Taking Stock (25 page)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I’m walking along Foresail Road. It’s still dark.

Donovan’s party is over, I guess.

I left with Gilbert. Right? We smoked the joint, and we drove—

Where?

Maybe I should call him.

My phone isn’t in my pocket.

I don’t have my phone. Did I leave it at Donovan’s?

I guess I’ll have to walk home.

My apartment is in the opposite direction. Where am I going? Is there somewhere I need to be?

It must be pretty late.

It’s cold.

And I’m scared.

I come to a 24-hour gas station. I go in, and ask the attendant what time it is. He tells me it’s 3:37 AM.

I return to the road and continue walking.

I touch my head. Tiny little bristles. I need to shave it again, don’t I? I smoked pot again.

I think I have a drug problem. Maybe a drinking problem. I think I need some help.

I keep walking.

By the time I arrive at her grave, it’s no longer dark.

I lie down. Six feet above Mom.

I fall asleep.

*

In my nightmare, it turns out Tommy was right, after all. He was just off by a few months.

*

When I wake up, I’m lying on top of those ferns somebody planted. I’d forgotten about them.

How deep do fern roots go? Could they reach down one day, and get tangled in her bones?

I start digging, with my fingers.

I still feel high. There was definitely something extra in that weed.

This plant is not ferns.

This plant is a carrot.

It only takes me a few seconds to dig it up. The earth is loose.

It’s a small carrot. It’s July, so it hasn’t had long to grow.

I’m still high, and I’m tripping out.

I take a bite of the carrot. I chew. I take another bite.

That helps.

*

On the way home, I stop into the same gas station and ask to use their phone. I try to call Gilbert, but there’s no answer.

Where is he? What happened last night?

I’m still high. Something very strange is going on. I have a lot of questions.

But I know, now, where to find the answers.

At my apartment, I go straight to the closet where I keep everything Mom owned. I’ve barely looked in there since I moved into this place. It was too painful to go through her stuff, deciding what to toss and what to keep. I just shoved it all in here, and tried not to think about it.

I close my eyes and open the door. I reach inside. My hand closes on a book, and I take it out. I open my eyes. It’s Mom’s Bible.

I never knew Mom to believe in God. She bought this shortly before she died, and I have a hunch she did start believing, then. I think she was right to believe. When she died, I think she found herself in heaven.

Recently, Mom’s been sending me signals. In the form of 37.

I don’t know how I didn’t see this before.

I open to page 37, and start reading. I’m surprised to find that the stories are all about me.

How have I missed this? I’ve read Bibles. But I never noticed that every single sentence is about me. About how, all these millennia, history has been leading to my birth.

I start flipping to random pages, amazed at how blind I’ve been. Every passage bears a coded message, meant for me. The hairs on the back of my neck are tingling.

I learn that I had a life before this, which spanned eons upon eons.

I lived in Hell.

I am the antichrist.

Mom knew this—the Bible tells me that, too. She tried to teach me to be good, but the guilt of having birthed the antichrist became too much. When Herman Barry ran her down, she welcomed it.

As the antichrist, I am fated to end the world.

“No,” I whisper. I’m crying.

I am good. I won’t participate.

Destiny can be averted. All I have to do is die.

I go to the kitchen and open the cutlery drawer. I select the longest, sharpest knife I can find.

I go into the washroom and plug the tub. I turn on the hot water and wait for it to fill up, kneeling on the floor. I roll up my sleeves and lean with my forearms against the lip of the tub. The knife dangles from my fingers.

When the tub is full, I place the blade against my wrist. I breathe deep. I don’t want to do this. I’m afraid. I’m afraid it will hurt, and I’m afraid to die. I want to live.

But if I don’t go, everyone else will. I think about Theresa. After I lost Mom, I convinced myself I didn’t need anyone.

I need Theresa.

But I won’t let her die. I’ll kill myself before I let that happen.

My hand shaking, I pierce the skin.

This isn’t right.

I think I’m supposed to do this in the shed, instead.

I stand up and walk back through the apartment.

Sam is standing in the living room.

I bring the knife behind my back. “I didn’t hear you knock,” I say.

“What are you doing with the knife?”

I give up trying to hide it.

Sam takes a step backward.

“Please put that down,” he says.

“Get out of my way, Sam.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No.”

“Then please put down the knife.”

I drop it. It sticks in the carpet and doesn’t fall over.

Slowly, Sam moves forward. I watch as he grasps the handle and pulls out the knife. He brings it back to the kitchen, and then returns to the living room.

“Sit down.” He points to the couch.  I sit.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?” He sits beside me.

“I—” I can’t say anything, because I’m going to cry again.

“What’s the matter?”

Tears run down my cheek. I manage to speak: “I don’t feel like I’m real.”

“What do you mean?”

“I feel like I’m dead, or something. Am I dead, Sam?”

He shakes his head. His eyes are wide. “No. You’re not dead, Sheldon.”

“Can you hold my hand? Please.”

His eyes narrow, and his own hand twitches. “Why?”

“Please. I feel like I’m going to disappear.”

I’m the most frightened I’ve ever been.

Sam takes my right hand in his left. I look at his face. My vision blurs, and his face becomes distorted. It twists around. He becomes ugly.

