Outside the Lines (34 page)

“You want us to go in with you?” Georgia asked. “Or wait here?”

I looked at Jack. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I think you and I should go in first. Then grab your bodyguards for backup, if we need them.”

Georgia laughed. “Sounds good to me. Let us know if you need us.”

Jack and I went up the front steps of the house and knocked at the front door. A moment later, it was opened by a portly bald man with three chins and squinty small eyes. When he smiled, the apples of his cheeks pushed up so high, his eyes disappeared completely.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Eden West. I’m looking for Matthew Shockley? He’s expecting me.”

“You found him!” the man said, reaching out to vigorously shake Jack’s and my hands. “But call me Matt, okay? It’s nice to meet you! How was your drive down?”

“Uneventful,” Jack said. “Thanks for letting us come.”

“Of course, of course!” Matt exclaimed. “Happy to help. Come on back and we’ll talk a bit.” He turned around and hitched up his sagging white painter’s jeans by the belt loops, but not before we caught a glance of his butt crack.

Jack swallowed a snicker, but I was too nervous to laugh. We followed Matt down the hall to a small room off the kitchen. The walls were dark and paneled but covered almost floor-to-ceiling with various paintings—oils and watercolors, charcoals and delicate inks. Were any of these my father’s? We took a seat on the small couch in the corner of the room while Matt settled into a large padded recliner behind a desk.

“So, after we talked, I took it upon myself to look up your father’s name in our system.”

“Did you find anything?” I asked, clamping my fingers together tightly as though in prayer.

He bobbed his head. “Yep, sure did.” He lifted a yellow manila folder and held it up. “He’s right here.”

“Here? As in staying here right now?” I asked, unable to keep the excitement out of my voice. Jack reached over and rested his hand flat on the top of my thigh in a soothing touch. My muscles hummed with anxiety.

“No, no,” Matt said. “He’s not here now. But he was just a couple of weeks ago. Stayed with us for about a month this time around.”

“This time around?” Jack said. “He’s been here more than once?”

“Yep, yep,” Matt said. “We have to cycle people through. There are only so many beds. They have to get approved through the psych ward at the hospital as good to go, and if there’s room and they qualify, they come here. They can stay up to three months.”

“But he was only here a month?” I said.

Matt blew a breath out of his thin lips. “David isn’t crazy about staying on his meds. The rules are, if you’re not following doctor’s orders, you’re not allowed to stay.”

My hopes fell a bit as he spoke. “How does the program work here, exactly?”

“I’d be interested to hear that, too,” Jack said. “I run a shelter up in Seattle and I’m always looking for new ideas for programs.”

“Hope House, right?” Matt said. “Eden told me that on the phone. I’ve heard good things about it from some of my clients.”

“Really?” Jack said, sitting up a little straighter.

“It’s a tight-knit community,” Matt said. “A lot of our peeps travel back and forth between Seattle and Portland. We hear about the good and the bad. Hope House has a good rep.”

Jack sat back and put his arm around my shoulders. I rubbed his leg a little, acknowledging that I understood how important it was for him to hear about the work he did.

“And your program?” I asked, prodding Matt to continue.

“Oh, right,” he said. “Sorry, my Ritalin hasn’t kicked in yet today. ADHD makes me nuts. But that’s why I’m perfect for this place, I guess. I understand the clientele.” He chuckled. “Okay, but enough about me.” He took a breath before continuing. “Common Ground was founded about ten years ago by Arthur Reinhart, a local sculptor who struggled with clinical depression and bipolar disorder. As part of his therapy, he started teaching art classes at a few shelters around town and he realized how many of the people he got to know there suffered from the same kind of illnesses he did. He was just lucky enough to come from a rich family who made sure he didn’t end up on the streets. After a year or so, he came up with the idea to buy this house and turn it into a place where homeless artists with mental illness could live after they were hospitalized. Which a lot of them are. They can paint or sculpt as therapy and get settled into a normal routine. Kind of as a transition back into the real world.” He threw his hands up in the air in front of him. “That’s about it, folks.”

“That’s amazing,” Jack said. “Do you help them with getting a job?”

