LIGHTS ON,
RATS OUT
A MEMOIR
C REE L E F AVOUR
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Copyright 2017 by Cree LeFavour
Cover design by Gretchen Mergenthaler
Cover layout by Becca Fox Design
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Excerpts from The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter, translation copyright 1927, copyright renewed 1955 by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Thomas Mann, Der Zauberberg. S. Fischer Verlag, Berlin 1924. All rights reserved by S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main.
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.
FIRST EDITION
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
Text Design by Ashley Prine
This book was set in Scala with Frutiger by Tandem Books
First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: August 2017
ISBN 978-0-8021-2596-5
eISBN 978-0-8021-8915-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this title.
Grove Press
an imprint of Grove Atlantic
154 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
Distributed by Publishers Group West
groveatlantic.com
17 18 19 20 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Nicole LeFavour
So meshed in nerves and hesitation, it could not be a thing to be afraid of; yet it was a real beast, and this book its mangy skin, dried, stuffed and set up squarely for men to stare at.
T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Im somewhere in the sprawling mess of suburban New Jersey, sitting on damp earth. Shielded from the road by a gravestone, I put a flame to my Camel Light. Whatever irony or black humor my location offers, the graveyard is the only privacy I can find in this ugly matrix of unknowable highways, roundabouts, turn lanes, and exits. No more than one hundred yards away my thirteen-year-old daughter moves pointlessly up and down the soccer field in her cheery yellow-and-blue uniform, long brown hair pulled back in a slick ponytail, trying her best to get to the ball.
Its been twenty years. Would it be as good as ever? Taking a drag to fire up the ember. Choosing my spot. Holding the burning cigarette to my skin. Feeling my brain bleed out in a state of perfect concentration. Id go inside the sensation, will it into pleasure until it became just that. Bliss. Time at rest. The world stopped in a pinprick of pain-pleasure. I might stay, light and use a second cigarette on the spot, then rest on the interior of my mind where that inky calm holds.
I guess I never finished the task of knowing my own mind well enough to see this day coming. What misshapen root bears the strange urge that makes holding a cigarette to my skin seem not just a good idea, but necessary? Theres only one person who knows this particular kind of crazy because hes been through it with me before, my former psychiatrist, Dr. Kohl. Its been more than two decades since I left Burlington, Vermont, for New York City after three years in treatment with him. What had this fetish meant to me then and how did I stop only to feel it quicken now? The answer flaps about somewhere in the past, snapping now and again like a flag in a strong wind.
I wouldnt care so much about solving the riddle of my desire but for the pain of reconciling it with the reality of my beautiful daughter just over there. I cant match the impulse with what I am to her and how I want her to know me: strong, reliable, with ample belief in this wonderful, strange life. Im pulled outside myself by the refs whistle mixing with the claps and yells of doting, vaguely bored parents positioned, as I should be, in a row of folding chairs on the sideline. I long for Dr. Kohl as I crush out my cigarette on the wet grass.
The whistle is my cue to dodge the busy traffic, step onto the field, find my daughter, and envelop her with whatever it is she needs. I can do this and whatevers necessary to maintain normalcy and I will. But I need to reclaim the self I once was, the one I left with Dr. Kohl, if Im going to avoid the 3rd degree burn I suddenly want so badly to imprint on myself.
At home, untouched in the attic all these years, is the fat file Dr. Kohl kept during my treatmenteach of our sessions written out in dialogue along with his notes to himself. He copied the documents and handed them to me when I departed. Ive left the radioactive pages untouched all these years. Now I need them to take me back to my younger self, the one who would make her mark and cover it with transparent Band-Aids, long sleeves, and anything she could find to keep her secrets.
11/11/2012
I have written this memoir using all evidence at hand including files of physicians notes, hospital records, and my own journals. Ive quoted from these documents verbatim. Some include grammatical and spelling errors that I have retained for accuracy. I have changed the name of my psychiatrist and several identifying details to preserve his anonymity.
POTTER : Oooo. It damn well urts.
LAWRENCE : Certainly it hurts.
POTTER : Whats the trick, then?
LAWRENCE : The trick, William Potter, is not minding
Harry Fowler as William Potter and Peter OToole as T.E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia
To cease utterly, to give it all up and not know anything morethis idea was as sweet as the vision of a cool bath in a marble tank, in a darkened chamber, in a hot land.
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.
Emily Dickinson, The Mystery of Pain
1st degree: a superficial burn of the epidermis. Grazing the bare forearm against a hot baking sheet loaded with sugar cookies might cause such a minor infliction. 1sts heal in days and leave no scar. Baby stuff. At the other extreme, the most severe 4th degree extends through the epidermis and dermis, damaging the subcutaneous tissue, including muscle and bone. House-on-fire-and-no-way-out bad. This meanie requires excision, a word as hideous as the procedure: cutting away and removing dead flesh and damaged bone only to repair the gap with grafts of healthy skin harvested from elsewhere on the body.