Standing By

Phone Calls

(Tim)

Oh God.  I blinked my eyes hard, trying to focus lazy vision, to make my eyes work right.  I had to see.  I can't drive not being able to see.  And as much as I wanted to roll over and give in to the urge to nap, I couldn't.  Damn anxiety pill was messing with my brain, with my alertness.  Must.  Stay.  Awake.  And note to self, don't take that medicine when I had to drive.  I dared let my eyes blink, a little slower than ideal.  Focus.  Must focus.  Driving to, ahh... hotel.  A hotel?  Why was I staying in a hotel in my hometown?  Wait, what was I doing?

    "Tim!" Adam shouted at me as Mitch started bopping me on the head.

    "Whataya doing?" Scott demanded.

    "Damned if I know," I muttered.  God, I felt fuzzy.  OK, where was I?  I rubbed my eyes.  Franklin Road.  Somehow, I'd gotten off the highway and was instinctively driving to my house.  Where was I going again?  A hotel?  I squinted at Adam, who was watching me with one eyebrow raised.  I wondered if he knew one hair of that eyebrow was sticking straight out.  Or if he cared.  If it were me, I'd be licking a finger and trying to slick that sucker down.  God, were my hands even clean?  I lifted them off the steering wheel.  I put them back back down, trying to figure out why I'd even picked them up in the first place.  God.  I couldn't even think from one thought to the next.  I have no business driving like this.  Vaguely aware of my friends trying to talk to me, I pulled into a Baptist church parking lot.

    Mitch shook me.  "Tim, what the hell you doing?"

    "Pulling off," I mumbled with a lazy tongue, making it sound more like I'd said I was poo-ing off.  The thought did at least make me giggle.  Poo-ing.  I was poo-ing off.

    "Dude, you high or something?" Scott demanded.  "What's wrong with you?"

    "What're we doing in a church parking lot?" Adam asked me.

    "I'm not even Baptist," Mitch snorted.

    "Me either."  I glanced up at the church, now not even sure why I'd poo-ed off.  Poo-ed.  Teehee!

    "Scott, you drive," Adam decided wisely.  "Tim, get back in the car."

    Not recalling having gotten out of the car, I turned around to get back in.  What were we doing here anyway?  Scott grabbed my elbow and drug my poky ass to the car, opening the door for me.

    "What're we doing here?" I asked him confusedly. 

    "I dunno."  He shoved me in the car.  "Mitch, pull up the address from the credit card receipt and play navigator.  Adam, get back here with Tim.  He's so freaking goofy.  Should we go to the hospital?"

    "I'm not sick," I said, rubbing at my eye again.

    Adam switched places with Mitch and slid in next to me, twisting my head to look at him.  "Look at me, Tim."

    Blinking hard, I moved my eyes to him..  "OK, but you got an eyebrow sticking straight out."

    "Whatever."  Yeah, he didn't seem to care.  "How do you feel?"

    "Like I can't think to save my life," I admitted, Scott starting to pull out of the parking lot.  "That's probably why I pulled over."

    "How many of those anxiety pills did you take?" he asked seriously.  "Please tell me the truth.  If you overdosed, we need to know."

    "Pretty sure I only took one," I told him honestly.  Couldn't image I'd've taken more than that.

    "Good," Adam told me, trying to hold my face still for me.  "Do you have any idea how goofy you're acting?"