Lullabies for Suffering

by Caroline Kepnes et al.

  She walked with urgent steps to the bathroom. The fight was over. Resistance vacated her body and sweet relief filled its place. Why fight it? It was inevitable since the moment she let herself purchase the heroin after the NA meeting. She’d been fending off men giving tightly held hugs with octopus arms in the parking lot, most of them pleading with her to go for coffee. She rejected them all, except the offer from Chuck Hartzel, who offered a pack of something so premium she just had to try, and she paid him with crumbled-up singles.

  She shut the bathroom door behind her but didn’t lock it, just in case. Remember what happened at Burger King. She was finally safe and alone. Her heart thumped in her chest, drum beat booming. Leftover works, needle, spoon, and cotton were all tucked away where Agent Baker wasn't smart enough to look (panel behind the bathtub faucet).

  Water, spoon, mix, flame, cotton.

  And focus.

  God, was she focused as she sat on the toilet seat and stared at the liquid getting sucked up into the syringe. A chorus sang inside her, the church of the holy praising this moment, rising to a crescendo each second closer to the shot in her arm.

  Blue veins so lonely, so ready.

  The prick of the needle punctured her, found a vein, blood was drawn. The chorus sang their loudest halleluiahs as she pushed in the plunger and an opiate orgasm ran up her spine. God did she love life, loved her son, so beautiful, all of it.

  She heard footsteps approaching the bathroom. It must be Joshua, but he sounded faster than usual. There was more weight to each pitter-patter and the hardwood floor echoed. He was done with his new drawing, and she was ready to gloat over his artwork, to be the mom he deserved, not the depressed, sad sack of bones she’d become where everything was a chore and bitterness filled each thought.

  Wait, Josh, wait.

  Don’t see me like this.

  Too late. A squeak when the bathroom door opened.

  Joshua was about to see her shooting up. Wouldn’t be the first time, and it would require another long explanation on why he needed to be quiet about this, how his mom was okay and this is just what happens when people slowly quit drugs. They still had blue skies.

  The needle was still hanging like an errant dart in her blue vein when she saw it wasn’t Joshua at all standing in the doorway.

  It was Agent Baker.

  Their eyes locked. Amy was unable to breathe, unable to break her gaze. Hidden truths were revealed as if her skin had been shaved off. The beauty of the opiates surging through her veins retreated. The comfort was gone, her deeds exposed.

  Agent Baker’s face was frozen with shock, stuck in a silent scream. She inched closer in disbelief and leaned into Amy’s face. Her skin seemed to be glowing red, her flesh twisted, made of flames burning with anger.

  Amy wanted to plead, to pray, you don’t know how hard this is, how much I tried, but I can’t do it, so please, just help me. I mean really help me. Not this bullshit cop and robber probation game you call help, but truly help me learn how to live without doing this thing I can’t stop...

  But nothing came out of her voice box. Everything was getting sucked out of her body into the swirling eyes of this agent with a badge who had broken into her sacred place.

  “Do you know what I am going to do to you?” Agent Baker asked in a voice that had sunk seven layers deep.

  Baker stepped forward. Amy had no room to retreat. She was fully cornered, exposed, and sat helpless as Baker took hold of her trembling hand. With a fingertip, she traced Amy's vein, inching slowly from her wrist toward the sweet spot of the needle mark. She reached the syringe, grasped it inside her fist, then plucked it out.

  Pluck.

  “Do you know what I am going to do to you?” Baker repeated.

  Amy shook her head, because she didn’t know.

  “I am going to help you. You will never be sick again. Never.”

  Never sick again. Never sick again—the phrase somehow made Amy’s fear bleed out of her body, and she looked up at Baker like a starving baby waiting to be fed. Baker was an infinite mother, a sexless lover, knowing her in ways never before possible. The feel of Baker's fingertips had been surprisingly soft, warm, tender. It brought back memories of Joshua as an infant, his flesh pressed against hers when he was minutes old, fresh from her womb, moist with the miracle of life. The breastfeeding that followed was abandoned too early when dehydration hit.

  But it was okay.

  Joshua was going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay.

