by A. F. Brady
Richard’s stack of newspapers is neatly tucked under his chair, and he leans back with his ankles crossed, his big fingers interlaced over his belly. I notice Adelle sitting next to him. Normally in groups, Richard makes sure to keep at least one empty chair between him and anyone around him, but now that I see this today, I am reminded that he has been sitting next to Adelle in several groups.
Adelle has thin beige socks on with orthopedic sandals; she sits with her legs crossed at the ankles. Her cane is resting against the chair next to her, and she clasps her hands together in her lap. She looks like a sitcom grandma, wearing a fuzzy mauve cardigan. I wonder what makes her acceptable to him.
After a few more patients lumber into the room and take their seats, I begin addressing them.
“Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome. We’re going to start off today’s session discussing our progress toward goal achievement. We’ve got some newer patients here who haven’t really defined their goals yet—” I stare directly at Richard, but he isn’t looking at me “—and I’d like to get a sense of where some of you veterans are in your recovery.” For whatever reason I’ve seemed to engage nearly everyone today, and a few hands shoot up offering to start the discussion.
“Yeah, Jenni, please. Why don’t you go ahead?” I say with a warm smile.
“My goals are to learn how to stay away from heroin no matter what and to make better decisions about men.” She launches her response into the room as if through a megaphone, gratified that she has a well-defined set of goals.
“What kinds of decisions did you used to make about men?” I ask, encouraging her to continue.
“The wrong ones. Well, the wrong one. I made the same wrong decision about all the men. Thought I had to give ’em something. Thought I wasn’t good enough to leave when they weren’t good to me.” I’m absolutely delighted to hear that; Jenni must be going to her women’s groups and embracing the notion that she is worthwhile.
I glance at Richard and see him looking over his glasses at Jenni. He catches me looking at him and gives me a knowing stare.
“Who’s next?” Several more patients raise their hands and share their stories. I watch Richard and Adelle each time, and they seem to have similar reactions to each story. They both either nod in approval or grimace, turn away or disengage when they feel the stories are trite or phony. I wonder if they’re becoming friends.
“Adelle,” I say, breaching the exclusivity of their bond, “what about you? Do you want to share your goals?” I watch Richard for his reaction. He tentatively glares at me, but doesn’t make a move to do or say anything.
Adelle regards me and seems to consider my request before delicately shaking her head no. Richard watches her shake her head, then turns to me and throws a gratified and superior smirk in my direction, complete with a flick of the eyebrows. He may as well have stuck out his tongue and called “nanny-nanny-boo-boo.” Well, fuck you, too, Richard. He’s protecting her—from what, I have no idea. But as we conclude the group, and I watch them leave, he hands Adelle her cane and helps her up from her seat. He slowly walks behind her into the hallway, and he tips his cap and bends politely in her direction as she carries on down the hall, remaining ever the enigma.
I walk back to my office, wondering how Adelle broke down Richard’s tough exterior, and I find a note has been slipped under my door. I feel the anxiety crawl up my spine as my mind wanders back to the evaluation sessions with the OMH psychiatrists, and I wonder if my secrets will all come tumbling out and they’re here in this note. I pick it up with apprehension.
It’s a sheet of Typhlos legal-sized printer paper folded in three, with a Post-it note tucked inside. The Post-it falls out as I open the note, and inside is a message from David in thick, black Sharpie: “Found this outside your office. Had your name on it, figured it’s yours. Don’t leave your private stuff outside your office. You know how the patients can get.” He signed it with a large D. I bend down to pick up the Post-it, which didn’t come from any of the pads in my office. The back has lost its stick and is marred with gray newsprint. The front of the note says my name, followed by my home address and two different subway routes from my apartment to Typhlos. It’s not my handwriting. It’s not my Post-it note.
DECEMBER 14TH, 7:11 P.M.
When I get home, Lucas is waiting for me at my apartment, and I can see when I walk in the door that he’s already drunk. I see several bottles on the coffee table, all with their labels facing the couch. Lucas is sitting in his work shirt and underwear, with the rest of his clothes piled on the back of a barstool.
