The Girl with the Rainbow Tears

Everyone is happy when I take my meds. Except me.

The meds are for “my condition,” as my parents and siblings describe my particular brand of schizophrenia. They’re all afraid to say the word. It’s a bitch to spell too.

**************

“So, you are color blind,” the old man said. He nodded but he wouldn’t look Fargo in the eye. The boy seemed a little strange.

“Not just color blind, my friend. Real color blindness. I can only see black, white, and shades of gray. It’s extremely rare,” Fargo said. He sounded both proud and despondent at this, but the ratio was unequal.

“I see,” the old man said. He edged away from Fargo ever so slightly, getting ready to take his leave, either by fleeing madly or sauntering away. The method of leaving depended on the strange young man with the nervous manner and bright eyes.

“I’m also schizophrenic, but my family hates that word. They say things like ‘bad connotation’ and ‘painting with a broad brush.’ Personally, it doesn’t bother me. It’s the color blindness that gets me.”

“I see.” The old man stood up, dusted himself off for no good reason, and waved at the boy as he left. A group of people were just passing by, so he sought safety in their numbers.

“Hey” Fargo yelled at the man after a few seconds. The old man turned around warily.

“Do you know that you have a Calabaza squash growing out of your forehead?”

The old man yelled back.

“Of course I do. It’s for my supper.”

And this made sense to Fargo because he had neglected to take his meds.

Everyone would gently rebuke him for this. Dad would stand in front of him and watch him swallow the pills, and then he would put an arm around his shoulder and tell him how proud he was of his son. Mom would kiss him on the forehead and squeeze his left arm. Always the left arm. He was not yet good enough for the right-arm squeeze, he figured.

After all of this “hullabaloo,” as Fargo called it, he would either spit out the pills and bury them in the trash or he would have already dutifully swallowed them. If he had swallowed them, he would become a zombie, but he would be allowed to sit in the back yard and not be bothered by his well-meaning parents. If he spat them out, he would be very animated and not allowed to sit in the back yard. Mom would hover around him all day, which made him nervous and irritable.

His solution to all of this was to spit out his meds and take one of mom’s Xanax, washed down with a healthy swig of dad’s bourbon. Mom’s wine tended to give him nightmares.

This would fool them for a bit, and he would have the best of both worlds; he could go to the back yard and he could talk with his friends. The old man was a friend he saw from time to time, and he always had some sort of vegetable growing out of his forehead. His other friend was the girl with the rainbow tears.

**************

She hasn’t been there for a couple of months. Maybe she can’t find me. Maybe she doesn’t want to be friends anymore. Maybe she’s mad because I told mom about the lottery numbers.

**************

When Fargo asked his mom to buy a lottery ticket with six specific numbers, she sighed and gave him a sad smile. He persisted. At the end of the day, she gave in and bought the ticket. She won $131 million. From that point on, she seemed a little frightened of Fargo, like he had a power that no one should have. Fargo never noticed this in her. He was upset, though, that they left their little house and moved into a really big one; his friends might not be able to find him.

Now they had a big house, lots of land, and a park on the west side of their property. The “park” wasn’t really a park, but it felt like one. There were trees all around. There were benches and picnic tables. A stream gurgled nearby, but he wasn’t allowed to be near it.

Dad got to quit his job and they hired a full-time person to attend to Fargo. Liv was her name, and Fargo liked her because she left him alone when they went to the park. She would sit on the wraparound balcony in the shade, reading magazines and sipping whatever wine was at hand. She did keep Fargo in sight – about half the time he was out there. Liv was terrible at her job but no one seemed to notice. Or care.

Liv and dad were having an affair, but so was mom and one of the landscape guys. Fargo saw all of this, but it didn’t seem to matter much to him. His mom and dad seemed happier than ever since they won all that money and had new friends to play with. Fargo was a little sad that none of his friends wanted to play with his parents, but that was ok, he figured, because his friends never asked him to take his meds.

**************

She showed up today! Now I can see all of the colors again!

**************

The girl with the rainbow tears stood at the edge of the park, watching. Fargo had learned long ago not to approach her. He waited until she moved a little closer. He gave her a quick glance as she moved closer, and then looked away. It wasn’t until she sat beside him that he spoke to her. Her body heat caressed Fargo’s right arm, and he caught the scent of her jasmine perfume.

