Reality Boy

“She is my number one trigger.”

Gerald considers his sister, Tasha, his “number one trigger,” as she has tried to kill him multiple times when he was younger and continues to abuse him as a teenager. His parents’ unwillingness to discipline Tasha for her lack of impulse control and abusive behavior further contributes to Gerald’s feelings of strain when it comes to his sister. The compounded nature of these pressures incites his anger and violent tendencies.

“My anger coach would say, Stay in the present, Gerald. But it’s hard when nothing ever changes. For sixteen years, eleven months, and two weeks, I’ve been drowning.”

Despite Gerald’s anger management coach’s advice to stay connected to the present, Gerald’s sensation of “drowning” comes from his inability to escape his traumatic past. His memories of Tasha trying to drown him, as well as her continued abusive behavior, make it difficult for him to live more presently.

“Relationships make you think you deserve things, Gerald. Deserving leads to resentment. Girls think you should be doing things for them, too. The rules are blurry.”

Roger, Gerald’s anger management coach, advises him to avoid relationships with girls as they tend to involve more emotional responsibility than what Gerald has proven he can handle thus far. Gerald’s sense of emotional regulation vacillates widely, daily. Roger worries that the addition of a romantic relationship may make his emotional regulation more difficult. However, Gerald also suspects that Roger may be projecting his own insecurities about relationships onto him.

“My place-of-no-triggers. I invented it when I was little, thanks to Nanny. I call it Gersday.”

After repeated traumatization by Tasha and adults who did not help him when he was younger, Gerald has developed an imaginary place in his mind called Gersday to help him cope with his reality. When Gerald is having a difficult time, he visits Gersday, where no conflict or harm exists. Sometimes when Gerald goes to Gersday, it seems as if he is daydreaming.

“You can’t bully a bully. I’m the Crapper.”

As Gerald has gotten older, he has received antagonistic attention from other men who try to challenge him physically. Though he identifies as a “bully” here, it is a misidentification as he never incites any of the physical fights but appears to be defending himself or someone with less power. He does not fear physical confrontation as dealing with his reputation as the Crapper for most of his life has desensitized him to even verbal attacks.

“In ten years, I have been recognized, scrutinized, analyzed, criticized, and even terrorized by a handful of the millions of Network Nanny viewers. Never was I hugged.”

When a kind stranger intervenes on an escalating confrontation on Gerald’s behalf, Gerald experiences a level of sympathy that feels rare. When the stranger recognizes Gerald from Network Nanny, she expresses her sorrow towards his circumstances, recognizing the televised abuse. This gesture of pity and her hug are moving to Gerald. He does not often experience this form of gentleness and understanding.

“I knew how to calculate linear equations three years ago, but I open my book and follow instructions. I’m not playing stupid. I’m just safer here. Or everyone else is safer because I’m here. Or something.”

Despite not having a cognitive disability, Gerald chooses to remain in special education classes because his temperament is too unpredictable in other classrooms. His current classmates are all friendly towards him and do not taunt him about his reputation as the Crapper. He feels he can monitor his emotions better in special education classrooms as his teacher doesn’t demand as much of him, which while creating stability for his mood, also makes him complacent about his academic career.

“I’m like Jack Nicholson’s character—once demanding, hard to handle, violent, and scary, but now electroshocked into brain toast by the golden rule of anger management: Have no demands.”

Gerald compares himself to Jack Nicholson’s character, Randle Patrick McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, who ended up in a mental institution and received electroshock therapy until he was no longer functioning. McMurphy began as a spirited man who riled up the other patients but ended up subdued in the end. Gerald considers this as a warning for himself; he decides that having desires for a better life can be dangerous.

“I don’t know. Something snapped, I guess. After five years of locking myself in my room with no one remotely concerned about that fact, and then a year and a half of being called the Crapper, I ate a kid’s face. Sometimes these things happen.”

Gerald exhibits a lack of affect when he recalls the reasons leading up to his decision to bite another child’s face. His apathy is likely the result of prolonged teasing and torment leading to a sudden violent outburst. While it may seem glib for him to proclaim that “these things happen,” it also suggests that there is some truth to how unpredictable his anger may be in the face of persistent pain.

“I was five years old and I already knew it—that the day I inhaled would kill me.”

Since Gerald was very young, his sister, Tasha, would try to kill him by drowning or suffocating him with a pillow. His sense that inhaling would be dangerous came from his experiences with these traumatic incidents. Since this all occurred at such a young age, it is no surprise that these experiences continue to haunt him as a teenager.

“I am drowning right here in the kitchen, surrounded by people who don’t care if I drown. They just stand there, watching. Home snuff movies, reality TV.”

Gerald’s phobia of reality television began at an early age with his traumatizing appearance on Network Nanny. The experience was particularly violent because many were witness to Tasha’s abusive behavior towards him and Lisi but did nothing to stop her. He feels that being on reality television is akin to being part of a snuff film in which others take voyeuristic pleasure in witnessing harm to a helpless person.