He has red-wine mouth, which surprises me, because the only bottles I see are beer bottles. There are two packs of cigarettes on the table, both open, and a sea of butts in an ashtray that isn’t mine. He’s watching Pulp Fiction. He doesn’t hear the door open when I walk in, so I make an effort to let it slam as a greeting.
“Hey, baby! Where you been? I been waitin’ for ya!” As he says this, he’s throwing his arms in the air and swaying like the waves are hitting him.
“Did you not have work today? Why are you so drunk?” I’m tossing my keys onto the console.
“I’m not drunk, I’m just happy to see ya! C’mere!” He’s holding his arms out for an embrace and I walk to the stool and push his clothing onto the floor before hanging my jacket on the back of it. Though he notices his clothes dropping, he doesn’t say a word, and continues to smile his drunken smile at me, and I feel like projectile vomiting right into his face.
“I’ve had a fucked-up week at work, and I’m not in the mood to babysit you tonight. Can you please pull yourself together?” I sit on the other end of the couch and avoid the attempted hug.
“Baby, I’m fine. You don’t have to babysit anyone. Can I get you a beer? Or some wine? I opened a bottle of wine. I hope thatsh okay with you. I know you love your wine. I’ll getcha some.” He pinballs off the furniture on his way to the kitchen to get an open bottle of wine that has maybe half a glass left in it. I start smoking the cigarette he left burning in the ashtray. “Do you wanna glass or is the bottle okay? Ha-ha, I’m jush kidding, I’ll getcha a glass for this wine.”
After another spectacularly exhausting day on the unit, I don’t have the energy to even bother fighting with this asshole, so I just lean back and inhale the smoke. Visions of AJ are clouding my mind. Sometimes watching the cigarette smoke come pouring out of my mouth makes me feel like I’m pushing out all the negatives from my day. When it hangs in the room like a ghost, I like to blow at it so it dissipates. For such a dirty habit, it really does feel cleansing.
Lucas is beginning to sway, and I can see him starting to hear the voices inside his head. I’m watching him change. I’m looking on as I see him shift from average drunk to violent offender. And then the full-blown switch to psychotic disaster. I brace myself for the onslaught. He’s swaying in the doorway, holding himself up with one arm and smoking another cigarette. Something has crept into his head and he doesn’t want to think about it. He has a half-empty bottle of Tito’s Vodka sweating on the table next to him and a glass filled to the brim. I’m sitting on the couch, watching him not watching me, and I’m drinking Chablis.
“How long have you been drinking?”
Lucas gets defensive and arrogant when he’s drunk. “I don’t think that’s really any of your business.”
I look away from him as he says this, trying to avoid a fight. But I know it’s coming.
“And you’re just as drunk as I am, and you’re the one who’s drunk every fucking night. You’re the one who gets so drunk you can’t find your keys and you pash out in the hallway. Don’t tell me I fucking drink too much.”
“I didn’t tell you that. You’re yelling at me for no reason right now.”
“It’s not no reason. You’re turning into your mother and I’m sick of watching you collapse. You’re out at Nick’s with all these guys all the time, and you drink, and you’re smoking all day, and you always look like shit, and
you’re supposed to be my girlfriend and you act like a whore.” He’s holding the bottle in his hands now, and he left the full glass by the door.
“I’m a whore? You’re out there with actual hookers, and you’re calling me a whore?”
“Well, maybe if you were a better girlfriend, I wouldn’t have to.”
“You know what? Get out. Get the fuck out of my apartment. You don’t even live here! You’re drinking all my fucking booze—just get the fuck out.” Now I’m standing up and pointing at the door. I’m showing him the way out, and I’m showing myself that I have the self-respect to demand to be treated properly.
“What the fuck? I’m in my underwear! I’m not going anywhere.”
“No, put your fucking pants on, and get the fuck out. I’m not going to sit here and listen to you call me a whore. I have done everything for you! I take care of you when you’re sick, I pretend not to know about the hookers, I put up with your drugs and your bullshit, and you’re being an asshole now? You have no right to be an asshole! You should be kissing the ground I walk on! You should be thanking your lucky fucking stars for me. You prick! You piece of shit. You fucking liar!”
