by Rick R. Reed
I stare at the iPod for a long time, not touching it, almost as though I feel it’s electrified and the simple act of touching it will send a charge straight to my heart.
I know what it means. Everything rushes back. That night with him two years ago. I fenced most everything I took from him—that was my modus operandi. But I kept three things—a pair of Under Armour gym shorts, gray and lime green, a crystal on a leather strap, and the iPod. For a while I listened to his playlists at all hours, dancing around the bathroom as I got ready for yet another hookup.
And then I got clean.
I didn’t have some hitting-bottom moment like some folks do. I simply woke up one day feeling depleted, like it was hard to breathe, and knew I needed to get help. I’d seen enough addiction growing up to know that particular demon had managed to possess me too, despite my personal history.
I went to my first Narcotics Anonymous meeting that day—in the basement of a church not far from where I now work. Scared and trembling, I forced myself to go in. I didn’t speak to a soul and sat in the back the whole time, hoping for invisibility.
People talk about relapse, but I never did. Someone in the group said something that very first meeting that I always remember, that I always cling to—you’ll get sober when you want not to use more than you want to use.
The days, the weeks, the months not using started to accumulate.
The iPod ended up in a drawer in the bathroom. I’d always intended to get rid of it, because it, more than anything else, was a reminder of Marc.
Maybe I should take that back about never hitting bottom. Maybe hitting bottom, for me, was the moment I left his apartment, my backpack weighed down with his shit. Not because I fucked him and stole from him, but because I cared about him. See, he was the first guy I hooked up with during that time who I really cared about. The other losers? They were always in it for the drugs they could get off me, and I rationalized my stealing from them as payment for product.
I hooked up again after him. I used again—many times after him. I ripped off gullible dudes—mostly older—time and time again.
But I never forgot Marc.
Never forgot that night, lying next to him in bed while he slept, my own heart hammering in my chest from the drug. I lay there and watched him and thought What a beautiful man.
I hated his cleanliness. Hated his innocence. Hated his normal life.
But in spite of the hatred, I wanted his life. And I realized—very gradually and not just then and there—that such a life was out of reach for me. As long as I was enslaved to that stupid, corrosive drug, that combination of drain cleaner and antifreeze that made me into someone else, I would never be able to have a normal life again.
I would either go on and die, or I would quit.
I chose to quit.
I pick up the iPod, run my hand over its rubber surface and bring it to life. The battery, surprisingly, still has some juice, but it’s almost dead. There’s enough time for me to look at his playlists again and for me to recall listening to his music. The songs always reminded me of him, of that night when I was unable to make myself leave his side, even though staying put was putting me in danger of getting caught.
I wanted him. I wanted his life.
I set the iPod back down and feel the tears running down my face. I hadn’t even noticed them before. I am a piece of shit. I deserve this. And maybe that’s why I never got rid of the iPod—to ensure I got punished. Maybe there was a piece of me inside that remembered it was in that drawer in the bathroom, just waiting for him to find when he was over.
I lie down on the bed and allow myself to wallow in self-pity, sobbing. I curl into a fetal position and just let it all out, knowing a guy like Marc could never want a turd like me. And here’s the proof.
He’s gone. And what can I possibly say to him?
After a while I sit up, lean against the wall beside my bed, and call work, report off, saying I’m not feeling well, which has to be the understatement of the century.
And then I call Miriam.
As soon as she answers, with her cheery “Hey babe! What’s up?” I start crying again, choking out the words, telling her what happened. She listens, as she always does, and I can hear her sympathy, her lack of judgment, her warmth, coming through the phone all the way from the east side.
The door creaks open, and I look up to see Kevin standing there. He’s wearing a T-shirt with a yellow stain on the belly and an old pair of faded red plaid boxers. His eyebrows are together in concern.
I continue to babble to Miriam, saying shit like “I’ve lost him” and “It’s just what I deserve” over and over again.
Kevin sits down on the foot of my bed. He reaches out a tentative hand, like you’d do if you were approaching a wild animal. His hand hovers a bit above and finally lands on my calf. He strokes it, the sympathy in his face only making me cry harder.
“Who are you talking to?” he asks, voice soft, filled with concern.
“Miriam. You know, my sponsor.”
He scoots closer and pries the phone from my hand. He glances briefly at the screen and tosses it on the bed.
I sit up straighter and wipe some of the snot off my face with the back of my hand. “What are you doing?”
“I’m your sponsor, Jimmy.” He stares at me, waiting for it to sink in.
I close my eyes, the grief rising up in my chest like a physical thing. I flop back down on the bed and turn to face the wall. “I know. Don’t you think I know that?”
He puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “Miriam—” he begins.
And I finish for him, just to prove to him that I’m not that crazy. “Miriam’s dead. She died in a car crash on the Aurora Bridge a year ago. Too much Oxy and vodka. Went out in a blaze of glory.”
He squeezes my shoulder again. The sheets rustle as he lies down behind me and wraps his arms around me, pulling my back close to his chest.
We lie like that, spooning, for a long time. And I remember Miriam, her dyed red hair, her sweet smile, and how she couldn’t beat her demons. They finally took her.
