Read Online Crack-Up by Eric Christopherson - Free Book Online
Authors: Eric Christopherson
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converted into a small, exquisite hotel. I’d stayed there years before. The first time I'd ever slept with Sarah had been in a canopied mahogany four-poster bed in the Betsy Ross Room at Randolph House. My ending up there that day, I recognize now, was my way of being with Sarah when I couldn’t be.
As I stood at the front desk, checking in, it’d been seven or eight years since I’d stood there last, yet everything appeared just the same. Authentic Federal period reproductions everywhere. Big Baccarat crystal chandelier overhead.
The desk clerk, while making an imprint of my credit card, picked his nose. I scowled, thinking the clerk should know better. He’s not some college kid, some part-timer earning minimum wage at a fleabag highway motel, but a middle-aged man representing a four star hotel. Representing Randolph House !
“Here you are, sir,” said the clerk, using his nose-picking hand to return my credit card. The same hand slid a room key at me. “The Betsy Ross Room , as requested.”
He slouches too , I noticed, taking the key, turning away. I considered reporting the clerk to management, but blew it off and headed for the elevator.
I remained agitated. More agitated than I had cause to be. Even the muscles in my face felt twitchy.
“Why do I feel this way?” I asked myself aloud, and then quickly answered myself back. “Because it’s time to adjust your medication, you dumb fuck!”
Yes, that was it, I tried telling myself, and that it meant good news too. If I can blame all these strange happenings on my disease, it means that soon, now that I have a new prescription in hand, my life will return to normal .
Assuming the pills haven’t stopped working, as Doctor Shields has suggested might happen some day. Assuming that a certain gnawing, gut feeling I have is wrong. The feeling that I’m not the problem. That someone is going to elaborate lengths to convince me I’m losing my mind .
Paranoid, Argus Ward ! Plain paranoid !
I laughed out loud at myself—even though by this time I was riding on the elevator with two other hotel guests. The funniest thing of all was, I still believed my gut!
I didn’t have any luggage, so the first thing I did inside my room was kick off my stiff new Bruno Magli shoes. Through room service, I ordered dinner—a rare tenderloin with bordelaise sauce, as I recall—and then I opened the mini-bar. I’m not supposed to drink a lot at one time, because alcohol interacts with my anti-psychotic medication in funny—and not so funny—ways, so I focused on a row of tiny liquor bottles sitting atop the refrigerator. One or two bottles, I decided, would be just right for me. I grabbed the Kahlua bottle, gave it a hard twist open, and slugged down the contents in one or two gulps.
Then I threw open a window to let the stuffiness out. My room overlooked the Potomac River and a fleet of yachts anchored near the boardwalk. The wind was kicking up outside. My skin tingled with wicked pleasure as I realized that not a soul in the world—not a soul I knew, anyway—knew of my own whereabouts.
An instant later, though, the tingle was gone. Another thought had chased it away. I was less than a thirty minute drive from my home in Georgetown , yet Sarah and Ellie and Duke might as well have been on planet Jupiter.
I turned from the window and stared inside the room. That big mahogany four poster bed was draped in red and gold canopy, as always. I thought, I can’t go home again until—or unless—I can trust myself. Because what if I’m really losing it ?
What if that disembodied Darth Vader-like voice I used to hear coming from the ceiling, or a drainpipe, suddenly returned? Spouting all those dire—yet lavishly senseless—warnings it somehow sold me every time ?
I wrenched my body to face the river once more. I had to squint in the face of a sudden gust of
As I stood at the front desk, checking in, it’d been seven or eight years since I’d stood there last, yet everything appeared just the same. Authentic Federal period reproductions everywhere. Big Baccarat crystal chandelier overhead.
The desk clerk, while making an imprint of my credit card, picked his nose. I scowled, thinking the clerk should know better. He’s not some college kid, some part-timer earning minimum wage at a fleabag highway motel, but a middle-aged man representing a four star hotel. Representing Randolph House !
“Here you are, sir,” said the clerk, using his nose-picking hand to return my credit card. The same hand slid a room key at me. “The Betsy Ross Room , as requested.”
He slouches too , I noticed, taking the key, turning away. I considered reporting the clerk to management, but blew it off and headed for the elevator.
I remained agitated. More agitated than I had cause to be. Even the muscles in my face felt twitchy.
“Why do I feel this way?” I asked myself aloud, and then quickly answered myself back. “Because it’s time to adjust your medication, you dumb fuck!”
Yes, that was it, I tried telling myself, and that it meant good news too. If I can blame all these strange happenings on my disease, it means that soon, now that I have a new prescription in hand, my life will return to normal .
Assuming the pills haven’t stopped working, as Doctor Shields has suggested might happen some day. Assuming that a certain gnawing, gut feeling I have is wrong. The feeling that I’m not the problem. That someone is going to elaborate lengths to convince me I’m losing my mind .
Paranoid, Argus Ward ! Plain paranoid !
I laughed out loud at myself—even though by this time I was riding on the elevator with two other hotel guests. The funniest thing of all was, I still believed my gut!
I didn’t have any luggage, so the first thing I did inside my room was kick off my stiff new Bruno Magli shoes. Through room service, I ordered dinner—a rare tenderloin with bordelaise sauce, as I recall—and then I opened the mini-bar. I’m not supposed to drink a lot at one time, because alcohol interacts with my anti-psychotic medication in funny—and not so funny—ways, so I focused on a row of tiny liquor bottles sitting atop the refrigerator. One or two bottles, I decided, would be just right for me. I grabbed the Kahlua bottle, gave it a hard twist open, and slugged down the contents in one or two gulps.
Then I threw open a window to let the stuffiness out. My room overlooked the Potomac River and a fleet of yachts anchored near the boardwalk. The wind was kicking up outside. My skin tingled with wicked pleasure as I realized that not a soul in the world—not a soul I knew, anyway—knew of my own whereabouts.
An instant later, though, the tingle was gone. Another thought had chased it away. I was less than a thirty minute drive from my home in Georgetown , yet Sarah and Ellie and Duke might as well have been on planet Jupiter.
I turned from the window and stared inside the room. That big mahogany four poster bed was draped in red and gold canopy, as always. I thought, I can’t go home again until—or unless—I can trust myself. Because what if I’m really losing it ?
What if that disembodied Darth Vader-like voice I used to hear coming from the ceiling, or a drainpipe, suddenly returned? Spouting all those dire—yet lavishly senseless—warnings it somehow sold me every time ?
I wrenched my body to face the river once more. I had to squint in the face of a sudden gust of
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