The Crossroads of Logan Michaels

by James Roberts

  Tiffany picked up Rory, Tyler, and me. We all started to take shots and drink beers in the car; she didn’t really care. We got a nice buzz going before we even got to the party. We finally arrived and saw that there were tons of cars parked everywhere. Tyler and Rory didn’t hang out with this crowd too much, but they were always cool when it came to meeting new people. They fit in pretty well. We drank and smoked as the night went on; I would walk around the party with a fifth of Hennessy, sipping it straight out of the bottle. With each sip I took, my emotions and problems vanished.

  Now everyone knew me as the guy who drank Hennessy at every party. It had started to become popular as other people began trying my expensive cognac; I passed my bottle around. As the night progressed, I had a serious buzz going, and the party was awesome. Rory, Tyler, and I went outside and smoked a huge joint. I was seriously light-headed as I stumbled back into the party, feeling like an alien. I was so high and drunk that it was as if I was antisocial. All I could do was walk around the party and hear vague sounds as I walked by people; they were talking to me, but I couldn’t understand anything as I swallowed my last sip of Hennessy. The last thing I remember was being on the stairs of Tim’s house with people surrounding me, and then being brought upstairs and dragging a dresser in front of the door.

  Where the hell am I? Why is there a dresser in front of the door and whose room is this? I walked down the stairwell and saw baby pictures of Tim on the wall. What the hell am I doing here? I got downstairs and saw that his place was trashed from the party, and there he was, staring at me with a concerned look. “What’s up man?” I said, feeling sick to my stomach.

  “Do you remember last night?” he asked.

  “Not really,” I replied.

  “Man, you were messed up,” he replied.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “You apparently finished your whole fifth of Hennessy by, like, ten o’clock and then smoked outside. You came into the house party and just walked around, not talking to anyone, and then went back outside. No one found you for, like, twenty minutes until Tiffany found you on the stairs in the corner, passed out with two cigs in your hand. She woke you up and you fell on your face as you got up and then you started swearing at her, calling her names.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, man, you were bad. You were totally passed out. It was only ten-thirty and everyone was taking selfies with you while you were blacked out. I tried to carry you upstairs to my room so you could sleep, but you fell down the steps. Man, you were so wasted, I couldn’t believe it.”

  “That explains why my whole body is sore,” I said and laughed. Tim gave me a ride home later that day, and my mom was home. As she asked me how my night was, I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t want her to know that her son was a mess and was becoming an alcoholic.

  I got my cellphone charged up, and saw that I had a bunch of text messages from Tiffany, Rory, and Tyler, and from some random numbers I didn’t even know. Tiffany told me that she didn’t want to see me anymore because every time we hung out I was blacked out. It kind of hurt to hear her say that. Rory and Tyler asked how I was feeling and told me to text them. I skipped the next couple days of school and basketball practice, too.

  •••

  On my seventeenth birthday my mother left me a card and kissed me as she went off to work. My brother and father wished me a happy birthday. I tried to ignore my whole family. I wasn’t happy with life right now, and knowing I’d have to face another year of all of this brought sadness in my heart. If I keep going down this path, who knows whether another year would even come? Then I took the money my mom gave me for my birthday and bought a bag of weed.

  After my week-long depression following my birthday, I felt different. I wore a hooded sweatshirt every day to school and never went to classes. I would find ways to skip class and get high outside, along with the burnouts. In the back of my mind, I knew that I needed to stop this or else my life would get worse. But I couldn’t stop.

  The basketball season had been ongoing for a couple weeks, and I barely played. Coach would only put me in when we had a huge lead. I didn’t blame him; my confidence was gone, I could barely make it up and down the court, and my heart wasn’t in the game anymore.

  I hated the time of the year when the holidays came. I loved my family with all my heart, but couldn’t bear for them to see me so changed. I was dreading the holiday when everyone would get together and I would have to go to visit my mom’s family first and then my dad’s family, and act like everything was okay. They would ask me about basketball, school, girlfriends, and life. I didn’t want to explain to them that I had fucked up everything and that it was all going very badly.

