River: A Novel Read Free Page B

gourmet
coffee and jazz.    
     Still
unable to enjoy an evening of musical theater without freakishly bursting into
tears, I usually took the consequences of Danny’s little experiments seriously.
It was always worth it, though, for the numbness, escape, stimulation, etcetera.
In my heart, I couldn’t believe he would have intentionally violated me; an action
like that just wasn’t Danny . He was more the court jester than evil villain of the
story. And I knew the memory of what had happened to me was tucked away somewhere
inside my fried brain. 
     The cloud
cover was flat gray, the embodiment of winter sky . I shivered and
decided to attempt standing. Overwhelmed by dizziness, I lost my balance. Something
else besides a really crappy hangover was going on—I just felt way too strange;
almost as though I’d been
asleep here for days. I’d always had horrible insomnia, even when I was a kid. Apparently
another side effect of being in the system. Never knowing when “home” would be
taken away tended to make a person paranoid.
     Insomnia
had also been what started my whole drug-phase. I hadn’t slept for three days
after the injury before I swallowed what Dan declared to be a Magic Potion. He
hadn’t exaggerated; I was out within minutes and had slept for twelve straight
hours. The feeling I had now was similar to when I’d woken up from that
slumber, only then I’d known where I was. At the moment, an intense feeling of foreboding portents took
over. I glanced around the way Dorothy must have, eager to spot a yellow brick
poking through the tufts of snow and dead leaves. Somewhere I was, though lacking
rainbows. After a couple of minutes turning in circles, I decided to take a
left and follow the edge of the lake in what would hopefully be the right
direction.
     
TWO
        
    Having been
a dancer for many years, memorizing music at lightning speed had become routine
for me. While I walked, a certain irritating, annoying, maddening song became
stuck on repeat in my head, until I was ready to bludgeon myself with a thick
tree branch just to be rid of it. Whenever I tried to get a different song in
there, those damned munchkins wormed their way back the moment my concentration
lifted. After their voices had hi-jacked the score of my thoughts for the
thousandth time, I had been trudging forward for so long that I’d begun to
think civilization was just a myth—some past hallucination.
     Though not tired
after my extended nap, thirst was becoming an issue. My stomach had become
unbearably acidic. Food didn’t sound good at all, but a glass of water would
have been ambrosia to my parched throat. Luckily, all the walking had warmed up
my muscles and the shivering finally ebbed. I’d also noticed something else—my busted
knee felt fine. Not better, but perfect. What had happened to me the last… couple
of days? What day was it? I had to find my way back to Dan’s. 
     The first hope
of reaching some sort of
destination emerged when the little dirt path I’d been following became wider,
almost a road. Marching along with burrs stuck to my jeans and chafing boots, I
could see my surroundings a little better. The hilly vista was thick with
winter trees. It still looked like upstate, though I had spent little time in
this area and usually with Danny, which means never sober. 
     After a
lifetime of horror movies, hitch-hiking had never been a viable option of
transportation for me. Yet in my desperation, I was pretty sure I was going to
thumb-it if any vehicle passed. If someone did stop, I would talk to them a
minute, and if I got any sort of psychotic vibe… well I would probably run like
hell if my knee allowed. It felt as if an hour had gone by, and I thought it
was damn strange not to have seen a single car. I had to still be in New York after
all, and there wasn’t enough space for everyone to begin with. Sure, I’d been
out of the city at a party Dan had thrown, but there was still a