Some Are Sicker Than Others

by Andrew Seaward

  “Yes? This is she.”

  “Sarah, it’s me. It’s coach, coach Dave.”

  “Coach?”

  “Yeah. It’s me. Where have you been, sweetie? Your mother and I have been trying to get a hold of you for like two days now.”

  Sarah’s voice was barely audible. It sounded like she was crying, like she was sniffling into the phone. “Coach? What are you doing? Why are you doing this to me?”

  “What? I’m sorry, Sarah, I can barely hear you. Hold on a minute. I’m outside. It’s really noisy out here.” Dave put his hand over the phone and turned to the people sitting at the picnic tables. “Can you guys please keep it down? I’m trying to have an important conversation.”

  The patients looked up at him like he was a gnat on the wall buzzing around their group. They dismissed him with the wave of their hands. The same bitch who answered the phone even gave him the finger again. Dave gave her the finger right back and even stuck out his tongue. Cunt. Didn’t she have any courtesy? Couldn’t she see he was on the god damn phone?

  He let out a deep sigh then moved his hand away from the mouthpiece. “Hello? Sarah? Are you still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m still here.”

  “I’m sorry, what did you say earlier? I didn’t quite catch it. It’s really noisy out here. These people are JERKS!”

  “I said why are you doing this to me?”

  “Uh…what…what do you mean?”

  “Why are you harassing me and my mom?”

  “What?” Dave turned his back to the group so no one could hear him. He covered his mouth and whispered into the phone: “Wait a minute, I’m not harassing anybody. I’ve just been trying to get a hold of you. I need you to come testify for me. I need you to tell the courts what really happened on the way up to Estes Park.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, you remember the other week, don’t you? Our trip up to Estes?”

  “Of course, how could I forget? I’ve been having nightmares about it all week.”

  “Yeah, me too. But, that’s why I need you to come testify. You can tell the judge what really happened—that the cops were acting inappropriately.”

  “What do you mean they were acting inappropriately?”

  “You know what I mean. They pulled me over for no reason. They broke the law and then they attacked me.”

  “But you were out of control, coach. You were swerving all over the highway.”

  “What? No, I wasn’t. I was driving perfectly fine.”

  “Are you crazy, coach? You almost got us killed. You almost drove us off the mountain.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute”—Dave squeezed his eyelids shut. What the hell was she saying? He wasn’t swerving all over the highway. Why was she lying?

  “Don’t you remember, coach? I was trying to get you to stop, but you wouldn’t listen. You just told me to go sit down and behave.”

  “Wait a minute, that’s not right, that’s not what happened. You and the girls were cheering. You were singing and dancing and having a great time.”

  “We weren’t cheering, coach. We were screaming. We were screaming for you to slow down. We were scared for our lives. I had to call the police. I had no other option. You were about to get us killed. You were about to flip the bus.”

  Dave’s throat began to close. It felt like he was choking. It felt like someone was stepping on his neck. What the hell did she mean she called the police? He thought Cheryl had called them. That’s what Cheryl said, right? That’s what she told him at the jail. “Wait a minute, what do you mean you called the police? I thought Cheryl called them.”

  “Who’s Cheryl?”

  “She’s my wife.”

  “I don’t know about that. All I know is that I called them, and some of the other girls did too.”

  “What!?”

  “What were we supposed to do? We were frightened. You wouldn’t listen to us. You wouldn’t pull over.”

  Dave had to put his hand up against the wall to keep from falling over. He couldn’t see straight. Everything was going dark. What the hell was going on? Why was this happening? Why was everything getting turned upside down? Did somebody get to Sarah? Could it have been Cheryl? Could she have somehow put Sarah up to saying all of this crap? She must have. Who else could’ve done it? She probably went to the girl’s house. She probably talked to her dad.

  “Please,” Sarah begged him, “stop calling here. Stop harassing my mother. Leave her alone. She’s sick. She needs help.”

  “I’m not harassing her. I’m just trying to—”

  “I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to use her.”

  “What? No, I’m not.”

  “Then why did you tell her we were all going to move in together?”

  “I didn’t tell her that.”

