laughed if I wasn't so tired. I'm the shittiest friend Terri has ever had. Not long after we met, she told me she was bisexual and was planning on leaving her boyfriend for a girl she'd just met. It was a secret she'd entrusted to me. I'd gone off my meds, and, one day, in a manic rage, I told her boyfriend ‘the truth about his girlfriend'.

My shame over the things I've done while manic is unending. I don't know how Terri ever forgave me.

"Daniel says you're low, but I know you're happy about this sale, even if you're too low to show it," Terri says.

"Thanks, Terri."

"Your mom called."

"What did you tell her?"

"That you're okay."

I rise from the bench. Terri follows. "Are you, Levi? She said you left the wedding in a rush."

I just sold my first painting for five thousand dollars. My brother just got married, and I made it through being the best man without much drama. I felt like killing myself, but instead of doing it, I called my psychiatrist like a good little nutcase. What is there to be miserable about? I wish I could reach up and yank all this fog out of my brain. "I'm okay. I struggled a little, but I'm okay."

"You know we're here, right? Me and Daniel. Your mom too, even if she's a little overbearing sometimes."

"Yeah, I know. Thanks for helping me today."

"Sure. I didn't do much, though. Your painting sold itself. Daniel said you're delivering?"

"Yeah."

"You"re gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, I'll be okay."

"Okay. Now, since you've just earned the gallery five thousand dollars, you deserve an early night. Go on home. I already cleared it with Daniel. He said Well done, by the way."

"Thanks, Ter. I owe you one."

"Anytime. By the way, you haven't been to our meetings in forever. Sasha has been asking about you."

"Yeah, sorry about that. How is she? I haven't talked to her in ages." I'm so bad at keeping in contact with people, especially when I'm low.

"Seven months riding a mixed episode."

"Mixed episodes are straight from the fucking devil, I swear to God," I say. "She still won't go home?"

"Nope. She's struggling, Levi. We're trying to get some money to get her meds. Her daughter turns four soon. It's all Sasha can talk about, but she—"

"She can't face her family."

"Yeah. And I mean, they don't have a lot of money. So, they can't just make a trip to New York all the way from Virginia."

"Disappearing on your family has got to be like, in the top five of the worst things about being bipolar," I say. God knows, I've ended up in some shady places in my short life.

The problem with Sasha is that she ended up three hundred miles away from her family, convinced that they hate her and are better off without her. The support group is the only thing she has right now.

"That's rough. Come by whenever. Sasha misses you," Terri says.

"I'll text her."

"Don't be surprised if she doesn't answer. She doesn't even look at her texts anymore. Her mom's been calling on the group's phone every day. We have another meeting coming up. Come by if you're up to it. We're still meeting at the library, but we're not on the third floor anymore. We're on the second floor now, next to the reading room."

"Okay, I'll try." I give Terri a tight hug and say goodbye.

My apartment is a fifteen-minute walk from the gallery. It's a nice little place I have in Alphabet City. My mother hates my choice of neighborhood, but that was the whole appeal of the place. Her disdain for my location keeps her away unless there"s an emergency.

I spend the entire fifteen minutes working out a dozen different scenarios where I could die but where it won't look like a suicide attempt. Maybe I look the wrong way while crossing the road and get hit by a car. Or I have a rare, undetectable illness and by the time we find out, it's too late; I'll have only a few weeks to live. Or maybe I go to sleep and just never wake up – an unexplained tragedy. While I plan my accidental death, I text Sasha. It goes undelivered, so I call her. It goes to voicemail. I hope she's okay.

My apartment is on top of a drycleaning and laundromat service – Marge's Full-Service Laundries – where I wash too much of my clothes (even the clean ones) when I'm manic and not enough of them when I'm low. Marge, the manager, waves at me as I walk past.

"Haven't seen you in ages, Levi. You still got clean underwear?" she yells from inside with a laugh.

I frown. That is . . . actually a legitimate question.

I lift my hand in a wave and smile with effort. "I do," I call back. But, honestly, I'm not sure.

By the time I let myself into my apartment, my brain is dead, and my body is not far behind. I sink into the couch, dying for something to drink but I can't make it that far. Curling up onto the couch, I pray – not just for sleep, but an endless sleep.

I'm not so lucky. The universe, or God, whatever higher power there is, returns my life to my body at some point in the morning. I know I'm alive when my stomach starts screaming for sustenance, and my mouth feels like I have cotton balls stuffed into it.

I'm still on the couch. I try to remember what day it is and what could have possibly caused me to wake up alive today.

Not much comes through my unreliable brain, except the thought of the man in my painting who looked up at the sky looking for his normal and not finding it, even when he knew right from the beginning it was never going to be found.

