Beautiful Boy

Sheff continues to call Nic’s phone. Four days later, someone answers and claims that Nic gave him the phone at the LA bus station. Vicki calls Z. who says that Nic just called from San Francisco and that “he was high” (251). Sheff thinks, “I want this to stop. I cannot bear it. I wish I could expunge Nic from my brain” and that “[s]ometimes it feels nothing short of a lobotomy would help” (251). 

Weeks pass without word from Nic. Karen notices “something is amiss in our house” (255). They find a broken lock on the door and accept that “Nic has been here. He broke in” (255). Again, they cancel their credit cards and call a locksmith. Sheff even reports the break-in to the sheriff. The next day, Nic is seen leaving a family friend’s house, having broken in. He and a friend “slept on the living room floor. Nothing much is disturbed, but there are cotton balls, silver foil packets, and other accoutrements of smoking and shooting meth” (256). Sheff realizes that whenever Nic “inflicts his craziness upon us, it becomes even more difficult to feel compassion. We become afraid of him” (256). 

The next day, Karen sees Nic drive past the house. Sheff attempts to follow him in his car but cannot find him. When Sheff returns home, Jasper and Daisy report that Karen also got in a car to pursue Nic, following him for some time before realizing that it is pointless. Later, she confides, “‘I wanted to tell him to get help, but mostly I was chasing him—chasing him away from our house—from Jasper and Daisy’” (258). 

Three days later, Nic calls and admits that “he has relapsed, is using meth and heroin” (258). Sheff tells him to call Randy. Randy advises Nic to return to LA and tells Sheff that Nic “‘sounds ready to come in’” (259). The next day, Nic reports that Randy insisted they go for a bike ride despite his sickness. Over the weekend, Nic “expresses astonishment that he relapsed” and explains, “‘I got cocky. It’s this trick of addiction. You think, My life isn’t unmanageable. I’m doing fine. You lose your humbleness’” (262). 

Sheff admits that his “well-being has become dependent on Nic’s” (263). Two months later, he meets Nic for dinner in LA and finds him looking well, although he is aware that “I have observed this transformation before” (263). Sheff and Karen are unwilling to let Nic visit their home, but eventually the family reunites for a vacation in Molokai, Hawaii. Sheff finds that “[f]eeling hopeful about Nic’s future, I can tuck the darkness of his addiction away” (268) for a while. A week later, Nic sends a latter to Jasper, writing that “I’m trying to find a way to say I’m sorry more than with just the meaninglessness of those two words” (268). He promises, “something that I could never promise you before,” that he “will be here for you. I will live, and build a life, and be someone that you can depend on. I hope that means more than this stupid note and these eight dollar bills” (269).

Sheff’s article “My Addicted Son” receives positive feedback that encourages both him and Nic. Nic is asked to write a memoir and eagerly agrees, inspiring Sheff to write more on the subject. However, one day, Sheff feels “as if my head is exploding” (274). He is rushed to the hospital, his condition worsening and is eventually diagnosed with a cerebral hemorrhage. 

Strapped up to numerous tubes and machines, all Sheff can think is “Where is Nic? Where is Nic? Where is Nic?” (276). At three o’clock in the morning, he calls the nurse and asks, “‘Please, will you help me call my son? I cannot remember his telephone number. I have to call him’” (277). He remembers wishing “in secret for a kind of lobotomy” (278) to stop worrying about Nic. Now, he finds that “I cannot recall my name and the year and yet I am not spared the worrying that only parents of a child on drugs […] can comprehend” (278). 

Days pass, and slowly Sheff recalls his name and the year. Family members visit him. Finally, Nic calls and he learns that he “has been speaking to Karen every day since I arrived in hospital […] He says that he is coming up to visit me […] Nic is fine” (283). After two weeks, Karen takes Sheff home and he begins a grueling recovery, slowly learning how to read again. He talks to Nic regularly on the phone. Nic visits and “sits with me and holds my hand” (285). 

Sheff reflects on how some parents reject their children for their choices but that “I have a son and he will never be dead to me” (287). He finds that “[c]onsciousness feels like a miracle. The constellation of these impulses that we call love feels like a miracle” and rejoices in the fact that Nic “has been sober for more than a year. Again. A year and a half” (289).