Chapter five
Feel the devil's riding crop
Rock solid putrid green fluorescent eye sore corridor straight to the end, walking carefully, tilting left to the wall, coming up to the line, three before him, one fat crying woman, one fuzzy vague anxious man, one angry short-haired butch girl arms carved up, uncovered messages. Metal cart of pills and Dixie cups, the nurse saying, "Your turn, Harry." And Harry waiting, waiting until the fat woman had left a clear passage, and then taking the last three steps to the metal cart. Early morning pill parade, it was. The nurse saying, "Hold out your hand, Harry." And giving him a tiny cup of salts and minerals and vitamins, and then a tiny cup of two Lithium tablets, and then a tiny cup of one Effexor XR red and black capsule, and then a tiny cup of a tiny white Ativan, and Harry swallowing each with a swig from a larger Dixie cup of water, one after the other going down and lying heavily on his empty stomach. She said, "Your hands are pretty steady this morning."
He looked at them, involuntarily spreading the fingers. "Not so bad," he said.
"Jesus, Lord, Boyo. You waiting for a bus?" The guy stepping in line behind Harry, a displaced Newfoundlander, Donny, prone to wearing muscle shirts over his short, stocky, fifty year old chest, sometimes riding up over his belly. "My nerves is shot," he said past Harry to the Nurse. "You thinks you can up the dose a little, darlin'?"
Harry stepped aside and watched Donny look down with disdain at the little cup of pills the nurse handed him. "Lord Jesus," he said. "Not enough here to calm a lobster in heat."
Brothers of the bottle, Harry and Donny knew one another instantly, though Donny couldn't read or write and brought his letters and forms over to Harry to read for him. "Never learned," was as much of an explanation as Harry ever got. But the man, by God, had a poetic way with the spoken word that Harry almost envied. Although, thought Harry, maybe you can either envy or not envy, with no room for almost envy.
On the soft triangle between his left thumb and forefinger, Donny had five ink tattoo spots, each for a year in Federal, Kingston or Moncton. "Jesus Lord, I was drinking pretty good those days, in fights all the time. Spent most of my teens and twenties in one lockup or t'other. Nothin' serious though, aggravated assault, attempt, that kinda bullshit."
Donny was convulsing when they brought him to the hospital, withdrawal from Valium, he told Harry, bin as high as eighty milligrams a day, but they no sooner got that fixed up, he goes into D.T.s. "Lord love ya, had crawlies all over me. And then they got that over and the nerve give out. Not one ting, it's ta-other. But I never went near the crack. That cracks real bad. Seen what it did to my old buddy Dave."
Harry was acquainted with the Delirium Tremens, though usually he could count on somebody bailing him out before the worst of it turned him into a muttering monstrosity, cowering in the closet.
The signed first edition, worth more than he expected, had got him through until early March, but he wasn't doing any writing. He'd have the pen out, the paper, the coffee cup, and he'd want a drink, just a little, get the right chemical balance, a little excited, not too excited, focussed but not too focussed. He'd run out of money and booze about the same time he decided to go cold turkey, get clean, look up his daughter, maybe even talk to his old agent. Resolution forty-nine in which the party of the first part agrees with the party of the first part to get clean and lead a productive life. But mainly because he'd run out of booze and money.