  “Well, she seems to think so. You must’ve planted that idea in her head. You know she’s not healthy, right? You know she tried to commit suicide.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. She tried to overdose on pills in front of our driveway. We were lucky my dad noticed her car out there and called an ambulance. She could’ve died that night. She could’ve killed herself.”

  Dave’s legs became weak. He was about to fall over. He staggered over to his chair and carefully slunk down. “I didn’t know that,” he said, bowing his head forward, his voice lowering to barely a growl.

  “Well, now you do, so please stop harassing her. She doesn’t need to be messed with. She needs to get better.”

  “Wait Sarah, I told you I’m not—”

  The phone went dead before Dave could finish his sentence. Sarah had hung up on him before he could say anything else. Almost immediately, the tightening in his stomach began to solidify like a vat of concrete had been poured down his throat. He slowly hung up the phone as if it was a ninety-pound dumbbell, the weight of the whole conversation suddenly shifting to his arm.

  After he got it on the hook, he looked out across the patio at all the other patients laughing, talking, and playing their stupid little game. The bitch who originally answered the phone was standing right beside him, a Monopoly playing card resting in her outstretched palm. “Here,” she said, “take it. We’re done playing Monopoly. Besides, it sounds like you’re going to need this a lot more than me.” She handed Dave the card then smiled, flipped her hair outward, and strutted back to her table and started whispering to her friends and giggling at his expense.

  Dave looked down at the card. It was pink with a picture of a man dressed in black and white striped prison scrubs. Dave recognized it right away. It was the Get Out of Jail Free card.

  Chapter 29

  Monty’s Fourth Step

  AS Monty walked down the hall, he could hear Dexter shouting after him, his voice a pathetic plea penetrating through the paper-thin walls. But Monty didn’t stop—he kept on going, down the kitchen steps, and across the meeting hall. Where was he going? What was he doing? He didn’t know. All he knew was that he had to get away—away from all this bullshit about God and higher powers, away from Dexter, away from AA.

  He slid open the door and stepped out onto the back patio, then put on his gloves and pulled up his hood. The patients were outside all bunched together, sitting under the orange glow of a tall umbrella-shaped space heater. They were laughing, talking, and sucking down cigarettes, playing some kind of board game that was spread out in the middle of the green picnic table. Monty kept his head down and his eyes forward and marched across the yard towards the trailer.

  When he got back into his room, he shut the door behind him, then took a deep breath and leaned his head against the wall. He kicked off his shoes and unzipped his jacket, pulled off his gloves and pushed off his hood. He got in bed and buried his face underneath the pillows then pulled the covers up over his head. As he shut his eyes, he tried to focus on nothing—nothing but this room, nothing but this bed. But he couldn’t focus. It felt like a weight was crushing down
on top of him, like a fucking garbage truck was rolling over his chest. He wanted to get up and push the truck off of him, but he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t scream. All he could do was lay there, staring up at the ceiling, hearing Dexter’s words play over and over again in his head:

  You didn’t love her, Monty. You only thought you did because she made you feel worthy…she made you feel safe…she made you feel loved. But it wasn’t love. It was only dependence. It was swapping one addiction out for another.

  Was Dexter right? Was it just dependence? Was he just using Vicky as a way to cope without alcohol? So what if he was? He needed her. He needed Vicky. She was the only person in his life who still wanted to be around him. Everyone else was gone, because he’d turned his back on them. His parents, his friends, his sister, his brother—he pushed them all away, because he was too ashamed of all the horrible things he’d said and done. But Vicky was different, because she didn’t really know him. She didn’t know that he hit his mom in the face and sent her to the hospital. She didn’t know that his dad called the cops and had him locked up in prison. She didn’t know any of this, because he never told her, and, in exchange, Vicky never told him anything about herself. But, could you love someone you didn’t know? No. But so what? That’s the way they liked it. It gave them a chance to start over and be different people. They didn’t have to face their shame and all those poisonous memories—they could just put them on a shelf somewhere and try to move on. So what if it wasn’t real love? So what if they were codependent? They kept each other sober and that’s all that mattered, right?

