Stepping Stones (8 page)

“Good-bye, Pa.”

I picked up my duffel and left the cabin where
I had
spent the first fifteen years of my life.  I walked down the dirt road to Auger’s Crossing, and when I got to the river, I headed downstream and kept on going.

I never looked back.

*        *        *

I awoke slowly.  Sunlight streamed into the stall, lighting the straw with a warm
yellow
glow.  Breathing in the sweet scent of alfalfa, I lay quietly, listening to the sounds of the waking farm.  Sandy’s mare whinnied in the next stall, kicking impatiently for her morning feed.  The cows’ lowing told me they needed attention too, and I heard the chickens already scratching in the yard.

I rubbed my eyes.  S
itting up, I spotted Christy Sullivan standing in the doorway.  From her expression, I knew
she had
prepared herself for the worst.

“Good morning, Mr. Neuman,” she said.

“Morning, Christy.”

She took a deep breath.  “Mr. Neuman, is Lucky—”

Before I could answer, Lucky shook off his blanket and let out a big, happy yelp.

“Mr. Neuman, you fixed her!’ Christy squealed, running to her dog.

“Yeah, honey, I did.  It’ll be some time before he’s walking again, but he’s gonna be all right.”

I got a good feeling watching the two of them together—Christy kneeling in the straw talking nonsense to Lucky, Lucky licking any bare skin on his master he could
reach
.  Then, with a puzzled frown, Christy studied her dog for almost a full minute, her eyes fixed on him intently.  Then she turned to me.

Something about her
abruptly
changed.  Curious, I searched her eyes,
again
noticing
that
they were a deep, deep blue shot through with tiny flecks of gold.  With a shock, I realized
I had
been right the day before.  They
were
just like Ma’s.

Thoug
h I tried, I couldn’t look away
.  Time seemed to stop.
I felt something shift
ing inside my head.  All
at once memories began flashing past my mind’s eye:  Ma.  The boulder.  Georgie’s death.  What
I had done for Lucky.  Everything.

Christy and I stared at each other, lost in the shock of recog
nition.  A chill ran through me. 
Christy was different, too.  In some strange way she was just as different as I, and she knew about me as well.  She knew what
I had
done, all of it, and what it had cost me.

Without a word, Christy put her arms around my neck and gave me a hug. 
Somehow,
for me, that hug was like Ma’s cleansing rain.  For the first time since Georgie’s death I knew that I wasn’t alone, and that there was so
meone I could trust.  Then
I felt something break inside
me, shatter like ice on a pond, and w
ith blinding clarity I saw the terrible burden of hate
I had
given myself to carry, and I realized what it had done to me.

Shaken, I walked to the window and leaned on the sill.  At the foot of the pasture I could see a sliver of river glittering through the cottonwoods.  The trees had just begun to show
spring’s
first promise of green, and the air had a snap to it, crisp and clean.  I stood for a long time.  Finally I knew what I had to do.

There were others like Christy and me, and somehow
I would
find them.  But first I had to return to Auger’s Crossing.  There were things there to set right.  A lot of things.  I didn’t know whether I could, but while some of the men
I had
cursed still lived, I knew I had to try.  And there was something else
I had
to do
in Auger’s Crossing
as well.  There was an old man
there who lived
in a cabin by the river.  I had to see him one more time.

I stood a few moments
longer
, gazing across the valley.  At last I turned back to Christy. 
She had
rejoined Lucky and was sitting beside him in the straw, cradling his head in her lap.  I felt a surge of satisfaction, knowing
I had
told her the truth.  It would take months, but in the end her pup would be all right.

And with luck, and in time . . . so would I.

I Can’t Sleep

E
ver think about killing yourself?

No, of course not.  The world’s been good to you.  You’re not ready to check out
yet
.  Never even considered it, right?

Yeah, sure.

Well, let’s suppose, just for the sake of argument, that you
did
want t
o take your own life.  You have
incurable cancer, say, and you’re in intractable pain.  Or you’ve suffered a stroke
or been in a car accident and can’t move a muscle, ever again
. 
Or you’re clinically depressed and getting through each and every day is a crushing, hopeless nightmare. 
Use your imagination and come up with your own scenario; the world has plenty of cruelties to dish out.  If you’re truthful,
no matter who you are,
you’ll admit
that there is
a point
past which life is
no longer worth living.  Believe me . . . I know.

So, given the foregoing, here’s question number two:  How would you do it?