“I know she’s gone,” I whisper into the pillow. “I’m not that fucked up. But I still like to talk to her.” I turn to Kevin and give him a little smile. “She listens. And, weirdly enough, she always knows just what to say.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Kevin says, reaching over to brush some of the tears off my face. “I’m here for you. And I may not always know just what to say, but I listen. And I try my best.”
“I know you do.”
“What happened?” he asks.
I sit up and hand him the iPod. “This happened.”
He looks down at the little square in his hand, confused. “I don’t get it.”
I tell him everything—all about how I came into possession of it two years ago. Everything. I don’t paint myself in a good light. How could I?
He puts the iPod back on the stack of books. “He found it?”
“Yeah, I was too stupid to get rid of it.” I snort out a bitter laugh. “How could I fence it? What would an old iPod bring anyway? A quarter? Nobody uses those things anymore.”
“Did he say anything? Accuse you?”
“He left it lying right there where you just put it. And then he got the hell out and away from me. I don’t blame him!” I smile. “He’s a smart guy. Leaving it there was all he needed to say.”
Kevin sits up and then stands. “I’m sorry, man. I know you liked him.”
“Liked him? I think I was falling in love.”
Kevin nods. “So what are you gonna do?”
“What can I do?”
“You could get in touch with him. Apologize. Tell him you were a different person then.”
“Make amends to someone I’ve harmed?” I ask, echoing one of the twelve steps so familiar to us both.
He laughs. “Something like that.”
“I don’t know, Kev. Him slipping out and leaving that for me to find sends a pretty str
aightforward message, and that message isn’t I can’t wait to see you again. Right?”
Kevin nods. He sits back down on the bed. “You want my advice?”
I turn away from him again to face the wall, sighing. “I don’t know.”
“Sure you do.” He places a hand on my shoulder and pushes down, forcing me to roll over and meet his gaze. “First, don’t use this as a trigger. This would be a great time to tell yourself you could use a little oblivion and—”
I put a hand up to cut him off. “Ain’t gonna happen. Two years, Kev, two years. I’m not gonna throw that away.”
“Well, just be mindful. That little addict in your brain is still there, always will be. And he’s probably already plotting how to use this to his advantage.”
“You sound like Miriam.”
He cocks his head.
“If she was alive, of course. But I remember her saying similar things.”
“Just let me know, buddy, if you want to go to a meeting. No, make that when you want to go to a meeting, which today sounds like a real good idea.” He gives me an expectant look.
“I don’t know, Kev. Let me think about it.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“I’ll be fine!” I snap. “Fuck.” And then: “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to blow up at you.”
He says gently, “You’re not fine. You talk to dead people, for Christ’s sakes. This thing, whatever it is, shook you up.”
I snort. “That’s putting it mildly.” And then I launch into self-pity mode. I know it even as the words begin to tumble from my lips, but I can’t help myself. “It’s just that the last two years—two fuckin’ years—have been about one thing—recovery. Well, work and recovery. Waiting tables, cleaning up after other people’s shit, going to meetings, day in and day out. And then I finally meet someone who brings a little joy into my life—real joy, you know what I mean, man? Not the kind of artificial high at the end of a meth pipe, but the chance for real happiness, and what happens? I reach out for it, barely thinking I deserve it. And fate slaps my hand away.”
“Oh, poor you. What? You think falling in love’s going to solve all your troubles?”
“Says the perpetually single guy….”
“Shut up. I don’t have to tell you, and Miriam would say the same thing, that your happiness has to come from inside. Not from a pipe. Not from a guy.” He pokes my chest. “But from in here. Your heart.”
“Ah, I don’t need the NA shit. My heart is breaking!” I shout.
“Yeah, mister, you do need the NA shit, maybe now more than ever. Now, when the ghosts of your fucked-up past have arrived to haunt you, when the damage you did is finally coming home to roost.”
He exits the room suddenly and dramatically. What the fuck? I wonder.
He comes back after a few minutes, long enough for me to wonder if he’s coming back at all.
“I just checked online. There’s a meeting over in Fremont, at the Baptist church, in an hour. Get up, get showered, and get ready. We’ll Uber. My treat.”
I stare down at my sheets—at the dark stains left by last night—and my heart seizes up again. “Sure. You’re right,” I say. “You go ahead and shower first.” As I say the words, I think of all the times in meetings I heard addiction described as cunning, baffling, and powerful. And even as I think it, I’m plotting.
I only hope Kevin doesn’t catch on. Miriam would have.
I lie on my back, waiting to hear the bathroom door close and the hiss of the shower. When I know Kevin is under water and safely out of the way, I get dressed in a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and my Cons. I check that my phone’s battery has enough juice.
At the front door, I grab my denim jacket off the hook. I drop my phone in its inner pocket and start to head outside.
Then I remember and head back in. I grab the phone’s charger—I may be gone for a while—and my smokes.
Outside, the sunlight has given up the ghost. The blue skies and sunshine the day began with are gone. Now heavy lead-colored clouds press in, threatening rain.
I stick my hands in my pockets and start down toward the waterfront, sick with fear of my own damn self.
