In Our Darkness - 16. Chapter 16: The Man and The Child

David Andrews hadn’t made a new friend in years. In fact, it felt like for thirteen years he only spoke with cops, his parents, employees and store clerks. Nobody wanted to socialize with a man who only ever droned on about his murdered child. It brought down everyone’s mood, it killed everyone’s vibe. Years after the accident, there were very few people who could even stand to be around him. He was a social pariah. A man who couldn’t cope with grief gracefully. He became messy, and people didn’t want to deal with messy.

Gone were the times when his easygoing yet competitive nature and charm would draw people to him, make them laugh. His natural charisma and good looks used to attract hordes of women. Now his face had harsh lines, and most days it was bloated from a previous night of drinking. And he couldn’t find it in himself to try to be charismatic when he was just trying to get by. He realized that even he wouldn’t choose to hang out with himself in this state, which is why he felt no resentment towards all the friends who slowly slunk off throughout the years.

That’s also why he felt such a sense of shock when one day he realized he made a new friend - a young addict named Andy. It was an unlikely friendship right from the beginning, and it sprouted out of nowhere. They kept bumping into each other at AA meetings. They would sit in the back, both looking like they’d rather be anywhere but there. Both silent, and in no mood to socialize or make niceties with anyone. David appreciated that Andy wasn’t there for a social call, like some of the younger attendees. He wasn’t using the meetings to try to pick up girls. He wasn’t there to try and be cool and edgy and dark. He was there because he needed help, which was very apparent and something that made David empathize with him because Andy was so young. What kind of childhood did he have that made him seem so far gone this early on in life?

One day Andy asked David for a cigarette. David didn’t smoke, but that same day he went out and bought a pack of cigarettes. Next time Andy asked, he was ready. It was comforting, having Andy sitting there next to him in his old hoodie and with his sleepy eyes. It felt like they were in it together. Both miserable, both without answers, but both trying to fight on and stay afloat. On the days he didn’t come, David would wonder about where he was. He would worry about him relapsing. But then a day or two later Andy would show up, looking a bit worse for wear, but ready to give sobriety another shot.

The friendship between them was easygoing, and for once David decided not to talk about the accident. He wanted a clean slate, and he felt young hanging out with this kid who was cool but who also looked up to him. He felt important to someone, once again. He didn’t want to ruin the easygoing nature of their relationship with his sob story. And for once, he felt like maybe it would be alright to just let go. That maybe fate would take care of things, and maybe he didn’t need to waste another decade of his life chasing after a ghost.

Then one day Andy didn’t show up. A day turned into three days, and David began to worry again. He felt something in the pit of his stomach. A growing concern for this kid he barely knew. He sensed it: trouble.

He started asking around, but it seemed that among AA members that was an inappropriate thing to do. Anonymity was important, and Andy wasn’t officially David’s friend. It took a while, but David finally met Andy’s sponsor, who told him of a frequent drug den Andy would go to when he was using or in trouble.

David didn’t even think twice. Something inside him propelled him to the location right away. The same instinct that made him so gung-ho about calling the police station and chasing down any leads in his son’s case was the same instinct that he felt kick in knowing Andy might be in trouble. It was a paternal need to protect and to fix.

The closer he got to the address, the more he realized he needed to get this done very quickly. The streets narrowed and the houses became more and more run down and shady, and David felt a sense of claustrophobia fall over him. The characters walking out of the houses were unsavory, and after he parked he quickly took off his watch and jacket and threw on a baseball hat he had in the backseat. He knew he would stick out like a sore thumb in this neighborhood, but he didn’t want to be mugged before he’d even have a chance to get to Andy.

He quickly walked towards the unlit house at the end of the street. Everything was dark. He knocked at first, but when nobody answered he pulled on the handle and the door opened with ease. It was the smell that hit him first. It was a mixture of sweat, vomit, feces, marijuana and something else. Something he couldn’t even describe but would imagine a deceased body might smell like. He had to adjust himself so as not to throw up.

