CHAPTER 2  (Chapter 1 / 3 / 4 / 5...) (alternates 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 )

Bill half-woke-up... It was still dark outside. From habit he pulled his left wrist up in front of his eyes to see his watch. He tried to find the little button that made the watch glow (Shawn and Dylan had given him this watch last Christmas - at first he hated the 'cheap piece of shit' but he'd quickly grown attached to it)... But the watch wasn't there. He reluctantly pulled himself closer to the surface of wakefulness to negotiate this maneuver... "Where he hell is my___"

Bill suddenly realized that he wasn't home. He swam frantically upward, breaking the surface of sleep, gasping for air. He stumbled out of bed searching for a light switch. There was no bedside table. He felt the wooden floor against his feet as he stumbled foward, thinking that if he could see himself he'd resemble Frankenstein, arms outstretched, chin up, mouth open, eyes peering, legs extended weirdly.

Behind him Bill heard a voice calmly speak, "Would you like me to___"

Bill screamed like a girl. He couldn't help himself. He pulled his arms to his side ready for a fight, pulling his head down behind his left shoulder.

"I'm sorry", the voice said again, "I didn't mean to scare you..."

"Yeah, right - you didn't mean to..." Bill muttered. "Well, could you put a light on... PLEASE!?"

A series of globular wall sconces dimmed up revealing a rather large room. Bill did a quick scan of the room to discover her sitting on the floor cross-legged. She was wearing a loose fitting cream colored tunic over white leggings. He noticed her shoeless feet and felt drawn to them.

"So, who are you?" Bill asked trying to change his heart.

"I'm Sonya. I've been assigned___"

"Where am I?"

"You don't remember coming here?" she asked.

Bill looked at her directly covering his recollection of the previous evening's Intervention (yes, with a Capital I) back in Greenwich. She didn't buy it but smiled anyway, "So then you do know where you are then?"

"What are you doing in here?"

"As I was saying... I've been assigned to you for the orientation period."

"To do what exactly?" Bill asked.

"Well, we know that it can be a very stressful time for some people. I'm here to help. Pain is not helpful if it doesn't result in expansion'."

"Oh, really?" he chuckled.

"You can laugh at me, it's OK", she smiled.

"Thank you."

"I know your family has issues with your constant smirking but I___"

"My family has what?" Bill demanded.

"Your wife and two children, Dylan and__"

"I know the names of my children."

"When I spoke to them they told me how they felt about___"

"Wait a minute here. You've spoken to my family about me?" Bill asked.

"Of course."

Bill looked around. He was searching for a door. He wanted out but there didn't seem to be a door... He noticed a faint glow coming from behind a curtain which stretched across one end of the room. He moved toward it.

"You already missed breakfast", Sonya said as he pulled back the curtain revealing sliding glass door.

"I'm not hungry", Bill said noticing the hill that sloped away toward a group of building in the distance. He watched a number of people walking in small groups talking. The sun was shining. He put his hand on the glass door.

"Would you like to go meet everyone?" Sonya asked.

Bill pulled on the sliding glass door but it wouldn't budge. He heard a jingle behind him which he correctly assumed were keys in Sonya's hand. "Why is this locked?" he demanded as he turned to her.

"It's for your protection. Some clients find the first night here can be very fraught."

"Fraught, client's... wow!"

"Yes." she said as she moved toward him.

"And why were you sitting here in the dark. I mean it's pretty scary waking up in a dark room."

"I did have the lights on during the night but you kept waking up and looking at me. I knew you were asleep but considering your history of hypnogogic excursion__"

"Hypno what?"

"You sleep walk and have obsessive dream fugues___

"Fugues, did you say?"

"...and we've found that darkness in some cases is helpful."

"Who told you I sleep walk? I don't sleep___"

"Your wife told us."

"She doesn't know what she's talking about!" Bill protested.

"We've seen the video tape she made."

"Oh, that", Bill laughed, "That's just...."

"Yes?" Sonya asked as she moved closer to Bill.

She stopped and reached out putting her hand on his forearm, "It's going to be OK."

Bill pulled away pretending to look off down the hill, "So when do we eat?"

"I can take you down to the kitchen now if you'd like?"

"Yeah, I guess I could use something...."

He wasn't hungry... But when in the past twenty-five years did he eat because he was hungry?

********************************************

"So, Bill, why are you here?"

Bill looked around at his group'. After breakfast (which he had to admit was great - stacks of pancakes and Canadian bacon washed down with some weird concoction of coconut and a strange leafy herb) he'd been hustled over to a building which had the word CONNECT in large brass letters hanging over the entranceway.

"Bill came to us just last night from an intervention," chimed in Sonya who was seated away from the client circle along the wall with the other facilitators'.

"Right, she said it..." Bill mumbled.

"But that doesn't answer why YOU are here, Bill," repeated Ronnie, the group leader. Ronnie was tall and blond and Bill thought, obviously gay. Later it would come out that Ronnie had had an unspectacular career as a Broadway chorus boy. He had narrowly missed the bullet of AIDS having retired from the downtown rough trade scene in 1982 to move out to Missouri to teach. The teaching went well but his drug dependence didn't slacken in the boon docks as he had hoped and he went into treatment in 1987. It didn't take but the second treatment episode at the Hills in 1989 worked. He returned to work at the Hills in 1991, soon becoming one of the top group leaders. "Bill, are you aware that you're smiling?" Ronnie asked.

"Smiling? Oh, I guess."

"And what are you smiling about?"

"Oh, everything. I just find all this funny."

"Why don't you let the group in on the joke."

