Come Out Tonight (24 page)

“Seems like.”

For a minute we both went back to work, but I was still stuck on sexsomnia, for obvious reasons.
 
“So people take Somnolux and have sex in their sleep?”

“Yeah,” Carl laughed.
  
“There was this case where a man would hit on his wife once a month in his sleep.
 
His wife says she knew just when it was, because he was sexier and more aggressive than when he was awake.”
 
He laughed again. So did I, but it got me thinking.

Meanwhile Carl was still talking.
 
“They say parasomnias happen when the brain is half asleep and half awake.
 
People think that sleep and waking are opposite states, but it’s not really true.
 
The whole brain isn’t in one state or the other.
 
The monitoring and memory parts may be asleep while other parts are awake.”
 
He paused, sticking a label on.
 
“After all,” he said, “parasomniacs do manage to perform complicated tasks like walking and driving and making sandwiches.”

“And sex.”

Carl laughed at my one-track mind.
 
“Yeah.
 
And sex.
 
And parasomnias happen without Somnolux.
 
Somnolux must just bring it out in susceptible people. I mean, people do sleepwalk, children especially.”
 
He went briefly back to work before he looked up again.
 
“You ever sleepwalk as a kid?”

“You know, I seem to remember my mother telling me something about me sleepwalking.”

“Why don’t you call her to find out?”

“Call my mother?”
 
I said, shivering.
  
But I had to find out, so I picked up my cell and dialed their
Queens
number.
 
Pop picked up.

“Pop, it’s Henry.
 
Did I ever sleepwalk?”

“Hoo, boy, didja evuh.
 
We had to install locks on the daws and winders. Wait.
 
I’ll get y’mothuh.”

“Wait, Pop,” I shouted, but he was off.
  
A minute later Mom came on.

“Hello deah.
 
How’s the eye?”

“Better,” I said.
 
“Pop says you had to install locks on the doors and windows, because I used to sleepwalk....”

“Mr. Sleepywawk, we yoosta call you.
 
You’d wake up at eleven every night and wawk downstairs inya sleep.
 
If no one was theyah ta stop you, you’d open the front door and go out in yaw pajamas.
 
Even if it was the dead of winta. Once, right at the beginning, y’fathuh and I were in bed owaselves, and a policeman rang owa bell at midnight.
 
Seems he found you wawking in the middle of the street.
 
Then theyah was the time...”

“Mom!”

“That you got into bed with y’sista...”

“Mom!”

“Yes deah?”

“Thanks.
 
That’s all I needed to know.”

“Dijuh see the doctuh yet about those blackouts?”

“Uh, yeah, Mom.
 
He said they were nothing.”

“Oh, that’s a relief, well, in that case...”

“Bye Mom.”
 
I flipped my phone closed.
 
“Yeah,” I said to Carl.
 
“According to my parents, I was a mega sleepwalker.”

Carl stopped what he was doing and looked straight at me.
  
“Henry, you’ve got to stop taking Somnolux.
 
Period,” he said.
 
“Case closed.
 
You must be one of those susceptible people.
 
You must have gone to this Doctor Hirsch and assaulted him in your sleep.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You’ve got to promise me that you won’t take Somnolux anymore.”

“But what am I gonna do to sleep?” I cried.

“Hey, there are other meds.
 
Go to another doctor.
 
Get Lunesta or something.
 
Or better yet, tough it out.
 
The other sleep meds might do the same thing.”

“I don’t know...”

“Henry, promise me you’re not going to take Somnolux any more.”

“Okay, I promise,” I said, wondering what I should do about the little bottle with four more pills, which was sitting in my pocket.

*
   
*
   
*

I tried.
 
I really tried.
 
I bought a lot of over-the-counter stuff that didn’t do shit.
 
I actually broke down and saw Mom’s Dr. Stevenson, who gave me prescriptions for Lunesta and Sonata, neither of which did anything for me.
 
I would have asked him for Somnolux, but I had promised Carl, and, anyway, I was scared.
 
I didn’t want to be one of those people crashing into telephone poles in their pajamas and peeing in the middle of the street.
 
So, maybe a month went by with me getting progressively sleepier and sleepier, all the time carrying around that little bottle of Somnolux for moral support.

Meanwhile, I hadn’t seen Sherry in awhile.
 
It was hard to go there and see her so lifeless.
  
But I couldn’t keep avoiding her, so early the next Saturday I took the subway up and walked the fifteen blocks to the home.
 
I tried the front entrance but I must have been too early, because the door was locked, so I walked around the building to the back way.
 
Each room had a back door, but I figured it must have been connected to the security system as well, so I didn’t have much of a chance of getting in that way either.
 
I was just standing there, staring through the little window when I noticed the day nurse bustling around in Sherry’s room.
 
I knocked hard on the window.
 
The nurse’s head jerked up, but she couldn’t seem to figure out where the noise was coming from.
  
I knocked again, really hard.
  
That did it.
 
The nurse was coming toward the door.
 
Then she was peering through the window at me.
   
I mimicked opening the door, and she unfastened it.

