Time to face the music.
His classroom was empty except for Chad, the school nurse (a gigantic, sweaty woman who always looked pissed off about something) and, of course, Stuart Anderson, the John F. Kennedy High School principal. They clearly argued about something, but fell silent immediately when Jack walked in. Chad rose at once and came to the door, wrapping his arm around Jack’s shoulders.
“How are you, buddy?” Chad spoke slowly, like you might to an Alzheimer’s patient who has just had yet another stroke, or a child who you knew was destined for long rides on a short bus to the special classes in the trailer behind the school.
“I’m fine, Chad,” Jack said patiently, fighting the urge to shove him violently to the ground. “Where’s my class?”
“Well,” Anderson began, and then cleared his throat. “We had to send them down to join Ms. Gillespie’s class, Jack. But that was quite a while ago. It’s well into the lunch period now.”
Jack pursed his lips and nodded his head slowly. Of course, his look said. That would be the prudent thing when the biology teacher totally loses his shit in front of 35 teenagers.
Off to Ms. Gillespie’s class, kids. We’ll come get you after we are done picking up your teacher’s marbles and packing them in a ziplock baggie for the trip to the loony bin. Hurry up now! And don’t step on Simmons’ bloody tooth, there.
Chad led him gently to a chair, flipped up the half desk, and helped Jack slide into the seat. One more helpful hand from his friend and Jack decided he might break his jaw.
Mr. Anderson watched him uncomfortably, arms crossed as he leaned back against Jack’s desk. Nurse Cratchett (Jack had no idea of her real name, and couldn’t have cared less) stood sweating the chronic perspiration of the morbidly obese and looked disinterestedly at her fingernails. Her face said she had seen it all before in her long career in health care.
Doubt it, Jack thought. If you knew what the hell you were doing you’d be able to get a real job instead of pushing thermometers into kids’ rectums with your fat sausage fingers.
Mr. Anderson cleared his throat nervously.
“Jack,” he began and then paused. He shook his head and uncrossed his arms, apparently preferring to pace. “What’s been going on, Jack?”
Not much. Just a little unnerved by the dead kid who dropped by for a visit. And how the fuck are you?
“I’ve been pretty sick, Mr. Anderson.” Jack began. No problem convincing them of that. Jack knew his face must be pale, his hands trembled, and he figured he looked like he might pass out at any minute. “I apologize for the little problem here. I think I spiked a fever,” he shot a glance at Nurse Cratchett.
Don’t get your hopes up, Nightingale.
“And I felt like I was going to pass out. The whole room was coming in on me, and I guess I just needed to get out.” Jack sighed heavily and gave Anderson his best ‘I’m way too sick to go to school today, Mom‘look.
Anderson looked skeptical and stopped his stroll across the room. He put a hand to his chin and looked at Jack critically, dissecting him with his eyes.
“Everything okay at home, Jack?”
Jack started at that, and looked indignant, which wasn’t hard. Still he had to be careful here.
“Everything is fine with Pam and Claire, sir. I truly have been very sick. I actually have an appointment with my doctor today.” Jack looked at Chad, hoping for confirmation.
“We already arranged a sub for his afternoon periods, Stu,” Chad chimed in on cue.
“Look,” Jack said as he wiped perspiration from his forehead. “I really am sorry. It was a mistake to come to work feeling as shitty as I do. I just didn’t want the class to get behind.” He held Anderson’s doubtful look. The principal’s gaze softened. In fact, he looked relieved.
Just sick. Not nuts. Thank God.
“Well, no apology necessary, Jack. We just want to be sure you’re okay.” He looked stern again. “But go home, Jack. Rest up for the doctor’s appointment. And stay home until you are well enough to be here.”
Anderson walked over to Jack and clapped him gently on the back.
“Try and take care of yourself, Jack. No one is indispensable for just a few days. But we can’t afford to lose anyone for the year.”
A threat or just worry?
Anderson glanced at Cratchett, his look signaling her that they were done, and the two walked out. The nurse gave him a once over as she passed. Then she looked away impassively and followed the principal out, leaving the door open behind her.
