Sick City (12 page)

“Half?” Randal asked, breaking the silence.

“Half.”

“Jesus Christ.”

They again lay there in silence for a long time, but neither slept. They lay there, separately turning over what it could mean to sell this film to the right person. To Randal it represented freedom from his family. To Jeffrey it represented a clean break, a chance to start over somewhere new. There was no more talk after that, but no sleep either. Silent, surrounded by the darkness, calculating, imagining, making silent, secret plans.

There was a palpable excitement at Clean and Serene that day. Word had begun to spread around the place that not only would Dr. Mike be making one of his irregular appearances, but he would also have some of his celebrity patients from
Detoxing America
in tow. They were filming the reunion episode, where the assorted celebrity flameouts were brought into a treatment center to attend a meeting with “real addicts.”

“How did you hear all of this?” Jeffrey asked Johnny D, an old black junkie who claimed that he once played bass for Sly Stone.

“I heard it from Big Jim.”

Johnny D nodded over toward the aforementioned man mountain, who sat with his plate piled high with soggy-looking Eggos. “You know how those crackheads are. Gossipy motherfuckers. Like a bunch of old women.”

· · ·

As Johnny D moved on down the line, Jeffrey turned back to Randal. “You hear that?”

“Yup.”

“Who's on the show? You even know?”

“Who gives a shit? A bunch of fucking D-list nobodies who are getting involved in this circle jerk with Dr. Mike so that they can get one more hit of kinda, sorta fame.”

“You're such a fucking cynic, man. I dunno. I thought Dr. Mike was kind of an asshole, too, but when I met him. . . . You know, he seemed sincere. I mean, I don't know if I buy all of this twelve-step stuff, but he was sincere. He made me wanna believe it.”

“Of course he made you wanna believe it. That's his shtick. He's selling you something that totally falls apart under any kind of critical scrutiny. But he has a nice smile, clean teeth, and he smells good, so you wanna buy it. I'm not saying he's not charming. Nobody gets big in this town unless they got a good way with people. I just get the feeling that if he weren't in this line of business he'd be on QVC selling mops and fucking lawn chairs.”

Jeffrey laughed, and asked for a plate of home fries and bacon.

The rumors continued to spread around the facility. When people have been smoking crack, robbing banks, drinking vodka for breakfast, or injecting meth daily for the last bunch of years, sobriety can seem pretty dull by comparison. So even the most tenuous chance for excitement is seized upon.

The celebrities would be coming in at noon to start filming and would attend a one p.m. “in house” meeting. There were three meetings held inside. There was one on the third floor, next to the meditation rooms. People jokingly referred to that one as “the Cuckoo's Nest”: the dual-diagnosis meeting. They put people who were crazy as bat-shit, even without drugs, in the dual meetings. That's where the likes of Running Deer went. Running Deer was a Native American Vietnam vet with a taste for whiskey and bar fights. He was a nice, sweet old guy who had spent twenty years of his life in solitary confinement before being allowed to transition into a residential drug rehab. He had straight, thick hair down to his ass, and his arms and portions of his face were covered in prison ink. His predominant tattoo was an India-ink swastika on the forehead. The swastika was the reason that a lot of people avoided Running Deer; it gave them the impression that he was some kind of insane Native American Nazi. One day in group therapy Randal heard somebody ask Running Deer about the swastika. He'd pointed to his forehead and said, “This is the symbol of the whirling winds. A sacred and ancient design, used by the Navaho. Not a swastika. This is a link to my own history. This is a link to the proud and mighty Navaho people.” People still tended to avoid him though, unnerved by his frequent “episodes,” which came on without warning.

Running Deer had a habit of barricading himself in his room and screaming very, very loudly for hours at a time. He would be shouting orders in there, or yelling about incoming enemy fire and ranting about the fucking gooks. There seemed to be no pattern to it, and as a result Running Deer was the only person in the facility without a roommate and was made to attend the Cuckoo's Nest. The staff tolerated him and had on more than one occasion threatened to kick him out if he trashed his room again, but there seemed to be a general consensus that Running Deer was harmless. Eccentric, but harmless.

