Kitabı oku: «The Blind», sayfa 6

NOVEMBER 26TH, 12:45 A.M.

I find myself at Nick’s again, waiting for David to show up. Lucas and I came together, but he is too drunk to function, so he parked himself at one end of the bar, staring at his phone, while I schmooze with our buddies. Everyone at Nick’s thinks that Lucas and I are the perfect couple, and it’s a very delicate dance, because we know this perception, and without speaking, we do everything we can to uphold it. Even if I’m afraid he might end up killing me when we are alone, in front of others, we put on the show that we need to put on to pretend to ourselves that each of us is fine, and that together we are the ideal couple: the beacon of domestic bliss that shines amid the crumbling failures of their past. It gives hope, and I am in the business of giving hope.

If I told them that he beats me, or that he had sex with a faceless hooker in the back room of a porn store earlier today, or that he is currently wolfing oxycodone in the bathroom, it would ruin their night, and I certainly don’t want that. This perception that Lucas and I are perfect…it helps me believe it. And it’s one of the last strings I have holding my life together.

David just walked into the bar, and he’s scanning the room trying to find me. I’m waving with one hand while drinking a Jack and Coke with the other. He’s probably the only person who knows the truth about me, the truth about Lucas and some truth about me and Lucas. Our offices share a wall, which means he can hear everything that goes on in mine. When I’m throwing up in the garbage can, or crying into my coffee, he tends to ask questions. Over the years, instead of lying to him, I’ve let him in, and he hasn’t used it against me yet.

David is my best friend. Not just my work best friend, but the closest thing I have to a real-life best friend. I’ve never slept with him, although maybe I should. He has a crush on me, I can tell, and I flirt with him and humor him just enough to make the crush continue, but I’m careful to never allow it to turn into something that would require reciprocity. Just the way I like it. He walks over, we look at each other, and without saying anything, he drinks from the straw in my drink. I signal to Sid, the bartender, for another round.

David and I stand too close together and gossip. We find safety in our bubble and use that safety to dismantle the other people around us. David pretends not to notice Lucas. I can’t tell if he’s being polite or defensive.

Lucas is in a state now. His tie is partially loosened and partially tight, one of the middle buttons of his shirt is undone, his jacket is strewn in a booth somewhere, his glasses are all greased and cockeyed on top of his head, and he needs to lean on the bar for support. Despite this, he’s become even more disarming and lovable to everyone in the room. The cocktail waitresses are huddled in the corner talking about him, and he has his hand on the panty-hosed leg of someone else’s girlfriend. No one seems to mind.

When I approach, his hand slides back into his own lap.

“Act like you love me, you stupid asshole,” I say with a smile.

“I do love you, you dirty whore,” he replies, and he might not be joking. “But I’m tired, and I have a long week coming up, so I’m going home.” He pulls his coat into his hands and makes a show of looking around the bar for his suit jacket. “If you see my jacket, will you bring it home with you? I don’t have time to go searching for it now.”

“No problem,” I say, hiding the cigarette and lighter I have clutched in my fist, as if I wasn’t about to step outside. If I give him a seamless exit, I can save myself from another one of his drunken attacks.

“You don’t have to come with me. I’ll get home fine,” he slurs, and I give the panty-hosed girl a side-eye. We perform our saying-goodbye act, with big hugs and kisses, and after he doesn’t bother to pay his tab, he stumbles out the door. I pretend not to notice the panty hose follow him out.

“You gonna be okay if I go, too?” David asks, joining me in pretending he didn’t see anything.

“Yeah, I’m probably only going to have one or two more.”

After tugging his coat over his shoulders, he leaves a fifty on the bar and wraps me in a bear hug. “I’ll see you on Monday, but call me if anything stupid happens, okay?”

“Thanks, David. I’ll see you Monday. Home safe.”

Now that David and Lucas are both gone, I can turn my attention to AJ. He’s been sitting at a booth with some people I don’t know, but from the looks he’s been giving me, I know that we’re both waiting for the moment—the moment in time when it’s going to be okay and we can run into the other room, the other world, the other universe where we can wrap up in one another and not worry what anyone else thinks, what anyone else knows, what anyone else can see, but at the same time, we know that that’s never going to happen. So we have to live in between the lines. We have to be somewhere only he knows, and only I know, and no one says anything, because there’s nothing to say. Where we can walk in daylight and hear no voices.

Even though it’s the same bar we’re always at, somehow the walls seem new to me. All the things around us seem to be brighter. The cheeky quotes written in chalk on the blackboard behind the bar are funnier. The music sounds like something I haven’t been listening to for the last two months. There’s something about the way he looks at me that takes down every single wall I have ever erected in order to keep people out.

