Five Boroughs 01 - Sutphin Boulevard (32 page)

I shouldn’t be this freaked out. My father had known a lot of people, and they both had heroin, and likely methadone, in common.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Didn’t see a reason to and couldn’t figure out a good time to do it.”

“Were you at his funeral?”

“Yeah. You were so out of it that I left you alone. I spoke to your brother. That fucking kid looks just like Joe. It was eerie.”

“Imagine living with that resemblance.”

“Must be hard.”

I shrugged. I wondered about a lot, but I couldn’t verbalize any of it without inviting a slew of questions. How close had they been when my father died? Did they see each other often? Had he known my dad was sick? And most of all, I wondered if my father had ever talked about me and Raymond during those great expanses of nothingness and radio silence. The times when it had seemed as though I didn’t have a father at all.

“How’s Ray doing, anyway?”

“Same as usual.”

“Getting by?”

“He’s holding it together better than me,” I admitted. “But his ascension to adulthood is a little delayed.”

“Huh.” Jones slid his hands out of his pockets and toyed with his lighter. “Your father talked about you both sometimes. He thought Raymond would turn out like him.”

Wasn’t irony just lovely?

“Raymond is a big baby because our parents set it up that way.”

“How?”

“Low expectations, coddling….” When Jones frowned, I hastened to add on to the harshness of my statement. “But I think that’s starting to change. He’s not a bad kid.”

“Does he have a girlfriend?”

I shrugged. “Not a serious one. He doesn’t date much. Just fucks around.”

“Good friends?”

Raymond’s friends were just like him or worse, and the ones who weren’t tended to lose interest after a while. I didn’t particularly want to say all that, so I stayed quiet and made a vague gesture with my hand. Jones seemed to get my drift.

“Let me ask you a question.” He went on without waiting for encouragement. “Before your parents died, had the drinking ever gotten out of hand?”

“No.”

“So if you didn’t need a drink permanently fixed in your hand before, why are you telling yourself you need it now?”

“I don’t tell myself that.”

“Don’t you?”

I wanted to escape the conversation, but it would be pointless. I was stuck with him for the next two weeks, and there was no way he was going to let up. Not now that I knew he had a vested interest in my sobriety. And how ridiculous was it that someone genuinely giving a shit bothered me?

“I know you think I’m being harsh, but I’m trying to have a real talk instead of that scripted bullshit we do in group. I know your family, I knew your father, and I know you have the need to drink in your blood like I have the craving for that hard shit imprinted in my brain, but you have to try. You have potential to be so much better and you’re going to waste it.”

“Why does everyone say that?” I wondered aloud. “I have potential for
what
? And how does me drinking take it away?”

An impatient look stole over Jones’s features. “Tell me something, kid—why do you drink?”

“Because I like it.”

“I’m not talking about doing shots on a Friday night,” Jones growled out, poking my arm. “I mean why do you like to get so wasted that you end up in a place like this? What happens to make you throw back that first drink?”

I had reflected on that question multiple times since stepping foot inside the facility.

“When things snowball….” I paused, trying to put into words the thoughts that ran through my mind every day. It was difficult, and that was a big reason why I stayed quiet during therapy. “When something happens that I can’t fix or control, I get so stressed out that I need to make myself shut down. My mind goes and goes and goes.” I twirled my finger near my ear. “I can’t sleep, so I stay up and think, and then I’m fucking exhausted all day, which makes things worse. Everything compounds until I’m ready to explode, and all I can do is replay those same shitty thoughts again and again. So what it comes down to is me wanting that to end, and it doesn’t until I can stop being me and step outside myself. Outside my problems. Outside of everything.”

“And drinking gets you there?”

“It does.”

Jones nodded in understanding. “So you prefer a blackout to being you?”

“Sometimes, yes. And I know how it sounds.”

“It sounds like you want a black hole, not real life. A big gap where a memory used to be. And when people tell me that, I wonder how long it will be until they start wanting to get to that point indefinitely.”