He was now facing a long and dark hallway. He tried flipping the light switch he found by the door, but the house had no electricity. He waited a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, and when they did he saw a crumpled up figure laying towards the stairs at the end of the hallway. He hurried to him, stepping over what sounded like glass, but it wasn’t Andy. It was a man—if you could call him that. David could barely distinguish the man’s features. He didn’t even appear human anymore. He seemed like an alien, or an experiment gone wrong. The man stirred and mumbled something, and David recoiled backwards, repulsed.

He went further and further into the house, passing a woman trying to rip out her hair and asking if he had any meth on him. He always thought that movies showing these types of scenes were over the top, and so stereotypical. But now, he was in one of those scenes. These people existed. This was real life. If you could call it life, because all around him he sensed nothing but the oncoming smell of death. He passed some more broken figures on the floor. He looked on at all these people who just gave up on real life and chose something else, something in-between. An escape route. A black out from the bleak reality of existence. Not ready to die, but not prepared to live either. It was the saddest thing he’d ever seen.

And then it hit him: was this what Elisabeth had seen when she looked at him and asked him for a divorce? Did she see someone who gave up on actual living? The thought scared him and made his stomach flip. He felt something wake up within him and fill him with an intense energy. It was a strong urge to seize life and never take anything for granted again. It was an urge to fight through the pain. He would need to stop all the self-harm he’d been doing for the past years. He would need to get out of this in-between existence and step into the real world again, before it was too late. Before he just became another ghost, not yet dead, but not living. But first, he would need to find Andy and help him.

At last, he reached a bedroom door upstairs. He opened the door to a filthy medium sized room, with all sorts of trash decorating the entirety of the floor. The sight made him nauseous again. There was a skinny naked woman laying on a bed. Her hair in disarray, her tattooed arm sporting a massive abscess. She was holding a needle and inching it closer to the arm of a skinny boy laying passed out on the bed. It was Andy.

David sprang into action.

“Get off him!” he yelled as he ran up and pushed her away from him. She swung her arms wildly and started screaming like a banshee. He was worried she’d hit him with the dirty looking needle. She looked like a vicious animal, with nothing but rage and pain behind her brown eyes.

He appealed to her the only way he knew how.

“You want drugs? I have drugs,” he told her, and she stilled as if she heard the word of God himself.

“What you got?” she asked, suspicious. Still holding her arm up with the needle pointed straight at him.

“Come over here and I’ll show you,” he said. She was still wary, but the urge of possessing more of what kept her feeling good took over. As she slowly walked towards him, he grabbed her wrist with as much strength as he could, and she cried out in pain as the needle dropped from her limp hand.

Before she could recover and go wild on him again, he pushed her into the small bathroom that was located right behind her, and quickly swung the door closed, then barricaded it with a dresser that stood right next to it. Luckily for David and unluckily for the naked woman, the door opened outward and not inward, which meant she was stuck. But her wild screams and banging on the door continued as David ran towards Andy, who was laying completely still on the bed.

“Andy wake up!” David tried to shake him awake, but to no avail. He knew he had to get him out of there. He picked him up and carried him out of the bedroom. A half-shadow half-man emerged out of darkness and stood in David’s way and asked him what he was doing.

“Get the fuck out of my way or I’ll kill you!” David screamed with more ferociousness than he even knew he possessed. He was terrified, but his only concern was Andy. The half-shadow scurried off like a rat, back into the darkness from which he came.

David finally got Andy out of the house and to his car. His body felt lifeless and David felt a wave of panic wash over him. This young man could not die on his watch. He wouldn’t be able to mentally handle it. He pushed the pedal to the metal and drove to the nearest hospital like a maniac. It just so happened that the nearest hospital was the same one where he found out his son was dead. A place he hadn’t been to in years. But now he had no choice.

“Hang in there Andy,” he kept repeating to the pale lifeless body. “Please hang in there. Don’t die on me kid. Do not die on me.”

