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Life is about moving on, accepting changes, and looking forward to what makes you stronger and more complete.
The framed sign in the common room is starting to grow on Rust, a little.
The room, with all its jade plants and framed inspiration, is best when it's empty and all week he's been coming to watch the open ward patients do Tai Chi in the courtyard. He watches the smooth flow of bird hands softening into petals, and sometimes the slow circle of movement and harmony is overwhelming and he has to look away. One body made of many, all those flaws and instabilities groomed into a gentle, breathing machine.
Joe comes up behind him. "Nice day out there, isn't it?"
"Uh huh."
"I called your surgeon and he said you can try it next week, assuming you're still healing up right."
"Good. Thanks."
Joe - who goes by Joe because he doesn't want to be called Doctor Proctor, likely got his psych credentials at some low-grade Wheaties Boxtop University but Rust likes him, not quite on his own merit but because it could be so much worse. He's a Psy.D rather than an MD, well-versed in all the jargony bullshit but doesn't press Rust to talk about things he doesn't want to, and their private sessions often degenerate into conversations about old cars, not the UC shit or the drugs, not Rust's childhood and never Sophia. He can barely even think about it much less discuss it out loud, but Joe claims it will happen when he's ready.
Rust doubts that day will come.
"You going to service today?"
"Hell yes," Rust lies, rehashing their daily joke about North Shore's non-denominational service that's actually pretty fucking denominational. "But write me up a library pass just in case."
"I'll bring it by your room."
"Thanks."
He watches the courtyard show a bit longer, then shuffles back to his room before they all flood back through the common room doors, serene and expecting eye contact he doesn't want to give.
Crash either stared holes in people or didn't look at them all. Rust isn't sure what Rust did (or does?) but he's unexpectedly glad to be rid of that dry snakeskin, shed in a rattle of withdrawal shakes before they checked his absorbable stitches one last time and shipped him here. He's cooperating - in his own abridged way - because in a way, he's grateful. He can't get over the fact that they could've put him on a fifteen hour bus ride to Lubbock but they flew him with a silent hospital escort instead. The facility's been so gentle with him it borders on laziness; no one ever presses too hard, possibly on the hunch that some gauzy future catharsis might sneak up and heal him out of the blue. Hell, maybe it will, but in the meantime he likes that his gums have stopped bleeding.
The mirror in his room is usually kept draped with a spare shirt, but every other day he lifts up an edge to check on his appearance. He's gotten thin, and not like when he was young and lived on venison and looked like a deer himself, wiry and lean and fast. He looks haunted and fragile.
What would Claire think if she saw him like this, he wonders. They've put him on a potent cocktail of sleep meds since he can't sleep without it, and it's brought a vivid flood dreams about her, like the teasing way she used to baby him before they had a baby and the way her voice sometimes rang in the back of his skull like downy brown flannel. He's broken down the hopeless math of their situation and knows they're just doomed biological units, but...even pigeons and termites pair up for life and he misses her terribly.
Joe knocks. "Hey, Rust?"
"You got my pass?"
"Uh, no. This is kind of sudden," he says. "But there's a lady here to see you. Think you're up to having a visitor?"
Fuck, it has to be her. There's no one else it could be. "Yeah. I'll be out in a minute."
He combs his hair, tries a few posture variations in the mirror to see if it makes any difference, and borrows a white stick of gum from Joe. He's never been in a visitation room and learns they're past the nurse's station, where the windows look out on the downtown skyline and distant trees instead of the scabby plains. "Okay. Have a seat and I'll bring her in."
"Thanks." Rust waits in the beige molded plastic chair and can't wait to see Claire in the other. There's a pinch and a tight pull in his left side when he reaches out to scoot it closer but the pain's a lot less than it was. It occurs to him that nothing's stopping him from trying Tai Chi in his own room, and after this visit his hands just might float off his fucking wrists.
"Oh my God. Sweetheart."
The eyes that lock on his aren't Claire's soft brown, they're costume jewelry blue. The hair's a brassy color he doesn't remember from last time but it's still shellacked up into a big Texas honey bun. "Oh, Rustin. You poor, poor thing."
He nods to Joe that supervision isn't necessary. The door closes with a soft click and his mother stands between his knees and pulls his face into her bosom. "I heard from aunt Jeanne but I didn't know how to get a hold of you till now. You're due some good luck with being all shot up like that, sweetheart. God really owes you now."
Rust snorts against the lush horror of her chypre scent. He does indeed.
"Now," she says, and gets situated in the chair that he now regrets moving. "I know it didn't go well the last time we saw each other, but at a certain point you're going to have to let it go." It was after the funeral, after the big scene at Nana Cohle's. Claire found him in the back bedroom and her hands were so cool on the back of his neck. "It's okay, honey. Danny asked her to leave and she is."
"You have to understand I was in no way, shape, or form ready to raise a child when I had you and I did what I thought was best."
"Well then you ought to feel terrible about yourself if Travis fuckin' Cohle was better parent material than you."
"Please don't use that language, Rustin."
"Sorry," he apologizes softly, and scours his memory for what he knows about her now. "You still in Plano?"