He’s standing at the DJ booth now, putting on a song and pointing at me across the bar. I’m doing everything I can to stay as far away from him as possible. He sees this and he sees me, and he puts on my favorite song and mouths to me, This is for you. I nod like I don’t care but my life explodes and all I can think of is jumping into the rabbit hole with a guy whose full name I don’t know.

No one is watching, and he walks to me and pulls me toward him, and I bury myself in the crook of his neck, which feels like the safest and most dangerous place in the world, and he tells me, “I like you…more than just sex.” And I laugh at this because I can’t do anything except laugh at this, and he pulls me into his neck and he smells like man, and he tells me he wants to take me away from here, and he asks me again why I’m going out with someone, and I say, “Am I going out with someone?” He tells me that he knows I have a boyfriend, and I say, “It’s because I didn’t know you first,” and he laughs, and he pulls me in closer.

When he puts my face into his shoulder, a new life flashes in front of me, and then he breaks away. He walks to the bathroom. I check to see if anyone’s looking at us, if anyone’s noticing what’s happening, but no one seems to notice that lightning is striking in this bar, and I follow him to the bathroom. He’s in a stall, and I stand in front of the sink washing my hands and wait for him to come out but I pretend I’m not waiting.

He comes out and he didn’t expect to see me, and he notices me so he starts washing his hands, and he looks at me from under his eyebrows and I act innocent like I’m not here for him, and he walks out the door before me, and I think my chance is lost. He dodges into a closet and as I’m walking past the door he reaches out and grabs my hand and pulls me in. The light is on, but he turns it off, and he kisses me and my life catches fire.

He’s holding me with one arm and using the other to keep the door shut. I’m running my hands through his hair, then down to his ass, and his dick is getting hard against my belt. All I want to do is turn off the world and stay here until it doesn’t hurt anymore.

He stops kissing me, and he holds my chin and says, “Look at me.” I peer up at him, into the gray abyss of his eyes. The intensity is so brutal that I feel like I will melt into a puddle of sex on the floor. He says, “You’re so beautiful,” and he starts kissing me again, and I finally do melt into a puddle of sex on the floor.

I have never cared less about Lucas in my life, and I wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a lineup right now. We’re furiously making out, and all I want to do is stay, stay, stay here…

And then it’s over.

He peeks out for onlookers, then sends me out first when the coast is clear. No one’s the wiser, and I’m holding on to this secret like it’s the nuclear codes. After he says goodbye to the people we know, he kisses me in front of everyone, but still no one notices, and he walks into the night.

NOVEMBER 29TH, 9:11 A.M.

Before I can settle into my chair and dig some Advil from my handbag, I hear a steady, slow knocking on my door. I know this knock. It could only be from Eddie, who raps on my door like this incessantly. Eddie does this to David also. I can hear him shuffling between our offices and knocking his pathetic knock. He usually waits outside the conference room for the morning meetings to be over, then walks behind me or David to ask us questions. If he misses this opportunity, he’ll take turns at our doors, knocking until one or both of us has to leave, let someone else in, or we just break down and open up for him.

“Ssaammm, Daaaviiid.” Eddie strings together his sentences as if each one is a very long word. He upturns the ends of each sentence so everything becomes a question, and he very nearly slurs while still managing to sound lucid. Eddie is not one of my patients, and he isn’t one of David’s, either. He works with Gary, but he has become attached to me and David. Why the two of us, I don’t know—it could be as simple as the accessibility of our offices. The shuffling continues.

“Ssssaammm… I-know-you’re-in-there… Please-open-up-for-me, Eddie…”

He sounds like a tire deflating. I pick up my office phone, put it to my ear and loudly start saying “Mmm-hmm.” With my glasses on, I crack the door and peer out at Eddie like I haven’t heard him this whole time. Eddie takes this as an invitation, and he sticks one laceless, dirty sneaker through the door to try to eke his way in. I mouth the words I’m on the phone, we can talk later, thinking this should be sufficient, but thinking wrong.

“Nnnnooooo, Sssssaaaammm… I’m-heeerrreeee-to-talk-to-you…” He has both his hands on the door and is pushing but not hard enough.

I make a display of covering the receiver with my free hand and say, “I know, Eddie, and I want to talk to you, too, but this is a very important call. We’ll have to do it later.”

