Say he was in the kitchen pouring a bowl of cereal and his cell phone rang. He’d think: Mom. For the last year he had been seeing a psychologist, Dr. Belknap. She and Dr. Rose shared an office but Dr. Bee specialized in teenagers. Half the kids Django knew had shrinks. Dr. Bee said Django was depressed—like this was a flash from outer space. A bunch of his friends were on meds for ADD or they were bipolar or whatever. It seemed to Django that it just went along with being alive. He could take meds too if he wanted, but he preferred to go without. He told Dr. Bee that after everything he had been through, he would probably be depressed for the rest of his life; he might as well get used to it. He wasn’t suicidal or anything close. Just flatline. Probably music kept him from going crazy. It set him free. Lately he’d begun composing—trying to, anyway. He thought of his father spending hours in his music room playing the same few bars over and over, changing the bass line, the beat, the key.