Another Cuckoo's Nest regular was Jimmy the Gimp, a tubby, pasty kid from the Midwest who was reportedly a convicted sex offender and a recovering methhead. Jimmy had one leg three inches shorter than the other and had a habit of staring off into some vague middle distance, effectively zoning out of all that was going on around him. This seemed to happen pretty regularly, especially in slow meetings. Randal had only talked to Jimmy once, during a cigarette break. Jimmy had joined them at the table and out of the blue began to talk about the differences between fucking a guy and a girl.

“I mean, when you're inside you gotta fuck guys, because there's nothing else around. But they just feel different. Even if you close your eyes and picture Brooke Shields, they still feel different.”

The others stared at Jimmy, but Randal had taken the bait and laughed. “Brooke Shields? You got a thing for Brooke Shields?”

Jimmy grinned nastily and sucked on his Parliament.

“You ever see that bitch in
Pretty Baby
? I've had a hard-on for that cunt for like twenty years now.”

The other two meetings were a pretty evenly matched bunch. It was obvious that they tried to balance out the cynics with the true believers, the gleaming converts to the words of Dr. Mike and the twelve steps. The meetings were expertly gerrymandered, so that those more inclined to call bullshit on some of the good doctor's more ridiculous statements were heavily outnumbered by those who would be willing to raise their hands and thank God and Dr. Mike for another glorious day of drug-free living.

As they ate breakfast, Jeffrey said, “I heard that the drummer from the Nosebleeds is one of the celebrities.”

“Those fucking eighties cheese-balls? They couldn't even get the singer?”

“The Nosebleeds were cool. They had some songs.”

“They sucked, man. They were poseurs. Any fucking person from a band who does one of these shows is a joke. You don't see Chuck D doing this kind of shit.”

“But Flavor Flav has a show on VH1. A dating show.”

“Exactly.”

The day carried on with its usual annoyances. The pressure in the place seemed to be building until at last the lunch bell rang. As they all started shuffling in to get reheated soggy tacos and frozen French fries, it became immediately apparent that the men and women of Clean and Serene were in the presence of greatness. Off in the corner of the vast cafeteria, at the farthest table, sat five people, surrounded by lights and cameras. Randal vaguely recognized some of them. There was Sasha Jones, the actress most famous for her role in the 1980s sitcom
The Mikey Forrester Show
. Since that show's heyday, she'd released a memoir,
Flowers in the Dirt
, about her struggles with alcoholism and depression. She'd even made it onto
Oprah
once, shoved in between two other guests who'd managed to fuck up their shots at fame. But Randal hadn't seen her on TV for years now. She looked older, bigger, the cute face that had once landed her the role as Mikey's love interest all but bankrupted now.

There was a guy in leather pants with long blond hair who must have been the drummer from the Nosebleeds, a glam rock band who had a few hit singles before grunge came along and rendered them has-beens virtually overnight. He looked weak and shaky; the poor bastard had obviously blown out the circuitry in an important part of the brain with drugs, and no amount of therapy in the world can fix that. There was a skinny woman with a strange, plastic surgery face, who might have been a long-ago Playboy Playmate of the Year. The junkie lead singer from a one his wonder LA rap-metal band who had gone bald and put on fifty pounds since he'd last been seen on television. And a onetime semifinalist from
American Idol
who made the news by getting kicked off the show when she was arrested driving under the influence of booze and MDMA.

Jesus,
Randal thought,
the fucking A-list is here
.

As they took their food and sat down to eat, Randal noticed that whenever someone tried to take a table too close to the celebrities they would be blocked and shooed away by the camera crew. The cafeteria was filling up fast, yet there was a ring of empty tables around the celebrities. In fact, all you could really see were the cables that snaked around the tables and the asses of the men filming them. Occasionally there would be a glimpse of the side of Sasha Jones's face, or the Nosebleeds guy's long blond hair, but that was it. And of course, Dr. Mike sitting at the head of the table like Jesus among his disciples.

· · ·

Johnny D slinked back after unsuccessfully trying to get close to the group and joined Randal instead.

“What's up?” Randal asked.

“They told me to sit somewhere else. Didn't want me bothering the famous people.”

“Really? They said that?”

“They said they wanted the shots to be natural. Just them, eating their tacos. They said that if the regular population got too close, then they would act differently.”