  When Christmas arrived, my mother begged me to make an appearance, and in my heart I knew that I couldn’t let her down. So, what did I do? I went out with Rory, Tyler, and a couple of other pothead buddies to play pool on Christmas night. My heart hurt so much as I smiled and drank the pain away. Each shot I took felt like a dagger, but I just couldn’t bear to face my family on Christmas, so I kept drinking.

  Christmas season eventually ended and I was relieved. New Year’s Eve was a different story, however. Rory had a big party planned for that night; there must have been thirty to forty people there—a mix from burnouts, jocks, freshman, and seniors. As usual, I brought my Hennessy and had some weed ready for the night. Rory’s pot dealer came to the party and had brought a couple of his buddies, Sam and Chris. They were a grade older than me and apparently had been heavy into dealing cocaine. I stayed far away from that, though; no way would I put anything up my nose. These guys were both known to fight and brawl with anyone who gave them shit, and they were also known to win every fight.

  I became smashed as the night progressed. Walking through the house, I started to hear whispers. It was almost as if everyone around me was blurred out—the room became smaller and I felt as if I was alone.

  BOOM! My shoulder bumped into someone at the party and they pushed me down. I felt my face turn beet-red, and adrenaline began pumping through my whole body. I felt like I could pick up a house over my shoulder. I looked up as everyone’s faces became clear again, and saw one of the freshman guys on my team staring at me.

  “What the fuck,” I said, as I ran at him, picked him up in midair, and then body-slammed him onto the table. Everyone looked at me like I was a madman; the girls cleared out and ran outside of the house in a panic. My victim broke away and yelled at me like I was a crazed animal. The scariest thing was that he must have been 6’2” and 250 pounds, but with the Hennessy and all of the hate in my heart, I picked him up like a feather when I smashed him through the table. The poor kid had bumped into me by accident, it turned out, and I had just snapped.

  I ran to my van, got in and slammed the door, and burned out of Rory’s, hammered. I flew up the street, driving home around midnight. Great way to start a new year, I thought as I lit up a cigarette and hit the gas harder. My heart raced; I just wanted to get home and go to bed; I must have been too drunk to function.

  I raced past a parked car and looked back to see blue lights flashing. Fuck! My heart almost stopped. I am going to get a DUI and lose my license! Shit. My foot hit the pedal and I floored it and turned a couple of corners quickly. The cop sped up as I turned another corner, almost flipping my van. The rush was amazing, and I inhaled my cigarette more harshly. I saw an empty driveway across the street, so I flew in there, shut off my lights, and ducked under the steering wheel.

  The cop passed slowly, and my heart felt like it was going to explode. I poked my head up briefly and saw his light flashing around. Shit! I ducked back and closed my eyes, praying that he had passed. When I looked up again, he was gone. I was only one block away from my house, but I figured I needed to wait it out for a little while. I sat in my van for about thirty minutes, smoking cigarettes. I started the engine, slowly pulled out of the random driveway, and crept around the first street, imagining that the cop would be a
t every turn. Then the next turn, and the next, until I finally arrived at home and backed up all the way into our dirt driveway, ran inside the house, and passed out.

  My body ached and my lungs killed me when I awoke. I must have smoked a pack of cigarettes; I wasn’t sure if my run-in with the cop had been a dream. There was only one way to find out—Rory and Tyler. I arrived at Rory’s house to find the place still trashed; he hadn’t cleaned up at all. There must have been joints everywhere, still lit, and there were beer bottles all over the place. They were just waking up when I walked in, and they laughed when they saw me.

