Lithium, Chptr. 16 – Xperience Fiction

Lithium, Chptr. 15 – Xperience Fiction – by Liam Sweeny.

It was, by all accounts, a picturesque day. Partly sunny with a gentle breeze that carried the scent of cinnamon through the camp, strong enough to make the odor of garbage an afterthought. The children outside were cheerful, their voices scattering off tree trunks and leaves as they ran and jumped in the main path. Andy’s voiced mixed in with the symphony of spring enjoyment. In the distance, some Atlantic R&B played through an old stereo system, giving a soundtrack to everyone’s light-hearted folly.

Mel coughed to bring up remaining bits of bile after throwing up outside the tent.

It had been four days since the last of Mel’s meds ran out. He had stretched for as long as he could, and he thought he had done it right, but the pile of vomit on the ground awaiting a hard rain told otherwise. He glanced up at the azure sky and squinted. It wasn’t too bright; it was too vibrant. In fact, everything was too vibrant. He couldn’t handle the intensity; it was an unwitting and unwilling acid trip that his mind had sprung on him.

He could smell the cinnamon, and it was comforting. It reminded him of the cinnamon buns his mother would make on Sundays, the kind that came in tubes, blobs of which popped out when she’d let Mel rip the packaging open. But even the cinnamon was intense. Cinnamon brought back mom, and mom brought back the anger of her neglect, her post-partum denial of her son that never found its way out of her life, only creative outlets. His mother accomplished great things in the pursuit of running away.

Mel pulled his sleeping bag to cover his shoulders before sliding back into the tent. He laid down on a yoga mat he got in trade for a coat of arms, part of a whole set of trade items. They had to cut the yoga pad to fit the tent, but they made use of the trimmings, turning them into seat covers for the folding chairs, another trade item from a different trade. Mel hadn’t painted, or traded, since he ran out of meds.

He hugged himself with his arms to keep the chills from ripping him apart. He only wished he had a fever. Acetaminophen could take care of it, and he had a small first aid kit in the car. But this wasn’t a body function. It was a mind function. His mind was having to contemplate an existence it hadn’t faced in well over a decade. And serotonin was pounding his amygdala like a heavyweight in a sparring session.

He was faux-feverish and nauseous, his heart played pinball in his rib cage, his head was in full spin, and everything that touched his skin was sharp and stung, even the soft lining of the sleeping bag – nothing but road spikes. But that wasn’t the worst of it. All the physical malaise could be endured. In fact, Mel would feel amazingly content if all he felt was physical. But it was the fresh hell in his mind that damned him by the minute.

He couldn’t process the idle thoughts that popped into his head; the trivial stuff, the ‘it’s such a nice day’ stuff. He couldn’t think of the weather. His brain conjured up images and voices from his life, and his brain dissected them into phony and nothing special, stripped them of their humanity, and spat them back out at him. He needed people right then, probably more than he ever did, and his brain was dead set on pushing human authenticity away.

But his brain didn’t stop at the people in his life. What it did to them was nothing compared to what it did to him. His brain had an armory of ammunition against him, and it was in that armory, picking up weapons and test-firing. Every lie Mel ever told himself, everything that made him feel big reduced to a thing that made him feel small. Every invitation to guilt or sorrow was food for the war machine. Mel deserved homelessness. He deserved a hell that must exist because he didn’t believe in it.

The tent unzipped and Andy came in. Mel wanted him to leave. Mel wanted him to stay. After Andy came Marybeth. Mel just wanted her to leave. Andy had a plastic container with a blue lid on it.

“I’m not hungry,” he said. “You can give that to someone.”

Andy set the container down and placed a wrapped, plastic spoon on top of it.

“You gotta’ eat, Dad. You haven’t eaten anything in two days, and you’ve been puking.”

“I’ll be okay,” Mel said. “I just gotta relax, kiddo. I’ll be fine.”

“Please, dad, eat. For me. Even if you puke. I won’t take no for an answer,”

Mel didn’t have the energy to yell at Andy, nor did he want to. If trying to eat would get them out of there, it was worth doing. He picked up the container and opened the spoon packaging with one hand. He then opened the container to reveal chicken soup. The smell wasn’t nauseating, but it was intense. He dipped the spoon into the soup and drew it into his mouth. It wasn’t good or bad to him, just wet, and his mouth absorbed it, bringing on a thirst that could never be quenched. He brought the soup container to his lips and drank it like a cold soda, burning his mouth and not caring about the pain.

“Dad, Marybeth is a nurse.”

Mel held a hand up to wave, the soup’s course to his belly the only thing on his mind.

“I hear you’re getting withdrawals from psych meds,” she said. “Do you mind if I take your vitals?”

Mel didn’t like medical people, but he knew fighting would prolong the interaction. He unrolled his sleeve and sat up enough to get out of the sleeping bag. Marybeth put the cuff on him and squeezed the bulb, then listened to his heart and took his temperature.

“Blood pressure’s a bit high,” she said. “Do you have high blood pressure?” Mel shook his head.

“Temp’s a little high, but you just had hot soup,” Marybeth said. “Blood pressure could be stress.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out a translucent orange bottle.