Chad stayed behind, watching Jack with genuine concern. Jack met his eyes for a moment, but then his eyes fell.
“I’ve got to find my students and explain what happened,” Jack said.
“Jack, I’ll take care of it. We’re interchangeable to those kids.” He smiled. “How about if I call Pam to come and get you?”
Jack shook his head.
“No, please don’t, Chad.” The thought of Pam hearing this story was frankly more than he could stand. “I don’t want her to worry. I took some Tylenol for the fever. Give me a half hour to get my stuff together and leave a lesson plan for the sub, then I’ll be a good boy and head home. And Chad…” Jack held his friend’s eyes with a pleading look. “Please don’t say anything about this to Pam. She’s pissed enough that I refused to go to the doctor on the weekend.”
Chad laughed.
“Women!” he exclaimed, relieved that his friend seemed to be himself. Then he left and closed the door behind him.
Jack slumped down in the little chair. What the hell was he going to do? He sure as hell couldn’t go home. What would he say to his wife? That dead Simmons walked by his class and made him lose his shit, scaring the hell out of a room full of kids? Should he tell her that the ceiling had spun into a purple sky, that he could taste the dust and feel the grit on his teeth?
Not a chance. He would instead stop by the Starbucks out on Route 143 for coffee and a snack, and wait for his appointment with Dr. Barton.
They had a TV there, didn’t they?
Chapter
8
The coffee house had a TV, but it was tuned to some ridiculous talk show where two middle-aged women chatted about being middle-aged women with semi-celebrities. Jack ate a plain croissant chased with two cups of black coffee, and sat in a corner alone with his thoughts. He mostly thought of how and what to tell Dr. Barton about what was going on with him and, frankly, that scared the shit out of him.
What if Barton told him he was crazy? Jack sure as hell couldn’t tell him, their family doctor, that he was having waking hallucinations—visions of dead buddies he never actually knew stalking him at school. That would be a one-way trip to inpatient therapy, locked in a room and heavily sedated. Sane people just didn’t chase dead Marines down the hall in front of kids they were entrusted to teach.
You belong with us, Casey. Come back Sar’n. We need you.
Jack felt the shudder which was becoming way too familiar.
Jack tossed back the last lukewarm swallow of coffee and headed back to his car, parked on the street in front of the coffee house. Worse than the short drive to Dr. Barton’s office was the wait in the clean waiting room. After signing his name on the clipboard at the front desk, Jack settled into an uncomfortable vinyl‐covered chair. Fidgeting in his seat, Jack flipped through a Woman’s Day magazine, afraid that Time or Newsweek would contain an article or picture from the war that would flood him with images, or worse, bring his friend back for a visit. It wouldn’t help his cause to lose his shit in the waiting room, to scream at invisible ghosts in front of the woman with a two year old in her lap. He looked over at the old man who stared at him suspiciously. Jack smiled at him uncomfortably but the man turned away and then coughed and spit green snot into a handkerchief, which he wrapped up carefully and slipped back into his jacket pocket like it was some valuable gem. Jack glanced back into his lap at the article about coping with period depression (I should have your problems, lad
y), his leg bouncing up and down nervously.
Barton greeted him like an old friend, although he had probably only met the doctor a handful of times and couldn’t really remember the last time he had been here. It seemed strange, but the young doctor really did feel like a friend of sorts, and Jack relaxed as they chatted about Pam and how great little Claire was doing. They sat beside each other in plastic chairs, Jack avoiding sitting up on the exam table like an actual patient. Finally Barton plunged in.
“So what’s up, Jack?” he asked, a friendly hand on Jack’s shoulder.
As he knew he would, Jack kept the school encounter with Simmons and the anxiety attack from last Friday to himself. He confessed to the nightmares and admitted that they haunted him during the day. It seemed more okay to be haunted by nightmares about bloody corpses than by actual bloody corpses, right? He told Barton about the anxiety he felt, and even his burning need to watch the news, hoping to catch images of the war, knowing it would fill him with fear. He didn’t mention that he was hoping to hear the names of the dead from Fallujah, and his certainty that he would recognize those names. No sense in pushing it.
