Endless Possibility: a RUSH novella (City Lights 3.5) (9 page)

I lay in bed feeling better than I had in days, and dove into what I hoped would be a deep, restorative sleep…

…that lasted maybe all of an hour. I woke up with pain raging at the back of my head. I barely made it to the toilet before vomiting up my $43 plate of spaghetti, and flailed around—in profound agony—to find my bottle of Azapram. One pill left. I took it with trembling hands, and swallowed it down.

And now I had none.

The Monster was faster than the mail.

My first night in Barcelona was spent riding out a migraine. I had no pills to take. I’d called the front desk for some aspirin, but that was like putting a band-aid on a gushing artery.

I sat in the bathroom of my five star Barcelona hotel, banging down the seconds until the migraine’s iron-tight grip on my head began to loosen. At first, I thought I was merely delirious with the pain, but no, I sensed a gradual lessening from molten agony, to plain agony (a huge step up) to a really fucking bad headache, to finally none at all.

A sound like a sob burst from my chest and throat, and I threw my arm over my eyes, sucking in deep breaths.
I can’t do this anymore,
I thought.
Enough. I’m done.
But I couldn’t be done.

I hit the button on my phone.
“The time is now 8:10 a.m.”

I thought of all I needed to do today before Charlotte’s eight p.m. show. Dry cleaning and laundry, lunch and dinner, finding the concert hall…Too much.

So quit,
came a thought.

“No,” I told it and the empty room.

That’s the third migraine in five days,
came another.

“Fuck you. I’m stressed.”

But the little sliver of fear that had wedged itself into my gut when I’d lost my balance in Rome, dug deeper. The idea that something was wrong with me was like a weed in my mind that kept trying to take root and no matter how many times I yanked it out, it grew back.

“
No
,” I said again, into the black. I was just tired—more than tired. Exhausted from this ordeal, constantly stressed out and fearful of being robbed, lost, or ruined, and missing Charlotte so badly I could hardly breathe.  

Still…

I snarled a curse and hauled myself off the bathroom floor. Dizziness assaulted me at once. The room canted and tilted under me, like a ship tossed at sea. I braced myself on the counter, while my fear poured in and tried to sink me.

It passed.
You sat up too quickly and you haven’t eaten. Nothing tragic about that.

I had to eat. I felt weak as hell, and I couldn’t venture out to do the laundry much less anything else, until I’d had some food. I felt for the phone on the nightstand, and my fingers trailed over the buttons hoping for one that felt more prominent than the rest. They all felt the goddamn same. I pushed one at random and heard a recording, in Spanish, of what I presumed was an ad for the hotel itself. One of those informational things that are constantly playing with soft music behind them.

I slammed the phone down and picked it up again. I felt at the numeric keypad, and was relieved to find that 0 was still alone, at the bottom, where it should be. I pushed it, hoping for an operator. I got one. A young woman answered.

“Buenos días, recepción. ¿Cómo puedo ayudarte?”

“Yeah, do you speak English?” I asked roughly.

A pause. “Sí, señor. How may I assist you?”

“I want to order some breakfast. Room service.”

“Very good, sir. What will you have?”

“I don’t know.” I rubbed my forehead and my eyes that felt tired, even though they’d had the last two years off. “Food. Breakfast. I don’t care.”

“Do you need a menu, sir?”

“I have a menu,” I said through gritted teeth. “I can’t read it. Can you please just tell me what you have?”

“You…wish for me to read to you the whole menu, sir?”

“Yes…No, just…” I thought I was there, at the breaking point. I sucked down a deep breath. “Eggs. Do you have fucking eggs?”

The woman cleared her throat, obviously trying her damndest to maintain her cool with the American dickhead barking at her over the phone.

“We have eggs, sir.”

“Fine. Good. Eggs, coffee, toast…whatever. Just bring it. Room 42.”

I slammed the receiver down, and a second later I swept the phone and everything else that was on the side table onto the floor. My hands were shaking. My breath came in harsh gasps.
What is happening to me?

I took several deep breaths, concentrating only on the in and out until the urge to scream or smash something else faded. I stood on trembling legs and felt my way to the bathroom, where I splashed cold water on my face. I lifted my face to the mirror. On the other side of the black curtain was a haggard man, pale and sickly, with bags under his dark-circled eyes. And the eyes themselves—that Charlotte found so attractive—were haunted and dull. Their useless stare more blank and empty than ever before.

I didn’t have to see to know that. If Charlotte saw me now, she’d cry. Ava would yell and
then
cry. My mother would weep and my father curse me for hurting her again. And Lucien…

I stumbled back into the bedroom, stubbing my toe on the lamp I knocked off the table. I found my phone on the bed, buried under the covers. I nearly called Lucien, telling myself it was just to hear his voice. To talk to someone who knew me so I didn’t feel so goddamn trapped. But I knew if I called him, it wouldn’t be to chit-chat. I’d tell him to book me a flight home that very night.

Do it,
said the voice of reason that so often sounded like Ava in my mind.
You’re done.
She was right. I couldn’t survive another migraine without the medicine. Not now.

“Charlotte, I’m sorry,” I croaked and started to push the button on my phone when a knock came at the door.

“Room service, señor.”

I held the phone in my hand, my head dropping from exhaustion.

Another knock. The button on my phone was smooth under my thumb.

“Señor?”