“These are diazepam, ten milligrams,” she said. “They should calm you down, help you get through it.”

Mel waved her off. “Pills got me into this, I won’t use them to get out.”

“You don’t have to be a hero here,” she said. “Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.”

Mel wanted to argue with her, throw around some misplaced anger. He also wanted to snort every diazepam in the bottle. Instead, he took a different route, faking sleep until he had the tent to himself.

***

His heart was pumping, breaths quick and shallow. The world around him went by in a blur. His focus was singular, just pull himself through the path he’d taken until there wasn’t any path anymore. Sweat poured off him, and in the second he had between breaths, he wondered how he could get his clothes washed. The thought disappeared like every other thought that entered his consciousness. They suggested meditation, but that was just sitting around, giving all the contorted thoughts a chance to fester on the ‘Ohm.’ He couldn’t see how meditation worked on frenetic minds. Instead, he opted to run away from himself.

He stopped near the water spigots and walked over to run his head under one. It was divine. He lived for it every morning when he reached 70 S and started the run. It was all about getting to that water. So, in a way, it was meditation, Ohm supplanted with a vision of sparkling clear.

It had been five days since he started running, a week and a half since he ran out of meds. At first, it was an act of desperation. He was so strung out, he was clinging to any scrap of self-help that made its way into his cerebral cortex. Of course, diet was tough. Creating a good microbiome in his gut was no easy feat when he wasn’t within a dollar or a mile of a farmer’s market. So diet was out as far as something he could be militant about. That left sleep, and exercise. And sleep wouldn’t come willingly, so he chose to drag it along on a daily run.

He slurped the water like a dog. Sweat soaked him, and he gave a bigger thought to getting his clothes washed. He felt good enough to be safe behind the wheel, though he might want to bring Hope or Max. That is, if either of them cared to go.

Mel wasn’t giving an ounce of thought to Max, or Coop. Max was along for the ride, and the ride having ended at the camp, he was doing well enough on his own. Coop knew people here, and word around camp was that he was going to get kicked out for stealing. But Mel made up for his not worrying about them by excessively thinking about Hope.

She never showed up any of the days he’d been sick. He expected her to, even though he wouldn’t have wanted her there at the time. He thought she was a friend. He thought she was more than a friend pending. But she was nowhere to be found.

Mel went back to the camp, where Andy was trying to spin a basketball on his finger. Poor kid was terrified when Mel went off the meds. Mel had the privilege of not having a mirror in which to see himself. Andy got the full view. Mel forgot, too frequently, as of late, that Andy was dependent upon him for his survival, Andy was his son, not a traveling buddy. From then on, he was going to remember that.

He flipped open his phone, determined to chart a course. He needed a job, preferably close to the camp. Wouldn’t make any sense to work only for the gas money to get to work. Bellevue was a small city nearby, on the outskirts of Nashville. Maybe they had something. He searched for jobs in Bellevue, but most of the results came back for Nashville. And even those results required a bachelor’s degree and three- to five years’ experience.

While he was on his phone, he looked up the Guggenheim. Eastern time was an hour ahead, so he chanced a call. The person who answered had no idea who Roy Miller was, or if they had a Roy Miller painting, but agreed to put him on hold once he revealed that he was the son of said Miller. After ten minutes, a new voice.

“Mr. Miller?” The voice said. “I’m Sarah, the curator. I heard you’re asking about the Roy Miller? Are you referring to ‘State Street’, sir?”

“I am.”

“And you’re his son?”

“Yes.”

“I can tell you we don’t have it,” she said. “It’s been sold to the Getty Center in Los Angeles. I can give you their number if you’d like.”

“No thanks,” Mel said. “I can find it. So it was in the Guggenheim?”

She paused. “Yes, sir. For twenty years.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” He hung up.

Andy patted Mel’s arm. “It really was in the Guggenheim?”

“Yup, kiddo,” he said. “I’m a famous painter.” He paused. “Well, Roy is.”

“That shouldn’t surprise you,” a familiar voice said. “You’re amazing.”

Mel turned to see Hope, wrapped up in her own arms. Andy got up.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” he said, and he took his globetrotter game to the main path.

“I missed you,” Mel said.

“I missed you too.”

“Why didn’t you come to visit when I was sick?”

“I did,” she said. “You were throwing up. You told me to get out of here, remember?”

“Actually, I don’t. I really said that?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I didn’t go though. I stayed at the camp. All day, all night, until you started running.”

“Why didn’t I see you?” Mel asked.

“It’s easy to hide in scrap.”

Hope ran over and wrapped her arms around him, and he had to hold himself off from giving her a bear hug. He brushed her hair from in front of her eyes, his thumb hanging on her cheek, as if to catch a tear she might cry. But the tears were coming from his eyes, and she kissed his cheeks, obstructing their path.

“I thought I had lost you,” he whispered. “I don’t want to do that.”

She smiled. “Then I’ll cling to you like plastic wrap.”

Their lips met, soft on soft melding to one mouth speaking one word in a language known only to hearts. He was drawn to her, his hands iron, her blood magnetic and their electricity passing through clothing and prickling their skin.

