David Gates - Jernigan

“Put it back on, Clarissa,” I said. “Now.” Pretty little white breasts, same size as the pink sock-roll in my hand. “I’m not kidding,” I said.

I picked up the sweatshirt and thrust it at her. I was proud of myself for not being tempted, even fleetingly; apparently there was a point past which even Jernigan wouldn’t go. She just sat staring at the sweatshirt, so I took it out of her hands and located the label inside the neckhole, showing which was front and which was back. Then I stretched open the bottom of the sweatshirt and commanded her to raise her arms. This worked. I got each hand through a sleeve, got her head into the neckhole and pulled the thing down. “Now keep it on,” I said. “And hold still.” I knelt and worked a pink sock on over each foot. One Reebok peeped out from under the bed; its mate was over by the dresser. “Here,” I said, handing them to her. “You can do this. You’re not an infant.” She seemed to respond better to this stuff than to a bunch of I know what you’re going through .

She sat with a shoe in each hand, looking enchanted. “Whew,” she said. “Is this what a bad trip is?”

The emergency room doctor — when we were finally vouchsafed an audience — was a tall, horsey woman my age. Snaggle-toothed smile and wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. You couldn’t help but think of the woman on The Beverly Hillbillies . Banker Drysdale’s secretary or whatever she was.

“Clarissa?” she said. “I’m Dr. James. Would you like to come with me? Mr. Peretsky, it might be helpful if you came along too.”

“Jernigan, actually,” I said. “I’m her stepfather.”

The eyes narrowed, the wrinkles deepened. Either because this was no time to be setting the record straight about what my name happened to be, or because a stepfather meant it was more likely something creepy was going on. Of course she might simply have smelled my breath.

The doctor sat her down on the paper-covered examining table; gently, just fingertips under the chin, she got Clarissa to look into her eyes. I felt suddenly unwelcome. Right, she’s tall, has no wedding ring and, most damning of all, does something useful in this world, and right away you assume. Dear God, I thought, please let her keep her fucking mouth shut about the thing with the sweatshirt.

“Clarissa?” said the doctor. “Can you tell me what you took, and how long ago you took it?”

Clarissa burst into tears.

The doctor turned to me. “What has she told you?”

“She said three tabs of acid,” I said. “Or actually all she really said was that she took three of something , but I’m assuming it was acid.” Babble babble. “I don’t know how long ago she got hold of it, but I don’t think it was probably before three or four this afternoon.” What I’d have liked to get hold of was that fat little fuck of a Dustin.

“Clarissa,” she said, “do you have any more of what you took? So I could look at it?”

Clarissa shook her head.

“Can you tell me what they looked like?”

“Green,” said Clarissa. “They were so little , you know?” She was staring down, now at one hand, now at the other, as they cupped her knees.

“About this big?” said the doctor, holding up thumb and forefinger.

Clarissa nodded.

“No,” said the doctor. “Look at what I’m showing you. Were they this big? Or were they smaller than that?”

Clarissa looked. “That big,” she said. She looked back down at her hand and wiggled the fingers. Each fingernail was painted black. “Whew,” she said.

“Were they a bright green?” said the doctor. “Or kind of pale green? Did they have little specks?”

“Yeah,” said Clarissa. “Wow, did you take some too?”

“No, honey,” said the doctor. “Don’t worry, you’re going to be fine. We’re just going to give you a shot and it’s going to make you feel better.”

She walked over to a tall gray metal cabinet. Clarissa, unbidden, began rolling up a sleeve of her sweatshirt. “At least we know what we’re dealing with,” the doctor said to me. “We’ve been seeing this green stuff since the summer. From what I’m told, three would be more than enough to take you to Disneyland. I’d love to know who thought it was a good idea to bring this stuff to town.”

“You and me both,” I said, hypocritical son of a bitch. Uncle Fred and I had once bought fifty caps of what the guy had said was purple Owsley, sold enough to break even and gave away the rest to people in the dorm. One kid, then pre-med, now lives in Maine, doing scrimshaw. Uncle Fred saw him when he was up there a few years ago. Makes a decent living at it, apparently.

The doctor was poking a needle through the rubber seal of a small bottle of clear liquid. Clarissa, meanwhile, had taken off her belt and wrapped it around her upper arm; she had the end of the belt in her teeth and she was pumping her fist. The doctor looked at me, then touched her fingers to Clarissa’s shoulder. “That’s not going to be necessary,” she said. “This is an intramuscular injection.”

Clarissa looked up at her, teeth still bared. Then over at me. Then she loosened the belt.

“Have that sleeve up a little bit more?” the doctor said. “Now this might pinch for just a second, but I’m not going to hurt you.” She swabbed Clarissa’s shoulder with a piece of cotton, and I turned away.

“Okey-doke,” she said, after a few seconds. “Now Clarissa, I’d like you just to lie back on the table for a bit, you can hold that piece of cotton for me, and very soon you’ll be feeling better.”

“Okay,” said Clarissa, her voice small.

“She’s going to rest for a few minutes,” said the doctor. “May I speak to you?” She nodded toward the doorway. I followed her into a small office.

“This child has problems,” she said, seating herself behind her desk. “What are you doing about it?” There was a chair beside the desk, but she didn’t invite me to sit. So I stood there like a bad boy. “Move a little to your left, please?” she said. “I need to keep an eye on her.”

“To tell you the truth,” I said, “this is all a bit of a revelation to me. See, I’ve only known her mother for a short time and …” And what?

“I thought you were her stepfather.”

Careful.

“Well,” I said. “Sort of de facto. We’re not actually married, but her mother and I have been living together more or less since, oh, let me think, August. So at this point, stepfather is just sort of always, I don’t know, the least confusing.”

“And where is Clarissa’s mother?”

“She’s — I mean, she’s here . She just happened to be out tonight when all this started happening.”

“Mmm,” she said. She had picked up a clipboard and one of those pens whose other end is a letter opener. She began tapping the clipboard with the letter-opener end, looking past my shoulder. In this small space, I tried to blow my boozy breath out the side of my mouth. It must’ve looked like I was making faces.

“Well,” she said, “at the very least I should think Clarissa needs counseling of some sort. I can refer you to a couple of very good programs.”

“Would you?” I said.

She looked at me. “Yes,” she said, “I would.”

Back in the car, Clarissa sat with her hands folded in her lap, as I cursed, quietly as I could, twisted the key and pumped the gas pedal. This was only November, for Christ’s sake; what was I supposed to do in January?

“Could we have the radio?” she said when I finally got the God damn engine to turn over. “Oh yeah, and the heater?”

“Heater we can do in just a second,” I said, backing out of the parking space. “Soon as the car warms up a little. Have this jacket over you if you want.” I held up a sleeve of the cowboy jacket, still draped over the passenger seat. But she was looking at something out the window. “Now for music,” I said, “if you’ll check in the dashboard there, you should find a Walkman and all sorts of tapes.” She shook her head, still looking out, as if despairing of being able to listen to any sort of tape I might have.