Cold Hell - 14. Chapter 13

Two years after my mother died, my father sent me to rehab. Uncle Charlie and he came together to form an intervention.

My father's office was on the top floor of the Aamodt Corp branch here in the city. If you looked out the window you could see Doc City's skyline from a hundred and eighty stories in the air. It was quite dizzying to see all the cars, just the vaguest of moving shapes. It was impossible to see people.

Danni Aamodt the IV sat at his desk, looking regal and impeccable in his three piece suit. He looked at me, his disapproval made clear in the twin arches of his perfectly trimmed eyebrows, but his thoughts and emotions were unclear to me.

The same could not be said for Uncle Charlie. He had always been easy to read, both physically and psychically. His emotions and thoughts always showed on his face, even if he didn’t speak them out loud. I could tell from the way he avoided looking me in the eye, standing with his back straight as a board, he felt guilty of something. As for his emotions itself - orange with tinges of green, meant guilt and nausea. Even while knowing what was about to happen, I wasn’t angry at Charlie. He was my father’s best friend and colleague; it was his job to stand by his side in all matters. And still, it hurt me, knowing he would never stand up against my father on my behalf.

“Your habit has gotten out of hand,” my father said. His voice was cold, precise. His eyes cut into me. “Just look at you - when was the last time you bathed or washed your clothes.”

The three piece suit I wore was covered in sweat stains and dirt. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d changed my clothes. My hair was greasy from unwash. My teeth felt grimy. My eyes burned, my skin itched. I couldn’t remember what day it was, what week. What month. When I went on a binge time was lost to me, measured only by the next fix. I could barely remember how I’d ended up in my father’s office.

A limousine. I came in a limousine.

Ah, yes. Now I remembered. A man under the employ of my father had shown up my door, saying he’d requested my presence. I’d answered the door wearing nothing but my filthy underwear.

“Well,” my father said, “do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“Not really,” I muttered.

“Well I’ve had it up here. I will not have you running around like this, high as a kite, looking like a vagrant on the street. You are the fifth of your name. You will uphold your family honor.”

I closed my eyes so he couldn’t see me roll them. I could sense how uncomfortable Uncle Charlie was. He didn’t want to be here, having this conversation. He felt it was his fault, for giving me the false ID when I was eighteen; he thought I’d fallen in with the wrong crowd; was just trying to cope with the loss of my mother. He was right on most things, but I didn’t blame him for my addiction issues. The responsibility only fell on my shoulders.

My father leaned back in his chair, with the sky and afternoon sun directly behind him. "I've paid for you to go to a clinic outside the city. They will help you get back to where you need to be."

A detox center? I laughed. "You're just wasting your breath and money. I'm not going."

I should have known better than to challenge him. Danni Aamodt the IV was the most powerful man in the world. He had the money to do whatever he wanted, get away with whatever he wanted. To challenge him was futile. He smirked, looking at me in a way that made me feel small even though he was sitting down and I was standing.

“I figured you might say that. If you do not go, I will tell the authorities about where you go to get your drugs. I know who your dealers are. I will rat them out and they will all go to jail. I will have them search your apartment and they will confiscate whatever you have. I will make your life a living hell. Do you understand me?”

I nodded. I believed him. I knew he was telling the truth. And I hated him now more than ever for trapping me. But what choice did I have?

                        …

For the next month I stayed at the rehab facility, a ranch style farmhouse situated on several acres of land twenty miles outside of the city. The farmhouse had been built in the early twentieth century; since then the second floor had been converted into dorm rooms. The property also had a stablehouse, where the horses were kept.

Within the first few hours of arriving at the facility, I met my sponsor for the first time on the porch. He slowly got out of his car, a vintage twentieth century model Cadillac. I watched him hobble slowly up the driveway. The journey was painful to watch. He moved as if every step hurt him. His breathing came out in driy, raspy wheezes. His eyes, as blue as the sky above our heads, remained fixed on me, filled with the stubborn determination only the old possess.

At last he lurched up the steps and offered me a liver spotted head. With the other he removed the tattered Tiger's baseball cap from the top of his head; what few remaining wisps of white hair he had left stuck up on end.

"Name's Chuck," he said with a smoker's voice. The smell if Nicotine coming off him was unpleasantly strong.

"Danni," I said. I didn't offer him my hand.

"I know who you are. You’re the son of Danni Aamodt IV.” Chuck grinned, showing his Nicotine-stained teeth. “I suspect you never thought you’d end up in a place like this. I'm going to be your sponsor." He narrowed his eyes at me. "You know most people would consider it rude not to shake hands when someone is trying to introduce themselves."

