by P.D. Workman
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SANDY CAME TO PICK Henry up from the clinic when he was given a clean bill of health and released. She smiled and gave him a friendly hug and a peck on the cheek.
“Hey, Thomas. How’s it going?”
Henry picked up his bag and got into the car without a word. Sandy got in and looked at him.
“No hello? What’s with you?” she questioned, brows drawn down.
“Get me out of here,” Henry growled.
Sandy looked suspicious.
“You really dried out? You sound strung out.”
Henry was irritated.
“I don’t want to be here. I’m not high. I just have to get out of here.”
Sandy started the car and pulled out. She kept glancing over at Henry every couple of minutes.
“So how are you?” she prompted. “Feel good to be dry?”
Henry ignored her, staring out the window.
“Come on, Thomas? What’s going on? You’re worse coming out than going in.”
“Just let me be. I don’t want to talk.”
Sandy shook her head.
“I’m doing you a favor. You can at least be civil,” she pouted.
“Yeah. Thank you. Now let me think.”
He pressed his fingers to his temples. Sandy stayed quiet for a few minutes. A few times she looked like she was going to say something, but changed her mind. They pulled up to Henry’s building, and Henry opened the door and got out.
“Thanks,” he said curtly, and shut the door before she could say anything else. He went up to the apartment and shut the door. He put the chain on, though he knew it wasn’t real protection. He went in his room, crawled into the bed and pulled the blankets over his head.
The days were a blur of nightmares. Henry couldn’t go out. He was too anxious. Half the time he couldn’t even get out of bed. Sandy came by regularly, tried to talk to him and get him to go out. She sometimes brought groceries for him.
“What about Bobby?” Sandy prodded. “Don’t you want to take care of him?”
“I can’t take care of him now,” Henry said flatly. He couldn’t take care of himself, let alone a baby. He knew from Dorry’s experience what happened when someone who couldn’t cope tried to take care of a kid.
“You have to get straightened back out, so you can,” Sandy told him. “Get yourself help so you can manage it again.”
“Did you lock the door?” Henry questioned, though he was sure that she had. He went and checked just to be sure. “How long are you going to stay here?”
“What, am I disturbing your nap time?” she questioned sarcastically.
“I don’t sleep any more,” Henry said.
Though it was true that he spent much of his time in bed, he wasn’t sleeping. He’d lie awake most of the night. He just felt safer there, under his covers, like a little kid hiding from the monsters under the bed or the clown in the closet.
“You need help, Thomas,” Sandy said reasonably.
“No, I don’t. I don’t need anyone’s help.”
“You told me once your mom had emotional problems. Is this how she got?”
“She’d get depressed. I’m not depressed.”
“Do you like the way you feel?”
“I don’t need help,” Henry reasserted, not about to be trapped by her logic. “I think you should go now.”
Sandy picked up her jacket and left.
Eventually, Henry’s medication ran out. He couldn’t convince himself to leave the apartment to get it refilled. When Sandy came next, he handed her the empty bottle.
“Can you pick up my refill?”
Sandy shook her head.
“No,” she refused. “Not unless you go see your doctor.”
“I get refills without a new prescription. It’s right on the bottle.”
“Don’t care. I want the doctor to see you, know how this is affecting you.”
Henry scowled at her.
“I’ll just go get it refilled myself,” he said.
“Yeah? You’re just gonna walk out that door and get it refilled?” Sandy said sarcastically.
“That’s right.”
“Prove it. Go ahead, do it.”
Henry walked over to the door and put his hand on the knob. He started to sweat, his scalp burning and heart racing. He compulsively checked the lock and chain.
“I don’t feel like going out right now,” he told Sandy weakly, leaning on the door for support.
“You can’t, can you?” she said softly.
“I’ll go out later,” Henry asserted.
