December Boys Part 11

"The court doc.u.ments?"

"Yeah. It relates to the Brian Olisky case. According to the cops, they also found a joint."

"Is that true?"

"I don't know."

Charlie scratched his thinning curls. "How much time did he get?"

I explained the open-ended sentences, North River being a diversion program, parents waiving rights because the children in question were minors.

"So Dad signed off?"

"There's no dad in the picture."

"I thought you said Mom called you because she was worried? Why would she agree to send her son there?"

"She didn't know about the pot. At least that's what she said when I called her tonight. I think they got to her."

"They? Who's they?"

I couldn't answer that. I didn't know. The malicious they? The conspiratorial they? The they really in charge.

Charlie tried to wrap his brain around logistics, my investment, my helter-skelter reasoning.

"Sucks about the kid," Charlie finally said, "but, like, it's not your problem."

"It's more complicated than that."

I tried to explain about Nicki and what she'd uncovered, Judge Roberts' harsh sentencing practices, the recent spike in enrollment at North River. Maybe those cops had been sent to deliver a message, stop me from kicking over stones. Maybe they were all in on it. Everyone buying into the antidrug propaganda, quick to point the finger, solve problems with absolutes. Black. White. I was bouncing all over the place, talking points that made sense in my head lost in translation. Words failed me. I couldn't stay on task or follow a single thread to its proper conclusion. I knew how unhinged I sounded. Dredging up the past, fretting about the future. I circled back to Craig Olisky, Brian's dead brother. At some point in my rambling, I began b.i.t.c.hing about Adam Lombardi.

"Adam Lombardi?" Charlie said. "What about him? You know he doesn't even live in Ashton anymore, right? Relocated his entire family down to Concord after his father died. In fact, I'm pretty sure he got out of the construction business altogether."

"Bulls.h.i.+t. Where'd you hear that?"

"I don't know. The news? Sold the company. I think he's working full time on his brother's campaign."

That would explain the abandoned site I'd run across last week.

"I hate to say it, Jay. Don't take this the wrong way. You sound like your brother. Everything isn't some conspiracy involving the Lombardis." He dropped his head, muttering, "I swear between you and Fisher . . ."

"Why do you keep saying that? Fisher. What about Fisher? I haven't spoken to Fisher since he got me in at NEI-"

"Gerry Lombardi is dead. His sons live far away. It's over, man. Your brother died because of drugs."

"You don't think I know that?"

"No, I think you do. Up here." Charlie pointed at his head. "But not here." He pointed at his heart. "You want to hold someone responsible. The Lombardis are convenient."

"How can you say that? You were with me last year. You were with me when I chased down Roger Paul in those mountains, with my brother a prisoner in the backseat-"

"Roger who?"

"The guy who grabbed Chris and stuffed him in back of his car! The guy who planned to cut a hole in the ice. The guy I chased down and ran off the road. The guy who died! Who do you think sent him?"

"You mean Chris' drug dealer who'd been trying to collect his money? The one who died in that car accident on Lamentation Mountain?"

"You never believed that, man. That was a bulls.h.i.+t cover story sold to the newspapers. You saw my f.u.c.king truck, busted to s.h.i.+t. I was the other vehicle involved in the accident! Come on, Charlie. You know that!"

"All I know is what Turley said. I know what I read in the Herald. I know that you ended up with a concussion in the hospital, talking crazy. And truth is, man, you must've hit your head pretty f.u.c.king hard. Because you haven't been the same since."

Charlie sat beside me on the couch, put his arm around my shoulder. "Maybe you should talk to that doctor you were seeing. The shrink."

I shook my head. "You sound like my wife."

"Get some sleep, buddy. Everything looks better in the morning."

I nodded, even though I didn't believe that. When nothing is right in your world, the sun coming around again to s.h.i.+ne a light on your failure is the last thing you want to see.

Whether from the whiskey or lingering internal trauma from the beating, I couldn't fully fall asleep, at least not peacefully, enduring an endless, tormented night. Straddling the line between consciousness and slumber, I felt both asleep and awake, very aware of the fact that I was dreaming. I'd read somewhere that your dreams only last a few seconds. Just feels like they go on forever. Not this night. My dreams were never-ending. And it felt like a reckoning, the past coming back to haunt. I saw them all again. High school bullies. Distant relatives. Ex-girlfriends whose hearts I'd broken because I'd only been in love with one woman my whole life. I saw Erik Bowman, Adam Lombardi's head of security, with the Star of David tattooed on his G.o.dd.a.m.n neck. Bowman, who'd done time in a motorcycle gang with Jenny's ex, Brody, whose sc.u.mbag a.s.s my scrawny, drug-addled brother had thoroughly kicked the same day he died, tapping into a secret strength from his wrestling days I didn't know he possessed anymore. I saw the entire town of Ashton, longtime residents who'd come out to pay their final respects to my dead junkie brother, collective expressions on their faces like the expressions I invited wherever I went these days, one that seemed to say, "You poor sick sorry sonofab.i.t.c.h." Which is what happens when you become a scourge, a pariah, a lunatic.