“Did you throw up in the tent?” She asked.

Mel took a breath, and a second to think. “No,” he said.

“Good,” she said before she dragged him down and in, zippering them inside.

***

Mel hadn’t watched anyone sleep since Andy was very young, just out of diapers. After the problems he had as a baby had gotten better, and he could sleep through the night, Mel would, when unable to sleep at night, go in and with extreme quiet, pull over the rocking chair in the corner and watch him. He breathed through a nose that was just stuffy enough to give sound to his breaths. Mel found it peaceful and hypnotic, both the sounds of rhythmic breathing, and the peace having a son brought him.

Mel didn’t know if he would’ve stayed on his meds if Andy hadn’t been born. He signed a contract in the delivery room, signed it with a Styrofoam cup of black coffee, to be responsible, because the lump that would grow up in his arms couldn’t yet be. And so he took his meds, even as Debra started taking meds of her own, or what she called meds. Hers came from a guy who still used a pager and met her in downtown Troy.

Andy was eleven now. He’d soon be a teenager. And that didn’t absolve Mel from being responsible in any way; in fact, it made him even more responsible. Andy would be changing soon, and he would need even more guidance to navigate what would be very troubled waters. Not to mention the fear of Andy going into his twenties and suffering the same fate Mel did, a new generation of the illness.

Mel was starting to love it at the camp. He was starting to know people, to find his place in pigments and brush tips. He could survive there, and he could raise Andy there. But that was assuming everybody wanted paintings forever, or that enough new people would come in, see his work, and want some of their own. He understood in his gut that it wouldn’t last, and his Plan B was a graphite squiggle on a mostly blank page.

He promised Andy he would get them back on their feet and living in a homeless camp wasn’t it. They needed a place of their own. They needed an apartment, and he needed a job.

Hope was asleep in the tent. She’d stayed with him since they made love, and they hadn’t really stopped making love since then. She even was game to the idea of moving her tent over to combine with his camp. He would’ve been thrilled, but he’d have to run it by Andy, who was starting to warm up to Hope, but it was another change in his already-changing world.

They pulled a body out of the camp the night before. It was one of the few times Mel had seen a vehicle come in that wasn’t there to camp. No official information was forthcoming, of course, but the talk around camp was suicide. And considering the talk came from the person that found them, it was probably bankable.

Mel borrowed a paper from Clifford’s office when the camp was mostly awake. He sat on the lawn chair and pored through it. Max was over, a can of hash in his hand as a breakfast offering.

“Checking your stocks?” Max asked.

“Job hunting,” Mel said. “Seeing what’s out there.”

“It’s better to go take a ride. They don’t put the kind of jobs we can get in the paper. The ones that are actually hiring.”

“I could do that,” Mel said. “Where would I go?”

“West Nashville, maybe. Bellevue, definitely.” Max pulled out a keychain can opener. “Really, just any populated place. Can I go with?”

“Sure.”

“Me and Andy will clean up the camp,” Hope turned to Andy. “Do you want to put in a sunroom? I have all the stuff at my camp, but I could use a hand getting it all over here.”

Andy nodded. “That sounds good. Are you moving over here?”

“Gee, I’m not sure. Would you hate it?”

Andy shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “Just help me keep dad okay.”

“What am I, an invalid?” Mel joked. “I’m gonna get the car ready to travel. Kiddo, help me pull the awning off. And get any stuff out that you want today. I don’t think I’ll be back until tonight.”

Mel and Max drove as far and as wide as thirty dollars of gas could get them, with enough gas to get back to the camp. They stopped at gas stations, fast food restaurants, the offices of housing complexes, even a day labor outfit. They found work that day with day labor.

“Excuse me, sir,” Mel said to the man who gave him an application. “I don’t have an address. What do I put in that space?”

“Are you homeless?”

“I am. Sorry.”

“What are you apologizing to me for? Hell, I’m sorry, for you,” he said. “You stay at a shelter?”

“No, a camp,” Mel said.

“Oh, the camp. Yeah, we get people from the camp working here. You on drugs?”

“No, no drugs.”

“You don’t look nutso, so just put ‘1 Route 70 S’ for the address, first line, then Nashville. That’ll work. If the IRS comes after you for the address, I didn’t tell you to do that. But you’re just doing day labor, so…”

Mel and Max finished the paperwork, including the W-2s, and they were put to work, sent out to an apartment complex to mow lawns and trim shrubs. They worked until dusk and got paid when they got back. Fifty dollars each.

On the way back, Mel did the math.

“Fifty bucks, and it cost twenty bucks, about, getting to day labor, to the job, and back to day labor. So thirty bucks for a day’s work. And how much for the deposit and first month’s rent of a shithole apartment in Nashville?”

Max laughed. “That’s hilarious,” he said.

As they were nearing the road into the camp, Mel noticed that they were being followed by a vehicle with lights on it. A cop, definitely a cop. He was close on their bumper. Mel thought of trying to ditch him, but that might be suicide. As he turned off onto the camp road, the cop sped past.

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