Swerve

                                                                                                 “One Twenty. Damn, that’s fast, “ Reggie exclaimed as he turned the radio up.

            “Where do I turn again? “ Trevor asked as he brought the rolled-up ten to his nose.

He craned his head to check his eyes in the mirror, only to see the 55^th Street Exit approaching. Trevor swerved to the right, realizing that was his exit, crossing two lanes of traffic in the process without signaling. An approaching SUV could not decelerate quickly enough, and flipped trying to turn.

            “Holy fuck dude! That was intense” Reggie shouted, as his Buick Regal dipped in and out of traffic, paying no mind to any form of traffic direction. 

“I, I’m just gunnna...pull over, here. Maybe we can find something to eat. A nice juicy BLT perhaps…” Trevor uttered as his eyes began to close, to the sounds The Long Winding Road by The Beatles playing over his blown out speakers.

            He awoke to a world turned on its side, slowly realizing that he was the one lying sideways.  Looking around, he realized Reggie was nowhere to be seen.

            “He musta left and gotten something to eat,” Trevor heard himself say. His head was swimming. Why was he in his car? How did he get here? In fact, where exactly was here? Looking out of the window, he recognized the familiar façade of his apartment building. Entering the lobby, he could feel the stares of its occupants glued to him like a tractor beam. He smelled his overcoat, “Whiskey, a couple of Salem-lites, what are the looks for?”

            When he reached his bathroom he was made aware of the problem.  The white powder resting beneath his nose tended to arouse suspicion. “No more. None,” Trevor proclaimed, swearing to himself that this was the end.

            After cleaning his apartment, packing some clothes, and dropping off Monroe, his bulldog, at his mom’s, Trevor was ready for rehab.

            He had one more thing on his to-do list. He snorted his last line on his kitchen table, right before running down his front steps to the waiting van.

            As Trevor stepped into the van, eyes bloodshot, walking impaired, he recognized a familiar face.

            “Reggie. What are you doing here man?”

            “Just a little stint in rehab, you know how it is.” he responded, as the van wound its way through the city. The silence invaded Trevor’s head as his eyes followed the passing streetlights.

The drive felt as though it had been days, but in fact it was only fourteen highway hours from Los Angeles to Oregon. Trevor felt as though he was going to collapse in the entrance hall on arrival, and was brought a wheelchair.  Reggie was nowhere to be found when they arrived. Trevor wrote this off as just another strange happening. There seemed to be many in his life recently.

            The first couple of days were the hardest; crippling panic attacks, temperature variations.  But the worst were those horrible introspective periods, when one looks at their life and sees it in a new light, often revealing it to be completely unsatisfying.

            When Trevor arrived he was assigned to room 316.  His lucky number was thirty-one, so he figured this was a good omen. Trevor’s roommate was there to greet him. 

            “Hi, I’m Wendell, and I’m a drug addict,” he joked.

            Well at least he has a sense of humor, thought Trevor.

            “I’m Trevor, and I too am a drug addict. What are you here for?” he asked, assuming this was a good place to start.

            “Smack,” Wendell responded, “nine years. I’m here to get kids back. My wife took them after I started using, which only made it worse.”

            “What a bitch,” Trevor responded.

            “No. That should have been a wake up call. She did the right thing. I am only trying to get back into their lives.”

            “Oh. I…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,”

            “No worries man. That’s what rehab is for. Re-evaluating one’s perspectives.”

            From this encounter, Trevor realized he had much to learn from this man.

            “You wanna get some food?” Wendell broke the silence.

            “Most definitely. They got BLTs here?” Trevor asked as they exited the room together.

            Over the next several days, Trevor learned, with Wendell’s guidance, to cope with the urges. Their friendship grew, and Trevor began to imagine a life without heroin. Most of the time, he was either playing chess, or just hanging around in his room. He hadn’t seen Reggie since his first day there, but Trevor tried to focus only on his own recovery.

            Much of the time, he just lay on his bed talking to Wendell.

“Whatchu up to down there?”

“Just writing in my diary,” Wendell responded.

“You keep a diary? Isn’t that for pussies?” Trevor scoffed.

“Fuck you,” Wendell laughed. “It’s part of my therapy. Everyday I write something, regardless if I feel it’s important. It goes in the book. What’s up with you talking in your sleep?”

“What? What are you talking about?” Trevor said as he stuck his head over the bunk.

“You keep mumbling about some guy named Reggie.”

“Seriously? That’s fucking weird. Damn near as weird as a grown man writing a diary, but not quite.”

“Shut up fool,” Wendell retorted.

“You don’t know Reggie though? He’s in rehab here too. I haven’t seen him in a since I first got here though. I wonder how he’s doing.”

“You do know that there is no Reggie here, right?” a puzzled Wendell asked.

            Realizing something was definitely amiss, Trevor decided to change the subject, “Damn I could really go for a BLT.”

“Yeah, they don’t really ever put enough mayo on ‘em. And the bread is always soggy. You’d think for 2k a week they could really toast that shit.”

“Yeah really,” Trevor agreed, though he was still trying to wrap his mind around the idea that there was no Reggie. Had he hallucinated him? Or was Wendell just too self involved to notice the new residents?

