by A. F. Brady
“Richard, you weren’t bad. That wasn’t your fault!” I wipe my eyes with the backs of my hands and reach for a tissue. “Your mom never should have done that to you.” I’m not hiding the tears anymore, and as he sees them, he blushes. I know what it’s like, I know what it feels like to get beaten and to believe the only thing I know how to believe: that’s it’s my own fault. That I brought this on myself. I know exactly how that feels. “She was sick, Richard. You couldn’t have stopped her!”
“I know. She was sick. She was very sick.” He’s looking out the window again, and I know the story is over. He breathes a deep sigh and folds his hands in his lap.
“Is it your turn to talk yet?” he asks, finished with the emotional storytelling, trying to push it away from himself and lay the burden on me.
“I guess—I guess it is. But it’s hard to focus on me after what you’ve just told me. I can’t believe you grew up like that.” Should I tell him about me? About Lucas? Should I tell him I know exactly how he feels?
“It wasn’t always that way. There were days when everything was fine. She didn’t hurt me all the time, but I figured the stories where things were good aren’t the stories you want to hear. Right? In prison, every time they asked me about myself, they just wanted to hear the fucked-up stuff. No one wants to know that I had cereal and milk for breakfast, or that my mom always made sure I got good marks. They don’t care that I never had to worry about food or clothes, even though we didn’t have any money. They just get off on hearing the fucked-up stories.”
“Did you tell anyone what you just told me?”
“Nah. I just kept to myself when I was in there. I did what they told me to do, but then I stayed alone and read my books. They said I could’ve gotten a degree in the joint with everything that I was reading.”
“You really enjoyed the books, huh?” I’m not ready to tell him about me just yet. I push the focus back to him and lean in to listen.
“Yeah. I always loved to read. Don’t have to talk to the books.”
I’m laughing inside at the image of Richard in a jail cell with pictures of Farrah Fawcett on the walls and cracked cement under his feet, reading dog-eared copies of War and Peace and the Koran.
“Did your arms heal properly?” I ask, even though I know they didn’t.
“For the most part. This one bends funny, but it does everything a normal arm should do. I had to have those splints on for a long time, and it made it really hard to enjoy the summer, but I could still read my books. And when I stayed in the house, she didn’t get mad as much, so maybe it was a good summer.” He looks at me, at my clock and then at me again.
“You didn’t tell me anything this time. So next time, you have to tell the stories.” He stands up and gently pats me on the shoulder. He lumbers out of my office, and I’m left alone to rethink his story over and over. He grew up with no father, just like I did. He found himself abused and guilty and overwhelmed with rejection and confusion. Just like I did. Richard had to find a way out to save himself. Just like I do.
JANUARY 31ST, 12:01 P.M.
I’m licking the rest of the vodka off my lips as I walk toward my 12:00 p.m. addiction recovery group. I see all the group members sitting in their chairs in a haphazard semicircle, slouching, some in coats, some in pajamas. Nancy and Tashawndra are huddled close together, gossiping about something. Every now and again they look toward the other patients and laugh, mouths covered.
I’m walking in the door, pretending I didn’t just drink two tiny bottles of vodka, and then I’m sitting on the edge of the desk. The blackboard behind me has scribbles from previous groups; words that look like hypocrite, liar and fake.
The best I could come up with today is to hand out printer paper, pass around a shoe box full of stubby crayons and ask the patients to draw their feelings.
As they pick their colors, I scroll through old pictures on my phone. Usually, when I break up with someone, or stop sleeping with them, I go through all my photos of them and delete or edit them out of my life. For whatever reason, with AJ, I don’t want to delete the photos. I’m scrolling through the ones we took at Nick’s with the whole group—the ones where he’s holding my boob and no one knows. I’m smirking to myself and trying not to laugh as I look through the pictures.
