Broken: A Billionaire Love Story (10 page)

In ten minutes, he had made it to the hospital, still high on cocaine.

“I’ve got someone here!” he called out. “She collapsed.”

The paramedics rushed to her, immediately putting her on a gurney. They strapped her down and had her inside in a flash. She had suffered a stroke, they said. She’d probably be fine.

“You're a hero, kid,” said the paramedic. “She'd be dead if you hadn't brought her here.”

After filling out a quick form, explaining what had happened, they let him go. They would take care of the car, they said.

Soon, he was walking away from the hospital, down the street and all alone—his high subsiding and his mind on fire. Surely, this was some kind of sign.

Shane was never going to do drugs again.

Okay, he thought. Okay. Good decision.

But I can't do it right away. Lead into it, you know? Take your time. Get a little drunk tonight. A little bit of coke. More booze than coke. Maybe just lean on the booze way heavier, right? Yeah.

Certainly he wasn't going to drive on any sort of substance again. That was the real lesson to learn here.

I did save that woman's life, after all. That's something I did. That was me. There was the good and the bad with it, but it wasn't all bad. He had saved her! Who else had done that? Nobody. Just him.

Without knowing it, lost in his thoughts, he had walked right in front of a liquor store.

Across the street was a tattoo parlor.

Who could say what sort of signs the world wanted to deliver? One sign was as good as any other. Thoughts of his birthday with his family rushed out from his mind has easily as they had entered them. All his mind was a smooth stone, not capable of holding any one commitment for very long that wasn’t a years-long resentment.

Ten minutes later, Shane walked out of the liquor store with a pint of vodka and a good idea of what he wanted for a tattoo. Something for his chest. A skull...a skull and flowers.  Life and death. Living on the edge.

Chapter 13:

Shane was on the elliptical machine in the small gym the rehab center offered. He was on his second or third mile, maybe, but he had a towel covering up the console for the machine reading out the distance. He didn’t care so much about how long he went—it was just something to work the time in the center.

“Goddamn son, cheer up! You’re alive!”

This was Rawls. He spoke like this, often and early. Shane had begun to suspect that he was sort of a plant—an employee disguised as a patient in order to engender feelings of recovery among the other patients. This was a kind of insane paranoia, but Shane had trouble shaking the thought.

This, in its way, was like most thoughts he had been suffering. Why not sneak out again? Why not scrounge up that number for your old dealer? Why not see if you can really get that one last good drunk?

“Yup,” said Shane. “Still alive.”

Rawls leaned forward on the pole that held the console up underneath Shane.

“Relapse can be a tool in recovery, you know?”

“What?”

“You look down. You know, down and out. I figure it’s about your mission the other night. I wanted to cheer you up.”

“And you do that by telling me it’s okay to relapse?”

Rawls took a long shrug. “Naw. I don’t know that it’s ‘okay.’ But I mean you ain’t gonna get nowhere beating yourself up about it.”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Somebody ought to, I feel like.”

“You look around for a second, okay? Look around.”

Shane did. The gym was not too full, but everyone in it was working. Men and women lifting weights. A tall man stretching up against a wall. Two women chatting as they did lunges in the corner.

“All right, now,” said Rawls. “You see all of them? They all been back out there when they shouldn’t have been. Me too. Lots of times.” He laughed. “Lots and lots. And even so, the only person in this place beating you up about where you been is you. Don’t that say something?”

“Maybe.” Shane slowed on the elliptical and started to wipe his face. “What were you saying about it being a tool? Relapse is a tool?”

“Aw, I don’t know. Just something I heard around the way. You can’t trust me all that much, man. I’m almost like a lifer in this place. My wife’s getting tired of sending me here. I expect this is the last run for me, one way or the other.”

Shane slapped the towel over his shoulder and walked over to the water fountain. Rawls followed him.

“Come on,” said Shane. “What does it mean?”

