Story of My Life (21 page)

That’s easy, he says. The third lie is, I love you.

And I’m thinking, wow! of course. That’s it!

And we have to phone in booze and cigarettes from this deli over on Lex because they’ve cut off our room service and I try to call my dad but I can never get him and I remember something about the management saying we would have to leave but we shined them on basically and after that I don’t know, I think I got hysterical at some point, maybe I tried to jump out the window, suddenly it seemed like the thing to do.

Anyway, somewhere in the depths of my delirium tremendous I have this flash of sanity that says I am in bad trouble and I remember this thing in my wallet, so at some point when old Everett is draining his toxins I dig through my purse and then my wallet and finally come up with the card, which is tucked up behind the change purse with all these napkin fragments with the names and numbers of all the boys I never called and I crawl over to the phone and call out, call this number, the last four digits spell out H-E-L-P on the dial.

I think after that I talked to my father, I’m not sure, but anyway, eventually a doctor comes over to the suite, I don’t really remember. . . .

And now I’m in a place in Minnesota under sedation dreaming the white dreams about snow falling endlessly in the North Country, making the landscape disappear, dreaming about long white rails that disappear over the horizon like railroad tracks to the stars. Like when I used to ride and was anorexic and I’d starve myself and all I would ever dream about was food. There are horses at the far end of the pasture outside my window. I watch them through the bars.

Toward the end of the endless party that landed me here I was telling the prep the story about Dangerous Dan. I had eight horses at one point, but Dangerous Dan was the best. I traveled all over the country jumping and showing and when I first saw Dan, I knew he was like no other horse. He was
like a human being—so spirited and nasty he’d jump twenty feet in the air to avoid the trainer’s whip, then stop dead or hang a leg up on an easy jump, just for spite. He had perfect confirmation, like a statue of a horse dreamed by Michelangelo. My father bought him for me and he cost a fortune. Back then my father bought anything for me. I was his sweet thing.

I loved that horse. No one else could get near him, he’d try to kill them, but I used to sleep in his stall, spend hours with him every day. When he was poisoned I went into shock. They kept me on tranquilizers for a week. There was an investigation —nothing came of it. The insurance company paid off in full, but I quit riding. A few months later, Dad came into my bedroom one night. I was like, uh-oh, not this again. He buried his face in my shoulder. His cheek was wet and he smelled of booze. I’m sorry about Dangerous Dan, he said. Tell me you forgive me. He muttered something about the business and then passed out on top of me and I had to go and get Mom.

After a week in the hatch they let me use the phone. I call my dad. How are you? he says.

I don’t know why, it’s probably bullshit, but I’ve been trapped in this place with a bunch of shrink types for a week. So just for the hell of it I go, Dad, sometimes I think it would have been cheaper if you’d let me keep that horse.

He goes, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

I go, Dangerous Dan. You remember what you told me that night. After he died.

He goes, I didn’t tell you anything.

So, okay, maybe I dreamed it. I was in bed after all, and he woke me up. Not for the first time. But just now, with these tranks they’ve got me on, I feel like I’m sleepwalking anyway and I can almost believe it never actually happened. Maybe I dreamed a lot of stuff. Stuff that I thought happened in my life. Stuff I thought I did. Stuff that was done to me. Wouldn’t that be great? I’d love to think that ninety percent of it was just dreaming.