Today I decided to Go Insane

I was beyond excited when I finally sat in the driver’s seat and my hand grasped the gearshift. Since I arrived at work I’d been eagerly waiting for 3PM. I had skated through the day, absentmindedly typing and clicking, as I planned my weekend. Yes, this weekend was a special weekend, because today I had decided to go insane.

I had actually been mulling it over for a few weeks, planning and scheming, but today I finally committed. I waited until the last minute, because I felt that waiting until the last minute was more like the behavior of a crazy person. I’d actually become quite familiar with insanity — I’d spent more time at work that week researching different mental illnesses than actually doing work.

I learned that schizophrenia, contrary to popular belief, is not the same as multiple personality disorder, or “dissociative identity disorder,” if you insist. I also learned that antidepressants, when used by manic-depressives, may actually cause manic episodes. When my boss reprimanded me for severely neglecting my work, I growled at him, then quickly apologized and laughed heartily as if I’d planned it as a joke. But it was really just to get a taste for the weekend to come.

See, I had decided to ramp up my insanity from a slight quirkiness to full out insanity by the week’s end. I began with small symptoms, such as feverishly biting my nails when no one was looking. I gradually moved on to laying back flat on the carpet and staring at my living room ceiling-fan spin and spin until I saw colors. After acknowledging the sheer beauty of the colors, I secretly admitted to myself that my ceiling fan stake-outs would most likely continue even after my temporary bout of insanity. Finally, I had reached the end of the week, and full insanity was in swing.

Now, before I get ahead of myself, I don’t want you to think that I saved my insanity strictly for non-working hours — that wouldn’t have been very authentic. So I got things started.

As I exited the office, our newest intern, merely two days ripened, had the great misfortune to be sharing the hallway with me. I felt an overwhelming, childish joy as I realized he was swaying under the weight of a comically tall stack of binders and loose papers. It was as if fate had sanctioned what I was about to do.

I pondered about this intern’s sanity as I closed in on him. Who in their right mind would attempt to carry such a ridiculous amount of business paraphernalia in a single trip? What was his name, anyway? Was it Fred? Every one of the pimple laden interns that had blessed me with their presence in the past five years had been named Fred.

I must have been gawking as I walked towards him, because he had stopped moving and was now questioningly returning my gaze. I stopped for a quick moment also, raised my eyebrows to signal that I acknowledged his stupid facial expression, and began to storm down the hall. A glimpse of panic flashed across his face and he even stepped back a few paces. Halfway to his position, I began flaring my nostrils, but not too much.

Before Fred could decide that retreating was indeed the sensible thing to do, I was right on top of him. I swung my hand wildly in the air and brought my palm down on the top of his stupidly tall mountain of folders. Later, I couldn’t decide what was louder: the smack of my palm striking Fred’s idiotic tower of books and papers, or my voice as I screamed and my spit flew into Fred’s doe-eyes.

I poked my index finger, which seemed to be experiencing some sort of seizure, within smelling distance of his right eye and screamed “God Damnit Fred, Don’t you ever look at me again!”

On my way home, just as I was hanging out of the window to scream some meaningless obscenities at an innocent woman imprisoned behind miles of traffic, I realized we had never had an intern named Fred. The fit of laughter that overtook me was the only thing that stopped me from getting out of the car and stomping on the hood of the woman’s car.

I took a deep breath and reminisced for a moment about Fred and his stupid face. I was proud of how I had performed. I had remembered to inflect my pronunciation quite randomly and made sure to hold my breath to bring the red in my face out. I smiled at myself in the rearview mirror and noticed that a scrawny man in the car behind me was cautiously holding surveillance of my every movement. I slowly turned in my seat, trying as much as possible to replicate that scene from the exorcist, and stared back at him, expressionless. He gripped the steering wheel, straight armed, and feigned extreme interest in the stand-still traffic across the divider. For the next three miles I continued to turn around and stare at him every time the traffic rolled to a stop.