“You’ve been gone for a while,” Fargo said. He was petulant, and a little frightened. Fargo’s greatest fear wasn’t that his parents would die and leave him alone; it was losing the girl who gave him all the colors of the world.

“Yes. But I am here now.” She looked at Fargo expectantly.

Fargo moved closer to her so that their shoulders touched. He reached out his hand and she gave him her hand. Fargo closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the feel of her hand and just letting the moment be what it was. After a few moments, the girl turned to him.

“Are you ready?” she continued.

“Yes. Please,” Fargo said. He held out his hand and she bent over it, her hair hiding her face. A few seconds later, she sat up.

Fargo had a teardrop in the palm of his hand. It barely touched his skin, retaining its peculiar and beautiful shape. He stared at it with relentless intensity as the teardrop spun slowly, revealing all of the colors of the rainbow. Suddenly, gravity woke up and flattened the teardrop in his palm. Fargo squeezed the teardrop.

He looked at the world around him and smiled. The girl with the rainbow teardrops had red hair today. And green eyes. A Ferris wheel was spinning slowly, just past the west side of the park, and jugglers and acrobats in brightly-colored costumes cavorted across the clearing in front of them. Several kids walked by eating pink cotton candy, accompanied by their parents, who were all on stilts and all wearing top hats. A calliope was playing music from somewhere.

The girl with the teardrop eyes took Fargo’s hand again, this time leading him to the Ferris wheel. Without a word to anyone, they soon found themselves at the top of the Ferris wheel. It had stopped.

“It’s beautiful up here,” the girl said, almost sounding happy, “and peaceful. Far from all those who wish for things they shouldn’t have.”

Fargo nodded, not because he agreed with her but because he learned that one should acknowledge others’ remarks. Truthfully, he had no idea what her statement meant.

“How are your parents?” The girl with the rainbow teardrops continued to scan the countryside.

Fargo brightened a little.

“They each have a new friend that they play with. Upstairs mostly. I’m not allowed to play with them.”

“Where the bedrooms are,” the girl commented.

“Yeah, I suppose. And they hardly ever make me take my meds.”

“And Liv?”

“She doesn’t care if I take them. She really good about that.”

The couple continued to gaze over the vista in front of them. A multitude of people were all hurrying to have a good time. Kids and adults were playing games, trying to win cheap stuffed animals. Others were eating weird concoctions that were guaranteed to explode the heart. Still others were drinking large quantities of alcohol and hoping that tomorrow would be a better day for them and knowing in their hearts that it wouldn’t be.

“Thanks for the teardrop. It’s the only time I can see all of the colors,” Fargo said.

The girl looked at him and smiled. When she smiled, Fargo’s heart did a little dance, but he didn’t know why. He figured that it was because the Xanax had side effects.

“Why did you tell your mom about the lottery numbers?”

Fargo hesitated, trying to find the right words for his friend. This was often difficult for him, unless he was writing in his journal. Words were hard to speak when you had to explain something, he reflected, but easy to write.

“My mom, you see. She would always ask my brother and sister for money so she could take care of me better. They always said they didn’t have any, and then they would leave before I even had a chance to play with them. Mom would cry, and that is a bad thing, right?”

The girl looked at him and smiled, but the smile held none of the brightness and sparkle that Fargo associated with her. Weird, he thought.

“Right.”

“So I thought that I’d tell her the numbers you told me. Now everyone is happy. Mom gives my brother and sister money when they come to visit, and they’re happy. Mom and dad have new friends that make them happy. Liv seems happy when I’m here and she’s drinking wine. I’m happy because no one cares if I take my meds.”

“I see,” the girl with the rainbow tears said. They sat in silence for a few moments, watching the crowd’s ebb and flow around the game booths, the food trucks, and the alcohol stands. Everyone was in such a hurry, Fargo thought.

“We’re not moving,” Fargo said.

“No.”

“I wonder why not.”

The girl with the rainbow eyes turned to Fargo and held both of his hands.

“See all those people down there? They are all searching for something. A little peace. A little happiness. No one except us wants to sit and enjoy the moment.”

“I like it up here. I can see all the colors down there.”

“Fargo, I want you to be nice to the old man.”

Fargo looked at the girl with the rainbow tears, astonishment on his face.

“You know him too? I thought I was the only friend he had.”

“No.”

Fargo considered this new development. The old man knew the girl with rainbow tears! It might take him some time to get used to that.

