Costly Obsession: Animalize

by Sasha Pruett

  Chapter Eleven

  The last few weeks in New Orleans had flown by and his mother and aunt were ecstatic when he had phoned them and told them that he was coming home to stay and the homecoming party he had received was truly a joyous event. Everyone was glad to have him back, but as the days went by he knew he would have to tell his mother the truth. The truth of why he had not returned to North Carolina and why he had left school and Eddie behind, so one night when all was quiet and he and his mother were alone he sat her down on the sofa, held her hand, and poured out his heart to her.

  “Mom, I know you’re glad to have me home, but I also know you’re wondering about school and things. Well, Ma you know I’ve been pretty good about passing tests ever since I straightened up, I passed one more… an HIV test.”

  “What?”

  “Before you start your third year, before they let you get hands on with real patients the school required me, requires everyone, to take an HIV test to prevent any accidental transmission. The tests are completely private unless it comes back positive and then only the dean of students has the information. My test came back positive, something from when I was young and stupid. Now I couldn’t continue the medical program at school, they couldn’t take the risk and I don’t blame them. I couldn’t consciously take the chance myself either, but at the time I didn’t know what to do so I chose to let them send the scholarship money back and well… let’s just say I had a few rough months, but I’ve been working through it and…” It was then that Eric noticed that his mother’s face had gone ashen as she was listening to him and she suddenly yanked her hand away from him in disgust.

  “Get away from me!”

  “But Mom…”

  “No! Stay back! Get away from me!” She ran screaming from the room and down the hall to her bedroom as he followed, slamming the door between them and locking it while she yelled, “Get out, monster!”

  “Momma, Momma listen!” He turned around to see his aunt peering at him from the crack of her partially opened door; she looked at him with disgust, then closed and bolted the door behind her.

  What was going on? It wasn’t supposed to be like this. There was a knock at the front door, but when he answered it three uniformed officers rushed in and slammed him face first against the wall yelling at him.

  “Get up against the wall!”

  “Don’t move!”

  “You’re under arrest!”

  “Don’t make it harder for yourself!”

  Suddenly he was in intense pain as one of the officers gave him a face full of pepper spray before cuffing him and dragging him to the car and then to a holding cell at county lock up. All he could learn was that his mother had called them reporting that he had attacked her. Confused and crushed he had called the only other person he could think of, his pastor, who agreed to come. He had no idea how long he had been waiting before he looked up to see the eyes of his friend and mentor.

  “Oh, Pastor, thank God you’re here. I don’t understand, what’s going on?”

  “How dare you call on God? God has abandoned you. We don’t want your kind here in our town. We don’t want the likes of you infecting all us decent people with your nasty disease. Take your punishment and get out. Go back to your own filthy kind. You’ll never be welcome here.”

  Eric awoke in a cold sweat, stomach churning. He ran for the bathroom and hung his head over the toilet emptying its contents, then he laid there, shaking uncontrollably. Finally he gathered the strength to climb upright and stare at his reflection in the mirror. It was haggard and pale. How far had his illness progressed without him knowing it? After he had first found out that he was HIV positive he had put his body through the wringer, though he had put the weight back on; his mother had made sure of that when she was in town. How much of a foothold had his anger and stupidity allowed the disease to gain? By the looks of his own image he was little more than death warmed over. Oh why had he waited until now to decide to do something about the virus invading his cells? How much time had he lost? He rinsed his sour mouth then made his way to the kitchen for a cold bottle of water. He fell onto the couch, reflecting on the dream that was still fresh in his mind and sent his heart racing. It was just the night before he had decided to go home. How could things have gone so wrong so quick?

  Had they really gone that wrong thought? After all it was only a dream.

  You saw the image in the mirror. Death is knocking on your door. Whispered the formless black mass that surrounded him. It had been waiting for this exact moment and it was coiled to strike and strike hard.

  How could it have come so quickly? What about treatments? What about medications? I can start right now!

  Yeah, great. Treatments riddled with violent side effects and none for sure. You’d be better off dead than a miserable mass of useless flesh. A burden to your family. I’m sure your mother would just love to have to wipe your behind again just like she had to when you were a baby. I’m sure that is exactly how she wants to spend her golden years. Is that what you want?

  Of course not, but there has to be some other way?

  Why don’t you just man up and do what you said? Or are you too afraid?

  Afraid… afraid of what?

  Why don’t you just do it yourself? Find your own cure?

  I said that in a moment of desperation. How could I possibly find a cure for HIV? People all over the world have been trying desperately for years to find a cure for HIV.

  Some of the greatest cures and vaccines in history were discovered by single individuals in homemade labs, and your aunt sure thought she had the cure. What were her words?”The secrets of life and death.”

  Those were the crazy ramblings of a mentally ill woman who was losing her grip on reality and believed in nonsense.

  Were they? Really? There are plants and herbs that her ways have been using for centuries that science hasn’t even begun to explore, let alone unlock the secrets of. There could very well be something in those books that could lead to your redemption.

  True… I guess, but…

  Do you want to die? Do you want to suffer? To be a burden to your family and possibly infect the ones you claim to love the most, just like your friend Eddie, in the process. Dooming them to the same tortured fate as you when there’s something that you can do about it? You don’t have to be helpless you know. You don’t have to just sit back and wait to rot to death, you can do something. You can take charge of your life, of your future, of your destiny. Or do you like being helpless?