He’s swaying toward me, and his hands are outstretched. Now I’m bracing to defend myself. He reaches for me, to pull me into a hug, to try to convince me to let him stay.
“No, get off me. You can’t stay here.” I tuck and move, attempt to get out of his reach. He slaps the cigarette out of my hand. It rolls under the coffee table and starts burning a track in the floorboards. He’s grabbing both my shoulders with his sweaty hands, and his sour breath is in my nose. There’s white spit gathering in the corners of his mouth, which makes me think he’s on drugs again, too. I don’t have the self-respect to make him leave. I don’t have the self-respect to pull his hands off me, which are now digging into my shoulders so badly that I know I will have bruises by morning. I don’t care enough about myself to pick up the phone and call the cops and tell them that he’s going to hit me again.
He’s almost on top of me now, and I see Pulp Fiction on the screen, and I hear Samuel L. Jackson’s character saying he’s trying, real hard, to be the shepherd.
When he shoves me into the wall, my mind skips to the safety of David.
When his eyes brim with tears and he tells me he doesn’t mean to hurt me, I think of AJ.
When he lifts the bottle and spills vodka on his shirt, I think of a different life.
When he picks up the cigarette he slapped onto the floor, I think of my office garbage can.
When I wipe the tears out of my own eyes, and he hits the side of my face and my ears won’t stop ringing, I think of Richard.
DECEMBER 15TH, 4:33 A.M.
I’m lying in AJ’s bed, and I’m looking around his bedroom while he brushes his teeth in the bathroom. His sheets are soft and he has two windows in here. Beyond that, it’s the most anonymous bedroom I’ve ever been in, which works for me right now, because I shouldn’t be in here.
When Lucas lit that final cigarette after the violence, I knew he would leave like he always does after an outburst. Out of breath and sweaty, he put his clothes back on with a soggy cigarette hanging out of his mouth, threw his jacket over his shoulder and left me bloodied in the bathroom as he walked out the door. AJ was quick to respond to my text message and invite me right over. I cleaned myself up with a hot shower and tattoo makeup. The swelling is obscured in the low morning light, and my hair is down and wild to cover it even further.
AJ walks back into the room holding two glasses and a pitcher.
“Do you like margaritas? Do I even have to ask?” He’s naked, and he looks like a Neanderthal in a display case at the Museum of Natural History. He climbs onto his bed and sits cross-legged in front of me, pouring drinks. He seems to have no insecurity that his dick is lying on the bed before him, and I can’t help but gaze at it. We clink glasses, and when I lower my head to take a sip, I look at it again.
I’m naked, too, but I have the blankets pulled up under my boobs because I don’t have the same confidence he has. I don’t want him to see the bruises on my ribs, either. We drink wordlessly, staring at each other, smiling.
He reaches over and tugs at the covers. He smiles at me and pulls the blanket down past my stomach. He puts a finger in his glass and draws a heart with the cold liquid on my thigh. He gets his finger wet again and colors in the heart. It feels cold as it drips between my legs, and he leans down to kiss the tequila off me.
His warm mouth on my thighs, coupled with the intensity of my guilt, is making me quiver and shake almost uncontrollably. He’s so much bigger than I am, and when I begin to shake, he pulls me into him and envelops me in his enormous arms. He breathes hard and wraps his arms around my back, lifting me to straddle him while he stays seated. My legs are wrapped around his back, and he traces more tequila up and down my neck and collarbones.
Each time he traces another line, when the drips begin to fall, he leans down and laps them up. I have goose bumps all over me, and I’m breathing in sharply with every touch.
My head and torso fall back onto his pillows, and I look up at his ceiling and wonder what I’m doing here. My mind is still in my apartment, in my bathroom, covering my head in the corner, but I’m trying to be here in the moment. The sun must be coming up somewhere because the city outside his windows is starting to show its edges. A familiar sense of fear begins to rise from my belly and crawl up into my mouth. Whenever the sun comes up and I’m still awake, I begin to feel like time is running out, and I have to grasp everything around me to make it slow, slow, slow down.