He rushed the lifeless body inside. “I’ve got an OD!” he yelled at the staff. Andy was wheeled away on a stretcher and David was left behind. After answering some questions, he waited with knots in his stomach. He hadn’t been to the hospital since the accident happened. He suffered through every flu, every stomach poisoning and sickness on his own, or with private doctor visits. He could not bring himself to step foot in a hospital and relieve the worst day of his life again. He couldn’t handle the smell, the sound, the nurses, the doctors the walls, the bathrooms, the waiting areas. He couldn’t handle any of it. The hospital only held horrible memories for him. But it was also the only way to help Andy, and so he knew he had to get over his fear.

He sat in the waiting area, and every minute brought on a nauseating wave of memories surrounding the accident. Those glaring headlights, the loud sound of the metal scraping together, the fear he felt in his heart for his wife and child, the way time moved slow yet fast, and then the walk. The walk that felt like forever, when he had to leave his bleeding pregnant wife on the side of the road, alone, in order to get help from the nearest gas station. It was the most terrifying night of his life. And yet here he was again, and now someone else’s son was dying on his watch. He couldn’t help but think that the world was a cruel place, and that hell was right here, on earth.

He wanted to run out of the hospital, let the others deal with this pain. Andy probably had some family, they would be notified and they could handle decisions about his health. There was no need for him to be here, suffering through all this. Hadn’t he suffered enough? Why was God testing him. Why was he back in this place? But as hard as he tried, he couldn’t force his legs to move and leave. Somebody had to be here as witness, somebody who cared about Andy and his life. He couldn’t leave him here alone. So he stayed and waited.

At last a doctor emerged from around a corner and walked towards him. David clenched his fists and stood up as he prepared for the worst news. That Andy was dead. That he got to him too late. That he drove too slow. That he failed yet again.

“Mr. Andrews?”

“Yes.”

“We had to pump your son’s stomach, but he is stable now. You’ll be able to see him soon. He should recover just fine. You saved his life by bringing him here when you did.”

David slumped back down into the chair, the news knocking him off his feet. He felt the most amazing bout of relief spread through his body. It was like a blanket of pure warmth, straight from the sun. He even forgot to correct the doctor and let him know that Andy wasn’t actually his son, he just thanked him profusely.

And even though Andy wasn’t his son, it felt like something in the Universe had righted itself that night. David sat still and as a nurse walked by. He smiled at her and she smiled back. It felt like an unknown gesture, smiling. He hadn’t done it in years. But now he sat and smiled, and for a moment, the pain he had felt in the last years was subdued.

After he left the hospital, he felt the sudden urge to call Elizabeth. They hadn’t spoken in a long time. Last he heard, she was still with Tom.

“David?” he heard her voice on the other end of the line. She sounded surprised.

“Hey, how are you?”

“I’m…good. Surprised to hear from you. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, everything is fine. I just…I was at the hospital where it happened. My friend wasn’t feeling well, and I had to take him there. And I guess I just wanted to call you. Apologize for everything. For what I put you through after,” he was floundering with his words, finding it difficult to express his emotions.

“You don’t have to apologize David, we both did the best we could. We did our best to survive. I don’t blame you for anything,” she said, and her words felt like balm to his soul.

“You know, I’ve been having this dream of an old memory of me and you. Right after we found out you were pregnant. We went to the beach on a rainy morning, and it had this grey sand. And I remember your face and the way you smiled that day, two dimples on both sides. I hope I told you how absolutely breathtaking you were. How beautiful. I hope I said it many times. I hope you knew,” he said, tears now streaming down his face. There was silence on the other end and David fully expected her to hang up on him. But then he heard her speak again.

“And then I said, ‘You’re looking at me’ and you answered, ‘I’m looking at you’ and smiled. And I asked if there was something on my face and you said, ‘Yes, pretty. A lot of pretty.’” David smiled at the memory.

“And then you called me a cornball,” he said, and Elizabeth laughed.

“I’m glad you called David,” she replied, and they sat in silence for a while, before hanging up.