  Of course not, but…

  But what? You’re here… now… in a house that’s all yours to do with as you please, and with no one to bother you or tell you what to do or to worry about, and those journals are right in there. It wouldn’t hurt to take a look would it? Just a peek at what medicinal plants might be in there, it’s not like you’re going to start chanting and dancing around the room calling on some spirit or something.

  True, it wouldn’t.

  It had him now. From then on he debated with himself for a few more moments instead of the darkness growing all around him before fishing the books out of the refuse box and diving into the world of his aunt, the world of voodoo. After all, what did he have to lose? He could always go home as planned later… right? What’s the worst that could happen, they’re only books right?

  Eric went to the box he had dumped his aunt’s journals and collected them all. He grabbed a drink and spread out the notebooks, placing them back in order. He picked up one of the spiral journals and perused the ‘secrets’ inside, chuckling at some of the rituals and superstitions he found. He was fairly convinced he was right the first time and was just about to toss the books back in the trash something caught his eye. It was a recipe that seemed somewhat familiar in a distorted sort of way. He recognized some of the ingredients and the way they were combined. Curious and somewhat excited he grabbed his laptop and after impatiently waiting for it to boot up, brought up an article that he had saved shortly befor
e his life had fallen apart. It was an article about a treatment for cancer and the ingredient makeup of the medications involved and something looked similar. He scrolled through the pages until he found what he was looking for and he began comparing the journal to the paper and they were nearly identical once you got past the terminology differences. He couldn’t believe it, right there in front of him in a rugged, spiral, college ruled notebook was a treatment for cancer that had been used for who knows how long.

  Excitement and energy surged through him, what else would he find tucked away amongst these superstitions and rituals. Eric plunged head first into the rest of the journals, starting at the beginning. He was like a kid at Christmas flying through each of the books, picking out things that were possible or at least worth researching, barely able to get completely through one volume before opening up the next. First there was one, then two, then five, more and more possibilities tucked away in tiny corners of those journals papers were nuggets of formulas and hints of cures that to his understanding might be not only possible, but viable. Finally, after having consumed the entire collection he set about cautiously sifting through each one. With empty notebooks in hand that he had found earlier, pens, and highlighters he spread out his books and things and began slowly examining one page at a time, highlighting, copying, and making many notes of his own. All day and night he went on like this, so engrossed he ate nothing and his drink went warm more than once. It wasn’t until the light from a newly risen sun reached his blurry, bloodshot eyes that he set aside his studies, blinked his eyes, and slept.

  He awoke to a dark room and a darker sky, and after taking care of some business was right back to work until he fell asleep from exhaustion eighteen hours later, pen in hand and mid-sentence. Day after day went like this, stopping only for sustenance and a quick run to the store for more notebooks and a few necessities. He copied; recopied, organized, and reorganized until everything was written legibly in nice, neat, categorized notebooks, then he copied each one into his computer. He sealed his aunt’s journals in plastic waterproof containers with rodent poison pellets and moisture packets and placed the box in his room under the nightstand.

  So many formulas looked promising. Some for skin conditions, some for digestive problems, but what drew him the most were the two formulas dealing with “poison blood”. Could one of these lead to his cure, his redemption? He didn’t know, but he was determined to find out. To prevent distractions he put all the notebooks except the one categorized as ‘blood formulas’ with his aunt’s and began his research into the viability of each. He got a library card for his local branch, he hit every website he found, and even went as far as to find a way to sneak into the local universities student library to find even the tiniest scrap of information. He ate rarely without a book before him, a pen in one hand and whatever could be picked up with the other. It was nearly three months before he was able to eliminate the first of the two possibilities. His heart plummeted with the thought that not only was the last few months in vain, but that his entire quest might be a giant waste of time and effort, but that it… that he was a lost cause.

  He once again looked like that frail figure in the mirror that he was at the height of his despair before coming to New Orleans. The dark circles were growing, and he had lost nearly all the weight that his mother had worked so hard to put back on him. He was wasting away and he could feel it, the image in the mirror wasn’t the only thing that told him that. He could feel it right into his core, into his soul. His soul; he had nearly forgotten about that. He wondered if he even had one left after all this. What had he become and where was he going, he was a shell of a man. A shell of the man he had worked so hard to become, to be proud of, to make his mother proud of… his mother. What would she think of what he’s done, of the man he was now? If he could even call what was left of him a man. Where had he gone wrong, where had he left his soul? Maybe she would know, her and all those he had left behind, those he loved and those who loved him. He should have gone home months ago, just as he had originally planned. This was no place for him, alone and empty. This is it, the end of all this madness; he was packing up and going home. Home; just the sound of that word lifted a weight from his shoulders and his heart. He was done here, he’d pack up what was left and go, there’s nothing left for him here anymore, there never was. It was those journals those stupid journals left to him by some crazy old woman he had no memory of, maybe he should just burn every one of them and be rid of them and the temptation they held once and for all. No, just because he couldn’t handle it doesn’t mean that the knowledge should be lost. They could still do a lot of good in the right hands and he knew just who’s hands that would be, Sam’s. He’d pack up everything, all those books, his notes, everything and send it to her, she was brilliant and a year ahead of him in med school. If anyone could do something with those… things she could. Who knows what miracles could be wrought with her beautifully gifted hands, and who knows, maybe one day he’ll be strong enough to help her and stand beside her once more.

  And that was it, after a brief binge of sadness, frustration, pity and booze he sobered up, showered, and started over. Of course he could take just one quick look at that second formula. After all, what could it hurt?