Memoirs Aren't Fairytales: A Story of Addiction

by Mann, Marni

  The next night, I left the hotel earlier than usual to boost so I could spend a few hours at Claire's door before I got sleepy. But boosting took longer than normal. Most of the receipts I found were drenched with slop. And when I finally had one I could use, the cashier wanted to give me a store credit instead of cash. I had to speak to a manager.

  I knew I was cutting it close. Dustin said he'd be home by ten, and the clock behind the register said seven minutes before ten. Dustin would check Claire's door, and if I wasn't there, he'd come looking for me. But I needed this money. With the seven dollars I'd get from the return, I'd have the four hundred to pay Richard back.

  I left the store and I ran as fast as I could to the hotel. A block away from home, I saw smoke and specks of ash, and smelled fire. People on the street were shouting. Red and blue lights from the ambulances and police cars flickered across the buildings across the street.

  I didn't know what building was on fire, but whichever one it was, it was on the same block as the hotel.

  I pushed my way through swarms of people, and on the corner, I saw the smoke, and flames shooting through the windows of the third and fourth floors of the hotel.

  Claire.

  Dustin grabbed me before I got to the front door. “Where have you been?” he shouted. “I almost died looking for you.” I could barely hear him over all the screaming.

  “Is Claire out here,” I said, searching the crowd, scanning each head for her gray hair. “Where's Claire?”

  “They're getting everyone out,” Dustin said. “They'll get her out too.”

  Frankie joined us on the sidewalk. His face and hands were covered in soot. “Got the first two floors evacuated,” he said.

  “What about the fourth floor?” I asked.

  “The fire's bad up there,” Frankie said.

  “Are they looking for Claire?”

  Frankie shrugged his shoulders. “I think so,” he said.

  The firefighters pushed us off the sidewalk to spray with their long hoses. Three firefighters came out the front door with four of the residents. Two I recognized from the third floor.

  “Get all the men out,” someone yelled.

  “Chief, the men are out,” a firefighter shouted back.

  And not ten seconds later, the top two floors caved inward and crashed onto the second floor. Burning wood flew through the air. People began to scream and run across the street. The firemen hosed off the burning ambers that sparked on the sidewalk.

  I stood still, staring at what used to be the fourth floor, Claire's home. And now she was part of the burning rubble.

  The last thing Claire had said to me was I had broken her heart.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Once the fire was out, the crowd cleared. The other residents had mumbled about finding hotels nearby to rent or going to the shelter. Dustin, Sunshine, and I were the only stragglers left. Frankie was around too, talking to the cops and filling out paperwork.

  We sat on the sidewalk across the street, looking at what was left of the hotel: the frame, charcoaled pieces of furniture, planks of wood from the first floor.

  My elbows rested on my bent knees, my butt ground into the hard pavement. But I couldn't feel my body or the cold air that whipped past me.

  Sunshine cried over losing all her clothes. Frankie yelled about the fine the city was going to slap him with because the sprinklers weren't up to code. Dustin wanted to know where I'd been when the fire started.

  Did the clothes and the fine, and three hundred and ninety-three dollars I'd stashed behind the toilet really matter?

  My best friend was dead.

  Claire was a kind high I couldn't get from shooting. She came into my life to show me love and tried to teach me there was more to live for besides a needle and a bag of dope. Even though I was an addict, losing her only made me want to use more. Maybe I should have listened to her.

  Sunshine, Dustin, and I checked into a new hotel, a few blocks down from Frankie's. Dustin let Sunshine live with us. She came home every afternoon with clothes she bought at Goodwill and rebuilt her wardrobe. At night, she worked the streets and saved enough for her own room. After a week, she moved down the hall. She probably made a deal with Lucchi, the hotel owner. I didn't know.

  Ten days after the fire, I still hadn't left our room. I hadn't showered either. Dustin complained I was like a dead fish in bed and he had to do all the work. But he never said anything about how bad I smelled.