My mind is swirling back to images of AJ’s naked, primate body, laughing on his bed, holding a cocktail in his hand. I’m entranced by a picture of him making the same face now. For a moment, I forget why I want to forget him. I forget why I decided to cut this cord, why I pulled away, why I let him fade. As I’m looking at his squinting eyes, I’m reminded why I jumped down the rabbit hole, and for a second my heart hurts as I remember the feeling of freedom I had when he first kissed me.
As I’m reminiscing, reconsidering all my decisions, wondering what prompted me to leave, feeling so lost and looking for a lifeboat to jump into, Lucy appears over my shoulder.
“Who’s that? Your husband?”
“Lucy! You frightened me.” I quickly lock my phone and put it facedown on the desk. “What’s up?”
“He’s cute, your husband. I knew you’d have a good-looking man.”
“Ha, well, thank you, but that’s not my husband. Just someone I used to know.” The idea of climbing into AJ’s lifeboat slips out of my mind and onto the floor, and rolls under the desk where I can no longer reach it.
Lucy hands me her drawing and asks if she’s done. The page is covered edge to edge with pink crayon. I asked her to draw her feelings. Her feelings are pink. She pushed down so hard while she was coloring that large flakes of crayon stick up from the page. And just like that, AJ fades back into obscurity where he belongs.
I pick my phone back up to delete the pictures, and I see a text from Lucas: You’re never going to make it out there without me. You need me. You’ll kill yourself. You probably should. This is the fourth text he’s sent me since New Year’s, and I turn my phone off without responding.
“Miss Sam, I was wondering.” Nancy, clearly being egged on by Tashawndra. “Did none of you counselors ever have any drug problems?”
“I’m not sure, Nancy. Why do you ask?”
“Well, I think that if y’all had some drug problems, then y’all would be able to understand us better. But if y’all have been sober forever and don’t even party, then how you suppose to help?”
“That’s an interesting question, Nancy. Let’s bring that discussion to the group, okay? What do you all think? Do you think it’s necessary to know from experience what it’s like to have an addiction in order to treat people who have addictions?” A warm vodka burp is climbing up my throat.
“I think that you’d be better at it if you knew how we felt.” Stephan, trying to get the girls to notice him by defending their points.
“Do you think an oncologist would be better at treating cancer if she had cancer herself?” I ask, wondering why I’m playing devil’s advocate.
“Well, nah. But maybe they could be better at making the patient feel good. Not necessarily at curing the disease, but their bedside manner, their compassion. Maybe those things would improve if they had their own experience.” Stephan, now ignoring the girls, but intrigued by the topic.
“Okay, I agree.” I engage with him. “I think if someone has a personal experience to draw from, they have a different level of insight into things, whether it’s cancer, or addiction, or whatever.”
“Yeah,” Stephan replies, “but don’t you think that sometimes they get caught up in their own experience, and they think the way they got better is the best way, or the only way, and sometimes it’s better if you’re just a teacher, or just a doctor, and you never went through it in your own life?”
“Stephan, I think that’s a great point.” I wave my arm around at the group. “Have you had experiences where other people in recovery have helped or hindered your progress? Tashawndra? Nancy? You ladies kicked off this discussion—what do you think?” I’m genuinely interested now, and I
want to know if my diagnosis is actually helpful to my patients.
“Miss Sam, we just wanted to know if y’all ever partied. That’s all.”
The patients giggle and disengage, realizing that Tashawndra and Nancy were just trying to get gossip out of me, but now my head is filled with the notion that they may be onto something. Maybe it’s a good thing that I’m a drunk. Maybe my history of choosing all the wrong men and all the wrong friends, and waking up with bloody scabs and black eyes, is somehow useful, somehow allows me to understand things differently than the other therapists.
I power on my phone and read Lucas’s text message again. I delete it and the three others, along with his and AJ’s photos.
FEBRUARY 2ND, 9:37 P.M.
I’m sitting at the dinner that we both knew was eventually going to happen. For whatever reason we decided that the fancier the restaurant, the better. I imagine it’s because we both have some sense of decorum and would be less inclined to stab each other in the face if we were among better company.