“Celebrities are a touchy bunch.”

“Celebrities?” Johnny D laughed. “You're being kinda generous there, son.”

After a carefully stage-managed lunch, Dr. Mike stood at the front and addressed the cafeteria. The after-lunch announcement was nothing new, but the fact that Dr. Mike was doing it was. This usually fell on the shoulders of the regular staff; people like Dave Bones, the old biker with the hole in his trachea, or New Orleans Suzie with the glass eye and scar on her cheek.

“Welcome,” Dr. Mike said.

There was a mumble from the cafeteria. The cameras were on Dr. Mike and on the table of celebrities, catching their every reaction to Dr. Mike's speech. The doctor looked even more artificial than usual, the effect of his makeup and the unnatural lighting.

“Addiction,” Dr. Mike began, “is a disease that does not differentiate. Addiction is a disease that affects the young, the old, the rich, and the poor. I have a group of very special patients who are joining us today, a group of very brave individuals who have waived their right to anonymity and have decided to take part in the great experiment that is
Detoxing America
. Finally, the general public now has access to what really goes on in a treatment center. I think that this is vitally important to raise the consciousness of the general public, and to help people empathize with the plight of the addict. Don't let their celebrity status fool you. These people are disease-ridden—just like you. I'm sure you will all join me in a round of applause for these brave, brave people.”

At that Dr. Mike started clapping. The staff joined in enthusiastically, and soon the rest of the patients slapped their palms in appreciation, while Randal shook his head in disgust. Dr. Mike raised his hands, and the room fell into silence again.

“Having completed treatment, our guests are now paying a visit to us at Clean and Serene to attend an AA meeting and see what goes on here at this facility. Now, this does mean that there will be some releases for you to sign. If you are not comfortable with appearing on television you must let us know, and you will be made anonymous in the editing room. For those of you who don't read English, the staff will be more than happy to assist you. Now, without further ado . . .”

As Dr. Mike said this, there was a scream from the table of celebrities. While the attention was focused on Dr. Mike's speech, Running Deer—who had been standing at the back of the room—had crept over toward Sasha Jones with a pen and a piece of paper.

“Miss Jones?” he had said, lightly touching her on the shoulder. Running Deer had been incarcerated during the 1980s for drunkenly killing a man in a bar fight, and during that time he had watched
The Mikey Forrester Show
religiously. Running Deer had never seen an honest-to-God celebrity before. Sensing that this was an opportunity that would never arise again, Running Deer took his chances.

As he placed his hand on her shoulder, Jones turned around and was faced with an American Indian Vietnam vet with a swastika tattooed on his forehead. He was grinning at her and trying to shove something into her hand. She let out a shriek of horror and leapt to her feet.

Immediately the scene was chaos. When Jones shrieked, so did Running Deer. In fact, he crouched down in the fetal position, covered his head with his hands, and started howling like a kicked dog. One of the film crew dived at Running Deer even though he was no longer in contact with Jones, knocking him to the ground. The two of them sprawled over each other as the cameras rolled, capturing every second of it. The cafeteria erupted in screams and yells, and people craned their necks to see the action.

Running Deer head-butted his assailant on the nose, splitting the skin and eliciting yells of support from the crowd. Seeing the blood, Johnny D practically pushed Randal over, screaming, “KILL THAT MOTHERFUCKA, CHIEF! TAKE IT HOME, BABY!”

Dr. Mike pushed his way through the crowd, and the staff descended on Running Deer, attempting to restrain him. The bleeding cameraman staggered off, his face in his hands, blood running through his fingers. Sasha Jones was screaming at the camera crew, “Get me OUT of this place! That Nazi motherfucker almost killed me!”

Within seconds, it seemed, the crew, Dr. Mike, and all the celebrities had been rushed out of the room.

The population of Clean and Serene booed as Running Deer was dragged from the cafeteria, still struggling. One red-faced staff member was screaming, “That's IT, motherfucker! You're out of here. They're gonna lock you up for good, Chief Shithead!”

The whole time Running Deer was screaming, “Incoming! Incoming!”

It took a while for things to settle down. Sensing rebellion in the air, the staff came in and announced that the meetings were beginning immediately. The patients were quickly split into groups and taken upstairs.