Flashback (1988) (47 page)

With Suzanne and Owen Walsh watching Toby, and John Burris staying the night in the guest room at the hospital, there was no reason for him to stay around. And there was every reason to come home and get drunk. In the morning, he would in all likelihood pack up and leave. If only there were some way he could take off for parts unknown without bringing himself along.

With the heat turned off, and no fire in the hearth, the house
had begun to absorb the chill of the night. Zack pushed himself up and shuffled to the bedroom for a sweater. He was surprised that although he had had more to drink over a shorter period of time than he could ever remember, he felt quite steady on his feet.

There was a certain irony that on this particular night he was unable even to do a decent job of getting drunk.

Returning to the living room, he laid a small fire, put on a slightly less morose album, and sipped another ounce of Wild Turkey. He could understand the Judges stony castigation of him, and even his mothers. They had every right to be upset. But Suzanne’s reaction was a bitter pill.

She was a physician, to say nothing of being his lover. Even if no one else did, she should have had some compassion and understanding for his predicament.

He poured another ounce.

Years before, in the very beginning of his training, he had wrestled with the issues of making decisions in medicine, and had chosen to adopt the careful, objective, by-the-book approach over any of the more flamboyant, headline-grabbing tactics embraced by many of his surgical colleagues.

The decision had not been that difficult.

He was a second child, a plodder. He had done his best with what tools he had. Why couldn’t Suzanne understand that? Frank was the buccaneer in the family. He was a scholar. Frank danced on the wind. He needed a system.

The room was growing stuffy and uncomfortably warm. If he closed his eyes for any length of time, it began to spin. His stomach felt queasy, his head like modeling clay.

Perhaps he had had enough to drink. Perhaps it was time to …

Zack fought the unpleasant feelings, crossed to the window and opened it a slit. The cool air felt wonderful.

Toby Nelms about to be shipped off to Boston … The Judge, paralyzed … The man he had chosen to treat instead, dead … He himself anathema at the hospital. Could things have possibly turned out any worse?

There are such things in this world as love and loyalty. They’re allowed.…

Suzanne’s words. He should have listened to her.

He was simply too stiff, too inflexible. Connie had told him that more than once, before she had checked out of his life. Now, Suzanne was trying to tell him the same thing.

Too many rules. Not enough person.

He gazed out across the glistening yard, past the low thicket, to the wall of jagged rock that he had named There, hoping someone, someday, would ask him why he climbed it. The granite face, perhaps three hundred feet up and five hundred across, was the single aspect of the house that had most appealed to him when the Pine Bough realtor was first showing him around.

Sloping upward at seventy-five to eighty degrees, the tace crested at a broad plateau with a better than decent view of the valley. The climb, though somewhat tricky, was one he had already made several times.

But always, he suddenly realized, he had climbed in the sunlight and with equipment. Always, he had done it by the rules.…

He negotiated a few heel-to-toe steps without any difficulty, and stood on one foot for several seconds. The alcohol would be no problem, he decided. Probably he hadn’t even drunk as much as he thought.

Rules … systems …

Zack strode to the hall closet, pulled on his rubber-soled climbing shoes and his windbreaker, and stuffed a small but potent flashlight into his pocket.

It was time to stop being a second child.… Time to loosen up and shatter the mold … Time to break some rules …

“Because it’s There,” Zack cackled as he slipped out the back door and into the chilly night. “Just because it’s There.”

What in the hell other reason did he need?

The air held little more than a hint of the fine, black rain, but it was still cool and heavy. Several times as Zack crossed the yard and thrashed his way through the dense thicket, he swore he could see his breath. By the time he reached the base of the rock face, his climbing shoes were soaked through.

Climbing alone, at night, after a few drinks, in the rain … how many more rules could he think of to break? Perhaps, he mused, he should go up blindfolded as well. No reason to do things halfway. After a brief debate, he rejected that notion. What he was doing was quite enough for the moment—the first in a series of steps that would ultimately lead to his transformation as a person and a physician.

He moved laterally through the tall grass until he located a decent starting point, and then peered upward along the ebony granite. Above the rim, the heavily overcast sky was only slightly less black than the stone itself. It was going to be a hell of a climb.

And when it was over, when he had proven what he needed to prove, he would lie beneath the trees on the plateau overhead and watch as dawn floated in over the valley.

The exhilaration of the adventure coursing through him, Zack reached out and pressed his palms against the damp, cool stone. Then, with a final glance above, he was off.

Five feet … ten … twenty … forty …

The climb, even with the alcohol and the darkness and the rain, was a piece of cake.

Fifty … sixty … seventy …

Every time he needed a sound hold, his fingers found one. He was “zoned”—climbing with a beautiful smoothness and synchrony. If he had wanted to, he
could
have done it blindfolded. Below—now far below—he could see the candlelight flickering in the windows of his house. His street, the winding road toward the river, the occasional car, the night lights of town; with each new hold, each upward step, his vista broadened.

It was a magnificent climb, he told himself.… Absolutely magnificent … Connie was right.… So was Suzanne.… He should have been breaking rules like this long ago.… While it had been reasonable to operate on Beau Robillard—reasonable and medically sound in the final, metaphysical analysis, perhaps it might not have been right.

