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Chapter Sixteen
Point of View: Narrator

Doctor Floyd Haseltine looked like Colonel Saunders... or Santa Claus. Nick couldn't quite decide which. He smiled as Nick was pushed in to his first meeting with him. Nick was not smiling.

"Hello Nickolas," Dr. Haseltine greeted him warmly.

"Don't call me that," Nick immediately shot back.

Dr. Haseltine was nonplussed. "What do you prefer to be called?" he asked, making a note on the yellow legal pad he had balancing on his knee. Nick noticed that the way he had his legs crossed made his pant leg ride up and about three inches of his sock show. His socks did not match on both feet. One was maroon with diamonds and the other was solid blue.

"Nick," he answered flatly, "Not Nickolas, not Nicky. Just Nick."

"Okay, Nick," Dr. Haseltine was still smiling. Nick kinda wanted to wipe the smile off his big, dumb, round head. "So I hear you had an accident?"

"Nah, I just wear these casts for the fun of it," Nick responded.

Dr. Haseltine laughed, "And you're a joker, I see."

"Who says I'm joking? They're the new trend. Everyone's doing it. Really. Go look at Rodeo drive. They're selling them on the street corners. These babies are gonna make me the coolest kid on the block." Dr. Haseltine bit his lips and waited for Nick to stop rambling, watching him as he talked on and on about how hip the casts were, and who was wearing them. Finally, Nick ran out of steam, and he stopped and stared at Dr. Haseltine.

"Are you through?"

Nick paused. "Yeah."

"Okay. Now tell me about your accident."

"I fucked up my Escalade," Nick answered. "I wanted to see who would win a fight - a tree or my car, and it turns out the tree beats the shit out of my car so."

"Interesting," Dr. Haseltine made more notes on his legal pad. Nick leaned to try to see it, but he lifted the pad up out of his view and smiled. "Do you always speak so sarcastically, Nick?" he asked.

Nick hesitated. "Only on special occasions," he answered.

"In that case, I'm honored," Dr. Haseltine said.

"What're you writing about me?" Nick asked.

"Notes," Dr. Haseltine answered lightly.

"What kinda notes?" Nick asked.

Dr. Haseltine looked up serenely. "Do you feel like you depend on alcohol, Nick?" he asked, ignoring Nick's question.

"No," he answered, "It's just something I do for fun sometimes."

"How often do you have 'fun'?" Dr. Haseltine asked.

Nick squinted at him. "Why won't you tell me what you're writing about me?" he asked, flipping the subject.

Dr. Haseltine sighed. "Nick..."

"I mean if you won't even be honest with me right now, tellin' me what you're thinking is up with my head, then how am I supposed to talk to you about anything besides the weather? I don't like it when people aren't up front with me."

Dr. Haseltine handed Nick the yellow legal pad. Nick took it, suspiciously, and looked at it. Dr. Haseltine's handwriting was even worse than his own. In other words, it was impossible to decipher, like code. "What the hell's it say?" Nick asked, turning the pad different directions as though looking at it from a different angle might help.

"It says you use humor as a defense mechanism and that you don't realize you have a problem. You're in denial about your alcoholism, and you have a trust complex," Dr. Haseltine replied.

Nick looked down at the hieroglyphics on the page. "You get all that out of this?" he asked.

"It's coded," he said, "I have developed it so that patients that are nosey about what I'm writing will not be able to read what I am writing until I am ready for them to read it." Nick handed him back the legal pad. "I have an index in my drawer here if you would like to double check that I am telling you the truth?"

Nick shook his head, "I'm good."

"Okay then." Dr. Haseltine stood up and walked around the desk anyway, and pulled open a drawer. He removed a plain red spiral bound notebook and handed it to Nick, along with a pen. "Here you are."

Nick opened the cover and found it was all blank. "Um.. what's this for?" he asked.

"It's your journal."

"My journal?" he asked warily.

"Yes. Every evening, you'll be participating in monitored journaling hours with the group. You are welcome, of course, to update it during your free time as well, but you'll be required to write in it at least once a day."

Nick stared at the notebook. "And I suppose you quacks will be reading everything I put in it?" he asked.

Dr. Haseltine smiled ruefully. "Some patients find it easier to explain their feelings on paper than they do in face-to-face confrontations like we're having now," he explained. "I have a feeling, Nick, that you are one of those people."

Nick laughed, "Yeah. Okay. Don't expect much.