Bill Harvey Collection

by Peter O'Mahoney

  “It’s controversial, but numerous studies have shown that there are three distinct things that happen: first, a decrease of activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate; second, reduced connections between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the default mode network, which includes the medial prefrontal and the posterior cingulate cortex; and third, an increase in connections between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the insula.”

  “That means nothing to me.”

  “All you really need to know, young man, is that, unfortunately, these scans support his theory that he was under the influence of hypnotherapy.” He patted Harvey on the shoulder. “These scans demonstrate that there’s clearly a difference in his brain responses pre-hypnotherapy sessions and post-hypnotherapy sessions.”

  The two men stared at the files on the table, the afternoon sun streaming through the large window behind them, highlighting the lack of dust in the house. Although many years out of his medical profession, Lawrence couldn’t stop his routine—an hour every night studying the latest medical developments. It kept him going; kept him feeling young, alive, and relevant.

  “I know that’s not the answer that you want to hear.” Lawrence shook his head. “But it’s what the evidence shows. And I guess that’s why you called me and not another medical expert. You wanted an educated, but not employed, medical opinion before you started to build your case.”

  “No.” Harvey smiled. “I wanted the best man for the job.”

  “You know how to make an old man still feel worthwhile.”

  For years, Lawrence was Harvey’s go-to man for the courts, a medical professional with a wealth of knowledge and expertise. Looking like a highly-respected individual, Lawrence was the perfect front man for the battles in the courtroom.

  “But I have a different question for you.” Harvey walked around the table. “Is there any way he could have unduly influenced those scans himself? Perhaps he could have changed his brain pattern to appear like this?”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “What if he deliberately influenced the scans? What if he planned the whole thing, set me up right from the start, and intentionally influenced the results? Is there any way that he could have done that?”

  Lawrence stared at the scans, then frowned. “Possibly.”

  “How?”

  “Well.” He stood up straight, both thumbs under his suspenders. “It’s possible that the brain changes are the result of taking a large dose of barbiturates, perhaps even Thiopental, just before the scans. Yes, now that I say it out loud, that would be very possible. These effects would be extremely similar to the effects of a reasonable dose of Thiopental shortly before the scans. The drug has a half-life of around three hours so it would have to be administered shortly before the scans.”

  “Perfect. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

  “But how could you prove that? Especially considering that Wu now states that he’s no longer under the influence of the hypnotherapy sessions. Look at this latest scan.” Lawrence slid a picture in front of Harvey. “This one was taken three months ago. It’s back to what it was before—before the sessions.”

  “All I have to do is prove that he took drugs the morning of each of those scans.” Harvey began to close the files.

  “Sounds easier said than done, but you’re the best man for the job. Good luck.” Lawrence smiled and offered his hand to Harvey. “I’m glad I could help you. I haven’t felt this alive in a while.”

  “My pleasure. Thank you, sir.” Shaking Lawrence’s hand firmly, Harvey nodded. “And good luck with chasing that little white ball.”

  Chapter 12

  As Bill Harvey pulled his Mercedes into the parking lot below his office building, he noticed his younger sister, Ella Townsend, step out of her car parked on the street. Worried, he parked his car, stepped out, and watched Ella walk towards him, down the ramp into the dim parking lot, arms folded across her chest, hair covering her face.

  “What is it?” Harvey filled the gap between them. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Jonathon.” Ella looked away, her long blonde hair hiding her expression.

  “Jonathon? What’s happened to him? Is he ok?” He held her by the arms.

  “No.” She shook her head. “He’s taken a hit.”

  “Of what?”

  “Heroin.”

  Harvey drew a long breath, then pulled his younger sister into his chest, hugging her tightly. It was only here, in the safety of her eldest brother’s arms, that she let the tears flow out uncontrolled.

  Their middle sibling, Jonathon Harvey, disappeared from their lives for more than two decades. Addicted to drugs at sixteen, he spent most of his life in the depths of dependence. They had searched for him, looked for any sign that he was doing ok, but it seemed he had dropped off the face of the planet.

  It was only once Jonathon was arrested for murder that he reached out to Harvey to defend him. Jonathon took full responsibility for his addiction and claimed that he had been clean for twelve months. Cautiously, Harvey took on the case, and they fought the charges to prove Jonathon’s innocence.

  “What’s this?” Harvey pointed to the blood on Ella’s sleeve, but she started crying again. “What is it, Ella? Where did this blood come from?”

  After an intense recovery, Jonathon had been clean for more than a year. Despite the two decades of addiction, he had finally broken free of his need to escape. When the brothers first met after so long apart, there was no doubt that the statement was true. There was white in Jonathon’s eyes, and his tanned skin looked healthy.

  But recovery from addiction is a long hard road, and Jonathon was finding out just how difficult it was.

  Ella pulled out of the hug and looked away from her brother’s stare. “I went to his apartment because he said he needed help. He called me at three in the morning, and I didn’t answer. I was tired. It was 3:00 am.” She sniffed.

  “It’s ok. You can tell me what happened,” Harvey reassured her.

