Some Are Sicker Than Others (22 page)

“We’re at the hotel,” his dad said as he cut the engine.

“What are we doing here?”

“I have to get some things.”

“Right now?”

“Yeah, right now. Come on, we’re going in.”

“Can I just sit here until you get back?”

“No. I need you to come in with me. Are you okay to walk?”

Monty grimaced and peeled his head from the headrest then grabbed the door handle and pushed it open. As he pulled himself out of the car, he began to feel woozy, the blood in his head draining down to his toes. Then something rose inside him, something hot and chunky surging into his throat. He fell to his knees and pressed his hands into the pavement, bucking forward like a mad bull. The bile came, sharp and acidic, like a stream of yellow jackets spewing from his throat. He coughed and gagged and lurched repeatedly forward, every vein in his neck about to explode.

His dad rushed around the car and crouched beside him, placing his hand on the back of his head. “Monty, are you okay? Are you alright?”

Monty couldn’t respond. He was right in the middle of it. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe. All he could do was bend forward with his mouth open, the bile forming a small pool just beneath his nose. He did a couple more heaves until there was nothing left to vomit—no bile, no mucus, no water, no food. Then, using his dad as support, he pushed himself up, holding his stomach like he was a pregnant woman in labor.

“Monty, are you sure you can walk?”

“Yeah, I can manage.”

“Okay, just take it easy. One step at a time.”

Together, he and his dad walked across the hotel parking lot, Monty hobbling along like an eighty-year-old man. His face twitched, his legs trembled, and the bile began to crust inside the corners of his mouth. A group of valets working under the hotel’s check-in canopy immediately stopped working when they saw Monty and his dad approach. He must look pretty bad, he thought, wearing nothing but bloodstained boxers underneath a vomit-splattered hospital gown. But what was he supposed to do? His dad wanted him to come in with him. Why didn’t he just let him stay in the god damn car?

As they walked under the canopy, the valets started whispering to one another out of the sides of their mouths. But Monty didn’t look at them. He kept his head down and his eyes forward, concentrating as he made his way through a set of automatic revolving doors. Once inside, he followed his dad down a wide, marble-floored lobby towards a bank of gold-painted elevators at the end of the hall.

“You doing alright?” his dad asked, glancing behind him.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, we’re almost there.”

They got to the end of the hall and his dad hit the elevator button, while Monty took a quick breather, resting his forehead up against the wall. The elevator beeped and the doors slid open. Monty stepped in first and his dad followed. Just as the doors were about to close, a group of businessmen came up behind them, smiling, laughing, and telling crude jokes. His dad stuck his hand out in front of the sensors, keeping the elevators doors from closing. “Going up?” he asked.

They were about to get in until they saw Monty, at which point, they shook their heads and said, “No thanks, we’ll take the next one up.”

“Suit yourself.” His dad moved his hand away from the sensors then took a step back as the elevator doors shut.

The ride to the fifteenth floor was unbearably quiet. Monty’s dad looked like a marine standing at attention, his feet pressed together, his hands folded behind his back. Something was wrong. Something was definitely shady. What were they even doing here? What was so important that his dad had to get right now?

The elevator beeped and the doors slid open. Monty followed his dad down a long, dimly lit hall. They came to a door, number 1520. His dad pulled out a key card and shoved it into the metal slot. The red light turned green and his dad removed the key card then turned the knob and opened the door. As they walked into the room, Monty began to get that feeling, like everything in his life was about to come crashing down. And then it did, like a fucking earthquake bringing down a building right on top of his head. They were all there, sitting in the room, waiting for him—Robby, Susan, his mom, and some woman he’d never even seen. Bastards. He should’ve known. It was a fucking ambush. His dad must’ve had this planned the entire time.

Instincts took over and Monty turned for the doorway, but before he could get there, his dad grabbed him by the collar and spun back him around. “Monty!” he shouted. “What are you doing?”

“Fuck you,” Monty screamed as he plunged his forearm forward, snapping his dad’s head back against the wall. “Fuck all of you.”

He went again for the door, but Robby was already on him. Like a linebacker, he tackled him, driving him down into the floor.

