Benchley, Peter - Novel 07 (11 page)

 
          
 
"This is dangerous stuff, man. I never
knew treatment was a contact sport."

 
          
 
A cigarette machine stood against the wall by
the front door. "A buck and a half!"
Preston
said. "When I was smoking, cigarettes
were fifty cents." He fished in his pocket and found four quarters.

 
          
 
"Welcome to the wonderful world of
addiction." Duke dropped two quarters into
Preston
's hand.

 
          
 
Preston
studied the machine. "What's a good brand?"

 
          
 
"That's not the point."

 
          
 
Preston
looked
at him, nodded. "Right." He pumped the coins into the machine, closed
his eyes, ran his fingers along the levers and pulled one.

 
          
 
As they followed the crowd toward the main
building,
Preston
said to Duke that if he believed in such
things, he'd place bets that Marcia had ESP: She knew more about him than he
knew about himself. At least, that's what it seemed like.

 
          
 
"Go on," Duke said. "They got
you believing it now?"

 
          
 
"I don't know about believing. But she's
sure got me wondering."

 
          
 
The dining hall reminded
Preston
of prep school: a white, brightly lighted,
antiseptic room bisected by steam tables. One side was reserved for counselors
and staff, the other for patients.

 
          
 
They collected plastic trays and sets of
flatware wrapped in paper napkins, and joined the line.

 
          
 
"I figured out the trick to survival
here," Duke said as he reached a bony arm under the plastic "sneeze
bar" and grabbed a Jell-O salad. "Keep 'em focused on other people.
Then they can't zero in on you."

 
          
 
Preston
took cottage cheese with a cherry on top. "You'll never learn anything
that way. You're here. You might's well get something from it. Besides, you've
got an ego like everyone else. You want some attention."

 
          
 
Duke took a plate of meat that looked orange
under the heat lamps. "Listen: After today, I don't even want old hippie
Dan to think about me. I was lucky to get out alive. You shoulda seen that
loopy Natasha. If that chair'd been one of her eight husbands, man, he'd be
nothing but a smear on the rug."

 
          
 
Preston
took
a bowl of stew full of mocha things and a glass of iced tea, and he and Duke
turned to find a table. Most of the tables were occupied, and though the
atmosphere in here was congenial, if not merry, and everybody seemed to be
chatting and nobody was looking mopey or hostile, he didn't feel like sitting
with strangers. He and Duke found an empty table for four.

 
          
 
"They've got you coming and going,"
Preston
said as he sat down. "They say you're
only here to ask questions about yourself; then they say if you have to ask
questions that means you've got the problem. Bang! Gotcha!"

 
          
 
"I'll admit anything," Duke said.
"For twenty-eight days, I'll admit I'm a Chinaman if they want."

 
          
 
A voice behind them said, "An idiot, yes,
but a Chinaman . . . that's a reach."

 
          
 
It was Lewis, and with him was Hector, and
without being invited they unloaded their plates on the table.

 
          
 
Lewis said, "Hector told me to tell you
we'd only join you if you promise not to make a pass at us."

 
          
 
"Like hell!" Hector protested. He
did not appreciate being teased. "I never said that."

 
          
 
Duke waited until they had settled, and then
he said, "Lewis, you can worry about earthquakes, you can worry about
terrorists, you can worry about being buggered by guys from the planet Mercury,
but me you do not have to worry about."

 
          
 
Lewis smiled. "I'll count my
blessings."

 
          
 
Preston
had
his fork poised over his stew when he noticed that Hector was muttering some
Spanish words and had his eyes closed and his hands folded before him. He put
his fork down.

 
          
 
Hector finished his prayer and pulled a
medallion from under his T-shirt and kissed it. "Amen," he said. ‘Fuckin'
starvin' . . ." He grabbed a slab of white bread and scooped a glutinous
brown mash of beans and wiener sections onto it and folded it over and packed
it into his mouth.

 
          
 
Preston
took a couple of bites of stew. He looked at Lewis. "You said . .
."He hesitated. "Is it all right to I talk about what went on
in—?"

 
          
 
"Of course!" Lewis laughed.
"Nobody has any secrets here. Nobody can. I've already heard about
Natasha's Tennessee Williams act, and that Mr. Wonderful here"—he pointed
at Duke with his fork—"tried to start an orgy."

 
          
 
"Hey-" I Preston cut Duke off.
"Lewis, you said, before she stopped you, you said you have the gift of
alcoholism."