  Baker held the needle with the tip sticking out between her fingers, and plunged the syringe towards Amy’s eye. Her eyelid snapped shut, but the needle poked right through the tiny film of skin. Pluck. She could hear it penetrating into her moist eyeball, the pain piercing as if she’d been stabbed in the heart. Baker tugged it out, just a touch, and then pushed it in deeper, right through her eye socket, again and again, until she finally pulled the needle out entirely. The syringe dripped with moisture.

  “You’ve had your chance.” Baker attacked again.

  Amy raised a hand but was too slow to defend her other eye when the syringe stabbed inside. A milky-white liquid mixed with crimson blood leaked out her eye, dripped down her cheek, then streamed into her mouth which had opened to scream. With each new stab, a new pitch out of her mouth, screaming Joshua's name to help her, pleading apologies, rattling the bathroom walls with howls, sure that the gods would hear her pain and save her, but instead the snake bites of the needle came in rapid fire to all parts of her body. Baker pulled the needle out each time and found new, fresh skin to puncture.

  Amy collapsed to the ground a ripped-open ragdoll. Her veins had been sliced apart, her flesh speckled in bloody red holes, her arms held out in front of her as if in offering. Her face was stuck in silent peace, a permanent sleep, the fluid of her life running in tiny red streams and puddling on the white tile. She’d been blinded and unable to see the bathroom door swing open and her son standing in the doorway, looking at her one last time before she died.

  CHAPTER SIX:

  Agent Baker After the Visit

  Well, then, I won’t come back for Piper, I’ll come back just for you.

  I hoped Joshua really heard those final words. If not, I know he felt the power of the wink I gave before walking out the front door.

  Becca was waiting for me at home, and I was eager to tell her how the visit went.

  Not a career, but a calling.

  I chose Amy first for a reason. Not out of suspicion that she was non-compliant, but out of hope. She was the reason drug court existed, the reason I decided to major in criminal justice and work in probation. Her pasty white skin had grown color the last four months. Long-sleeve black shirts gave way to sleeveless tops as the abscesses healed and scar tissue faded. Her timid green eyes became tinted with resolve. If she could continue to grow, shed her old skin, then maybe her soul could be repaired and her boy Joshua could be glued back together.

  Amy had been in and out of jail for years, protesting in front of judges with tears and foxhole prayers to not lock her up, swearing on her child’s grave that she would never use again, but instead, she got high with Joshua’s dad and dragged her son along for the ride.

  Amy had nearly lost custody of Joshua after she overdosed on the floor of a Burger King bathroom while Joshua was stuck in his booster chair, chicken nuggets, fries, and orange drink on the table in front of him. Joshua didn’t even cry, just stared out the window at cars leaving the drive-thru and eyed the moms, wondering where his went. She nearly died on the floor of the locked bathroom that had to be busted open.

  After she stole her mom’s checkbook and wrote $3,000 worth of bad checks, the bank pressed charges. Josh’s dad went to jail, but rather than join him, Amy received a sentence to drug court. First expectation was twenty-one days in a residential treatment center, then intensive outpatient counseling. Every two weeks, she stood before the judge to discuss her status. She had to visit probation each week and was ca
lled in for drug screens at random.

  And she had to agree to surprise home visits.

  It went well, I would tell Becca. I’m aligning myself with her, best I can, but keeping a distance (you know I’m not good at keeping distance).

  But the boy, Becca. You should have seen him—such a precious thing. I want us to have a child like him someday. No, I'm not getting pregnant, you're not getting pregnant. It might be a sin to bring a child into this world, but it's a worse sin to leave children who are already born to suffer.

  Being in Amy’s house was like visiting my own childhood home. I was so familiar with the air inside a heroin household. I could detect things, sense things, sniff things out, and something still didn't smell exactly right. Amy still had a trace of that heroin film over her skin that addicts can't escape. She seemed stuck with that nervous twitch that happens in early recovery, always fragile, tip-toeing on the sharp edge of sobriety.

  Whispers in my head, familiar chatter I could usually ignore but now growing in pitch, fed more suspicions.