Ideally, dying should be quick and painless, right?  No argument there.  Quick and painless.  Unfortunately, those two words cover a lot of ground.  For instance, if you do it properly, sucking the end of a twelve-gauge shotgun and thumbing the trigger is probably painless.  It’s also quick, although
it has
the
disadvantage of being a bit messy.  So
is sitting in a tub of warm water and letting your blood slowly seep from a razored artery, but there’s an intrinsic difference (besid
es the tub cleaning up with the mere
pull of
the
plug) between the two.  With the former you’re suddenly . . .
gone
; with the latter you have time to consider the consequences of your final act, to fully
appreciate
those penultimate moments
of approaching
death.

On our last night together, those were options
I gave my friend Holden Carr.  Instant death with a
bullet to the head, or the
delayed experience
of a long drop to the pavement.

His choice.

I’ll never forget the look on his face.  At the time I recall thinking
that
his
nasty
attitude
about the situation was
completely
unrealistic
.  In retrospect I can understand it, but I still don’t think he was being fair.  Especially considering what
he had
planned to do to me.

My name is John Starling, and I’m an insomniac.  Sounds like
something you’d hear at an
A
A meeting, right?  Okay,
alcoholism is a serious problem, but in my book it doesn’t come cl
ose to insomnia.  For me there is
no support group,
no meetings,
no
sponsor
to
help
me
through the rough spots
, no twelve-step, one-day-at-a-time approach to
recovery
.  There
is
a bright side, though.  Because of my affliction I’ve become an extremely wealthy man.  But sometimes, in the early hours of morning, I can’t help
but think
that if
I had
been able to sleep
,
perhaps Holden would still be alive.

It started
about
five months ago.  I’m a swimming-pool contractor.  Maybe you’ve heard of me.  Starling Pools, Inc.  I work the Las Vegas/Clark County area—mostly residential, but I’ve done some big
jobs
for the hotels as well.  I like my
work
.  Nonetheless, as with any occupation, there’s stress.  Goes with the territory.  So when I began having trouble sleeping, I figured that’s what it was.  Stress.

I was wrong.

Missing a little sleep doesn’t sound like much, does it?  Well, at first it wasn’t.  I’ve always been able to
get at least
seven or eight hours of shuteye every night.  It was something I took for granted—like the sun coming up in the morning or subcontractors trying to screw
me
—so when I unexpectedly found that all I could manage was two or three
hours a night
, I told myself it was temporary.  Stress-related.  Whatever.

I cut down on coffee.  Then I stop
ped drinking caffeine entirely.  At night I tried w
arm milk, sleeping pills, exercise, hot baths, pot,
even
reading
Scientific American
.  Things got worse.  Soon it wasn’t just a
little
sleep I was missing.  It was all of it.

In time I didn’t even bother going to bed.  Instead I stayed up watching late-night TV, hoping
I would
get bored enough to
nod
off for a
few hours on the couch.  We have
a big ranch-style
home
(
patio and
pool out back, of course) just off Washington Street, and the TV in the den
was
far enough from our bedroom that I didn’t have to worry about disturbing my wife, Sarah, who has
no
trouble sleeping.  After a while I didn’t care what
I watched—old movies, CNN news, The Weather Channel, talk shows—not to mention the mind-numbing commercials for hits-from-the-sixties records (no
t available in any store!)
,
fast-food,
Ginsu knives.  Sometimes after the sign-off
I would
just sit and stare at the snow on the screen.  I read once that the
“snow”
you get on a dead
TV
channel is
actually
the
visual signature
of
the
cosmic background radiation,
an
electromagnetic remnant of the Big Bang.  P
eople the world over have been gazing at TV snow for years, thinking nothing of it.  Then
in the sixties
two guys do a simple experiment an
d figure out what it is.  Voilà!
  Nobel Prize.
 
But that’s the way life is.  You can look at something all your life and never see it
for what it really is
.

One morning Sarah padded into the den, her auburn hair fetchingly disheveled from sleep.  “John, you look awful,” she said, leaning down to kiss me.  “You can’t go on like this, honey.  You’re seeing Dr. O’Brien today,” she added, her voice slipping into its no-nonsense mode.

I flipped off the TV.  “Can’t.  Got meetings this morning and a full afternoon.”  Wearily, I ground my fists into my eyes.  “I’ll be okay.”

“Absolutely not.  Call your office and have someone else take
care of things,” she said, her partially open terry
cloth robe revealing her long dancer’s legs.  Even first thing in the morning she looked great.

