“A multivitamin, a regimen aspirin, maybe an occasional Prilosec for the heartburn, right?” He’s got my number. I nod and he’s loving it. “And of course, for the really bad moments, when everything’s closing in, and you have like the littlest twinge of panic deep in your gut, you keep a little bottle of Ativan that you ration really, really carefully, ‘cause you know you could get addicted.”
I don’t have to nod. My face betrays my discomfort at his correctness. I know that crazy people can be frighteningly perceptive. He folds his arms in front of him in satisfaction.
“Tell me what I take. You want to get out of here? Tell me any three of my fourteen medications in six guesses and I promise I’ll give you your book and you can go home.”
“I thought you were going to give me my book anyway.”
“I am. I figured you might want to get home sooner.”
“And I thought this was supposed to be for my own good.”
“It is.”
“How is that?”
“You want to spend more time on this conversation or do you want to try to tell me what’s in my medicine chest.”
“Ativan,” I say, barely hesitating. This would be the fish-in-the-barrel choice regarding any person with demons. He flushes and I am encouraged. One out of one for me.
“Aspirin.”
“Just the prescription drugs, please,” he replies with a snort.
“An antipsychotic…” I say.
“Which one?”
“I don’t know. It’s not an area in which I have major familiarity.”
“Not good enough.”
As I look at him, I see his eyes are yellow. His complexion is pallid and there are broken veins in his nose. I presume addiction of some kind.
“Antabuse?”
“Not even close.”
“Methadone?” If not alcohol, then perhaps heroin.
“Is that really what you think? You think I am a junkie?”
“I am just guessing. I am trying really hard to play your game.”
“One more miss and it’s over.”
“What’s over?”
“This part of the entertainment.”
“OxyContin,” I say and get a reaction.
“That’s not a medication.”
“Yes it is.”
“It’s not prescribed.”
“But you take it.”
“I said I am talking about prescription drugs.”
“It’s not exactly over-the-counter.”
“Ralph, I am trying to help you. Why are you so fucking obstinate? Give me another one. A prescription one.”
“Vicodin.”
“That’s good, Ralph. That’s good. You are smart.”
So he has pain. Maybe he fell off his moped and hurt his back. Maybe a muscle relaxant. That might be a good guess.
“Naprosyn?” I ask naming what my doctor gave me when I hurt my shoulder playing tennis in my former life.
“Bzzzzzz. You lose.”
“Okay. I lose. Now what?”
HH arises from his chair, motions for me to follow him as he speaks. “All right. I’ll show you.”
I get up and follow him into an area hidden by tall bookcases that has been designated as a kitchen area. It is basically clean, and has a mélange of quality, but mismatched appliances that undoubtedly came from yard sales. There is a shelf over the sink that has a lineup of pill bottles. He points to it with an oddly prideful look.
“All right. Here’s a new one. Look at the bottles and tell me what my ailment is. Why do I take all these pills?”
“I’m not a doctor.”
“I know you’re not a doctor. You would never have the perspicacity to get through medical school. Tell me and I’ll give you your book.”
“Couldn’t you just give me the book? I mean what good is it going to do for either of us to tell you what you have? Don’t you already know?”
“Of course I know. That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?” I ask.
His response is to fold his arms in front of him and purse his lips.
“Just look at the labels and try using your feeble brain.”
I look at them with curiosity and HH begins to recite.
“Diphenoxylate with atropine sometimes known as Lomotil, Temazepam to get me some sleep, bedtime or any other time, Fiorinal which is supposed to be useful for headaches but doesn’t do shit. A couple of inhalers here—Advair and Albuterol. They’re supposed to help me breathe which is always a good thing. And then I take Singulair in pills because I can’t just be using the inhaler all day long. Compazine for nausea that I sometimes get dealing with jerks like you, Ralph. And Synthroid gives my thyroid that extra little spark it needs. Here’s your Vicodin and your Xanax. And then there’s the ones that keep me from being crazy—the Wellbutrin, the Prozac and the Risperdal—or at least enhance the crazy experience. They make kind of an exhilarating cocktail. You should try it. Beats the hell out of the pussy crap you take. You’ve got no idea what I went through trying to figure out the dosages. At least I’m not crazy, right Ralph?”
“If you say so.”
“So…what do you think?” he asks.
“About what?” I know I am playing dumb.
“About what I’ve got. Tell me what I’ve got, Doctor Ralph, and you run home with your book.”
I look at the bottles. They’re regular amber plastic bottles. I look at the labels. There are a few different prescribing doctors and the prescriptions in the name of Hector Matthey are all generic substitutes for the proprietary drug. For example, what HH called Advair is actually “Fluticasone with salmeterol” with “Advair” added in parentheses.
Where I would expect to find the pharmacy logo on the label, I see simply printed in small bold Times Roman “WESTLA ACC,CA 90012.” Below, in Courier, are an 800 phone number and a prescription number and dosage instructions. It’s oddly bureaucratic. For some reason there is an eagle embossed onto the cap.
“What is this pharmacy?” I ask.
HH shrugs.