  “What happened?” I said, nervously, not sure what I had done. They told me that I did in fact smash someone over the table, breaking it, and then left. About fifteen minutes after I had left and was chased, the same cop had come back to the house party, had arrested and interrogated Rory and Tyler, and had broken up the party. The cop asked what had happened to the table and who drives a maroon van. Rory and Tyler had played dumb. I gasped for a deep breath and high-fived them in relief as we all laughed and lit up a massive blunt.

  In my heart, I couldn’t believe what I was doing, but I liked the attention my behavior was bringing me. The next week at school, there were people I didn’t know talking to me about how hammered I had been and telling me that it was awesome. Most of my jock friends ignored me, and I think I had officially moved to the dark side. I skipped basketball practice that night and skipped school and work for most of the week.

  I noticed that my brother was starting to hang out with Vanessa, a girl from his grade. She was the same age as he was, thirteen, and she would come over to the house and do homework with Jared; she was there almost every day. I would say “hi” to her and would then ignore both of them most of the time. I hadn’t spoken to Jared in weeks; it hurt so much that we had drifted apart while we were still so young. It seemed like he was spending time with Vanessa to make up for the fact that he had no older brother anymore.

  My mother came home one day to find a condom on Jared’s bedroom floor. I was shocked when she told me, since he was only thirteen. After all, I had been sixteen and drunk when I first had sex. I knew I should have a talk with him, being the older brother, but, as usual, I left the house and swept my problems under the rug—except under that the rug was usually a blunt.

  My father was told about the condom, but he didn’t do too much; he would continue to fight with the crazy woman he had been seeing or sleeping with. She continued to threaten to kill my mother, and my father had to get a restraining order against her. Sometimes she would just show up randomly at his house and scream in the street until the cops came and arrested her. She wanted to make his life a living hell, and she succeeded. He had to go to court multiple times for his restraining order, as she always convinced the judge that she was a sweetheart. Maybe because she was sick she knew how to fake it. I didn’t see my father too often anymore, so I guess I had no role model either. So finally Jared and I had something in common.

  •••

  The semester was halfway over. I was failing every class except history with Mr. Hillfield, who was hoping I would make it to baseball season. He always looked at me in the hallways, but never questioned me or asked me what was going on. I felt like he was different, as if he actually understood me and knew that talking about my downfall would only make it worse.

  Other teachers, of course, looked at me like I was the bad boy in class; at this point, I was sent for detention almost every day, but still didn’t go. I would just swear at my teachers and would walk out in the middle of class. The principal couldn’t reach me, my parents couldn’t reach me—no one could.

  During the halfway point of school, the school officer pulled me aside and whispered in my ear, “I know it was you in the van; I will catch you and put you away.”

  I looked at him, rolled my eyes, and said, “I don’t think so.”

  My heart was dead; I didn’t give a fuck about anything anymore. I could either make things right and change my life for the better, or I could go down that dark road. I chose the dark road.

  A month later, my mother’s worst fear had come true—I was gone and couldn’t return and didn’t want to. I had thrown everything away and, when I caught her crying one night I just left for Rory’s house. I had officially dropped out of school, had quit the basketball and baseball team, and quit my job at Butcher Boy. I had dropped out simply by not showing up to school or basketball anymore. I had never said a word to my coach or teachers.

  The antidepressant wasn’t helping me, so I stopped taking it and refused to see a counselor again. While my mother worked double shifts, I would have everyone over to the house. Rory, Tyler, and a couple of other friends dropped out with me. We were all bad for each other; we would get high all day, starting in the morning, and then drink when we could afford alcohol. I was unemployed and had to figure out some way to support my habits. Rory and I would drive around in my van, smoking pot while I filled out job applications. I ended up finding a convenience store in the next town over where I would work part-time just to afford weed, alcohol, and gas. It was a job for a loser, but I guess that loser was me. The manager was a dropout, too; he had to be about twenty-five and had red hair and freckles. We hit it off immediately, and he hired me on the spot.

