Chapter 18
"Dream On, Little Dreamer, Dream On"
We sat there, both of us, like bumps on a log, filled with the profound aftermath of silent revelation. I think we were both considering what all we had learned from the playing of the voice file and our own confessions of self-discovery afterward. Cuddy's eyes were looking directly at me, but her gaze … well, that was somewhere else entirely; maybe out somewhere beyond the here and now, and into the far "what if?"
I decided if I said anything to her right then, she probably wouldn't hear me anywhere except within the abstract, and only as though I were speaking underwater, or from a considerable distance.
My own thoughts were jumbled and confused. We had been so cruel in our dealings with House's disability, and even more than cruel in our dealings with the man. He was an ass sometimes, but still my friend, and he had so many clumsy ways of showing it that I loved him for it. My flippant attitude in the face of his pain for all those years … and Cuddy's "hard-rules vs. empathy" treatment of him in her office, even when he was at the end of his rope, did not speak well for either of us in the compassion department.
One was supposed to support one's friends … not knock them head-over-heels in their times of greatest need. I was not proud of the things I had done to him … purposely or inadvertently … for so long a time.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and saw Cuddy's eyes refocus and return to the present also. I reached out in absent-minded inattention to pick up my cold tea mug, managed to lift it off the table an inch or two before the injured tendons in my wrist shrieked for mercy and the mug tumbled out of my fingers and landed back on the coffee table with a thump. I winced sharply and grabbed at my sore wrist with my right hand, angry with myself for doing something so stupid.
Cuddy stood up quickly and her hands flew to her hips. "Change of plans!" She announced sharply. "I will be taking first watch! You! Will be taking a couple of Motrin and an ice pack. And a … nice … long … nap!"
I know I opened my mouth to argue, but her finger was in my face … right under my nose, and the words died aborning. Everything that happened today had just added to the sense of malaise I'd been experiencing lately, and piling on another layer of muscle soreness that was making it a chore to move around without feeling like an 80-year-old.
I think I thanked her, but I'm not sure. I just knew it felt so good to have someone tell it like it was, and at the same time lift that awesome weight of responsibility off my shoulders. When I finally looked up to say something along the lines of gratitude … or at least appreciation for gathering up some of that oppressive weight … she was gone, and the whole room had taken on a more sublime essence.
I let my eyes slip closed for a moment. Only one moment, in order to regroup, take a deep breath, recharge my batteries and get my thoughts together in one coherent lump.
Just that quickly, I was down for the count. I was like a boat that had floated free of the dock and slipped soundlessly into deeper water, languishing on gentle waves and drifting further and further from shore …
I awoke to the sound of Cuddy calling my name. She was standing beside me with a small glass of water, the pills, and a wrapped zip loc bag of ice beneath her arm. She'd cleared the debris off the coffee table and pushed the coffee table against the couch. Mother Hen had pulled the pile of pillows away from the opposite end of the couch and was settling them, except for one, at the end where my head lay uncomfortably on the hard leather arm.
She gestured in no-nonsense fashion for me to sit up, and she placed each pillow strategically where they would give my back and shoulders and head the most support and the most comfort. She held out the pills and the glass and indicated that I should get on the outside of them! I did. I eased back down, and was lost in billows of comfort.
Without a word, she lifted my sore hand and placed it upon the pillow she'd kept in reserve and settled the wrapped bag of ice against the area that was giving me the most trouble. The coffee table butted against the couch kept it from slipping. Smart woman!
I watched her, half smiling, but letting her gentle hands get me settled like a mother would do for her sick child. For a moment I thought what a great Mom she would have made …
Then all thoughts evaporated, and I was comfortable. The ache in my hand was easing, and I was warm. She must have retreated again, and I felt myself floating off and away … oblivious to both the room, and the world around me.
Oooo0oooO
I don't know why this is … but my unrelenting guilty conscience reminds me of a very young child who takes his first crayon into his grasp. He chooses the black one or the brown one or the navy blue one and makes the heaviest, darkest marks over the largest area of paper that he can cover in the least amount of time. He seeks to show that what he does counts for something in a very resolute way.
That's what my guilty conscience does to me. It lets me know it is there, even if it has to hit me over the head with it.
