Hot Lava

Count All This — Chapter 8: hell hath no fury

Just when Jo Kasten’s adult son encounters schizophrenia, she discovers she has breast cancer. Meanwhile, her marriage faces a test. Count All This is a story about love and loyalty, addiction and madness. This is the eighth chapter. Find the first chapter here.

The next morning, Saturday, Jason arrived at the house before we had gotten out of bed. He opened the front door, as is customary with all of our regular visitors, without ringing the bell or waiting for anyone to let him in.

“Hello! Anybody home?” he called from the front hallway.

“We’re still in bed,” I answered. “Come on back. It’s okay.”

A moment later Jason stood in the doorway to our bedroom, his back against the jamb, with half of his body still hidden in the hall. The door was on the same wall as the head of our bed, and Larry was nearest to it. I had the blankets pulled up all the way over my shoulders, and turned on my side to look at Jason over Larry’s back. But it was Larry he had come to talk to.

“I have some questions about the Volkswagon,” he began.

“What’re those?” Larry didn’t sound surprised.

“Well the radio doesn’t work, for one thing.”

“Oh, yeah. I was meaning to fix that before I sold it to you. That’s just a fuse that needs to be replaced. Do you know where the fuse box is?

“Not really.”

“It’s on the driver’s side, under the dashboard, next to the door. Just take the cover off and you can see the fuses lined up in there. It will be easy to tell which one is for the radio, because the metal band across the middle will be broken. You can get replacement fuses at any auto parts store for 50 cents. I was meaning to fix that, but I never got around to it.”

“That sounds easy enough.” Jason leaned back against the door and twirled his keys around his finger. I felt a black clot of anger expanding in my chest, but I didn’t interrupt. I wanted to see how long these two lunkheads would keep shooting the shit in the middle of our family emergency.

“But the bigger problem is the car won’t start,” Jason continued. “My brother was all excited about taking it to work this morning, but when he got outside, the engine wouldn’t turn over.”

“Did it make any noise at all?”

“Not a peep.”

“Did you try jumping it?”

“No. He didn’t really have any time, and we couldn’t find the cables. I thought I’d ask you about it first.”

“Somebody probably left the radio on, and that drained the battery. It’s wired a little funny. Since the radio isn’t working, you don’t remember to turn it off, but it still drains the battery. Just turn off the radio and jump the car. Then you know you need to drive it around for 20 or 30 minutes to recharge the battery, right?”

“Right. I think my dad has some jumper cables in his trunk. Does it matter what kind of jumper cables you use?”

I focused a look of hot lava on Jason, but he was oblivious to me. Larry was also unaware of the volcano rumbling at his back.

“The jumper cables don’t matter and the batteries don’t either, unless you have a really old car, in which case you might have a six-volt battery. That could be a problem. But the Volkswagon you’ve got is a 12 volt, so you should be able to jump it with any new car.”

“Okay. Good. What about the manual? Didn’t you say it…

“Jesus Fucking Christ!” I exploded. “Don’t you even want to know what happened to Eddy?!?!”

Jason was stunned. Then his girlfriend nudged him from behind, easing her flat, expressionless face into the room to take a look at me. I hadn’t realized she was in the house, and felt viciously angry at her presence in my bedroom and in this private conversation. She peered at me dispassionately from behind her glasses, as at a rabid animal in a zoo. I ignored her and waited hotly for Jason to respond.

“Well, yes…” he finally sputtered. “How’s Eddy?”

“He’s in the hospital!” I spit out bitterly, as if it were Jason’s fault. “We were with him there until 1:00 in the morning Thursday — when you left with the Volkswagon. Then they decided to keep him for observation.”

“Really? On what basis are they holding him?”

“They’re holding him on the basis of being fucking insane!” I sounded insane myself, but couldn’t modulate my volume.

“I didn’t realize. I figured they were just going to talk to him. Where is he, exactly?”

“He’s at Sisters, in the psychiatric ward.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah…” Recrimination oozed out of my voice and over Jason’s body in the doorway, but my heat was subsiding.

“When will he be coming back to his apartment?” Jason asked meekly, a rare tone for the brainiac from UC Berkeley who’d graduated with honors and a physics degree.

“Never,” I said brutally, taking pleasure in finally wringing out a reaction.

“Never?”

“He’s not going back there, Jason. He’s nuts. He has to stay here for now, where we can keep an eye on him.” Exhausted with the effort of controlling my anger — of lying in bed when I wanted to leap out of it and slam Jason’s head repeatedly against the wall, when I wanted to slap his fat, mute, blonde, teen-aged girlfriend and kick her ass down the front stairs — I finally softened my tone.