  I worked three days a week and on my off-time I was getting high and drunk with the dropout crew. We had a lot of idle time, so we started to get into more trouble than usual. I mean, we were seventeen- and eighteen-year-old kids. My brother continued to see his girlfriend every day. I just hoped that he wouldn’t get her pregnant.

  My brother was exposed to my party environment, which I always regretted. He would sit upstairs in his room while I had parties with kids stripping, drinking, and smoking, and with people hanging out in the street outside of the house, the madhouse. I made him stay upstairs; sometimes I’d see him downstairs and would yell at him to go back up. He was on probation until he was eighteen, and I didn’t want him getting in trouble again. The smart thing for me to do would be to stop having parties, especially when my poor mother was working all night.

  The neighbors thought my mother was terrible because of these parties, but she couldn’t control me; she worked so much to support us that what happened while she was at work was out of her control. She would come home and sleep and then return to work, but at least she really loved what she did. She was the most popular nurse anywhere she went; it was because her heart was filled with so much love. I knew that whatever road I took, she would support me. I was still her baby boy.

  Summer was approaching, which meant trouble was coming. School had finished up, but of course I didn’t give a shit; I hadn’t been to school for months. The dropout crew was about five people deep and we all had a big summer ready for ourselves: house parties at my place, ragers at Rory’s place, and high school parties even though we had dropped out. Surprisingly, my van was still running, even though it was a piece of shit. I took the back seats out and put two beanbags in their place.

  The summer of seventeen. My world had collapsed, but a new road had opened up. Rory and I met two girls, Kate and Molly, who always wanted to hang out, get drunk, have sex, and get high. One of the first nights I can remember from that summer involved the four of us. My mother and Rory’s were home, for once. So we loaded up my car with alcohol and weed, and the girls jumped onto the beanbags as we opened up the cheap vodka. My heart was racing, and I was hoping I would get drunk and get laid—the perfect night for an adolescent. We had heard about these abandoned apartments one town over, so we decided to drive over there and check it out. When we got there, we crept up slowly in my maroon van as we all laughed nervously.

  “The coast is clear,” Rory said. We went inside and there wasn’t a peep; there were just a couple of couches that were surprisingly clean. We brought in the alcohol and weed, celebrating. Rory rolled up a huge joint as I poured shots for the girls. We must have drunk half the bottle. We were just four young, h
orny kids messing around. Rory and I argued over who would try to hook up with which girl. I didn’t really care.

  “Fuck it,” I said as Molly came over to me on the couch. She looked so good tonight; maybe it was the alcohol, but she had big, wet lips that I wanted around my dick. “Take them off,” I mumbled drunkenly and laughed. She laughed too, then slid my pants off and started to suck and stroke me. I was sure that Rory was in the other room doing the same. Thankfully, I lasted a while because of the liquor in my system. She licked her lips as I pulled up my pants.

  “Shit!” Molly gasped, looking at her phone, “It’s two; I need to get home!” We jumped in the van and tucked the open bottle of vodka under the seat. I mean, there was still some left and I wanted it.

  “Holy shit, I’m hammered,” I said and laughed as I looked back at the girls and Rory. After I dropped off Rory, my vision blurred but I nervously started to drive the girls home. Almost there, I thought as my vision was going. I was legitimately afraid that I was going to pass out and fail to get these girls home safely.

  BOOM! SCRATCH! Fuck. I did pass out for a whole minute, and I woke up to see that I was scraping a bunch of parked cars along the road. Holy shit, what am I doing? I pulled up to the girls’ houses at two-thirty, and luckily got them home after scraping ten cars on the side of the street.

  Two more blocks to go, and I’m home free; thank God. As I drove slowly with both hands on the wheel, I noticed a car behind me. My eyes sobered up at once, my chest stuck out straight, and I felt like I had swallowed my tongue. The cops were trailing me! I continued to drive cautiously as the police car pulled up closer and flashed his blue lights. OMG; my life’s over, I thought, I have a bottle of booze under my seat and weed in the car, not to mention that I’m hammered.