by Annie Jocoby
Then I walked to the receptionist to ask how to get to the ICU. She gave me a map, which was difficult for me to read – maps are always hard for me, for some reason – but I figured it out after walking through the maze of hallways, and getting lost several times along the way. I also had to stop and ask several different people, several different times, about how to get there.
But I finally found it. When I got there, he was still lying there, but he was out from under the anesthesia, so he was conscious. His face lit up when I entered the room.
“Beautiful,” he said weakly. “Thank god you’re here.”
“Thank god you’re here,” I said, rushing to his bedside. I brushed the hair off of his face, and took his hand gently.
“I got some great news,” he said said haltingly and softly, between breaths. “The doctors were afraid that I might be paralyzed because of the swelling on my spine. The swelling has gone down, and I have feeling in my lower extremities.”
My heart did backflips with joy upon hearing that news. “That’s probably the greatest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” I said, gripping his hand harder.
“I mean, I don’t necessarily think that I can walk again,” he continued. “At least not yet. But at least I’m not paralyzed.”
I tried valiantly to hide my tears, but he noticed them right away. “Hey,” he said. “Those are happy tears, right?”
I nodded my head. The tears were happy, but they were also emotional. The tears had been threatening all through this ordeal, hidden behind a dam. The dam was always threatening to break, and it took all my efforts to keep the dam intact.
But I had to be strong, for him. I couldn’t fall apart. He needed me. Dalilah needed me too. Even Nick needed me, as I suspected he was having a harder time, emotionally, than he ever led on. Crazy girlfriend, crazy ex-wife, and now his one solid source of support lay helpless in a hospital bed. There was only so much one person could take, and I suspected that Nick was also close to breaking down. I now considered the guy to be a friend, so I felt that I needed to be strong for him, as well.
I had my turn being stupid and weak, and it affected Ryan greatly. It was now my turn to have some strength. So, I lied and told Ryan “Yes, yes, these are happy tears. God, they are very happy tears.”
He smiled weakly, then gripped my hand again. “I love you, beautiful,” he said. “More than you will ever know.”
“I love you, too,” I said. “I feel that if I lost you that I would literally die.”
“You’re not going to get rid of me yet,” he said. “Not like this, anyhow. Two ninety-year olds in the rocking chair, remember?”
“Of course I remember,” I said, trying my hardest to put aside the fear of an embolism or an infection. God, why was I so apocalyptic all the time about things? Then I remembered all that I had gone through up until this point. Being apocalyptic came with the territory at that point.
He reached his hand up to my hair and smoothed it back, looking at me longingly. Then he asked “how’s our genius girl?”
“Fine, fine,” I said. “She’s with Nick. I’m going to be staying there as well. Obviously, I can’t go back to our home anytime soon.”
“Yeah,” Ryan said with another weak smile. “Looks like we’re gonna have to move again, huh?”
I nodded. “But, the good news is, my love, I don’t think we have to worry about Andrew anymore.” I was sure that I would have to answer questions at the police headquarters soon, probably that day. I would then find out the fate of my stalker and rapist.
I was alarmed at how much I wanted Andrew dead. Me, the woman who literally wouldn’t kill a bug, and I would rejoice at the death of another human being. That thought disturbed me just a little.
Then, the fact that it disturbed me only a little, disturbed me even more.
“Hey, listen,” Ryan said. “Nick, he, uh, are you okay being alone with him?”
“Yeah, why?” I asked.
“No reason.”
I narrowed my eyes. It was a peculiar question to ask, considering that I spent an entire week alone with Nick while Ryan was on a business trip.
But I let it go.
Then Ryan gripped my hand again. His eyelids were starting to close. “Beautiful, I want you to stay here,” he said. “If you want. But I really need a little rest.”
“Of course,” I said. Then he was asleep almost immediately. I sighed and checked my phone messages, looking to see if there was anybody from the police force who was wanting to talk to me. Sure enough, there was a message from a Detective Branson. He was asking me to call him back ASAP.
“Detective Branson,” a gruff voice answered when I called the number that was left on my voice mail.
“Hello,” I said. “This is Iris Gallagher. You left a message for me to call you.”
“Yes, yes,” he said. “When can you come to the station?”
I looked at my beautiful husband, who was resting comfortably and breathing heavily in a deep sleep. A nurse had just entered the room, and she took his vitals.
“Just a second, Detective Branson,” I said. “I think that I can come down today sometime, but I want to find out something about my husband first.”
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll wait on the line if you want.”
“Thanks,” I said, muting the phone. Then I turned to the nurse. “Hi, uh, my husband – do you think he’s going to be asleep for long? I mean, how much rest does he need?”
“Mr. Gallagher went through a great amount of trauma, so he needs to heal. He needs all the rest and sleep that he can get so that he can recover. Patients who have gone through as much physical trauma as he has typically sleep around 12 to 14 hours a day.”
I nodded, knowing that Ryan probably would be unconscious for awhile. Then I turned back to my phone. “Detective Branson, are you still there?” I asked.
“I’m still here,” he answered.
“I can be there within the hour. Would that work for you?”
“See you then.”