“Well. If you relapse—and shit, I don’t even know that we can call what you did a relapse, ten days sober and all. But let’s call it that. You figure out why it happened, right? What was the trigger? Where did the impulse come from? What was you feeling at the time? Sad? Happy? Trapped? Then you can focus on that. You say, ‘Okay. I’m vulnerable there. What can I do about that? How can I react if I feel that way again?’ And that’s supposed to help.”

“Supposed to.”

“Yeah, well.” Rawls laughed. “Ain't worked out too well for me yet. It's too bad I ain’t got any triggers. Just a shit attitude and a long fucking chip on my shoulder for the world.”

Shane thought about that, taking a long sip from the fountain. Maybe that was so. How had he been feeling when he went out?

Like it was his last chance, that was right. Which was sort of silly, when he considered it. It wasn’t like the world was ending. It wasn’t like they were gonna run out of booze tomorrow. He’d have last chances for the rest of his life, probably.

He should tell Olivia that, next time he saw her.

That was a nice thought. Thinking about seeing Olivia again. The shape of her legs as they slid up into her behind, the curve of her chest...

Rawls had opened up a notebook next to him, writing in it. Shane noticed for the first time he wasn’t dressed to work out—jeans and a sweater on. He had just been wandering around. Maybe he sought Shane out.

“What are you working on?”

“Essay. I got an essay to do.” He continued to scribble in the notebook. “I thought of something to put in it. Wanted to make a note.”

“They make us do essays here?”

“Nah, man. Shit. You’d have a revolt, making these morose mothers do essays.”

He closed the notebook, slipping it in the back of his pants.

“So what’s it for?”

“I’m at the community college up the way. Been chipping away at credits for a few years now. I got an English class, one of the last classes I got. When I started the semester, I had a good six months. But I got tossed back in here again. So.”

He shrugged. This was the way, his shrug said. Can't do nothing for it now.

“So you can’t finish?”

They had walked back to the hallway, now, outside of the small gym. Shane wanted to go take a shower, but he was enjoying talking with Rawls as well.

“Normally, no. But I got a teacher who's in the program, like us. Or, me anyway.” He shot a playful smile at Shane. “I opened up to him before I came in here, told him what was what about me leaving. He said, ‘do all the reading, turn me in this essay, do a good job, and you’ll pass long enough to take the final.’ So I’m working that, now.”

“Is it going all right?” asked Shane.

“Yeah, sure. Don’t read it, now. Don't look at my shit while I'm sleeping.”

Shane held up his hands. “I’m not reading anything, man.”

“I’m just not very good at writing. I don’t like people to read my writing.”

“But you’re gonna turn it in for this teacher.”

“Yes. That’s different, though. That’s for class.”

“Does he critique your writing, the teacher?”

“Oh, I mean, sort of. You know how they do. Check marks here, underlines there. Who knows what it means? There’s notes, sometimes, but I can’t read his writing too well. Scraggly, you know?”

“Well look, man.” Shane dumped his towel in the laundry basket near the front of the gym. “I know a little about writing. What if I helped you?”

“Helped me?”

“I mean, you don’t feel good about it, right? So I could, you know. Read what you got and show you...”

He almost said “show you what you’re doing wrong,” but that was too hostile. Rawls was already down on himself. He corrected.

“...I could show you how to get better.”

“What do you know about writing?”

Shane shrugged. “I mean, I’ve got a Master’s hanging out somewhere in my life.”

“You got a Master’s degree?”

“Yeah.”

“In English or something?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t think Master’s degree folks were alcoholics.”

“Shit.” Shane laughed. “You just sit around all day while the university pays you to study and read and write. You don’t do anything until you have to be somewhere for two and a half hours a day. It’s ripe time for drinking.”

“Don’t you have to study so you get good grades, though?”

Shane let out a sort of laugh, sort of nervous chuckle. “I did decent enough. I probably could have done better if I was paying better attention, but I’m pretty good at bullshitting.”

“I hear you there. Well. All right man. You can look at it tonight, how about, when I finish up?”

“Okay,” said Shane. “I would like that. Thank you.”

And Shane was glad, he quickly found. Glad to have some use to somebody. Glad to be able to help out.

