by Jada Ryker
Russell drifted back into the room. “Mrs. Hill has requested I be present at any police interviews.” His face was stiff. As he straightened up to his full height, he loomed over Clay. “So you can safely tell me anything you remember. You can trust me to pass it on to the police.”
Clay’s midsection tingled with unease. “I did not check my citizenship at the door when I came to this facility. I can have any conversation I wish with the police.” Clay slid the white triangle into his pocket. “This is not a country with the nursing home administrator as its dictator.”
As Clay’s stomach hitched, the other man shuffled from the room.
CHAPTER THREE
“Hi, my name is Marisa, and I am an addict.”
As the rest of her fellow group members seated in a circle of hard chairs completed the round robin of identifying themselves by first name only, Marisa thought about how much her life had changed in the past months. An educated professional woman of thirty-nine, she had spent years juggling two diametrically opposed lives. One life was chaotic, with drinking, painkillers, and time and money spent in her favorite place, a strip joint. Her other life was conservative, which included her career as a human resources director, juggling her issues with her dysfunctional family, and hiding her problems from her friends. She thought she had everything under control. Thought…no, deluded herself she was in control, until the lines between the two lives blurred and crashed in a truly blazing explosion.
With the maelstrom of addiction always in her mind, moving in the dizzying 3D movie motion of sometimes closer, sometimes further, she felt the one key to her at times tenuous grip on sanity was this group.
In the slightly dusty room of the church, the bookshelves haphazardly cluttered with Sunday school books and bibles and the corners piled with rakes and hoes, nearly twenty men and women were arranged in the circle. Late afternoon sunlight muted by the dirty windows fell on clothing ranging from shorts or jeans, t-shirts, and sandals to suits, ties, and dresses. The expressions on the faces ranged from indifferent, bored, or preoccupied, to upset, guilty, resentful, and sorrowful. People discussed thoughts and behaviors they never shared with spouses, siblings, parents, or therapists. In this room, they could discuss emotions and actions without fear of being judged or ridiculed.
As her thoughts flew to Jonah’s murder earlier in the day, Marisa was vaguely aware of the addiction group progressing through its series of prosaic readings. The members took turns reciting the basics of the program, like any 12-step group, such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Some of the members stumbled over the larger words, while others read aloud with well-educated ease. The listeners didn’t exhibit impatience and readers were never corrected for any mispronunciations.
When the readings ended, Marisa forced her mind away from Jonah. The rest of the group deserved her full attention.
Marisa felt the vague, niggling sensation of someone watching her. Across the circle, she caught the dark molasses eyes of William.
She repressed a tiny, involuntary shiver. In the latter part of the meeting, the group always broke up into small groups. The small setting, outside the larger meeting, was meant to offer a therapeutic environment of open, caring support.
She’d been in small group with William on previous occasions. Now, however, she went out of her way to never be in a small group with him ever again.
Marisa felt able to offer compassion to everyone she’d ever met in the group…except William.
In the small group several weeks before, William had shared his conviction years ago for molesting his young step-daughter. Although he had stated he wanted to overcome his addiction and never commit his crimes again, he had admitted he still felt attracted to children.
Marisa couldn’t bear to speak to him or be near him.
The reading of supportive words was over.
His serpentine tattoos seemed to move with a life of their own as Jason, tonight’s leader of the group, raised his muscled arms, palms up to the group. As soon as he had everyone’s attention, he tossed out a subject for discussion. “How do we deal with stereotypes related to addiction? For example, a flasher suffers from a form of addiction. The flasher hates the behavior, feels guilty about his compulsion, and suffers through arrests and court appearances. Many people see flashers as jokes, as objects of ridicule. What can we do as addicts to deal with this prejudice?”
Unlike a pebble thrown in a pool with resultant ripples, Marisa felt the group topic of discussion was similar to a bird taking flight. With gentle beats of its wings, it flew around the circle of the group, fluttering its feathers here, cooing in an ear there. A member of the group may hold the bird, sometimes for a short time, sometimes at length, as the addict shares experiences or thoughts. Other members may watch and listen, feeling the warmth of the bird without taking part in the discussion.