“I don’t want to die,” I snapped. “I don’t know why everyone takes it to that level.”

Jones huffed out a laugh. “You don’t want to die, but you don’t want to be conscious. At that point, what’s the difference?”

I started to dispute his claim but faltered when a rebuff didn’t immediately come to mind.
Was
there a difference between death and a nice, extended blackout? With the blackout, I would inevitably come to my senses, but these days I woke up only to start drinking my way to oblivion again. And either way, my actions, my thoughts, and the things happening around me were blanked out and forgotten until there were no memories left to have.

Jones leapt on the pause and continued.

“Can you function when you’re in that state? Can you talk to your brother, your friends, your students, or a woman? Can you dance or laugh or fuck? No. You’re not living when you spend life in a void.” He leaned closer, intense and foreboding, and daring me to disagree. “Am I wrong?”

“No,” I said. The word came out hollow. “You’re not wrong.”

“So then…. Dime.”

“No sé.”

Jones tilted his head to the side.

“Look, I don’t know what you want me to say,” I said. “Drinking has always been my go-to when planet Earth gets too stressful. It’s just that lately my need to get the hell out of Dodge has become overwhelming. I know I’m messing up. Believe me, I am well fucking aware. And that’s why I’m here. I just don’t know what to do about it. I could stop, but that doesn’t mean inside”—I tapped my chest—“the need is going to go away.”

“It doesn’t go away. I said that before. But you have to be strong enough to understand that and deal with it, and try to find other ways to handle this fucked-up life when your thoughts start spinning in the wrong direction.”

The sound of a door shutting caused me to jump, but nobody appeared in the courtyard. Jones pulled out another cigarette.

“There has to be something that made you happy before all of this happened.”

“Maybe.”

Jones flicked his Zippo, the lick of the flame extending high. “Think about it. Now.”

I quit staring at his cigarette with envy and looked at the distant shape of the abandoned hospital. My mind returned to the previous winter. Before I’d lost my mother to cancer, before Clive dumped me, before the doomed trip to Italy, and before everything happened with my father, what had made me happy?

Teaching, for certain. I loved my job even if I didn’t love my administration. Going to work and seeing the results of my efforts gave me pride. I loved working with my students, and going to work had never been a chore.

Had I been happy with Clive? I scraped my jagged nail alongside the bench and pondered the relationship that had ended with zero fanfare.

I hadn’t even missed Clive over the summer. I’d been too busy worrying about my father and thinking about Nunzio. The new developments with my best friend had managed to overshadow that I was single again, but this time, at thirty-two. I’d expected a frantic, quarter-life crisis but that moment of “what the hell am I doing wrong?” had never come. My thoughts had rerouted to an option I’d never even considered before: my best friend, my one-and-only, my fucking soul mate. Nunzio.

Nunzio, without a question, made me happy. He always had. I wondered how much different the past month would have played out if I’d allowed myself to find solace in him rather than ducking and dodging the reality of our evolving relationship because I was afraid it would end up in the same pile of failures as my previous attempts.

I had no delusions that being with Nunzio would have been a magical cure-all for my problems, but maybe I wouldn’t have been so dependent on drink after drink if I’d been with him, instead of isolated and slowly going insane in my room.

“Christ.” I scrubbed at my face, feeling weary and subdued. “Why does it take hitting rock bottom for me to have a goddamned epiphany?”

“Because it’s easy to ignore things before you reach that point.”

That was for damn sure.

Week Three

T
IME
PASSED
in uneven lurches.

At certain points the days sped by at a rate that surprised me. The sun rose, signaling breakfast, and by the time I was departing the second group session of the day, it had set below the horizon. With nothing to do but follow my daily schedule, I became keenly aware of how few hours of daylight there were in February.

I took my vitamins, tried to cooperate with my counselors, and developed a rapport with most of the other patients during group sessions. My grudging comments became known as the moments when “Michael dropped knowledge,” and Jones made sure to call me out at least twice a session. The days went by quicker once I stopped watching the clock, but at night, time staggered along once again.