The rest of the day passed quickly. Routine. Meetings, meals, meetings. Rawls handed him the paper when they settled down before lights out.

It was an essay about a personal experience. A narrative. He knew the assignment type. Professors gave this sort of thing out for students to do all the time.

It came back to him easy enough, looking at a paper. He had tutored for some time in college—mom’s allowance never left him much drinking money, and it certainly wasn't as if poetry was earning him any money. She had been angry with his choice to go to school so far away from her. She never wanted him to be comfortable there. Just to spite her, he tried to live as uncomfortably as possible on his own.

In his paper, Rawls was describing the birth of his son. Or, he ought to have been. Really, he was using the three pages he had written to describe the entire process of the pregnancy—which was too much. With these sorts of papers, you had to focus on one event, and build from there. Really zoom-in on the details, and explain what they all meant to you. Too many events in a paper this small meant nothing had enough focus. It was a common problem. Shane remembered seeing the same sort of thing ages ago—he remembered a kind of peace it brought him to help out people  like this.

Maybe there was something about that idea about focusing, Shane thought, something he could use for himself. Don’t try to fix your whole life here, he told himself. Just focus on the one thing. Just don’t drink.

Chapter 14:

In his car at the bottom of the hill in front of the Edgemont Rehabilitation Center, Heck Parsons stewed, working steadily on a mouthful of tobacco.

Shane Conway was in that facility, Heck knew it to a certainty. Every instinct he had as a reporter vibrated with the thrum of truth when it landed on that assumption.

But he didn’t have
proof
. Without proof, someone could just say that oh, Shane was visiting a friend. Or oh, Shane did charitable volunteer work there in his free time.

What Parsons needed was proof that Shane Conway was a patient at the facility. That was juicy. That was something. That had
implications
. Stock prices would fall. Stockholders would have their faith shaken in the Conway Corporation. Their shadowy fingers wouldn’t be quite so far-reaching, and maybe even it would encourage other reporters to start investigating the same sort of story. Humanize these corporations. Show people they’re fallible, and break up the trust put in them to do every last little thing.

His aspirations were a bit lofty, of course. He knew that. But, he also knew that a reporter had to aim high—or else, why were they even in the business? It certainly wasn’t for the pay.

Heck had snuck into places before. Usually, the best bet that he found was to find some kind of back door and walk around like you were supposed to be in there. But, after a trail around the facility, he couldn’t find one that was open—besides the door that opened out to the garden in the back. But beyond that door was the main rec room, and there were meetings going on. In front of so many, he couldn’t pretend to be on official business. There would be questions, and if Shane wasn’t right exactly there, he would get kicked out...too big a risk.

His second plan was to walk right in through the front door. No stopping, no asking questions, no pretending like he didn’t belong. People put a lot of weight into countenance. Once, ten years back, he had slipped his way all the way into the top floor of a corporate headquarters with nothing but a confident smile and a nice suit.

Nice suits were many years behind him at this point, about as many years as that story.

Without any other brilliant ideas, he decided he would try this tact of walking right in. Emptying out his tobacco into a cup, he stepped out of Pearl, not bothering to lock her—who would still his ratty old car?—and walked up directly to the front of the facility. His entire plan was just to power on through, smiling very briefly at the security guard at the front door. The door, however, stayed closed.

“Excuse me,” said Heck. “I’d like to get inside.”

“Okay,” said the guard. “You got a card?”

“A card?”

The guard was an older man, older than Heck. His hair was long, trailing down his back in a long, pristine white ponytail.

“A security card,” the guard said. “You’d have one if you work here. Otherwise you gotta be on the list of confirmed visitors.”

“Oh...yes. I see. I’m sure I’m on there. May I see the list?”

“You tell me your name, I’ll see if you're on here.”

“Yes, of course. It’s just...my nephew is in there, and I’m not sure if he’ll have me listed as my name, or a family nickname, or perhaps under my wife’s name for some reason...he’s been so confused lately.”

The guard was adamant. “You give me the names, I’ll see if you’re on here.”