Daniel Gumbiner - The Boatbuilder

He ground up a few more pills to remove the extended-release coating, arranged them in neat lines on his bedside table. Wait a second, he thought. Give it one more second. Don’t be an idiot. He looked out the small square window at the bay. The water was green like an apple, lit with rich evening light. But the panic in his chest wouldn’t leave. He couldn’t take it. He turned and snorted each line. This was going to take him way deep, he knew, but that was what he needed. He wanted to go all the way to the bottom, to scoop up its brown muck and hold it in his hands. At least then he would know where he was.

WHEN HE WOKE UP, his body was lit with pain. A pulsing, seething, freezing, ungodly pain. He had no idea where he was. He was on his back but where was he?

“I don’t know why you fools snort this shit,” someone said.

He writhed on the hospital bed, squeezing his eyes open and shut, clenching his teeth. He saw Uffa in the corner of the room. He was looking on in horror, face wet with tears, his purple bandanna sagging around his neck. Berg began to sneeze and, after one of these sneezes, he told them he was freezing cold. Uffa asked the nurse to bring him another blanket. The nurse draped the blanket over Berg and then Berg began to cry, to wail.

“The naloxone triggers immediate withdrawal,” the doctor explained.

“It’s so bad,” Berg cried. “It’s so bad.”

Alejandro was there, too.

“You’ll be all right,” he kept saying. “You’ll be all right.”

Berg gasped for air. He tried to sit up but couldn’t. His center of gravity was off. His vision was blurry. There was a faint taste of blood in his mouth, a metallic taste, like he’d been sucking on a penny. The pain was so bad he wanted to smash his head on a rock.

“Remember this,” the doctor said. “Remember this feeling the next time you reach for that garbage.”

“You assholes gave it to me,” Berg growled.

“I didn’t give you anything,” the doctor said. “And I sure as hell didn’t make you snort it.”

“Fuck you,” Berg said.

“Give him more lorazepam,” the doctor said.

The nurse came over and did something to his IV.

“I know this is painful,” she said. “You’re experiencing full withdrawal right now.”

“I’m going to vomit,” Berg said.

She handed him a plastic basin. He heaved into it and then passed it back to her. He was sweating now, but he was also shivering. It made no sense. Alejandro walked over and put his hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t touch me,” Berg said. “What did you do to me?”

“You did this,” the doctor said. “No one did this to you.”

“Is this normal?” Alejandro asked the doctor.

“Patients are always combative after the naloxone,” the nurse said.

“I think I’m dying,” Berg said. “I’m dying.”

“You’re not dying,” the doctor said. “We just saved your life.”

“Fuck you,” Berg said. “Fuck this guy.”

The pain was an ascending arpeggio, a madness. Berg had broken many bones in his life, had snapped his tibia all the way through, and nothing compared to this. As the pain reached its most unbearable peak, he felt himself going into shock. The agony ceased. The pain was still there, but it was as if his body would not allow him to feel it. He stared wide-eyed at Alejandro and in a calm, collected voice, he asked,

“Is this real?”

Then he passed out.

HE DID NOT KNOW how long he slept, but when he woke, the acute pain had subsided. He turned to his right and saw Alejandro. He was sitting in a plastic chair, drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup and watching TV. It was local news. Channel four.

“Good morning,” he said, turning to Berg.

“Morning,” Berg said. He looked at Alejandro for a moment, and then trained his gaze on the television. He stared, blinking, as the news anchor ran through the day’s headlines. Someone had won millions of dollars in the mega-jackpot lottery. A thawed reindeer carcass was being blamed for an anthrax outbreak. Stock prices had risen and fallen and then risen again.

“Would you like a coffee?” Alejandro asked, watching him.

Berg shook his head.

“Some food?”

“No.”

There was a whirring noise coming from some unidentifiable location. Outside he could hear the hiss and squirt of a sprinkler. Berg felt sore and weak and the more conscious he became, the more ashamed he felt. Fragments of memory returned to him, the foul things he’d said. He needed to apologize to the nurse and the doctor. He needed to apologize and then flee this place. He never wanted any of these people to see his face again.

“You’re going to be okay,” Alejandro said.

“I don’t know,” Berg said.

“Just deal with today,” Alejandro said. “All you can do is deal with today.”

“Why are you here?” Berg asked.

Alejandro took a sip of his coffee.

“I’m here because I care about you,” he said.

“I’m an asshole. I’m a fucking drug addict asshole who screams at doctors.”

“That was the naloxone. That wasn’t you.”

“You don’t even know me,” Berg said. “You don’t. I’m not who you think I am.”

“Well tell me who you are then.”

Berg said nothing.

“Berg, you are very lucky,” Alejandro continued. “That’s what I’m thinking right—”

“I stole things,” Berg said, interrupting him. “I stole things from people’s homes. From your home. I lied to you, I lied to Nell.”

“Okay.”

“So now you know.”

“Now I know,” Alejandro said.

“Do you know what I stole?”

“I could make an educated guess.”

Berg stared at him.

“Oh stop,” Alejandro said. “You think your pain makes you so special and complicated? That there’s something so crazy about you? There isn’t.”

“I lied…”

“And?”

Berg said nothing.

“You just need to come back to this world, to the truth of things,” Alejandro said. His voice was fierce. “Right now. Do it now.”

Berg looked out the window at a brown rooftop. They were on the second floor. Next door he could hear the nurses helping treat a new patient. She’d sprained her ankle while hiking that morning, it seemed. The smell of hospital was everywhere: plastic and disinfectant and urine. He wanted to go home.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking back toward Alejandro. “I’m sorry.” He was crying, shaking slightly. Alejandro walked over to him and put his hand on his shoulder. Berg could feel a growing tightness in his forehead and his jaw. A headache was brewing, gathering force by the moment, its clouds condensing. It would be upon him in no time.

HE DIDN’T WANT TO go to an inpatient rehab center. And he didn’t want to mess with Suboxone or carpet-bomb his brain with antidepressants. He would go to the meetings in Pine Gulch and work with Alejandro. He’d delete Eugene’s number from his phone again, and he’d stay away from Dennis Lapley.

“Pine Gulch is a forty-five-minute drive from here,” Nell said. They were sitting in the bakery in town.

“I know, but I’ll make it work,” Berg said.

“Don’t you think it might make sense to live somewhere closer to treatment centers?” she asked. “Somewhere closer to a hospital?”

“I want to keep working with Alejandro,” Berg said.

“What does he think about that?”

“He’s okay with it.”

“I don’t know,” Nell said, unconvinced.

“I have the Narcan spray now. So does Alejandro. And I’m not going to relapse, anyway,” he said.

“I can’t believe we’re still dealing with this.”