A Million Little Pieces - James Frey [7]
I don’t remember.
She turns back.
Blacked out?
Yeah.
She grimaces.
Shit.
I laugh.
Yeah.
We step forward.
When’d you get here?
I glance toward the Dispensary.
Yesterday.
The Nurse is glaring.
Me too.
I motion toward the Nurse and Lilly turns around and she stops talking and we step forward and we wait. The Nurse glares at us and she hands Lilly some pills and a cup of water and Lilly takes the pills and she drinks the water. She turns around and as she passes me she smiles and she mouths the word bye. I smile and step forward. The Nurse glares at me and asks me my name.
James Frey.
She looks at a chart and she goes to a cabinet and she gets some pills and she hands them to me with a cup of water.
I take the pills.
I drink the water.
I go to my Room and I fall asleep and I spend the rest of the day sleeping and shoving food down my throat and waiting in line and taking pills.
Chapter 4
I t’s still dark when my body wakes me. My insides burn and feel like fire. They move and the pain comes. They move again and the pain becomes greater. They move again and I am paralyzed.
I know what’s coming and I need to get up but I can’t walk, so I roll off the bed and I fall to the floor. I lie there and I moan and it’s cold and silent and dark.
The pain subsides and I crawl into the Bathroom and I grab the sides of the toilet and I wait. I sweat and my breath is short and my heart palpitates.
My body lurches and I close my eyes and I lean forward. Blood and bile and chunks of my stomach come pouring from my mouth and my nose. It gets stuck in my throat, in my nostrils, in what remains of my teeth. Again it comes, again it comes, again it comes, and with each episode a sharp pain shoots through my chest, my left arm and my jaw. I bang my head on the back of the toilet but I feel nothing. I bang it again. Nothing.
The vomiting stops and I sit back and I open my eyes and I stare at the toilet. Thick red streams stick to its sides and brown pieces of my interior float in the water. I try to slow my breathing and my heart but I can’t, so I sit and I wait. Every morning it’s the same. I vomit and I sit and I wait.
After a few minutes I stand and I walk slowly back into the Room. Night is leaving and I stand at the window and I watch. Orange and pink streaks sail across the blue of the sky, large birds silhouette themselves against the red of the rising sun, clouds inch their way toward me. I can feel blood dripping from the wounds on my face and I can feel my heart beating and I can feel the weight of my life beginning to drop and I realize why dawn is called mourning.
I wipe my face with my sleeve and I take off my robe, which is now covered with blood and whatever I just threw up and I drop it on the floor and I go to the Bathroom. I turn on the shower and I wait for the warm water.
I look at my body. My skin is sallow and white. My torso is covered with cuts and bruises. I’m thin and my muscles sag. I look worn, beaten, old, dead. I didn’t always look like this.
I reach in and I feel the water. It’s warm, but not hot. I step inside the shower and I turn off the cold water and I wait for the heat.
The water runs down my chest and along the rest of my body. I take a bar of soap and I lather up and as I do, the water becomes hotter. It slams into my skin and burns my skin and turns my skin red. Although it hurts, it feels good. The heat, the water, the soap, the burns. It hurts but I deserve it.
I turn off the water and I step out of the shower and I dry myself off. I climb into bed and I climb under the covers and I close my eyes and I try to remember. Eight days ago I was in North Carolina. I remember picking up a bottle and a pipe and deciding to go for a drive. Two days later I woke up in Washington, D.C. I was on a couch at a House belonging to the Sister of a friend of mine. I was covered in piss and puke and she wanted me to leave so I borrowed a shirt from her and I left. Twenty-four hours later I woke up in Ohio. I remember a House, a Bar, some crack, some glue. I remember