"Subterranean Homesick Blues"A Story by Christian Larsen A girl discovers the music of Bob Dylan in a Eating Disorder hospital, and his lyrics help her to be honest about herself and to move past her disorder. He not busy being born, is busy dying. -Bob Dylan
Suckcess:
All the music on my ipod is by Bob Dylan. It’s the only music I need. My favorite Bob Dylan song is “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and according to my ipod I have listened to it 459 times, soon to be 460 because I am listening to it as I write this. The most useful Dylan song is “Highlands” because if I put in earphones, close my eyes, and play the song six times then math class is over and it’s like it never happened in the first place. The saddest song ever written is “Boots of Spanish Leather” which I can’t listen to in public because it makes me cry harder than anything. And not a pretty cry where tears gently fall from my eyes, but a great heaving cry where snot pours from my nose. I used to be a normal teenage girl who listened to pop music. But I have been cured. Now, I listen to Dylan. This is the story of how I discovered good music.
My name is Hannah, by the way. I would try to describe myself to you but apparently describing myself is not something I am particularly good at. People see me differently than I see myself. I don’t mean that figuratively. I mean that literally. When people look at me they see something different than I see when I look in the mirror. You would too, If you saw me. So what's the point? I am a girl. My hair is brown. My eyes are brown. I have feet and legs and arms and a chest and a head just like any other person. I am me. I have no reason to believe that the way you see me is more truthful than the way I see myself.
The first time I heard Dylan I didn't like him. I didn't understand his genius. It was about two years ago, back when I was still in prison with the skeletons. I guess you could say that stuff really sucked. Mom was almost never around. She visited the prison once or twice a week. She wanted to visit more, but her job kept her busy. Which, honestly, was better. Her absence only made things easier for me.
I used to be a girl. I used to have friends. I used to text boys and go to stupid sleepovers. But I gave that up. I retreated into the dark place inside my stomach where I could feel myself disappearing; the space connecting my legs to my chest shrinking, melting away, every uneaten bowl of soggy breakfast cereal bringing me closer to blissful collapse. My days were a dream of counting ribs and picking at peeling skin. I was trapped inside a dark train barreling toward certain destruction. I knew what awaited me at the end of the tracks, but I didn't care. What was so bad about death? Everyone dies.
God.
Sometimes, I still miss it.
It Don't Matter:
My therapist is a red-headed woman named Dr. Pennyworth. She first started “working with me” back at the prison, but I still have to see her sometimes. She is enormously fat and she looks just like a cupcake and I hate her with all of my heart. She likes to say things like "You seem to avoid talking about your parents," and “I have a new project for you to work on today!”
One of my very first “Projects” was to present my three favorite songs and explain why I liked the lyrics. It was supposed to help identify potential triggers. I was determined to make sure it wouldn’t. To make sure I understood the assignment she created an example presentation with her favorite songs for me. She started with “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” which was awful. Then “Good Vibrations” which sucked because I used to enjoy the Beach Boys before she played them. But the final song, “Blowin’ in the Wind,” seemed out of place. It started out with soft guitar plucking and was normal enough, but then the voice came in: it slurred and muttered its way through the song. And just when I thought things couldn't get worse there was a harmonica solo. The whole thing was awful. I couldn't believe that she listened to this. I laughed out loud and my therapist paused the music. “What’s funny?” “He has a terrible voice.” “Oh?” Therapists do this. They never make statements. They only pose questions. I learned to fight fire with fire. “Do you like his voice?” I asked. “I like this song because of its lyrics.” “Thats nice. What is your favorite aspect of the lyrics?” She pursed her lips. I think she knew I was being sarcastic but it was hard to tell. “I am excited to listen to your musical presentation.” She said. All at once I knew: to insure that my presentation revealed absolutely nothing about my inner being, I would use only the music of this folksinger with a terrible voice. I smiled. “I am excited to create a musical presentation.”
