Brightness Falls (40 page)

"What an extremely useful and tasteful gift," said Wick Pierce.

"Wick is upset because we haven't yet been able to mimic the sound of scotch splashing on ice," she said, not missing a beat.

"I've changed, Bev. It's been years since I bothered with ice."

"I get them made for me in Mexico," she explained to Corrine, who was trying out the stick. "I tested it out in the lobby of the hotel as I was leaving, and a little boy standing there with his father said, 'Daddy, I have to go to the bathroom.' Isn't that too cute?"

"No home complete without one," said Wick, whose handsome, once chiseled features were slightly smudged with the bloat and flush of drinking. After graduating from Amherst, Wick had moved to Greenwich Village to be a Stanislavskian actor until Bev, a senior at Smith, had become pregnant, prompting him to move back to Massachusetts and take a job teaching English at Deerfield. It was supposed to be a temporar} thing while Wick wrote his play, but the play never got written and Wick had come into his trust fund at the age of twenty-five. Wick came from an old New England textile family, and while the fortune had been subdivided many times before it reached him, his own share was just large enough to smother ambition. He embarked on the curious but not unprecedented life of the casual New England academic whose salary barely covers the liquor bills. Bev, who came from a moderately prosperous middle-class family, rose to this life of faculty club and country club, keeping horses and lording it over the less fortunate teachers and spouses. Jeff had grown up with art and tennis lessons and a live-in cook, in a style that Russell had much admired when he first visited, freshman year, the year Jeff's parents were divorced. Wick still lived in Deerfield. with his second wife, a Jennifer—Jeff having once remarked that all young second wives were named Jennifer. To a degree that seemed excessive to Russell, he acted contemptuous of this background and of his family, which had served as the basis for the eccentric clan portrayed in his stories, though he liked to imply in interviews that he'd been born on the streets and raised by mad dogs.

Russell had been afraid, before the collection was published, that Jeff's parents would never speak to him again—not that there was a lot of communication taking place at that time. Insofar as they recognized themselves, each seemed to think the other came off worse, and any residual hard feelings faded when people began to ask them if they were related to Jeff Pierce, the writer.

"Can you believe it," said Bev, shaking her hair out from her scarf. "I catch this one drinking a Bloody Mary in the hotel bar this morning. Of all mornings."

"I told you, goddamnit, it was a virgin."

"Of course, Wick. And so was Jennifer."

Zac Solomon arrived a moment later, tan and robust.

"I just want you to know," he said after introductions, "I think your son is a genius. He's got a great future ahead of him—once he cleans himself up."

"We certainly appreciate your help," Bev said. "Russell tells us you've done this before. You know, I was reading in
People
about this young actor who freebased right before he shot the antidrug commer—"

"Jesus
Christ,
Bev."

"For your information this actor happens to be someone Jeff met while he was out in Hollywood, in fact I believe they actually spent some time together, and I just thought it was an interesting point of comparison."

"My ex-wife once fancied herself an actress," Wick explained apologetically.

"And my ex-husband is a failed writer, unlike his talented son."

Corrine put her arm around Bev. "We're all a little tense, Bev."

"I just want Mr. Solomon to know that Jeff's father is an alcoholic. I think it's like, what do you call it? Carrying coals to Newcastle. I mean, Jeff probably wouldn't even have this problem if he'd learned moderation from his father. It seems a little hypocritical—"

"The main thing here," Zac said, "is that Jeff sees that the people who love him are aware of his problem and willing to help him. So let's start there. I want you to know this is definitely not going to be a day at the beach. He's going to be angry and wounded and strung out. He's going to lash out at all of us. We can't be offended by anything he says or does in the next few hours. So are we ready, guys?"

No one said anything.

"This is where he
lives?"
said Bev, as they turned on Great Jones Street, her tone of voice implying that the neighborhood might be the cause of his problem, or that at the very least it was an appropriate setting for drug addiction. To Russell it seemed only slightly rattier than the average Manhattan street, certainly better than some. A bum asleep in a doorway, garbage in the street, the building fronts peeling and crumbling. But there were million-dollar lofts behind these dirty windows. He felt obliged to explain this to Bev, almost adding that a famous artist lived in the building next door to Jeff's, before he remembered that the artist was also a notorious junkie.

"Why anyone would choose to live in this city is beyond me."

Nobody, this morning, was in the mood to enlighten her on this point.

