[TonyPerry] Now It's Your Turn To Run

Tres.

The only reason why I know him is because one of my clients swears that the band’s music saved his life. Honestly, it sounds farfetched, but I don’t doubt anything that anyone tells me, and if that band really did save his life then good for that band and I'm happy they were able to do that for him. He used to tell me all about them, and I would constantly have to remind him that he had to get back on track, that his parents weren’t paying me to talk about music with him. It would usually end in an argument, like I knew it would, like I hoped it would, about me only being there for him because his parents were paying me, and then we would get back on track.

People think that I just write down what my patients say, like they see in the free association sessions on television shows. It’s the, there’s one thing that I hated learning about in all of my psychology classes and that was learning about Freud and all the crap that he believed in. Granted, I believe in a lot of his theories, the id and the superego and the unconscious and all of that stuff. I just, free association and the crack stuff, it doesn’t work for me. I give advice and I teach them ways to cope with stress and all of these different things that people overlook because they assume I'm like all the therapists on the damn television shows.

Running a hand through my hair, I glance at the clock hanging on the wall, the second hand ticking, continuing to taunt me, telling me that he’s late, and I should just stop waiting, because I have an appointment right after him and I can’t keep anyone waiting. He doesn’t even want to come, and I can’t help someone who doesn’t want the help, it’s a waste of my time, his time, and everyone else’s time waiting for him to change.

If there’s one thing that I can’t stand is tardiness. The guy, Jaime, who is apparently coming with Tony today, has my cell phone number and that means he can either call or text me to tell me that they're running late. It wouldn’t be such a problem if I knew they weren’t going to be on time, because I didn’t bring anything to do, not that I have much to do, but I'm bored, and I could be reading a trashy magazine, looking at pictures of celebrities getting their nails done at a cheap salon in the city.

Lolling my head back, I feel so stupid; I can’t help everyone, and the fact that I let him just cut ahead in the waitlist makes me feel even more stupid. I don’t even know what I was thinking. I've been able to tell people no so many times. But, the sadness in his voice, the fact that he told me the band refuses to keep going if he’s going to continue treating his body like that, I don’t know if it was because I know they're capable of saving lives or because the pain in Jaime’s voice made me think of the pain in mine when I heard that my father was going to jail.

“I told you to get up or we would be late. That’s the best first impression to make. Way to go, Tony.” This isn't the way to start off meeting a new patient, especially when the person he’s with is making him feel like complete and utter shit. “Now you have to apologize to her. She said that she worked hard to fit you into the schedule. And you’ve cut down your time to forty minutes. You made her wait twenty minutes, Tony. Come on. That’s not right and you know it.”

I hear him sigh, a long, exaggerated sigh, one that doesn’t even seem forced; and I know just from that one sigh that he has a hangover. I'm not stupid. I've seen my fair share of hangovers. I've seen my fair share of highs and the lows that people get to when the high is over. That’s why I'm good at this job. I know things that people don’t even tell me. He won’t tell me that he got piss drunk last night and neither with Jaime. But, I know already. They don’t have to tell me. And all I have to do is prove to him that there are better things in the world than liquor and partying. I've done it before, I’ll do it for the rest of my career, and I can do it for him.

“Tony, the band, Mike, Vic, and I, we’re not putting up with this anymore. It’s not good for you. One night you’re going to drink yourself into your grave and we don’t want that to happen. So, at this point, you either get over this addiction of yours or the band is just going to have to end.”

See, I’ve dealt with serious cases before – people who were up for parole but only able to get it if I agreed to it, kids who were going down a seriously grave path, parents who were going to lose their children if they didn’t get better.

But, I've never dealt with the possible ending of a band.

And the ending of this band, according to what I know, is going to be the ending of heroes.

I don’t want that responsibility.

Tony doesn’t want that responsibility.

I'm going to have to make room for him in my schedule.

And for the first time with a patient, I'm terrified that I can’t help him.