 
          
 
"Indeed I did," Lewis said. "I
like to think of it as a gift, like Mozart's, only malignant. Not everybody has
it, and having the gift alone isn't enough. To be a real alcoholic you have to
practice. The trouble is, they insist it's a disease, and they don't welcome
theories that muddy the waters."

 
          
 
Hector spoke through a shoal of franks and
beans. "Bein' a junkie ain't special. Anybody can do it."

 
          
 
"I couldn't," Lewis said. "I
tried heroin once. It made me deathly ill." He turned to
Preston
. "I don't bother to fight the powers
that be. I just clutch at every straw of dignity in life that I can."

 
          
 
"Why are you limping?" Marcia asked
Dan Farina as they walked to the dining hall. As always, he tended to walk
closer to her than was smart; as always, she edged sideways and kept a full
yard of daylight between them.

 
          
 
Dan told her he had been crushed by half a ton
of drunks. **But it was great! I finally got Natasha in touch with her anger.
After four weeks of holding out on me, I think today she killed all her
husbands and her mother and her sister who's always resented her."

 
          
 
“How do you know she wasn't acting?"

 
          
 
"Just to please me? She doesn't give a
hoot about me. She's the most perfectly self-absorbed person I've ever seen. I
don't think anybody else exists in her world, except as a foil for her. You
know: 'Enough about me. Tell me what you thought of my performance.' There's a
word for it."

 
          
 
"Solipsism."

 
          
 
"Solipsism. Right."

 
          
 
"But that's what I mean. You have power
over her. If you don't give the okay, she doesn't leave here. Or at least
doesn't get her medallion and the kiss on the cheek. Maybe she thought: This
guy wants to see me bust loose. Okay, I'll bust loose. Here we go. Busting
Loose, Take One."

 
          
 
"No, she was genuine. I can tell genuine
anger."

 
          
 
"She's an actress.''

 
          
 
"Would she do that?" Dan frowned as
he held the door to the dining hall for her.

 
          
 
"I'm probably wrong." Why spoil his
day? she thought. "Your glasses are still cockeyed."

 
          
 
As they joined the food line, Marcia looked
around the patients' section and saw
Preston
sitting with Lewis and Hector and someone she didn't know.

 
          
 
She said to Dan, "What's your new one
like? The beanpole over there."

 
          
 
"Duke? A lulu. He's still locked up in
his bad space. But I’ll reach him. I'm pretty sure he felt the love
today."

 
          
 
"I wish mine was a lulu. They're down in
black and white. They try to deny they've got a problem, you show them the
court order. I've got myself William F. Buckley, Jr."

 
          
 
"No kidding?" Dan looked over his
shoulder.

 
          
 
"You know what I mean. Ivy League. Smart.
Articulate. This whole unpleasant business is all a ghastly mistake."

 
          
 
''They 're protected.''

 
          
 
"Genetically and socially. They don't do
the real colorful stuff, don't get arrested, don't stab somebody, almost never
end up in the gutter. They don't bottom out. Denial's real easy."

 
          
 
Dan took some pears on a bed of wilted
lettuce. "Even when they die of it, the obit says 'congestive heart
failure' or 'a long illness.' " He picked up a bowl of chopped apples and
nuts and put it on her tray.

 
          
 
"Don't do that!" she hissed.

 
          
 
"You like fruit. You put fruit on your
cereal every morning,"

 
          
 
"That's at home. This is here. Here we're
colleagues, nothing more. You don't know squat about me except for lunch."

 
          
 
Dan grinned and shook his head. "You're
paranoid."

 
          
 
"Bet your honky ass I'm paranoid. I like
my job. I'd like to keep it."

 
          
 
"Lecture time," Lewis said as he
piled his plates on his tray.

 
          
 
Preston
had
been smoking a cigarette with his coffee, watching Marcia and the other
counselor go through the line. He saw the guy put something on her tray, saw
she didn't like that. Interesting. Is there something going on there? He wanted
to ask Lewis, but Lewis was already walking to the line of people waiting to
pass their dirty dishes through the window into the kitchen. He stacked his
dishes and got up.

 
          
 
He stood in line behind Lewis, who was behind
Cheryl.

 
          
 
When Cheryl passed her tray through the
window, the matronly scullion looked at the untouched food and leaned down and
said to Cheryl, "You gotta eat, child. Else, you never get well."

 
          
 
Cheryl said, "I didn't feel so
good," and she turned away.

 
          
 
Lewis waited for
Preston
to dispose of his tray, and they walked
together toward the door.