Stewart moaned, then started laughing and crying at the same time. I reached over and put my hand on his shoulder.
“Did I do it, Sancho?” he gasped. “Is it done?”
“It’s done, Stewart.”
He nodded, opened his eyes, and looked at me. “I’m so tired. I just want it to be over.”
“It is,” I said. “Project Quixote is finished.”
Then Stewart closed his eyes again and smiled.
EPILOGUE
“Finally.” Stewart nodded toward the Bolgers as they stepped out for a private meeting with the doctors. He leaned back in the leather chair with a sigh. “Hope they didn’t drive you too insane on the ride down.”
Hearing him use that word made me wince a little. I tried not to show it, but he caught me anyway and laughed.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s a running joke around here. Gotta have a sense of humor in the ward, you know.”
I smiled, getting up from the bed to remove my peacoat. I wandered over to the window. It was snowing again, heavy now, so that I could only just make out the Christmas lights on the trees around the parking lot of the Wilmington Retreat.
“Gets dark early now,” I said, turning back.
He shrugged. “Tomorrow’s the solstice. After that, it’ll start getting brighter.”
I nodded, looking around the room at the wood paneling, the flat-screen TV, the quilt on the bed, the leather chair.
“Pretty nice place.”
“Not bad for a nuthouse,” he said with a grin. “Beats the state hospital, anyway. Lucinda and Phil spared no expense. Nothing but the best for Stewart Bolger.”
It felt good to hear him use his real name. And to see him grin. It made him seem more like himself, the way he used to be. It had only been a month since he’d been committed, but I noticed he looked different as soon as I walked in. He’d cut his hair, for starters. But it was more than just that. It was his smile, the way he sat, the way he turned to stare out the window. He was calmer, more subdued. I mean, he didn’t seem drugged out or anything, but the edge was gone, the sharps a little flattened. I didn’t know if it was because it had been a while, or because of the medication, or if maybe I was just different.
“Things good with Kaela?” he asked. His gaze lowered. I watched him pick at a few loose threads on his jeans before finally smoothing out the leg, something I’d never seen him do before.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Real good. Too good, maybe. I’m a little scared.”
He looked back up. “Fuck that. You deserve it.”
“Thanks.”
“And good old Ralphie?”
“Still around. All excited about going back to school. He’s cleaned up his act, you know. A total update. Two point oh, I call him. He doesn’t know what the fuck that means, but it beats me calling him a douche bag.” Stewart laughed.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” I added. “He’s still a douche bag. But he’s all right. Mom’s happy.”
“That’s all that matters.”
I nodded. “What about you? Things okay here? You on an even keel?”
He looked down. “I still have my days, but yeah, it’s better. Schizophrenia’s a real bitch. But the meds started kicking in a couple weeks ago, so that’s good.” He looked back up. “Things have quieted down.”
“Looking forward to coming home, I bet.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, well, it’s going to be another month, maybe two. I’m not even sure where I’m going after this. Everything’s up in the air still. Of course, I’ve got court waiting for me.”
I laughed. “You really did a number up there.”
“I guess. It seems so long ago, like some dream I only half remember. Especially those last couple days.”
“Don’t worry. I remember well enough for both of us.”
And believe me, I did. Turns out it was a good thing I didn’t whack that barrel with the stupid sword after all. Stewart had filled it with acetylene from one of his father’s tanks just before Kaela and I got there. The gas is pretty safe in the tank, but once it gets out, it’s volatile as hell. One good spark or jolt was all it would’ve taken to crisp both of us, and that didn’t even count the tanks of propane and pure oxygen Stewart had loaded into the Volvo, all meant for the tower. Of course, the Volvo never made it that far. The bumps had seen to that.
But that wasn’t why Stewart was being taken to court. The Volvo may not have done any damage, but Stewart had done plenty before that afternoon. He’d been sneaking up there for a while, ever since I’d come across him at the smoking rock and he’d promised to “take care of it.” All those sleepless nights and lonely Sundays, all those times he’d been keeping to himself, he’d been up there, walking around, testing, figuring out angles and thicknesses, or he’d been in his father’s shop, learning how to work the torches. And then the cutting started—midnight trips in the cold, ripping away at the base in a shower of sparks. He’d hoped to send one into the next, domino style. Take them all down at once. He’d made some headway—enough so that the power company had had to shut down the first tower indefinitely—but not enough to really do the job. And so when he’d finally hit bottom, he’d decided to finish what he’d started.
“Don’t worry about court.”
“Yeah, I guess I have a pretty good defense, don’t I?” he snorted. “That’s what my lawyers say, anyway.”
He grew quiet for a moment.
“I never thanked you,” he said, his voice cracking. “Last week on the phone. I meant to.”