“Oookkkayyyy… In-an-hour…?” I nod my head as I’m closing the door. I will not answer it in an hour when Eddie returns. I wish I could summon the strength and the energy it would take to give Eddie what he needs, but today I just can’t do it. I couldn’t be bothered to wash my hair this morning, and I woke up with a bloody butterfly stitch stuck in it, so I just put it in an elaborate bun that covers up the bandage. I take off my glasses and put down the phone, and I wonder how much more I can take of this.

Eddie has been living at Typhlos for God knows how long. In the six years that I’ve been working here, I think there have been three separate instances where he has been pulled from the unit and sent to emergency psychiatric. All of them were due to suicidal behaviors or threats. It’s one of the hardest things about being in this business; we’re supposed to be able to tell whether every suicidal gesture or remark should be taken seriously and then act accordingly every time. But when you have patients rubbing paper clips on their wrists until the red welts squeeze out the tiniest droplet of blood, and everyone else is saying “If I don’t get my orange juice, I’m going to kill myself,” it can get hard to differentiate.

After the third time that Eddie was removed, about four months ago, we had a morning meeting dedicated specifically to his case. I remember Gary was sweating profusely throughout the entire thing. He would regularly take giant gulps of cherry Gatorade, which left a wet red ring around his upper lip. Gary was scared that he’d be sued if Eddie ended up killing himself. In order to protect himself, Gary would go over every service plan, treatment outcome, case note and evaluation with a fine-tooth comb to check for errors, typos, coffee spills, printing and reprinting these documents until he had a file he believed would render him blameless. Of course, Eddie has no family, so the idea that anyone would sue anyone should Eddie end up dead was somewhat ridiculous.

I remember Rachel took the meeting over from Gary, who proved himself totally unable to calm down and report on what was happening. She’d made several highlighted photocopies of the important bits of Eddie’s file that she passed out and asked us to share with our “neighbor.” My neighbor was David, as usual. I had been extremely hungover, again, and David was quietly pointing out that I had a cigarette butt in my hair. He removed it without drawing attention, then we silently turned our focus to the handouts. Even though it was only a portion of Eddie’s file, it was thick and riddled with cross outs and updates and changes to his diagnosis. There were Post-its stuck to other Post-its and stapled to several copies of the same documents with black lines bisecting the pages. This was a file that had been tossed around from clinician to clinician after each one had reached the end of his or her rope, and Eddie was slipping through the cracks. One of the greatest sorrows of this business is seeing someone drowning and not being able to save his life.

I remember David and I flipped rapidly through the pages, scanning for buzzwords, and we simultaneously noticed a statement signed by W.D.R., initials neither of us recognized, dated 2003, that said “Unsalvageable. Beyond help.”

“What the hell is this?” I unwittingly interrupted Rachel midspeech to express my outrage at this message. “What the hell is this, seriously?”

“What’s what?” Rachel asked.

“‘Beyond help’? Aren’t we in the business of helping people? Isn’t that what we’re doing here? There’s no such thing as ‘unsalvageable.’ This is a human being. Not a house after a hurricane. Jesus.”

“Sam, I agree with you, but remember, Eddie hasn’t been responding to treatment for years.” Rachel.

“Fine, but when you give up on someone, what the hell are they supposed to do? It’s our job to not give up, right? Am I crazy?” David put his arm around the back of my chair and used his thumb to rub my shoulder. This calmed me down, and when he whispered “easy, tiger” into my ear, it soothed me even more.

“No, Sam. You’re not crazy at all. I feel the same way.” Still Rachel. I felt overprotective of Eddie because he was so attached to me and David. I still have a soft spot for him.

As I sit remembering this meeting from months ago, I am suddenly overwhelmed with the idea that I should have opened the door to him. I should have taken the time to talk to him; if no one else was saving him, I should have. I could’ve dived in and rescued him from drowning. But my head is too full of thoughts of Lucas, thoughts of AJ, paranoid ideas of what Lucas would do if he knew about the closet at Nick’s. I can’t muster the energy to focus on Eddie today.

DECEMBER 1ST, 5:30 P.M.

Every year, each staff member who works on the unit has to have a psychological evaluation. Given that so many of the employees here are licensed professionals, capable of performing a competent psych eval, we’ve been doing each other’s evaluations for years and then presenting the results to a representative from the New York State Office of Mental Health, which we just call OMH. Should any of the employees be deemed in any way unfit to be working in such a stressful and sensitive environment, some kind of action is taken. Of course, it seems ludicrous to insist on these precautions, considering you must be crazy to actually want to work here.