I lay there immobilized, paralyzed like Johnny Got His Gun, forced to relieve my mistakes, watching actors dramatize what could've been. No one else could tell me what was real and what wasn't. Because anyone who had been there was now dead. Like my brother. Like the killer sent to silence him. Like my parents who perished in a fatal car crash twenty years earlier under mysterious circ.u.mstances. Like a very real part of me. Every secret, every promise broken, every word left unsaid-my memory and my burden to carry alone. I tossed, turned, and ground my jaw until I dreamt I was chewing sawdust, mouth parched, calcium phosphate powder, narrative dissolving into nonsensical, overheated bubbling celluloid.

I split with the daybreak, leaving Charlie snoring blissfully unaware in his bedroom. Stepping outside, I embraced the overcast. I don't think I could've faced a clear blue sky right then.

I filled up my truck, grabbed a paper, a carton of cigarettes, coffee, and drove out to see her, waiting on the front steps for her to arrive.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

"JAY?" DR. SHAPIRO-WEISS said as she walked up the narrow stone pathway to her office. "What are you doing here?"

"I needed to see you."

"Okay. But it doesn't work like that. You can't show up at my office. You have to call and make an appointment. I have other patients scheduled. These are boundaries I need you to respect."

"It's an emergency." I could feel my chest tightening, breaths short and shallow, pulse irregular. I clamped the cigarette in my teeth and grabbed hold of the railing.

I waited for her to tell me to go to the emergency room, at which point I'd get in my truck and drive off. f.u.c.k it. I didn't believe in asking for help in the first place. You dig yourself in a hole, you dig yourself out. Only the weak need help. But shame was the least of my concerns. I was falling down and needed a hand up. If the doctor sent me packing to be someone else's problem, I'd take it as a sign. I wasn't asking twice.

Maybe Dr. Shapiro-Weiss recognized the crossroads too, because she said to come inside and have a seat in the waiting room.

"Let me see if I can juggle some appointments. Might take a few minutes. Don't go anywhere. Breathe."

I nodded and watched her disappear into a back room. The soothing sounds of the rainforest dribbled out the sound system, the calming pitter-patter of water pooling and plopping off lush, tropical leaves, splas.h.i.+ng into giant puddles, the delicate sound of thunder crackling in the distance. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the air filling my lungs. Inhale into my mouth, expel through my nose. Rinse, lather, repeat. Concentrate on solid blocks of color. Don't think. Blue. Black. Dark forest green. Gray is good too. I pa.s.sed out.

I doubt more than five minutes ticked by, but I got a better night's sleep in that short time than I had in the entire six hours at Charlie's.

Dr. Shapiro-Weiss stood over me, calling my name, pulling me back from the brink.

Inside her office, the doctor sat in her cus.h.i.+oned, wicker chair, waiting while I got comfortable on the couch, rearranging throw pillows and trying to figure out where to begin. The diplomas and accomplishments on her wall distracted, overwhelmed me. Degrees, awards, commendations. From all over the country. Prestigious inst.i.tutions, framed and centered, fancy gold-leaf lettering. What was I doing with my life? To attain this level of success, she had to start studying at an early age. Right out of high school, straight to college, then to university and grad school, post-grad and doctoral work. No time for parties or f.u.c.king around, no time for dragging heels, protesting growing up. Not if you want to be somebody in the world. That's how Stephen had become a financial advisor, or whatever the f.u.c.k he did. Unless Daddy got him the gig. The only skills I possessed: digging ditches and loading a truck. Grunt labor a trained monkey could do. I didn't belong here.

"Jay?"

"I'm sorry." I started to stand. "This was a mistake. I shouldn't have bothered you."

She gestured for me to sit down.

"Have you been having more panic attacks?"

"I don't know. I think so."

"Why didn't you call me sooner? You must've run out of medication a while ago."

"I don't want to be some pill popper who takes drugs every time he's in a bad mood."

"You have a condition."

"I don't have a condition."

"You have an anxiety disorder. You can call it something else if you'd like. There's no disgrace in receiving treatment when something beyond your control is affecting the quality of life." She waited for that to sink in. "How is your relations.h.i.+p with your wife? Your job? Friends.h.i.+ps?"

"I don't have a lot of friends."

"When people with anxiety disorders experience prolonged episodes, it makes thinking rationally difficult, impossible. The skills they've relied on their entire lives short circuit. They behave irrationally. Which can push away those they love. This compounds feelings of isolation. A 'fight or flight' hyperawareness kicks in, and everything becomes dire."

"Dire? You mean like when you're on a mountaintop, and someone is trying to kill you and your brother? You mean dire like that?" The sarcasm didn't come out as cutting as I intended.

"Yes," the doctor said. "Like that. Unfortunately, Jay, because of what you went through, what you saw, what you experienced the last few days of your brother's life, you are still trapped there in many ways. This feeling of being trapped is what causes you to panic. There are medications that can quell the worst of it. Now if you want to try a different type of medication-"

"I don't like taking drugs."

"How much have you been drinking?"

"I'm not an alcoholic."