I waved it off. “Fuck that. It’s all part of the deal.”
“Still.” His eyes started to water. “I didn’t treat you right. After everything you’d been through. It wasn’t fair.”
“It was an adventure, Stewart. The play—me being Sancho, you being Don—it changed both of us. I needed it. And it had a happy ending, right?”
He gave a weak smile. “It doesn’t ever end, Frenchy. But we manage, don’t we? We get by.”
“I can live with that.” I looked down at the watch he’d given me. It hadn’t lost its shine.
“They’ll be back in a minute,” he said. “These things don’t take long.”
I nodded, then pulled the box from the pocket of my coat.
“Merry Christmas. I did the ribbon myself, believe it or not.”
His eyes widened at the sight of the present, then his face went red as I put it in his hands.
“I didn’t get you anything.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Just fucking open it.”
He undid the ribbon, opened the lid, then froze a moment before lifting the medal.
“This is a Purple Heart.” He stared up at me.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“I can’t take this, Frenchy.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s from Desert Storm. I got the newer one at home.”
He nodded, his eyes welling with fresh tears.
“Besides,” I said. “You deserve it.”
He laughed at that. His parents came back. Then it was time to go.
He hugged me before I left. It was good not to feel the armor on him, no matter how thin he was. He held me for a moment, then let me go.
“Good-bye, Old Friend,” he said, his smile tight and thin. I gave him a quick salute.
“Farewell, Your Grace.”
Nobody said much of anything on the way home. It was still snowing and slow going, so I just sat in the back of the SUV, pressed my head against the glass, and stared out into the darkness, trying to tell myself that it had been a good visit. And it was good to see him more like himself, to see he’d managed to find at least some sort of peace, some refuge from all that suffering.
But it was tough to leave him, to look up at that window on the way out and see him standing there, watching us go without him. All through high school I’d never felt freer than when I was with Stewart, and seeing him confined in that place, nice as it was, made me realize just
how limited my own world would have been without him in it. The best people in life make the world a bigger place, then help you grow to fit it. Stewart had been that person for me, and now he was stuck. Left behind.
He said it would be a few months, but who really knew? All I knew was that he had a long, hard road to travel, one whose end he might never reach.
Then again, the same could be said for me, though for the first time since last spring, I actually felt like there was some hope of making it through. My mother was starting to smile more and cry less, Ralph wasn’t quite so much of a douche bag, and I even had a cool girlfriend who was smart enough to have fun with but not too smart to realize she was dating an idiot whose idea of a hot date was bowling and ribs. I was even starting to look at a few colleges for next year. Ones with a good theater program. All in all, things were moving in the right direction.
It was the play that had really done it. Even in the midst of all the shit with Stewart and my father, the experience of being part of something bigger than myself, of surprising myself along with everyone else with a talent I never knew I had, had changed me in ways I never would have imagined. And I owed that to Stewart as much as anything else—that one last bit of Quixote magic.
And that’s why—as we rounded the last bend on the interstate and I watched the wind tower lights hovering in the distance, turning the snowy night red—I missed Stewart more than ever and wished he was by my side to see how it was all turning out. But I guess in the end, there are some journeys you have to make alone.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
One of the great things about teaching in a high school like Lyndon Institute is having access to so many talented people from different backgrounds. Several colleagues helped make this book possible.
I’d first like to thank theater director Erin Galligan for the time she took to answer all my questions about the life of a high school musical production and for allowing me to sit in on so many auditions and rehearsals.
I’d also like to thank welding instructor Larry Kirchoff and physics teacher Kevin Hickey for helping me work out the logistics of blowing stuff up.
Most of all, I want to thank counselors Don Hunt and Steve Berman, not only for their expertise in the field of mental illness, but also for their compassion and dedication to helping others—young people especially—deal with life’s many struggles.
Finally, I’d like to thank Chronicle editor Julie Romeis for seeing the promise of this book and for all her help in making it better.
Copyright © 2011 by David Stahler Jr.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stahler, David.
Spinning out / by David Stahler Jr.
Summary: Frenchy and Stewart, two Northern Vermont high school seniors, try out for the school musical, “Man of La Mancha,” but when Stewart is cast as Don Quixote he soon becomes obsessed with his role and Frenchy must try to overcome his own demons to help his friend stay grounded in reality.
ISBN 9781452108643
[1. Schizophrenia—Fiction. 2. Mental illness—Fiction. 3. Emotional problems—Fiction. 4. Friendship—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction. 7. Theater—Fiction. 8. Vermont—Fiction. 9. Wasserman, Dale. Man of La Mancha—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S78246Sp 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2010039392
Book design by Amelia May Anderson.
Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street, San Francisco,
California 94107
www.chroniclekids.com
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