Sierra, exotic with her milk chocolate skin, huge breasts, long legs, and high cheekbones, raised her hand. She shifted in her chair, her slit skirt sliding to expose more toned leg and her snug sweater tightening across her impressive chest, demanding male and female attention.
“I’m Sierra, and I’m an addict.” Her deep breath pushed out her huge chest to caricature proportions and her long, caramel braids flew around her face and shoulders. “Nymphomaniac,” her husky voice freed her bird for the group. “The nymphomaniac is every guy’s dream. Men joke the perfect woman would be a gorgeous former porn star, nurse…” Trembling hands pushed back the whip-thin braids. “The nymphomaniac is the blazing star of adolescent fantasies. But what these leering men can’t or won’t see is a woman who can’t be faithful; she can’t say no, she can’t take control of her own body…”
“I’m Welton, and I’m an addict.” Clouded by age and bracketed by lines of pain, the green eyes wandered to the ceiling as he propped one blue jeaned leg over the other, jostling the huge belly. The wrinkled brow furrowed deeper in thought, and the calloused, blue veined hands fidgeted with one well-worn sneaker. “I ain’t no therapist by no stretch of the imagination.” He pulled at his ratty sweat sock. “But I been around longer than most everybody in this room, both on earth and in this group. What if you decide NOT to be the stereotype? Can it start there, with something so doggone obvious as not dressin’ the part?” Rubbing his hand over his bald head, he looked around the room. “If we don’t dress like the nymphomaniac stereotype, how can we be that stereotype?”
Marisa tried not to think of Welton in a bustier and abbreviated skirt. By the unwilling smiles around the circle, she could see she was not the only one avoiding those thoughts.
Welton’s answering smile tugged at his chapped lips. “Laugh if ya’ll want to, but forty years ago, I was the stereotypical playboy, girls on a string, love’m and leave’m Welton. A hot woman in hot pants drew me like a moth to a flame. But a woman dressed like a school marm was less likely to catch my attention than a woman dressed like a prostitute.”
Marisa held her breath. Sierra was notorious for emotional outbursts in the group. However, rather than jumping to her feet and shaking her fists or storming out of the meeting, the exotic beauty frowned. “But who am I if I am not ‘Sexy Sierra,’ the woman who catches men’s eyes, makes their heads turn, and becomes the object of their fantasies?”
Marisa’s breath came out in a whoosh. Crisis averted. She was fairly certain she heard some other relieved exhales around her.
“What’s underneath them clothes?” Welton rolled his eyes as one of the men chuckled. “A brain, a heart; you think, you feel. How many people see the outside of you and get stuck there? Is it fair to them? Is it fair to yourself? That’s all I have, thank you.”
Talking in front of the big group, in Marisa’s mind, was more difficult than pitching multi-million dollar ideas to a tight-fisted board of directors. “Hi, I’m Marisa, I’m an addict.” Her voice squeaked a bit, and she cleared her throat. “I’m sure you all remember when I first started coming to this group. I wore extremely provocative clothing. I wa
s all legs and breasts. I had hair teased out so big it’s a wonder I could fit through the doorway. I wore enough make-up to stock an entire beauty counter.
“As I am sure you have noticed, I’ve gone to the other extreme in my dress.” Her thick brown hair pulled back into a neat French braid, oval face free of make-up, slightly too wide mouth innocent of lipstick, Marisa was demurely dressed in a calf length skirt and boxy jacket.
“Has it made a difference in my interactions with people? The answer is yes, not only how they interact with me, but how I interact with them. Well,” Marisa qualified, as her mind skipped to her morning meeting with Brad Jacobs, “maybe the answer is not always ‘yes,’ but sometimes it makes a difference. I feel as if I am treated as a human being, with thoughts and feelings and emotions, as opposed to simply ‘perky breasts’ or ‘cute legs,’ much more often than I have been in the past.” Marisa’s brow puckered as she thought about it. “It challenges me to interact with people on a more meaningful level, not a superficial one based upon personal appearance.”