“Sam?”

“Yes?”

“You look like a demon.”

“Thanks.”

“No offense, I mean. I didn’t mean—”

“None taken. What’s going on?”

“I think I have a drug problem. I can’t quit. And last night, I smoked a joint with Gilbert, and I’m still high. I haven’t come down yet. It’s been hours and hours. I don’t understand why it won’t end.”

He stands up. “Come with me. We need to get you out of here.”

I follow him outside. There’s a brown car parked in our driveway. He sits behind the wheel, and I sit in the passenger seat.

“Who owns this car?”

“My cousin. He’s visiting, and he let me use it to go search for you.”

“Why were you searching for me?”

“Never mind that.”

We drive. I look at the clock. It’s 7:37. I watch until it changes. It takes a very, very long time.

“The clock just took like 15 minutes to change, Sam.”

He glances down at it. “I don’t think so.”

“Did you mess with it? Are you playing a joke?”

“I’m not.”

“Where are you taking me?”

He clears his throat and doesn’t say anything. He turns on the radio.

It’s a talk show. “He throws all his junk in the backyard and leaves it there,” a lady is saying. “It’s an eyesore, and he doesn’t care one bit. I’ve put in several complaints to the Town, but no one listens. That trash heap he calls a yard is reducing my property value. It’s not at all fair. If he moved to Australia tomorrow, I wouldn’t miss him. Not one bit.”

“Sam?” I say. “Are you taking me to the airport? Are you sending me away?”

“No, Sheldon.”

I think he’s lying.

A commercial comes on: “His name is Bubbles Z. Clown, and he’s the funniest clown around town! He does kids parties of all ages, and he’s even been known to keep a roomful of adults entertained. Juggling, balloon animals, jokes, dancing, and laughter—these—”

“Sam?”

“Yes?”
“Do you think I’m a clown?”

“Let’s turn that off, okay?” He hits a button, and the man’s voice cuts out.

“Where are you taking me?”

“The hospital, Sheldon. I’m taking you to the hospital.”

*

While we wait, Sam lets me use his phone as much as I want. I try about 20 times to reach Gilbert. He’s still not answering.

I told a nurse everything that’s happened. Sam and I have been sitting around for hours since then. I get the sense there’s something he isn’t telling me, and I spend most of the time wondering what it could be.

“Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Is Capriana pregnant?”

“Who’s Capriana?”

“Never mind.”

*

Throughout the day, Sam grows more and more agitated. His answers to my questions become terser.

He keeps checking his watch.

Finally, nine hours after our arrival, a nurse tells me the doctor is ready to see me. She leads us through a series of corridors. Sam holds me back until we’re out of her earshot.

“If they give you a choice,” he says, “between staying in the psych ward and going home, tell them you want to stay.”

“But I don’t want to. I hate it here.”

“Trust me.”

“You just want to get rid of me.”

“No. Wrong. I’m giving you very good advice.”

After hearing what’s happened over the last 12 hours, the doctor says it seems likely I’m experiencing acute psychosis brought on by marijuana use. She says that for a small percentage of users, high doses can trigger this. She gives me the option of either staying in the hospital’s psychiatric ward and awaiting treatment or booking an appointment and being treated as an outpatient.

“What do you think I should do?”

“I’m afraid I can’t make that decision for you.”

I hesitate. “What time is it?”

“10 after five.”

I clear my throat.

“I’ll stay, I guess.”

*

No one ever smiles, in here. If you smile at someone, they’ll only look back at you, blank-faced. I haven’t personally tried smiling, but I’ve seen it happen.

Sam brought me my essentials—toothbrush, MP3 player, Velcro shoes.

“What am I missing, Sam? What’s going on?”

But he remains silent, and stares into space, his jaw set. Eventually, I stop asking.

I guess sometimes the mind just skips, like a CD. You can try taking it out and putting it back in. If that doesn’t work, you can try cleaning it off with your sleeve. And, as a last resort, you can buy one of those scratch repair kits.

If all else fails, you throw it on the trash heap.

I see another doctor the day after I’m admitted. She prescribes a half milligram of an antipsychotic—another drug that’s supposed to correct the chemical imbalances that plague my brain.

I refuse it.

They call Sam, and within a half hour he’s standing with me in front of the Nurses Station. We both stare down at the little half-pill sitting in the tiny plastic cup.

“I don’t want it,” I say.

“Taking it is part of staying here, Sheldon. They’re trying to get you back to where you were.”

“I don’t like where I was.”

“Then aim for a better place.”

“It’s another drug, Sam. The doctor said it was marijuana that caused all this.”

“This pill isn’t pot. This pill is designed to rebalance your neurotransmitters. Pot did the opposite.”

“You smoke pot. It doesn’t do that to you.”

“Your brain is different from mine.”

I take a deep breath and flick the half-pill into my throat, washing it down with water from a paper cup. Sam and I look at each other, and he gives a small smile. “It feels like it’s stuck in my throat,” I say.

I spend most of my time in here feeling guilty. My doctor seems to pick up on it, and now she questions me about it every session. But I have no answers for her. All I know is that there must be a reason I keep ending up here.