The Jump Journal

by Douglas Corriveau

  A soft, strained gasp had pierced the red veil; my vision returned and I’d found myself staring horrified at my own white-knuckled grip on the smaller boy’s throat. Toby was almost purple, and he fought weakly against my ferocious strength. Suddenly terrified, I had let go and backpedaled until my back hit the corner of the room. As I hugged my knees to me, I’d been unable to tear my gaze away from the gasping, coughing Toby. He’d struggled to his knees and rolled himself onto the closest cot. He didn’t look toward me at all.

  What could have been minutes or hours had passed by as I glared at my hands, wondering how on earth I’d ever let it get this far out of control. Mama Jean’s words replayed over and over in my head. You’re here because your life is out of your control, her voice intoned relentlessly. Until now, I had assumed that the dragon was a part of me, or at least a partner. I knew better now; the dragon was my master, and he had driven me to nearly kill a 16 year old boy. The desire to jump my way out of the withdrawal room had withered away every time I’d looked across the room and seen Toby’s back and shoulders shaking with silent sobs. My mind spun as internal voices shouted with condemning cries, calling me every kind of monster. I had had nothing to say in my defense.

  Eventually, Toby had rolled over and sat up, surreptitiously glancing in my direction. I can’t fault him for his suspicions; I had nearly killed him after all. I made no move from my corner of the room, and after a while, he’d felt comfortable enough to start pacing the narrow width of the room.

  “I’m sorry,” I’d said. It was the third or fourth attempt I’d made at speaking, but it was the first successful one.

  He shot me an evaluating look, as if to determine whether I had meant it. Apparently not inclined to respond, he’d continued his travels back and forth across the floor.

  “I’m...ah...look, I-“… I’d struggled for words. They don’t make Hallmark apologies for “I’m sorry I almost murdered you”. I went with complete honesty. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Toby.”

  “Me neither,” he’d rasped, his voice still harsh from my attempt to wring his neck.

  I’d forced a chuckle.

  “I’m not going to hurt you again. I promise.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Toby shot back. “No one means what they say in here.”

  That had been the end of it. I’d stopped trying to apologize since it was clear that no words would be enough, and he’d stopped shooting me dirty looks. I thought he was intent on icing me out for good, and I wouldn’t have blamed him, but eventually he came over and sat down on the cot next to me. I’d taken that as a signal for a temporary truce.

  ****

  Since that conversation, I’d spent the time deep in thought. My altercation with Toby had revealed a side of me that I despised; it was weak, it was dishonorable, and it was completely controlled by the dragon of addiction. Even as I tried to concentrate, the urge to embrace the continuum and escape was skirting beneath the surface of every thought. It was only by looking over at the bruises on Toby’s neck that I was able to stop myself from succumbing to the impulse.

  Now, I found myself in the cruel grip of full-blown withdrawal. Every second that passed only strengthened the dragon. Toby wasn’t in any better shape than I was; as I perspired and ground my teeth, he was crawling over to the rusty bed frame. Distracted from my own suffering for a moment, I watched as he groaned and hoisted his wrists up to the top of the edged metal. Without warning, he slammed the inside of his forearms against the edge and slid his wrists down the length of the metal. Blood rose out of his broken skin and he gasped in pain. Unsatisfied with the depth of the cut, he weakly readjusted and prepared to do it again. I realized his intention; he was trying to slit his wrists entirely.

  I rose out of my corner, leaning heavily on the bed frame for support. The world spun dizzily and I fell to my knees, bruising them badly against the cement floor. I barely registered the impact; my internal pain was far greater than a little bump on the knees. Crawling over towardToby, I tugged him away from the improvised razor. He struggled, but as weak as I was, he was weaker. Blood pounded in my ears like a bass drum, overwhelming the sound of my own heavy breathing and Toby’s whimpers. It took forever for me to rip off a part of my shirt into two strips and wrap them around Toby’s cuts.

