Last Call (9 page)

Laura’s screams, like nothing Julie had ever heard, incensed the dogs even more, and Julie cut her eyes away from the horror in the yard.

Then Bobcat was on her, jerking her head up, making her watch, saying, “Are we clear on this? Blondie?”

“Yes,” Julie said. “Oh, God...yes...”

“Well, alright.”

Bobcat went back to his manic circling, shaggy head bobbing.

Laura was still now, hunched as if in prayer, engulfed in hell’s fire.

* * *

When Trish got back to the unit Jim was still in the chair, his head resting on the food tray now, the sedation working its magic. She pulled up a chair and sat next to him, half-watching a cat food commercial on the tiny TV.

She’d almost dozed off when a familiar voice said, “Wanna take a break?” and she saw Dean in the doorway, holding two big bags of Chinese take-out.

She nodded. “Chinese. Smells great.”

Her father was still out of it, muttering and snoring, and Trish said, “Be back soon,” and followed Dean out of the unit.

They found a vacant couch with a coffee table in the visitors’ lounge and Dean opened the bags and doled out the goodies—sweet and sour chicken balls, pork fried rice, won ton soup—all the delicious standards. Suddenly ravenous, Trish dug in.

Once sated, she discarded her plastic fork and said, “What was it like in rehab?”

“For me it was a blessing,” Dean said, wiping his mouth on a napkin. “I took to it like a duck to water. The way things were going, I’d likely be dead by now without it. You’re thinking about your dad, right? Maybe getting him in?”

Trish nodded. “Do people like him ever make it?”

“I go to three of four recovery meetings a week and I see guys like him all the time. Guys even worse than him with decades of clean time. Anyone can make it if they want it bad enough.”

Trish said, “Your offer to help...does it still stand?”

“Of course it does.”

Smiling, verging on tears, Trish slid next to him on the couch and gave him a grateful hug.

––––––––

Tuesday, July 14

DEAN STOOD AT the main desk in ICU, trying to persuade the charge nurse, Myrna Sampson, to bend the rules just a fraction. Myrna was a crusty old broad who brooked no nonsense, but Dean had softened her up with a box of Turtles, Myrna’s favorite.

“I realize I’m not immediate family,” he told her, “but I am a
friend
of the family. And he’s going to need a sponsor when he straightens out, someone he can trust. Besides, the exercise’ll do him good.”

Myrna said, “Alright, you can take him. But I need him back in thirty minutes. We’re shipping him out to the floor today and I don’t want him tying up the bed.”

“Deal,” Dean said. “And thanks.” He reached over the counter for one of the Turtles and Myrna cracked him on the knuckles with a pen.

Laughing, Dean headed for cubicle 9. Since the night Trish hugged him in the visitors’ lounge he’d been paying regular visits to her dad, dropping in every workday for an hour or so. The first few trips had been a waste of time, Jim either deeply sedated or combative as hell; but by the end of that first week his jive-talking street persona had begun to re-emerge, giving Dean a glimpse of the man’s personality. The six or so days following that had fallen into an amusing pattern, Dean forced to start each new visit from square one, whatever slim progress he’d made the day before lost in the fog of Jim’s disease. And today was no different.

“Who are you again, kid?”

They were in the corridor outside the unit now, Jim in hospital-issue slippers and an open-back gown, using his IV pole as a walker, his free hand clutching his suture line. To Dean he looked about ready to fold, his stooped frame so skinny Dean could count his ribs through the gown; but he was seeing hints of the toughness in the man now, too, a gleam of purpose coming into those watery eyes. Trouble was, Dean had a pretty good idea of what that purpose was.

“I’m Dean,” he said. “Dean Elkind, like I told you before. I’m a friend of a friend. I promised her I’d keep an eye on you.”

Jim grunted. “Well, friend of a friend, did I ever tell you about the time we fronted for Aerosmith at the Garden?”

“Only about six times already.”

Out of breath now, Jim stopped by a row of chairs and cast his gaze back at the unit, saying, “Listen, kid. Those bitches in there won’t let me do shit.” He licked his crusty lips. “Why don’t you be a sport and run get me a bottle.”

“Slim chance of that, gramps.”