  No, wait…that’s not true. Vicky wasn’t clean. She’d been using. Had she been using the whole time? Why didn’t she tell him? Was she too ashamed? Was she afraid he’d be disappointed? Was their relationship that fragile that she couldn’t even come and talk to him? But why? Didn’t she know that he’d never judge her? Didn’t she know that she could trust him?

  “Fuck!”

  Monty screamed as loud as he could into his pillow until his vocal chords felt like they’d been cut open with a saw. He shot up in bed and ripped off the covers and stood rigid and confused in the center of the room. He needed something to smash, something to grab on to, something to crush, something to rip. He paced back and forth beside the mattress, his fists clenched, his shoulders bowed outward, the adrenaline of self-hatred pumping through his muscles.

  After a few paces, he stopped and squared his body then drove his fists into the wall, one after the other, until his knuckles became bloody, one after the other, until the flesh from his hands stuck to the wall. Then, he screamed and threw his entire body forward, driving his forehead like a sledgehammer against the wall. It felt good, so he did it again, only harder, and harder and harder until all he could see was a wall smeared with red, the blood streaking down from the gash in his forehead, forming dark pools where the plaster had cracked. But he didn’t stop, because he knew he deserved it—he knew that this fucking punishment was his. He kept going, driving his head harder and harder, the tips of his teeth grinding against the soft, fleshy part of his gums. Then, all of a sudden, he began to feel dizzy. His muscles gave out and his body went limp. He crashed face-first into the carpet, the cartilage in his nose pushing back into his throat. He lay there for a while, staring at the blood streaks forming small pools at the base of the wall. The light in the room began to tunnel and all he could see was blackness and all he could hear was a sharp metallic ringing inside his ears. His eyes rolled back, his breathing became shallow, and the heaviness on his chest finally disappeared.

  Chapter 30

  The Discovery

  DAVE sat like a gargoyle perched on top of the back yard balcony, watching all the patients going in and out of the sliding patio doors below. His toes were numb, his hands had turned purple, and his ears were tingling as if they’d been doused with ant poison. He couldn’t stay up here much longer. In another half hour or so, it was gonna be nighttime and any warmth from the sun would be long gone from the sky. He wished he could to go downstairs and thaw out underneath those space heaters, but he knew he wasn’t welcome. He knew all the other patients hated his guts. He was an outcast, now, an exile, a man alone, a man by himself. Everyone else had turned their back on him, including Monty and Sarah. For whatever reason, they were all plotting against him, trying to bring him down, trying to sell him out. Could Cheryl be behind it all? Was she really that manipulative? Did she have that much power, that much clout? Even if she did, how’d she even know about Sarah? How’d she know about his plans to get her to testify in court? He never told anyone. The only people who knew were Angie and his lawyer, Weinstein.

  Wait a minute, what if it was Weinstein? What if he told Cheryl? What if the old son of a bitch had called her up? What if they were old friends, old lawyer buddies from college? What if they met to discuss the case and Cheryl somehow seduced him and got him to talk? He could’ve leaked the whole plan. He could’ve told Cheryl everything—that Sarah was gonna testify that the cops didn’t have reasonable suspicion. No, that couldn’t be it. That was impossible. But then why would Sarah lie? Why would she make up that ridiculous story? She didn’t call the cops. She didn’t try to get him to pull over. She was having a good time. She was singing and dancing. Hell, all the girls were, weren’t they?

  Dave shook his head and cupped his hands together then took a deep breath and tried to blow life back into them. But they were too numb, too solid. They felt like frozen fish heads against his knees. Christ—now, what was he gonna do? How was he gonna get out of here? Without Sarah, he had no case.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the bottle of Suboxone, but there were only three pills left. Shit, that wasn’t gonna be enough. He needed more. His knee was really throbbing, probably because of all this stress.

  He tossed back the pills and swallowed them with whatever saliva he could conjure then peered over the balcony and checked his watch. There was still another forty minutes before dinner was officially over, which meant the nurses and counselors, who ate last, would just now be sitting down. That meant the detox trailer would be empty at least for another twenty minutes, which gave him just enough time to get in and get out.

