Private Practices (34 page)

“Not to me, Claudia. You don't. I swear it.”

“But just yesterday you sounded as if you thought I was monstrous for not speaking to him.” She sighed deeply and went on, “When you said that if only I would come and see him, it might help him.”

Remembering, he clutched the phone in frustration, furious with himself for ever having suggested she talk to Sidney.

He had been feeling so intimate with Claudia just now, had been feeling that it was his own son who had just been born, his own wife who had just delivered. All his years of envying others their closeness at the moment of birth had been banished as she talked. But why not get Sidney for her if that was what she wanted? He still believed that once she perceived the full disorder of Sidney's condition, her fantasies about him would come to an end. And tonight was perfect. If ever Sidney had drugged himself into an impenetrable stupor, it was today, after his disturbing talk with Alithorn. “Hang on,” he said amiably. “All right. It may take a while, but I'll get him for you. And afterward, I'll call Dr. Michaels.”

It took him a full five minutes to rouse Sidney and make him understand that Claudia was on the phone with something urgent to tell him. And even once he was out of bed and moving toward the phone in Ben's room, he seemed more asleep than awake.

His body limp and his mind drifting, Sidney staggered down the hallway. As he walked, he kept repeating, “Who? Who's it? Wha's up?” so that by the time Ben sat him down on the bed and put the phone in his hand, he was no longer sorry in the least to be turning Claudia over to her true husband. He was sorry only that she couldn't see him. Sidney's arms and legs trembled with agitation, and his trousers, smelling of urine, were damp. But even his voice would be enough to put Claudia off for good. It was husky, hoarse and barely audible. “Suhweehar? Suhweehar?” he was mumbling.

Ben retreated from the room just as he saw great, watery tears begin to spill down Sidney's ravaged cheeks, and the whole time Sidney was on the phone with Claudia, he himself used the hall phone in Claudia's behalf. He spoke at length to the resident who had delivered her, and afterward questioned briefly but closely the pediatrician who had first examined the baby. Satisfied that Claudia's optimistic version of Ezra's present condition and future potential was correct, he was just hanging up when Sidney came into the hallway. He passed Ben in silence, stumbling toward his own room, his eyes blinded by tears.

On Monday morning Ben could think of nothing but Claudia and Ezra. It was all he could do not to call Claudia the minute he awakened. But it was very early, and it had been close to three in the morning before she and Sidney had finished speaking last night. He had best let her rest, and phone her later, once he got to the office. He himself was exhausted from the emotional excitement of the night, and he could easily imagine her fatigue. Controlling the urge to telephone her, he dressed and shaved and went into the kitchen, planning to make a huge pot of coffee to get himself going.

To his surprise, Sidney too was already awake, and had actually started the coffee. Even more startling, Sidney had shaved. But he had done quite a sloppy job, nicking himself mercilessly. There were tiny beads of blood burgeoning next to his ears, around the cleft on his chin, and all down his scrawny neck. “What were you trying to do?” Ben addressed Sidney sarcastically. “Guillotine yourself?”

Sidney looked abashed. “I was turning over a new leaf,” he said. “In honor of the baby.”

“Baby?” Ben raised an eyebrow quizzically.

Sidney's eyes blinked rapidly and he frowned. “My son.”

Ben stared at him, his head to one side.

“Claudia had the baby. She called.” Sidney's lips trembled and then he looked down at the table. “Didn't she?”

Ben watched Sidney closely, enjoying his confusion, and waited several seconds before leaning across the table and pounding him on the back. “Of course she did. Congratulations.”

Sidney smiled, relieved. “You had me worried, old buddy. For a moment I thought I'd made it all up.”

“Of course you didn't. I spoke to Claudia too.”

“I thought so. I thought she said she'd been talking to you.”

“Yeah, well. Congratulations.” Ashamed of having teased Sidney over the baby, he stood and moved to the stove, pouring two cups of coffee. “Let's drink to the kid.” He set a cup in front of Sidney.

“I've had some,” Sidney said, rejecting the coffee. “I've been up for hours. Thinking.”

“What about?”

“About everything. About Alithorn. About Claudia. About the baby.” He slumped in his chair. “What's its name? What'd she name it? I forgot.”

