| |
Patches
by outright thief
"Greg," his mother insisted, "it has character. Like you."
His mom was bright and warm and beautiful, and that afternoon they'd danced in
their socks to the radio. Dad wouldn't be home for another hour, dinner wasn't
due to go on the stove for another twenty minutes. It was Mom and Greg Time,
and as "Tutti Frutti" crackled brightly through the hi-fi speakers, they bounced
and twirled and laughed.
Until his sock caught on the loose floorboard and tripped him, ripping a nice, wide
hole.
It didn't hurt. It was scary, but it didn't hurt.
Abruptly, off went the music and in swooped Mom. After triple-checking that he
was okay, she jumped up to turn it back on. "No, Mom," he called after her. "No
more today." She felt his head. Quadruple checked. Finally accepting 'no, I'm
not hurt' as an answer, she made what he was sure was the strangest request
he'd ever heard.
At the age of nine, he didn't understand the fuss over a stupid sock. Surely the
fabric to patch it cost a nickel or a dime in itself. They could afford a quarter.
Several quarters, actually. Ultimately, the next week he'd get a new pair when
the two of them made their weekly trip to the PX.
Still, she took the ripped sock from his room that night. When he woke up the
next morning, it had been returned, all patched up. Patched up, but never the
same.
He couldn't bear to wear the sock again, but he kept it long after he'd outgrown it.
Each time he'd go to throw it away he'd see the patch and remember his mother's
voice, and a chill would run through him that he could not shake. "Greg, it has
character. Like you."
*****
He was methodical about everything. Had always been, really. Until tonight.
The temptation had always been there before. Be wrong for once, he'd
think. The test's simple enough. If you're right, you're right about the greatest
puzzle of all time. If you're wrong, well...the outcome'll involve less pain. Less
feeling in general, but definitely less pain.
He'd come close once. "I can't do this anymore" was finally for real, and away
she went, leaving him with his drugs and his pain and himself. He'd set
everything up neatly on the table in front of him. The uncapped pill bottle, the
cap itself, the bottle of Jack, a glass.
He was at step two -- pouring the first mouthful of Jack into the glass, which was
a technicality and a nicety anyway -- when the door was pushed open.
"You and me," James had said, with his big brown eyes with the hair falling in
them and the missing wedding ring and the soft girly lips. And in the morning,
everything was blurry and hurt like hell, and waking to the sensation of those girly
lips pressed against his neck only exacerbated it all. He didn't even call him
James anymore -- he couldn't bring himself to do it, and when he remembered all
of it -- all of it -- he pulled away, and 'you'n'me' retreated to their own separate
corners, nearby and everpresent but never the same.
******
Just as Mom wanted the music back on, James always wanted the same thing.
He was dating wife number one when they met. All of a year and a half passed
before he showed up on the doorstep, piss drunk, and quickly they both figured
out what wife number one figured out long before she actually became wife
number one.
It scared them. They didn't talk about it.
Along came wife number two, and the cycle started again. Good intentions
paved on like good intentions do, and this time it was a karaoke bar and the
backseat of a borrowed car and cold hardwood floor. Bruises and scrapes and
the taste of salt and grain. What started as a "once again" turned into a "once in
a while" turned into a "can't function without" and suddenly wife number two is
bored enough that she finds husband number two in the meantime, making the
transition easy.
At first, the freedom was a drug in itself. The immediacy was gone, but the
opportunities were enough compensation. Enough, at least, until 'I want you'
became 'I need you' became 'I love you', and all the parameters changed.
It didn't hurt. It was scary, but it didn't hurt.
And then there was Stacy, and because he'd never said it back, it wasn't
betrayal. Not really.
*****
That next night, he slipped downstairs long after Mom and Dad had gone to bed.
Mom had books about crafts and cooking on a shelf near the fireplace, and he
grabbed one called "Basic Home How-To".
The section on sock repair held nothing about patches at all. According to this
book, he found out, socks didn't get patched at all -- they got darned, which
involved taking yarn and weaving the hole back together, removing all traces of
the pain, of the mistake.
He didn't know why she wanted him to remember the hole. He never dared ask.
*****
He couldn't bear the thought of dealing with any kind of emotional pain on top of
the absolute fucking hell he was going through physically. When the big brown
eyes stopped him at Step Two, it only rewound them to salt and grain, not words,
and the next morning they pretended it hadn't happened.
*****
Nothing was lined up. The method was long gone. Sitting on the floor, he gulped
down long, lukewarm swallows of Jack straight out of the bottle, ignoring the
burn. He popped palmfuls of the oxy in between like candy, alternating between
the two at an almost manic speed. Be quick about it, he chastised himself.
You could be right. After the third or fourth go-round, he fell to the floor,
convulsing, and he began throwing it all up.
What a waste of ten cents, he thought before blacking out.
*****
The rest was a blur. It all came and went in long, drawn-out, slow motion flashes
-- the phone ringing, the door opening. The hands rolling him over. The big
brown eyes. James? He didn't call him James. There wasn't any kind of patch
for that, was there? Nobody to sew it.
And then the eyes left him, and then the hands, and he heard the plastic of the
bottle clattering and smacking against the cold hardwood floor before the
blackness took over again.
Mom's voice was warm. "It has character, Greg. Like you."
Please post a comment on this story.
Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of NBC/Universal, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
|
|
|