“But—”

“No buts.  You’re going to see Dr. O’Brien today, and that’s that.  I’ll have the girls work you into the schedule.”

When I first met Sarah
she was
a featured dancer in a feather show at the Tropicana.  I noticed her right off.  Aside from being the most gorgeous woman
I had
ever seen, she could
dance
.
  I couldn’t take my eyes off her.  She has a distinctive way of carrying herself, a physical presence I can spot across a room—the way she stands, the set of her shoulders, the tilt of h
er head.  We started going out.  S
ix months later we
were
married.  Sarah quit the show, got a job as a medical assistant, and before long
she
moved up to the front office.  She has a knack for compute
rs and a flair for organization, and
within a year
she had
become the office manager for the medical corporation of Jenkins, Gilbert, and O’Brien.  Beauty
and
brains.  I was a lucky guy, and I knew it.

Sitting in the den, I knew from Sarah’s expression
that
there was no use arguing.  Anyway, she was right.  My of
fice runs just fine without me.  B
esides, I hadn’t been worth a damn at work since
I
stopped sleeping.  Sometimes
I would
be sitting at my desk and realize I had no recollection of what had happened for the past thirty minutes.  It was time to get help.

So p
romptly at ten-fifteen that morning I shuffled into the office of Jenkins, Gilbert, and O’Brien.  Following a short w
ait, a nurse ushered me into an
examining room.  Moments later Dr. O’Brien entered, flipping through my chart on the way in.  Dr. O’Brien was short, stout, and missing most of his hair. 
I had
met him several times at office parties I’d attended with Sarah.

“Hello, John,” he said.  “Your wife tells me you’re having trouble sleeping.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” I grumbled.  “Truth is, I haven’t been sleeping at all.”

“Oh, I seriously doubt
that
,” he said with a knowing smile.  “The human body can’t go without sleep for more than a few days.”

As near as I could tell, I hadn’t slept in a week . . . not counting those blank periods at work.

“You’ve probably been catching catnaps here and there
that you
don’t remember,” he continued pleasantly.  “Had any stress lately?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” I snapped.  Dr. O’Brien’s cheery attitude was beginning to bug me.

“Okay, John,” he said, settling his considerable bulk on the edge of the examining table.  “Insomnia’s a fairly common occurrence.  Most people experience it at one time or another, and it’s usually temporary.”  His reassuring voice had taken on a pedantic, singsong tone, and I had to struggle to appear properly attentive.

“Some people can get by on a few hours a night,” he droned on.  “Others need as many as ten.  There’s a big range, you see, but the main cause of insomnia is usually anxiety and stress.  I’m going to prescribe a drug that should help you relax and get you back on track.  Take two before bedtime,” he added, handing me a hastily scribbled prescription.

“What is it?” I asked suspiciously, trying to decipher his writing.

“
It’s a drug that
relieves anxiety and promotes sleep.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“Oh, I suppose we could try another drug.  At that point
we would
probably also consider doing a complete workup—blood, EEG, CAT scan—to rule out any organic etiology.  Maybe get a neurologic consult as well, perhaps a psychiatric evaluation.”  Smiling, Dr. O’Brien rose from the table.  “But I don’t think that will be necessary.  Make an appointment for next week.  We’ll see how you’re doing then.”

I got the drift:
  Get better, John . . . or else.

I set up an appointment for the following Thursday, but I never kept it.  By then I didn’t care.

By then the visions had started.

On the way home from Dr. O’Brien’s
,
I made several stops—one to fill my prescription, another to pick up food at the market. 
We had
invited Holden over for dinner that night, and although I didn’t feel like company, it was too late to cancel.  As I shopped, I abruptly realized that people were staring at me.  Though I never caught them, I could feel their accusing eyes following me as I passed
shoppers
in the aisles.  I got out of there as quickly as I could.  All the way home I kept wondering the same thing: 
What was happening to me?

That night Holden knocked on our door
at
around seven.  “Hi, guys,” he said, strolling in and punching me lightly on the shoulder, then giving Sarah a kiss.  I’d met Holden in college;
we had
played football together at the University of Arizona and been friends ever since.  Holden was big, even bigger than
I am
, and solidly built. 
He had
kept himself in shape, although lately I’d detected
what looked like
the beginnings of a paunch.

“I want you to meet somebody,” Holden continued, proudly
placing
an arm around his date—a wi
llowy young thing named Sandee
who was short on brains and long on looks.  Definitely Holden’s type.  Sandee cocktailed the late shift at the MGM Grand and had to be at work at eleven, so we got right down to drinks.