  We lay there, mingling our misery as every second stretched into an eternity. He made no more attempts to slit his wrists. I had a feeling he was too wracked with pain to even think about moving. His head rested against my chest, lolling as he passed in and out of consciousness. I blacked out more than once too, but I remember one moment in particular. It’s hard to describe in detail, but it felt like a combination of hallucination and nightmare.

  In my vision, I drifted into a sea of black, but it wasn’t the crushing black of the continuum or the soft black of falling asleep. This was true black, with no concept or notion of light at all. I felt rather than saw everything, and as a presence roiled in the void around me, I knew that I’d trespassed into the dragon’s den.

  What are you doing here? its snarl rasped against my mind. It wasn’t audible, but each word had the sensation of claws running down a chalkboard.

  “I’m trying to survive what you’ve done to me!” I shouted, feeling miniscule in this ocean of nothingness.

  What I’ve done to you...? A throaty chuckle rumbled threateningly inside me. I’ve done nothing to you.

  “You’ve done nothing,” I repeated blankly, disbelieving, then: “You’ve done nothing?! You’ve taken everything! Tara! My freedom! The chance for a normal life! All gone, because of you!”

  The angry shout echoed faintly and the dragon shifted restlessly.

  Is that what you think, boy? Is that what you know?

  “Of course it is!” I yelled.

  The blackness rippled and, without warning, a massive ghostly face pushed through it, towering over me. I yelped in terror and stumbled back. It was hard to distinguish features due to its incredible size, but eventually recognition dawned.

  “Chaplain?” I whispered in horror.

  The dragon rumbled and Chaplain’s giant face creased in its familiar smile.

  Hello, lad. The familiar lilting voice rolled through me, but I could still hear the dragon beneath it.

  “You’re not Chaplain!” I screamed. “You can’t trick me, dragon!”

  No, I’m not. I’m neither Chaplain nor the “dragon”.

  The face morphed, turning formless like a cloud before contorting into a familiar arrogant sneer.

  There is only one truth, and it only has one face, Nicolae said gloatingly. You’ve simply rejected the notion and that is why you suffer.

  A rising tide of hatred at seeing his visage twisted my response into a snarl of my own.

  “And what the hell might that be?”

  That there is no evil force controlling your decisions, Tara’s voice murmured softly. The face mutated again, bringing her gentle expression to the front. Her oceanic eyes were grey like the rest of her features instead of blue, altering her face dramatically. The dragon you blame for Tara, for Toby, for keeping you captive is nothing more than the voice in your head.

  “What’s that supposed to mean, huh? What, I’m my own worst enemy, is that it?”

  If you want to oversimplify, Rachel stated flatly. If that’s what it takes for you to understand that your dragon is not the addiction itself. It’s the version of yourself that you fear, the one that can sacrifice Tara or kill Toby.

  “I would never have sunk this low if you hadn’t driven me here!” I stabbed my finger angrily towards the disembodied face.

  Excuses, a new voice snapped back. The face that protruded was familiar, but alien as well. It took me longer than I would have guessed, but eventually, I identified it as my own. If it takes a hallucination for you to recognize the truth, then perhaps there really is no hope for you.

  “You can’t expect to me swallow this nons-“

  I don’t expe
ct YOU to swallow anything, the dragon boomed as the gigantic face was swallowed back into the black. You’ve failed to understand this all along: The addiction does not control you. You have always made your choices and pinned the blame on the addiction. Call me what you will; I am not and will never be anything except a voice inside your head. Now get out.

  “Wait, you-“

  Get out! It roared, and the darkness receded and I snapped awake, flailing.

  Toby shifted slightly in his sleep as I got shakily to my feet. I stroked the wall, trying to reassure myself that I was back in reality. It occurred to me seconds later that I was able to stand for the first time in what seemed like eons. I wasn’t comfortable by any stretch of the imagination; my throat was parched, my mind was about as lively as a brick, and my body was still soaked with sweat. Despite that, I was ok. The dragon was idle, hibernating for what I desperately hoped would be a long time. I looked around the withdrawal room, puzzled at first by the slight changes. The sharply-edged bed frame that Toby had sliced himself on had vanished, while clean white bandages had magically wound themselves around Toby’s wrists in lieu of the ripped T-shirt that I’d wrapped around his cuts. Empty plates with the remnants of meals that I didn’t remember eating were scattered on the floor, and the solitary hole in the wall now had a duplicate on the adjacent wall. I flexed my fingers curiously; sure enough, bruises were beginning to form. I guessed that was my handiwork.