  The fire hadn't slowed Dustin down, he took off every afternoon and came back late at night. Sunshine broke up with her man and started dating a new one, and worked the same schedule as she always had. And then there was me, replaying that whole night in my head, cursing the seven bucks that cost me Claire's life. If I hadn't gone boosting, I would have been home when the fire started. I would have gotten Claire out of the hotel, and she'd still be alive.

  Since I couldn't go to Claire's room and rest against her door, I talked out loud like she was sitting next to me. I had full conversations, and in my mind, I heard her answer and saw her face. So when she asked me to visit Henry for her, I did.

  Like Claire and I had done two and a half years ago, I sat in the visiting room and watched all the prisoners come in through the double-locked doors. When I saw Henry, I waved. His hair was a little grayer and he walked with care, nursing his limp. His amber eyes were just like Claire's.

  He sat down across from me and asked how I'd been doing since the fire. I told him I'd moved into a new hotel. The mattress was just as lumpy as our bed at Frankie's, and the TV had to be kicked because some of the stations had bad reception.

  “How are you really doing?” he asked.

  “I'm sad.”

  But he already knew that. He probably also knew about my fight with Claire over leaving rehab.

  “She was sad too,” Henry said.

  “That's my fault,” I said. “I let her down.”

  “That's addiction for you, constant let-downs and never-ending promises. Don't you think I let her down too?”

  He had years to apologize for his mistakes. Claire died with a broken heart I'd caused.

  There was a woman at the next table placing her newborn baby in the arms of a prisoner. The baby was tiny against his broad chest, and the pink blanket clashed with his orange jumpsuit.

  “That's the first time he's held his daughter,” Henry said.

  Henry was looking at the couple too.

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “That's Vic, my celly, doing two years on a drug charge,” he said. “He came to prison a few weeks ago, and his girlfriend was nine months pregnant.”

  I thought of my baby and the pink blood that had swirled around the drain while I showered off my miscarriage. And then the last time Claire had held me in her arms.

  “She listened to you, you know, on the other side of her door,” he said. “She listened to everything you said.”

  The buzzer went off, and the other inmates stood, saying goodbye to their visitors.

  Henry and I stood too. There was a gold band on his ring finger and he took it off. “I want you to have this,” he said and placed it in my hand.

  The band looked old and was scratched. I held it up in the air to read the engraving on the inside: a date and the word “love.”

  “It was my dad's wedding band,” he said. “Mom gave it to me when I got sober in prison. I want you to get sober and wear it for Claire.”

  I put the ring in my pocket and gave Henry a hug.

  “Make her proud,” he said in my ear and then pulled away. “Before it's too late.”

  I didn't say anything. I didn't even nod my head. He turned around and walked through the double doors.

  On my way home, I stopped by Sunshine's room. The only time I saw her was when she dropped off her money or picked up her dope, and she never stayed long enough to talk.

  I knocked on her door and waited a few seconds, but she didn't answer.

  Halfwa
y to my room, someone shouted, “Hey you.”

  I turned around, and a girl was poking her head out from Sunshine's room. The overhead light was flickering so I couldn't see her face.

  “Did you knock?” she asked.

  The girl's voice was strangely familiar.

  “I was looking for Sunshine,” I said.

  “Come back, I'll wake her.”

  The girl was standing at the foot of the bed yelling Sunshine's name, and I leaned against the door, staring at her back, and trying to place her voice. New York-ish accent, raspy tone. Her black hair was dreaded.

  No, it couldn't be.

  She turned and faced me. “Sorry, Sunshine's knocked out—”

  Renee looked exactly the same, but her baby bump was gone. It had been years, of course the bump was gone.

  “Holy shit, Nicole is that you?”

  “What are you doing in Sunshine's room?” I asked.

  “I live here.”

  I pressed my fingers against the door to stop them from shaking. “Since when?”

