Part 104 (2/2)

Carefully, in her best penmans.h.i.+p, she began to compose letters.

STEVIE REm 14is in the sunlight, as he sat on a stone bench in the

garden during his morning walk. It was a lovely spot, filled with tea

roses and hollyhocks and bird songs. Little brick paths wound through

it, under arbors of wisteria and morning glories. Both the staff and

the patients at Whitehurst were given free rein there. Until the st.u.r.dy

stone walls rose up.

He detested the clinic, the doctors, the other patients. He despised

the therapy sessions, the scheduling, the determined smiles of the

staff. But he did what he was told, and he told them what they wanted

to hear.

He was an addict. He wanted help. He would take one day at a time.

He would take their methadone and dream of heroin.

He learned to be calm, and he learned to be cunning. In four weeks and

three days, he would walk out a free man. This time he would be more

careful. This time he would control the drugs. He would smile at the

doctors and reporters, he would lecture on the evils of drugs, and he

would lie through his teeth. When he was out, he would live his life as

he chose.

No one had the right to tell him he was sick, no one had the right to

tell him he needed help. If he wanted to get high, he'd get high. What

did they understand about the pressures he lived with day after day?

The demands to excel, to be that much better than the rest?

Maybe he'd gone too far before. Maybe. So he'd keep it a social thing.

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