  In all our time together, including the day she faced years in prison if the judge didn’t grant her drug court, I’d never seen her that nervous. Every week she moves among people with badges with a quiet, growing confidence, but not tonight. Tonight, she was fixated on the police officer out front just in case he’s needed. Her body language was full of fluttering nerves, her arms continually crossing and uncrossing. She kept poking her fingers into her back pockets while I looked through the nooks and crannies of her new home.

  When I see someone with a badge, I pat my pockets to see if I have some dope.

  Piper says you should come back soon. It’s when you leave things happen.

  I needed to go back.

  My arms turned the wheel before another synapse fired in my brain. I took a right turn into a dollar store parking lot, a quick circle, and I was on my way back. I would think of the excuse for my return when I got there, but barging back into Amy’s life was my job. It was needed. I didn’t want anything to sabotage my hopes. I wanted Joshua’s prayers answered. I was the answer.

  I parked in the driveway. Officer Renfrew was long gone. I bounced up the front porch, knocked. Waited. Knocked. Waited. No way could they have gone right to sleep or left. They were in there.

  I didn’t wait for an invite. I opened the door.

  Quiet.

  And stillness. Enough that I could hear the sound of dust settling. Crouched behind the green chair, Joshua sat with his knees pulled into his chest. I hadn’t noticed how skinny he was, wiry legs, wiry arms, like Piper, too skinny to put a needle into, and at that moment, too terrified to get up from his safe spot against the wall.

  “Joshua, what happened? Where’s your mom?”

  Joshua pointed, his arm straight as a street sign, his motion commanding. I obeyed. I walked straight to the bathroom, the most dangerous room in any house.

  I wasn’t going to knock. Wasn’t going to ask to be invited in. I opened the door, praying all I’d see would be Amy’s look of surprise as she brushed her teeth, and I’d leave with humble apologies. Amy’s anger would be righteous, and her belief that those with badges abuse their power confirmed.

  The door swung open, and the image exploded like a fireball. Amy looked up at me.

  The syringe dangling from her vein, the look on her face, the scent of despair, the sound of her gasp—it all hit me like a flash of lightning, blinding my eyes and searing into my skull. My flesh sprung icy goosebumps, tiny hairs stood on end. Bile burned in my gut and rose into my mouth. Amy had abandoned her child same as if she’d left him wrapped up in a dumpster, and the anger was a shotgun blast into my brain stem. The explosion shot power through me, made me get up into her face.

  I took her hand in mine and traced the flesh of her arm. I thought of ways I might rip the skin off her bones, forcing the snake to shed its skin.

  “Do you know what I am going to do to you?”

  The voice didn’t feel like mine, didn’t sound like mine. The words themselves tasted foul. Something else was coming out of my mouth.

  I inched my finger up her arm towards the needle. Her skin trembled at my touch. I plucked the syringe out of her vein. My hand acted on instinct and closed around the needle, making a fist, with the sharp metal point sticking out of my knuckles like a claw.

  The sword stabbed with sweet efficiency into her eye—the first of many.

  The rage that followed was a bloody nightmare, forgotten in content but not in tone. It was a nuclear explosion of anger and rage, and after it ran out of fuel, I was left staring at the bathroom mirror at the strange sight I’d become.

  Ugly and twisted, a face as disfigured as the emotions and hurt that hid beneath. The beast still talked to me in my dreams, whispered to me from the dark places, spoke through the crevices at the bottom of my skull, but it hadn’t shown itself since I was a child. It was back and awake. The killer again had shown her face.

  Joshua was at the doorway, staring at the bloody carcass that used to be his mom but now lay on the floor in a pool of heroin-tainted blood. When he finally turned to look at me, the Lizard, the chameleon, I wondered if he saw my true face—the face I first saw so many years ago.

  CHAPTER SEVEN:

  Lizard, 18 years previous, One Year After the Car Accident

  Mom and Dad were fighting about what to do with me, and their voices were like bouncy balls banging off the walls. I was in bed with a blanket wrapped around my head like a bonnet, but I could still hear their voices through the door.

  “Lizard’s dead asleep. Come on. Let’s go.”

  “We’re not leaving her alone.”

  “Then just let me go score.”

  “You always take too long.”

  “I’m not leaving you alone again with Bucky.”