  “I met her on the streets a couple weeks ago, she needed someone to cover half the rent,” she said. “How do you know Sunshine?”

  “I moved in with her after you left me stranded in McDonald's.” The next time Sunshine dropped off her money, I'd have to warn her about Renee. If Sunshine was looking for a permanent roommate, Renee wasn't that person.

  “Sunshine always talks about a Nicole,” she said. “But I had no idea it was you, girl.”

  “Funny, she's never talked about you,” I said.

  She smiled and then opened her mouth to say something but stopped and walked over to the coffee table. She took a bundle out of a red purse.

  “You want some?” she asked. “It's real good.”

  I walked into the room and handed her the rig from my pocket and took a seat on the couch.

  For leaving me at McDonald's with no money or dope, she owed me this shot. And more.

  “Who's your dealer?” I asked.

  “Jose, Que's cousin.”

  She told me Que and Raul had each gotten fifteen-year sentences, and since they'd been in jail, Jose had taken over their business.

  “Where's your baby?” I asked.

  There weren't any toys in the room and none of the clothes on the floor looked small enough to fit a kid.

  “With my mom,” she said. “But hell, you probably guessed that would happen. I'm no mother.”

  “No, I thought you'd give the baby to Mark.”

  She laughed so hard, she almost dropped the spoon. “You should have seen Mark's face in the delivery room when Mason came out, looking just like Que.”

  Poor kid. I didn't know what was worse, having Renee as your mom or having your dad in prison.

  She gave me back the loaded rig and held hers up in the air, clinking it against mine.

  “To old times,” she said.

  And we both shot up.

  Spending all my time in my hotel room talking to Claire wasn't helping me get over her death. It was turning me into a crazy. So when Renee stopped by and asked if I wanted to go for a walk, I said yes. And quickly, our walks turned into an everyday thing, like when she'd been pregnant. Mostly, she did all the talking. She'd tell me how Que and Raul were doing in jail and how she was going to marry Que in prison once the warden approved the ceremony. With good behavior, she said he'd be out in eight or nine years. She'd take Mason back from her mom, and they'd be a family.

  “Does Que know you hook?” I asked one day while we were sitting in the park. We were on a bench, watching kids slide down what was left of the snow banks.

  She'd been working the track with Sunshine every night. And Sunshine said Renee did overnighters with her clients too, staying in their hotel rooms, doing gangbangs, and S&M shit.

  “I need to make money,” she said. “I don't have a Dustin to take care of me.”

  Dustin had only met Renee once, but he liked that I had someone to hang out with. Once Renee and I had started going for walks, I showered every day, and in bed, I got on top and rode him like I had before the fire.

  She got up from the bench, and we walked through the Back Bay. She turned down a street I'd never been on and climbed up the steps of one of the townhouses.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as she knocked on the front door.

  “I need to re-up.”

  “Jose lives here?”

  “He couldn't move into Que's old place,” she said.

  Dominick, a friend of Que and Raul's, answered the door. Renee walked past him, and I stayed on the sidewalk.

  He pointed at me. “Look who we have here, Raul's boo,” he said. “I was just talking to Jose about you.”

  I wasn't Raul's anything.

  And I really shouldn't be here. If Dustin found out I was at another dealer's house, he'd be pissed.

  “Jose, come see who's here,” Dominick yelled.

  Jose came to the door. His soul patch had grown since the last time I'd seen him and now hung to his chest in a braid. “Damn girl, never thought I'd see you again,” he said. “Aren't you gonna come in?”

  A woman and her little white dog had been walking towards me on the sidewalk, but she turned around when Jose came out.

  I'd stay for a just a couple minutes, and if Renee didn't want to go, I'd leave without her.

  I followed Jose inside, and Renee was sitting on one of the couches with Federico, another cousin of Que and Raul's. Federico looked just like Raul with a teardrop tattoo under his eye, but he was much shorter and had a barbell pierced at the end of each eyebrow.