  “But he left a voicemail saying that he needed help. I listened to the message in the morning when I woke up, about 7:00, and as soon as I heard it, I tried to call him, but he didn’t answer. On the voicemail, he sounded desperate, like he really needed me. So I went around and…”

  “And what?”

  She started to sob again.

  “It’s alright, Ella. I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you now.” He wrapped his arms around his youngest sibling. “But you need to tell me what happened.”

  “He had taken a hit of heroin. He was calling me because he needed help to stay away from it, and I ignored him. By the time I got there, he was on the comedown. He lashed out and…”

  “And what?” Harvey’s fist clenched.

  “He hit me on the jaw. He didn’t mean it. He just lashed out. It wasn’t his fault.”

  The statement lit a fire in Bill Harvey.

  He had been through this situation before—when Jonathon was in his early twenties, already five years into his terrible addiction, he lashed out and hit their dear mother after she refused to give him more money to buy drugs.

  When he was fifteen, Jonathon was a very promising high school quarterback, the star of their small town. Scouts traveled from all around the country to watch the handsome young man throw a football around a grass field.

  But with early success came intense pressure, and the weight of anxiety got to him.

  When he was offered a hit of heroin at a party after another football win, Jonathon thought nothing of it. It was just a bit of fun, a little experiment of youth. But rarely did a person escape heroin without some damage—and for Jonathon, it was the escapism that he needed. When he was high, he felt free of the pressure to perform, free from the pressure to be the star. His need for an extra hit grew every week, then every day, until it was the only thing he could think about.

  Before the Harvey family knew what was happening, Jonathon was already deep in enslavement t
o the artificial high.

  They tried everything to save him—counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, moving towns, locking him in his room. Nothing stopped it. Nothing stopped his need for another hit, another moment of escapism. Their lives fell into a terrible cycle of addiction—the more pressure that the family put on him to quit, the more he needed to escape that pressure, the more he needed another hit. They tried their best for the boy they loved, but little did they know that the guilt and shame were only adding to the pressure.

  When Jonathon lashed out at their mother, after years of this cycle, it was the final straw. Harvey saw what took place and beat his brother into the ground, telling him to never return to the family.

  The words Harvey said in anger were his greatest regret and his greatest heartache.

  By the time Jonathon reconnected with them, their parents had passed away—their father ate a bullet for breakfast, devastated that he couldn’t save his son from addiction, and their mother passed a year later of a heart attack.

  As a strong, hardworking family man who avoided emotions at all costs, George Harvey couldn’t handle the loss of his son. He spent a year trying to find his son again before it all became too much to handle. His failure to protect his son from drugs destroyed his notion that he was a man that could protect his family against anything.

  “It’s not your fault.” Harvey hugged his sister. “None of this is your fault.”

  “He blamed me. He said I should have been there. He said he called me to try and stop him from taking the drugs, and that I didn’t help him. He said it was my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault, Ella. This is not your fault. He doesn’t mean what he said. It was the drugs talking.” Harvey drew a long breath, trying to calm his anger. He didn’t want a repeat of the incident that happened twenty years ago. He couldn’t lose his brother again. “I’m going to sort this out.”

  Chapter 13

  When the siblings arrived outside the Skid Row apartment, Harvey had done every breathing exercise possible to try and calm his anger, but each time he looked at his sister’s swollen lip, his grip on the steering wheel grew tighter.

  He certainly didn’t want a repeat of the incident that drove his brother away, but he was unsure of how he would handle the confrontation. Over the years, he had learnt that addicts need love and a helping hand to recover, not a punishing fist; but that didn’t stop the raw fury from growing inside him.

  The only residence Jonathon could afford to rent was in the poorest part of L.A., an area for the broken, the desolate, and the abandoned. Homeless men and women walked the streets with a lost look in their eyes, desperate to find a way to survive another month. Skid Row was the forgotten part of the great city, the part that was brushed under the carpet, pushed away.

  The siblings exited the car, double checked that it was locked, and cautiously walked the stairs to the third-floor apartment, only to find the door already open.

  With big, innocent eyes, Ella looked up at Harvey, and he nodded.

  He stepped inside, his shoulders so tense that it almost looked like he didn’t have a neck. The tiny one-bedroom apartment was mostly tidy, clean, and organized. The furniture was all secondhand, but the recovering addict had done everything he could to make the place seem livable.

  The only sign that this was the apartment of a drug addict were the two syringes that sat on the living room table. With his sister behind him, Harvey scans the room, looking for his brother.

  He heard the muffled tears first.

  Hiding behind the couch, in the darkest part of the apartment, the tall Jonathon Harvey cowered like a child scared during a thunderstorm.

  “Jonathon.” Harvey’s voice was firm.

  Jonathon didn’t answer, his hands covering the back of his head, sobbing in the fetal position.

  “Jonathon.” Harvey’s voice was softer this time, more caring.

  “I’m sorry,” Jonathon mumbled through his tears. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s alright,” Ella, the one with a gentle touch, reassured him. “It’s alright.”

  She came to his aid, her hand gently rubbing his back.

  “I’m so sorry.” Jonathon rocked back and forth, feeling the pain of failure. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t want this.”

