Night Navigation Page 6

  "No calls for me here will be from friends," he says. It's Carla. His mom won't call unless he leaves her a "Call me" message.

  She nods. "You're unavailable." Seems to make sense to her. "Tomorrow after group, you ready to start looking for a rehab bed?"

  He gives her the thumbs-up. "Thanks," he says. He's trying to remember the thank yous. Rozmer's big on thank yous.

  Tuesday, March 5, 2002, third day here. They're waiting on his mental health clinic to fax some records. Right now seems like New Vistas is the way to go. It's a place he knows. It's got a MICA section. That's him: a mentally ill chemical abuser. MICA Mark. Dual diagnosis. Brochures say 70 percent of people with severe mental illness abuse something. You are not alone. And at New Vistas he can have a bass. If he's a good boy and follows the rules. Got to get a bass. Time to call his mom. Call her collect. Keep the pay phone from eating up his card. Save that for Rozmer-minutes. A bass and Puma sneakers.

  He waves to the people at the nurses' station on his way by. Phone booth cave painting—not your usual WANT A BLOW JOB subterranea.

  RIGOROUS HONESTY FILLING THE VOID

  HITTING BOTTOM

  He dials home using zero. He hears his mom pick up. That's a surprise. "Collect call from … 'Mark'…say yes if you'll accept the charges."

  "Yes," she says. Scared voice.

  "Nothing's wrong. Just didn't want to use up my card. Thought I better save that for calls to Rozmer."

  "How are you doing?"

  "I'm doing good. Had my last dose of methadone yesterday. That's all gone okay. It's a good place."

  "I'm glad."

  The relief sigh. Ask her about her trip home. "How did the drive back go?"

  "Well, I had a strange night, a weird night at the Nomad Motel, but the trip home was easy. I made it in five hours."

  "How's Luke?"

  "He's fine. Luke and I just came back from the falls."

  "I'm surprised you answered the phone. People calling for me?"

  That flicker of hesitation: censor-filter to On. "Wayne Smith left a message on the machine about the money you owe him. A few computer calls from the jail. I had everything turned off, but then I decided it was easier just to listen to who it was and pick up if I needed to."

  "I just refused a call from Carla."

  "Oh."

  Her "Oh" means she doesn't want to know any more. "How about the computer?"

  She laughs. "Well, I had a dilly of a time getting it all boxed. Richard came down yesterday and took it up there in the truck."

  Thank-you time. "I appreciated you giving me the ride. I know how hard that was for you." Pause. He sits down on the little seat. One of those old wooden phone booths. You think about it. A phone booth has a lot of metaphorical potential.

  "It was the right thing to do," she says.

  He hears the tears in her voice. "Sorry about the hassle, the phone calls. Should cool down the longer I'm gone. One of the reasons I'm going away so all this … chaos doesn't have to be in your … environment."

  "Yes," she says. "Flat. I'm ready for flat."

  "The social worker's helping me line up a rehab. I'm thinking New Vistas. Though I don't want to go through all that psychodrama stuff again with John."

  "Will Rozmer be able to give you a ride?"

  "Don't worry. I'm sure we'll work something out." He shouldn't have mentioned a topic that involved transport, zoned her into anxiety before bringing up the bass. Too late now. "I'm wondering if you can express me the Musician's Friend catalog? It's on the shelf in the loft. Could you possibly help me get a bass? I feel like being able to play bass while I'm at rehab, when I go to halfway is critical. I must have some money left from this month."

  A long breath. Possibly gathering "just say no" energy. "You're going to need cigarettes, phone cards, maybe bus fare. There's your part of the computer payment. I don't have the figures right here, but I did list it all out."

  He has got to have the bass. And sneakers. But don't get into the Pumas now. "Well, if you could just send me the catalog. I don't need anything really expensive." He can feel her thinking. Main thing: for him not to end up back there.

  "How much longer do you think you're going to be at the hospital? I'll send you the catalog express, but it probably won't get there until Thursday."

  "Oh, it'll get here in time."

  "Well, let me know how much the bass will cost and we'll see."

  "Thank you." She will go for it. He knows she will. "Once I get through all this, I'm going to be able to get a job. I'm planning to pay you back." This is a tired line, but he means it.

  "I'll give you a call as soon as New Vistas is all set." He lets her hang up first. Right by the return coin slot, an inch-high scrawl:

  HAVING FUN YET?