“Ezra. After her father.”

“About Ezra,” Sidney went on. “I was thinking that for Ezra's sake I ought to make some changes.”

Abruptly nervous, Ben got up from the table and busied himself at the refrigerator, searching for some bread to toast. “What kind of changes?” he asked, his back stooped.

Sidney answered him first with a long sigh. Then he said, “I ought to give up the pills.”

Ben's tension grew acute. He kept his back turned, fearing his face would betray his feeling.

Sidney said in a loud, excited voice, “I'm going to stop taking the pills. I am.”

Ben heard him get up from the table and walk to the kitchen sink. Then he heard him turn on the tap. He couldn't keep searching through the refrigerator any longer. Couldn't keep his face turned from Sidney's all through breakfast. Straightening up, he drew a loaf of white bread out of the refrigerator. But his edgy feeling continued. Trying to open the package, his fingers turned thumbs. He couldn't undo the paper-wrapped wire that held the bread closed.

Sidney was still running the faucet. Ben stole a glance at him and saw him fill a glass with water and dig down into his jacket pocket.

“I'm going to stop,” Sidney said in the same excited voice he had used earlier. “I swear I am.” Ben saw him take a vial of pills from his pocket, open it and swallow several capsules. “After lunch,” Sidney said, gulping the water.

Ben's anxiety vanished as swiftly as it had come. He ripped open the package of bread, thrust two slices into the toaster, and plunged down the lever.

“Or maybe tomorrow,” Sidney said, putting away his pills.

By the time the toast came jiggling up, Ben was laughing to himself.

“You don't believe me, do you?” Sidney asked, finally shutting off the water.

Ben shook his head.

“I don't blame you,” Sidney said. “Why should you? I don't even believe myself.” He sat down and put his head on his arms and his shoulders began to quiver.

Ben softened. For once, Sidney's sadness struck him as authentic, rather than maudlin and excessive. There was such a darkness in his mood, such a desperate admission of helplessness, that Ben could no longer generate any bitterness. He stood over Sidney and patted his shaking back.

Claudia too was sad when he spoke to her from his office later that morning. She said she supposed it was postpartum depression, but he suspected it was not because Ezra had been expelled from within her that she was downcast, her exuberance of the night before vanished without a trace. It was because she had at last begun to expel Sidney too. Disconsolate, she said, “Oh, Ben, it was a terrible shock to speak with him. A shock despite everything you'd told me. He sounded so disconnected. So hopeless.”

“I know, darling,” he comforted her. “I'd been trying to prepare you.”

“He just kept muttering and mumbling. I could hardly understand him, except that a few times he swore that for the baby's sake, he was going to withdraw.”

“I wouldn't take that too seriously,” Ben said gently. “He said that to me too this morning.”

“And you didn't think he meant it?”

“No,” he said slowly. “I didn't. I don't think he can pull himself together enough to try it. I really don't.”

At home that evening, when Sidney began talking about withdrawal once again, he paid hardly any attention to him. He had bought himself a roast chicken for dinner and was busily carving it when Sidney appeared in the entrance to the kitchen and announced loudly, “I've figured out how to withdraw.”

“What's to figure out?” he said, not even bothering to look at him. “Alithorn already told you. And I've told you a hundred times. Just check into Downstate.” He had sliced off both drumsticks and now he set them neatly down on a platter.

“I'll be damned if I'll do that and give Alithorn the proof he wants about me.”

“There's no other way.” Bored, Ben began to cut off the wings.

“Yes, there is.” Sidney spoke excitedly, his words racing. “You could supervise my withdrawal. I'd stay in the hall bathroom. That's a good spot because it has an outside lock. You could open the door at intervals and give me the pills. A smaller amount each time. It would only take a couple of days.”

Concentrating on the task at hand, Ben ignored Sidney and began arranging the wings alongside the drumsticks on the platter. Sidney's words struck him as bizarre, his scheme a perfect illustration of the bad judgment barbiturates notoriously produced. “Why not lock up the drugs?” he asked after a while, as he might ask a child.

“Because in the beginning I might not have the willpower to follow the schedule. I might try to go out and buy pills.” Sidney continued to speak with pressured intensity. “But if I was in the bathroom, there'd be no problem. Even if I tried to push past you when you opened the door, you could easily force me back inside. You're so much stronger than I am now.”