  The steel door’s locking mechanism disengaged with a heavy thud and a piercing squeal, and the door swung open. Mama Jean stood framed in the large entrance; she seemed even smaller than her usual diminutive self somehow, or maybe just more exhausted. We stared each other down. I didn’t know how to break the silence, and she didn’t seem inclined to. After a moment, her eyes flickered down to Toby’s, whose bandaged wrists rose and fell slightly on his stomach as he slept. I understood then why she looked so defeated: she blamed herself for his condition.

  She knelt next to the feverish teen and placed a gentle hand on his forehead. Concern remained etched in her expression, adding years to her otherwise youthful face.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice was quiet, but the sudden breach in silence deafened me.

  “I get it,” I rasped, my vocal chords hoarse from lack of use.

  “Help me with him?”

  I gazed down at my fallen cellmate, overwhelmed with an unexpected wave of responsibility for the boy. Without another word, I bent down and hoisted Toby over my shoulder in the fireman’s carry, just like Rachel’s father had taught me in what seemed like another age. I followed Mama Jean silently out of the withdrawal room, but I snuck one final look through the steel doorway as I walked away. It must have been my imagination, but for a moment, I thought I heard a faint, dragon-like snore hissing from the empty room. I smiled.

  Then I kicked the door shut behind me and walked away.

  Chapter 28

  Toby didn’t wake for days. His temperature rose and fell more often than a Six Flags rollercoaster, and we all took shifts to watch over the house troublemaker. The other residents were quiet, as if sensing the distress that I’d seen in Mama Jean’s eyes, despite her best attempts to hide it. Through some hushed conversation with Dianna one night, I learned that Toby wasn’t the first to attempt suicide during a forced detox, but Mama Jean had always been there to intervene. For the first time, she hadn’t been watching in that crucial moment and it was eating her up.

  “Has everyone here done it?” I asked Dianna quietly. “You know…..spent time in the cage.”

  “Just about.” Her eyes never left Toby’s sleeping form. “A rare few are strong enough to go cold turkey on their own, but we know how hard giving it up can be.”

  She was cold, each word cut with steel, but I knew her anger wasn’t directed at me. She blamed herself, too. It wasn’t her responsibility in any way, but she was still riddled with guilt and worry. She wasn’t the only one; I saw it in the others as well. After my experience with Toby in the withdrawal room, I came to understand it as well. This kid, with his smart-ass remarks and childish persona, had this quality about him that drove you crazy, but made you want to protect him at the same time. We had all failed him in our own way, and the entire house was punishing itself for that.

  I left Toby in Dianna’s care and wandered outside for some fresh air. The October night air was frigid. Frost cracked in the grass under my shoes as I jammed my hands deeper into my pockets and drifted aimlessly along the border fence of the ranch. The moon overhead was an otherworldly orange, casting eerie shadows that would have been perfect for Halloween, but somehow, I just wasn’t in the mood to appreciate the atmosphere. I glanced up the hill and did a double-take. What I had mistaken for a tree stump in the dark was actually human, dressed in an oversized jacket and wearing a flowered wrap around her head. I came up from behind and sat next to Mama Jean in the cold, wet grass.

  She continued staring up towards the glowing sky, stroking the collar of the large jacket she was wearing. I waited patiently.

  “This was my husband’s jacket.” She had been crying. Her voice was husky and trembled a little as her fingers clenched the collar for dear life. “He was a doctor, you know.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Well, I don’t talk about him much,” she said.

  “I get that. Losing someone you love...it’s a fresh wound that doesn’t ever full heal.”

  She sighed, her eyes shut tight against the tide of emotion.