  A few inches below that he writes:

  WEIRD NIGHT IN THE NOMAD MOTEL

  New Vistas is full up. They're having trouble finding beds for everybody, not just him. March must be a bottom month. At least he's got the insurance, the disability shit in place already. Most everybody else here, sitting around filling out the forms. He's actually been helping people. Pages and pages. All the places you ever lived, your jobs, your hospitalizations. When-to-whens. If you're actually able to fill in all these blanks, remember all that past shit, prima facie evidence, you aren't eligible. His mom did most of his forms, him sitting beside her, having delusions. Social Security interviewer grilling him for an hour on the phone. Only interview you don't want to do too well on. Incoherent is good. Final clincher, his mom's therapy records. Those records helped prove he was out-there-wacko before he was twenty-two. How he got the survivor's benefits on his dad's Social Security. Got to prove you're sick to qualify as a survivor. 'Course in his more lucid moments—like now—he wonders if it's a scam. Is it his head or the drugs? His head and the drugs? Or maybe just an everyday character disorder?

  His roommate says, "What day is it?" Kid from Brooklyn. Crack. Nasty rattle. The guy's third time here.

  "Wednesday, March 6th, 2002." Nothing to it.

  From the hall: "Phone call for Mark Merrick." He pokes his head out. "Your mom. Said to tell you she's got bus schedules."

  Bus schedules—definitely his mom. The phone booth as sarcophagus, as space capsule, as sentry box, as womb.

  "Mark?"

  "What's up?" he says.

  "Well, I just thought, in case Rozmer isn't able to take you to New Vistas, I'd better do some bus and train checks. I know no matter what, there's no way I could get back from the White Plains area, even if you do the driving there."

  Got to face it: Rozmer getting him there is looking less of a go. If he doesn't get in today and it's three o'clock now…"Shoot," he tells her.

  "First of all. You cannot get from Camden to White Plains by bus. The only connection is a one-day layover in Syracuse."

  Right away, she's coming at him. He needs a cigarette. "Somebody's got to use the phone. I'll call you back in the next half hour. I'll have a piece of paper so I can get it down."

  Two cigarettes later, paper and a pencil, he's as ready as he's going to get. Still no word from New Vistas. His mom picks the phone up first half-a-ring. "Lay it on me," he says.

  "Well, there's no bus from Camden or Watertown to Marwick either. Same deal. A two-day trip. So if Rozmer can't take you, as long as it's daytime, I can pick you up at the hospital. There's a bus from Marwick to White Plains at seven fifteen A.M. every day. That's the only connection. Then you can take the train from White Plains to Ridgeway. They run every hour. If the bus is on time and you make a dash—it's just across the street—you can catch the one thirty to Ridgeway. Be in Ridgeway by two fifteen. I talked to the dispatcher of a Ridgeway taxi and if we call ahead, they'll be at the train waiting for you. Get you to New Vistas by two forty-five."

  All this on one blast of breath. "Mark? Are you still there?"

  "Yepo."

  "Taxi's ten dollars, plus a tip. You think you can stay at Rozmer's since there's
going to be a gap of a day to make the connections?"

  On the paper before him he has drawn a grotesque picture of a man plastered up against the door of a phone booth, looking out, terror-eyes. An empty bubble ballooning from his mouth. "You know, Mom, I may not even get a bed at New Vistas."

  "I know, but as soon as I began to feel like Rozmer might not be able to give you a ride, then the only way I could deal with that was to make all these phone calls, get on the internet. Write it all down on paper. Call you with the information. As soon as I figured out there was a way, then I could calm down."

  In the bubble he writes THANK YOU. "I'm probably going to know something definite about New Vistas by five. I'll call you around six."

  WEIRD NIGHT IN THE NOMAD MOTEL

  Someone's added:

  CAMEL BELLS, THE INCESSANT SOUGH OF SAND

  Countdown and he's on his last pack: 5:15 and no Ms. Lund. He goes to her office, knocks.

  "Just coming to get you. They've got a bed. They want to know can you be there tomorrow?"

  "Tell them I can," he says.

  Somebody is on the pay phone. Mark signals the guy it's a 911. Rozmer, live. Amazing. "It's Mark. New Vistas has a bed. If you can pick me up tonight, I can get a bus from Marwick to White Plains tomorrow morning."