This year, due to a major change in the country’s national awareness and vigilance about mental health, we’re not allowed to give each other the evaluations. Instead, there are several highly trained, ruthless and not at all cozy psychiatrists independently contracted by OMH to come in and provide in-depth weeklong evaluations of each one of us. Each member of the staff, especially those who have access to all the patients, all the files—not to mention all the drugs—are to be interviewed by two separate psychiatrists. These interviews will include a battery of psychological exams and interrogations, as well as thorough background checks. Needless to say, I am shitting myself in anticipation. The batteries begin on Monday. I am promising that I will not drink myself into a stupor this weekend, because I know I have to be lucid on Monday. Lucid on Monday. Lucid on Monday.

I’ve spent the day willing the hours to pass so I could get to this moment where David and I can escape our real lives and wander down a drunken rabbit hole. The days at Typhlos are always long and tiring, but with the new patients coming in and the responsibilities escalating, the possibility for a truly relaxing exodus is diminishing. I have been looking forward to dodging out of here with David and evading anything that could be considered a grown-up obligation.

“Hold on one sec, Julie just texted me,” David is saying. I theatrically roll my eyes, indicating I do not want Julie to join us, and just as David is formulating his text rejection, a bubbly Julie appears before us in all her cashmere and Burberry splendor.

“Hey! David, I just texted you. What’s up, you guys?” How anyone could be this energetic at the end of days like these at Typhlos, I have no idea.

“I was just writing back,” David says as he tucks his cell phone into his back pocket.

“Were you guys gonna go out? I would love to come with you if you are?” Her wide eyes are wet and pleading, and I almost don’t have the heart to lie to her. Almost.

“Yeah,” David responds before I can sidestep her advances. “We’re headed down to Jimmy’s. You in?”

“Ugh, Jimmy’s? Is that where we said we were going?” I am forcing nonchalance. “I slept with the bartender and he didn’t stop calling me for like, a month. I can’t go there. You guys go; I’ll catch you next time.” I’m already walking down the hallway, taking my cigarettes out of my bag and fishing for my lighter.

“Wait, Sam, I—I…” Before he has even finished his sentence, my mind explodes in rage, screaming inside my head that he cannot invite this pathetic little worm to one of our bars; she can’t come and ruin the sanctity of our friendship! Why would he let someone else in? Why would he choose her over me? I have to save face. He can’t abandon me for her! I’m leaving. I will leave. He can’t leave me if I leave him.

“Don’t worry about it. See you tomorrow.” I’m out into the dark afternoon, I’m fumbling with my lighter. The fucking wind is blowing it out, and I can’t light this fucking cigarette. I want to scream into this wind, I want to blame this wind for the tears in my eyes. I want to run to the subway and hide in the last car and pretend I don’t want to murder David and damn him for leaving me! Me! After the friend I’ve been to him! For all these years, and he just chooses Julie. Julie, that incoherent, ridiculous parody of a human being! Jesus Christ!

I am curled into the fetal position in the handicapped seats on the C train. The C rattles and sways more than any other train, and it’s helping to soothe me. I need to find solace somewhere. I need to do something to make up for this rejection. I need someone to love me. Where the hell is AJ?

DECEMBER 1ST, 7:06 P.M.

My phone has been beeping at me since I got off the train. It’s David, and I’m still not answering. I read every text he sends me, but none of them will be able to make up for him choosing her over me. He doesn’t even understand why this would be such a terrible thing to do to me, to abandon me for some shiny, plastic replacement.

I’m at Nick’s, saying hello to everyone with cheerful kisses and hugs and questions about their well-being, and amid the faux sincerity, I’m scanning the bar for a friendly face, or the person I came here to find.

Walking into this bar is like standing behind a bus. The cold, windy silence of outside is replaced by an arresting wall of heat, noise and movement. It’s always dark in here, as if it’s lit to make you look your best even when you’re at your worst. There are too many TVs showing too many programs at the same time, and the lines to the ladies’ bathroom are always too long. The DJ gives me a wink and I collapse into my favorite stool in the middle of the bar. I haven’t even said hello to Sid yet, and I can see him pouring me my Jack and Coke.

“Sammy!” he says with his Irish accent. “How are ya, doll?”

“Sid Vicious! What’s up, baby?” Whatever is happening in my life or in my head, I will always be this happy caricature. Precious few will think to look behind it, and even fewer will actually see.

The Jets game hasn’t started yet, so I’m watching the pregame show. I’m trying to keep an eye on the door while ensuring I don’t look like I’m keeping an eye on the door. I don’t know how to will AJ to walk in without calling someone to find out his number and asking him to come. I’m leaving it to blind faith. When Sid returns with a refill, I realize I’m putting these drinks away much faster than I should. I notice Claire, the hottest of the young, blonde cocktail waitresses, approaching me.