The woman next to me, who I had named Rhonda, seemed relieved to no longer be the center of attention. Rhonda had rolled her window all the way down and informed me that her name was indeed not Rhonda. I assured her that only a woman named Rhonda would wear such pants. Although I could not see her pants, I was quite sure they were rather ridiculous. I suspected that, had her car door not been blocking my field of vision, she almost certainly would have had goat legs or at least have been wearing clown overalls.

Soon the traffic broke and I resumed weaving dangerously in and out of small gaps between cars. Every time I heard the loud wail of a car horn, which, trust me, was quite often, I merrily tried my best to replicate it with my own voice box. I am now convinced that, next to Sergeant Larvell Jones, I am the best car-horn replicator in history. It’s all in the diaphragm.

Upon passing the giant broccoli tree that customarily marked the half-way point to my house, I jerked the wheel and spun the car around a perfect one hundred and eighty degrees. I suspected that someone was following me. I didn’t pass any cars as I backtracked, but I knew someone was tailing me. I repeated this process —picking random roads and making spontaneous u-turns — until I had driven every path to my house that I knew of, plus a few that I never knew existed.

I call it the broccoli tree because it reminded of the broccoli florets I used to stock in the produce section at my first job. I used to pretend I was building a small forest, stacking each miniaturized broccoli tree into some neat nook within the broccoli pile. But upon passing the broccoli tree for the fourth time, I wondered if the halfway tree reminded me of the broccoli, or if the broccoli reminded me of the halfway tree? Perhaps I should I have been calling pieces of broccoli halfway trees my entire life.

I slammed on the breaks, silently regretting that no cars were currently behind me, and sprinted the 50 yards or so back to the broccoli tree. I’m not sure how long I stood there, or how many people nervously crossed the double yellow line to pass my car, or what exactly I thought about as I stood staring with my hands in my pockets.

I had managed to turn a drive that normally took about fifteen minutes into a three-hour masquerade. As I made to turn into my neighborhood, fate smiled on me again. I had looked left to make sure no cars were coming before turning (I know, a momentary lapse in my insanity) when I saw none other than Fred-the-intern jogging in place on the corner, waiting for the light to change. He was wearing shin-high white socks and a head-band. His skinny legs and long neck reminded me of a giraffe I’d seen at the zoo.

“Oh, Fate,” I said aloud, shaking my head and grinning.

I slowly turned my eyes back to the corner. Fred-the-giraffe had already seen me and was apparently trying to decide if the person he was seeing was actually me or not. I began subtly nodding my head, my eyes wide and impossibly fixed, as an answer to his silent question. He continued to jog in place, his stupid, dumb head displaying an expression of utter disbelief.

Without telling it to, my index finger again raised itself into the air and pointed itself at Fred, whose jog had begun to taper off a bit, but continued nonetheless. My finger bobbed up and down, mimicking Fred’s every move. I played along and began to rev my engine. Fred’s disbelief quickly changed to worry and he began to amble backwards. I gradually revved the engine louder, and with each increment my head bobbed more vigorously until my chin began to knock against my chest. Fred’s worry finally changed to panic, and he made a run for it.

I ran the red light in pursuit of his stupid socks, which I now realized sported a yellow triple-stripe. He kept looking over his shoulder, as if the location of my car’s roaring engine was a perpetual mystery. For such a tall, goofy kid, he was actually pretty nimble. But, I was in a car. I took turns seeing how close I could get to him without actually hitting him. I’m a great driver.

We carried on like this for almost a minute, weaving in and out of side streets, until Fred turned into a dead end alleyway. When I pulled in behind him, he was attempting to clamber his way up a fifteen foot brick wall.

“Fred!” I called, sticking my head out the window, “Fred, let me give you a boost.” I hastily got out of the car and jogged over to him.

“Stay away from me!” he warned, balling his hands into fists and backing against the wall.