  “For all the lectures that I give you kids about running from your pain, I’m the worst of the bunch.” Her voice broke, rising in pitch as she fought back fresh tears. “I ran out here to Montana when I lost ‘im, and now I make a hypocrite out of myself every day, trying to save you and the others when I can’t even save myself.”

  Mama Jean shook with sobs, and what little resentment I had left towards her evaporated. I reached out and pulled her in toward me, sharing in her sorrow and pain. We had more in common than she knew; her decades of fleeing from the memories that haunted her matched my own. Of course, there was no way I could tell her that, but I knew how to help her.

  “You know, Toby and I talked for a while when we were in there together.”

  She sniffed.

  “Whenever I watched you boys, you weren’t talking.”

  “Yeah, well,” I grunted. “We didn’t have any long heart-to-heart chats, but we talked some.”

  Silence. I nudged her.

  “We talked about you. Toby told me that coming here was the best thing that ever happened to him.” She looked up sharply at me. “That you were the best thing that ever happened to him.”

  “He said that?” she said, wiping her eye brusquely.

  “Yeah, he did,” I lied. “You’re not responsible for his condition, Mama Jean. None of us are. And you know what? Toby would be the first to tell you that.”

  Mama Jean looked into my eyes searchingly, and I forced myself to meet her gaze with an open and honest expression. I felt horrible lying to her, but I knew from experience that her self-doubt and criticism, even if deserved, would cripple her, and all of the others at the ranch needed Mama Jean to be her old self. Honestly, I hadn’t said anything that I didn’t believe was true; I just fibbed about the details.

  Anyway, she must have believed me because her face relaxed and she seemed at peace for the first time in days.

  “You’re a good boy, Ryan. I’m grateful that you found us.”

  I chuckled dryly.

  “You found me, remember? But I’m grateful, too,” I said, and to my surprise, I meant it. “For everything.”

  She smiled and we turned back to the moon, beaming through the clouds like a giant ember. A distant yell rode the breeze toward us, barely audible at first. It repeated multiple times, and I figured out it was coming from the direction of the ranch. Squinting, I could just make a silhouetted figure in the distance, outlined by the porch light. From the size, it could have only been Bruce. His deep
voice wafted in our direction again, and this time, we understood.

  Toby was awake. We ran back towards the house.

  ****

  As everyone else congregated in Toby’s room, I hung back outside in the hallway. Of all the people in the house, Toby was the only one who knew just how much I was capable of. When I fell asleep at night, I could still feel his throat slowly compressing under the force of my grip, and it terrified me. I’d hurt others before, there was no questioning that, but it was always in self-defense and life-or-death situations. Toby was the exception, and my attack was a constant source of shame, guilt, and fear.

  I waited out there in the hallway as the group inside laughed, cried, and celebrated the return of their little brother to the land of living. They all started to trickle out after a while, heading off to bed as the early morning approached. Mama Jean closed the door and talked with Toby for another hour as I nervously ran through every possible scenario. For whatever reason, I hadn’t considered that they might have a deep conversation so soon after he woke up. What if she realized I’d lied to her? What if Toby secretly did harbor resentment toward her? That truth might destroy her, and with her, the rest of the family.

  The door creaked open and Mama Jean stepped out. My heart stopped, and then resumed its normal beat; she was smiling. I let out a gasp of air that I hadn’t realized that I was holding in. Mama Jean looked up in surprise.

  “Ryan, what are you doing out here? Don’t you want to see him?”

  “Nah,” I blustered. “I’m sure that he’s tired from everything, you know? I’ll just let him sleep.”

  “Mama Jean?” Toby called from the bedroom. “Send Ryan in here, will you?”

  Mama Jean patted me on the shoulder with a smile and jerked her head in the direction of the door. Flicking my fingers nervously, I entered. Toby pushed himself up to a sitting position as I came in. He stared me down stoically. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair expecting his next words to be an accusation, or a yell for the rest of the house to come and throw me out. As horrifying as those thoughts were, I felt like I deserved anything he had to dish out.