(to put an end to)
§
Somehow the reality of this room
is not what you’d expected. You’d
expected things to be painted in bright, welcoming colors, giving off some
false appearance of cheer. Not this
wash of icy grays and blues. You’d
expected fluorescent lighting and wide-open windows, but it’s all drawn
curtains and the lights are turned off.
The air smells faintly musty, and the temperature is that temperature
where your body doesn’t notice that there’s any air in the room at all.
It is the kind of place where you put someone when you want to forget about
them.
There is a chair sitting next to the
bed, just a plain thing made of metal and brown plastic, and you find it
horribly depressing. Perhaps it’s
because you know you’re one of the few people
to bother sitting it besides the ones who work in this awful place. You wish you would have come sooner, but you
can barely handle being here now.
He is lying on his back on the
bed, and it doesn’t seem as if the difference between asleep and awake means
anything anymore. His blue eyes are
open and looking at you, but his gaze seems vacant and lost, as though he’s
looking through you. His hair looks as
though it hasn’t been washed in days, and it’s clear that he hasn’t shaved in
ages. His face is pale and gaunt,
eerily reminiscent of what CC looked like when cocaine was his primary food
group.
You watch him for a moment, trying
to imagine the demons in his mind, trying to figure out what derailed trains of
thought have led him to wherever it is he’s finally landed.
You sit heavily in the chair and
rest your elbows on your knees, then prop your head on your hands so the only
thing in your field of vision is the floor.
Somehow the inside of your head seems very loud all of a sudden.
“We should have seen this coming,”
you say softly to the floor. There is
no response and you draw a shuddering breath.
You force your head up and again
look at Bret’s motionless form on the bed.
His eyes are still pointed in your direction, and you find that even now
you can’t hold his gaze and instead you look around the room some more.
There isn’t much to see. On the bedside table is a lamp that’s turned
off and a phone that you know has never rung.
There is also a cup of water that looks like it hasn’t been touched, and
next to it an empty paper cup. Your
stomach twists and you wonder what they’re pumping him full of. Is it helping him, or has it turned him into
what you see before you today?
The room makes you want to
cry. It seems so cold and impersonal,
nothing here to show whom its inhabitant is.
You bite back the urge to run out of the room and find someone who’s in
charge, demand that they do something, anything to make the room look more like
a place where he should be.
You take a few deep breaths and
try to deal with the onslaught of conflicting emotions. The man lying in the bed is someone that you
love intensely, loathe fiercely, and fear terribly. The emotions you’ve felt for him over the years you’ve known him
were contradictory at best, but they were always vehement. A few months ago, you’d been certain that
you hated him more than you loved him, but seeing him here like this changed
the playing field to an alarming extent.
He was no longer the powerful front man who could change the world with
his cocky smile, no longer the man who held the key to your entire life. Here he was, helpless and alone, reduced to
such a basic state that it almost embarrassed you to see him like this. You want to reach out and touch his face,
but the irrational fear that he will break stops you.
“We should have seen this coming,”
you say again. “All of the signs were there.
The sleepless nights, the strange behavior, the sudden outbursts… we
just didn’t pay attention. We should
have.” Your voice nearly cracks. “We could have stopped this.” And now you’re blinking back tears, looking
back in your mind to a time when everything was so very different. You’d give anything to turn back the clock.
You feel a hand on your shoulder,
but do not turn around. You know that
it is Smoothie standing behind you. You
hadn’t seen him in nearly as long as it’s been since you’ve seen Bret, but
you’ve stayed in contact. It is
Smoothie who has been coming to see Bret regularly, and it is he who finally
convinced you to do the same. For
nearly three months, you’d refused, vacillating between hating him too much to
want to see him and loving him too much to handle seeing him like this. And even your greatest fears of what this
day would bring seemed pleasant in the face of the reality of what has become
of Bret.
“I don’t know why I didn’t come
sooner,” you say quietly. “I should have.”
“It’s understandable that you
didn’t,” Smoothie says. His voice is
strong and reassuring, and like always, he knows just what words need to be
spoken. “No one expected you to. I certainly didn’t. I know this isn’t easy, but you’re here now.”
What he says is true, even if he
has no idea just how true parts of it are.
You nod slightly, feeling guilty for talking as though Bret isn’t even
in the room. You glance at his face
again, see his eyes meet yours, but still he says nothing. You are taken aback by how afraid he looks.
“Have you been in to see him at
all?” Smoothie asks haltingly.