Lucas is intelligent enough and aware enough to know exactly why we’re here, but he’s choosing not to acknowledge it. Instead of filling up any silence with some abusive rhetoric or regurgitated political views, he is slipping in compliments and showering me with unwarranted and unearned accolades. This may be a desperate attempt to stop the oncoming train, but I have somehow become immune to his charms. Despite his efforts to derail my intentions, I am now breaking up with him.
I feel like I’m in a movie, watching a character playing Sam James breaking up with Lucas instead of actually doing it myself. I see the camera panning around the restaurant at the two-tops occupied by wealthier, better-suited-for-each-other and happier people. I see the delicate plates of precariously balanced microgreens atop tiny portions of tuna tartare with some swath of green sauce. As the plates pass our table, perched on the upstretched arm of a strapping young server, the focus comes to Sam and Lucas.
Lucas is leaning back in his chair. His left leg is crossed over his right, and the stem of his wineglass is held tightly between his fingers. He’s looking at me, but not looking at me. We are between courses, and we have at least a few minutes before someone approaches the table again. If ever there were a time in which I could blurt these terrible statements, that time is now.
“I can’t do this anymore.” The words are coming out of my mouth; I can even feel each one reverberating the vocal cords in my throat, but it doesn’t feel like I’m the one saying them.
It’s like watching a building burn. Slowly each room lights up and gets consumed. My head feels full, like I’m underwater. He’s admitting to sleeping with Claire the cocktail waitress. He is begging for forgiveness but I’m just starting to feel hot. Now it feels like I’m in the burning building.
He starts crying at the dinner table. I’m embarrassed for him, and I don’t want the stares that are coming our way. He is a mess. He goes back and forth between blubbering that he isn’t being a good boyfriend to me (which is surreal because he has never been good to me, but he has also never admitted it to my face), and then he rages that it’s not his fault and he has a problem, and isn’t it my job to fix problems?
Lucas swivels and sways and his Jekyll and Hyde are melting into one sobbing disaster. Our waitress has the politesse to pretend this scene isn’t unfolding and gently places our main courses before us.
I have never felt less interested in a steak. Lucas is probing his cavatelli with his fork and looking up at me with puppy-dog eyes. I am critically studying his face, wondering if there is a human in there somewhere. Wondering if he lost himself so badly that he will never be found again. Wondering why I bothered to look for him in the first place. The emptiness I see in him is all-consuming and black. He isn’t in there. No one is. And I have been waiting to see this for as long as I can remember.
“I can’t lose you. I know that I need to get better, and I know that I can’t keep doing what I’ve been doing, but I will change. I promise you, just please don’t leave me.” He sips his wine in tiny little sips between each statement.
Just as I’m about to respond, he clears his throat, and there’s a notable change in him. His eyes seem to refocus and his brow furrows. His air of pathetic disaster seems to disappear and he re-forms into a cutthroat businessman with a billion-dollar merger on the table. He puts his wineglass down and signals to the waitress. The tears he was just crying don’t seem to have reddened his eyes or left marks on his cheeks. Instead, it seems I imagined them; there are no traces of actual emotion anywhere on him. As the waitress approaches, he orders a double vodka martini.
“Sam, this isn’t a reasonable negotiation. I am pouring my heart out here, and you’re not even the slightest bit accommodating. How do you expect me to respond to this?”
“Wait—what?” I’m off balance.
“I ask you to move in with me,” he begins, “and you refuse. I try to get you to understand the way you should behave, and you defy me. If you could ever be bothered to actually focus on me, and give me some of your precious attention, then maybe I wouldn’t be sleeping with other women. Did you ever think about your role in all this?”
“You’re telling me it’s my fault that you’re fucking other people?” I’m smiling and incredulous.
“No, Samantha, you should learn to listen. I said ‘your role’; I didn’t place all the blame squarely on your shoulders. I know I have some part in this.”