I drew in a breath, as if I could suck in strength and fortitude and courage from the air around me.
Charlotte…

“Come in.”

“Your breakfast, sir.” I heard a tray set down. “And a package has arrived for you. Just this morning.”

I held out my trembling hand. “Show me. Please.

“Of course.”

A cool, dry hand took mine and led me to the tray, to a square package wrapped in paper. I tore it open and a bottle fell out, rolled onto the table.

“What does it say?”

“Az…Azapram…”

“Fine, good, thank you. Go. You can go now.”

I sat on the bed for a long time while my breakfast grew cold, turning the bottle over and over in my hand. Twelve capsules. That’s all they’d give me at a time. But if the migraines kept up at this rate, I’d be out in two weeks.

Quit. Just quit.

But I didn’t. Charlotte had never quit on me. Never.

I got up and ate my breakfast.

I persevered through that breakfast, and dozens more after, but the writing was on the wall: I was breaking apart just as I had predicted. The raging anger in Rome had degenerated into desperation in Barcelona, and worsened through Nice, Paris, and Brussels; a terrible erosion that left me feeling hollowed out. I was below anger, somewhere. Under the stairs in a lightless basement. A dusty crawlspace. Or in Sylvia Plath’s bell jar, maybe, where everything was airless and stale.

By the time I hit Amsterdam, I was about done in.

It was around nine in the morning when the train from Brussels arrived at the Centraal station, and a hand jostled me from a shallow doze. I dragged my bag off the train, with help from someone—the conductor, maybe—and then dragged myself into the terminal.

“Information desk?” I demanded of someone I felt walk past me.

I called it going fishing: I cast out a line—my arm—hoping to snag someone who could give me the information I needed. It had been humiliating to do it at first. Now, I didn’t bother with niceties. Niceties were too tiring.

“Uh, yes,” said the guy I’d caught. A young guy, maybe my age. “Okay, this way.”

He led me to the info desk, and from there I was guided to the cabstand with a waiting taxi. Cab rides were usually a reprieve. Mustering the willingness to exit the known space and safety of a taxi for the unknown of a street or some hotel rattled my nerves and left me drained. But I was already drained and my nerves seemed to have fallen asleep. I rode in the cab. I paid the fare. I got out, que sera, sera.

In my deluxe fucking luxury suite that I couldn’t see or appreciate, I found the king bed and wanted to face-plant straight into it and not move all day. But I discovered I wasn’t really tired. Mentally exhausted beyond all reckoning, yes, but mostly I just didn’t give a fuck.

I unpacked my bag and went about my process—not because I needed or wanted to, but because I couldn’t think of a reason not to. Or anything else to do. Just one mechanical step after another.

I laid out my suit for Charlotte’s show the next night; the VTO had the night off which meant I did too. I arranged my devices, set up my laptop, and then wandered the perimeter of the room to get its dimensions and orient the bed to the bathroom.

I took a scalding hot shower, wondering if that would kick-start my body. It didn’t. By then, it was noon, and I decided to head out for lunch. I had to. If I laid down in the bed, I wouldn’t get up again. Not for days, maybe, and when Lucien called, he’d hear it in my voice that I had to stop.

After eating lunch, I sat at my table at the café and vaguely wondered what I should do with the rest of the day. I had been to Amsterdam in my past life. A beautiful city of canals with bicyclists riding over the stone cobbled streets; important landmarks and history. The Anne Frank House was here, but what would I get out of that? A small and dwindling voice urged me to go and just experience it as I was. That I’d feel the momentous history of that place, even if I couldn’t see it, and to miss out would be a terrible waste. 

I opted to miss out.

Then there was the Van Gogh museum. Priceless art not three feet from my face, and it may as well be chicken scratch.

It may sound like I was feeling sorry for myself, but in actual truth, these losses had no affect on me. Just facts I had no way of changing, and couldn’t be bothered to care about in the first place. Was that progress? Or acceptance of my fate? I told myself it was, but that same little voice whispered it was the furthest thing from it.

I had to get out of this funk. It was so deep, it wasn’t even depression. Just nothingness. I asked the waiter to give me the name of another café. A different kind of café, that sold more than food. If I couldn’t change my reality, I’d bend it a little and just let go of
thinking
so damn hard.

My waiter gave me a name and helped me hail a cab.

“Café J,” I told the cabbie. Nope, no Anne Frank or Van Gogh for me. I was going to get high, and fuck it all, that sounded like the best idea I’d ever had.

It was early afternoon. The streets were all but empty when I got out of the cab. It sounded like the café was tucked into a sleepy little corner of the city. But people—not me, but real people—had jobs and worked and didn’t smoke pot at 2:04 in the p.m. on a weekday. Inside the café, I expected some tourists at least, but couldn’t tell from the muted conversations if there were any other Americans there.

“A joint, please,” I told the guy behind the counter. The place felt dim and cozy, but I imagined neon lights behind the counter or maybe menus of colored chalk.

The guy cleared his throat. “Uh, okay. Can you be more specific? We got about a hundred different strains.”

“Surprise me,” I muttered.

“More expensive, better quality,” he said. “But you gotta buy a coffee too.”

I smirked. “Yeah, that makes sense. A stimulant to go with my depressant.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Coffee, black. And your most expensive cigarette. Are we on a canal?” I thought I smelled the water, but couldn’t be sure, as the café itself was pungent with a variety of other strong aromas.