"I don't mean to be rude. I just don't like to be touched."

Chuck grunted disapprovingly. "Have it your way, then. Let's go inside the house. I want to talk to you for a minute, go over some things." He pulled open the screen door and shuffled inside the house.

We sat at the long, wood dining room table where we were less likely to be disturbed. Chuck sipped at a steaming cup of coffee. "I love coffee," he informed me. "I always have, but I love it even more so since I got clean. Unfortunately…" He pulled out a pack of Camels and waved them at me. "I have a different kind of addiction. Never smoked a cigarette in my life when I was doing pills. Now I smoke a pack every day. I traded one addiction for another. What's your poison?"

"Heroin," I murmured.

"Groovy," Chuck said with a frown, though judging from the sound of his voice he didn't think it sounded groovy at all. "Heroin is one of the hardest drugs to come off. How long has it been since you used?"

"Before I came in, six-seven hours ago."

Chuck nodded. "It usually takes twelve hours before your body starts going into withdrawal. Of course this depends on different factors, like how dependant you are on the drug. Are you familiar with the symptoms?"

I nodded. "They ranger from mild to severe. Vomiting. Diarrhea. Muscle cramps and abdominal pain. Tremors. There are also psychological consequences. I've experienced them before."

Chuck's jowls drooped. "Danni, have you gone completely cold turkey before?"

I told him I had not.

"This isn't like going a day or two without drugs," Chuck explained. "Assuming you're serious about recovery, you might never use again. The journey won't be easy but myself and the rest of the staff here at the facility will help you get through it to the other side." He smiled at me. The smile was meant to be encouraging but it only made me resent him.

And he wasn't the only one: I resented my father for forcing me into this place; I resented Uncle Charlie for never being man enough to step up to him; I resented Rudolph for getting me started on the path to becoming an addict. One night with him was all it had taken.

How did my life turn into such a nightmare? I wondered. I wanted out of this room, away from the old man. I wanted to go up to my room and be left alone. I wanted to sleep until it was time to leave. More than anything I wanted to get away from the raging tempest of emotions storming inside me.

I stood up. "I'm feeling very tired all of the sudden. I'd like to go up to my room and rest."

"The staff have my phone number if you need anything. I'm just a phone call away."

                                …

That night I did not sleep. A few hours after meeting with Chuck, the symptoms of withdrawal began. It started with the worst abdominal cramps I'd ever experienced in my life.

The pain was crippling. It felt as if someone had shoved a knife into me and was scrambling my insides with the blade. All I could do was curl up, take deep breaths, and wait for the pain to pass momentarily. Then came the shakes and the sweats and nausea. Twice I had to ask staff for help getting to the bathroom - I could barely walk, the cramps were so agonizing.

Finally I slipped into an uneasy sleep, dreaming feverishly until I woke up during the mid hours of the morning.

The following four days was an agony-filled blur. Chuck had made an understatement when he said the journey to recovering wouldn't be easy. I was given small doses of Clonidine, a medication used to help with the cramps and muscle aches. While the medication helped alleviate the pain from the bodily side effects it could not help me psychically.

My addiction to heroin had always served as a protective cushion against the transmissions of emotions and thoughts I picked up from other people; if the euphoric high didn't drown out the emotions altogether then it muffled things enough that I could cope.

Now I was trapped with no choice but to feel the emotions of those around me as well as my own: the anxiety and exhaustion of the other people going through withdrawal. Unless it was to use the bathroom I refused to leave my room. After a week of secluding myself, Chuck had finally had enough. Just as the sun was rising on a Thursday morning, he came shuffling into the room and whipped the curtains open.

I winced, turning my head away from the beam of sunlight streaming in through the window. "What the hell are you doing?" I demanded. "I'm trying to sleep!"

"I don't care!" he snapped. "Get up! You've wallowed in bed long enough!"

For the first time in almost a week I stepped outside. The air smelled of freshly mown grass and hay. Chuck led me in the direction of the barn; I lingered behind him, not wanting to walk ahead of him.

There were eight stalls inside the stallhouse; four of the stalls were occupied with horses. Chuck pointed at a heavy looking canvas sack sitting by the doors. “You’re going to help me feed the horses. I’d drag the bag over myself, but I’m old and it’s too heavy for me, so you’re going to do it.”

I shot him a grudging look, but did as he asked. I dragged the bag over to the nearest horse and pulled the sides open. The bag was full of green apples.