Still treating Sidney's words lightly, Ben tackled the white meat and said offhandedly, “Sounds risky to me. You could have convulsions.”

“Not if we do it right,” Sidney answered. “Not at 10 percent less a day. And if I did have a convulsion, you could raise the barbiturate level intravenously and bring me out of it.”

Despite his pressured speech, Sidney sounded so serious that at last, finished with carving the chicken, Ben turned to look at him. When he did, the carving utensils slipped from between his fingers. Sidney was wearing nothing but a huge towel wrapped around his waist and legs. His chest was bare, the barbiturate rash glaringly red, and his hair was dripping wet.

He had showered. At first Ben couldn't believe it. It had been weeks since Sidney had washed himself without being prodded into it. But clearly, he had cleansed himself this evening. As soon as Ben had grasped what had happened, a vein in his temple began to throb.

“It'd work. I'm sure it would,” Sidney said. “Don't you think so?”

Ben's head began to nod. Sidney's plan could work. It was a wild, a brazen scheme. A paranoid's scheme. Clearly Sidney had dreamed it up in order to withdraw without entering a clinic. He'd always had a passion for privacy but now that he'd been suspended from the hospital, that passion was accentuated. He feared letting Alithorn have proof of his addiction, and in a clinic there would be records. But at home all would be secret. It
could
work. The throbbing above Ben's eyes grew more agonizing. He had to sit down. Massaging his forehead, he slid heavily onto one of the kitchen chairs.

“Do you follow me?” Sidney asked. But he didn't answer. He was afraid to speak. He'd call Sidney names. Double-crosser. Spoiler. He'd shout that he had no right to change his mind. Not now, just when everything had been going so well. He sat mute, words swirling through his mind but imprisoned behind his tightly clenched lips.

Sidney took his silence as a lack of comprehension. “Don't you understand?” He sat down opposite Ben and reviewed his plan. “It'd really only be the first day or two that I might give you trouble. After that, I'd probably stop having to be restrained. I could stay in the bedroom, and you could just lock up the drugs.”

He sat and listened to him stonily. Sidney grew more insistent. “Look, I know it'd mean your having to stick very close to home for a few days. You'd have to be here right on schedule. But only at first. And I'd try to be cooperative. I'd try not to make it difficult for you.” Just as they had the night before, Sidney's eyes began to fill with tears. “I know how difficult I've been. I know all the sacrifices you've had to make for me. You gave up Naomi for me, didn't you? Gave up having any sort of a social life. Just to stay close to me. I appreciate it, Ben, I really do. But you can do this one last thing for me, can't you?” Tears cascaded down Sidney's nicked cheeks.

His brother was insane, he thought. No. They were both insane. Sidney's mind, eaten away by drugs, had grown soft and sentimental. His own, consumed by ancient resentments, had turned bitter and hard. “I know this means putting you in the position of a jailer for a few days,” Sidney continued. “I know it's not pleasant. But I'm begging you.” His voice trailed off. “I can't do it alone. I don't have the will power.”

Sidney's confession moved him, but still he didn't speak.

“Remember when we were kids?” Sidney asked cajolingly, the silence triggering his memories. “Remember when I taught you to talk?” He was speaking as if he wanted to cash in on a debt incurred long ago and never repaid. “Remember how everyone thought you'd never learn? That you were retarded? That there was a screw loose?”

Ben shivered.

“I didn't let you down, though, did I? No matter what.” Sidney's eyes pleaded with him.

“Remember ‘I'll be fucked to shit if ever I fail you'?” Sidney grinned. Ben closed his eyes. He couldn't bear to see Sidney imploring him.

“You've got to help me,” Sidney finished. “There's no one else I can ask. And I've got to do it. For Ezra. For Claudia.”

At the mention of Claudia, Ben saw her. With his eyes closed, he could picture her as vividly as if she were right next to him. His mouth went so dry that he could barely concentrate on Sidney's next words. “There's nothing to it, really.
I
've got it all worked out. And after it's over, I'll move out. You'll have your life to yourself again. Everything will be back to normal. Everything will be just the way it used to be.”