Jim Barton (“Relax, Jack. Call me Jim”…yeah, like that would help) reassured him that his anxieties were not unique, and that many people were deeply affected by the war that flooded into their lives through newspapers and TV (Katie Couric nodded knowingly in his mind). He was not the only one who had trouble coping with those images. Barton claimed to have several patients with similar nightmares.
Any of them getting visits from theirs at work?
Doc Barton told him that it was a “bit” out of his field and gave him a referral to “a good friend of mine, really good at this stuff.” He also gave him a prescription for Effexor to help with the anxiety.
“Isn’t that an antidepressant?”
“Well, yes, but we use it for lots of other things, too.”
Yeah, right.
The other prescription was for Ambien to help him sleep.
“Ambien won’t disrupt the normal sleep and dream patterns, Jack. You’ll rest, but won’t feel hung over in the morning.”
Jimmy definitely didn’t get it. He could get to sleep just fine, thanks very much. The truth was he didn’t want to sleep. Not tonight. Not ever again. He was terrified by the thought of falling asleep.
Got a pill for that?
The Doctor put his arm around Jack’s shoulders just like Chad had done—maybe like everyone did when they thought they were dealing with the deeply disturbed—and showed him politely out of the exam room.
“Hey, thanks for everything, Doc…I mean Jim.”
“No problem, Jack. Just try and relax and make sure and call Dr. Lewellyn today. I’ll call him, as well, so he’ll see you right away.”
Jack shook the offered hand and hurried out of the office. Then he sat in his car with the engine running and Today’s Country blaring on the radio for nearly twenty minutes, tears running down his face, his prescriptions wrinkled and clutched in his fist.
On the radio, Dierks Bentley seemed excited to see where the night might lead.
Fuck you, Dierks!
He pulled out of the crowded parking lot and headed home, with a quick stop at the Rite Aid.
Jack walked into his house with his very best forced smile and “everything is fine now” look on his face. He had a small white paper bag, full of little oral bullet solutions to all his problems, clutched in his right hand. He realized he held the bag unconsciously out in front of him like he was carrying a little bag of dog shit, and dropped his hand to his side, trying to look more relaxed. He was greeted by his smiling little girl (gratefully oblivious to Daddy’s slipping sanity) and his beautiful wife, her forced smile in no way masking the concern in her eyes. Jack dropped his bag of cure on the coffee table as he hugged his wife and kissed Claire on the forehead.
“Hey, guys,” he said. Pam held him a moment longer than usual.
“Hey, baby, how was your day?”
Did Dr. Barton purge your demons? Did he rescrew your head on?
“Okay,” Jack answered as he collapsed onto the couch, fingers pulling on his tie. Pam dropped Claire into Daddy’s lap, her squirming feet kicking into the soft spot in his crotch and earning her a painful grunt instead of a hug.
“Kisses, Daddy…MMMMM…MAAAAAAA!” Her mouth was wet on his cheek and smelled of fruit cocktail. It was wonderful in a way that only a parent would understand.
“Kisses, Claire Bear,” Jack responded, kissing his baby on her soft cheek. He looked up at his wife, who watched him tentatively, not wanting to ask. Jack shifted Claire to his knee and unconsciously blocked another foot shot to his package.
“Well, good news,” Jack said more casually than he felt. He Eskimo kissed Claire, who giggled. “Daddy’s not crazy, little buddy.”
Pam grimaced. “No one thought you were crazy, Jack,” she said, shaking her head as she joined him on the couch. “What did Dr. Barton have to say?”
“Well, you were right, baby. Doc says he has several patients with this same problem. He says that it’s a reaction to the flood of war images coming into the house, just like you said.” Claire grabbed his nose. Jack kissed her little fingers gently.
“Noze,” she said.
“That’s right, buddy! Nose—Daddy’s nose.” He looked at Pam, who waited patiently for more.
“He gave me some head-shrinker pills to help me with the anxiety, and some sleeping pills.” Jack felt his left eye tick a bit at that. Pam nodded and waited for more.
“He thinks that will help?” Her voice sounded full of hope.