“Let someone help you, why don’t you? You’re a mess. Admit it. You can’t do any of the things you used to like. Taking care of Bobby, going to school, even your stupid photography. You’re not taking pictures any more at all, are you? What are you going to photograph, the locked door? And what about that blond at school you pretend I don’t know about? Haven’t seen her lately, have you?”
“If you’re not going to help me, then just leave, all right?” Henry demanded, stung. “Please just leave.”
Sandy headed for the door.
“You know my number. I’m not coming back unless I hear from you. When you decide to get some help, let me know.”
She slammed the door and was gone without another word. Henry watched the closed door for a moment, then locked and chained it. He went into the bathroom/darkroom and took a box of photos from the cupboard. Then he crawled into bed and pulled the blanket over his head. By the daylight that filtered through the blanket, he went through the pictures. Bobby, sweet Bobby who he could no longer take care of. Some interesting architecture, and shots down by the river carefully framed to exclude the garbage, drug paraphernalia, and urban sprawl. Candids he had snapped of Sandy, both casual and at work on the street. Pictures of Charise, some of them smiling coyly at the camera and some taken while she was relaxed, unposed. His life. The life he used to have. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he should have to suffer this way.
He went to sleep without having taken any medication all day. Somehow he would have to get more. He just couldn’t face the days without some help.
Maybe looking at his life like that crystallized things. When Henry woke up in the morning, he felt clear-headed and somehow lighter. As if someone had tuned the radio in his head from static to a clear station. He was hungry and made breakfast. He hadn’t been hungry for quite a while, eating like an automaton because the clock or Sandy said he ought to. Suddenly the food tasted real, instead of like cardboard.
Henry put his empty prescription bottle into his pocket, put on his jacket, and cheerfully went out to get it refilled.
But the next morning, the cotton was back. The static was back. The anxiety was back. Henry was crushed. It was worse than before. The memory of that one clear day was torture. He stayed under the blanket all day. He wished that he had the courage to just die.
Sandy had said that she wouldn’t come back unless Henry called her. He didn’t. She left a series of messages on his machine. Henry strictly rationed what food he had left. When it was gone he would either starve or get desperate enough to go out.
Sandy’s increasingly worried messages filled up the tape so that it just beeped annoyingly when anyone called. Then Sandy came. She had a key, but the chain was still on and she couldn’t get in.
“Thomson, open the door. It’s me!”
“I thought you weren’t coming back,” Henry reminded her.
“Why wouldn’t you answer my calls? I’ve been worried sick.”
Henry took the chain off. Behind Sandy stood Dr. Denzel. Henry stood there for a moment, then stepped back to let them both in without a word.
“How are you doing, Henry?” Dr. Denzel questioned.
“I’m okay.”
Sandy and the doctor looked around the apartment.
“You got food?” Sandy questioned.
“For another day or two.”
“Where’d you get the food?”
; “I went out.”
“You went out?” she questioned, shocked.
“Yeah, I went out.”
“I didn’t think you would!”
“Maybe I could talk to Henry alone,” Dr. Denzel suggested.
Sandy bit her lip, then nodded and headed out.
“I’ll pick up a few more groceries,” she offered, “unless you were planning on going out…?”
Henry didn’t dignify it with a reply. Sandy left so Henry could talk to the doctor in private.
“How are you doing, Henry?” Dr. Denzel questioned.
“Okay,” Henry said quickly, a little belligerent.
“Are you having problems going out?”
Henry shrugged.
“Anxiety attacks, or what? How do you feel when you try to go out?”
“Nervous.”
“Yeah? How bad?” he prompted.
“Bad enough I don’t go out,” Henry said flatly.
“Would you like me to give you something for that?”
“Maybe,” he hedged.
“Maybe?” Denzel repeated with a note of surprise.
“What if it affects me other ways—like that other time?”
Dr. Denzel looked puzzled momentarily. Then he remembered what Henry was talking about.
“Oh, of course. Well, we will monitor you to make sure it doesn’t.”
“I don’t want it to make me crazy.”
“No, of course not. We’ll find something that works for you. So you can feel good again.”