Round Rock - Michelle Huneven [18]
“This kid you’re picking up?” Perrin shifted his attention to another open file. “Skinny as a POW. Some liver damage, but I’m not sure the message has gotten through. You might like him, though. Smart.”
AN ETERNITY had passed on the hideous waiting room couch, an eternity plagued by crawly bugs, vague, ominous dreams, and Bobby, who insisted on waking Lewis every few minutes: Glass of water? A final Dilantin? This time, Bobby introduced a large, fair man. “Here’s Red Ray,” Bobby said, and to Red, “I’ll leave you to it.”
The guy had a gut that swelled out over the waistband of his jeans. From Lewis’s vantage point on the sofa, he had a double chin and a protruding, snouty face. His eyebrows, half red, half white, were long and bristly, like a badger’s. His fairness seemed a painful, delicate condition.
“So,” he said. “You want to come to Round Rock.”
Ahh. A friendly sort, with a distinctly visible nimbus of goodwill, a light-flecked shading surrounding his face. Lewis managed to sit up straight. Then again, there was a light-flecked shading around everything—thanks, no doubt, to the many meds he’d been given in detox. “What I want,” Lewis said, “is to get outta here. Why can’t I just leave?”
“With your record, you walk out of here, get drunk, and hurt someone, detox is liable. So somebody else needs to take responsibility for you.”
“Yeah, but I can’t ask anyone to drive a hundred miles up here on a stupid bureaucratic technicality.”
“Why not?”
“No,” Lewis said darkly. “I just couldn’t.”
“I’m sure Bobby told you there are beds upstairs.”
“I couldn’t stay here.”
“If you don’t come with me, you know, they’ll send you over to the state hospital.”
This was the first mention Lewis had heard of a state hospital. “And where would that be?”
“Camarillo,” said Red Ray. “The alcoholism ward. It’s not so bad. Can get pretty hairy, but some guys actually like it.”
Lewis knew about Camarillo. Who didn’t? The big nuthouse. One time he’d been driving with a girl through the Santa Monica Mountains, trying to find a route back over to the coast, and they ran across the place. Tucked up against green rolling hills, the hospital formed a whole little town unto itself. There was no checkpoint, no guard, and they drove right onto the grounds. All the buildings were white with red tiled roofs. The streets were wide and freshly oiled and lined with healthy, thick-trunked palm trees. Expanses of green, closely cropped lawns shimmered in the sun. The girl he was with said she wanted to make love. It would be funny, she said, to have sex at the nuthouse. They drove around looking for a likely spot. The flower beds were all low to the ground, and there were no shrubs. No walls, no nooks. That was the thing about a nuthouse, Lewis guessed: no privacy. Curiously, nobody came out and asked why they were driving around in slow-motion circles. In fact, the only person they saw was a huge-headed man tottering down a red-painted sidewalk. Lewis suggested they do it in the car. The girl said that wouldn’t work for her, so they drove on down the coast.
Lewis was shocked to hear they’d ship him to Camarillo. He was angry, too, that neither Bobby nor the breathing-impaired doctor had mentioned this possibility. On the other hand, it would be ironic if he did wind up inside. He could call that girl and say, “You’ll never guess where I am. Here’s a hint: no place to do it.”
Red, meanwhile, was standing with his hands splayed on his hips, fingers drumming at high idle.
“Sorry,” Lewis said. “Just thinking about this girl I used to know….”
Red regarded him without interest. Not in the mood for reminiscence, Lewis guessed. “And, uh, your place—what goes on there?”