Creative Nonfiction: David Poses
#144
Dark brown carpet on the floor and halfway up walls. Frosted sconces with snowflakes etched into the glass. Bible-bibles and AA bibles in the lounge. Offices with placards on the doors. Names and titles. Therapist. The rapist.
Green bedroom. 4 beds. Popcorn ceiling. Unbreakable bathroom mirror. (Can’t slit wrists.)
One narrow, rectangular window; the kind you crank open (crank missing). Frost on screen. Random footprints in snow. Wall of pine trees. Industrial smoke -> overcast sky. I exhale onto the glass, draw a smiley face in the condensation, and watch it evaporate in deafening silence.
My eyes are heavy. They refuse to close.
I don’t know how to go to sleep, only pass out.
What if my body doesn’t learn to shut down on its own?
What if my brain never shuts up?
Why am I here?
#143
A security guard snaps his sausage fingers into a surgical glove. Specks of talcum dust dance in a beam of sunlight. As the perfunctory welcome to rehab bag search commences, Ron – my counselor – plants his hands on the wall and stretches and lays out the quote unquote program.
Working with Godand people whose existence can be irrefutably proven, I’m supposed to accept the things I cannot change, change the things I cannot accept, and work the 12 steps, the first of which involve admitting powerlessness over alcohol (it doesn’t matter that I can count my experiences with alcohol on one finger), believing that only God can restore me to sanity, and turning your life and will over to Him. Then I make a moral inventory, admit my wrongs, and ask God to remove character defects and make amends with whomever I wronged whilst in the throes of addiction. Finally, I’ll have a spiritual awakening and carry the message to other alcoholics.
God. Santa Claus-for-grown-ups didn’t do shit for my Mom’s cancer, but He helps junkies, drunks and crackheads.
Dave. Addiction is a disease.
Mom didn’t choose to have cancer. I choose to stick needles in my arms. Depression is pain. Heroin is a pain killer.
Depression is an excuse, Dave. You’re rationalizing.
Is there another word for rational rationale?
Ron gapes at me in teapot stance; hands on backs of hips. He says I’m here because Santa rescued me from some nebulous, figurative place called rock bottom.
Unless you wanna end up dead in a ditch on the side of the road, you put your life and will in God’s hands.
What if I get down with God and relapse? Will He take the blame?
Dave.
How can I put my life and will in anyone’s hands if I’m powerless?
Dave.
Okay, if I put my life and will in God’s hands, aren’t I still powerless?
Dave.
What if He’s a morning person with bad taste in music and a yin for backgammon?
Dave.
What if He calls me Dave?
Elbow-deep in my duffle bag, Security goes Contraband; yoinks my Discman and CDs.
Dave. Dave. Dave. If I call your folks, are they gonna say you knew we don’t allow music to be brought in?
Why can’t we –
Because it’s a trigger, Dave. Music is a trigger.
I already gave up the only thing that ever comforted me. Now I’m giving up the only thing that came close.
#142
Mom didn’t say where someone would meet me, only that someonewould. Is this a test?
I go downstairs to baggage claim. An older guy has a sign with my name on it. Pete.
My duffel is the first thing out of the chute. I follow Pete to a minivan at the farthest reaches of the frozen parking lot. No radio.
Pete reads street signs aloud for half an hour. A Mazda with a car bra on its hood passes us.
If the point is to avoid scratches and unsightly blemishes, why is this guy covering the space he wants to protect with something bigger and unsightlier?
Got me, Dave.
At a red light, Pete hits the windshield with fluid and fashions his hand into a visor and watches the blades do battle with a splotch of bird shit. Then he looks at me.
I got the disease, too. Just so you know.
?
Yessireebobeereno; looking for answers at the bottom of a bottle till God took me in His arms.
Fuck.
#139
No blood in the foyer. No broken glass or loose change.
No idea what happened or why Dad randomly showed up last night.
Thank you?
Dave, the people you really need to thank are Howie and Joey. You wouldn’t be going to Hazelden if Joey hadn’t made a phone call on your behalf.
The garage opens in the middle of Dad’s spiel. Of course Mom cut her trip short.
Joey is aunt Jo. Mom knew. Jo was a junkie. Now she’s a lawyer.
Mom and Dad on the couch, a cushion apart. Me on the floor. Hugging my knees. Digging into my cuticles. Trying to remember the last time the three of us were in the same room.
Mom sobs and asks questions. Why? When?
Dad clasps his hands behind his head and closes his eyes.
I swallow hard and choose my words carefully.
Rob had some heroin. I asked to try it.
When, David?
I don’t know. A couple months ago?
Mom buries her head in her hands and bawls. Dad gets up and roars.
He’s in the city every night, associating with club kids and known dope fiends. How did you not know he was fucked up?
I want to say she didn’t know I was fucked up because I wasn’t fucked up.
I want to say not taking Prozac was self-destructive. Heroin actually works but since it’s illegal, taking it is self-destructive and I’m a drug addict?
I want to point out that the Declaration of Independence grants me an unalienable right to pursue happiness.
This whole debacle happened because I decided to quit. Is rehab really necessary?
Robin. Do you want to bury your son? Dave will be dead in a week if he doesn’t go.