"Yes. And still with Mr. Strickland."
"Oh. Remind me who he is."
"I was his secretary for a while. His company makes parts that go inside air conditioners and he makes good money. We've been thinking about moving to California but he doesn't want to be that far away from his kids."
"Oh."
The ugly pink gash of her mouth yammers on about her life, her church group, and anything but Rust's first two years. There's a smudge of lipstick on her teeth; Rust thinks about Pop's disdain for artificial colors and wonders how on earth he ever could've fucked this woman.
"Ma." He interrupts a meaningless string of words about the irony that their own air conditioning unit at home has problems. "Hey, ma."
"What, sweetheart?"
"I'm glad you're here."
"Oh, baby. Me too. It's nice to see you smile. I don't know who you got those pretty straight teeth from but they're sure nice to see. So like I was saying-"
The chair kicks out from behind him and lands on its back and he's got both hands around her throat. The skin's wrinkle-thin and loose but the firmness of her larynx is right underneath and he squeezes so hard all possible sound dies in his grip. He could snap the hyoid for drama but likes how the steady pressure matches the steady terror in her eyes. Everything that's ever gone wrong for me started with you. It's all because of you. The cheap glass eyes start to bulge and crackle with red. Oh yeah, she knows whose fault this is. Sharp, fake nails shred at his wrists and he throws her down on the floor, a puff of broken air exiting her before the choked inhale and knee-deep scream that brings staff running.
Rust almost laughs when the door bursts open; he's so skinny they don't need three big guys to take him down, but they still wrestle him to the floor and punch Haldol into his arm. A fourth drags his mother into the hall by the armpits and in the good thirty seconds he has, he calls her a cunt as many times as he can and warns her to never, ever come near him again.
*
He wakes with a hangover from the injection, and at first he thinks he's in restraints but it's just bandages for the scratches. He blinks and focuses and Joe looks blanched and sorry with his arms folded at his bedside. "How are we feeling, Rust?"
"Bad." It's like someone took out his brain, beat it with a mace, and put it back in.
"It'll wear off. Look, Rust, I like how we talk about cars and all, but we're going to have to start talking about you. It's time for our real work to begin."
No it isn't. "How many demerits did I get?"
"She was never signed in on the front desk's guest ledger, so maybe none. Administration upstairs is still talking about what to do, but if charges aren't pressed it's possible this might go away. From a punishment standpoint, anyway."
"Oh."
Joe looks rueful. Sure he's a weak excuse for a doctor and yeah he should've told Rust who the fuck his visitor was but it isn't really his fault.
It's all hers.
*
Rust never hears any news about consequences, but two days later the orderly who brings his breakfast says, "Heard you're getting a change of scenery, Cohle. Joe's on his way down to tell you."
So she decided to nail him. Rust knows way too much about the system and tears stab at his eyes because the likely destination is Monford. Psych hospital's a lot different than psych prison and...there's a good chance he won't make it out.
"Hey buddy, how's it going?" Joe's chipper attitude makes no sense. "Rust, are you okay?"
He realizes he's hugging himself. "You can't let them transfer me to Monford."
"What...? Nobody's sending you anywhere. You've had a rough week and I got permission to take you off property, if you want to get out for a little while."
"Oh."
"Just for an hour. And only if you can promise there will be no...you know."
Assaults.
Joe drives a Tercel but to Rust it feels like a Rolls, and he's so glad to be out he doesn't ask or care where they're going. First, they hit a McDonalds drive-thru for a Coke and fries so salty and crisp he gets half aroused from eating them. He doesn't know what could top that until they arrive an old brick bookshop downtown.
"There won't be any other customers," Joe says. "I know the owner and it's open just for you. Take your time and pick out whatever you want."
The philosophy section is overwhelming; Rust's read most of the basics in the facility's library, but here there's so much more. "How much have I got to work with?"
"Two hundred bucks."
"Damn. Okay."
There's Deussen. Vaihinger. Adorno translations that get him all riled up again. The luxury of choosing things he wants is a pleasure almost as tactile as jerking off; the running tally says he's well below his limit, but...now wait a minute.
Wait.
An hour before the big shootout, every dollar he had was dropped on tequila at Shoeshine Charley's Big Top Lounge. He'd been admitted to North Shore with a red biohazard bag of Crash's clothes and nothing in the pockets but a roach clip and a lighter. Joe likes him, sure, but...
He re-shelves the book in his right hand and tries to remember where he got the top one in his left. Frustrated, he puts the whole stack on the floor and heads for the front door.
"Rust-" Joe begins.
"I know where that money came from and I don't want it."
"Okay, I hear what you're saying," says the therapy voice. "But how about I'll buy them anyway in case you change your mind."
"I won't." The overhead bell dings as he goes back outside. Joe follows.
"Rust-"
"If you spend one goddamn cent of that whore's money on me it's gonna take more than a Haldol shot to get me off you." Joe looks more disappointed than scared, and Rust realizes that he's pretty fucking disappointed himself. "Now go tell your friend thanks but we're done."
A little prickle of pain tickles his side as he slides into the passenger seat, looks straight ahead, and waits.