by Brady Hammes
“Why?” Gavin asked.
“Because I told you I’m not going to rehab. I can do it on my own.”
“It might not be a bad idea,” Jonah said. “Maybe just see what they’re all about.”
“I know what they’re all about,” Sam said. “They’re about sitting in a circle and holding hands and talking about their fucked-up lives. I’ll get on the next flight back to Moscow before I’ll do that.”
“That’s mature,” Gavin said, rubbing his forehead.
“Fuck you both. I don’t enjoy being attacked like this.”
“Maybe you should have thought about that before you pumped yourself full of drugs and nodded off on the Red Line.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.”
“I’m being realistic. According to the police, that’s a fairly straightforward accounting of what happened.”
“You’re being the self-righteous older brother. And it’s obnoxious. Besides, you can’t make me go to rehab.”
“You’re right,” Gavin said. “But a judge can. It’s called court-appointed rehab.”
“So you’re gonna have me arrested?” Sam asked.
“If that’s what it takes.”
“That’s blackmail,” Jonah said.
“Exactly,” Sam added, relieved to have an ally.
Gavin looked to his brother. “Well, fuck, Jonah, I’m kind of at a loss here, so maybe you could suggest something.”
Jonah stood and walked to the window, put his hands behind his head. “There is one other idea.” He paused, staring out the window.
“Okay…,” Gavin said, “what is it?”
Jonah turned back to his siblings. “Have either of you heard of iboga?”
Sam and Gavin shook their heads.
“It’s sort of like a psychedelic, but not exactly,” Jonah said. “It comes from the iboga tree, which is native to Gabon. This guy I work with—Laurent—he’s from the Babongo tribe, and he actually told me about it a few months back. It’s used during a spiritual ceremony called Bwiti. Laurent did it when he was younger. It’s a rite of passage.
“Anyway, it was discovered to lessen the withdrawal symptoms of opioid addiction. Don’t ask me how it works, but it does. At least for some people. I did some research yesterday, and there’s all kinds of high-end ibogaine clinics popping up in Costa Rica and Mexico. Fancy beachfront resorts, celebrity rehab–type shit. But it’s different in Gabon. It’s more spiritual than medicinal there. But the drug works just the same.”
“What are you suggesting?” Gavin asked.
“I’m saying Laurent offered to arrange it,” he said, looking to Sam.
“Sounds a little bit like cultural appropriation,” Sam said, trying to imagine the optics of inserting herself into a West African spiritual ceremony she knew nothing about it.
“Maybe it is,” Jonah said. “But seeing as how you don’t seem particularly interested in your own culture’s approach to dealing with this, you might want to try someone else’s. And besides, Laurent offered and when someone offers help, you should take it. So, what do you think? You interested?”
At the moment, she was interested only in getting out of this hospital, but she also knew that wasn’t going to happen without concessions on her part. And based on Gavin’s suggestion of rehab, she figured she might as well hear Jonah out. “What’s it like?”
“To be perfectly honest,” Jonah said, “it sounds pretty miserable.”
“It’s a hallucinogen?” Sam asked.
“Yeah.”
“Like LSD?”
“Much stronger than that,” Jonah said. “One of the articles I read described it as something more like an exorcism.”
“So it’s witchcraft,” Gavin said dismissively.
“No,” Jonah said. “But it is rough. Apparently, it’s a forty-eight-hour nightmare that results in a complete reformatting of the brain. Also, you should probably know that it’s administered with no professional medical oversight. So, you know, not exactly FDA approved.”
“Sounds like a terrible idea,” Gavin said.
“It’s not really your decision to make,” Jonah shot back. He turned to Sam. “Look, I don’t claim to be an expert on this, but people swear by it. And if Laurent says he can arrange for you to do it safely, then I think it’s worth considering.” He paused. “What do you think?”
She wasn’t sure what to think. She knew Gavin was right. Her way of dealing with this wasn’t working, but she also wasn’t about to set foot in a traditional rehab facility. She had nowhere else to go. She couldn’t imagine hanging around Chicago, and she wasn’t welcome back in Russia. “How long would we be gone?”
“I don’t know,” Jonah said. “It’s kind of an ordeal getting over there. A week, maybe longer?”
“And how exactly are we supposed to get over there?” Gavin asked.
“I’d suggest an airplane,” Jonah said.
“No shit. But I’m currently unemployed, so an international flight to Africa isn’t exactly in the budget.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Jonah said.
“Maybe you could pay for it with your stolen money,” Gavin said.
“It’s not stolen,” Jonah said. “Just dirty.”
“What money?” Sam asked.
Jonah shook his head. “Look, I don’t want to get hung up on the details. We’ll figure it out. I just want to know if you’re interested or not.”
“It sounds extraordinarily dangerous,” Gavin said.
“Well,” Jonah said, “Sam doesn’t seem particularly interested in your idea.”
“His idea,” Sam said, “isn’t an option.”
“And this is?” Gavin asked, incredulous.
“Maybe.”
