“Call me at midnight when I’m off my shift,” I’d tell her.
But by midnight, she’d have left me six more voice mails. She’d be deep in Bridge Kiss, or out with Cheba. She’d phone me at four in the morning. She’d started to talk about Ida, and how Ida had inspired her energy for Bloody Sophie. Which prompted me to call Dr. Tuttnauer and Dr. Jones, who were also worried because she’d been phoning them, too, and leaving long messages, even though she’d make excuses not to see Dr. Jones in person, or even to touch in for a real therapy call.
It was hard to explain it all to Marcus. It was bizarre to him that I spent my time talking with my best friend’s psychiatric doctors. I saw his point. I didn’t want to be consumed by Addison, I wanted to hang out with my guy, and I wanted to earn money, and I wanted to have my summer visit with Dad, and I wanted Addison to not take up the lion’s share of my life. I wanted too much, maybe.
GIL CHEBA: She rang me up very late one night that July. She was always calling me that month. She’d caught a dreadful case of telephonitis. Anyway, it was some god-awful time of the night. She was fixated on the idea that a woman was following her. I was barely awake, but I struggled into some clothes, into a cab, over the bridge to Brooklyn, where I found Addison wired and cowering in the corner of her flat. She’d obviously been at work for hours and hours. The whole place smelled like trapped air and stale pizza.
“She just left two minutes ago! She ran down the hall, and now she’s up on the fire escape. She’s got a knife! Please find her, Gil.”
“Jesus, a knife? What the hell, Addison! Who is she? Does she live in the building? We need the cops!”
“No, not yet. Please take care of her—before she kills me!”
Fool that I was, I searched the entire building, floor by floor, my heart jackhamering. It took me well over an hour—I wanted to ring up the cops, but Addison wouldn’t have it.
So then I wondered if perhaps Addison was in some sort of trouble with this woman? Or was there any woman at all? Maybe Addison had been given a bad batch of something? I’ve seen countless people freak out from some illegal potpourri, but I couldn’t figure out which cocktail had Addison in its grip. I s’pose it makes a kind of gallows-humor sense that Addison was acting the way that she was because she was off her drugs.
I didn’t learn until months later that Addison had often rung doorbells and made other people in the complex look for this madwoman, Ida, who had been dead for over a hundred years. I’d been up searching for the phantom of Addison’s imagination.
What I will never forget is how Addison’s eyes were so fearful. That was why the existence of this person had never crossed my mind. She had to be as real as Addison’s fear.
Bloody Sophie by Addison Stone, courtesy of Carine Fratepietro.
XI.
ALL THE CHILDREN ARE INSANE.
From: Addison Stone