“We do.” Matt nodded. “I’m just one of the six social workers we have on staff. There’s also a nurse practitioner and a psychiatrist who comes two times a week to manage the clients’ meds.”

“Is Mr. Reinhart still involved?” I asked.

“He died two years ago. Overdose.”

My eyes filled for this man I didn’t even know. Even after creating such a wonderful place, he still couldn’t find a reason to live. His illness wouldn’t let him. Jack’s hand, which was resting on my shoulder, squeezed in reassurance. “How is the house funded, then, if he’s gone?”

“His family has been kind enough to continue to take care of us as a tribute to their son. We host fund-raisers, too, of course, with art for sale and things like that, but the majority of our financing comes from the Reinharts. They’re wonderful people. Real philanthropists.”

I took a deep breath before speaking. “Do you know my father?”

Matt nodded. “I do. He’s a very talented artist. But like I said, he fights the rest of the program here. He manages to fake it for a while but doesn’t do well with expectations and rules. But I’m sure you know that.”

I nodded. I knew it all too well. “Do you have any idea where I might find him? Any place he might hang out or stay after he leaves here?”

Matt pulled a sheet of paper out of my father’s file. “I thought you might ask me that, so I took the liberty of putting together a list for you. It’s not much, but there are a few haunts he’s talked about. Where he goes to sketch people for money.” In one great huff of breath, he leaned over his desk to hand me the piece of paper.

I jumped up to take it from him. “Thank you so much, Matt. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

Matt stood and smiled, his eyes disappearing again. “It’s my pleasure.” He nodded toward Jack. “Be safe out there, okay? Some of these aren’t the safest places to visit. Not where I’d usually send tourists in our fair city.”

Jack reached out and shook his hand again. “Don’t worry. She has bodyguards in the car.”

Matt gave him a quizzical look.

“Private joke,” I said.

“Ah, gotcha,” Matt said. “Do you have a minute to come look at something? I won’t keep you long.”

“Sure,” I said, clutching the piece of paper he’d given me to my chest. I was so close. I could almost feel him.

We followed Matt down the hall again and into a large room with a bay window. Two couches flanked a river-stone fireplace and a low table sat between them.

“There,” Matt said. “Above the fireplace.”

My eyes followed where he directed. Jack grabbed my hand and held it tightly.

“Oh my god,” I said breathlessly. “That’s me.” Just above the mantel was a portrait, an image of my face. I was probably about ten, the last time my father had seen me. He had somehow captured the fragile mask I wore. Hints of a more secretive sadness and fear showed in my eyes and in the small, worried lines of my forehead. It was the portrait of a young girl trying to look at peace when inside she was waging a war.

“It’s gorgeous,” Jack said. “Eden, it’s really, really good.”

My bottom lip trembled, but I managed to hold myself together. I could not believe the scope of my father’s gift. I couldn’t believe how much his illness had taken from him. How much it had taken from me.

“We’ve had more offers on that painting than any of the others combined when we do our fund-raisers,” Matt said. “But David refuses to sell it. He asked if he could leave it here for safekeeping, though. He always tells me he’ll be back, that he’ll find a way to silence the rumblings in his head.” He smiled at me. “That’s the thing about your dad, Eden. He has a way of saying it so you believe it might be true.”

Sitting on a bench in downtown Portland, David knew they were after him again. The men who would try to steal his art supplies, the only way David had to make money to live. They’d kicked his ass in Seattle a few months back so he hitched a ride to Portland, thinking they’d never find him there. But they had. He knew they had. He was their prey. He could feel them breathing down his neck. He felt the demons gearing up, spitting fire into his blood, tensing his muscles into angry steel bands.
No, no, no,
David thought
. I can’t do this again. I can’t fight
.
I want to run. There isn’t anywhere I can hide. I’ve been to California and back to Seattle and they always find me. They find me in the hospital and on the street. I have to get away.

David leapt up from the bench and began to pace up and down the street, muttering beneath his breath. “Leave me alone,” he begged. He hit himself in the head with the meat of his right palm, trying to knock his whirling thoughts on their asses. If he could dizzy them, maybe they’d leave him alone, too. Booze kept them sleepy, but he was out. No money, no booze. He had to find another way to silence them. He bumped into a woman pushing a stroller, causing her to stumble.