I agree to go. Dad says something about tracking down my car and leaves. Mom hugs me.
Please. Promise me you’ll never do…I can’t even say it…that shit…again.
I promise.
#138
Bunny rabbits on TV, going bok bok b’kok like chickens/pooping chocolate eggs. Load up on Cadbury’s Crème Eggs. Easter is coming.
I hit the red button next to the bed. A nurse appears.
I want to go home.
Nurse basically moonwalks into the hall; gets Dr, who says the relapse rate is extremely high for heroin addicts who don’t complete a detox blah blah blah blah.
How long have you been on the smack?
About three years; started in the summer between 10th and 11th grade.
And your folks just found out?
It’s not had to hide. Who thinks the captain of the tennis team is a junkie?
You do a lot of other drugs?
Just heroin.
I yank out the IV and leave. Dr. follows, whisper-yelling disclaimers. United Hospital isn’t liable if I leave against medical advice and something happens. He makes me sign a form in the lobby. I call Dad from a payphone.
#137
Thought I was dreaming when I heard Dad’s voice. Switchblade authority.
Wake up and smell the coffee, Robin. Your son’s a dope fiend.
I start coughing. Everything hurts. This fat guy comes out of the kitchen, scratching his inner cheek with his pinky nail.
Hey, yo. Bob. The dope fiend is up.
Dark outside. Clock says 6:06. AM? PM?
Dad appears; phone cradled in his neck. All gray hair. Narrow-eyed once over.
Bob. Whaddaya want me to do?
I don’t know, Howie. Sit on him so he doesn’t try it again?
Howie tackles me to the floor and plants his giant ass into the base of my spine; hot dog and bad coffee breath. I squirm and laugh. I coughed up bile. My nose starts bleeding. Howie peels me off the floor. He rubs my shoulders and nods at a broken glass jar and loose change at the end of a trail of blood from the kitchen to the front door; on the tiles and the mat, caked into the grout.
How much dope did you think you’d score with that?
Dad returns.
I take it the ex-wife wun’t too thrilled, Bob?
She can’t help it. It’s hard not to sound batshit crazy when you’re batshit crazy.
Theycarry me out of the house like a cheap rug and throw me in the back of Dad’s BMW. A blur of strip malls and dirty snowbanks. It’s still dark when we pull into the ER entrance @ United Hosp. Dashboard clock: 7:45. PM.
Dad lets Howie and me out under the overhang. Columns. I remember Mr. Tacelly in 5th grade. Doric. Ionic. The other one.
A nurse cuts off my clothes without explanation and gives me a gown that leaves little to the imagination in the rear. She puts me in a wheelchair and rolls me down a hall. Phony wooden placards on doors; names and titles etched in white. Therapist. The rapist.
Third floor double room. Turquoise shower curtain in the middle. My moaning roommate watches The Price Is Right on mute.
Nurse sticks in an IV w/ a sympathetic grin.
You might feel a slight pinch.
Howie says, you think this is tough? Try kicking in a friggin jail cell around 20 hard motherfuckers.
Dad. Out of breath. Hunched over. Hands on thighs.
Nurse says to get comfortable. You’ll be here a few days unless-
Dad says, yep. Joey’s on it. He looks at Howie.
Foamy white ceiling tiles with Rorschach pattern water stains. Florida, no panhandle.
Does anyone see the narwhal on the ceiling?
Crickets.
Mom would’ve seen the narwhal. Mom would’ve found other things, too. Everyone leaves.
Last time I was here, Mom had cancer. The first time. Dad took Daniel and me to see her after surgery. Who says, probably when their kid asks if his mother is going to die? Nobody was in the booth where you pay to get out of the parking lot. Dad tried to drive around the gate and cursed up a storm. Daniel and I cheered in the back seat.
Corinthian. The third column.
#136
Electric currents course through my body.
Ants march up and down my spine.
Air is a frozen razor, slicing my tight, moist skin.
The last vestiges of dope race from every pore and orifice.
My half-dead eyes watch from the bathroom mirror. Sunken cheeks; pale, pasty skin; short, brittle, dyed orange hair.
Seconds take hours to pass. My bones ache. Head is stuffy. Sore throat.
Sex Pistols cranked on the stereo. Bodies. Johnny Rotten screaming about a squirming, gurgling bloody mess.
I remember the empty bag in the trash under the kitchen sink; fish it out; scrape.
Why do junkies in movies go through such an elaborate process to fix a hit?
Powder + distilled water. Spoon. Mash with flat end of register. No heat. No drawing back and pulling blood out of my body for no reason.
Vein pops. Slam the needle in. Phantom taste of dope in my mouth. Body temp normalizes.
On TV, a kid hits a baseball over a fence in a little league game. His proud father charges onto the field and tousles his hair. Cut to McDonalds® for a Happy Meal.
I close my eyes. This has to stop.
Photographer Bio: Robert Cross is a writer and graduate student in the MFA in Fiction program at San Diego State University. His work has been published in Magee Park Poets Anthology, pacificReview, and Fiction International. He lives in San Diego and is originally from Hollywood, CA.
Oh man. . SO Powerful. I can completely relate to how he feels. Is there more to the story?? I love how he writes. Hope he’s ok.
Such bold, brave writing. You should write a book!