  He pulled up his hood then stomped out his cigarette and made his way down the spiral staircase and out across the frozen lawn. As he headed towards the back gate, he tried walking as softly as possible, which was difficult to do on account of the snow being so god damn crunchy.

  When he got inside the trailer, he shut the door behind him then started stomping his feet to bring feeling back to his toes. The trailer was warm, nice and toasty, and just as he suspected, there appeared to be no one around. “Hello?” he said, loud enough such that anyone in the back could hear him. “Is anyone here? Hello?”

  When no one answered, he quickly limped over to the sliding glass window then poked his head through and looked around. The computer monitor was on, but there was no one sitting behind it. Perfect. This was his chance. Time to shine.

  He went head first, his belly flat against the check-in counter, squeezing through the window like a baby seal being born. When he got to the other side, he dropped like a sack of potatoes onto the carpet, flat on his back, his eyes staring up at the ceiling. He brushed himself off then went right for the medicine cabinets, flung the doors open, and began scanning the rows and rows of pill bottles. The Suboxone was on the top, next to something called Dilaudid, which sounded kinda familiar. Where had he heard it before? Didn’t Cheryl use to take it after her C-section with Larry? She did, didn’t she? That meant it was probably pretty strong.

  He pulled down a bottle and stuffed it into his pocket then replaced his empty bottle of Suboxone with a brand new one that was completely full. He shut the cabinets then squeezed back through the window and was about to leave the trailer when he heard the sound of something banging against a wall. What the hell? It sounded like a hammer smashing against drywall. And it was close too, probably right down the hall.
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  He pivoted on his toes and pushed through the saloon-swinging doorway then made his way down the dark, narrow hall. “Hello?” he said, his heart beating faster, his right ear cocked towards the sound. “Is someone there? Hello?”

  When he got to the end of the hall, he stopped in front of a doorway. The banging was coming from inside, but the door was shut. This was Monty’s room, wasn’t it? “Hello?” he said, as he lightly tapped with his middle knuckle. “Is somebody in there? Monty? Is that you? Hello?”

  All of a sudden, the banging stopped and there was a loud thud against the carpet, like a clump of snow falling from the overhang of a house. Dave grabbed the knob and tried to push the door inward, but it wouldn’t budge. There was something wedged between the wall and the door. “Hello?”

  He got on his hands and knees and put his right cheek to the carpet, closed one eye and looked through the little space between the door and the floor. It looked like there was a body or something sprawled out near the bedposts. He strained his eyes, got in a little tighter, and could definitely make out the silhouette of a person lying on the floor. Who was that? Was that Monty? He got in tighter. Holy shit. It was. The blond hair was unmistakable and it looked like there was blood or something running down the cracks in the floor.

  “What the fuck?” He pushed himself up and pressed his ear against the door. “Monty, can you hear me? Are you okay? Do you need help?”

  He waited for a reply but there was no answer, so he lowered his shoulder and started ramming it against the door. But it wouldn’t budge—the kid was too heavy, so he started looking around frantically for something to wedge between the frame and the door. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.” He bit his nails as he paced up and down the hallway then ran into the bathroom and started opening and closing the counter drawers. What the fuck was he doing? What was he looking for? He needed something long and skinny that could fit through that god damn door. Then he saw it, in the mirror’s reflection. Of course. The shower curtain rod. He did an about face and grabbed a hold of it, yanking it down from in between the white tiled walls. He tore off the curtain then ran it through the hallway and jammed it in the little slit between the frame and the door. He got it halfway through then pulled as hard as he could backwards like some kind of maniac rowing a two-ton rowboat. The wood on the frame began to splinter and the door slowly inched forward. He got it open just enough to stick his foot though the crevice then squeezed and pulled as hard as he could. He was almost there—halfway through the doorframe—his crippled leg bending like an overloaded diving board. In one final thrust, he pulled himself forward and rolled out like a red carpet onto the bedroom floor. He crawled on his hands and knees over to Monty, then rolled the kid over and started shaking his shoulders. There was a round, golf ball-sized lump protruding from his forehead and spatters of blood on his face and shirt collar. “Monty,” he said, as he started slapping the kid’s face gently. “Come on kid, wake up, wake up.”