When I went to sleep, my conscience was right there … hitting me over the head …
I remember floating among dark swirls for a time, almost weightless and drifting like that rowboat that has come unfettered from the pier and pulls away into the current of a very long river. Aimless … heading for the confluence as it is carried quickly downstream toward a larger body of water.
There is an ocean ahead of me. Opening up like a giant maw. It is dark and turbulent, unsettled and primal, of unknown strength, and pulling me toward it with fingers of irresistible power.
I see the danger and I begin to struggle, thrashing uselessly as it pulls me closer and closer to depths I somehow sense will drown me, pull me under and rush onward with no compunction. I will be gone with no trace, and those things which I might have left behind of myself to an uncaring world, unrealized and never missed …
I hear voices in the distance. Sing-song, repetitive as though on a continuous loop. I listen. They are familiar and I struggle again, uselessly. I don't want to hear them. I don't want to hear what they have to say, because they are speaking to me!
"Jimmy! Vital to his recovery …
Vital to his recovery …
To his recovery …
His recovery …
Recovery …"
"I want a healthy leg …
Want a healthy leg …
Healthy leg …
Leg …"
"You're wrong about me … wrong about the pain … and the pills!"
You're wrong!
You're wrong!
You're wrong!"
House!
I heard myself screaming back at him.
"You need to blame everything on the leg! Your whole identity is wrapped up in it!
Everything would have to change if your leg were healthy!"
"A change I'd be happy to make if it were healthy!
Happy! Healthy!
Happy!"
"No you wouldn't! Being miserable doesn't make you different … it just makes you miserable!
Miserable!
Miserable!"
"I was sure wrong about one thing … you're sure-as-hell different! You can't blame that on your misery! Take away your pain, and you lost the built-in excuse to be miserable and ignore the rules the rest of us live by!
Live by!
Live by!"
"You took away my pain, Jimmy … and I still hurt! Same old song … different leg!"
"Because you have to hurt, House! You have to hurt! It's who you are!
Who you are!
Who you are!"
His voice, ragged with untold fury, comes back to me like an echo in a canyon.
"NO!"The scene changes: Cloud formations undulate, convolute and roil inward.
We are in his office at the hospital.
The rest of the place is deserted. Cavernous … dark …bleak! The only light is over House's bookcase by the window. Even the streets are dark.
He's turned from me, hunched forward in his chair. That chair.
"My pain is me? That's it?"
I am suddenly frightened and I don't know why.
I've lost the fight to escape my dream-turned-nightmare. I'm pulled into it further and I look closely at House's face as he turns toward me.
"So the leg is who I am? I am my pain?" His face is contorted, his voice maniacal.
I cringe in fear as I see his hand stray toward the marbleized wrought iron mortar and pestle near the corner of the bookcase where it has been since he moved into this office.
"House …"
I see him pick up the sixteen-ounce pestle and weigh it in his hand. "Then it would follow that more pain would define me better, huh? Don'cha think?" His voice is becoming shrill. Not quite sane. I see him lift the pestle and slam it down on his left quadriceps … hard … and again.
"Oh God!"
I try to get to him. I'm the only one here who can help him. But although I'm running flat out and my legs are churning on the carpet, I'm not able to get any closer. His left quadriceps muscle is gone, beaten to a bloody pulp, his entire thigh a gaping, oozing crater …
I scream for help, to no avail. We are the only two here. It's up to me!
I reach a tentative hand toward the wound, and watch horrified as the ruined muscle turns black and shrivels away at my touch.
House begins to laugh …
And laugh …
And laugh.
I scream … and I can hear my own voice as it echoes in my ears.
Oooo0oooO
I sat up … wide-awake … gasping … shaking with fear, hairs rising at the nape of my neck. I was drowning in my own sweat and my muscles were screaming, my hand throbbing from coming off the pillow and landing hard on the coffee table. I threw off the blanket and pushed the coffee table away with one foot until it skittered into the center of the room.
Back the hallway, I heard House's bedroom door open and I struggled to focus as Lisa Cuddy stood framed in the doorway. Her face was dead white.
Behind her, I heard a sound that froze the blood in my veins.
House was moaning … tortured like a lost soul … and I cringed at the pain of it.
"NOOOOOOO-o-o-o-o …… …………"Oooo0oooO
110