Afraid of Myself

by Dan Chaon

(January 27, 2004) - I started to lose my mind one summer when I was 24. Gradually, I had begun to notice a slight slippage in my sense of reality. Little hallucinations were becoming routine. Shadows made startling, threatening gestures at me. A paper bag dragged by the wind across the sidewalk at a glance seemed to be a wounded cat. Sometimes I'd hear a tinkle of icicle-like bells behind my back.

At first, I could blame the stress of more mundane anxieties for such moments. I was in graduate school back then, my wife was pregnant and I was working two part-time jobs. I would get up to deliver newspapers at 5 in the morning, and then in the evenings I worked as a busboy in an overweening French restaurant. I spent a lot of my day in a dreamy state of shame and panic. The master's degree in English I was getting offered no real hope for future employment. How would I support my child-to-be? How would I explain to my construction-worker father that I -- the first in my family to go to college -- was tossing newspapers onto porches in the predawn like a schoolboy? Walking along, I saw a sign tacked to a telephone pole that clearly said, ''You Suck!'' before it turned into ''Yard Sale!'' as I drew closer. I felt as if bugs were crawling in my hair.

But I didn't really think about the possibility of mental illness until things started disappearing. I began losing everything: keys, lighters, directions. A book I put down on the coffee table reappeared in the refrigerator; a brand-new shirt in my closet evaporated, leaving only a hanger. Worst of all were the expensive sunglasses I'd bought -- a sort of comfort extravagance I'd purchased without consulting my wife -- which vanished a few hours after I got them. I spent an afternoon searching for them, going through my dresser drawers, my car, the clothes hamper. It was impossible that they were gone, and I was muttering to myself, trembling.

I knew there were diseases of the mind that struck in your mid-20's. Schizophrenia? I tried to dismiss the thought. My wife was in the living room, laughing at something on television as I flipped through an old psychology textbook. I knew stories of hallucinations and uncertain reality would upset her, and I couldn't bear to seem like even more of a failure to her and our future baby than I already was.

So I went off to work at the restaurant as if everything were normal. Even under the best circumstances, I was a terrible busboy, and that night was worse than usual. My boss, the maitre d'hotel, was a small, broad-shouldered bully. Customers would always ask if he was from France, and he made the same laughlike sound in his throat. ''No, no,'' he would say. ''I am from Jersey. . . . The old Jersey.'' Then they would chortle, he and the customers. He would turn to me, smile tightening, and snap his fingers, pointing at a water glass I hadn't filled, a plate I hadn't cleared, a dazed expression I couldn't wipe off my face.

That night, he complained that his tips were lower than usual. He called me over to a table I'd recently bused. ''This,'' he said, and held up some singles. ''This is all that was left on the table?''

''Yes,'' I said. But looking at him, I felt guilty, even though I hadn't done anything wrong. ''I didn't touch the money.''

''I see,'' he replied. His gray eyes scoped mine. He cleared his throat. ''I don't need you to bus tables anymore tonight. Why don't you go polish some silverware?''

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I didn't believe that I was stealing the tip money, but I was unnerved. I thought again of mental illnesses. How would I know for sure if I was in their grip? Was this the kind of breakdown I'd read about?

At the end of my shift, the maitre d'hotel was sitting at his desk, shuffling tenderly through his wad of cash. He shared the tips with us busboys at his own discretion, a percentage that was calculated based on his overall estimation of our value.

''What is it now?'' he snapped. ''I already gave you your money! You were just in here five minutes ago. What the hell is wrong with you?''

We argued. I hadn't been in the office five minutes ago, I was sure of it, but his vehemence made me uncertain. Had I begun to sleepwalk through chunks of my life? Or was he lying?

"You're crazy,'' he said abruptly. He crumpled a 20 and threw it at me. ''Get out and don't come back."

Even now, settled in my solid life, I'm disturbed by this memory, and a part of me still worries at the tenuousness of reality. Maybe I did steal that tip money. I'm still unsure.

I remember standing in the parking lot that night preparing to walk home to my wife, one foot in reality, one foot outside it. I never saw a doctor, so I never knew what plagued me. I didn't know then that my equilibrium would return in the coming months, that I would stay sane, escape. I stood staring up at the moon, where a ragged black shape, something like a flapping piece of cloth, was flying swiftly into the clouds.

Dan Chaon is the author of the novel "You Remind Me of Me."

Source: New York Times

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