“Hello, I’m Chase, and I’m an addict.” With his iron gray hair, sheared military short, pugnacious jaw, and his sharply tailored pants, Chase looked like a retired Army drill sergeant. “Another stereotype is the middle-aged man hiding in his basement, caught in the glow of the computer, eagerly viewing and downloading pornographic images. His wife catches him, and is appalled by his weakness. She may also feel threatened by his propensity to want to look at younger and more beautiful women. People see him as dirty, disgusting, as a pervert. Who wants to shake his hand, good heavens, who knows where THAT’S been, let alone reach out to him.”
Chase’s smile was crookedly self-deprecating. “When I was twenty years old and at the top of my class in college, I never imagined ending up as a fifty-year-old man searching for and looking at images of men and women and animals, wasting hour after hour at work and at home.
“I got caught at work by the little snot-nosed techie geek, half my age. I still remember the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when the school superintendent confronted me with the audit trails of the sites I’d visited. Literally, an entire ream of paper, covered in hard, black, uncompromising print. I got fired from my job as the school principal.
“Now, here I am, out of a job. Every morning, I get on my computer at home, fully intending to post my resume online, hunt down prospects, network with people. And then what do I do? My wife is at work. There are no geeks looking over my shoulder. I think to myself, I will just cruise the porn sites for a few minutes, just while I drink my coffee, to search out the images, download and save the ones that appeal to me. What better defense against the realities of a ruined career at fifty, overdue house payments, and a wife screeching at me every night?
“The time drinking my coffee stretches into lunch, and then into the afternoon. I know my life is in tatters, yet I am savagely happy to not have my porn time interrupted by work. I keep waiting, and I think on some level hoping, my wife will get fed up and leave. I am the stereotype to life, in an endless nested loop of turning on my computer, visiting the same sites, looking at the same pictures, over and over and over.” He buried his face in his hands.
“I am Maurice, and I am an addict.” His smooth face dark and his ageless eyes the color of rich coffee, Maurice spoke in his soft French accent. “You lost your job, when, three months ago? You come into this room, and you cry and you whine and you say, ‘I cannot find a job. I am too busy looking at porn.’”
Gasps of shock went around the room. Maurice ignored them, as well as his neighbor’s restraining hand on his arm. “Many of us addicts try to overcome our addictions alone. Yet, why do we come here? Supposedly, we are looking for help and support. But if we come here, rail against our lives, and do not take the help that is offered, what does it make us? Fools! We have here a room full of vulnerability, yes, but what else do we have? Strength!”
He turned to Chase, challenge in his eyes and in his short, thick body. “I will come to your home at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. We will work on your resume. We will post it. I will help you write emails to your professional contacts.”
Chase’s eyes were bulging and his mouth was hanging open.
“You asked me when you joined the group several months ago to be your sponsor. When I agreed, I made a commitment. We talk, I try to help you. Since you got fired, you shut me out of your life. Yet, you must not be ready to completely give up or you would not be here. No is not an option, Chase. I will be there at your home in the morning. You may tell your wife I am a management consultant, a friend, a colleague, whatever you wish. I sense you have not the strength to say yes…I say yes for you.”
Collective surprise kept the room silent for a full minute. Marisa knew each person had to make his or her own choices, and no one could make them do anything. However, Maurice’s locked jaw and tilted chin said otherwise. She looked at Chase. It was not her or anyone’s place to interfere. Perhaps an insistence upon giving help and support was important, not only to Chase, but also Maurice.
The door burst open. Startled faces turned to see the source of the disruption.
His blue eyes wide with agitation and the lines on his face deepened by his emotion, Fred charged into the room. At his heels, a large, battered rolling suitcase bumped along behind him as he flew to the center of the circled members.