Then I smoothed back Ryan’s beautiful dark hair and whispered “I love you honey. I’m going to be talking to a detective, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.” I thought I saw a faint smile cross his face, but I was probably imagining it.
Then I grabbed my purse and prepared to head down to the station to talk to Detective Branson.
Chapter Five
Ryan
Iris had just left, and I missed her already. But I really didn’t have the energy to really talk with her. All I wanted to do was sleep. And try to forget about the feeling that I had when Andrew had ahold of her. When I walked through the door and saw him with his hand on his gun, jabbed into her back – I knew that I would do absolutely anything to make sure that she was safe. Anything.
Then the familiar feeling of being shot.
Now all I could do was try not to think about the other times when I was shot. Because to think about those other times would mean that I would have to revisit a past that I was constantly trying to run from. But I couldn’t help it. I had to sit and ruminate, because being shot by Andrew brought it all back.
God, that weekend. It was the year 2000, and I had been a dope addict for three years running at that time. Nick had finally had enough. All the interventions, and subsequent rehabs, had failed miserably. I would spend just about every break from school in one treatment facility or another, only to get out even worse than before. There were more drugs available in the treatment center than there was on the street. I went in hooked on heroin, and came out having tried meth, ecstasy and crack. I didn’t get hooked on those other drugs, though. The point was, those treatment facilities didn’t help me even one bit.
I resented Nick and everybody in my life who didn’t accept me the way I was. If I wanted to get high every day, that was my right, you know? Free country and all that.
I had come home from school that day at 1:30 in the afternoon. I was looking forward to the weekend just because it meant that
I could have some uninterrupted time with my smack needle. Classes were a bother – they only got in the way of my having a good time. Yet I did manage to make it to class most days. Thank god school was always a breeze for me. I never cracked a book, ever, until the last second, then crammed everything in right before the exams with the help of my good friend blow, and I never got a grade lower than an A-. So, I figured, what’s the problem? I was a functioning drug addict, and my life wasn’t affected by it, so everybody needed to get off my ass about it.
So, when I got home that day and Nick ambushed me and tackled me with the help of three of his friends on crew, I literally wanted to kill him…..
∞
I walked into the house that I shared with Nick, and, variously, different guys who crashed from time to time. Maybe they were trying to get away from their girlfriends. Maybe they were passing through. At any rate, there were usually at least a couple of guys who were hanging around mine and Nick’s house at any given time. I figured that this weekend would be no different.
“Nick?” I said, looking around the four bedroom Cape Cod style Cambridge house with the cherry hardwood floors and exposed brick walls. Nobody answered. Huh, that’s funny. His car is here.
Then, out of nowhere, I felt Nick tackle me to the ground. He had a handcuff in his hand, and he slapped it on one of my wrists.
“What the fuck?” I asked him. I shivered, remembering vaguely the times that I was handcuffed to a bed and not allowed to leave. But who did that to me? At any rate, the feeling was of panic, and I could feel my fight or flight impulse kick in.
It was then that I realized that Nick was not alone. Jonah, Jeff and Caleb, three guys on Nick’s crew team, were also standing in the living room.
“Oh, Christ, not again! Not another goddamned intervention. Alright, let’s get this over with.”
“Nope, buddy, this isn’t another intervention,” Nick said.
“Then what is this?”
“You’re going to fucking detox right here, whether you like it or not.”
Oh, no. No. He wouldn’t dare. Wouldn’t fucking dare.
“Fuck you!” I shouted futilely, as Nick and the three guys literally dragged me, kicking and screaming, into my bedroom. The bed was lined with a shower curtain, and there was a puke bucket on the floor next to it. Before I could’ve reacted, I was literally chained to the bed, lying on my side. I started to panic, knowing what was in store for me with this planned cold turkey detox process.
“Listen, buddy,” Nick was saying. “I know that you won’t believe me when I tell you this, but this is for your own good. You have to get off this shit, somehow, someway, and interventions and rehab don’t seem to be doing the trick for you.”
“And you think this will?” I asked. “How fucking naïve are you? You think that you can just watch me puke, shiver and shake for three days, and then I’m gonna magically be ok?” I was incredulous. Nick was never stupid like this. Anyhow, I was a functioning user. As long as I made it through my classes with top grades, I was ok. He needed to just leave me the fuck alone about it. Quit harassing me. Accept me for who I am, or stop being my friend.
“I don’t know what else to try. You’re going to end up dead like Kurt Cobain, and I don’t want to see that happen.”
“Kurt Cobain suffered from severe depression and shot himself. He didn’t die from his drug use.”
“Kurt Cobain had a death wish. So do you. I really don’t know what I can do to halt your death wish.”
“This isn’t a place to start.”
“I know that, but I’m at the end of my rope. I’m the only one who’s got your back in this world, so I wish that you would just listen to me for once in your fucking life.”
Deep down, I knew he was right. Nobody else ever had my back for long. But that didn’t stop me from hating him with the passion of a thousand operatic arias right at that moment.