“Fred, what’s wrong?” I asked, genuinely concerned.

“Seriously, stay away from me” he repeated.

I crept forward, my hands in the air to signal peace. Fred seemed not to buy it; as soon as I was close enough he punched me square in the nose. It turns out; Fred’s arms are proportionate in length to his legs.

I stood for a moment then staggered to the ground, wondering if my nose would bleed. I had never had a nose bleed before. I excitedly felt the area between my nose and my upper lip, which, for future reference, is called the philtrum. But I felt no blood.

“For God’s sake, Fred” I cried, “You didn’t even make my nose bleed!”

“You’re crazy” he said, nervously peering down on me, his fist cocked behind his head. He seemed torn between running away, staying to make sure he hadn’t permanently damaged my brain, and personally making sure that I indeed did experience some degree of brain trauma.

“My brain is fine, Fred” I reported.

“My name isn’t even Fred,” he cried. “Where the hell did you get Fred from, you crazy bastard?” He threw his arms in the air, placed them behind his head, and began to turn to and fro, nervously looking at the sky.

At this news I began to laugh hysterically and roll around on the gravel. “You’re name’s not even Fred! That’s exactly what I said!” I screamed.

“You’re crazy.”

“Yes” I confirmed. “Where’d you learn to punch like that?”

“Believe it or not, I’m on the boxing team at school” he said. Apparently he took my question as a peace offering, or a moment of sanity, because he bent down and offered me his hand. I reasoned to myself that even a crazy man could accept help and took it, but made sure to make him do most of the work in getting me to my feet.

“You know they’re going to fire you” he said. I just chewed on my nails and sat down on the curb.
“You know,” began Fred, “I’m not really buying it.” I looked at him, questioningly. “Why would you go crazy?” he asked, more to himself than to me.

I thought about his question for a moment, told him to eat shit, and turned back towards my car.

“No really though” he began, jogging to catch up with me.”You’ve got a great job, freedom, money, a family” he hesitated for a moment, allowing me to turn to him. “You even have a smokin’ hot wife” he said. That’s what gave me away.

“You keep my wife out of this” I warned, apparently a little too convincingly, for Fred scrunched up his eyes as if he was thinking about something extremely complex. He’d figured me out.

“Say that again” he requested. Even after I told him to eat shit again, he persisted. “No, see, that wasn’t crazy; I mean it was, but not the way you’ve been doing crazy.”

“Do crazy?” I questioned.

He scrunched up his eyes again. The thoughts running through his mind must have been too quick for him to snatch.

“No, see, that was genuine concern” he finally said. I didn’t answer. “You’re not going crazy.”

“Eat shit.”

“You’re not going crazy!” he repeated with increased conviction, as if he’d solved some personal mystery.

I hesitated for quite some time, wondering what to do. My act must have been pretty sad if Fred-the-giraffe could see right through it. I did the only thing I could do. I cocked my fist back and slugged Fred in the face, knocking him clean off his feet.

“How’s that for crazy, you goddamn wizard!?” I spat. “You know how someone like me can go crazy? Because people like you say I can’t. How could I go crazy with my perfect relationship, my goddamn expensive sports car, my job security? How could I go crazy? I wish I knew, Fred. You really are a goddamn wizard.”

I didn’t realize until after it had happened that I had been screaming. I looked down on Fred, sprawled out in the gravel, moaning and grasping his eye. He lay there for quite some time, so I sat back down on the curb. A swarm of air seemed to be rushing in and out of my ears, inflating and deflating my head. It reminded me of those crickets you hear on summer nights.

Fred got to his feet. I felt like he was looking at me, but I didn’t dare check.

“What’s your real name, Fred?” I asked without looking at him. A moment of painful silence, then he answered.

“Josh” he quavered.

“Josh” I repeated, running my hands through my hair. “Josh,” I said, looking up at him, “I hope you’ll never understand.”