  "I'm on my way," Rozmer says. "Be there by, say … eleven. Get you to your mom's by, maybe … four A.M."

  "My mom's?" The call box is cold on his forehead. She is not going to like that. "Yeah, right. She can take me to the bus. Stuff I need to get. Yeah, thanks."

  He uses his card. The machine comes on. "It's me, Mark, pick up." Where the fuck can she be?

  "Hello?" Lots of static. "Mark? Wait, I'm outside raking leaves. I'm going in. Luke, get out of the way." The static stops. "Luke is always right where I'm going. Mark?"

  "Rozmer's on his way here."

  "You got a bed?" Relief you could cut with a knife.

  "I have to be at New Vistas by tomorrow afternoon. I'll get home about four A.M. Got to do some laundry, get stuff together. You can take me to the bus in the morning."

  You're coming here?"

  "Don't worry. Three hours. I think I can handle it." He hears his voice. Hyde, right there, ready. "Maybe we'll have time to order a bass." See how he makes her pay. "See you around four," he says, and hangs up.

  He sits in that little corner. After a few minutes, on the wall, close to the receiver, he draws the terror-man's mouth, then the balloon. Small, in the center, just a whisper, SORRY.

  11:00. Discharge completed. He's done all the thank yous. If there's a Junkie-Detox website, this place gets five stars. New sign between the windows: TRUST.

  Last cigarette. No matter. No smoking in Rozmer's space. Chances are good his mom will have gone out and gotten him a couple of cartons of Camels, phone cards, a superpack of Trident. For the teeth grinding.

  Soft knock on the door frame. Ms. Dybek, the night supervisor. Everybody calls her Little Nurse because she's about five feet tall and sweet, the opposite of Kesey's Ratched. "Mark, your ride's here. They just said 'Rozmer.' He's in the lobby."

  "I'll be right there." He gathers his stuff—his backpack, the hospital folder. On the way out he stops at the table, selects a fat green marker, makes the letters so large they almost fill the page and then tapes the paper in the center of the door.

  TREES

  "Good luck," Ms. Dybek says at the elevator, and she shakes his hand.

  In the lobby—no Rozmer. The security guard, Joe, points toward the lounge. Over in the corner, Rozmer, all two hundred fifty pounds, feet up in one of those big La-Z-Boys, zonked. Rozmer is an instant sleeper. You're talking, you look over, Rozmer's in shut-eye mode. Catch as catch can, he calls it. But if you call him in the middle of the night, he can come awake in an instant. He shakes Rozmer's boot. Rozmer's eyes open. "Yo," he says.

  Rozmer's got the Buddha-on-his-lotus smile. He lowers the footrest, big tower rising up to Mark's eye level. "So, how are you doing? Red ghoulies gone?"

  "Good. I'm doing good. Watching the world."

  Outside, Rozmer steers him toward a big old station wagon. A bumper sticker that says, DON'T CROWD ME; I'M PARANOID. "Where's your truck?"

  "I borrowed Charlie's car. I've got to be in Ellenville by seven in the morning. You okay to drive?"

  "Drive? What about the suspended license?"

  "Don't get stopped." Rozmer gives him a hug. "I love you, man," he says, and crawls into the back.

  The keys are in the ignition. "Am I going to know the way?" he says to the dark mountain in the rearview.

  "Yes," the mountain tells him.

  Before Mark makes the turn at Burger King, Rozmer's in dreamland.

  7 : Free Dog

  THE MINUTE SHE PUTS her electric toothbrush in its case, Luke goes and sits by the door. "You have to stay, Luke." He's not buying it.

  She unplugs the floor lamp and pushes it into a corner. The Bensons' three dogs nosing around when Luke is shut up for long stretches on weekends, tormenting him with their freedom, while he tears from window to window, knocking over things: she should deal with that. Driving down from Richard's twice a day to give him a run isn't going to stop his longing to play when his friends drop by. This is the trade-off for having Mark gone.

  She rechecks the front lock: Rudy, on the loose. Her pole barn's still standing, though she dreamed of its charred remains rising up in the fog. No weird calls on the machine for several days. She hadn't mentioned any of that to Mark on his brief entry and exit early this morning. He did some laundry while she ordered the bass and the sneakers, an hour of sleep, and then the successful arrival at Trailways in Marwick in time for him to be off to New Vistas.