And that weekend went just as I knew that it would. Every second I wanted to die. Every second I thought that I was dying. I’d seen movies where people were burning at the stake, and my suffering was much worse than that. Because their suffering was over in a matter of minutes. I was being flayed alive for two and a half days. It was if somebody had poured gasoline on me and lit a match, and I burned like that the entire time I was in that bed. And, for three days, I screamed at the top of my lungs every single obscenity known to man. I could hear Nick and the guys downstairs, playing video games, and Rielle came to visit, and I heard the two of them going at it.
What I didn’t hear was any word as to when I was going to be released from this prison.
Nick checked on me at least once an hour, to his credit, and every time he peeked his head in, I bit it off with more obscenities. It was like the movie The Exorcist, except my puke wasn’t quite green, and my head didn’t do a 360 degree turn.
I think I might have even told him that his mother sucks cocks in hell, even though his mother was still alive.
Still, he kept checking on me.
Finally, Monday morning came, and I was released. Nick wasn’t interested in me missing more classes, so he let me go. “I don’t know if you are detoxed yet,” he said. “But you have to get to class if you don’t want to get booted out this place. So, I’m letting you go,” he said as he loaded up his backpack and prepared his walk to his morning class.
“Thanks, buddy,” I said sarcastically, then flipped him off the second his back was turned. I waited for him to leave, then I got my car keys and headed to a seedy area of Boston. I had to get away from Nick and his bullshit and find some people who understood me more. I had some friends I had made on the street, so I went to hunt them down.
I arrived at a street where there were people standing around a lit garbage can, drinking out of a paper bag. The men and women here were passing around a pipe that had some kind of unknown substance. When I got a little closer, I realized that the substance in that pipe was crack. I knew the smell anywhere. One of the men looked at me with a funny expression. I supposed that I didn’t really fit in here - I was young and fit and had all my teeth. I had brought my non-descript car, however – it was a hoopdie Toyota that I drove whenever I wanted to fit in with some of the non-rich kids at school. I was constantly finding that those kids made better companions than the privileged ones.
Of course my best friends and my girlfriend were privileged, so I guess I didn’t try too hard to make friends with the poor kids.
I had my hands shoved in my pockets. I hadn’t shaved or showered in three days, and I didn’t bother to comb my hair before coming down here, so I hoped that I didn’t look too out of place.
“Hey there rich boy,” one of the men said. “What’s up?”
So much for my trying to fit in. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m looking for somebody. You might know him. His name is Seth. Short guy, around 5’5”, tightly curled black hair. He stays around here sometimes.”
“Yeah, I know him,” the man said. “He staying at a house around the corner,” he said, gesturing to a small blue house with peeled siding and a hole in the roof.
“Thanks man,” I said, before jogging away towards the blue house. I arrived there and knocked on the door. A Hispanic guy with a goatee and beer belly opened the door.
“Yeah?” he inquired, his voice thickly accented.
“Looking for Seth,” I said.
“Seth!” he called behind him, then turned to me. Seth appeared behind him.
“Ryan,” he said. “Good to see you.”
“Can I come in? I need someplace to stay for a couple of days.”
“Sure, come on in,” he said, standing aside to let me come in.
I went in the house and looked around uncomfortably. I didn’t want other people to be hanging around if I didn’t trust them. Call me crazy, but I didn’t want to end up in jail or in the hospital.
I didn’t entirely mind if I ended up dead, though.
In fact, I found myself wanting that.
I gestured to the Hispanic guy. “He ok?” I asked Seth.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “He’s actually just leaving.”
I understood. The guy was a customer. Not a biggie, then.
The guy left, then I asked “You got any stuff?”
“Does a junkie have a needle? What a stupid question to ask.”
“Fucking A,” I said. “My asshole roommate literally held me hostage over the weekend. I’m dying here.”
Seth left and came back in a short time with the bag of smack in his hand. I could feel the absolute relief when I saw the drugs. I almost started salivating.
I ended up staying there for three days, crashed out on his couch, high the entire time.
Then was awakened, rudely, by a hulking guy with multiple tattoos and piercings. He was yelling at the top of his lungs, and was flashing around a .45 pistol.
I was still barely coherent, but was soon brought to my senses when a bullet pierced my leg.
“Fuck!” Seth said. Then he addressed the hulking guy with the gun. “Get the fuck out of here, Jared. I gave you the stuff you needed.”
There was more of a scuffle, but the hulking Jared ended up leaving. I was vaguely aware that I was bleeding profusely.
I wondered if this was it – that I’d bleed out in this shithole house. Not that I minded. I welcomed it, in fact.
But I didn’t die, of course. Seth ended up putting a tourniquet on my leg, and dug into my leg with a knife and tweezers to get the bullet out, then poured rubbing alcohol in the wound. Then he stitched up the wound. I was glad I was still pretty high when he was doing this, otherwise it would’ve been unbearably painful.
“Dude,” I said. “Where did you learn how to do all this?” I examined the stitched up wound carefully. It looked pretty professional.
He shrugged. “I was an EMT for a little while before I got into dealing.”
I nodded. “Thanks, man. You did a good job.”
At some point I drove home, limping into the house. I couldn’t stay away forever, I knew. I just wanted to make a point to Nick – that he would drive me out of the house if he didn’t allow me to do my drugs at home.