I rephrase. “Is this like Medicaid or Medicare or something?” Again a shrug. I know I’m onto something. But I don’t think that Medicare has its own pharmacies. Maybe they do, but I’ve never heard of them. This is a clue. The drugs indicate a guy with multiple problems, psychological and physical. I try to make sense of it. Maybe he’s a hypochondriac. But his pallid, drawn appearance, his compulsive tick and the oddness in his gait indicate that something is amiss in his body. As for his mind, clearly he needs more drugs and not fewer. If not Medicaid, then what? Is he part of some clinical trial? No—not with the confusion of fourteen different medications.
As he waits for me to guess again, I begin to understand. I will not have to kill him. Clearly what is going on is a seduction. HH is reaching out to me, but he doesn’t want to be thought of as easy and I think there is something he wants me to know about him. This is all a tease to protect his warped vanity, but I suspect that in the end, for better or worse, he (and the book) will be mine.
“Is this from the Veterans Administration?” I ask, not even quite sure how the idea popped into my head. Must have been the eagle. I know it wasn’t the Post Office that gave him the pills. “Are you a vet?”
He looks stricken. I have hit pay dirt. The Veterans Administration Hospital sits on a large plot of land near the Wilshire Boulevard entrance to the San Diego Freeway. It is Times Square for the walking wounded, mostly middle-aged, addled casualties of Vietnam. They crowd the bus stops and many of them panhandle at the traffic lights on the busy intersections on Wilshire. The sidewalks buzz with motorized wheelchairs and there are shopping cart encampments of homeless and forlorn veterans in the bushes on the perimeters. HH could easily be one of those men, but he is too young for Vietnam and too old for Iraq or Afghanistan.
“Were you wounded?” I persist. “Is that what this is about?”
If he wasn’t wounded then, he looks wounded now. I almost
feel sorry for him. Am I close to the heart of the mystery of what plummeted Hector from promising, mellifluent son of a college professor to fiberglass-domed miscreant?
“Why don’t you go fuck yourself, Ralph?”
“For being right?”
“No. Because it’s Tuesday.”
“I want my book.”
“There is no book. I was just messing with you.”
“You are a lousy liar. I want my goddamn book.”
HH turns away from me, walks toward the door.
“Just leave, Ralph. You’re chasing air. Again.” He starts to walk away.
It’s not the insult that pushes me over the edge. If I analyze it I am not sure that it even makes sense considering what HH could know about me. But I am on him in a flash. I jump on his back, get him on the ground and turn him roughly over. He tries to resist, but I am bigger and stronger and I am pumped. I put my knees heavy on his chest and raise my clenched fist over his head.
“I have your book! I have your fucking book! Get off of me and I will get it.”
I ease up slightly and he squirms out from under me and bolts toward the door. I leap after him and tackle him just in front of a table full of packing materials. Again I flatten him on the floor and put my knees on his sunken chest.
“This is an assault, Ralph! You can go to jail for this!”
I see a roll of packing tape on the table next to me. I manage to grab it while still on top of him.
“No book is worth going to jail for!” He yells.
I hold his wrists together and wrap the tape. He has surprisingly little strength and his resistance is childlike. Despite his squirming I hogtie him easily like a young steer, wrists and ankles quickly bound. I take my weight off of him and stand up.
“Think about what you are doing, Ralph!”
“I will put a knife in your gut if you don’t get me that book!”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think you’ll do that.”
Despite the anger coursing in me I know he is right. God knows I don’t want Caleb visiting me on death row. I look around me, and then go to the shelf with the Steinbeck and Vonnegut first editions. I empty a box of lesser books that sits on the floor and pile all of the books from the shelf into the box.
“Jesus, be careful with the dust jackets,” he implores.
I hold the box up tauntingly in front of HH. It’s probably worth its weight in gold.
“I guess I’ll be going,” I say, regaining my composure with my upper hand.
“Okay. You can have your book, Ralph. If you want it so bad you can have it.”
“Where is it?”
“Just let me go and I’ll get it.”
“Just tell me where it is.”
He pauses for a few seconds and speaks.
“It’s over there.” He gestures to a bookcase across the room. I walk to where he points. He nods.
“Second shelf from the top. Far right.”
The shelf is filled with classic Japanese manga books. On the end of a stack I see the book sitting inside a new plastic sleeve. Except for the protective sleeve it is exactly as I remember it. I remove it from the shelf and pull it out of its sleeve. Hemingway’s picture on the back of the dust jacket is tinted blue as it should be in a first edition. I open it and turn to the publisher’s page. I quickly find the identifying Scribners’ seal and letter “A” on the Scribner’s coliform to show it is a first printing.
“Nice book, huh?” says HH. His expression is worn and submissive.
I press the book close to me and urge myself to the door, hoping that there is no further surprise waiting for me, no other task to perform or secret to uncover.
“You want to untie me now? I apologize. I know I’ve caused you distress.”
It flickers in my sizzling brain that untied he might be able to shoot me in the back with an M-16 or some other souvenir of his battle experience. I make it to the entry area as defined by a big, commercial rubber doormat on the floor, and I mean to say, “Goodbye.” But instead I say, “Where were you wounded?”