When my afternoon sessions were over, I went back to my room and grabbed my laptop. I set up camp by the ice machine in the stairwell. It was the only part of the hospital I could stand, everything else was painted in calming colors and was sickeningly at peace with itself. I Googled the lyrics to “Blowin in the Wind,” and discovered the singer’s name was Bob Dylan. I kept clicking until I found this picture.
I was confused. Why would someone who can't sing and knows that he can’t sing become a musician in the first place? But based on his Wikipedia profile, he seemed pretty famous. I guess people just don’t have taste. I grabbed three of his songs and shoved them into a Powerpoint. That would do. I shut my laptop and went to the movie room with Dylan’s scratchy voice pounding through my head. Three hours of freedom before dinner.
The next day serious crap went down. Dr. Pennyworth walked out halfway through my presentation. I sat alone in her office with Dylan wailing about the government. This was the first time I had actually gotten to her. I waited for her to come back, but she didn’t. Eventually, I went back to my room and put on a movie. Maybe I had pushed it too far. Mom wasn’t going to be very happy when she found out. But there was nothing left to do. I cranked up the volume on the T.V. and ignored my growling stomach.
That night Mom busted into my room. She grabbed the remote and turned off the T.V. She stared at me with crossed arms and planted feet. She kept opening her mouth like she was going to say something.
I didn’t make eye contact. I stared at the wall. I was gone. I had disappeared into my stomach and her voice was just an echo. She must have figured out that there was no point in saying anything, because she sat down on the bed and put her head in her hands.
“I’ve been a bad Mom,” You could tell by her voice that she was crying, and I could feel myself getting pulled out of my stomach. Stop. I told myself. Don’t speak. But I could feel my lips opening against my will. “I don’t think you've been a bad mom,” I whispered. She cried even harder and shook her head back and forth. “That’s not true,” she sobbed. “But thank you.” Then she hugged me and I could feel her fat rolls pressed against my skin and I knew that she wanted to keep me here, but to be honest, it felt so nice to touch someone. I was suddenly aware that I hadn't hugged anyone for a very long time. I ignored the protesting voice in my stomach and hugged her back. We just sat there for forever until finally she pulled away and sniffed and announced, “I’m quitting my job and moving down here to be with you. Grandpa is going to help pay bills for a while.” Oh boy. “That's not a good idea.” I said.
And it so it began. We argued for hours. Then we went to bed, nothing resolved.
Get Born:
Mom was asleep; her sobs had stopped, but I couldn't sleep. I missed the way it felt when Mom and I were hugging. I could still feel where we had touched. My eyes felt like crying, but I couldn't let them. I stared at my ceiling. It was painted a sickeningly calm shade of blue and it was the problem. I grabbed my laptop and snuck out of the room, careful to shut the door quietly. The hallway was quiet and dark and the framed landscapes of hospital art looked menacing and unreal in the low light. The only sound was the quiet hum of the building, and even that sounded menacing. Like growling. Everything started to scare me. I was breathing really fast, and I couldn't stop. Was I losing my mind? I ran all the way to my stairwell. Was that the only safe place I had left? A stairwell? I sat down by the soda machines. I opened my laptop and it started screaming the Bob Dylan song from my presentation earlier.
Once upon a time you dressed so fine You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you? People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall” You thought they were all kiddin’ you You used to laugh about Everybody that was hangin’ out Now you don’t talk so loud Now you don’t seem so proud About having to be scrounging for your next meal How does it feel? How does it feel? To be without a home? Like a complete unknown? Like a rolling stone?
I started crying. Enormous sobs rising from my chest and spilling out of my eyes and onto the floor. The tears kept coming and I wanted them to stop but they wouldn't. All of my insides were pouring out of my eyes. My stomach hurt. It was shooting pain through my entire body, and for once, I wanted to feed it. I kept thinking, real people eat food, real people eat food, real people eat food. I curled up in a ball and played song after song after song. I listened to all of the lyrics and every song was beautiful and terrible. Two albums later I fell asleep, my face pressed against the tearstained linoleum.
