A Million Little Pieces - James Frey [4]
I scream.
I piss on myself.
I shit my pants.
The Nurse returns and she calls for help and Men in White come in and they put me on the bed and they hold me there. I try to kill the bugs but I can’t move so they live. In me. On me. I feel the stethoscope and the gauge and they stick a needle in my arm and they hold me down.
I am blinded by blackness.
I am gone.
Chapter 3
I sit in the chair by the window staring. I don’t know what I’m staring at and I don’t care. It’s dark and it’s late and I can’t sleep anymore. The drugs are wearing off.
The Nurse comes in.
Can’t sleep?
She checks my pressure and pulse.
No.
We have a Lounge.
She hands me some pills.
You can watch TV.
She hands me a robe and slippers.
And you can smoke.
I turn and I stare out the window.
Get changed and let me show you where it is.
All right.
She leaves and I take the pills and I change and when I open the door, she’s waiting for me. She smiles and she hands me a pack of smokes.
These all right?
I smile.
Thank you.
We go to the Lounge. A television, two couches, an easy chair, some vending machines. The television is on.
You want a soda?
I sit in the chair.
No.
You’re okay?
I nod.
Thank you.
She leaves and I can feel the pills kicking in. I watch television but nothing registers. I smoke a cigarette. It burns.
A man walks in and he walks up to me and he stands in front of me.
Hey, Buddy.
His voice is deep and dark.
Hey, Buddy.
Tracks crisscross his forearms.
I’m talking to you.
Scars run the length of his wrists.
I’m talking to you.
I look in his eyes. They’re blank.
What?
He points.
That’s my chair.
I turn back to the television.
That’s my chair.
The pills are kicking in.
Hey, Buddy, that’s my chair.
Nothing registers.
HEY, ASSHOLE. THAT’S MY FUCKING CHAIR.
I watch TV and he’s breathing heavy and the Nurse comes in.
Is there a problem here?
This Asshole is in my chair.
Then why don’t you sit on the couch?
Because I don’t like the couch. I like the chair.
James is in the chair. There’s the couch or the floor or you can leave. You decide.
Fuck James. Make him move.
Do you want me to call Security?
No.
Then you decide.
He walks to the couch and he sits down on it. The Nurse watches him.
Thank you.
He laughs and she leaves and we’re alone and I’m watching television and smoking a cigarette. He stares at me and he chews his nails and he spits them at me but the pills are in and the bugs are gone and I don’t care. Nothing registers.
I watch the television. Everything slows down. Slows down beyond recognition.
The image blurs, the voices fade. There is no action and no noise, just flickering lights and a symphony of withered voices. I stare at the lights, listen to the voices. I want them to go away and they won’t.
My eyelids fall. I struggle to bring them up but they won’t come. The rest of my body follows my eyes. My muscles go limp and I slide from the chair to the floor. I don’t like the floor and I don’t want to be on the floor but I can’t stop myself. As I slide, the surface of the chair holds my robe and scratches the back of my legs and the robe bunches around my waist. I lift my hand to adjust the robe and my hand falls back. My mind tells my hand to move and my mind tells my hand to adjust the robe but my mind isn’t working. My mind isn’t working and my hand isn’t working. The robe stays.
The man stops spitting his nails at me and he stands and he walks toward me and I can see him coming through the slitted lids of my eyes. I know that he can do whatever he wants to do to me and I know that I am helpless to stop him. I know that he is angry and I know from his tracks and his scars and his eyes that he will probably express that anger through some form of violence. If I were able to move I would stand and meet him with a dose of whatever he cared to bring but I can’t meet him with anything. With