"Oh, it's not a ha-ha kind of joke. I just find it weird, being here. I mean I have not the vaguest notion of why I'm here or how I got here... It's..."

"Were you abducted?" asked Ronnie.

"No, not abducted, really... It's just that this is not where I thought I'd be this morning. I do work, you know."

"What do you do, Bill?" asked Nancy, a brunette client who was probably about twenty-five.

"I'm... I was... Geez, I hope someone called in___"

"Bill, try to stay in the moment a little teensy bit, will you," Ronnie admonished.

"Sorry. I'm in advertising."

"How are you feeling, Bill?" asked Howard, 38, a big block-headed guy wearing a Brown University sweat shirt.

"Oh, I'm... I liked the breakfast. It was really good. I even liked that drink thing they gave. I mean I usually drink coffee. Every morning since I was 17 or so. I love coffee. I don't look forward to the headache I'll probably get in a couple of hours.. But I suppose if I'm here I should throw myself into it. I mean it's not everyday that I get a day off from work... I mean it's kind of like those snow days you so looked forward to when you were a kid. I loved those. Your whole life took a sudden turn. It was exciting."

"Are you looking for a sudden turn in your life, Bill?" asked Ronnie.

"You know this first name thing is a bit much, you know."

"No, I don't know," answered Ronnie.

"Oh, you know when people want to have the phony intimacy thing these days they use your first name a lot, kind of like pretending that they really know you and that you're friends and all that. I mean back in the old days, if you used someone's first name without some form of permission it was considered a total insult. Guy would kill you over it."

"Do you want to kill us over it, Bill?" asked Howard.

"More dime store psychology..." Bill mumbled.

"What did you say?" asked Clark, a teenager who wore black rimmed glasses that were slippery with grease from his hair.

"I'm sorry, I didn't get your name... or any of your names..."

"My name is Clark... As in Kent, you know. I'm full of all kinds of grandiosity but that's something that I probably don't have to tell you about."

"Huh... So I don't know. This is all very new to me."

There was a long pause. Bill grew more and more nervous as it lengthened. He felt that he better jump in soon or the weight of the wait.... He laughed.

"What are you laughing about now, Bill?" asked Ronnie.

"Oh, just a private little thing in my head. Nothing really."

"You can't just slough off what's happened here."

"Oh, I'm sure," Bill answers dripped with irony, "I'm hardly ready to slough. Oh, no, lord help me if I were to try to slough this off. Oh, no."

"You something, Bill...?" asked Nancy.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I try to go into everything with an open mind. I mean I work very hard, and in my case you'll soon see what I'm up against... But I work very hard at giving everyone a break. I like to like people. And..."

"Yes?" asked Bill, trying to be helpful.

"I don't like you. I'm sorry but I don't..." Nancy peeped.

"Oh, that's OK. Can't have everybody like you all the time. I mean you just paint yourself into a corner when you try that strategy. It's a wonder that anyone likes anybody these days... I mean after everything that's happened."

"What's happened, Bill?" Ronnie asked.

"A lot's happened and nothing's happened... Oh, what the fuck am I talking about... It's just that it's the assumptions... they need to be questioned... Oh, Christ, questioned... Identified for a start. I mean what are the assumptions. If you can get a sense of that you're on your way. But often they are beyond you. They're out there somewhere - you're just blind to them and you go along in your allusion. Trying to get through the day, the week... through another year. And who has time. I mean if you stop to pick everything apart then where are you. I want to know the underlying assumptions - probably more than your average Joe. I think that's what I find so funny - the juxtapositions that are to me so clear - the clash between what seems to be going on and what is really going on. I mean what are you thinking right now?" Bill asked Howard.

"I was just wondering why you were crying."

"Crying... What a... Am I...? I'm not crying..." Bill felt his face and it was indeed wet. Was he crying. Was there really some reason for him to be here. Did his wife and family and his friends - was there really something that wrong with him that he had to go away...

"What are you thinking, Bill?" asked Ronnie.

"I don't know?"

"Can I suggest something?" Ronnie said with a smile.

"Sure."

"Did it hurt when Nancy said she didn't like you?"

"Hurt? Well, no more than you'd expect. I suppose a little. I mean, everyone wants to be liked and all. Not that I spend my day thinking about it___"

"You don't?" asked Clark Kent.

"I don't know. Oh, fuck it... I just wish...."

"What do you wish, Bill"

"What the fuck is going on here!" Bill stood up and screamed.

There was a long pause as everyone waited to see what Bill was going to do.

"You can leave anytime you want, Bill. This is a totally volunteer environment."

"See, that's exactly what I'm talking about. A voluntary environment'. Who ever heard of such a phrase. What does that mean? I mean what does that really mean? It's just gobbily-gook. A bunch of shit cooked up to sound new." Bill sat down with a thud.

"Are you going to stay with us, Bill?" asked Nancy.

"What do you care. You don't even like me."

"Would you like me to like you?" she asked.

"I suppose I wish people liked me. It's hard after a while never having really good friends. I mean like when you're a kid."

"Did people like you when you were a kid, Bill?"

"Yeah, people liked me. And it was fun. And you knew what the hell was going on. You knew when dinner was. You knew what your homework was and you knew when summer vacation started. And you knew who liked you and who didn't. It was pretty clear. And that was OK with me. That was OK."

"Is that what you miss, Bill?" asked Ronnie.

"I don't know.... I just don't know.... Maybe....

There was a long pause as Nancy smiled at Bill. He smiled back.

"Yeah, I'd like things to be OK again. That'd be good."

TO BE CONTINUED....

Chapters: 1 / 3 /....
Alternate 3

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