“We feed the horses here hay, mostly,” Chuck explained. He grinned. “But they love apples, snow peas, carrots, you name it. Hand me an apple, will ya?”

I stooped down. Just the simple act of bending over made my back ache; after several days of laying in bed, my body was still sore. I handed Chuck the apple. “This is Mary-Beth,” he said, nodding at the horse. “She is the oldest horse we have here on the property. She was just a foal when I came here thirty-something years ago. Isn’t she beautiful?”

I said nothing. Why had the old man brought me out here? I just wanted to go back to my room, back to my bed.

The whole time Chuck had been talking, he was using a pocket knife to slice the apple. Now he offered the slices to Mary-Beth. Mary-Beth took them from his hand, slowly lowering her neck to pick them up with her teeth. “I came out here, a lot,” Chuck said. “Especially when I was going through my withdrawals, and when I was feeling angry or resentful like you do now, or when I wanted a fix or a drink. It helped me to be around them. Horses are some of the calmest, most sensitive creatures on the planet. You can pat her if you want to - she won’t bite you. Mary-Beth is a good ol’ girl.”

Reluctantly, just to appease the old man, I patted the horse’s coat. The moment I touched her an immediate sense of calm and contentment washed over me. It interrupted the flow of anger and pain and grief I’d felt since I’d come to this place. No, since before then. This anger I’d been feeling was older, had been building up since the death of my mother. But now I no longer felt that anger or the physical aches that made my body feel like it was slowly falling apart. There was only me and the horse. The feeling of calm transferred from the horse to me.

As I ran the flat of my palm along Mary-Beth’s neck, I breathed in the earthy smell of the straw and the sweet scent of the apple. It was like standing in a completely different world, one seperate from the one I’d always known: a world free from the shadow of my father and his legacy. This world was much more beautiful and natural in its simplicity. Now I understood why Chuck had dragged me down here to see the horses.

We spent the next hour in the stall, feeding and patting the horses. When we left the barn, to go back to the house, I felt alive again. Like I’d come back from the dead.

For the next three weeks I participated in groups. I talked about my mother, the hole her death had left in me; I talked about the anonymous sex I’d had and the drugs. Of course I couldn’t tell the truth about my psychic abilities, but I didn’t need to. Bit by bit, day by day, I was learning to cope with them. Early in the morning, just as the sun was starting to come up, I went out to the stalls to see the horses. Everyday I felt their sense of calm and everyday I carried that sense of calm back with me.

There were days when it wasn’t always so easy. There were days when I wanted a fix, when things were unbearable.

But I got through them.

Finally it was time for me to return home, back to my father. I said farewell to Chuck, the staff at the facility, and the horses.

                    …

When I stepped through the doors of Aamodt Manor, Uncle Charlie greeted me in the parlor with a bear-hug. “It is so good to see you,” he said. “You look better.”

It was a comfort to know the relief - and guilt - he felt was genuine. No matter what I went through, what hardships I endured, I at least knew there would always be one person there to greet me. Other than my mother, I’d always felt Charlie was one of the few people who always cared about me.

I clapped him on the back. “It’s good to see you too, Uncle Charlie.”

He released me, stepped back, looked me better. “You look good, like you’ve gained some of the weight you lost - though I’d say it wouldn’t hurt you to gain a little more. You looked absolutely dreadful before you left. Your father will be glad to see you.”

“I’ll take your word on it. I suppose I better get it over with and say hello.” While I had worked on making ammends with most things in my life, my father was the only thing I dreaded confronting.

“He’s at the office, most likely filling out paperwork or in the middle of a board meeting,” Uncle Charlie said flippantly. “You know how he is - always busy. I expect you want to rest before going out to see him.”

“I’ll rest later,” I said. “I’ll catch a ride with you, if you don’t mind.”

After two hours of waiting the doors to the conference finally opened, and the members of the board filed out. Danni Aamodt the IV was the last to leave the room. After shaking hands with a couple members of the board who congratulated me on my “speedy recovery”, I turned to face my father. We stood several feet apart as if there was an invisible divide between us. He looked as he always did with his hair neatly swept back and his creaseless black suit and polished black dress shoes. Like me, he seemed to not know what to say. It was the first time I’d ever seen him look uncertain.

“You’re back,” he said at last.

“I am,” I said.

“You look good. Healthy.”

“Thank you. I feel better. On the way here Uncle Charlie told me you sold my condo.”

Danni Aamodt IV scratched at his nose. “Yes, well...”

“It’s fine,” I told him. “It’s high time I worked and earned my own way, don’t you think? I want to work for you.”