“You mean where was I or where on my body?” he asks back.
I hesitate, my back to the door. “Both,” I reply.
“You can’t leave me here.”
His bonds are not so tight that he shouldn’t be able to wriggle out of them in ten minutes or so. I will be gone by then.
“You’ll be okay.”
“You know I tried to help you,” he says.
“With what?”
“With what you want to know.”
“What do I want to know?”
“Why is this happening to me? Am I right, Ralph?”
Of course he is right. He is crazy-perceptive enough to be totally, completely right.
“You think that’s what I want to know?”
“Yes.”
“But you say you can’t help me, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Then why did we just play this fucking game? Why did you tell me it was for my own good and why did I have to play twenty questions for nothing to get my book back?”
“That’s the thing about our condition. We have moments of clarity, where we think we understand it, but then it hazes over again. I thought I could help you, but I can’t. I am in a haze.”
“Our condition?”
“Our slide, Ralph. Our slide from grace.”
My slide is not his slide. I resent the comparison.
“Why did you give me my book back?”
“Because I have love for you.” He senses me recoiling. “Not faggoty love. Fraternal love.”
I am only slightly relieved. “This isn’t about Jesus, is it?” I ask, now concerned that I am about to be proselytized instead of butt-fucked.
“Jesus is another chapter.”
“No offense, but antipsychotics and Jesus talk go together in a way that is off-putting to me.”
“We don’t have to talk about him.”
“Then what should we talk about?”
I know what we have to talk about and that is what I am avoiding. It is what people always talk about. What I would prefer not to admit that we have to talk about—what we have in common.
But in the case of HH, I have long preferred to think that we have little in common. It is true that we are both bipeds who buy books on the street and sell them online. But I like to think that I am more than that, and frankly I like to think that he is less. At the moment, I am feeling uneasy about the equation.
“Were you in Desert Storm?” I ask. On a back channel I have been thinking about his “wound” and going through age, dates and wars and 1991’s rescue of Kuwaiti oil is the only one that makes sense. It didn’t come to mind before because the American casualty count was historically low. He nods assent.
“Yes, I was.”
I pause. I notice a shiver or a tremor going through his body.
“I really am sorry.”
“Okay.”
“If you untie me I could fix you some eggs. I don’t have much else around here now.”
I hesitate a moment, then take some scissors and walk toward him. Perhaps he thinks I will stab him, but I doubt it. I free his bond.
“Eggs would be fine,” I say, wondering if he might be crazy-clean or crazy-dirty in the preparation of food.
He leads me toward the loft-style kitchen area. It seems average clean. “I think my first instincts were right, Ralph. I think I can help you.”
“With what?”
“To be a better bookseller.”
Chapter 20
Reuters 4/11 Baltimore: Biogram Pharmaceutical Holdings (BGPH) reports that it has suspended stage three clinical trials for its artificial blood product Hemobiplastin after a research subject in Tucson died suddenly and unexpectedly after suffering a possible allergic reaction. Company spokesman Linda Seagrave noted that doctors were still trying to determine the exact cause of death but that Biogram was temporarily suspending its Hemobiplastin testing program. Th
e stock was sharply down in morning trading.
Because I had signed up for a web service to follow the news on this stock I received this update as an email when I arrived at work the morning after I had written both my name and True’s on a check for $105,000 to Roos and Selvin Investments. I checked the stock online and found that it had fallen from the $7 that I paid to $2⅛. Other news services confirmed this story and also reported that NASDAQ had halted all trading in Biogram. A chill went through me. I actually shivered and felt the blood fall into my stomach. I tried to assess what the news meant but my analytic faculties seemed to have drained to my abdomen with my blood.
I tried to formulate questions as I dialed Roos and Selvin. Foremost, I needed to know if my money was safe. I tried to think of it from a lawyer’s perspective—my lawyer. It is true that I had contracted to buy the stock, fifteen thousand shares. On the other hand, if my check had not been tendered, and I was promised that it wouldn’t be, then the stock must still technically belong to Roos and Selvin. The transaction is null and void. An oral contract (Chuck’s clear promise not to cash the check) is a contract just as binding as if it had been written. Anyone knows that. I called Chuck and the receptionist picked up.
“Roos and Selvin”
“May I speak to Chuck Firestone please?”
“Who may I say is calling?”
“Mitchell Fourchette.”
“Just a moment, please.”
I had decided I would offer to pay the broker’s commission and ask for them to please return the check. It’s not as if they went out and bought it for me. That sounded like a fair compromise. It was stock they already owned in the company portfolio and if I hadn’t been around yesterday they would certainly have had the loss. It was to no personal advantage to Chuck not to see the check returned. His warrants at ten would now be moot. Also, even though I know that Chuck’s bottom line was self-interest, I felt that he and I nonetheless had a sort of a bond of trust and that he would look out for me and make the most favorable interpretation of the circumstances.
“Mr. Fourchette?”
“Yes?”
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