I’m gazing out his windows with my head and neck tilted back, so it all appears upside down to me, and the horizon is reversed. The outlines of the upturned buildings look like they’re spelling out Lucas’s name in giant, skyscraper block letters, and I have to flip my head away from the windows and blink away the image. AJ catches me as I sit back up, and my hair falls over his shoulders. He wraps his arms around my back again and pulls the glass from my hand. He places it next to his on a bedside table and lifts me up off the mattress. Wordlessly, he walks me to the windows, effortlessly carrying me, like I’m as tiny as a ballerina. He closes his curtains and buries his face in my neck. As I watch him close out the last traces of the brightening city behind him, he throws me onto his bed and climbs on top of me.
DECEMBER 15TH, 6:16 A.M.
The sun is peeking out over the buildings as I fumble with my front-door keys. I knew I shouldn’t have stayed out this late, but after what happened with Lucas, I couldn’t be alone. I had to go to AJ’s. But, God, why did I have to drink so much? I look at my phone with one eye closed as I stumble into the elevator: 6:16 a.m.
I have time.
I can sober up with some coffee and a shower, and get to work in clean clothes.
I have time.
I have time.
I take giant steps from the elevator to my front door, as drunk people pretending to be sober do. I lean my left shoulder against the doorjamb and make several attempts to get the key into the lock. The key seems to be made of clay. After a few deep, concentrated breaths, I open the door. I squint into the sun and put on the coffee machine. I don’t have time to wash my hair, but I can get the booze sweat off me in a hot shower. Or am I supposed to take a cold shower?
I step out of my clothes and get into a lukewarm shower. I’m spitting the boozy taste out of the back of my throat and brushing my teeth and my tongue so hard that it makes me gag. I push the toothbrush deeper into my mouth and gag again. I know if I get the booze out it will make a world of difference, so I keep pushing until I vomit all over my feet. I rinse off the toothbrush and move the showerhead around the tub to wash away the vomit. I scrub my skin with flowery-scented body wash and convince myself I can pull this off.
Stinging toothpaste and vomit burps crawl up my throat as I sit on the subway making my way uptown. I look at the passengers sharing the car with me, and none of them seem to think I look s
uspicious. This galvanizes me for the day ahead. I’m drinking my coffee out of a thermos from home, and I will stop by the bodega before I get to Typhlos. Grease. I need a greasy bacon, egg and cheese sandwich to coat my stomach. I look at my phone again, this time with both eyes: 7:53 a.m. I’m going to make it.
I’m eating the bacon, egg and cheese and drinking my second coffee in my office when it occurs to me that my hair stinks. I pull it out of the ponytail and waft it in front of my face. Smells like cigarettes and a long night out. I pull the bottle of Febreze from under my desk and spritz my whole head. I’m finger combing my hair as I walk to the bathroom to dry my hair under the hand dryers. This is humiliating, and I’m cursing Lucas under my breath for practically forcing me into AJ’s arms, into his bed for solace. I knew I couldn’t miss work today, dammit, Lucas. Asshole.
I’m dizzy walking back to my office. I know I need to stay seated for as long as possible and wait for the coffee and water and greasy breakfast to take effect. I’m hoping Rachel calls me in for our meeting toward the end of the morning. I pound the rest of my water and gently lay my head back onto the desk chair to rest my eyes for a moment.
David’s knock on my door is spectacularly loud and wrenches me from the grips of a drunken nap. I nearly knock myself off my chair as I jolt upright and fling open the door. Out of breath and wide-eyed, I stare at David.
“Hey, good morning. You okay?”
“Hey, David. Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired.” My eyes take a moment to focus on him.
“Rachel asked me to let you know that she’s ready for you in the conference room. You sure you’re okay? You look totally out of it.”
“No, no, I’m fine. I must have fallen asleep and you startled me.”
“Are you drunk?” David whispers as he leans forward and sniffs in my direction. He closes the door behind him.
“No. No. No, no, no. Not drunk at all. Just didn’t get enough sleep last night, and running on fumes right now.” Definitely still feeling drunk. I look at my clock; it’s nearly 10:00 a.m.