  She packs her portfolio case. Somehow she must fit in time to draw at Richard's. She wants to work on the natural world, clean edges, white space. Not these dark images that surge up. As soon as Marna returns, the group will get together again to work from a model. That'll be a boost. Luke rejects the marrow bone she offers to placate as she steps out the door. "I know, but that's the way it is."

  Cold rain and a whiff of manure. At the end of her road, she looks into the hills. If it weren't for the stand of pines, she's sure she could see Richard's house on the far ridge. She turns toward Danford. Pick up Richard's mail. Already there's flooding along the creek. March changing from gray to brown. When Richard gets back from Ithaca, she'll have a fire going. Instead of coming home to a cold house, there she'll be. A day early. She makes the right onto Commercial Street—commercial, still strikes her as funny. Danford, population five hundred. The Danford Block—a Tudor building, currently occupied by Onango Hardware, Valley Antiques, and JAKE'S Grocery. Upstairs, three artist studios, Marna's the biggest one, and meeting rooms for the Masons or VFW or Moose. Across the street, the small post office and on the corner, The Inn, Tudor as well, once a hotel for the wealthy, now a place for warm-weather weddings. She pulls in beside the mail truck.

  "How was Florida?" Fred, the postmaster, says.

  "Great," she tells him. "Better weather, for sure." She's finally forgiven the postmaster for not allowing her to tack up an open invitation to the town to attend Aaron's memorial service at the Presbyterian church. When she had shown him her neatly lettered five-by-eight card for approval, he'd said, No, only public announcements and school news permitted.

  Going back to her car, she nods, smiles, greets several people she knows from coming and going to JAKE'S. One of the many good things about small towns: small talk-chitchat outside the P.O. never stumbles into inquiries like, And how are your kids doing? Everybody already knows.

  She turns left at the monument to take the back road to Richard's. True, she can now buy her stamps without that burn of resentment. Grief. Seven years since Aaron's death, but she's never completely forgotten the energy it took to stand up against people urging her that it was time to get on with her life. She went to a few Compassionate Friends meetings. Sitting in a circle with all those parents who had l
ost a child, one of the biggest struggles they all shared was that people in their lives kept telling them they needed to move on. I'll move on, goddammit, when I'm able to move on. They'd all agreed that's what they wanted to say.

  After the first terrible days for her, for Mark, a surge of adrenal energy had filled her: she must arrange the memorial service. She had to get permission to use the church sanctuary. No, please don't light the big cross behind the altar, she told the puzzled church secretary. All of Aaron's friends from music school must be called, his friends from high school in Lawrence. She needed to choose the hymns. The words for "May the Circle Be Unbroken," a song Carla said Aaron loved, must be tracked down. Then she had to find someone to play the piano, to arrange for Marna to make programs with a section from the Bhagavad Gita she knew Aaron would have accepted, that Mark would find right. Especially she needed the part that said, "I am always with all beings; I abandon no one. And however great your inner darkness, you are never separate from me." The same words she and Mark had engraved on the plaque fastened to the big stone that Mark brought from the brook to set above Aaron's ashes up on the hill beside his father's marker.

  The back road is a sluice of mud ruts, her wheels catch, and for part of the climb, it's best to let the car slip and slide as it will. Red water rushes down the ditches.

  The not seeing it coming, the not reaching in … In the summer of 1977, news of Lee's suicide had spread through the town. When a person kills himself, herself, even distant acquaintances are struck with guilt. Shouldn't they have known this person was filled with despair, done something to help? Lee's parents could not face any ceremony at all when he died. They had waited months before Ruth and Ed, before she and Aaron and Mark marched up the hill above the stone house on a gray November day to bury Lee's ashes. All of them numb. She would, damn it, have a real memorial service for Aaron. She was in a rage of grief to have his death claimed. Several hundred people came. Her dear friends, Aaron's and Mark's, many from the town. Mostly she concentrated on keeping Mark from coming apart. He sat beside her, his face hidden by his hood. Sammi supported him on the other side. There was no spoken service, just the hymns, and a friend of Aaron's played one of Aaron's songs on his guitar. The most comforting thing anyone said to her, during all those words that people offer up: "You will never get over this." At last someone fully got it.