Jim said, “Yeah, figured you for a company man.” He eased himself into one of the chairs, wincing in pain. “How ’bout a deck of smokes, then? You could toddle down to the boutique. I’ll wait right here, I promise. Even pay you back, soon as I get through suing these meat packers.”

“You’ll wait right here?”

Jim grabbed a
Reader’s Digest
off a side table and crossed his bandy legs. “On this very damn spot, I swear it.”

Dean said, “Maybe I’m nuts, but I’m going to trust you. I’ll get you some smokes, but I’ll hold onto the pack. Once a day I’ll take you outside and you can light one up. How’s that sound?”

“Peachy,” Jim said, grinning, and Dean had to laugh.

“Alright, stay put. I’ll be right back.”

* * *

Jim Gamble watched the kid scoot out the door into the stairwell, watched the door hiss shut on its piston. He waited—and sure enough there was the kid again, popping his head back in for a final check. Jim waved and said, “Unfiltered Player’s’d do it. Make it a large.”

The kid grinned and shook his head, and this time when the door latched shut Jim got to his feet and backtracked to a bank of elevators, moving more spryly now, one hand propelling the IV pole, the other pinching his gown shut over his naked ass.

An elevator opened and Jim hustled to catch it, the movement stirring up the rust-colored contents of the catheter bag hooked to the base of the IV pole. Already aboard, an old woman shrank away from him, clutching her purse as he clattered inside. As the doors slid shut, Jim poked the LOBBY button and rubbed his chapped lips, staring at the numbers above the doors.

In the lobby he set a course for the main exit, but changed his mind when he saw the gorilla-size security guard stationed by the door. He ducked into a side hallway and left the building through a service entrance, stepping out into brilliant sunshine, reflected daylight dazzling him from a hundred polished surfaces. Shading his eyes, he shuffled down the wheelchair ramp to the street, his thirst hard upon him now.

The 4-lane main drag was congested, a long traffic light clogging things up, stretching tempers thin. Jim saw an executive-type step off the curb and nearly get clipped by a Transit bus, and he came up behind the guy and said, “Hey, man, can you cut me a break? My law firm went tits up in the last recession and now they got me locked up in here.” One of the wheels on his IV pole bumped the guy’s shoe and the guy recoiled, storming off in the opposite direction now.  Jim tried a couple more passers-by and got the same reaction. He’d given up trying to hide his ass and now people were pointing and smirking.

With nothing on his mind but a drink, Jim wandered into the street, dragging the pole behind him. He tapped on a few car windows without success, then got an inspiration.

He was in the middle of the street now, getting honked and jeered at by angry motorists. Unmindful, he made a beeline for a stationary Civic with an elderly woman at the wheel. Standing by the driver’s-side mirror, he plucked the IV bag from its hook, disconnected it from the tubing and squirted the windshield with its salty contents. When the glass was soaked, he set the dribbling bag on the hood and hiked up his gown, baring his balls for the now mortified woman, and started polishing the windscreen with the faded blue fabric.

“There,” he said, pressing his face to the smeared glass, “clean as a whistle. Five bucks oughta cover it.”

The light turned green and the Civic surged ahead, leaving Jim with his privates hanging out and traffic whizzing past him on either side. Cursing, parched to the very bone now, he yanked the IV catheter from the back of his hand and abandoned the pole.

A few seconds later traffic was frozen again and Jim glanced into the open interior of the convertible Mercedes that now idled beside him. The driver, a rail-thin platinum blonde, peered at him in mild amusement over the rims of her shades.

But Jim wasn’t interested in the woman.

Reading his intent, the woman reached for her purse—a tan leather Chanel on the seat beside her—an instant too late. Jim snatched it up and gave her a grin.

“Thanks, babe, you’re a life saver.”

Now a police siren warbled nearby and Jim started to move...but then he saw something in the passenger footwell of the Mercedes that gave him pause.

“Oh, mercy me.”

He reached into a bag of groceries and came up with a bottle of red wine. Scanning the label in the sunlight, he frowned and said, “This shit for the in-laws?” then moved off down the street, purse in one hand, bottle in the other.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw a city cop and a couple of hospital security guards weaving their way toward him through the traffic.

Running now, the unspeakable pain in his belly all but muted by his thirst, Jim grasped the cork with his teeth and gnawed it free. He glanced back once too often and ran headlong into the grille of an idling semi, dropping the bottle and landing ass first on the scalding pavement. When the bottle shattered by his head, he cried out like a man shot point blank in the spine.