"Here we are." Russell was not entirely happy to find that his key still fit the front door lock. It just seemed brutal to corner a man in his la:: this way, at this hour of the morning. The group piled into the antique steel cage of the elevator. "Isn't this supposed to have an inspection sticker," Corrine asked nervously. Everyone listened intently to the tinkle of the rain stick Russell was carrying. They stepped into the dimly lit third-floor hallway. Beside Jeff's door stood the front fork and handlebars of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, like a cyclopean sentry, the headlight staring squarely at them. The brown fedora wedged between the handlebars atop the headlight accentuated the effect of anthropomorphism. Russell bowed deferentially to this talisman and tried the key in the Medeco lock.

"Are we ready," he asked.

The loft was dark, except for the amber glow of a computer screen on the other side of the room. The air was acrid and stale, residual tobacco smoke mingling with laundry rot and a sharp, medicinal odor. Russell found the light switch.

The landscape confirmed them in their mission. It was much worse than it had been on Russell's last visit, even worse than anyone expected—the wide-planked floors strewn with clothes, paper cups, food cartons, cigarette butts—at the same time that it exactly answered the notion of a junkie's apartment. Which is what it was, Russell realized, finally accepting what he had been unable quite to believe about hi friend.

"My God," said Bev.

"Let's confront," said Zac, nodding to the bed at the far end. "Ladies, you sure you can do this?"

Bev shook her head but joined the group sneaking through the wreckage to the bed, where Jeff was knotted into the sheets, lying on his right side. breathing laboriously through his nose. A used syringe and a bloodstained washcloth lay on the milk crate that served as a bedside table.

Russell called his name in a voice that sounded to its owner false, high and stilted. Jeff opened his eyes. After surveying the scene he closed them and turned his head into the pillow. He burrowed deep into the mattress.

"Jeff, we're not going to go away." Zac tapped his shoulder.

"This is a fucking nightmare," Jeff said. "Tell me this is a nightmare."

"You know why we're here, son," said Wick, who had been rehearsed.

"You've got a problem, guy," Zac said.

Russell was speechless.

"I don't fucking believe this is happening," said Jeff.

"We're here to help you," said Wick.

"We're here because we love you," said Bev.

"Hold the fucking violins," Jeff said. "I think I'm going to be sick."

Corrine said, "We're going to take you somewhere where you can beat this."

"Go away!" he screamed.

"We're not leaving without you," Zac said.

Looking up again, Jeff said, "If I'd known you were coming I would've dusted."

Zac persisted. "You know what we're talking about, big guy."

Unthinkingly, Russell twirled the rain stick in his hand. At that moment it sounded like an entire waterfall.

"What the fuck is that?" Jeff said.

"It's a rain stick," explained Bev.

Jeff sat up in bed, glaring at the object in Russell's hands as though it were responsible for this horrible wake-up call. "I can't handle this without a fix. " In a temporary gesture of modesty he raised the sheet around his waist. Then he threw it aside, saying, "What the hell, you've all seen it before," and walked naked to the bathroom.

Russell looked up at Corrine, who avoided his eyes, wiping her own.

The five of them stood helplessly around the bed, frozen in position. "Isn't somebody going to stop him," Bev asked.

"The doctor said to let him maintain till we get him to the hospital," Wick reminded her.

"Well, I'm not going to just stand here like an idiot." Bev knelt down and began picking up the clothes around the bed. Corrine joined in eagerly.

"I think he's going to come with us," Zac said. He walked out to the front of the loft and raised the blinds.

Jeff emerged from the bathroom, a towel around his waist. "You all right?"

"Great. I
love
waking up this way." He seemed normal, looked no worse than Russell had two hours before.

Hugging his fouled laundry, Bev sobbed, "Oh, Jeff."

"I mean it. Really wonderful to see you all."

"Are you going to come to the hospital, guy?"

"Do I have a choice?"

Half an hour later Jeff and Russell were walking east on 4th Street, deep into Alphabet City. At the corner of Avenue C, Jeff told Russell to wait while he ducked into a
bodega.
The doctor had advised them to let Jeff self-prescribe whatever he required for the drive to the hospital in Connecticut. The fact that he needed to score almost immediately after shooting up indicated to Russell a fairly remarkable habit.