“Hey!” she exclaimed, and David kept walking, throwing an arm out toward her. He only meant to caution her to stay away, but instead he hit her across the face. The woman began to scream. The baby in the stroller screamed, too. David dropped to his knees, clutching the sides of his head.

“No, no, no!” he moaned. He rocked back and forth, banging his head onto the hot cement. He barely felt it. “I didn’t mean to hurt her. I didn’t. Eden, please, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

People began to gather around him, murmuring. Their low tones screeched like sirens in David’s ears. “Leave me alone,” he cried. “Please. I just want to die. I need to die.” He continued to rock with his forehead pressed into the sidewalk, anchoring him in place. Maybe he could push his way through to hell. Maybe he was already there.

A policeman approached. “Sir, I’m going to ask you to come with me now,” he said. David shook his head, grinding it into the pavement. The policeman grabbed David’s right arm and twisted it behind his back, slapping handcuffs onto his wrist quicker than David could pull away. He stopped struggling and let the officer lead him to the back of the patrol car. The whispers from the people on the street jabbed at him like knives.

He knew what came next. He knew the mental ward at the jail would lead to the mental ward at the hospital. He’d ended up there again after admitting himself to the state hospital in Washington a few months before. Or was it a few years? David wasn’t sure. Doctors were a bunch of lying bastards, no matter what year it was. “Here, we want to help,” they said. And then, out come the needles and pills and looking at him like he’s a piece of shit.

“I am an artist!” David told them. “You have the wrong man!”

“You are an artist who suffers from mental illness,” they said.

“No!” he roared. David upended the table in front of him and then came the straps around his wrists and ankles again. The doctors had promised him they wouldn’t use these if David cooperated. So he cooperated, and they strapped him down anyway. Liars, the lot of them. It wasn’t him they needed to strap down—it was his wild, malevolent thoughts. Find a way to suck them from his head and lock them away.

The only man who wasn’t like the doctors was a man named Matt who kept coming back to see David in the Portland jail ward. Matt had seen some of David’s sketches on the street and asked the officers to call him the next time David was brought in. But Matt was a part of the system David didn’t trust.

“I have a house you can live in and get well,” Matt had said. “You can paint and get stabilized on your meds. It’s a special program for artists who have the same kind of problems as you.”

“The only problems I have are the fiends in my head,” David spat back.

Matt, a huge man with tiny, kind eyes, gave David a warm smile. “Your art can help make those go away. But first, we need to get them under control.”

The first time he went to Common Ground, David only stayed two days before he was back on the street. The walls around him felt like they were closing in; he needed to see the sky. He couldn’t breathe anywhere but outside. The next, he stayed a few weeks and was able to paint. This time, the time he accidentally hit the woman with the stroller, he wasn’t sure Matt would let him back in. He slammed his forehead against the patrol car’s backseat window.

“Don’t,” the officer said in a stern voice. The officer didn’t understand. David was only doing what he knew would keep the demons dazed long enough to get him to Common Ground.

The rest of our first day in Portland Jack, Georgia, Bryce, and I spent searching the places Matt told us to look. Portland seemed like such a clean, lovely city, it was difficult to believe there were any areas where we might not feel safe. But when we arrived downtown, both Georgia and I were happy we had Bryce and Jack with us. Loud groups of young men stared at us as we walked past, eyeing us with an energy that made me feel like we could very well become their prey. It was no worse than anything we saw in Seattle, but somehow with the streets being so unfamiliar, it felt more threatening. There were plenty of retail stores in the area, but we went directly to the art store where Matt suggested my father might be hanging out. When he wasn’t there or anywhere nearby, we walked a twelve-block grid with no luck.

Ever determined, we headed to the next area on Matt’s list, a neighborhood just north of downtown Matt had noted was somewhat known for its homeless population. We showed copies of my dad’s picture to as many people as would stop to talk with us, but after six hours of driving around and combing the foreign streets, we were all exhausted and decided it was time to check into our hotel. The optimism I had felt at the beginning of the day in Matt’s office slowly faded into discouragement.