In spite of the ruckus, Marisa had to smile. Fred devoted himself to the battered piece of luggage with fervor. The old suitcase on wheels, otherwise known as The Library, held an amazing volume of addiction and recovery books, informational CDs, and pamphlets. Marisa sometimes wondered if the ancient piece of luggage was somehow bewitched, larger on the inside than on the outside. Regardless, wherever Fred was, the scuffed rectangle housing The Library was with him, either reposing at his feet or rolling along behind him.
“We’ve been busted!” His round face was white, and his jowls shook. Fred knelt next to The Library. His large hands, knobby with arthritis, shook as he fumbled with the bag’s zipper. He dragged out his laptop. Backing up to an empty chair and opening the computer at the same time, he growled, “Someone in this group has given an interview to a reporter about us!” Fred’s misshapen hands creaked over the keys. “See for yourself! That online mud puppy Parvis Stidham has written a whole story about us!”
Marisa jumped up to join the others crowding around Fred’s chair. “‘One member of the group is a quiet, conservative woman in her late thirties,’” Marisa read aloud in dismay. “‘She’s a high level manager at the trauma hospital, surrounded by the sick and maimed every day. Unbeknownst to the patients and staff, her disfigurement lies on the inside, not the outside. After years of going to work drunk and spending her weekends at a notorious strip club, her life was on the brink of disaster. She pulled back from the edge of the abyss by checking herself into a substance abuse rehab center. Now, she attends the addiction group as a support measure to keep herself out of the strip clubs, out of jail, and out of the unemployment line—’” Marisa’s voice rose to a shriek as she stepped back from the computer and met the horrified eyes of the others. “How difficult will it be to figure out who I am from that description? My God, I got into treatment and this group to save my life and my career and my sanity. And now, I am going to lose everything because of a loose-lipped son of a —”
Chase reached around Fred and scrolled down the article. He roared like a wounded elk. “‘One man spent his work time juggling pictures of naked women on his computer, instead of juggling class schedules. It was the principle reason he lost his job—’ oh, how freaking cute. The asshole spelled ‘principle’ as ‘principal,’ as in school principal!” He threw himself into the chair next to Maurice.
His voice hoarse, the man known to the group as Dustin read over Fred’s shoulder. “‘Another group member is a prominent member of our community, well-known for his philanthropic attitude and his eternal devotion to God. If everyone knew about his pesky habit of paying fo
r sex from male prostitutes, what would they think…’”
Marisa had noticed the compact Dustin at the first meeting he’d attended. In addition to his impeccable ensemble of shirt, tie, perfectly pleated dress pants, and beautifully shined shoes, he always wore sunglasses, a scarf wound around his neck and lower part of his face, black gloves, and a short-brimmed fedora.
His body shaking with rage and shame, Dustin pushed away from the computer. “It’s true. The upright pillar of the community had a propensity for cruising the streets, looking for young men, and paying them for sex.” His laugh was low and grating. “The fact it’s been ten years since the last…incident…will be irrelevant.”
Catching the back of a chair as if he was staggering from a physical blow, Dustin leaned over. Like a fish slit from mouth to tail, he was open, his vulnerability exposed in his clenched, gloved hands, his voice, his slumping shoulders. His eyes were closed behind the sunglasses, as if he couldn’t bear to look at anyone. Like a freshly sharpened knife, his own shaking voice dug into his own open, wounded pain, flaying it without pity. “Caught, literally, with his pants down.” With his long exhale, his anger and his pain flowed through the room, the heat scorching everyone it touched.
The room was so silent Marisa could hear the hum of the overhead lights. During her time in the addiction program, she had met several high profile men and women who had been caught by the media or law enforcement in circumstances which were related to their various addictions. And of course, the news was always full of well-known people, including political and religious figures, caught up in sex or other addiction-related incidents.
She wondered if they were drawn like moths to the flame of the excitement of risking everything to indulge their addictions. Or, she thought, perhaps the strain of maintaining a perfect public life contributed to the need for a secret life. Marisa frowned. Or perhaps it was neither. She knew addiction pervaded all social and economic levels. A public figure “caught” in compromising circumstances was way more likely to make the news than the local convenience store clerk found in the same situation.
