Chapter 9: San Jose

Chapter 9

San Jose

Holly and I flew up to San Jose Friday morning. I left Trout with blonde Holly for the weekend. Brunette Holly paid her $400 to watch him. We had reservations in the hotel where the reunion was to be held, so we didn't rent a car. At the mixer, everyone seemed old. And fat. And the men were balding.

“Hey slut,” a middle-aged woman said to Holly. She had a name tag that said, “Monica,” on it.

Holly was the most in control person I'd ever met, the master of any social situation, but in an instant, she became the teased, bullied, and awkward teen she'd been back then.

“I'm Mike,” I said, adjusting the conversation away from the two former lovers' enmity, “Holly's husband.” I'd cleaned up pretty well. I started wearing contacts before I met the Hollys, and brunette Holly got me an $80 haircut and two $500 suits. Being eleven years younger than everyone in the room helped, too.

Monica's husband stepped in, “I'm Jeff.” He handed me a business card. He was a regional sales manager or something or other. His toupee was almost convincing. “What do you do?”

“I work with Deaf children,” I replied. “I have a B-CLAD credential in A.S.L.”

Monica stewed. If she'd been a cartoon, her face would be beet red with bubbles rising to the surface. Her husband was oblivious, saying, “my wife has a CLAD credential. The 'B' is for 'bilingual,' no?”

“Yes.” I turned to Monica, saying, “what do you teach?”

“I taught math for a year, but it didn't stick,” she said, more politely than I expected. “I'm an office worker now.”

Holly turned to me, “you want a martini?”

“Sure,” I replied. “Vodka, no vermouth. If you two will excuse me, I have to go to the restroom.” I went to the bathroom and took my second Percocet for the day, a little later than usual. When I came back, Holly was at the bar while a man in a suit talked with her. I walked beside her, putting both arms around her and kissing her on the mouth. She responded by kissing me twice back.

“Here's your martini, darling,” she said through smiling teeth. I drank about a fourth of it without changing my facial expression and then ate the two olives.

“That's nice vodka. What is it,” I asked to no one in particular.

“Belvedere,” said the bartender.

“Thanks.” The man had left. “Who was that?”

“I don't even know,” she replied. “He seemed to expect me to know him for some reason. I probably slept with him once.” We laughed, but she said that louder than she probably should have. I noticed her martini glass was full and that there was an empty one on the bar. We walked toward an open table and sat down. “This has been harder than I thought, and you've been wonderful.”

“Thanks.”

“The bartender is an alcoholic,” she said. “Look at his glass. There's condensed water all around it.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, this is my second martini. I know it's too much to drink when we haven't had dinner, but...” she let the sentence hang, which was unusual for her.

“Hi, Holly,” said a woman with curly hair and a large nose. I didn't even read her name tag. She was Naomi to me. I saw Naomi's face in another flashback to the accident. “You look white as a ghost,” the woman said to me. “Are you okay?”

I heard the honk of the car. I felt the crash. I could see Naomi's head bent at the wrong angle.

“Mike?” Holly seemed concerned. “Mike?”

“I'm sorry,” I said, closing my eyes to the delusion, “too much martini, too little food.” I was a zombie, but Holly excused us and took me to our room. In the elevator, I had tears running down both cheeks.

Once we got to the room, Holly helped me undress and get into bed. I was sobbing like a child. “Naomi,” was all I could get out. Over the course of half an hour, I managed to compose myself and tell Holly about the hallucinations both tonight and the night after I went out with blonde Holly.

She was on the phone. “Hi, this is Holly,” she said. “Mike has had a nervous breakdown. I think he has P.T.S.D.”

“What's that,” came blonde Holly's voice on the other end of the line.

“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,” brunette Holly explained.

“What's that,” blonde Holly asked.

“You know, his wife died in an accident, and sometimes the brain has trouble dealing with that level of trauma, so it goes haywire.”

“Oh. Will he be okay?”

“Probably. We just have to take care of him.”

“I thought you didn't do that.”

“No,” brunette Holly said, stifling a laugh. “I mean, we have to watch out for him, make sure he's alright.”

“I still think you should help him out, you know. It isn't hard to learn.”

“I know how to do it,” brunette Holly said, getting annoyed. “I just don't have the predilection to do so.”

“Well, I've done a lot of things I didn't have the prediction for, either. I mean, no one can tell the future.”

“You know, you're right,” brunette Holly was on the verge of giving up.

“And maybe some day in the future, you can help him out.”

“Maybe,” brunette Holly said, shaking her head. “Well, I have to take care... I mean, make sure Mike's alright.”

“Okay, bye.”

“Goodbye, Holly.” Hanging up the phone, she said, “I see why you like her.”

I smiled but didn't say anything.

“What psychiatric medications do you take?”

“None.”

“You take no medications at all?”

“Well, I take a little Percocet sometimes, but I don't think that would help.”

“Percocet?” She sighed, “isn't that what they give to cancer patients? Wait. Your foot must have healed by now, so either you've been stringing along one bottle all this time or you've been getting it illegally.”

“I buy it from a pharmacy in India,” I said defensively. “After I lost my foot, I was taking 10 or 12 a day. I'm down to two.”

Holly did some mental math, “we could go cold turkey at that level, but I'd rather wean you off it over a few days.” She sighed and took a pill bottle out of her purse. She removed the lid and took out a pill, “here. Take this.”

I held the small, yellow pill in my hand and asked, “what is it?”

“Klonopin, one-half milligram. It's a benzodiazepine. It's often given to recovering addicts and alcoholics, but it's mostly to calm you down.” I swallowed it. Holly was a little drunk, and she wasn't a medical doctor, but she should have known that the Klonopin would potentiate the Percocet, making me higher than ever. After half an hour, I excused myself to the bathroom and got a third Percocet.

Holly ordered room service, two filet mignons and a bottle of champagne. We sat in bed in our bathrobes, watching C.S.I. while we ate. Holly, who drank the bulk of the champagne, ordered another bottle. Between the champagne, the Percocet, and the Klonopin, I was riding high. She took a Klonopin herself, and with the two martinis before the meal, she was decidedly out of it.