Two Hispanic men loitered enigmatically under the red plastic awning. A third sat on the sidewalk, his head lolling on his shoulders, a strand of saliva connecting his open mouth to one shoulder. The buildings on either side of the
bodega
were bombed out. A bedsheet that said squat now hung from one of the unboarded windows, stop gentrification was sprayed beside the chained door. A community of tepees, tents and shacks had sprung up in a nearby empty lot.

Jeff emerged from the
bodega
shaking his head. "We'll have to go over to the reservation," Jeff said, indicating the Hooverville, an edge of panic in his voice. "The quality's not steady. It's crapshooting, you might be spiking up four percent pure, or ten."

"Do you enjoy all...
this?"

"It's nice to have friends in low places." Jeff sighed. "Wait here," he said, leaving Russell at the curb to contemplate the corpse of a rat splayed on the spokes of a tireless bicycle wheel. A heavy septic stench hung in the air. Jeff was in conference with a man in camouflage pants whom Russell recognized as Paul Rostenkowski, the homeless activist whose picture was often in the paper. They disappeared inside a tepee. A group clustered around an open-pit cooking fire regarded Russell with unconcealed suspicion. Staring, a white man wrapped in a bedspread lifted a baseball bat from the ground and whacked it experimentally across his palm. A young black man detached himself from the group and picked his way across the lot toward Russell, who tensed for a confrontation and scanned the area for possible weapons.

"Yo, Russell, what's happening? I was at your house once for a party. How's the wife?"

"She's fine, she's good." Russell didn't recall having seen this man before in his life, but he was happy at this moment to pretend that he did. "So what are you up to?" he said.

"Same ole same ole. I got some stuff in the works, some job possibilities..."

"Yeah? Excellent."

"Couple irons in the fire, so to speak."

"All
right."

"So like tell Corrine Ace says hi," he said, shaking Russell's hand, as Jeff emerged from the tepee.

Wick was waiting in his car outside Jeff's building. Russell and Jeff went upstairs, where Bev had cleaned up and packed some clothes and toiletries. Zac was gone. "One for the road," Jeff said, disappearing into the bathroom for five minutes.

He allowed Corrine to hug him and limply shook hands with Russell. To Russell, he looked almost relieved finally to surrender his fate to others. Folded into the backseat of the Jaguar, he stared straight ahead as the car pulled away, taking his crisis with him, thereby depriving Russell and Corrine of one crucial layer of distraction from themselves.

33

It was still dark outside when Russell awoke, alert as a sentry. He rose at six and showered, spinning hot and cold water knobs in futile attempts to regulate the temperature of the water, scalding one hand, then numbing his lathered scalp as he rinsed out the shampoo under an icy torrent. This apparent divorce between cause and effect in the plumbing failed to stifle his brisk sense of well-being.

Corrine was dozing strenuously between snooze alarms when he left the apartment at six-thirty. Lately she was showing less of her usual enthusiasm for rising and shining. As Russell had become increasingly involved in his work, she had grown less and less interested in her own. When he kissed her good-bye she mumbled something about a baby present for Casey.

Outside, autumn had arrived on the city streets. The noxious gases of the summer had dissipated and the chilly morning air carried an olfactory hint of new leather. This was Russell's favorite season, the season of beginnings in New York, social springtime on the metropolitan calendar. Having nothing but time, he walked across the park to the West Side. A squirrel was hauling a slice of pizza up a maple tree. A band of schoolboys, commanding a rise above the bike path, lobbed stones at passing joggers.

A sleepy guard nodded to him in the lobby of the Brill Building, where they were keeping offices until all the papers were signed. Which was not a bad thing, according to Trina: "You'll have an easier time figuring out who gets fired without having them standing next to you in the little boys' room. " The erstwhile editorial director and publisher had not proven to be good losers, but Russell was relieved to discover that most of his colleagues had come around to the idea of a fresh regime; there had been only a couple of immediate resignations. During his exile Russell had been barred from having anything further to do with the books he had in production; he was, after all, fired. Now he picked up his old duties while courting and rating the staff in concert with Washington and Whit-lock. He resurrected a few of his projects that Harold, whom he now referred to as "the lame owl," had seen fit to bury. At the same time, Russell and Trina were shopping the textbook division. Another plan under discussion was to sell the old building off for a quick twelve to fifteen million and lease back a few floors for office space. In the meantime Harold and Company could dream on in Corbin, Dern's ancestral home.