Free Some Are Sicker Than Others by Andrew Seaward Page B

marathon. He just had to accept the fact that he would never amount to anything and for the rest of his life he’d be a complete nobody.
    When he got to the bottom, he turned the corner and stopped in front of his flimsy, wooden office door. He unlocked the door and pushed it open, feeling for the light switch that was mounted somewhere along the wall. When he found it, he flipped it upward, then limped over to his desk and collapsed backward into his swivel style office chair. He closed his eyes and tried relaxing, but it was pretty much impossible to do with all this anxiety. It felt like a gorilla had its hands wrapped around his larynx, the big, fat, hairy fingers digging into the muscles of his neck. His head was pounding, his face was sweating, and it felt like his heart was about to rip wide open. In retrospect, he probably should’ve gone a little easier at Cheesman and not have finished off that first rock. Oh well, he knew how to solve that; it didn’t take a degree in pharmacy to know how to get balanced out.
    He bent forward and flung the bottom drawer open looking for the only thing he knew that would take off the edge. There it was—hiding beneath a stack of his students’ ungraded earth science midterms—a big, brown, beautiful bottle of Jim Beam’s Kentucky Bourbon. He reached in and pulled out the bottle, unscrewed the cap and brought it to his lips. The alcohol burned as it slid down his throat, making him lurch forward and cough and cringe, but it felt so damn good inside his stomach that he lifted the bottle and went again, then again and again until his heart rate became steady and again and again until his entire body turned to jelly.
    Once he was satisfied, he returned the bottle, tucking it safely back inside his bottom desk drawer. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out the little red pill bottle and held it up between his forefinger and thumb. One down, nine to go. Hopefully, that would be enough to last him a couple days, maybe a week if he could keep it all under control. He’d better. He had that match tonight all the way up in Estes. If those girls knew anything was up, they’d probably tell their parents and he’d be out of a job faster than he could count to four. Then what would he do? How would he pay for his medicine? He’d have to steal money from Cheryl and hope she didn’t catch him, because if she did, she’d probably want to divorce him or worse, send him to some silly rehab. No, no, no, no, he couldn’t let that happen. He had to be careful. Maybe tomorrow, after the game, he could afford to be a little more reckless.
    He took the bottle and shoved it back into his pocket then got up from the desk and walked towards the door. But, just as he was about to leave, something stopped him, like the tentacles of an octopus wrapping around his throat. All of a sudden, he couldn’t breathe and he began to feel dizzy, as the razor sharp suction cups dug into his spinal cord. He looked down at his hands. Jesus, they were trembling, and the pain in his knee was now shooting up through his pelvis. He locked the door. This was ridiculous. How could he drive a school bus if he was hurting this bad? He had to have something to quell the throbbing. He had to have something for his knee. If he didn’t, he could get into an accident. He could drive that bus right off a mountain. Christ, look at him…he looked like a Parkinson’s patient… god damn Michael J. Fox on crack cocaine. How could he be expected to hold down the gear shifter? How could he be expected to push down the brakes?
    He turned away from the door and marched back across the office then plopped himself back down into his chair. Just a couple more hits…that was all he needed…just enough to calm him down and ease the throbbing.
    He reached into his pocket and pulled out the bottle then set it on the desk right beneath his little, green banker’s lamp. Then, he pulled out his glass pipe and cheap, plastic