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bridge, with no idea where this journey will take me, I’d want to throwthe coin hard, to heave it into the lake in a way that reflected all the weight attached to it.
    Instead, I simply open my hand and bend it slightly, letting the coin slowly slide off my fingers, down past the guardrail, and quietly into the darkness. The hushed
plop
of a single coin sinking into the still water marks the beginning of my quest.
    I just close my eyes, hold my breath, and wait.

THEN
    “Eric!” my dad shouted from downstairs. “Phone!”
    It was about seven or eight at night, in June. A year before things got really bad.
    My room was in the attic of our house on Thirty-fourth Street in Canton, Ohio.
    The closest phone was in the den one floor below.
    I’d spent the evening before raiding my pill stash and washing it down with a warm twelve-pack of Wiedemann, drooling for a while, and then throwing the bottles over the neighbor’s roof. I hadn’t left my room at all that day, mostly because I couldn’t work up the courage. Leaving meant walking by the door to the spare room. My family rarely went in there, except to get Christmas decorations, wrapping paper, or whatever else was stored in its closets and crawlspaces. The door was always closed. It was always dark in there, and terribly hot in summer. Of course, my room was the same way, just on the opposite side of the hall. But it wasn’t the heat or the dinginess I minded.
    The spare room was where She was.
    Usually, when I could tell She was there, I’d summon the strength to run by the door before She could realize I was just an arm’s length away. This morning I wondered if She couldsimply reach out and grab me as I ran by. I’d never thought of that before. Therefore, I just sat there, too scared to find out the answer to my new question.
    Earlier that day, I’d thought I heard Her moving around on the other side of the door. I had slowly walked out of my room into the hallway, barely breathing so that I could hear any other telltale noise. I told myself that I was going to walk right up to the door, call Her out, swing the door open suddenly, and have this over with. But of course, I never did. Instead, I used the phone call as an excuse to chicken-shit out and run past the door and down the stairs. Nothing reached out and grabbed me. Despite the fact that my fear had kept me captive for more than twelve hours, pissing in empty soda bottles to avoid having to go downstairs to a bathroom, as I rounded the landing to head downstairs, I’d already forgotten all about it.
    I was surprised that my father was even willing to speak to me to let me know I had a phone call. My parents and I had just had a big fight over my “unacceptable behavior” at a cookout they’d hosted. At some point during the gathering, someone had pulled out a camera to take a few photos. I leapt up and asked them to stop taking my picture.
    I’d noticed my parents immediately start to squirm. I’d previously announced to my family that I did not want any photographs taken of me. I had read somewhere that American Indians did not like having their photographs taken because they felt the process stole part of their soul. At the time, I needed every bit of my soul I could hold on to. So every time a camera appeared, I disappeared or asked that whoever was holding it not take my picture.
    Not that I was really much you’d want to photograph.
    I’d fallen in love with thrift stores before I was old enough to drive myself to them. I bought as many old suits, hats, andcoats as I could get with the lawn-mowing money I had left over after buying records. Even though I had no idea how to sew things together, I routinely tried to alter my clothing by cutting pieces off collars, sleeves, pockets. Eventually I graduated to saving up money for the annual rummage sale in the prop and costume department of the local community theater, which allowed me to expand into pirate gear and military uniforms. I loved