“Look,” Jonah said. “I know it’s a little unorthodox, but what do you have to lose? If it doesn’t work, then you come back here and at least you got to see West Africa. I’m going back regardless, so it might be nice to have some company. Do it for me. Please?”
Sam stared out the hospital window. “Iboga?”
“Research it if you want,” Jonah said.
But she didn’t need to research it. She already knew she would go because the truth was that she was afraid of what she’d become, of what she was capable of doing to herself. She’d drifted so far, and she wanted nothing more than to break this opium spell, which would require something drastic, a violent shock to her system. For the past year, she had repressed the truth, hidden the reality of her addiction in the tiny compartments of her soul, but now it was time to unlock those doors and take a long, hard look inside. It was time to regain dominion over her body.
GAVIN
THE TRIP LACKED ANYTHING RESEMBLING a proper itinerary, which Gavin noted a half dozen times in the intervening days. A quick Google search of the country alerted him to the potential health risks—yellow fever, malaria, typhoid—which he and Sam attempted to address with a quick trip to a travel clinic, where they received a half dozen vaccinations and a prescription for Lariam, the anti-malarial drug whose side effects, the doctor warned them, included hallucinations and unusual thoughts or behavior. Whatever that meant. Their parents were under the impression that each of their children was returning to their respective lives, and great effort had been taken to maintain this illusion. So three days after Christmas and less than forty-eight hours after retrieving Sam from the hospital, Gavin, Jonah, and Sam stood in the foyer of their parents’ apartment, luggage already in the hallway, saying their goodbyes.
“I wish you could stay a little longer,” their mom said, clearly upset that two of the three of them were leaving earlier than planned. Gavin had originally told her he was leaving New Year’s Eve, and Jonah had claimed to be staying till after the new year. Only Sam had been up-front about needing to leave so soon after Christmas, and Gavin was
feeling some intense guilt about the complexity of the lies required to pull this off.
“Me too,” Sam said, “but they need me back there earlier than I thought.”
“I still don’t understand why you’re all leaving at the same time,” their dad said in a tone that suggested he could smell their lies.
“We don’t have to,” Gavin said. “But I’m going that direction anyway, so it just makes sense. Besides, you don’t want to get out in this weather.”
His dad shrugged, though if in response to the weather or their simultaneous departure, Gavin couldn’t say.
“Will you please let us know when the ballet opens?” their mom asked Sam. “We really want to come out there, but we need to buy our tickets soon.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” Sam said. “I should know once I get back.”
“And please be careful out there,” she said to Jonah.
“I’ll do my best,” Jonah said.
Once the goodbyes and love yous and until next times were delivered, they stepped into the hallway and took the elevator to Gavin’s car in the parking garage. Outside, it was snowing and windy and Gavin had the feeling that something wild and unpredictable awaited them on the other side of the world. Whether this trip was blatantly reckless or absolutely necessary was a question he still couldn’t answer. He had joined the expedition because he had nothing else to do, or at least that’s what he’d told his siblings, but the truth was that he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was somehow to blame for Sam’s addiction, and he’d decided, while watching his sister sleep in a hospital bed, that until something changed, he wasn’t letting her out of his sight.
As they drove in silence to the airport, he was reminded of the summer before tenth grade, when his buddy Donnie appeared at the Brennan house with news of some big shit going down at the arcade. The arcade’s owners were trying out a happy hour of sorts, whereby they were exchanging nickels for quarters, a regular videogame fire sale. Gavin’s parents had left for the afternoon and Jonah was at a friend’s house, which meant Gavin had been tasked with babysitting Sam, who was seven at the time. Gavin explained his situation, but Donnie insisted that he just bring his kid sister with him. “We’ll bike it,” Donnie said. “She’s got a bike, right?” Sam had a pink Spice Girls bicycle with purple tassels dangling from the handlebars. She’d never ventured much farther than their driveway and Gavin wasn’t sure how roadworthy it was, but Sam said she was up for an adventure, so the three of them pedaled down the quiet residential streets of their suburban subdivision and into the fast-moving traffic of Highway 12. They kept to the edge of the shoulder, but every few minutes a tractor trailer would scream past, the draft pushing them toward the tall grass in the ditch. Gavin knew he was being irresponsible, but the physical proximity of his sister instilled in him the belief that he had a certain amount of control over the situation, and he wanted to believe the same was true now.
Gavin eased the car into the long-term parking garage. He turned off the ignition, and the three of them sat in silence, listening to the tick of the radiator, the rattle of cars passing over metal plates in the garage floor. Gavin looked in the rearview mirror, first at his sister’s face, the mystery of it, then to a family passing behind the car, the mother and father each pulling rolling suitcases, a young boy dragging a small one shaped like a race car.
“I don’t know if I can do it,” Sam finally said.
“What do you mean?” Jonah asked, turning to her.
But Gavin knew what she meant. He looked to Jonah, who then understood.
“Do you still have some left?” Gavin asked.
Sam nodded.
“Jesus, Sam,” he said. He wanted to ask how she’d managed to find more despite everything they’d just gone through, but it was a useless line of inquiry. “Once more and then that’s it,” he said. “Then we get on the plane and no more, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Okay,” Gavin said. He turned to Jonah. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Jonah said, hesitantly, as if unsure what he was agreeing to.