 
“Front door locked?” she asked, letting me in.
 
I could see her finger holding down the little tab thing on the inside of the door.
 
The nurse closed the door gently, releasing the tab just before the door closed.
 
She must have seen me watching her.
 
“Only way to get around the alarm,” she said with a grin.

We both walked back to Sherry’s bed.
 
She was moaning slightly, twitching in the bed.

“She’s been restless lately,” the nurse said.

“Can’t you do something?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“But she’s uncomfortable.”

“She’s probably not aware of the discomfort, though.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.
 
She was in pain but probably not conscious of it, so it didn’t count.
  
It made Sherry sound like a head of cabbage.
 
“You don’t know that,” I argued.
 
“You don’t even know she’s not conscious.”

The nurse shot me a look that said she had no time to debate the issue. “Mr. Jackman, all we can do is judge her mental state from what she does.
 
If there are no intentional actions - if all there is are simple reflex responses - we have to assume she’s not conscious.
 
And if she’s not conscious, then how is she aware that’s she’s in pain?”

What could I say?
 
She was probably right.
 
Still.

“Anyway,” the nurse said, turning toward the door.
  
“What could the doctors give her?
 
Something to make her sleep?”
 
She laughed her way out of the room.

I stood there watching Sherry sleep.
 
Her mouth was open and there was drool on her pillow.
 
Every once in a while, she moaned.
 
Sometimes an arm or a leg jerked.
 
She looked uneasy, but maybe I was more aware of it than she was.
 
Anyway, there was nothing I could do.
 
Or was there?
 
I suddenly remembered the little vial of Somnolux I carried everywhere.
  
The nurse might laugh about giving Sherry a sleeping drug, but, hey, it just might calm her down.

I walked over to the doorway and peered out; the hall was empty.
 
I came back over to Sherry’s bed, pulling out the vial, removing one pill and crushing it in a napkin that was lying on her bed table.
 
I opened Sherry’s mouth as wide as I could, folded the napkin, and dumped the contents onto her tongue.
 
Then I closed her mouth.
 
I figured it would dissolve on its own in her saliva, and she’d swallow it eventually.
  
Then I pulled a chair up and sat beside her, waiting to see if her restlessness subsided.

For the first fifteen minutes, I really couldn’t see the difference.
 
She was still twitching in her sleep, groaning a bit, her face all scrunched up as if in pain.
 
I opened up the
New York Times
and stared at the headlines.
 
Iraq
.
 
Afghanistan
.
 
Iran
.
 
Libya
.
 
Pain and more pain.
 
I opened it and turned a few pages, the paper spread out in front of my face.
 
Suddenly, I heard a familiar voice from behind the paper.
 
“Where am I?”
 

The paper dropped all by itself.
 
There was Sherry, eyes wide open, sitting up in bed.
 
She saw me and smiled.
 
“Henry?” she said.

“Omygod, Sherry.
 
You’re awake.
 
Omygod, Sherry,” I must have said.
 
I don’t know what I said.
 
I was on my feet, my hands stretched across to her hands, smiling, laughing, crying.

“This a hospital?
 
Henry?”

“Yes,” I told her, because it didn’t really matter if I were specific.
 
It was a hospital, sort of.
 
And she
had
been in a hospital.
 
But it didn’t matter now, because she was going to be okay.
 

“Why?” she asked, registering the hospital gown, the feeding tube embedded in her belly.
 
“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing now,” I answered.
 
”Everything’s gonna be okay!”
 
I jabbered on, smiling like a lunatic.

“Henry!” Sherry scolded me suddenly.
 
“Tell me!”

That was my old Sherry, always insisting on the unvarnished truth.
 
So, I calmed down and told her all about the open window and her lying on the rug, her head bloodied by a totem pole.
 
The medics who came and carried her down the stairs to the ambulance.
 
How she opened her eyes a week later in the hospital, but it didn’t mean a thing.
 
The doctors saying it was a persistent vegetative state she’d never come out of.
 
How I was the only one who never gave up hope.
 
I never mentioned Ryan.

“Don’t you remember anything?”
 
I asked her finally.

She shook her head.
 
“Nothing.
 
Last thing...” she said.

“What?
 
What was the last thing?”

“I...don’t know.
 
Leaving...the... Institute.
 
No, that’s another day...”

“Nothing?
 
You’re sure?”

“Nothing,” she answered, her hand to her brow.

“You have a headache?”

She seemed to have to think about everything before she answered. Her language was down to bare essentials.
  
“No,” she said.

“Did you hear anything while you were
out
? I asked.
 
“You know, doctor’s voices? Anything?”

She didn’t answer right away.
 
“I don’t think so,” she said finally, shaking her head.

“Well, it’s all right now, Sherry.
 
I love you, Sherry.”

She thought about this, too.
 
“I love you,” she said at last.

At this point, the nurse came charging in.
 
“What in heaven’s name is all that racket?” she bawled.
 
“Turn down that radio!”
 
She stood there, taking in the whole scene.
 
Then she inched forward, saying, “She’s awake?”