A Million Little Pieces - James Frey [58]
No.
Then what do you want?
Eric came and talked to me yesterday.
Who’s Eric?
Eric was Roy’s friend. He left yesterday right after Roy.
What’d he have to say?
He told me Roy was obsessed with getting you thrown out of here, that he thought Roy started the fight the two of you had, and that he saw Roy trash the Group Toilets after you had cleaned them.
That’s interesting.
I thought so too, and I owe you an apology. Roy was a model Patient here and I don’t know why he would have done what he did and I was wrong for assuming he was telling the truth and you were lying. I’m sorry for doing that, and I’d like to try and start over with you and see if we can’t try to understand each other a bit better.
That’s fine with me.
He stands.
Start over?
I stand.
Sure.
We shake and we let go and he walks away and I sit back down with my breakfast and as I take my first bite, Leonard sits back down and he wants to know what happened and I tell him it was nothing and he doesn’t believe me and he bugs me about it and I ignore him and I finish eating. When I’m done, I stand and I take my tray and I drop it on the conveyor and I walk back to the Unit. On the Lower Level, men are gathering around the television watching a pre-game football show. Some of them are smoking, some of them are drinking coffee, some of them seem excited, some of them seem bored out of their fucking skulls. No matter what they are doing, no matter what their attitude may be, they are staring at the images on the screen. Addictions need fuel. Sometimes anything, even base images on a dull screen, will do. Fuel. I have thirteen and a half hours left.
I get a cup of coffee and I find a place on a couch and I light a cigarette and I watch the football show. I don’t really know what the men on the show are saying and I doubt they do either, but they seem to think it’s important, so I try to pay attention. Within a couple of minutes, I am almost catatonic. I stare at the screen. I drink my coffee. I smoke my cigarettes. I don’t even try to figure out what the fuck the guys on the screen are talking about.
Leonard walks in with the Bald Man and hollers I am open for business and men start placing bets with him and the Bald Man writes down the bets on a small pad and he takes the money for the bets and he places it in a small bag with a large zipper. At one point, Lincoln walks through the Room and all the activity stops. When he’s gone, it starts again. Men without money bet cigarettes or their Job duties, one man bets a pair of slippers, another bets his sunglasses. Addictions need fuel. The television isn’t enough.
When the games start the men argue over which game we’re going to watch and the argument ends when Leonard says we’re watching the Pittsburgh/Cleveland game. Nobody wants to watch the Pittsburgh/Cleveland game and there is a volley of complaints, but Leonard says the decision is final and everyone shuts up and turns their attention to the screen.
When I was a Child, my Father always had season tickets to the Browns. Although he could have used them for business, he never did. Each Sunday in the fall, he and my Brother and I would put on Browns jerseys and Browns hats and take the Train downtown from our House in the Suburbs and walk from the train to the Stadium. My Dad held our hands the whole way, and because he had only two seats, he’d carry me into the game and I’d watch it from his lap. We’d yell and scream and cheer and sing songs when the Browns won, we’d cry when they lost. When I got too old to be carried into the Stadium, my Brother and I would alternate games. One week him, one week me. If my Dad was out of Town, my Mom would take us. I loved the motherfucking Browns as a kid, and although I haven’t watched football in a long time, part of me still does. I loved my Family as a Kid, and although I haven’t in a long time, the same part of me that still loves the Browns and the same part of me that remains human and the same part of me that remembers what love is, still loves them as well.
I sit and I silently watch the game