“Yep! Says it will.” Jack kissed Claire on the ear. “Ear—Claire Bear’s ear!”
“Air,” she answered, delighted. Jack continued.
“He’s also got me an appointment with a Dr. Lewellyn, a friend of his who kind of specializes in this sort of thing.” Pam hugged her husband tightly and Claire squirmed to hug them both.
“Thank you, baby,” Pam sighed, her relief palpable.
“Thank you, honey,” Jack answered, breaking the group hug and kissing his wife gently on the mouth, tickling her upper lip with his tongue. “Thanks for sticking by me.”
Pam chuckled a light “don’t be silly” chuckle.
“Yeah, well, I guess I love you a bit,” she said, kissing him on the forehead. “You can pick your friends, but you’re stuck with your family.” She rose from the couch to head for the kitchen, and Jack grabbed her hand. She turned to face him and he looked her in the eyes deeply.
“Seriously, Pam. Thank you. I love you so much.”
Pam closed her eyes gently, embarrassed by the attention, then looked back at her husband.
“I love you too, Jack.” She squeezed his hand and headed for the kitchen.
Jack held his daughter up in front of him, her legs kicking joyfully in the air.
“Belly!” he announced and pressed his lips to his little girl’s soft tummy, blowing a ripping belly fart.
“Beddy! Beddy!” Claire answered, squealing with delight. Jack hugged her tight and his gaze fell on the little bag on the coffee table. He closed his eyes tightly, his face changing to a grimace.
“Love you, Bear,” he said. He held his little girl and tried desperately to ignore the subtle smell of Iraqi dust and the far off sound of gunfire.
* * *
Maybe the Effexor helped. It sure as hell wasn’t the Ambien, which Jack had taken from the pillow where Pam had left it for him, and flushed it down the crapper—feeling a twang of guilt—when he went for his pre-bed piss and brush. Whatever it was, he had slept the dreamless sleep of the righteous, that was for sure. In fact, he awoke in the exact same position he had drifted off to sleep in, his back aching and his throat dry, like waking up after a second bottle of wine before bed.
Jack had slept well, but he realized he hadn’t slept long. Before slipping into a deep sleep, he lay in bed staring in the dark at the shadowy shape of the spinning ceiling fan for se
veral hours, begging the night not to let it morph into the powerful blades of a UH-60 Blackhawk. He lay still in the dark, not wanting to disturb his sleeping wife, who had watched him quietly for a while before falling off to sleep, her arm across his chest, her leg across his waist. He had nearly woken her up after the first hour, thinking the distraction and subsequent relaxation of wild sex might help take his mind away from his dread of sleep and what the night might hold in store for him. In the end he had concentrated instead on the rhythmic musical snore that only sexy women can pull off, and thoughts of his pretty little girl, sleeping the deep sleep of the innocent down the hall. And then somewhere in the night he had drifted off to sleep.
He woke ten minutes before his alarm, glancing at the clock and silencing it before it could shake the quiet with its jarring whine. Pam had rolled on her other side sometime in their slumber, and he rolled stiffly onto his own side and wrapped his arms around her, feeling the soft curve of her hip against him in all the right ways. He pressed gently against her, feeling a comfortable stirring, and she squeezed his arm.
“Mmmmm,” she sighed. “I guess I know how you are feeling.” She rocked her hips backwards against him, and he pressed into her again, his hand pulling her into him as he caressed her belly gently. Pam rolled over to face him, raising her head to look at the time. Satisfied with what she saw, she pulled his hand down between her soft thighs, which she opened slightly, and closed her eyes. “How’d you sleep, baby?” she asked, her own hand now drifting slowly down his hip, then turning inward.
“Great, actually,” he answered honestly, then closed his eyes and moaned as her hand found her way to him. He rolled over onto his back at her gentle urging, and she straddled him, pulling her nightgown up over her head.
* * *
While Pam went to start the coffee, her face glowing and happy, dressed in one of his T-shirts and a pair of postsex “granny panties” (as she called them), Jack went to get Claire. She had started cooing for them and talking to herself before they had finished making love.
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