You’re certain that he already
knows the answer. If he’d thought you’d
been here before, he wouldn’t have felt the need to drive out here and meet you
beforehand. There wouldn’t have been
that hint of uncertainty in his voice when he’d explained that this all might
be hard to grasp. Even though it was
Smoothie who had thought it was a good idea that you visit, it was clear that
he also didn’t think you could do it alone.
You shake your head, still not looking at him.
“No,” you say. You clear your throat nervously. “Is it okay to…” you begin hesitantly,
motioning towards Bret.
Smoothie nods solemnly. “It’s fine,” he says, and those two
syllables go through you like knives.
He hesitates. “You don’t have to
talk about this, you know.”
You look up at him. “Yes, I do,” you say. “I haven’t… the last time I saw him was the
night we admitted him.” You haven’t
breathed a word about it since it happened eleven weeks ago.
“I should have been there,”
Smoothie says. You can see in his eyes
that he hasn’t forgiven himself for making you go through this alone.
You wave the idea off. “It wasn’t your fault. If it was anyone’s fault, it was ours.” Before he can argue, you continue, again
focusing on the floor. “I still don’t
really know what happened that night. I
play it over and over in my mind, and it’s all so… it’s all so crazy that I
think that I’ve forgotten some important part of it, or something.” Just talking about it is all it takes, and
you’re back to the night that everything finally snapped. You can still smell the whiskey on Bret’s
breath, see the wild instability in his eyes.
“He just came into the room… I didn’t even know he was in town,
Smoothie.”
Smoothie nods
sympathetically. He doesn’t seem to
know what to say.
“He just came in, and he was
screaming, and at first it was just words that didn’t make any sense,” you
continue, trying not to cry. “He
wouldn’t let me go anywhere near him, he was looking at me like he didn’t know
who I was. It killed me. I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I couldn’t help… he wouldn’t let me help
him.”
“He’s sick,” Smoothie
interjects. “It isn’t your fault.”
But it is your fault, at least
partially, and no one seems to understand that. “His hands were bleeding,” you continue, rather than talking
about the blame. “I didn’t know what
had happened, it looked as though he’d been punching walls for the entire
day. And he was just… I don’t even know
how to describe it. It was like he was
possessed.” You pause to draw a
breath. “He was just… shaking, and
crying, but crying like he didn’t know he was crying, and words were coming
out, but they didn’t go together.”
You close your eyes tightly
against the memory, but it doesn’t work.
You can still see him exactly as he looked that night, from the moment
that he barged in unexpectedly until the moment when the ambulance drove away. You had been staying in a hotel in
Hollywood, for no reason beyond a desperate need to not be at home, and the
feeling that home was a concept lost a long time ago. No one had known you were there, and you’d wanted it that
way. Bret was the last person you’d
expected to see that night. Only
really, you didn’t see Bret that night at all.
You didn’t know who or what you’d seen, but it wasn’t him. Not the him you’d always known. He didn’t even look like himself when he’d
come flying through the door, his hair dirty and unkempt, his eyes wild, his
face scratched and bleeding. His
condition was so shocking that you hadn’t even had time to contemplate just how
he’d known where you were, much less gotten into your room, but now you vaguely
wondered how he’d maintained the presence of mind to find out which room was
yours.
Up until that night, you’d barely
seen him for over two weeks. Once the
tour had ended, the four of you had virtually run away from each other, eager
to get away from all of the emotions and responsibilities and fears, not
realizing that those things would follow you no matter what. You hadn’t really been worried about him, or
if you had been, it had played second fiddle to everything else. There was just so much going on that you’d
ignored all of the signs, signs that in retrospect paved a very clear path to
where you were standing right now.
Things hadn’t been right for a
long time. Maybe if you had still been
out on the road, in constant contact, it would have been more noticeable. Or if you hadn’t had your head so far up
your ass, is more like it. Bret had
always been touchy, always been flighty, but there were moments when you had
been flat-out stunned by his actions.
More than once you’d heard him talking when there was no one for him to
be talking to. He’d always have this
look on his face like he thought something was about to fall out of the
sky. Conversations with him were
unpredictable and jumpy, and his emotions would vacillate wildly, and for no
justifiable reason.
The worst part wasn’t that you
couldn’t find an explanation for his behavior, but that you’d never even
bothered to try.
The last time you saw him before
the night he’d busted into your hotel room should have been the night you’d
called for help, unquestionably. You
still don’t know why you didn’t.
You’d gone to his house, although
the reason that you did escapes you now.