“I never take him up here, though. This will be our special place from now on, Fargo. Don’t worry. Don’t worry about anything. You’re my best friend.”

The words were like magic to Fargo. He didn’t know how the girl with rainbow tears knew what he was thinking, but she did. At least, it seemed like she did. Fargo decided not to dwell on it because it would give him a headache.

“I’m always nice to him.”

“You need to let him talk more instead of talking about yourself. Ask him how he is doing. Ask him how his day is going. If you’re really nice to him, he’ll grow an apple out of his knee and give it to you.”

“Really? I like apples.”

They sat in silence again. The wind started getting stronger, and it blew the girl’s hair into Fargo’s face. It smelled like strawberries. Fargo also liked strawberries.

“I have to go now,” the girl said.

Fargo protested mildly, but he knew from experience that she would go whether he asked her to stay or not. It was no use throwing a fit, so he didn’t. Throwing a fit would only give him a headache and make Liv upset.

Without understanding how it happened, Fargo was back in the park, sitting on a bench and staring at a squirrel that was staring at him. It skittered away when Fargo got up to return to the house.

**************

Summer is almost over, so Liv says I have to start wearing a jacket when I go to the park. I don’t know why. It’s always warm on the Ferris wheel. The girl with the rainbow tears was right. The old man gives me apples when we talk. He’s a funny old man but he has great stories about when he was a pirate. I like pirates. I wish he had a parrot on his shoulder, though.

Now that we have a big house, mom and dad don’t have to share a bedroom any longer. Mom’s room is full of flowers and weird bottles of stuff that smell nice. Dad’s room has what he calls a wet bar. It doesn’t look wet.

My brother and sister are both in rehab for cocaine addiction. Mom said it was all her fault because she gave them too much money. I told her that it wasn’t her fault for giving them money to make them happy, and that I was happy when she gave me money to buy books and Twizzlers. She started crying so I patted her on the right arm and left her alone. She seemed unhappy.

**************

“Liv! Hey!”

Liv looked down from the balcony, frowning at Fargo. She was three glasses deep into a rather expensive Cabernet and didn’t care to be yelled at by an idiot.

“What!” Liv yelled back. She stood unsteadily at the balcony railing and looked down at the smiling Fargo. Suddenly an apple appeared before her face, suspended in midair for an instant. She reached out, bobbled the apple for a moment, and then watched it fall back towards the ground. Fargo tried to catch it but failed spectacularly at this task. The apple hit the pavement and broke into pieces.

“Where the hell did you get those?”

Liv had been watching Fargo sit on the bench for the past three hours. He rarely moved, save to drink from his bottle of water. Not that she cared that much. The kid was an imbecile. The only reason she stayed here was for the money and the jewelry that Fargo’s dad bought her. Fargo’s old man was an idiot, too. Sure, she slept with him, but not that often. The benefits, she figured, far outweighed the drawbacks.

“Don’t worry. I’ll get you another one tomorrow,” Fargo yelled at Liv before he went inside.

“Jackass,” Liv muttered to herself. She poured herself a fourth glass of wine and stared out at the empty countryside. The trees were losing their leaves and a chilly breeze made her shiver a little. Everything seemed so dead out here, she thought. It was at this moment that Liv realized that she hated her dull, colorless life. She poured out another glass of wine and continued staring at nothing.

“Mom! Hey mom! Want an apple?”

Fargo’s mother was also drinking wine, her eyes dulled from the alcohol.

“Where did you get that?”

Fargo smiled and held out the apple. His mom waved it off. She had better things to do than to talk with Fargo. It was always painful, and she figured that Liv was getting paid enough and laid enough to deal with Fargo.

“Give it to your dad,” she said.

“Dad! Hey dad! Want an apple?” Fargo had run up the stairs, his feet beating a heavy, thumping tattoo on the carpeted steps.

Fargo’s dad was not drinking wine; he was drinking a rather expensive brand of whiskey. His balding head glinted in the afternoon sunlight, and his slight paunch looked even bigger in the unflattering light.

Fargo’s dad grunted and waved his son away. He wanted to drink in silence, and he didn’t need his youngest kid bothering him right now. Besides, he paid Liv a lot of money to take care of the boy’s needs. And his needs, he thought. Quite a sporting girl, that Liv. Maybe he should buy her some earrings, show his appreciation.

Fargo went to his bedroom, ate the remaining apple, and read himself to sleep.

That very night, he dreamed in color for the first time in his life.