just hope that Asher finding you and trying to get his life in the right direction is a good sign. Maybe this was a misstep. Stress, love, even his art can be a trigger. And the problem with Ash is that, though the meds help, I think he likes the high. He hates the way the meds dull his senses, and I haven’t found a way to convince him to stay on them uninterrupted. He misses checkups, he doesn’t have the patience to experiment with new medications that might have fewer side effects. More importantly, I can’t find a way for him to get over Sarah’s death.”
Miller might have been trying to comfort me, but all I could hear in his words were the insurmountable obstacles. I understood the depths of Ash’s guilt. I understood that what I loved about him was how deeply he felt. That could be great when it came to the way he loved me, but it could be dangerous in the way he felt remorse, or despair.
Just then Miller’s phone rang.
“Miller Thoreau . . . Okay . . . How? . . . Jesus . . . Okay. Yes. I am an attorney so you don’t have to explain . . . I’ll be there soon.” Miller looked up. “Well, they arrested Ash for throwing a brick through an art store window. Fucking-A. My contact with the LAPD has him en route to the hospital.”
ASH
I was going to pay them back. I just needed some paint and nothing was open. Why do these stores close? Don’t they understand brilliance doesn’t have office hours?
I tried to tell the officers the owners would understand. The mayor would be seeing my installations and they would be in trouble if they took me in because I had a lot of work to do. Important work.
“You’re making me taste stale animal crackers,” I told the officer. “And your voice looks like floating turds.” He had this awful accent that sounded like a hybrid of the worst the East Coast had to offer and I wondered what the hell he was doing in the LAPD instead of some East Coast PD.
I was calm. I was so fucking calm until they tried to cuff me. Because I knew what was next. I couldn’t be put in one of those fucking places.
“I am an artist! You can’t do this! You should frame that window, it’s going to be worth millions!” I shouted as they cuffed my arms to my legs like a sow and lifted me into the back of the car.
I flailed and screamed and shouted my name so the people in the street knew if I disappeared, they could tell the news who I was. The international manhunt would begin.
“I have to tell Bird,” I appealed to the fatter cop with the less ugly voice from the back of the cruiser.
“Yup, I am sure the birds would love to hear your story. Tell that to the doctor.”
“No, moron, Bird is a person who speaks, not a bird who speaks.” I took a big inhale, thinking of ways I could explain to this simple man that I should be freed. “Listen, listen, I am not crazy.” Sweat beaded down my forehead and into my eyes, stinging and blurring my vision. I was thirsty and the salty trickle of it onto my lips was welcome hydration. “Bird is a very important person. You won’t see it, but she glows and her voice is like an aurora and . . .” I stopped myself and took another deep breath, because I was trying hard to sound sane, but I was too fast for these imbeciles. I needed to speak to them slowly, as if they were children. But it was hard to stay at their snail’s pace because I had work to do and I needed to get back home fast. “Listen. Okay. Listen. Bird’s name is Annalise Robin Campbell. And I can’t lose her. So okay, wait. Wait, here’s something. Miller Thoreau is my brother and he knows people. So just call him and then I can go back to my installation.”
“Buddy, you threw a brick through a store window.”
I had forgotten about that.
I began to get angry, feeling trapped in these cuffs, in the confines of the back of the cruiser. Once I was no longer distracted by my own pleading, it all started to feel small so that I couldn’t breathe.
“The car is shrinking,” I told the officer as calmly as