Read Online Death Will Get You Sober: A New York Mystery; Bruce Kohler #1 (Bruce Kohler Series) by Elizabeth Zelvin - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elizabeth Zelvin
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these upbeat twelve-step slogans if Barbara had ever been so foolish as to use them in her presence. But Barbara had discovered that they could be remarkably profound when applied on a practical level. On the other hand, she still experienced moments of stabbing fear that she was only kidding herself and in fact believed none of it.
So what was tonight’s anxiety about? Fear of a murderer? If Godfrey’s killer existed outside her imagination—and she had no illusions about whose imagination drove the three of them on this peculiar quest—surely he was long gone from the detox, if he had ever been there. The whole point of studying God’s chart was to discover his world. So many of the clients in that particular detox had none beyond the Bowery itself. Barbara had sat through her share of case presentations and treatment planning meetings as an intern. In the old days, that mythical creature who must never be called a bum—the old-fashioned chronic alcoholic on the model of Bark—had existed in the hundreds. She remembered taking notes: “On and off the Bowery for fifteen years….On and off the Bowery for twenty-two years.” That world hardly existed any more. In any case, God had been an anomaly in that last-resort detox. From what Bruce had told her about his history, it might even have been a stubborn pride that brought him there, to helpers and companions his aristocratic family hardly knew existed except as the shadowy recipients of a dutiful charity.
What stuck in her throat and made her palms prickle with sweat under the heavy mittens she wore against the cold? The ethics of the situation, she admitted to herself—not the dead man’s world, not the mean streets, nor the detox itself, a health care facility not so different from the one that employed her now, despite its quirkiness. It went against the grain, no matter how cleverly she rationalized it, as in saying that the limits of confidentiality become debatable when the client is dead. Or that unless they actually caught the murderer, she wouldn’t tell anyone but Jimmy—who never talked about the living or anyone who’d died after 1899 or at any rate 1945—and Bruce, who hardly counted because he already knew.
Look, Ma, I’m so self-honest! She gave a bark of laughter that sent what she hoped was a mouse rather than a rat scurrying for cover almost under her feet. Was she breaking confidentiality? Yes. Was she behaving in a professional manner? No. Was she willing not to do this, to let it go? No. For years she had watched with an aching heart as Jimmy blew off the loss of the best friend he would never admit how deeply he loved. AA, usually so wise, had easy answers: Don’t drink and go to meetings. We’re powerless over people, places, and things. Stick with the winners. He has his own Higher Power. Al-Anon, the twelve-step program for relatives and friends, couldn’t fix it either, though it offered tips on how to bear it: Keep the focus on yourself. Detach with love. Barbara knew perfectly well the importance of attending to her own life, not to mention the grandiosity of dreaming she could mend what lay between Bruce and Jimmy. But if she could do anything at all to help this friendship heal—which could happen only if Bruce stayed sober—a tenet or two of the counselors’ code of ethics seemed a small price to pay.
It had been easy enough to get both the official version of God’s death and an invitation to work the night shift out of Charmaine. One phone call had done it.
“Hey, I hear you lost another patient,” she’d said.
Charmaine had been off and running, not even asking how Barbara had heard the news. As she had told Bruce and Jimmy, people died in detox all the time. But even in detox, they usually didn’t die right before your eyes, especially not the relatively young and healthy. God had been exceptionally healthy for a client on the Bowery, having had a lifetime of good nutrition and minimal exposure to HIV,
So what was tonight’s anxiety about? Fear of a murderer? If Godfrey’s killer existed outside her imagination—and she had no illusions about whose imagination drove the three of them on this peculiar quest—surely he was long gone from the detox, if he had ever been there. The whole point of studying God’s chart was to discover his world. So many of the clients in that particular detox had none beyond the Bowery itself. Barbara had sat through her share of case presentations and treatment planning meetings as an intern. In the old days, that mythical creature who must never be called a bum—the old-fashioned chronic alcoholic on the model of Bark—had existed in the hundreds. She remembered taking notes: “On and off the Bowery for fifteen years….On and off the Bowery for twenty-two years.” That world hardly existed any more. In any case, God had been an anomaly in that last-resort detox. From what Bruce had told her about his history, it might even have been a stubborn pride that brought him there, to helpers and companions his aristocratic family hardly knew existed except as the shadowy recipients of a dutiful charity.
What stuck in her throat and made her palms prickle with sweat under the heavy mittens she wore against the cold? The ethics of the situation, she admitted to herself—not the dead man’s world, not the mean streets, nor the detox itself, a health care facility not so different from the one that employed her now, despite its quirkiness. It went against the grain, no matter how cleverly she rationalized it, as in saying that the limits of confidentiality become debatable when the client is dead. Or that unless they actually caught the murderer, she wouldn’t tell anyone but Jimmy—who never talked about the living or anyone who’d died after 1899 or at any rate 1945—and Bruce, who hardly counted because he already knew.
Look, Ma, I’m so self-honest! She gave a bark of laughter that sent what she hoped was a mouse rather than a rat scurrying for cover almost under her feet. Was she breaking confidentiality? Yes. Was she behaving in a professional manner? No. Was she willing not to do this, to let it go? No. For years she had watched with an aching heart as Jimmy blew off the loss of the best friend he would never admit how deeply he loved. AA, usually so wise, had easy answers: Don’t drink and go to meetings. We’re powerless over people, places, and things. Stick with the winners. He has his own Higher Power. Al-Anon, the twelve-step program for relatives and friends, couldn’t fix it either, though it offered tips on how to bear it: Keep the focus on yourself. Detach with love. Barbara knew perfectly well the importance of attending to her own life, not to mention the grandiosity of dreaming she could mend what lay between Bruce and Jimmy. But if she could do anything at all to help this friendship heal—which could happen only if Bruce stayed sober—a tenet or two of the counselors’ code of ethics seemed a small price to pay.
It had been easy enough to get both the official version of God’s death and an invitation to work the night shift out of Charmaine. One phone call had done it.
“Hey, I hear you lost another patient,” she’d said.
Charmaine had been off and running, not even asking how Barbara had heard the news. As she had told Bruce and Jimmy, people died in detox all the time. But even in detox, they usually didn’t die right before your eyes, especially not the relatively young and healthy. God had been exceptionally healthy for a client on the Bowery, having had a lifetime of good nutrition and minimal exposure to HIV,
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