A Million Little Pieces - James Frey [85]
I walk over to a table a few feet away. Some men have gathered at the table and they are talking about what we just witnessed. I tell them the coffee is ready and a couple of them stand to get a cup and I sit down and I listen to them. The focus of the conversation is on what known drugs could do to a Person what was done to Roy, or more likely, what he did to himself. Crack could have done it, meth could have done it, PCP or a large dose of acid could have done it, but nothing else readily available has the necessary power. Ted thinks that it was crack. He has experienced crack-induced psychosis several times, the last when he marched down the Main Street of a small Town in Mississippi wearing a Santa suit and throwing bags filled with shit at passing cars and Pedestrians. A man I don’t know thinks it was meth and he believes that Roy probably hadn’t slept in several days and was suffering from a severe case of sleep deprivation. Everyone else thinks it was PCP or acid. Either or both have the strength to take your mind, make you see and hear things that aren’t there and drive you insane. Either or both can do this to a Person in the short term or the long term. Either or both can do this to a first-time user. The Bald Man says that Roy was a Drinker and that he hated drugs and he hated everyone who used them and that he would never have done them. He thinks he just went insane. No rhyme, no reason, just a malfunctioning mind that finally lost all. I don’t have a theory. I sit and listen and I drink my coffee and I wait for the screaming to go away.
The men drift back to bed, one by one, tired and tired of talking. They drift until I’m the last and only one awake, me and the industrial coffee and the pale, quiet walls and the slow, lonely moments and the living, shifting dark of the deepest night. I sit at the table and I smoke cigarettes and I sip my coffee. I listen to the ticking of an unseen clock and I think about how a malfunctioning mind might finally lose all and I remember. Sit stare smoke sip listen tick remember. A malfunctioning mind can lose all. It has lost all. Remember.
I remember her. I remember her tall and thin and long and blonde like the thickest silk her eyes blue eyes Arctic eyes I remember her. I remember leaving her on the afternoon I dropped off the bag of dope for Lucinda. I remember seeing her the next day. I remember not speaking to her, but wanting to speak to her and not being able to speak to her. I remember staring at her, recklessly and obviously, eyes locked and loaded and unmoving, my eyes straight into her. I remember not knowing if she noticed. I had fallen deep and hard I had fallen. I didn’t know if she noticed.
I kept staring at her for the next year. In the Street, through Hallways, on sidewalks, at a table, outside a Coffee Shop, inside a Bar, morning afternoon night. If I was where she was I stared at her. I wanted to talk to her, but I didn’t. Never hello, never how are you, never what’s up, never what’s new, I never said a word, I just stared at her. After a while I knew that she knew I was doing it, but she never told me to stop. I just stared.
She disappeared at the beginning of our third year. I didn’t know where she went and I didn’t ask anyone. It wasn’t uncommon for Students to spend time away either abroad or working, so I assumed she would be back. If she hadn’t come back, I would have left to find her. She was away away and if she hadn’t come back, I would have searched to the end of the Earth. I would have searched until I found her.
I saw her again in a Class. It was the first Class of a new Fall, fifteen months from the time of her disappearance. I walked in drunk from the night before and dizzy with dehydration and exhaustion and I took a seat in the back of the Room, away from the rest of the Students, as far away as I could get. I put my arms down on my desk and I put my head down in my arms and I closed my eyes and my head spun my stomach spun my body spun and I tried to keep myself awake and I tried to keep myself from getting sick I