  On the coffee table was a mound of little baggies with a pill in each of them. Federico opened five of the bags and chopped up the pills with a razor blade.

  I sat on the other couch between Jose and Dominick.

  “There's a rave in Worcester tomorrow night,” Dominick said to me. “You should come with us.”

  “Renee's coming, aren't you, girl,” Federico said.

  “You know I wouldn't miss it,” Renee said.

  Federico separated the powder into lines and snorted one. Jose and Dominick each did a line too.

  Dominick handed me the straw. “Roll with us,” he said.

  I thought of Dustin.

  “I can't, we've got to go, Renee just came for some dope,” I said.

  “Nicole, we've got time to do some E,” Renee said.

  The shot I'd done that morning was wearing off. Even if I shot up again, it would only get me straight. But ecstasy would get me high for at least four hours. And an E high was pretty damn good.

  I took the straw from Dominick and snorted the line. When I was done, I handed it to Renee.

  She shook her head. “Can't, my nose is all fucked up from snorting dope,” she said. “Federico, give me one of the pills.”

  She brought the pill into the kitchen and I heard her run the faucet.

  Jose rolled three blunts and we smoked them while we waited for the E to kick in. At first, I felt heaviness in my chest from the weed. Then slowly, I stepped out of my body like I was watching myself from the outside. That was the E coming on. And when I reentered, my skin craved to be touched. I ran my fingers up and down my neck and around my ears.

  Renee turned up the music. The vibration of the base shook my muscles, tickled and rubbed my joints.

  Jose blacked out the windows with sheets and shut off the lights. He cracked glow sticks and danced on top of the coffee table, tracing patterns in the air. Pink and green and blue rays, swirling like a kaleidoscope.

  Dominick touched my arm. My skin was water and his fingers were fish.

  I touched his arm. My fingers wriggled and glided across his silky skin and the roughness of his arm hair. My hands moved to his head and swept across his cornrows. The texture sent sparks through my body.

  My feet slipped out of my sneakers. My toes spread and crossed.

  My teeth needed to bite, and my tongue wanted to lick. My head bent down to Dominick's hand
and I slid one of his fingers into my mouth. His skin was the best thing I'd ever tasted. My teeth grinded his finger, my tongue flicked his nail and circled around his cuticle. He rubbed and tugged my knuckle with his teeth.

  The glow sticks darkened to red, navy, and forest green, and the CD was skipping.

  I was coming down, swallowed in the corner cushions of the leather couch with my toes in Dominick's mouth and my fingers rubbing my own head.

  Jose got off the table, turned off the stereo, and flipped on the light.

  My gums were sore from Dominick's nails, and my jaw was tight from chewing his finger, but I wanted to roll again.

  In the lit-up room, Dominick released my toes from his mouth, and Federico pulled his hand out of his pants.

  The spot on the couch where Renee had been sitting was empty.

  “Where's Renee?” I asked through clenched teeth.

  “Bathroom,” Federico said.

  The clock on the cable box showed it was just past four. What felt like only minutes were really several hours. Still, I had plenty of time before Dustin would be home.

  “Let's do another pill,” I said.

  Federico crushed four more pills and set a whole one aside for Renee. He bent his head to snort the line, but stopped when Jose said, “How long has Renee been in the bathroom?”

  Federico shrugged his shoulders. “She said she wasn't feeling good.”

  “I'll go check on her,” I said. “Where's the bathroom?”

  Jose pointed towards the kitchen. “First door on the left.”

  My toes were wet from Dominick's spit, and they slid on the wood floors.

  I knocked on the bathroom door, and when Renee didn't answer, I jiggled the knob. The door swung open, but she wasn't inside.

  I went back to the couch. “She's not in the bathroom.”

  “When did you see her get up?” Jose asked Federico.

  “Don't know, seemed like just a couple minutes ago,” Federico said.