  Harvey had to look away. Here was a man, a part of his family, that used to be strong and powerful, and he was now reduced to a blubbering mess. Addiction could do that to even the strongest of people.

  Ella looked up at Harvey, but he couldn’t force himself to watch. His eyes blinked quickly as he looked towards the kitchen.

  “I didn’t mean it, Ella. I’m so sorry. I’m such a bad brother. I’m such a failure. I’m a horrible person.”

  “No,” Ella replied, still rubbing Jonathon’s back. “No, you’re not. The drugs got you, and that’s ok. I understand that it wasn’t you that hit me. It’s ok. You’re not a failure.”

  “It was me,” Jonathon stated, finally raising his head. “I failed. I failed the drugs. They were too strong for me to resist. I failed.”

  “Get up.” Harvey’s voice was strong, turning back to face his brother.

  “Bill. This isn’t—” Ella tried to interject.

  “Get up!”

  “Bill, this isn’t the way to help him. He—”

  “Get up, Jonathon.” Harvey’s jaw clenched.

  “Bill—”

  “No, it’s ok, Ella. I have to face the consequences of what I’ve done.” Jonathon placed a hand on Ella’s shoulder as he began to rise. “It’s my fault. All of this. I have to face the consequences of my actions.”

  With his eyes focused downwards, feeling like a complete failure, Jonathon stood, shoulders slumped forward, and walked in front of his brother, ready to take a beating. It was what he felt he deserved—he had failed them. After all the years away, they still put their faith in him, and he failed them.

  Head leaning forward, chin almost to his chest, Jonathon stood in front of his cold brother, ready for a strike.

  He hit their sister—he deserved the same in return.

  Harvey stood tall, chin up, chest out, fist clenched, ready to dish out the punishment.

  But standing there, seeing his brother at his most vulnerable, desperately sorry for what he had done, the anger dissolved.

  His fist unclenched, and he reached his arms around his brother, drawing him into his chest. It was not a position Harvey was comfortable with—the Harvey men were always taught that emotions were to be avoided at all costs. Emotions were for the weak, not to be expressed at any occasion. Put your head down and work hard—that’s what their father had taught them.

  But it didn’t work for him.

  Awkwardly, Harvey held his brother in a hug for a few moments, then patted him on the back.

  “Right.” Harvey drew out of the hug. “Right. Well. Yes. We’re here for you.” It was the most uncomfortable statement he had ever made. He turned away from his siblings so they couldn’t see his face, and he tried to hide the fact that he needed to wipe a tear away from his eye with the back of his hand.

  Smiling, Ella moved to the kitchen. “I’ll make the coffees.”

  Not another word was spoken while Ella was in the kitchen; the two Harvey men looking down at the ground, each equally uncomfortable.

  Carrying two cups of steaming hot coffee, Ella walked back into the living room, handing a cup to each of them, and nodding for them to sit down on the small couch. Jonathon sat on the couch cradling the coffee, but Harvey remained standing, leaning against the wall.

  Taking a seat next to her middle brother, Ella rubbed his arm with a caring touch. “We’re here for you, Jonathon. We’re family, and we love you. We wouldn’t be here otherwise. We know that this is going to be challenging, but just know that we’ll do what we can to help.”

  “I don’t deserve your help,” he whispered as he looked into his coffee.

  “Stop talking like that.” Ag
ain, Harvey was firm. “We’re here. Accept it.”

  “Thank you.” Jonathon’s voice was soft.

  “It’s not all bad news, though.” Ella shrugged. “Jonathon got a job last week.”

  “Really?” Not many people wanted to employ ex-cons that have spent their lives addicted to drugs.

  “It’s not much pay, but it’s a start.” Jonathon’s shoulders pulled back with pride. “I’m helping out in a removals company, but I couldn’t be prouder to be doing it. It’s casual work at the moment, so when they need an extra hand, they call on me to help. I met the guy downstairs at my apartment building, and he asked if I was keen to help out. He said I looked like I could lift heavy things, and he needed an extra pair of hands.”

  “Have you started yet?”

  “First job was last week. But the problem is…” Jonathon drew a long breath. “They drug test employees.”

  “If you can avoid the job for three days, the drugs will have cleared out of your system.” Harvey’s response was clinical.

  “Three days. Ok. I can do that. If they call, I’ll tell them I’m sick.”

  A hush fell over the room.

  “Where did you even get the drugs from?” Always in problem-solving mode, Harvey worked through a solution.

  “Some guy.”

  “Who?”

  “I’ve never seen him before. I was sitting here, just watching some television, and I got this knock at the door. This really well-dressed guy was at the door, and he said he had a present for me—told me it was because I had recently moved into the building, and he just gave me a box, then left. After I closed the door, I opened it and found two needles full of heroin inside. Clean stuff, too. Not the dirty street stuff. Really clean. After I opened the box, I ran back to the door, but the guy was gone.”

  “You didn’t think it was strange?”

  “I thought it was very strange.” Jonathon continued to stare at his coffee. “But what was I to do? I didn’t know who he was, and I didn’t want to walk out onto the streets with two syringes full of heroin. I didn’t want to get arrested again. For all I knew, this was a setup, and the cops were just outside waiting for me to come out.”