“Get off of me,” Monty screamed, writhing beneath him, trying to reclaim his arms.

“Come on Monty,” Robby said. “Don’t do this. Calm down. Just calm down.”

“Get the fuck off me.”

“Monty, stop it. Just stop it.”

Robby pressed his knee against Monty’s cheekbone, driving his face down into the floor. Monty tried to break free but he couldn’t—he was too depleted from being strapped down all night long. The more he struggled, the more his body began to wither, like an earthworm shriveling under the scorching, summer sun. Like the air being let out of an air mattress, he completely deflated and sunk down into the floor.

“Are you done?” Robby said, leaning over him, his fat knee pressing against Monty’s ear. “Are you finished?”

Monty nodded his submission. He was so tired, he could no longer move.

“If I let you up, are you going to cooperate?”

He nodded once more.

“Alright then.”

Robby slowly peeled his weight off of him, allowing Monty to roll over on his back. He lay for a few seconds just staring up at the ceiling, taking in long, deliberate swallows of breath. Once he caught his breath, he rolled over onto his stomach then, using the wall as leverage, he pushed himself up.

“You okay?” Robby said, looking at him suspiciously, his body positioned between Monty and the door.

“Yeah.”

“You ready to get this over with?”

“No.”

“Well too bad, ‘cause we’re doing it anyway.”

“Whatever.”

Chapter 18

The Intervention

HIS mom was sitting on a couch beneath a window that had a panoramic view of the mountains and downtown. She was crying softly and clutching a crumpled-up piece of tissue that was trembling between her wrinkled hands. Monty did his best not to look at her. He couldn’t bear seeing her like this. Her face was worn, her skin was sallow, and she had deep indentations under both eyes. If Monty didn’t know any better, he’d say she was a junkie, just another hopeless addict looking for the next high. And the worst thing was, he knew he did that to her—he was the reason she looked the way she did. If only he could apologize and tell her that he loved her—tell her he was sorry for all the horrible things he did, then maybe, just maybe she’d stop blaming herself for all of his depravity, maybe she could forget about him and move on with her life. Why was she doing this…trying to make him feel guilty…sitting there, crying, and feeling sorry for herself? This wasn’t her choice. It had nothing to do with her. Why did she always have to make everything her fault?

He clenched his fists and walked towards the sofa keeping his eyes focused squarely on the floor. When he got about halfway into the room, someone called to him with a thick, Texan twang that reminded him of Laura Bush. He turned to his right. A chubby woman with freckles was standing beside him wearing a red, poufy perm and a bright, phony smile. “You must be Monty,” she said with her hand extended, the freckles like leaches sucking on her skin. “My name’s Deborah. How do you do?”

Monty took her hand and gently squeezed it. “Nice to meet you,” he said, his eyes turning away. That was a lie. It wasn’t nice to meet her. Everything about this woman was infuriating—her perfume, her clothes, that phony fucking smile. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew where this was going. He’d been through this exercise at least once before. The woman was an interventionist, a so-called facilitator, a bearer of false hope and counterfeit hugs. Her job was to get Monty out of the room and into rehab, and if successful, she’d take home for herself a nice little fare; something on the order of five thousand dollars, which, including the first class flight and free hotel room, made this a nice little trip. The only problem was, she didn’t know Monty. She didn’t know he’d already made up his mind. The only way he was going back was if he was in a straight jacket. There was no chance in hell he’d go back on his own accord.

Deborah put her hand on Monty’s shoulder and slowly guided him to the couch. “Why don’t you have a seat and we’ll go ahead and get started?”

Monty conceded and walked towards the sofa then sat down on the cushion between his dad and his mom. At this point, he figured it was better to cooperate than to try to put up a fight. In less than an hour, this charade would be over and he could get back to his apartment and back to his scotch.

“You going to be alright?” Deborah said, still smiling, positioning an armchair right in front of the couch.

Monty nodded and bent forward at the torso, cradling his head with both hands. He couldn’t understand why his parents were doing this. Didn’t they know any better by now? Did they really think he was going back to rehab after everything that’s happened? They were smarter than that, weren’t they? Why would they go through all this trouble just so he could turn them down?

