Unhaunting The Hours by Peter Sargent Page B

get at. But it had been months since I’d last
used the jack or the IV. I’d considered removing them, but I’d have
to go under for that. And while I was under, the docs, might
discover what happened to me in Abdera. Even I didn’t remember that
anymore, and I wasn’t thrilled about being the last to know.
Besides, I didn’t have the cash.
    But I still had that residue of joy. I
could no longer see all my ribs, and the bluish bags around my eyes
were disappearing. Soon, I hoped, the visions would go with them.
Someday, this would all be ten years ago.
    I opened the cabinet and pulled a baby
blue cardboard box off the shelf. I held it over my palm and caught
a few plastic packets filled with gel. Spectrum drops. I popped
these as a kid, up until the day I first plugged in with Abdera.
Abdera cured me, because its high was so much better than the
Spectrum. And it was all natural, they used to tell me. I
shuddered. The day I left the colony, I picked up the Spectrum
habit again, right where I’d left off. I needed it to make the
shakes and nightmares stop. But I’d had it kicked for weeks now.
That’s the joy. That’s the euphoria I’m trying explain. Freedom, do
you see? And I did it by myself this time.
    People I tell say they get it (and
George, stop talking about it), but it’s hard to find people who
haven’t done it and who can take it seriously. In all my years on
drugs and in wire cults, I’d been to places I can’t describe. But
there I was in the rain, beneath a dead light and holding the
garbage, and it was the happiest moment of my life. If you can’t
understand what that means to me, then you might as well leave me
alone and pretend we never met.
    So what was I doing with the Spectrum
in my palm now? Was it Healing?
    I said to myself, “George, if you can’t
win this simple battle, you’re going nowhere.”
    So I tossed the last drops in the
toilet and flushed them.
    I showered and when I got out, I
stopped. Something was missing. I fumbled through the back of my
brain and then I realized there was no Mrs. Brown. She lived above
me and liked to move the furniture around her apartment. Last week
I’d found her sputtering on the ground outside. I called the
ambulance, and the medic said the strangest thing. “You’re out of
your wooly mind, but you’re lucky.” Would he have me leave her
there? I know I’m supposed to be a tough city boy, but I have to
admit that it does get me down when a medic calls me stupid because
I’d risk my own life waiting in an alley. Folks in the Berm aren’t
worth it. I know.
    The ER fixed her up and I told them to
take her to the shelter. You have to understand, the ER’s stacked
full and there’s no one around here to take care of her. I can’t do
it. I’d have to go to the shelter later and check on
her.
    I opened an ice cream carton and went
to the TV. Since I was off Spectrum and Abdera together, I’d
developed an all-consuming appetite. That was fine. I needed the
weight back. The late news was on. The police had found a body in a
dairy freezer, in the back room of a grocery store nearby. It was
in pieces. It was bad enough that bodies were turning up in the
Berm, but it was worse that Healing must have known about this
second murder before he came to me. He was looking for me to slip
up. I knew that Abderans had this reputation of tormenting
defectors – but this? Healing must’ve sunk deeper than I’d thought,
or – to be realistic – he had something else going on.
    That thought was for tomorrow. I
flipped the channels and slept on the couch.
    * * * *
    Three hours later, it was time for
class. I stood on a concrete train platform, a couple stories above
street level. Dull glass office fronts faced the tracks on either
side, up to the place where the rails met the sky at a point. The
sky was still full of stars, but there was a milky rim just
widening at the horizon. The train rattled in, tin colored and
covered in graffiti. Three AM. I was the