You are the perfect drug, the perfect drug, the perfect drug.
(The Perfect Drug – Nine Inch Nails)
"Want to stop for a moment?" Bobby turned around. They had been walking for almost an hour, and they had just made it to the top of the hill overlooking the icy pond. This was Bobby's favorite place in the entire preserve. Standing at the edge of the cliff, the whole park spread out below him; at times, he felt almost as if he could sweep it all up into the palm of his hand. He took a deep breath. Most people didn't know it, but there was a very thin line between extreme anxiety and euphoria. In an instant, the most gorgeous feeling of transcendence could become terror; just as quickly, fear could blossom into something shatteringly sublime. Bobby stretched, shaking his hair out of his eyes. "Bobby?" Carefully, he stepped back from the edge of the cliff.
Craziness, he realized, comes in many forms. Most people thought of it as something stark. They believed that there was a line of demarcation. On one side, the sane were reasonable, rational; on the other, the insane shouted wildly into the wind and spoke to things that were not really there. It wasn't like that, though. There was a spectrum. Bobby felt his thoughts come together suddenly, crystallizing until absolutely everything seemed spectacularly clear. The connections were all obvious. He smiled, sitting down in the cold grass and then leaning back until he was staring straight up at the sky.
"Bobby?" Alex was behind him, somewhere. For a moment, Bobby wanted nothing more than to share the splendor he saw before him with her, to make her see what he saw in the world.
"Look," he said, sitting up and pointing down towards the frozen lake, which glittered back at him in the sun. "Look, Alex."
"Nice view." Bobby lay back down again. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered, really, when there were moments like this. It wasn't a nice view. It was tremendous. The trees, the wind, the ice shimmering in the sunlight – it was all so very alive. Somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered some of Corinne's questions. Do you ever feel euphoric, even when nothing particularly good has happened? Yes. Do colors seem brighter to you? Yes. Are you more sensitive to sound? Yes. He had looked at her carefully, considering. Even the shadow of the feeling could bring a smile to his face; the feeling itself was incomparable. It bathed the world in incandescence.
Beside him, Alex was shivering. She watched her partner, perplexed. She'd seen this reaction before, in him. It had just never been so complete. Forget about amphetamines, she thought; she'd seen the same look on the faces of junkies high on heroin or cocaine. She stared down towards the icy lake, wondering what he was experiencing. At least it was something good; she knew that much. In the car he'd been nervous, restless, confused; once he started walking, something had changed. All the way up, he'd spoken to her, shifting from one topic to another. It was dizzying, really. Some of it was nonsense; some of it was brilliant. By the time she got to the top of the hill she found she could barely distinguish between the two. It was overwhelming.
"Alex?" He was sitting up again. He tilted his head slightly, and then took off his jacket. "Take it. I'm not cold." He was even sweating.
"You sure?" He nodded, and Alex huddled underneath the oversized coat. "Thanks."
"I could stay here forever." Bobby gestured out towards the scene below him.
"I can tell," Alex replied. She smiled, gently. His moods changed so fast; sometimes it was hard to know how to respond.
"I'm going to miss this."
"We can always come back, Bobby."
"No, no. I don't mean that." He paused. "This feeling. Usually I'm – I'm only too energetic. Wired. Like too much coffee. Sometimes everything becomes confusing. I am thinking too many things at the same time and nothing makes sense. They all collide; there is no clarity."
"And now?"
"Perfect clarity." Bobby stretched again. "Everything comes together. Perfect. Crystalline. It's as if – as if I can see the entire world, and it all – it all has a pattern – and I'm connected to it somehow, connected directly. I'm – I'm not religious. But if I was – and I thought that there was one – I'd be close to it."
"It?"
"God." Bobby grinned. "It's not like – I don't think he's talking to me or anything." That was good to hear, Alex thought. "It's funny. I mean, I took psych courses. I know this stuff. And I can think, at some level, that this is just – it's just brain chemistry, going wrong somehow. Not always. But sometimes." Alex nodded. "Yet at the same time – it's double vision. If I get too angry or confused or – or even this feeling – then I lose that. I lose that – that second – you know." Bobby got to his feet and began pacing. "This makes it all worth it. I could write you a novel, just now. I could tell you everything! It's so right, so connected. I feel like I could jump, now, and I wouldn't fall. I'd just stay, suspended somehow – I'd never hit the ground. It belongs to me." Alex stood up and strode over to him.
"No jumping, though." He grinned.
"I know." He shook his head. "See? It's harmless. I'd never do something like that. I want to but I won't do it." Alex moved closer to him. Sure, it was fine now. But what if there was a day when he forgot, when he lost that double-vision, as he called it? What if she wasn't there? Then what? Still, she said nothing. It wasn't worth arguing with him right now. It was good to hear him speak about what he felt. Hearing descriptions was not the same as understanding, but it was something.
"Thank you for explaining this to me, Bobby." He paused his pacing for a moment.
"Explaining? Oh. I suppose. Anytime, really." He laughed. "I don't know why I was so scared that you'd be mad at me before. That's why I couldn't tell you. I thought you'd be mad at me, because I was mad at her."
"No, I'm not mad at you. No way." Bobby laughed again.
"I know that." Alex marveled at his sudden confidence. "Oh, this is perfect." He was leaning towards the edge of the cliff again; Alex felt herself grow anxious. When he came back towards her she let out a breath she barely knew she'd been holding. "We should come here more often." He paused. "You know, I'm just thinking. We should arrest McGarry. I mean, we could go back and get our things and then arrest him. I know that's bypassing asking–"
"Not to mention the key bit where we get a warrant," Alex added.
"Oh, well." Bobby gestured expansively out towards the lake. "It's obvious that he was responsible."
"I don't follow." Alex gave her partner a questioning look. "I know the guy's a jerk, but I'm not sure he engineered this–"
"Oh yes, he did."
"You're talking about a high-level city official here."
"Precisely." Bobby waved her objections aside. "It's a web. They all have a common goal, conspiracy at the least. I'll explain later."
"You know we can't get him now, right? Later. We have to wait."
"So you don't believe me, do you?" Alex sighed.
"I don't know, Bobby. You might be right. You have a good intuition on these things." It would be better if she wasn't patronizing. "I know that you wouldn't arrest a man without a warrant, though." Bobby was silent; for a moment all Alex heard was the sound of leaves and branches crunching under his feet as he paced.
"I'm sure it's him!" He paused again, picking up a stone and hurling it at a tree. Alex watched him take a deep breath; then he seemed to calm, a bit. "We'll wait." She smiled. He was walking such a thin line, dancing between delusion and reality – but he was doing it brilliantly. Still, it had to stop; there was no question about that. It had to stop before it truly got dangerous. And she'd make sure it did stop. Bobby was her partner. She wasn't going to let anything, or anyone, take him away from her.