The next morning I made a new presentation. I used the songs on my ipod even though they were horrible and fake and autotuned. Dr. Pennyworth smiled at me the whole time and I had to keep myself from punching her. When lunchtime came I put in my earphones, blasted Dylan, and ate my mashed potatoes as quickly as possible. Real people eat food, I told myself.
Later that day, I hugged my Mom. I don’t know why I did it. I’m not really okay with my Mother. It was like my body took over and did it for me. She was shocked. She looked at me funny and kept asking if I was okay. I wasn't sure if I was okay, and the fact that she was asking me just made me angry, so I didn’t say anything. Eventually, she hugged me back, which was nice. We didn’t say anything about it afterwards, thank God. I think she finally figured out that it wasn’t something I could talk about. We hug a lot now. We still fight. Alot. We spend much more time fighting than we spend hugging. That's the way it will always be. But I think human beings need to touch other human beings, and it doesn't really matter if you are okay with them or not.
Dig Yourself:
When I came back from prison and the skeletons I was expecting all kinds of dramatics. “Where were you?” people would ask. “What happened to you?” “Why don’t you hang out with us anymore?” “Who’s Bob Dylan, and why do you love him so much?” Many a lonely night was spent restless in bed, dreaming up stinging responses to these questions.
REPORTER: The criticism that you have received for leaving the folk field and switching to folk-rock hasn't seemed to bother you a great deal. Do you think you'll stick to folk-rock? BOB: I don't play folk-rock. REPORTER: What would you call your music? BOB: I like to think of it more in terms of vision music " it's mathematical music. REPORTER: Is that your philosophy? BOB: No, no. Doesn't mean anything. REPORTER: Do you think that it's fun to put on an audience? BOB: I don't know, I've never done it.
They wouldn't know what I meant. Neither would I. But it would feel good to say. And they would be so in love with my music that they would keep coming back for more. That's not what happened, though.
When I got back, nothing was said. My old friends didn’t notice when I stopped sitting with them. Or at least they pretended not to. Student Council was passive when I renounced my position as treasurer. “Okay”, they said. “No problem.” I was replaceable. Occasionally, someone asked where I had been. I mumbled something about a family vacation. “How was it?” they asked. “Terrible.” “Oh.”
To them, I was just someone who had dropped out of the race.
Even mom stopped being around. She got busy with her job again. I was better now. Nothing to worry about. Right?
And so I stopped listening to Dylan, and I lost weight, and I had to go back to the prison, and mom was furious, and the whole thing sucked.
I have a confession to make: Bob Dylan isn't the only musician on my ipod because he is the only musician I feel like listening to. He is the only musician on my ipod because he is the only musician that is good for me.
Anyways, I’m out of the prison. For now at least. I found some people who I can hang with at school, who aren't in student council. They aren't great but they are better than the people I hung with before. To be honest, everything is still really hard.
But sometimes when I am walking through the hallways of my school with earbuds in I get so goddamn happy that I can’t even believe it. Dylan's harmonica wails and his lyrics rip me apart and put me back together. In these moments, Dylan’s voice is the voice of a prophet, and I am the only one who knows how to listen. In these moments everything that happened to me is worth it.
But it’s not like things are always that way. Dylan’s nasal voice still drives me crazy sometimes. I’m still learning to get used to it.
I got a poster of him holding that sign that said “I can’t sing” and I hung it above my bed. I learned that Bob Dylan never actually held up that sign. Some fan had edited it to say that. But to tell you the truth, I don’t mind. Now when I have bad days and I feel like retreating back into my stomach, I look at the poster. “I can’t sing,” Dylan says. “I can’t sing either,” I tell him. READ MORE AT http://crabwax.wix.com/creativewriting © 2015 Christian LarsenAuthor's Note
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4 Reviews Added on December 29, 2015 Last Updated on December 31, 2015 Tags: #eatingdisorder, #shortstory, #bobdylan, #folk, #comingofage, #youngadult, #multi-genre Author
Christian LarsenFort Collins, COAboutChristian Larsen lives in Fort Collins, Colorado and when he isn’t working, hiking, reading, or drinking coffee from his mug that he only washes once a year, he is writing. His favorite author c.. more..Writing
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