“You wanna grab a bite?” Wendell asked as he tucked his diary into his pillow.

“Sure,” Trevor answered, as they walked towards the cafeteria.

The next day Trevor was sitting on his bed, passing the time trying to learn how to complete a Rubik’s cube. He had gotten seven out of nine blocks on the blue side, a new record. As he spun the top, having no idea what his next move should be, his door opened, and two orderlies filed in.

 “Excuse me Mr. Demsky, Wendell has checked out and we need to gather his belongings,” the first one said.

“He checked out? Why didn’t he say anything to me?” Trevor questioned.

“You know how recovering addicts are. Sometimes they are impulsive. I guess he felt it was his time,” the second orderly responded.

“Well let me grab his pillow real quick. He was always bragging about how much more comfortable it was than mine,” Trevor responded, jumping off his bunk and snatching the pillow.

Trevor knew Wendell would definitely have taken his diary with him if he left. He clambered back onto his bunk, placing Wendell’s pillow on top of his own. He could feel the book jutting into his neck, but did not dare pull it out in front of the orderlies. He lay there as the two employees cleaned out the bottom bunk and left the room.

At the cafeteria, he turned to another patient, Larry, and asked if he had heard about Wendell.

“No one has seen him. Word is that he checked himself out,” Larry said rather loudly. As he purposely dropped his cup of water, he asked Trevor to help him clean it up. When they were both crouched over the rapidly expanding puddle, Larry whispered, “I saw a stretcher being pulled out this morning with a white sheet over the person. The only person missing is Wendell. What could have happened?”

“I don’t know, but I mean to get to the bottom of it,” Trevor responded as they both rose up and continued in line.

As Trevor mulled the whole situation over, he could not understand why Wendell might have taken his own life. And if he had, why would they lie about it.

“Something smells fishy,” Trevor said out loud, as he brought his tuna sandwich to his mouth.

Maybe the diary will yield some answers, Trevor thought to himself. He casually returned his room, or as casually as a man with his heart in his throat can. He could feel the blood rushing through his veins, as he fished around in his pillow for the leather-bound book. The first entry dated three weeks prior:

It seems as though some of the residents here have not ceased their drug habits. I’m not sure how they are getting the drugs, but it is rather obvious when a meth-head has gotten his fix. I will look into it.

Shit, I wonder what he found Trevor thought to himself. The next entry was two days later.

I have noticed that all the patients that appear to be high have come from the physical therapy room. I think that they are either using there, or buying there. No solid information yet. I will look into it.

“Wow,” Trevor exclaimed. Someone has been selling inside of rehab, he thought. “That’s fucked up.”

A disheveled Trevor went immediately to the physical therapist’s office. He complained to the orderly there.

“I just don’t know what to do. After Wendell left, I have no one to talk to. I just…I just don’t know what to do anymore.” Trevor broke down.

“Isn’t this more of a psychiatrist’s line of work?” the orderly asked.

“I don’t know anymore. I just want to get away. Do you have anything? Maybe that could take my mind off things?” Trevor asked, hoping the orderly would take the bait.

“Well I do have a little something that might be helpful. Only between us though, right?”

The sap had fallen for it! Trevor was in. “Of course its just between us. What will it cost me?”

“It’s fifty a vial,” the crooked orderly responded.

Fifty a vial! Trevor thought, that’s robbery. “I’ll take one,” he said. Outraged at both the corruption, and the exorbitant price. This man must be making thousands, he thought.

“You can snort it in here. No one comes in without an appointment,” the orderly offered.

Fuck!  Trevor thought. How can I turn him down? Why would someone buy it, and not want to take it? He raised the vial to his nose and inhaled deeply. When he opened his eyes, Reggie was sitting next to him.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Trevor exclaimed.

“Don’t you already know,” Reggie responded.

After a momentary pause, Trevor realized that Reggie must be a figment of his imagination. The concerned look from the orderly seemed to concur with his diagnosis.

“I think I get it,” Trevor finally said after departing from the Physical therapy office.

“Bout time man. Let’s go check out that diary,” Reggie commanded.

The last entry was dated the day before Wendell disappeared.

I am going to bring all my information to the director or the facility. There is evidence that this business is not limited to low level staff. What a horrible place. Instead of a rehabilitation center, it harbors wealthy drug addicts, and milks them for their remaining money. Tonight all this will change.

“Sounds like this is some heavy shit. Like it goes to the top. What if the director is involved? You gotta report this to some authority.” Reggie said.

“What the fuck do I look like, Superman?” Trevor responded. “Did you see what they did to Wendell? I think it’s high time I get out of here though.”

“Oh, you’re a real man,” Reggie chided.

“I guess this will be the last time I’m seeing you buddy,” Trevor said as he lifted his hand.

“It’s about damn time. I was getting tired of your ugly mug,” Reggie said as he took Trevor’s hand for a final handshake.

Trevor took only Wendell’s diary and a pair of slippers, which he had found to be incredibly comfortable. He casually strolled out the front door, trying not to draw attention to himself.

“Wow I am happy to be out of there,” Trevor exclaimed as he walked down the hill towards a Seven-Eleven he could see in the distance. “I wonder where I can find a decent BLT around here?”