by Annie Jocoby
“What the fuck?” he asked when I dragged myself home.
“What? You drove me out of the house, you mother-fucker. Drove me right out. Your little stunt back there, keeping me chained up while I sweated and puked, was the height of not-cool.”
“So, where did you go?”
“Nunya. I’ll tell you this, though. You pull that shit one more time, and I’m moving out. I got a place to stay where nobody is going to judge me about what I do with my own time. You got that? I’ll pack my bags and get the hell out of here so fast if you even try something like that again. No more interventions, either. Got that?” I stood there looking at him, both of my fists balled up tight. I was in no mood for his bullshit, and I was ready to haul off and hit him.
He looked chastened, which was an unusual look for him, even then. One thing about Nick – the guy was always cocky. Guess he had a right to be. Studly, popular, got straight As, always had the girls dripping all over him. And guys, of course. But at this moment he actually looked…fearful. Fearful at my words. He knew that I was dead serious.
Then that look of fear vanished. The cocky wall was back on his face. “Yeah? You’re bluffing. You ain’t gonna live with your junky friends.”
I was in no mood for his crap. I was weaning myself off the drugs after my three day bender with Seth, and my leg was hurting like hell. My head was pounding like a snare drum, and my hands were shaking like I had the DTs.
So, just like that, I punched him in the face. Hard. He wasn’t prepared for my onslaught, so he fell backwards onto the coffee table, striking his head on the corner. He looked at me, stunned, holding the back of his head, then he looked at his hand. It was covered in blood, because there was an open wound on his head, where it struck the coffee table.
I just smirked at him, not even bothering to go to the bathroom to get something to dress his head. I raised an eyebrow, then went into my bedroom to play some video games, before taking a well-needed nap.
That plan didn’t last long, of course. Nick stormed into my bedroom, and tackled me.
And we were off to the races.
I punched him hard in the stomach, and he punched me harder across my face. I responded with an upper cut on his chin, and he pummeled me more on the side of my head. I put him into a headlock and punched him several times on the top of his head. He got out of the headlock and pinned me on the floor, beating me over and over again on the face.
“You fucking junkie!” he was screaming over and over again. “You want to die so badly, maybe I should just fucking let you, you mother fucker! Go live on the streets, go find your smack buddies, drop out of school, become a waste! I’m through with you! I’m through trying to help you! You can just rot on the streets, you mother fucker! YOU’RE NO BETTER THAN YOUR FUCKING FATHER!”
That was hitting below the belt. Bringing my father into the fight brought my adrenaline back to full force, and, with a bellow that came from the deepest part of my soul, I pushed him off of me and pummeled him over and over and over. My fists were on his face, on his ear, in his chest and abdomen. I kneed him in the groin, then, when he collapsed in agony, I kicked him in his back, over and over again.
I was frenzied, a rabid animal. After awhile I was blinded, completely blinded. I didn’t even see Nick anymore. He was a blur. On and on and on I punched and kicked, while he lay completely immobilized.
“Hey! What the fuck is going on here?” Caleb was in the doorway, having let himself in, as he usually does. He was immediately on top of me, but I barely felt him. It was if I was on PCP – I had the strength of ten men, and I was in a blind rage. Then, not five seconds later, I felt a baseball bat whack me hard on my arm. I turned to face Caleb, and he had the bat at the ready, brandishing it. I was breathing heavily and sweating profusely. I felt like I had just rowed 100 miles on my own. I was going to take Caleb on next, but the way he held that bat told me that I probably should leave well enough alone.
By then, I had calmed down a little. Which meant that I no longer was in my rage-induced altered state. I was still extremely angry, and was in serious need of a fix, but I was no longer blinded by my hatred.
Caleb had his cell phone in his hand, calling 911. I looked at Nick. He wasn’t moving. I wondered if he was still breathing. Then I saw his chest heaving up and down.
I felt like Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, muttering under my breath “if he dies, he dies.”
Then I got up, went into Nick’s room, and locked the door. As I heard the paramedics outside the door load up Nick to take him into the hospital, I already had my tourniquet on my arm, chasing the dragon. I played a CD of my go-to band on for getting high, The Smiths, and as Morrissey wailed, I soared. I heard the paramedics leave, and then Caleb was pounding on the door. “Open up, you piece of shit! You might have killed your roommate and best friend. Open up you mother fucker! You fucking junkie, get your ass out of that room right now!”
I simply flipped him off from behind the door, then laid down on Nick’s bed and felt the rush. When Caleb burst through the door, after having kicked it in, I was already in an extreme euphoric state, and I wasn’t going anywhere. I just looked at him and smiled, while he screamed at me at the top of his lungs, his face centimeters away from mine. He pulled me off the bed, then brandished the bat while I laid on the ground.
I didn’t care. I could barely hear him – it was like he was at the end of a long tunnel.
Turned out Nick was in the hospital for a week. He started out in critical condition, and it was touch and go for awhile, but he made it through surgery.
I never once visited him in the hospital. That was a lost week for me, as I spent every minute of every day getting high. I was usually a functioning user – I used just enough to get me through the day, but not so much that I was incoherent. I had to still go to class, as much as I could. But that week was different – I was completely stoned the entire week.