“Well, I guess I better get my stuff out of there then,” Jason said.

He’d been spending the night so often at Eddy’s place that you could call him a roommate, although I don’t think he was paying rent.

“He should be home in a few days. Why don’t you talk to him about it then?”

“Okay.” Jason looked over his shoulder toward the front door, yearning to leave this disaster area, but not quite ready to make his getaway.

“About the manual…”

Later that day, Larry and I were granted a five-minute meeting with Dr. Hu, an ill-looking man with a bulbous belly projecting over spindly legs, sparse hair, sallow skin, yellow eyes floating in puffy pockets of flesh, and flappy jowls that moved a moment behind the rest of his head.

“Hello. Hello,” he said as he approached us in the community room, ten minutes late for our appointment and already in a hurry to leave. “If you’ll come with me, we can find a private place to talk.” He turned abruptly and scuttled off without looking back, assuming we’d drop whatever we were doing and follow him. We did.

The small interview room next to the locked ward doors was painted white, mostly empty, and windowless, strewn with a few flimsy plastic chairs. I wondered if he had spoken with Eddy here, and what had caused the occasional black streak on the walls. I remembered old movies of men in straight jackets left alone in padded cells. But this room wasn’t like that. Nothing like that at all.

“We’re not releasing your son tomorrow,” Dr. Hu said before he’d even taken his stool, which disappeared beneath him like an egg under a chicken.

“You’re not?” I was shocked. “But we thought you had to. Won’t that be 72 hours?”

“The 72-hour hold is just a legal marker. We can keep him as long as we feel he’s a danger to himself or others,” the doctor said. “And we haven’t had enough time to evaluate him yet. So we’ve asked a judge to extend it a little longer — perhaps a week.”

Larry and I looked at each other apprehensively. “Does Eddy know that?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“But he seems much better to us, doctor,” Larry used his deep, no-nonsense, man-to-man voice. “And he wants to come home.”

“Well, he can’t. Not tomorrow. That’s not an option. But when we do release him, I understand he’s going to stay at home with you?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “That’s the plan.”

“That’s good, because we don’t think he should be living alone. He’ll be given only a week’s worth of medications, just enough to last until you find him a treating psychiatrist who can prescribe more.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, confused. “What medications is he taking?”

“Lithium. Risperdol. Seroquel.”

“Lithium?” I was surprised by the one drug I recognized. “What does that mean? What do you think is wrong with him?”

“Lithium doesn’t mean anything. It is a mood stabilizer. It could be that your son has bipolar disorder. That’s one possibility. He could also be schizophrenic, or any number of other things. All we know for certain is that he has suffered a psychotic break, but why that is, we don’t know. I’m not the one to make that determination. That’s for his long-term psychiatrist to do.”

“Where should we look for a long-term psychiatrist? Can you recommend someone who would be good for him?”

“What are the other drugs for?” Larry asked.

“Risperdol is an anti-psychotic. That’s probably what has brought about the results. Seroquel is to help him sleep at night.”

Larry nodded reservedly. I wasn’t sure I trusted these medications, or this doctor. I wasn’t sure how best to help our son. Dr. Hu was already standing up, producing the small white stool from beneath him like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his ass.

“What about the psychiatrist?” I got frantic when I realized he was leaving. “Can you recommend someone? How do we know who to take him to?”

“Well, unfortunately, a lot will depend on your insurance. If you can bring me a list of the psychiatrists on your plan, I can point out ones that I think are good.”

“But are you going to be here when we come back?”

“I’ll be here tonight during evening visiting hours. If you bring the list then, I’ll take a look.” His hand was on the doorknob as he spoke this last sentence. Then he was waddling down the hall, and Larry and I were standing alone in the interview room, staring at the empty space left behind. We turned to each other without understanding.

“I’m not sure I like this doctor,” I muttered.

“He’s just busy. He’s just doing his job.”

“What is he so busy doing? Why can’t he give us 15 minutes to answer our fucking questions, for Christ’s sake?”

“I don’t know, Jo, but Eddy does seem better,” Larry said quietly. “You can’t argue with that.”

“I guess not.”

“He’s not going to be happy about staying longer, though.”

“No. He’s not.”

That was the eighth chapter of my novel, Count All This. To continue, follow the free chapter links below or buy a digital copy of the whole book on Amazon, where leaving a rating or review will help others find my story.

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