“I am Gerald. I am Gerald and there is no way I can ever be anyone but Gerald.”

While Gerald often tries to escape to Gersday, he realizes after a confrontation with Tasha that there are certain limits to how much he can escape his reality. Eventually, he contends with the bitter truths of his real existence. Yet his declaration of himself also comes with power and determination too. This power and determination will eventually enable him to aspire to more.

“I couldn’t stop myself from crapping on stuff all the time because it was the only method of communication that worked to remind them that I was still alive and still angry.”

While it may be confusing for onlookers to understand the reasons behind young Gerald’s defecating patterns, it becomes increasingly clear that he was acting out of distress. As others witnessed Tasha’s constant abuse and did nothing to stop her, Gerald lost all incentive to behave and decided to defecate as his form of rebellion. It was the only way he could send a message to those around him that he mattered too.

“You think the world revolves around you.”

Roger, Gerald’s anger management coach, has told Gerald that he tends to only see the world through his perspective. He struggles to see past his own traumatic childhood to have empathy for others. One of his biggest challenges is opening up and being vulnerable with others so that he can invite other people’s vulnerabilities as well.

“He’s retarded, right? Isn’t that the answer to everything?”

When young Gerald overheard Tasha calling him “retarded,” he realized that his mother had been narrating his behavior as part of a mental disability. The realization was particularly painful because he knew that his rebellion had to do with contesting Tasha’s abuse. He only acted out because of Tasha. Yet the lengths his mother would go through to ignore this fact and insist on a damaging lie only exacerbated his pain throughout the years.

“We are both looking out into a distorted world and we are stuck, maybe. Stuck between feeling safe in the tank and feeling confined.”

The fish tank at Ashley and Nathan’s house serves as a metaphor for how Hannah and Gerald see their lives. They feel they are fish confined in their present circumstances. Confinement can feel safe sometimes because it means never having to take risks. Yet it also means that they never get to know what lies beyond their limited experiences.

“But what’s crazy and what’s sane when everything is possible and yet nothing ever happens?”

Gerald wrestles with his sense of futility towards his life. He feels constantly trapped by his life circumstances—not being able to escape Tasha, his reputation as the Crapper following him into high school, his own academic limitations, and more. Yet he also suspects that he is capable of more. He does not know how to incite this change for better.

“Should is a dirty word. No one should do anything for you. You deserve nothing more than what you earn. Reality Boy is still angry, though. Because Reality Boy knows he deserves all kinds of shit he never got.”

Although Gerald’s anger management coach encourages him to let go of demands, Gerald’s rage remains fueled by a persistent sense of injustice. Letting go of demands is ineffective as so many aspects of his life are still unreconciled.

“I am addicted to anger.”

As there is no reprieve from his abusive sister, Gerald has no way to fully heal from his traumatic childhood. Anger becomes the most useful vehicle for him to feel powerful and in control when he felt so helpless as a child. It has become a potent coping mechanism for him.

“I nod because my inner director told me to nod. This is the scene I want on TV. Boy makes good of himself. Boy takes a shit sandwich and turns it into a scrumptious meal. Boy calls himself on his walkie-talkie and says, Dude—you’re better than this. Why are you letting them do this to you? Boy meets girl. Girl writes ASSHOLE on his dashboard and then erases it with magic junkyard solvent the next morning. Boy finds life worth living.”

Gerald imagines that the rest of his life is a reality television show. He writes the script in his head so that he can revise his circumstances towards a more optimistic future. In this future, the resolution of a conflict with Hannah is a promise of continued growth for him. While reality television had damaged his life in so many ways, his vision for a reality television show where he gets to dictate his life becomes a way to rewrite his past and invent a brighter future for himself.

“You’re all jacked up on being the world’s biggest loser when really you could be kicking life’s ass. What a fuckin’ waste.”

Gerald’s classmate, Deirdre, confronts Gerald about his bad attitude. Deirdre has cerebral palsy, physical limitations that inhibit her from living her life the way that Gerald can do so freely. She does not see his issues as unsolvable as her physical disability. Deirdre’s words have a deep impact on Gerald who sees that she is right.

“What occurs to me at this second is this: There is a huge world out there. I only know my dumb family and my dumb house and my dumb school and my dumb job. But there is a huge world out there… and most of it is underwater.”

Gerald’s fear of drowning colors his perspective of the world beyond his immediate experiences. While the world can offer up so many opportunities for change, his experience with abuse by his own family member makes the rest of the world seem terrifying.

“I love Hannah. I need her the way she needs me. She’s here to save me and I’m here to save her.”

Gerald recognizes his connection with Hannah comes from their shared experiences with their mentally unstable families. The intimacy they share through this connection gives him a sense of hope about his life. He realizes that their healing can be a mutual practice.