“You know you have some part in this? Some part? I didn’t stick your dick in someone else, you did. I didn’t throw myself into walls, I didn’t slam my face into toilet seats, I didn’t punch the sides of my own head. You did.”
“And I’ve apologized for that. You know I have a temper. If you would just learn to keep your mouth shut, then I wouldn’t have to get angry with you.” He drains his drink and signals for another martini. The little stick with the olives is about to fall out of the glass.
I begin to realize that I’m negotiating with an emotional terrorist and I will never be able to get through to him. My eyes glaze over and my consciousness fades out of the conversation. I can feel my mouth moving, but I don’t know what I’m saying. I sense the cool of the wine going down my throat, but I don’t feel like I’m drinking. I see my hand reaching into my bag for my wallet, but I don’t remember asking for the check. I hear the scrape of the chair as I push back and stand up, but I don’t know the last words I said. I feel my thumbnail jimmy my key ring as I remove Lucas’s keys and replace them with his copy of mine. I see the prideful smiles of the staff as they watch me go, but I don’t feel my feet hitting the ground.
I am a house after a hurricane. I have to wait for the wind to stop blowing, but when it does, I will dig the debris out of the living room. I will sand down the floorboards and refinish them. I will pull out the broken windows and install new ones. I will walk around the neighborhood until I find my roof. I will drag the roof back to the front yard piece by piece; I will put it back together again. And the next time the cruel wind blows, and it pounds on my door saying “Little pig, little pig, let me in,” I will say “Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.”
FEBRUARY 7TH, 11:22 A.M.
“The first time I was arrested was in 1977. Do you know about the ’77 blackout?” Richard hands me two tiny bottles of Jack Daniel’s and takes off his hat. Richard’s plan to force me to treat him like an equal through blackmail has morphed into an easy routine of drinking and sharing stories. I need him to open up to me, and, so far, I’ve been keeping my own stories at bay to allow him to do that.
“Yeah, I wasn’t born yet, but I know the story.” After we almost got caught the other day, I brought in two small plastic cups from the water cooler today. “I’m pouring those in here; can’t be too careful.” He nods at me and hands me the other two bottles, as well. I open them and dump the whiskey into the little cups.
“Well, during the blackout, I was about to turn sixteen and I was acting a fool with my friends. We were
bored, it was hot, and the lights were out, so we went with so many of the other kids and started looting the stores.” He gathers the empties, tucks them into an unseen pocket.
“Are you serious? You were such a good kid, I thought.” I wipe the whiskey from my lips.
“I was a teenager. Your mind’s not right when you’re a teenager.”
“That’s true.” I lean back with my hands behind my head, listening to Richard’s story. I used to steal bottles of liquor all the time. Didn’t need a blackout. I remember wearing an oversize pair of pants, cinched at the waist with a ratty leather belt. I had on a regular pair of pants under them, and I would slide bottles into the pockets of the regular pants. The giant jeans would obscure the bulges, and the cashier would usually throw me out for being too young before he noticed I was stealing.
“We stole booze from liquor stores, and we went to get cigarettes and sodas. We thought we would never get caught because everyone was doing it. There were fires everywhere. The cops had no way of managing everything. But we got caught. All of us. Me and Jesse, and a bunch of other kids. We got thrown into the back of a paddy wagon and taken to booking. I remember we were so scared. We didn’t say anything to each other in the back of the wagon.
“When we got to booking, it was so crowded. There was a long line of kids getting fingerprinted and photographed. I remember my hands were so sweaty by the time I had to get fingerprinted that they had to roll my fingers in the ink over and over again. I didn’t have a driver’s license, and back then none of us kids had any ID, and because it was so crowded, they just asked us for our names, and took us at our words. I didn’t tell them my real name because I was afraid. I was reading The American at the time, so I told them my name was Henry James. And they printed me and booked me as Henry James. I wish I had a copy of that mug shot.”
