A Million Little Pieces - James Frey [33]
Can you stand?
He reaches into his pocket for the keys.
Yeah, but hurry.
He pulls the keys from his pocket and he unlocks the Van and he opens the sliding side door and he helps me through and he sets me down on the length of the three-man seat and he shuts the door and he runs around to the Driver’s door and he opens it and he climbs inside the Van. He sits down and he puts the keys in the ignition and he starts the engine and the Van pulls out.
As we drive through Town, I lie on my back and I shake and I freeze. My hearts beats irregularly and it hurts. The bayonet is in my mouth and I’m tired beyond exhaustion. I’m going back to the Clinic and I don’t want to go back the Clinic. If I leave the Clinic, there is either death or Jail. This is not the life I want or who I want to be but I don’t know anything else. I have tried to change before and I have failed. I have tried to change again and again and again and I have failed over and over and over. If there was something to make me think this time was different, I would try, but there isn’t. If there was a light at the end of the tunnel, I would run to it. I am worse than I have ever been before. If there was a light at the end of the tunnel I would run to it. I am an Alcoholic and I am a Drug Addict and I am a Criminal. There is no light at the end of the tunnel.
After a few moments the Van is flooded with heat and the heat slows the shaking and kills the freezing and I’m tired beyond exhaustion and I close my eyes. It is dark. I close my eyes. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. I close my eyes. It is dark. I close my eyes. There’s no light. I close my eyes. Dark.
I close my eyes.
I close my eyes.
I close my eyes.
Chapter 8
I’m in another white Room and I hate it. I’m in another white robe and I want to tear it to shreds. There is another bed and another desk and another chair and I want to destroy them. There is a window. I want to throw myself through it.
I follow my usual routine. Crawl to the Bathroom. Vomit. Lie on the floor. Vomit. Lie on the floor. Vomit. Lie on the floor. Some of the vomit gets stuck in my new teeth and it hurts cleaning it out. After the cleaning, I vomit again and I clean again and I crawl back to bed.
It is still black, still storming. The rain and sleet and the wind are pounding the window. An endless series of clicks and clacks, an endless shriek. I hate the noise and I want it to stop. Click, shriek, clack, shriek, click, shriek, clack, shriek. I hate it. I want it to fucking stop.
I get out of bed. My clothes have been washed and they are sitting on the desk. I take off the robe and I put them on. They are looser today than they were yesterday.
I open the door and I walk out and I’m on the Medical Unit. It is the middle of the night and the Unit is almost empty. There is a Nurse on duty. She is reading a fashion magazine and she doesn’t notice me.
I walk out of the Medical Unit and I make my way through the Halls. Though the Sky is dark with night and weather, the Halls are still light. The overhead lamps are light, the walls are light, the carpet is light, the hanging pictures are light, the signs on the doors are light. I am uncomfortable in the light. It exposes too much.
I go back to Sawyer. It is quiet and dark. All of the lights are off, all of the doors to the Rooms are closed, all of the men are sleeping. I walk to the Main Room and I sit down on a couch and I turn on the television. There’s a show about weight loss, an infomercial for a Motivational Speaker, some woman talking about some psychic bullshit, a professional wrestling extravaganza. There are several channels with static. The static is the most interesting thing I see on the screen. I watch it. For an hour. The static.
I turn off the television and I look for