Palouse - 31. Chapter 31

Breakdown – February 1995

A Few Days Later

Things fall apart. The center cannot hold…

The ceremony of innocence is drowned.

– William Butler Yeats

The phone was ringing. David looked at the red letters on his clock radio. It was just past 3 a.m. His roommate was sound asleep. David, though, felt the usual uncertainty, apprehension and fear when any phone rings at 3 a.m. He flipped his blankets back and walked across the room, hurrying, not knowing how long it had been ringing. “Hello,” he said, the sleep still in his voice.

“Come hold me.”

“Micah! What’s happening?” Alarm and worry drove David to full alertness.

“I’m lost, David. I’m lost.” The anguish in Micah’s voice came from uncomfortably deep within the soul.

“I’ll be right there,” David said. “You’re at your dorm?”

“Yes, David. Come quickly.”

David slipped on some clothes, grabbed his coat and the keys from the hook where he kept them, ran down the stairs to the door and was in his Civic seconds later. He turned the key and put his car quickly in reverse, not caring if anyone was coming down the road. He drove as fast as he could, through several red lights when he saw no one was coming and arrived at Micah’s dorm ten minutes later.

The outside door was locked. “Damn it,” David cried as he began pounding on the glass. He was about to find a rock to throw through the glass when someone came out of a room. David pounded on the door again and was heard. A sleepy-eyed young man in pajamas came and unlatched the door without saying a word, as if David was just another student who had locked himself out. David ran past him, down the hall and up the stairs to the third floor, taking two and three steps at a time. He ran to Micah’s room, tried the doorknob and was relieved that it turned. Inside, Micah was sitting on the floor, slumped in the corner, with five jars of pills arrayed in front of him. Even though the only light came from a dim bedside lamp, David could see that Micah’s eyes were red and swollen. David ran to Micah’s side, sat and put his arm around Micah’s shoulder.

“Did you take any of these?” David asked.

Micah shook his head no, almost too imperceptibly for David to see. David pulled Micah to him, and Micah laid his head on David’s shoulder.

“I feel so alone.”

“Not now. I’m here, and I’ll stay as long as you want.” David’s arm squeezed Micah’s shoulder in emphasis.

“Thank you,” Micah whispered.

David held Micah for half an hour in silence. The sky began to lighten. He finally asked: “Micah – so talk to me.”

“Casey’s dead.”

Micah took a few minutes composing himself. “You know, the boy I told you about – from Idanha and again last month when he turned up in Walla Walla. Last night, I got a call from the Spokane police saying the only thing they found on a man they found on the street was a phone number: mine. There was no wallet, no other identification except a piece of jewelry. They said he had been beaten and died, but maybe after a drug overdose. He had no wallet; they figured it had been stolen. They were hoping I could identify him. They described the man they found, and I was afraid at once that it was Casey. And when they described the necklace I gave him with the stone I found in the Salmon River, I knew it was Casey.

“I loved him, David, like a brother. We became so close.”

David couldn’t relate to Casey, but he could relate to the anguish in Micah.

Micah stood and started pacing, his voice rising almost to a scream. “Casey wasn’t a man, David. He was just a lost, screwed-up boy. I tried to help him when I found him here, but he refused. All he wanted was for me to drive him to Spokane, and I did. I dropped him off on the street. He said he was going to call his ‘uncle,’ but I know there’s no uncle. I gave him $50. I guess I sensed that something was terribly wrong. I let him down.”

“If he wanted your help, he would have let you help him.”

“The cops want me to come and identify him. I told them I would if I had to, but they should contact his parents in Prineville. Let them have the sad duty of identifying him. If they refuse, I told the cops, I can come, but I don’t want to.

“I asked them if they would send me his ashes if his parents didn’t want them, and I asked for the necklace back – to remember him by. The cop said he would send me the necklace for sure, even though he thought it was probably against regulations. I’m going to scatter the ashes around the hot-springs pool at Idanha – Casey was happy there – and I’ll return the stone from the necklace into the Salmon River where it came from. Maybe the river will remember his happiness when it gets that stone back.”

“Let me go with you when you go down to Idaho,” David offered.

“You don’t have to. You didn’t know Casey.”

“But I know you, and I know you bonded with Casey and grew to love him, so I know I would have loved him, too.”

Micah was overwhelmingly pleased at David’s offer as he sat next to him on the bed again. “I guess what is so scary is that it could have been me who became so lost. I could have fallen as far as he did if my parents hadn’t made me go to that wilderness trek and the Idaho school – and they were there if I had really needed them. In a way, Casey saved me because he needed me so badly in Idaho, and I stopped feeling sorry for myself; he was in so much worse shape than I was. By helping him, I started to get better. We both started to get better.” Micah sobbed.

“On top of this, the day before yesterday the Today show called because they were doing a series about child prodigies who had not gone on to fame; they wanted to show where and what they were today. I told them I wouldn’t talk to them, because it would be too painful. But I’m going to call them tomorrow. I need to face what I am now, have them see what I am now.” Micah dropped his head in dejection.

“Hold me, David. Everything is just going wrong.” David put his arm around Micah and drew him to his shoulder and just held him. After a while, the terrible sobs stopped, and Micah quieted, and then he fell asleep in David’s arms, his cheeks streaked with dried and fresh tears.

The two were huddled in the corner of Micah’s bed, one a refugee from the darker, sadder side of life. David finally extricated himself from Micah, leaving him lying back on the bed. He covered Micah up with a blanket as he watched him sleep. David was then able to inspect the bottles arrayed at Micah’s side. Sleeping pills, aspirin, a bottle of Vicodin and a few others prescribed, so the label said, for Micah’s roommate the past year. There was probably enough there to do some serious damage, David decided. He picked the bottles up and set them away from Micah, then lay on the bed beside him and fell asleep.

The bright light from outside began to flow into the room, which woke Micah, who took a few seconds to orient himself. He felt David’s comforting arm around him. David stirred; his eyes fluttered open.

“Thank you for coming last night,” Micah said softly.

“You’re welcome. I’m a friend; I’ll come any time you need me – just to hold you or to talk to you if that’s what you want.”

“I know.”

They sat for a few minutes, letting the sleep fade from their eyes.