Page 406 - A Little Life: A Novel

of his head as if he were squashing him back to a smaller size. “You’re
growing up too fast for me!”
He slept all the time now. In his lessons, he was awake, but as the day

turned to late afternoon, he would feel something descend upon him, and
would begin yawning, unable to keep his eyes open. At first Brother Luke
joked about this as well—“My sleepyhead,” he said, “my dreamer”—but
one night, he sat down with him after the client had left. For months, years,
he had struggled with the clients, more out of reflex than because he
thought he was capable of making them stop, but recently, he had begun to
simply lie there, inert, waiting for whatever was going to happen to be over.

“I know you’re tired,” Brother Luke had said. “It’s normal; you’re growing.
It’s tiring work, growing. And I know you work hard. But Jude, when
you’re with your clients, you have to show a little life; they’re paying to be
with you, you know—you have to show them you’re enjoying it.” When he
said nothing, the brother added, “Of course, I know it’s not enjoyable for
you, not the way it is with just us, but you have to show a little energy, all

right?” He leaned over, tucked his hair behind his ear. “All right?” He
nodded.
It was also around then that he began throwing himself into walls. The
motel they were staying in—this was in Washington—had a second floor,
and once he had gone upstairs to refill their bucket of ice. It had been a wet,
slippery day, and as he was walking back, he had tripped and fallen,
bouncing the entire way downstairs. Brother Luke had heard the noise his

fall made and had run out. Nothing had been broken, but he had been
scraped and was bleeding, and Brother Luke had canceled the appointment
he had for that evening. That night, the brother had been careful with him,
and had brought him tea, but he had felt more alive than he had in weeks.
Something about the fall, the freshness of the pain, had been restorative. It
was honest pain, clean pain, a pain without shame or filth, and it was a

different sensation than he had felt in years. The next week, he went to get
ice again, but this time, on his way back to the room, he stopped in the little
triangle of space beneath the stairwell, and before he was conscious of what
he was doing, he was tossing himself against the brick wall, and as he did
so, he imagined he was knocking out of himself every piece of dirt, every
trace of liquid, every memory of the past few years. He was resetting
himself; he was returning himself to something pure; he was punishing

himself for what he had done. After that, he felt better, energized, as if he