When you’d gotten there, the front door was hanging open, halfway off
the hinges, and for just a moment, you thought that someone had broken in. But then you’d heard the music playing. Cinderella’s “Don’t Know What You Got (Til
It’s Gone)” at an ear-shattering volume.
The entire place had been
trashed. Overturned furniture, broken
bottles, and various articles of clothing covered the floor. You suppose that maybe at the time you’d let
yourself believe you were just witnessing the aftermath of a roaring party.
You were just turning around to
exit the kitchen when suddenly he was in front of you, just inches from your
face, his expression wild. He was
wearing a purple bandana that was doing little to hold his hair in place, and
he had his white tour coat on over his clothes. Before you had a chance to speak or even think, his hands were on
your shoulders and he was shaking you.
“It should have been me, Bob,”
he says, his voice one long high-pitched note of desperation. “It should have fucking been me!”
You’d said his name, tried to say
more, but he wasn’t having any of it.
He just kept screaming the same thing over and over again, adding other,
equally nonsensical sentiments here and there.
At one point, he had leaned in so that your noses were practically
touching and hissed, “There are no fucking answers, you know,” and you were
amazed at how snakelike he seemed. And
then he’d pushed you so hard that you’d stumbled backwards into the table
behind you.
“You might think that this all
started with me,” he’d said in a voice that had sounded so completely insane
that it had actually frightened you.
“But we are all the same thing, three points,” here he raised three fingers
in the air, “of the same star,” he lowered the fingers one by one, “and every…
point… hurts.” And then he’d turned
and run out of the kitchen, leaving you standing there wondering what the hell
drugs he was on.
Suddenly you feel a hand against
the small of your back and you are jarred out of your reverie. “You couldn’t have expected him to say
anything clear,” Smoothie says gently.
“He was… things must have been really bad by then.”
You shake your head vehemently
with your head still down and your eyes still closed. “Eventually it started to make sense,” you say. “Well, not make sense… but I could
understand what he was saying.” You
force yourself to look up at Smoothie’s face.
“He kept… god, Smoothie, he kept saying, ‘Rikki’s dead. I can’t believe Rikki’s dead’.”
You can see that Smoothie is
clearly taken aback by what you’ve just told him. Up until now, you’d spared him the details of what had happened
that night, not wanting to cause any pain where it wasn’t deserved. But now, sitting here next to what was left
of Bret, the words just spilled out on top of one another. You hadn’t realized how badly you’d needed
to get them out to someone.
“I tried to tell him… well, you
know,” you say, unable to form a coherent thought. “He just… I don’t know, it was like he didn’t even know I was
there. He just kept talking about Rikki
being dead, about how he’d… slit his wrists…”
You trail off. The idea is too
painful to bear.
Smoothie puts his hand back on
your shoulder. “He’s sick, Bob,” he
repeats. “He didn’t know what he was
saying. It’s a wonder he made even as
little sense as he did.” You know the
words are supposed to be reassuring, but what’s reassuring about one of your
closest friends being crazy? It was
like someone had locked Bret in a room that you couldn’t get into. You could see in but you didn’t know if he
could see out, and there was just no way of getting to him. You clench and unclench your fists, your
jaw.
“If I’d just paid attention,” you
insist, “if I’d just listened to him, talked to him… something…” You stand up, shaking his hand from your
shoulder.
Smoothie shakes his head
sadly. “This isn’t anyone’s fault,” he
tells you.
“Yes, it is,” you say softly.
“Bob,” Smoothie says, his voice
strained, “I don’t know what happened a few months ago. I don’t need to know. That’s between you guys. But I do know that Bret’s been sick for a
long time. Maybe whatever was going on
coincided with him getting sicker, but Bob, you have to believe me. It would have happened anyway. It was inevitable.”
You want to believe him, but you
don’t. Not that it matters. You can’t go back and do things differently
to find out what would have happened.
There’s a tentative knock on the
door and you glance at Smoothie nervously.
“Do you think it’s okay to…?”
Smoothie nods, already reaching
for the doorknob. “It’s fine,” he
assures you.
You watch the last visitor as he
crosses the floor, stopping beside you.
You haven’t seen each other since this had all happened, both of you too
caught up in your private guilts and miseries to handle the outside world at
all, much less each other. But seeing
him now makes you forget how fucked up everything really is, and unable to stop
yourself, you wrap your long arms tightly around him and pull him against
you. Never mind that maybe this isn’t
the time or the place for such a show of affection. Never mind if it isn’t what you’re supposed to do.