As his pursuers converged, Jim saw an inch of rich red fluid in the unbroken base of the bottle. He picked it up, raised it to his lips—

Then they were on him, one of them knocking the wine out of his trembling fingers. The purse was snatched away and Jim was dragged to his feet. He saw the kid—
Dean, that’s his name
—arrive on the scene now, out of breath and scowling, and he shrugged and said, “Hey, kid. You get my smokes?”

* * *

Early the next morning, after another long night of fever dreams and jarring hallucinations, Jim Gamble awoke in the lockdown ward of the mental health unit. He was propped against a mound of pillows on a narrow bed, an invisible jackhammer splitting his skull. He tried to sip water from the paper cup on the overbed tray in front of him and fumbled it, drenching the flannel pajama top he couldn’t remember putting on. He said, “Fuck me,” and saw a woman with a clipboard on her lap seated in a chair at the foot of the bed. He said, “Pardon my French, sweetheart. I didn’t see you there.”

The woman said, “I’m not your sweetheart, Mister Gamble, I’m Doctor Kline, the staff psychiatrist assigned to your case.”

“Case?” Jim said, thinking how strange it was to hear people using his real name; he’d been CD to so many people for so long, he’d almost forgotten he
had
another name. He said, “The only case I give a shit about has beer in it. Look, lady—doctor—I’ve got to get out of here, okay? Right now. You have no idea how bad I need a drink.”

“I specialize in addiction medicine,” Kline said, standing now, tucking the clipboard under her arm. “I know exactly how much you feel like you need a drink.”

“You’re not reading me, Doc. I don’t
feel
like I need a drink, I
need
a drink. You’re a bright girl. Med school graduate. Prom queen. Just go get the papers, I’ll sign myself out. I’ve done it before. My belly’s fine, see?” He hiked up his soggy pajama top, revealing a raw, jagged scar cross-hatched with suture marks, some of them red and infected looking. “So let’s just save everyone a whole lot of grief and get me back on the street where I belong. You can’t keep me here—”

“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong, Mister Gamble,” Kline said. She removed an ominous looking document from her clipboard and held it out for his inspection. “This is a court order. It entitles me to hold you here indefinitely. That little display you put on in the street yesterday opened a whole can of worms for you, I’m afraid. Something about a series of parole violations and missed court appearances.”

“That’s bullshit, lady, and you know it.”

She placed the document on the tray in front of him. “Here it is in black and white. Bottom line, my friend, I’m going to provide you with some options. I’ll lay them out for you in simple terms, then I’m going to introduce you to someone. You’ll visit for a while, then I’ll come back for your decision. You’ve been here almost three weeks now. If it hasn’t exactly been a Mardi Gras, try to imagine another six months. Or a year. Then maybe we hand you over to the authorities. Are you reading me, Mister Gamble?”

Bitch.
“Loud and clear, Doc. Loud and clear.”

“Alright, then. Give me a minute.”

She left the room and Jim glanced at the document, his fingers itching to rip it to shreds. He felt trapped and hated it; the same way he’d felt in prison. He could never understand why people wouldn’t just leave him alone. He’d made up his mind years ago to get high and stay that way, and it was nobody’s business whether he lived or—

The doctor came back into the room with a teenage girl, a stranger in a summer dress. The girl’s eye were shiny, as if she’d been crying or was about to, and her smile quivered on the edge of some emotion Jim was no longer familiar with.

Kline said, “Jim, I’d like you to meet your daughter.”

Jim said, “My...?” and took a hard look at her, something dawning in a remote recess of his mind. His own eyes growing moist now, he said, “You’re Sally’s daughter?” and remembered the knife going into his belly, the bald man’s smoky breath in his face and thinking,
Please, no...I have a daughter...

The girl sat on the edge of the bed and took his hand, stilling its tremor. She said, “And yours. I’m your daughter, too.”

Jim looked at Kline in open bewilderment.

Smiling, the doctor said, “I’ll let you two get acquainted.” Then to Jim: “Remember our deal. I’ll be back in an hour to discuss your decision.”

The doctor left and Jim looked at the girl, a sense of wonder blossoming in his chest. He said, “Trisha?”