"I'm guessing more than a few beers every night, though, right? Self-medicating is still medicating. Why were you waiting on my front steps this morning?"

"I didn't know where else to go."

"Has something changed? A new development that brought on these attacks?"

I let it all pour out-the Olisky case, Brian and his dead drug-addict brother, the fight with Jenny, my wife taking urgent action to visit her mother in Burlington in the middle of the night and bringing my son along for the ride, the yuppie neighbor, Stephen, the clerk at the courthouse, Nicki, North River, and Judge Roberts' dubious record. And of course I invoked the sins of the Lombardis, whose crimes I couldn't accept had gone unpunished, even in death.

"No wonder you're having panic attacks," Dr. Shapiro-Weiss said. "Those events you've described are a microcosm of what you experienced last year. It would be like a Desert Storm veteran suddenly finding himself back on a battlefield." Before I could protest how ridiculous a comparison, she held up her hand. "No, you're not in the Army, and I am not undermining what real soldiers go through. What I mean is, both cases can trigger the PTSD."

"You think I have post-traumatic stress disorder?" I wanted to laugh. Only I couldn't.

"Jay, I want you to stop qualifying your anguish. What you experience is unique to you. You don't need to gauge your feelings and pit them against how much someone else suffers. Personal pain is just that: personal. And, yes, what you went through with your brother last year, and even before that-losing your parents, having to a.s.sume the role of caretaker at such a young age-all these events are traumas." She set down her pad and pen and leaned in. "None of this makes you weak. I know that is what you think. But it is not true. I've had ex-NFL players sitting in that chair, six foot five, three hundred and fifty pounds, sobbing because they watched their dad hit their mommy when they were small boys and couldn't do anything about it. I've had police officers who thrust themselves in to do-or-die situations every day, putting their very lives on the line, because once upon a time they couldn't save a sister or a friend and this is their penance. These are strong people. Trapped in a h.e.l.l of their own making because of events beyond their control."

"Big difference when you're a kid and can't fix a problem. I'm thirty-one years old."

"Which is why I used the soldier a.n.a.logy. Trauma is trauma. Effects can be c.u.mulative. You've reached a tipping point. Whatever happened at work and in your personal life has dredged up memories and emotions you've kept buried for a long time. You ignored them, and now feel like you should be able to fix everything if you can only do a better job, control outside circ.u.mstance more." The doctor positioned her hands, miming stranglehold. "But you can't. This isn't about willpower. This isn't about toughness or resolve. This isn't about skill sets. This war raging inside you is about reconciliation. Learning to accept the past, make peace with your loss. Your brother's habit was his problem. From everything you've told me, you did everything you could to save him. This is the hard part for someone like you to understand. And by 'someone like you,' I mean someone who is strong, someone who is resilient, someone who is used to fighting the fight on his own. Recognizing that you can't do it alone is not a sign of weakness." Dr. Shapiro-Weiss paused for emphasis. "It is a sign of strength."

The doctor sent me off with a new script for lorazepam, an antianxiety pill, which I filled at the pharmacy on the way home, feeling self-conscious and judged when the pharmacist asked for an ID because it's "a controlled substance." Walking back to my truck, even before I stuck one under my tongue, I felt better. I remembered Chris once telling me how the only time he felt like himself anymore was right after he'd copped, when he could pat the dope in his pocket. Didn't even need to fix. The real relief came knowing he had the drugs. I'd never understood what he meant before.

I tried to appreciate what Dr. Shapiro-Weiss had said, about how there was a difference between a doctor prescribing medication for a patient and a junkie shooting dope to get high-about how the strong sometimes need help; every tragedy wasn't my fault. I wanted to believe these things but had a tough time. I stopped at the grocery store for another twelve-pack, just in case.

When I unlocked the front door to the house, I could tell Jenny wasn't back. Didn't matter that I didn't see her car in the driveway or that all the lights were off, the rooms silent. I could feel the emptiness, the loneliness. It cut like a hot knife through the gut of a dead deer.

I stripped off my clothes and hit the shower, cranking the heat, steaming the bathroom. I turned the water as scalding as I could stand, as if I could flay the ugly parts away. Two hands planted on the tile, I let it rain over me for a long time.

When I stepped out, I was ready to curl up in bed and pa.s.s the f.u.c.k out. Then I heard Jenny's voice.

"Jay, you here?"

I slung the towel around my waist and rushed into the kitchen, sopping wet, slopping footprints in the thick carpet and across the hardwood floor. I was so glad she was home. Everything that had been wrong in my world would be set right. In seconds I'd see my son, my family would be back together, and I could set about rea.s.sembling the janky parts that had spilled inside me. All I needed was that opportunity.

Except it wasn't Jenny.

"Sorry," Nicki said, pointing at the door. "It was unlocked. I saw your truck . . ."

"Do you ever think of calling first?"

"I didn't think you'd pick up if you saw my number."

"So instead you just walk into my house?"

She stifled a giggle.

"What's so funny?"

"Looks like someone's been hitting the gym."

I realized I was standing there half naked.