Thursday
Chapter 10
MARC
I WAKE to sunshine. Brilliant. Summerlike. Let’s celebrate!
Appropriate? Hell no.
Today’s the kind of day that should be what one would order up for a funeral—gray, low-hanging clouds, lots of rain, everyone walking at a dazed, zombified pace, carrying big black umbrellas, garbed in all black as well. There should be a cold wind out of the north, blowing trash and rusty tin cans along the street. If I turned on the radio, the music that would play would be dirgelike or one of Leonard Cohen’s more downbeat songs. Or perhaps, since I’m gay, a Sondheim selection. “Send in the Clowns”?
Ah, fuck it.
I’m lying in bed, half staring out my window, half dozing in a depressed, disappointed, down state. I came home, drenched, just a few hours ago. Heedless of my soaked state, I collapsed into bed. Despite the trauma of my discovery about Jimmy, I fell quickly into a deep sleep. I have vague memories of dreams, and all I can recall from them is the terror of outstretched hands, trying to grab me.
Now, outside, the sun glints off Lake Union, causing sparkles to shimmer on the water’s surface, as though someone cast diamonds upon it. I rented this place because every window looked out on the inner city’s big lake. I’ve always considered myself fortunate to have found my place, even though it’s a small one bedroom with about 850 square feet. Yet the view is killer—boats on the water, seaplanes landing and taking off, rowing crews out in the early morning. Sunrises that can be a riot of orange, deep blue, violet, and slate gray. Rainbows across the water. Gas Works Park, a little south.
Now I just resent the view. It’s so pretty—with this sunlight that’s so especially wrong for winter, for Christ’s sake—and I feel like it mocks me.
I know I should be getting up, hitting the shower, making a smoothie, and heading out to Dexter Avenue to catch the number sixty-two bus downtown. My normal routine. But today’s not normal. We are having our very own real-life Throwback Thursday here—and the picture is not pretty.
I feel like I can’t move. Lethargy has a death grip on my limbs. I could lie in this bed all day, and I’m really, really tempted to do just that. A smoothie? God, I’m not even hungry enough to down something that’s mostly liquid, even if I made it a sweet one with bananas, peanut butter, almond milk, and a little stevia for good measure. And a shower? Who cares how clean I am? I may never shower again.
I turn over in bed, away from the view, and give out a forlorn laugh at myself and my misery.
He’s just another guy. Don’t beat yourself up about it. I know you’re disappointed and you thought there was some there there. But there isn’t… and there wasn’t. He’s a loser, a creep, a drug addict. Except for the last thing, he’s like most of the guys you have the bad luck to meet, which is why you’ve been kind of off the market for the last several months.
I turn back over and stare at the blue sky, the striated clouds drifting slowly by, trying to force my mind to go blank. I read a book last fall, The Four Agreements, which was about four agreements you make with yourself that are supposed to transform your life into something better, something worthwhile, a life worth living, free of pain.
The one agreement I’m trying to get to sink in at the moment, as I stare out at the sky is—don’t take anything personally.
That’s a difficult one right now. How can I not take Jimmy—or JD, as he called himself two years ago when he ripped me off and left me feeling violated and betrayed—personally? How can I not look at our renewed acquaintance as yet another betrayal, this one even more cutting because I know he had to have realized who I was right from the start. Was it all a setup? Is he back in his pathetic little apartment right now with his mysterious “roommate,” laughing it up while sharing a bowl and watching po
rn?
I close my eyes and tell myself to breathe. Just breathe. I’m getting myself so worked up about all of this. Can you blame me? Yet, yet… I try to tell myself that The Four Agreements made sense to me when I first read it.
And yes, if I just breathe and allow myself to think, I can reasonably say that taking Jimmy’s deceit and thievery personally is a waste of time. Because it’s not personal. The dude is fucked up. He’s got issues, and that’s putting it mildly. Drugs are probably the least of his problems. He told me a little bit about his background….
Believe it or not, compassion wells up in me as I think of him as a little boy in a run-down trailer with an alcoholic mom. It sounds like something out of a Lifetime movie. And maybe it was, I think, shaking my head. Maybe it was.
How do I know anything he said was true?
I want to let it go. Let him go. Erase meeting him again. But just like two years ago, when he stole every little thing he could get his hands on, I know I won’t be able to simply chalk it up to experience and move on, because that’s not me.
You hurt me and I feel the sting.
There are bruises, even if they’re just metaphorical.
I sit up, feet on the floor. I left the window open last night, and a breeze sneaks in through the screen. At least it’s cold, causing goose bumps to rise on my arms.
My stomach churns again.
My heartbeat feels irregular.
I’m taking things personally.
The cold wind has brought with it a bank of gray clouds, moving in slowly to obliterate the blue sky and sunshine. Now that’s more like it.
The answer to all of this, I believe, is to get moving. Do something. Lying in bed brooding and feeling sorry for myself isn’t going to improve anything. I have to accept this loss, and I will eventually, but just like the incident with him two years ago, it will take time. I can’t kid myself into thinking I can simply shrug my shoulders and tell myself he’s an asshole and resume my regularly scheduled programming.
No.
I will need time to process. To feel, really feel, my pain.