Ninety feet … one hundred … maybe more …

Below, the steeply sloping rock had no features. Above, there was only blackness. His progress was slower now, but steady still. The wind had picked up a bit, and a fine spray was, once again, spattering him through the night.

Minute by minute, Zack began feeling his breath becoming shorter, his grips not quite as firm. Foul-tasting acid started percolating into his throat and up the back of his nose. How much, exactly,
had
he had to drink?

Concentrate
, he begged himself.
Use your adrenaline, your experience, and focus in.…

The handholds became more slippery, smaller, and more difficult to find. He was traversing more as he searched for safe leverage, ascending less. His fingers were beginning to stiffen
up. Behind him, nestled in the gloom, was his house—so tantalizingly close, so incredibly far. Without lines, descent in the dark and the rain was simply out of the question.

Then, without warning, he slipped.

His foot went first, skidding off the edge of a niche he thought was safe. Instantly, his grips gave way as well. He slid ten or fifteen feet, slamming his elbow against a small outcropping and skinning his knee and his chin. He reacted instinctively, using technique and years of practice to stem the fall.

Clawing and kicking at a shallow crevice, he was able to bring himself to a stop.

Then, gasping, he clung to the rock until, inch by inch, he was able to work himself to a more secure spot. His elbow and his knee were throbbing, but not broken. His lungs were on fire. Waves of cramping pain had begun to shoot from his stomach through to his back.

He looked below him. The rock face, what little of it he could discern, seemed almost smooth. It was ascend or find some way to strap himself in where he was, and remain there until morning.

Then he remembered the flashlight. How could he have forgotten it? He loosened his grip and gingerly reached down and patted his windbreaker pocket. The light was gone—probably lost during the fall.

At that moment, searing pain knifed through his gut and he vomited, retching again and again. Foul, whiskey acid poured through his mouth and out his nose, spattering onto his clothes and shoes and cascading down the rock.

For five minutes, ten, he could only hang on and struggle for breath. He was in trouble. He had broken the rules, and he was in more trouble, more danger, than he had ever been in his life.

Gradually, his head began to clear, and his gasping respiration slowed. He was at least a hundred fifty feet up, he guessed; maybe more. Certainly, he was more than halfway. He could use his jacket or his belt to secure himself against the rock, but in the dark, there was no real spot he could count on. His only option was to climb, and to pray.

Once again, hold by hold, inch by inch, he started upward. The rain and the wind were real factors now, making every grip more treacherous, every ledge less dependable. The taste
in his mouth and throat was abominable, the stiffness in his fingers, elbow, and knees worsening every second.

Still, he climbed.

It was all so stupid. He had taken on the cliff to … to what? He couldn’t even remember. All that was clear was that he had taken a bad situation and made it much, much worse.

He glanced behind himself. His house was a toy, a shadow, vaguely discernible against the glow of a nearby streetlight. Peering up the rock fece, through the rain overhead, he could almost swear he saw the edge of the plateau.

The pitch seemed steeper, the handholds even smaller. Zack scanned the rock face to his right, looking for a traverse that would set up the last segment of his climb. Damn, but he needed that light. It had been stupid, arrogant, and careless not to have tied it on.

Stupid, arrogant, careless
 … That thought brought the wisp of a smile. Before his great decision to break free of his personal constraints, he had been none of the three.

One limb at a time, he worked his way across the rock, searching with his fingertips for the changes that would, once again, guide him upward.

Almost there
, he urged himself on.…
Almost there … Almost …

Before he could adjust or even react, his right foot missed its plant and skimmed off the rock. His arms snapped taut. His hands, both with reasonable grips, held; but they were already stiffened and weak.

Straining his head back and to one side, he looked down. His feet were dangling a foot or so below the nearest purchase.

Oh God
, was all he could think of at that moment.
Oh God … Oh God …

Reluctant to put any additional pressure on his fingers by struggling, he lifted one foot, gingerly scraping it along the rock, searching for a ledge or a crevice. Below him, at a pitch that was almost sheer, the granite face disappeared into blackness.

Oh God, please … Oh God …

His foot caught the edge of a minuscule ledge. On a dry day, the tiny space would have been a virtual platform for him—more than enough. But now, there was no way to tell.

Desperate to take some of the pressure off his fingers, Zack planted the toe of his shoe on the ledge and carefully shifted his weight to the foot.

Hold, damn you … Please ho—

For a moment, the foot felt solid. Then, as he added more of his weight, it slipped off the edge, tearing his right hand free of the rock. For five seconds, ten, his left hand held.

Then, with a painful snap, his fingers gave way and he was falling, tumbling like a rag doll, over and over again down the sheer rock, screaming as he hurtled against granite outcrop-pings, shattering one bone after another.…

“Nooooo!”

His final scream, the howl of an animal, echoed in his mind, and then blended with another sound … a voice … Suzanne’s voice.

“Zack? For God’s sake, Zack, can you hear me?”

He felt a cool, wet towel sweep across his face.

Slowly, he opened his eyes. A cannon was exploding in his head. He was on the living room floor, soaked in fetid vomit. The lights were on. Suzanne was kneeling over him, concern darkening her eyes.

Nearby, resting on its side, was an empty bottle of Wild Turkey.

Across the room, watching intently, sat Cheapdog.

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