Then, slowly, it all comes back to me. David's wedding. My comforting thoughts about dying. Couldn't you keep it together for just one day, Levi. Four-percent battery. I'd never ruin the most important day of David's life. The hot man with that hot ass I wanted to break my vow of celibacy for, who paid five thousand dollars for my crazy-man painting.

I wish I could say the thought of the customer causes my body to bolt upright, sending me screaming through the room, looking for the time. The truth is, all I do is sink deeper into the couch, squeezing my eyes shut. Maybe, if I just stop breathing long enough, it'll all end.

Finally, I peel myself off the couch and trudge to the kitchen in search of my charger. I plug it into my phone, then chug down a whole gallon of water.

Then, I begin my morning ritual:

Shower, because if this low persists, it might be days before I shower again. Also, I have a delivery to make.

After my shower, I switch on the TV and pull up Gotham, season two, episode fifteen. Why do I watch this episode every single day of my life? Because it's about people confronting their deepest fears and desires and how easily the line between sanity and madness can be blurred. It reminds me to keep fighting because, even in my darkest moments, there's always hope. Also, as a general fact of life, Batman is God. My main man. My hero until the end.

Next, I prepare a cup of Earl Gray tea with half a spoon of sugar and a bit of cream. At first, I stir the tea in an anti-clockwise direction. That doesn"t feel right, so I stir again in a clockwise direction.

Although I feel slightly better this morning than I did yesterday, my movements are still sluggish and all I want to do is crawl into my bed and forget about the world of the living.

But these predictable morning patterns are required if I am to avoid spiraling even further in my depressive episode. The repetition is comforting. The predictability is safe. Doing the same things in the same order every day is important to my sanity.

I take the tea to the living room. There is a side table next to the couch. I always keep a stack of classic literature there so I can read in the mornings before work. When I'm low I'm careful not to read books that can make me too excitable. Sometimes, I read Sherlock Holmes. Other times, when I feel like I'm losing myself, I read poetry.

I settle into the couch with a poetry collection and open to the bookmarked page, to a poem titled When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer. Sipping my tea, I take in the words, reminding myself to turn my focus away from the noise and the futility of my disorder, and just be still.

Once my tea is finished, I set the book aside and return to the kitchen to clean out my mug and wash my hands. Then I straighten out my boxes of various teas because some of them were facing the wrong way.

On my way back to the living room, wash my hands again, and then light a diffuser. Some people at the support group suggested it. I don't know yet if it works. The time on the microwave says I have enough time before I need to make my delivery, so I settle in for my episode of Gotham.

A banging at the front door as the credits roll almost sends me into cardiac arrest, and the shock sends me to the door faster than my brain or body can cope with.

My mother pushes her way in, her face contorted with fear and anger and relief and dread and all the things people feel when they find that their child hasn't hung himself at some point during the night.

"I couldn't get hold of you. No one could." Her eyes send a dozen accusations my way. "I called Dr. Emily. You didn't go like you said you would. I had to learn from your friend that you were okay."

"My phone died," I murmur.

She stands in the hallway, turning three hundred and sixty degrees. "When was the last time you cleaned, Levi. You're not usually like this."

I am usually like this, and she knows it. God knows, she's been here enough times when I've been low. My mother's unwillingness to accept this part of me hurts.

I survey my apartment with her. It's not that bad. I must have not cleaned for only a week or two. Which reminds me, Marge from the laundromat was right. I need to do some laundry immediately.

"Sometimes, I wish you'd just snap out of it, Levi. God knows this has been going on for too long. You're not sick, you know," she says with confidence. "You're a perfectly healthy young man. Maybe all these issues will go away as you get older."

"Bipolar Disorder doesn't go away, Mom." I walk to the kitchen sink to wash my hands.

"It's because you keep telling yourself that. Your mind will believe anything you tell it. Everybody has bad moods sometimes. You're fine when you're in a good mood."

My heart sinks. "It's not just a matter of good moods and bad moods, Mom. Or having good days or bad days. It's an actual medical condition."

My mother huffs. "Well, Levi. If it's a medical condition, why haven't all those pills you've been taking fixed it? God knows, we've tried the pills. I don't think you have Bipolar Disorder. You're just an emotional person. You always have been, even when you were a child. Why don't you do some meditation?"

"I need to go to work," I say. Am I healthily steering away from a potentially harmful conversation or am I avoiding feeling like the worst loser on the planet? No one knows. In any case, I have tried meditation. When I'm manic, it just makes my mind race more and all I can think about is making the noise inside my head stop. I wish I could explain all of it to my mother.

"I'll stay and clean up for you. What time will you be back?" she says.

"When I'm done."

"That's not an answer, Levi. Speak up."

I don't argue. "An hour or two."