I was never even questioned by the cops about this incident. My dad was out of my life, yet always in my life, because his unseen hand was always there, getting me out of trouble.
When Nick came home, things were different between us for awhile. He didn’t talk to me much for months, and I didn’t have much to say to him, either.
But my goal in disappearing for those three days was accomplished – Nick never hassled me again about my drug use. The interventions stopped, there were no more home detox events, and he quit trying to force me into rehab.
∞
I laid in my hospital bed, exhausted and trying to sleep, but the memories of that time at Harvard haunted my mind. I still felt so ashamed of how I behaved back then. I was such a different person at that time. I would’ve sold Iris to the highest bidder back then, if I had known her then, just to get my junk. I treated everybody like shit. Why Nick still stuck around was beyond me. I don’t know, to this day, why he kept me as a friend.
I’m only glad that he did.
A nurse came by to take my vitals. I haltingly asked her “where is my wife?”
“She went to see a detective about something. A Detective Branson.”
I nodded weakly. I really missed her. I always missed her when I wasn’t with her. When she left me, after Natalie got pregnant, it took an absolutely heroic effort on my part not to get back into the smack. I wanted to, every day. Every.single.day. Every minute of every day. So, I spent all my time in my art studio, painting feverishly. The main things I painted were portraits of her, created from the photos I had taken of her. Some of the portraits I made of her were abstractions, and those were the ones that I created out of my memory.
I wondered if she would be freaked out if she saw how many portraits I painted of her during her absence. But I absolutely had to do it, because it was the only thing that kept me sane and off of drugs.
I sighed, and felt myself drifting off to sleep. Iris would come back after she talked to that detective, and I knew that she had to talk to him about what happened to me and to Andrew. I was anxious
to hear from her, anyhow, about all that. I assumed that Andrew was dead – I vaguely remember him crashing to the floor right after he shot me. I’m not sure exactly what happened to him – I think that Iris did him in somehow.
If she did, then good for her. She finally got a sense of sweet justice for all that man took from us.
Chapter Six
Iris
I was heading down to see Detective Branson, at the police headquarters in the downtown area. I was excited and nervous for this visit, all at once.
The main reason why I was excited was because I would find out, once and for all, if that bastard Andrew was dead.
I got to the bullet-proof window where an African-American lady with cornrows was sitting. “Can I help you?” the lady, whose name was apparently Kadesha, asked me.
“I’m here to see Detective Branson,” I told her.
“Just a second, I’ll call him for you,” she said, dialing her telephone. “Detective Branson? A lady is here to see you.” She looked at me. “What did you say that your name was again?”
“Iris. Iris Gallagher.”
“Iris Gallagher.” She nodded, looking at me. “I’ll tell her.” Then she hung up the phone. “Detective Branson will be right out to meet you and escort you back to his office.”
I nodded, then took a seat. It wasn’t five minutes before a nebbish looking man with a hunched over posture and a cheap suit came out to greet me. “Mrs. Gallagher,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m Detective Branson.”
“Iris,” I said, shaking his hand. “You can call me Iris.”
“Come on back,” he said with a nod. “Follow me.”
He buzzed both of us through the building, then led me to the elevator and onto the main floor. There were police men and women answering phones everywhere through the floor, and he led me to his office towards the back. He cleared off his desk, then got a pen and paper out to make notes.
I took a seat in a small red gingham-covered chair.
“So, Mrs. Gallagher, I mean Iris. I wanted to get some information from you about Andrew Stout.”
I nodded. “He’s dead, I presume?”
“Yes, very much so,” he said, looking at me quizzically. “You killed him. How do you not know this?”
I felt an overwhelming sense of peace and relief at the words that Andrew was dead. I felt an enormous smile creep up on my face at Detective Branson’s words.
But he was still looking at me with a perplexed look on his face. I killed Andrew, how did I not know that he was dead?
“Well, Detective Branson, it’s really very simple. I don’t remember much about the incident. I mean, I remember putting the butcher knife into the bastard, I mean Mr. Stout’s back, but I don’t remember a whole lot after that. My husband was shot, and I kinda went into shock after that.”
Detective Branson nodded. “That makes sense, then. Anyhow, I wanted to get your statement about what happened.”
I drew a breath. I fought down the sense of panic that inevitably welled up whenever I talked about what had happened to me. You’re ok, Iris, you’re ok. Andrew is dead, and he can’t hurt you anymore. So go ahead and talk about it.
“Andrew was my bodyguard for a short time,” I said after a few minutes’ pause. “He, uh, actually ended up r-r-raping me in my home. He disappeared for a long time, but then he ended up breaking into my home. I came home from the courthouse – I was being deposed for another case that I am involved in – and he was there in my living room, holding my daughter Dalilah, with a gun in his hand.” I shivered, then looked down at my hands. As much as I tried to get that vision out of my head – seeing my daughter endangered like that – I just couldn’t. I saw it constantly, every time I closed my eyes.
“Why was he in your home?”
“He was obsessed with me, mainly because he had a psychotic break and thought that I was his wife. He came to my house with the intent to kill me, I think.”