He looked across the room and saw Robby staring at him, a wad of dip tucked under his lower lip. It had to be him. It had to be Robby. He must’ve put them up to this ridiculous charade. He probably gave his parents some line from the Big Book, some stupid cliché about hope and faith. Bastard. Who did he think he was, some kind of martyr? Why’d he always have to get in the fucking way?

As Deborah eased her fat ass into the armchair, it made an obnoxious stretching sound against the leather. “I suppose you know why we’re all here today, Monty. I’m what you’d call a professional interventionist. My job is to help people in situations such as yourself find and accept the treatment that they so desperately deserve. Your family is very concerned about your well being and they want to do everything in their power to get you feeling healthy again.” She paused and folded her hands neatly in front of her, making a disgusting gurgling sound with her throat. “You are a very, very sick young man, Monty. Do you realize that? Do you realize how close you are to dying?”

“Well, that’s kind of the whole point, isn’t it?” Monty said flatly.

“What? What’s the point?”

“Dying—that’s the whole point. What do you think I’ve been trying to do?”

The tension in the room immediately tightened. Monty could feel the glare of his dad’s eyes. “Don’t say that,” his dad said, stiffening his posture. “You don’t mean that.”

“Of course I mean it.”

Deborah crossed her legs at the ankles and leaned forward in her chair. “Monty, drinking yourself to death is no way to die. It is a slow and painful death, and could take years, even decades to do.”

“I disagree,” Monty said academically, like a professor lecturing on alcoholic affairs. “I think all I need is another month or two.”

Monty could feel his mom’s body trembling next to him, her faint sobbing escalating into a shrill, heart-twisting cry. “Why are you saying this?” she said, looking up at him, dabbing the tissue underneath her eyes. “Why are you doing this to yourself?”

“Because.”

“Because why, Monty? Why?”

“Because I have to, mom. I just have to.”

“But why?”

“Because I deserve it! Can’t you understand that? I deserve to die!”

The room grew still and uncomfortably quiet. The glare of ten, angry eyes were upon him now.

“You know, Monty,” Deborah said, leaning forward, folding her hands just beneath her chin, “by killing yourself, you’re not just ending your own life, but you’re ending the lives of everyone around you. Everyone who loves you, who cares for you, who wants nothing but to see you get better, will be devastated, just devastated by your selfish actions. Do you understand that? Do you realize what you are putting your parents through?”

Monty said nothing. He just focused on a horseshoe coffee stain on the table in front of him.

“Monty, look at me,” Deborah said. “Please look at me.”

Monty lifted his head to meet his inquisitor’s eyes. “What?”

“You don’t have to live like this. You don’t have to do this anymore. You still have a chance—a way out from under the maliciousness of this disease. There are people out there who can teach you. They can show you the steps to heal your mind, body, and soul. They can show you how to abandon your fears and insecurities and turn your will and life over to the care of God.”

Oh for fuck’s sake. Not this higher power crap again. Didn’t she realize this wasn’t his first time at the rodeo? Didn’t she realize how long he’d been in the program? He probably knew more about this bullshit than she did.

“Now, I want you to trust me, Monty. Can you do that for me? Please open your heart, your mind, and your spirit and listen carefully to what I have to say. There is a place high in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, a place for people caught in the vicious spiral of addiction and despair. And at this place, people such as yourself, who have lost their way and are drowning in the insidiousness of their own addictions, are able to restore their lives and bring back some semblance of sanity. It is a place of hope and redemption, a safe haven for those tormented by the brutality of their afflictions. It is a place called Sanctuary.”

“You mean rehab?” Monty said, unimpressed.

“Yes, but it is not just any rehab. It is what we in the mental health care business call a dual diagnosis facility—a place that treats not only the addiction, but the source of the addiction. They can help you, Monty. They can help you find peace and understanding. They can help you regain your life again. Hundreds and hundreds of people have gone through the doors of Sanctuary and come out on the other end revitalized, renewed, rejuvenated. You can be one of those people, Monty. I just know you can.”