Sam removed a makeup bag from her suitcase and arranged the instruments on her lap. Gavin watched through the rearview mirror, the sliver of needle, the spoon, the complicated reality of what until now he’d only imagined. It looked so complex, like a surgeon’s prep, and his heart sank when he imagined his sister doing this alone, in Russia, day after day after day.
Sam looked up and caught his eye in the mirror. “Please don’t watch,” she said.
Gavin looked down at the steering column. He heard the click of a lighter, then the squeak of leather as she moved about in the back seat. A moment passed, and then he reached his hand back toward her, and she took hold of it. “Now?” he asked.
Sam nodded. “Yeah.”
JONAH
HE SAT IN THE DINING car with his sister, a game of dominoes spread between them, the black shadows of the forest flickering past in the window. They were on an overnight train to Franceville, scheduled to arrive at dawn. Jonah stared at the threads of dominoes splayed across the table, strategizing his next move. It was shortly after midnight and most of the other passengers, Gavin included, were asleep in their seats.
They had arrived in Libreville late that afternoon and taken a taxi to the train station in Owendo. The driver warned them about the recent terrorist attacks, something to do with the newly elected president. Jonah hadn’t really been following the election, though he’d heard from Laurent that it had been strongly contested, violent protests sprouting around the city. The cabbie suggested they keep away from large crowds, avoid public venues. Gabon had a reputation as a politically stable country, a relatively safe place for Westerners, so Jonah figured this was just a case of a paranoid cabbie and an overly protective police force. He’d looked at Sam and Gavin, dismissing the warning, but he could tell they weren’t convinced.
After arriving at the airport, they’d eaten at a restaurant next to the train station, some variety of beef Jonah couldn’t place, then boarded an ancient yellow train that hurled them deep into the heart of the country. He had hoped to catch the express, but their timing was off, so they were stuck on a slow-moving thing that stopped frequently at places that were not train stations. He’d been overcome with a terrible anxiety the first time he’d taken this train, so many months ago, unsure what he was getting into, and he felt something similar now, a special kind of culpability for dragging his siblings into his perverted orbit.
Jonah had arranged for Laurent to meet them at the train station. The plan was to decompress at his place for a day, which would give Jonah enough time to deliver Slinky’s cash before they set off for the Bwiti ceremony. Slinky had wanted to meet at the restaurant, but Jonah was hoping to shield Laurent from his dealings, so he suggested the handoff take place at his camp in the forest, to which Slinky had agreed.
The train lurched to a stop at the station in Ndjolé. Through the window, Jonah noticed a man stepping aboard. He was white, in his mid-forties, with no luggage, an odd thing at such a late hour, in such a remote part of the country. A moment later, the train jolted back to life and the guy entered the dining car. He took a seat at a table next to Jonah and Sam.
“Possible to get a drink at this hour?” he asked. His accent was British, but he had a cocksure air about him that suggested he was more than just a tourist.
Jonah pointed to the bar at the end of the car.
The man smiled and made his way down the aisle, swaying with the motion of the train. Jonah got a whiff of his sour stench as he passed. He wore khaki cargo pants and a T-shirt advertising a Gabonese bank, and his hair, which curled out beneath a baseball cap, appeared stringy and unwashed. He possessed the crazed, slightly malarial look of someone who’d spent an extended amount of time in the forest, and Jonah recognized someth
ing of his former self in the man.
“No bartender tonight?” he called back.
The bartender, who Jonah had struck up a conversation with earlier in the evening, had checked out an hour ago, but left the refrigerator unlocked and told Jonah to leave money for whatever they drank. “He closed up for the night,” Jonah said. “Honor system.”
The man smiled, pulled a few francs from his wallet, and placed them on the table. “Can I get you something?”
“No thanks,” Jonah said. “We’re about to call it a night.”
“Something for the lady?”
Sam shook her head.
“Suit yourself.” The man walked back to his table and lowered himself into his seat with the exaggerated motion of the elderly. He popped the cap on his beer and released a dramatic sigh, watching Jonah and Sam continue their game.
“Your move,” Jonah said.
Sam wore a chunky wool cardigan despite the heat, and she kept putting her hand to her mouth to mask long, exaggerated yawns. She claimed to have come down with a cold, but Jonah knew she was most likely suffering from withdrawal. He wasn’t sure what to do aside from keeping her company. He’d never considered himself a caretaker—he could barely take care of himself—but he was hopeful that she might feel better once the ceremony was underway.
“Dominoes,” the man said, taking note of their game. “Too much math for me. More of a chess guy, myself.” He took a long pull on his beer. “American?”
“What?” Jonah said.
“You’re from the States?”
“Yeah.”
“I can usually tell.” He extended his hand to Jonah. “Edwin.”
Jonah shook the man’s hand. “Jonah.”
Sam made her move, then looked to her brother. “Your turn.”
“I live in London most of the year,” Edwin continued, “though lately I’ve been spending a lot of time here. I’ve got some business with the Gabonese government that keeps me on the move.”