I hadn’t talked to Nunzio since that day in the teachers’ lounge, and he hadn’t returned my call. Raymond claimed Nunzio asked after me almost every day, but it wasn’t the same as hearing his voice.

I couldn’t stop wondering whether the message I’d left him had been good enough. Or whether I had said the wrong thing while blurting out my feelings in a rush.

I spent hours replaying our last conversation in my head. In turn, I was furious with him and myself. How could he have taken me seriously? Did he really believe I could so casually advise him to walk out of my life? It seemed stupid for him to have taken my words to heart. I wanted to sneak into the office, call him, and force him to listen to me. Force him to respond, and hope that he would give me another chance. That he hadn’t already given up on me.

I didn’t, but when I woke up from yet another dream about his hands and mouth and gorgeous eyes focused on me (or sometimes, someone else), I was tempted.

No amount of group therapy, of discussions about family and self-expression and triggers could ease my frustration. And every day that went by, I wondered if he would get used to my absence. The idea was terrifying.

It ratcheted up several notches when my one visitation day arrived. I knew he wouldn’t show up, but I found myself obsessively primping in front of the mirror regardless. I wanted to look decent if I saw him—wanted him to see that I wasn’t as much of a mess as I had been last time we spoke.

Drew watched me fuss with my hair, smirking.

“Is your man coming?”

“I don’t have a man.”

He rolled onto his back, watching me upside down from the bed. “Is the guy you have sexy dreams about coming?”

“I doubt it. I haven’t talked to him since I came here.”

“Why not?”

“Because—” Because I was a dickhead. “I don’t know. Just because.”

“Man, you’re all agitated and wound up, aren’t you?” Drew rolled over again. I could feel his critical gaze wandering over my outfit. “I would love to see you in something other than sweatpants and T-shirts. Your body is sick.”

I snorted and looked over my shoulder. He was giving me a comic leer. “Shut up, Drew. Why don’t you get out of bed and do something constructive?”

“Like what?”

“Go find Carina and look at those GED papers I had Marg print out for you guys.”

“Oh my God, you’re obsessed.”

I turned away from the mirror. “You should be obsessed too. I don’t know what you think you’re going to do without even a GED. Let me put it to you like this—”

“And here we go….” Drew covered his ears.

I kept talking, raising my voice. “If Starbucks and Barnes and Noble are full of kids with college degrees because those poor suckers are having trouble finding anything else, where do you think someone without a high school diploma will end up?”

“I
know
! You’ve told me like thirty thousand times, Mr. Rodriguez.”

“So stop dicking around and go look at the paperwork.”

Drew stuck out his tongue. “I’ll do it later. I’ll need a distraction, anyway.”

He didn’t say the last part until I was halfway through the door, but I still paused to look back. I wanted to say something uplifting about his lack of visitors, but I failed at compassion, and Drew wrinkled his nose when he caught me staring. He made a run-along gesture as if sensing my pity and wanting none of it.

The staff had cleaned the cafeteria, pulled the tables apart, and decorated each one with a single, crappy flower. I sought out Raymond and did a double take. David was sitting next to him. My disappointment and bitterness momentarily flitted away.

In his black hoodie and with his long hair hidden beneath a fitted Yankees cap, Raymond was a total contrast to David’s golden hair, navy pea coat, and tight khakis. They were a seriously odd couple.

I grinned after taking a seat across from them.

“How did this happen?”

“He—” Raymond started to say.

“I found him on Facebook,” David interrupted. He looked proud of himself. “And made him tell me where you were and how I could come see you.”

“You didn’t make me do anything. I just told you.”

“I still found out.”

“It’s not like it was rocket science. It’s Facebook.”

David rolled his eyes. “You’re just as grumpy as Michael.”

Raymond shook his head. “This dude is annoying.”

“You’re rude and should take your hat off.”

I looked between them, unable to wipe the grin off my face. “Should I leave you two alone?”

David smirked. Raymond just sneered.

“You look good, Michael,” David said. “I’m not just saying that, either. The last time I saw you—”