Detective Branson was carefully taking notes about everything I was saying to him. “Go on,” he said.
“He threatened me with his gun. My husband came in and pretended that he was the person that Andrew really wanted, so Andrew shot my husband. And I must’ve gotten a butcher knife out of the kitchen drawer and plunged it into his back. That part is kinda hazy right now,” I said, with another shiver. The only scene that was replaying in my mind, in an endless loop, of the moment that I killed Andrew, was Ryan being shot and falling to the floor. I closed my eyes, and that was what I saw. Ryan being shot and falling to the floor, and the awful sight of Ryan’s blood on my hands as I futilely attempted to stop the bleeding.
“So, you say that this man, Andrew Stout, was obsessed with you. What signs were there that he felt this way about you?”
“Just second-hand information. My husband’s father was keeping tabs on Andrew, and he reported to my husband and I about Andrew’s whereabouts and state of mind.”
The questions continued from there, for several hours. Detective Branson was very thorough, asking question after question about the incident and my history with Andrew.
About 2 PM, he finally seemed ready to quit and let me leave. “I’m terribly sorry to make you have to relive all this, Mrs. Gallagher. I’ll have my team check out your story, and I’ll get back with you.”
It just then occurred to me that there was a slight possibility that I could be in some kind of trouble. Of course, it was both self-defense and defense of others, but I hoped that there wouldn’t be any charges pressed against me if Detective Branson didn’t believe my story.
“Um, I’m not in trouble, am I?” I asked Detective Branson tentatively.
“Well, any time there is a homicide, there has to be an investigation as to whether the self-defense story is going to hold up. But I’ll be honest with you – considering the fact that this man shot your husband, I would say that there is almost no chance that you will have charges pressed against you. Your story about self-defense seems pretty airtight. But no promises.”
I nodded my head. “Thank you, Detective Branson, for your time.”
We said our goodbyes, and I was on my way.
Chapter Seven
Ryan
I was wide awake, waiting for Iris to return. I impatiently looked at the clock – it read 3 PM. She had been gone that entire afternoon. I was half conscious when she was here last, but now I’m awake, and on pins and needles. I needed to know what happened to Andrew. I also needed her here, because I was spinning into dark, negative thoughts. This shooting was bringing up so much crap up for me, things that had never even crossed my mind for many a year. I guess it was because I almost died, again. In fact, I did, briefly, die. I knew that I had flatlined on the table. I knew it, because it was just like in the movies – I suddenly was floating above the table and watching down below, while the doctors and nurses were using their paddles and shouting “clear!” Then, just as suddenly, I was pulled back down, and I don’t remember much after that.
Having this near-death experience was bringing up other times when my life was endangered. Things that haunt me to this day.
I was obsessing right then about the three days I spent in the car trunk, thinking for sure I was about to meet my end. I had cheated death with the suicide attempt and the shooting at Seth’s, and it seemed that fate had finally caught up to me.
∞
It was right after I had a talk with one of my professors. He summoned me into his office on a warm October day. Fall was always my favorite time of the year – it brought back memories of football games and homecoming parades and bonfires with friends. The air was crisp, and the leaves were changing into their brilliant red and yellow colors. Alexis and I were getting along during this time, and we were going to take a drive that weekend to the country to see all the leaves changing and buy warm apple cider at a roadside diner we loved so well. The trip would include our usual rations of drugs, of course, so that was a bonus for me.
So, I actually was in
a good mood as I approached his office in one of the ivy-covered administration buildings.
“You wanted to see me?” I inquired as I lightly rapped on the open door to his office. Professor Warren was a slight man, balding and bespectacled. He wore bow ties and cardigan sweaters and vests, and his pants were always slightly too short. He was definitely not an intimidating sort, so I wasn’t feeling threatened as I sat down to talk to him.
“Yes, Mr. Gallagher. Have a seat.”
I obeyed, putting my hands on my lap.
“I’m just finishing up a little bit of paperwork. I hope you don’t mind. Just give me a few minutes.”
I nodded. I felt uncomfortable, because I didn’t know what he wanted. I hadn’t been summoned to a professor’s office before. However, this office was a nice one – it was lined with wood panels, and the carpet was red, so the room had a definite cozy, yet masculine, air to it. He had an entire wall of books. Dostoyevsky, Proust, Tolstoy, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and many non-fiction books. He had candles burning on the desk. Outside the window, I saw leaves falling to the ground.
My mind drifted to the coming weekend and the Christmas holidays that were just around the corner. I always loved Christmas. Nick’s family always tried to make it special, especially for me, since I was essentially an orphan. And, when I was a small child, my mother went out of her way to make sure that I got everything I wanted for Christmas. I got to pick out the tree, and she got ornaments just for me, and special ornaments for Sarah as well. Even my father tried to be civil on Christmas Day, although there was at least one occasion when I got smacked across the face so hard that there was a large mark on my cheek. The mark could still be seen in the Christmas home videos they made of me riding my tricycle.
Finally, Professor Warren was finished with what he was doing, and he turned his attention to me. “Uh, Mr. Gallagher, I wanted to talk to you about something very important to me,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you about your absences.”