  I wanted them to leave and let me sleep, but they didn’t, so I got out of bed and went into the kitchen. I started pouring a bowl of Reese’s Puffs, pretending I hadn’t heard them arguing.

  “Stop that, Lizard,” Mom said. “We’re going out for donuts. We have to stop by a friend’s house, and then donuts. You okay with that?”

  It didn’t matter if I was okay with it, but I did want a donut.

  We drove through empty streets, the clock on the car with 5:52 glowing in red. Misty rain seemed stuck in the air, and I watched drops stream down the window until we finally parked on the sad street. It was early morning, still dark outside, and I wished I was at home. Stars glistened and burned in the black sky. The houses on this street seemed faded and grey, some empty and abandoned with bricks falling off and roofs burnt up.

  My dad stood at the door and knocked so hard it sounded like his knuckles were made of metal. I clung to my mom’s legs.

  No answer, but I could hear music coming from inside.

  My dad leaned forward with a huff and banged louder. I finally heard deadbolts and locks being undone, and a man appeared at the open door.

  “God damn if it ain’t Trey and Kate, here for breakfast,” he said. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his pants hung down so I could see his underwear. A gun was tucked inside his waistband. I wondered if this was the person they called their friend. I was hiding behind Mom’s leg. His eyes looked down at me in surprise.

  “And the whole family is here. Fucking special.”

  “Not my idea,” said my mom, wrapping an arm around me.

  I could feel my dad’s nerves rattle as he spoke. “I know it's early, but we're sick. You got new shit last night, I know that. I got money.”

  “Not ready yet, still cutting, weighing and packing, but if you want to wait, come right into our lobby.”

  My dad shuffled his feet.

  “How long?” my mom asked. “We just wanna score and go home.”

  “Take as long as it takes, you come back, or you wait, but this shit gonna blow you out.”

  We went inside. Mom held my hand.

  The house was small, like ours, just one TV room and a ki
tchen next to it, and it was stinky, like an old laundry pile. There were at least ten people inside, some of them smoking cigarettes and it made everything look hazy. I could feel eyes buzz around me like flies, and I could see sadness sweating from their skin. Two were younger than the rest and sat in front of the TV playing Xbox football, saying the F word back and forth. Everyone else was just waiting, watching, smoking.

  I recognized their look. They were sick. Sick like my mom and dad.

  “Fucking Bakers. Why’d you let him inside?” someone shouted from the kitchen. “Weighing this up, and then you can have some, but sit your ass down first.”

  His voice was so loud that everyone looked. He was the commander inside this place, I could tell. He was staring right into me, like he knew me, recognized me from someplace I wasn't supposed to be. I clawed up my mom like she was a tree and I needed to climb to safety to survive—like Simba from the stampede in The Lion King.

  “Wait one fucking minute, Baker. You brought your kid to my house?” he said, staring me down.

  “We just want to score and go. It’s fine, she’s fine. Aren’t you fine, Lizard?” my dad said, and I knew he wanted me to say yes.

  “Fine? Fine? What the hell is wrong with you? Hell, this kid probably isn’t even your child. Might be mine the way Kate using that velvet purse of hers. Bringing a kid to a place like this… Shit, nobody worth being a parent would do that, don't deserve to be a parent… You hear that, kid? Your parents don't deserve you.”

  My dad grumbled angrily, like a thunderstorm far off nobody but me knew was coming. And with thunder comes lightning. Only the medicine would quiet his storm, and even though a car smashed into us leaving a drugstore once, I wished we could go there for his medicine like we used to, instead of a house like this.

  The first time I saw my dad using the needle he looked at me with his mouth hanging open and said, “No need to go to Walgreens anymore,” as if I should be happy for him. After that, nearly every morning, Mom and Dad found somewhere in the house to use the needle. Sometimes, I sensed them doing it in the other room behind closed doors because the house got a certain kind of quiet. Other times, I looked through the crack in the partly-open bathroom door and could see a slice of them angled in the mirror. Their faces were twisted, their eyes scary. I started seeing the syringes in the garbage and bruises on their arms. Their smiles happened less often, and even when the smiles showed up, they couldn't be trusted.