For a moment, he stiffens, but
then you feel him return the embrace, and for a few long moments, the two of
you just stay still, holding each other while Smoothie looks on passively. When you finally break the hug, you can feel
the tears in your eyes and see them in those of your friend, who turns to
Smoothie.
“It’s good to see you,
Smoothie. Even if it does have to be
like this.”
Smoothie smiles sadly. “It’s good to see you, too, Rikki.”
Rikki turns to look down at Bret
and a moment of uncomfortable silence passes.
“How is he?” he finally asks, his voice barely above a whisper.
“We don’t know,” you admit.
“He… he really doesn’t know we’re
here?”
You shake your head sadly. “No.”
You can’t help but stare at him.
The only man you’ve ever truly loved, and the only other person in the
world who knew what had happened the night that Bret had been sent to the
hospital.
Rikki looks over at Smoothie
imploringly. “You’ve been coming to see
him?” he asks.
Smoothie nods. “Every weekend.”
“Does he…” He clears his throat. “Does he ever… talk to you?”
“He did in the beginning, sort
of,” Smoothie replies. “Nothing that
ever made much \sense.” He takes a
breath. “He’d often mention a
diary. A brown leather diary.”
Your eyebrows furrow. “A diary?
What diary?”
Rikki frowns. “My diary from the last tour was brown
leather,” he says. He looks at
you. “But when… when all of this
happened, I burned it. I didn’t want to
see it again. Bret couldn’t have read
it.”
“Of course not,” Smoothie
agrees. “He didn’t know what he was
saying, Rikki.”
“Did he say anything else?” you
ask.
Smoothie shakes his head. “Not really. Nothing coherent. And
nothing at all for the past few weeks.”
A few moments pass in silence as
the three of you look at Bret lying on the bed. He hasn’t moved the entire time you’ve been here, and now his
eyes stare vacantly off, not focused on anything.
Rikki takes a few halting steps
toward the bed and crouches down next to it so that his face is level with
Bret’s. You can tell by the way his
shoulders shake that he is crying, and you want to reach out to him, but you
know that he needs to do this and you stay where you are, silent. You watch as Rikki gently kisses Bret on the
cheek, then finally straightens up and turns back to face you and
Smoothie. “It’s like he’s not even
here,” he says in a choked voice. You
can’t imagine the pain he’s feeling.
“He’s not,” Smoothie says
quietly. The words are among the most
final you’ve ever heard.
Just then, the door to the room
swings open and a doctor in a white coat breezes into the room. Rikki hurriedly wipes at his eyes and looks
down at the floor again. “I’m afraid
visiting hours are over,” the doctor tells you.
You open your mouth to speak, but
no sound comes out, and for once even Smoothie seems unsure of what to
say. It is Rikki who finally
speaks. “We’ll be back tomorrow,” he
says.
The doctor’s expression
softens. “You’re welcome to do that,”
he says. “But you need to understand
that he doesn’t know you’re here. He
never will.”
You watch Rikki’s face contort in
pain. “Are you saying… will he never
leave this place?” he asks. You close the
distance between the two of you and put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing
gently.
The doctor shifts his weight
uncomfortably. “I’m afraid not,” he
replies, and you can tell that he wishes he had something more encouraging to
tell you. He watches the three of you
for a moment to see if you have anything else to say, but no one speaks, and so
he turns and walks back out of the room.
You look from Rikki to Smoothie
and back. The shock and sadness in the
room is almost tangible. You want to
speak, but you know there is nothing to say.
It is Smoothie who finally makes a move for the door. “We should go,” he says as he walks through
the doorway, and then he is out of sight.
You look over at Rikki, who looks
back at you with an expression more heartbreaking than any you’ve ever
seen. “You all right?” you ask lamely.
“No,” he says simply.
“Me, neither.”
Another moment passes before he
speaks again. “What are we going to do,
Bob?”
Your heart leaps into your
throat. Rikki has never asked you a
question like this one, has never given you the power to answer like this. You have never seen him look so lonely and
small before. “I don’t know,” you say
finally.
He takes a final look at Bret
before he, too, walks toward the door.
You follow him out of the room and close the door behind you, glancing
only briefly through the small window at the motionless body in the bed. When you turn, Rikki is standing in the
middle of the long gray hallway, looking at you.
“Don’t leave me,” he
whispers. It is the most honest and
childlike thing he has ever said to you.
You swallow hard. “I won’t,” you promise, and then you follow
him down the hallway, past the countless dismal gray rooms full of stories that
will never be told, and out into the frightening unknown that is the rest of
your lives.
Together.