“Hi, honey!” She leans in to kiss me on the cheek with her tray of empties balanced in her left hand. “Where’s Lucas tonight?”

“Where’s what?” I heard her, but I need another minute to formulate a response. What shall I say? He’s sleeping with someone. He’s doing drugs. He’s buying flasks of Jameson at the store to drink on his way to the bar. He’s icing his knuckles from the last time he…

“Lucas! Where’s Lucas?” she says with a smile.

“He’s at work still. Some major finance thing keeping him at the office. I don’t even know what he does all day.”

Smiles, only a hint of recognition that she’s in love with him. “Well, it’s great to see you!” She walks to the service station and drops her tray. I give her the no-teeth smile.

I start looking through the messages David has been sending me. The first ones are all bewildered, wondering why I left. Those are followed by salvage messages telling me he isn’t having fun with Julie and he wishes I were there. The most recent ones are clearly alcohol induced, and he’s beginning to cross the invisible line that exists between friends and something more. I’m comforted by the idea that he may be in love with me, so I relax even though I may not get validation from AJ, but at the same time I am reminded that Lucas, my boyfriend, hasn’t sent me a single message.

I’m getting the familiar feeling that my reaction time is slowing and my surroundings have begun shrinking. I am no longer looking around, and instead I’m creating the world I need within a two-foot radius. I have my drinks, I have my validation from David’s texts, I can’t make out whether or not Claire is looking at me waiting for Lucas to show up, and I finally have my armor back. I hear the sounds of Thursday Night Football in the air around me, and I feel in place; I find comfort in the status quo. I feel my phone vibrate in my hands and I look down to see another message from David.

She’s superdrunk, and I don’t know what to do. Where are you? I feel the twang of jealousy in my stomach and the metallic taste of desperation rising in my throat. He’s taking care of her. I am not letting this get the better of me. I’m entrenched in my response.

I write and delete several replies before I settle on U know where I am.

There in ten. David is leaving her to come to me? This is unexpected. Do I want David to come here now? I haven’t quite given up hope on AJ. I am watching the coin toss and trying to decide if I should dissuade David from joining me, and before I can make up my mind, he has materialized next to me.

“Why the hell didn’t you come? I was stuck with her for hours! She can’t hold her liquor. It was a mess.” David is out of breath and exasperated, and I know he ran from the train station.

“Me? I’m not the idiot who invited her to come with us!” Am I glad that he is here or still enraged that he left me?

“Sam, you bailed. You could’ve come, too.” He is signaling to Sid for a water.

“Whatever. You know I don’t want to go out with Julie.” I can’t bear to look at him while I’m saying this because I am afraid of seeing defense in his eyes, and if I see it, I know he will have moved away from me and over to her. Instead I lean to the left to avoid getting elbowed as he plops down in the seat next to me and catches his breath.

“She’s such a lightweight! We didn’t even make it to Jimmy’s. She said she would rather go somewhere uptown, so we went to that place on Eighty-Fourth with the red-checked tablecloths? You know? And she had two glasses of sauvignon and was done.” He’s trying to appease me, and I don’t want it.

David and I sit shoulder to shoulder watching the kickoff and I feel the intensity of his touch, but I’m too hurt to address him. He asks me if I want a shot without looking at me.

“Patrón Silver,” I say without looking at him. David makes a mustache with his forefinger in Sid’s direction, and Sid obligingly pours three shots—two Patrón, and one Jameson for himself. He brings the shots over to us and raises his glass.

“To keeping it classy.” Sid jerks his head in the direction of some assholes in the corner and throws back his shot.

David holds his glass in front of me, imploring me to clink it. I see his ruddy cheeks and the sincerity in his eyes, so I put down my guns and toast with him. We upend our glasses with smiles on our faces, and I pull him in for a hug that could be considered intimate. Desperation will make you do funny things.

David and I are standing too close to each other by the bar, and when AJ walks in, my stomach leaps into my mouth. I immediately find myself straightening my shirt, fluffing my hair and sucking my teeth. David hasn’t noticed my shift, so he keeps talking to me, and when I feel his hand creep onto my lower back, I jump like I’ve been burned. AJ hasn’t spotted me yet, and I’m terrified of letting him know I’m looking at him. The entire bar turns into slow motion and I’m standing in the middle waiting for AJ to notice me, and I feel like the kid from Scrubs in that movie about New Jersey.