I’m in Jeff’s bedroom. There’s porn on the TV and Jeff’s wife, Arlene, is talking about a threesome after we get high. It’s a tempting offer but I’ve just loaded enough coke and heroin into a syringe to kill a rhino. I know it’s too much. Know, too, that I will be leaving my mother to care for my kids, their mother long gone, already on her own death march. I sit on the edge of Jeff’s saggy bed, looking at that clear liquid in the thin plastic cylinder with its thick black numbers, rolling the syringe between two fingers, hoping that I will feel the weight of my decision, the lifetime of suffering I will cause. But I don’t feel anything and I stick the needle in my arm and press the plunger and watch as the world gets very bright and then washes out and even though I am still breathing there are no thoughts in my head, only a siren that keeps getting louder and louder, and I see the things around me but cannot name them and I have no idea where or who I am.
Two years later, I pick up Ed at Logan Airport. We drive through the city’s maze of narrow streets. He takes in the weathered cars and crowded rows of triple-deckers, mostly brown or green or gray, their little square lawns host to neglected shrubs and the occasional scrawny tree. Well, Ed says, it’s not home. But at least you can smell the ocean. I smile. We’re life-long friends, using buddies turned recovering addicts. Him first. Then me. We don’t talk about it. But he saved my life. Dragged my sorry ass to detox when I wanted to die.
We show up at one of the recovery meetings I attend, where I’ve been asked to speak to celebrate my second anniversary clean. I talk about moving from Philadelphia to Boston, pitching the idea of a little adventure to the kids. On most days, I feel grateful to be alive. Lucky, I say, looking at Ed, who sits next to me in this dank church basement, its cheap paneled walls draped with bright banners that praise Jesus. I have friends. People who understand what it means to use drugs against their will and lie to everyone they care about to get them. The same people who’ve taught me that a life without drugs can be worth living.
I am hopeful, I say, but I’m also struggling with my past. Can’t seem to let it go. It eats at me. I hate myself for the things I’ve done and wonder if I will ever feel better. The night that Kathy K. overdosed on Valium and Tuinal in my mother’s bathroom is often on my mind. Instead of calling an ambulance, my friends and I, just teenagers at the time, dropped her on her father’s doorstep. She survived. But leaving her to die has left me feeling like I don’t deserve the life that I’m living. Kathy K. almost didn’t get a second chance. Why should I? There are the countless times when I used nail files to sharpen dull needles or fired up cotton shots, always thick with cut, pure poison running through my veins, the kids fast asleep in the bedroom next to mine. I was willing to do anything to get high and the desperation disgusts me. One night, the kids’ mother and I, wasted on Quaaludes and whiskey and driving down a four-lane highway, fought about spending the rent money on meth. To settle the argument, I swung the car into the oncoming lanes, somehow missing the approaching traffic but sailing off an embankment into the woods below. I totaled the car and destroyed a tree. We both walked away unscathed. That time, the kids weren’t with us. But how often did I drive with them when I was blind drunk? They must have known that Daddy wasn’t well, yet what choice did they have but to get in? I had no business having kids, I say. I’ve fucked them up.
I tell this room full of recovering junkies and crackheads, stoners and drunks, that I can’t stop my son, Sean, from lighting paper airplanes on fire in our tiny apartment and beating the crap out of his classmates. The principal’s threatening to throw him out of school and the landlord’s threatening to put all of us on the street. I’m holding down a job, I say, but I don’t make enough money to pay the bills. The insurance on my shitbox has run out and I can’t afford to renew it. I worry about getting stopped with the kids in the car. They’ve seen enough, I say. My youngest, Jessie, in particular, she’s fragile and misses her mother, always burying her head in the secondhand books I buy at the bargain bookstore, the only place she wants to visit. Sometimes she withdraws so deeply I forget she’s right in front of me.
Despite all of this, I say, we’ll get through it as long as I stay clean. Somehow, it always seems to work out. It’s not like things are easy. But I can only do my best and so far that seems to be good enough. Affirming nods around the room fill me with momentary hope. I can do this with your help, I say, and then I start to cry. Ed puts his hand on my shoulder. Someone shouts, we love you, Chris.
Here’s what I don’t say: on a sunny afternoon at Castle Island, while eating lemon Italian ice with the kids, I let some of the ice melt into my spoon. For a moment, I fantasize that it’s uncut coke and clean china white. I feel that old familiar tingle at the base of my neck, the queasiness in my belly just before I slip the needle into my arm. Blue skies. Sailboats zip across the bay. As the kids race up and down the beach, trying to outrun one another, Sandra and Sean rushing past Jessie, I’m thinking about the detours I’ve been taking through the seedy sections of the city, on my way home from work, eyeing the corners, seeing who’s peddling what. Of course, there’s always Bobby in shipping. I’ve kept my distance but I’ve been watching him. Wouldn’t take but a word.
Forget grateful and lucky. I’m angry. The brain fog has lifted and I see the wreckage that lies behind me. I also recognize the work ahead. I don’t like it. What’s the point of staying clean if there’s always more work to do? I’m supposed to be selfless and yet focused on myself, attending to the needs of my kids and helping other addicts, but also changing the self-destructive behaviors that could lead to relapse. It’s exhausting. I’m tired of getting up at five a.m. to make breakfast, pack lunches, and shuttle the kids off to school, only to drive thirty-five miles in rush hour traffic to lug car parts around a warehouse all day, then drive home to pick up the kids at the babysitter’s and drag them to an early meeting, before finally getting back to our cramped third-story walkup, where I help them with their homework, make dinner, and get them ready for bed. I don’t want to answer the phone every time a newcomer calls for a ride or to complain about the shitheads in his halfway house who have stolen his cigarettes. I’m sick of trying to make sense of my feelings, which are indifferent to circumstance and wildly unpredictable. I want to sleep around and justify stealing money from the petty cash till and ignore the bills that pile up on my kitchen table and punch Danny G. in the face every time he explains his fortuitous life in terms of God’s will—the arrogant prick, he’s either psychotic or just can’t imagine another explanation for his dumb fucking luck. But when I listen to a woman in the meeting talk about the shame of eating handfuls of her dog’s pain medication in a desperate attempt to fend off dope-sickness and a father of two young children say that he’s had three cocaine-related heart attacks and still can’t stop using, I’m reminded that the work is what keeps me alive.
Addiction has no past. There’s no recovered or cured, only a hard-won daily reprieve from its torment. It’s part of me, in my DNA, some genetic command to self-destruct. My only chance to survive is to act against my own nature. To stay clean I need to stay ahead of the bad decisions that never seem so bad when I make them. Don’t go looking for dope and I won’t find any. Don’t contact the people I got high with and I won’t use with them. Walk away from the hot newcomer who is looking for a little company to help her get through the night and I won’t hate myself for taking advantage of another desperate addict. When I keep things from Ed—how much money I’ve spent on gourmet coffee when the kids have eaten only toast for breakfast or how I’ve been flirting with getting high, entertaining the fantasy that this time it will be different—for reasons I can’t explain, I need to fess up. Practice honesty. Lying fuels my self-destruction. Lie to someone and get away with it and pretty soon I’m lying to myself and thinking I’m getting over. It doesn’t take long before I’m at the bar saying it’s only a beer. What’s the harm in that?
So later that night, sitting on the ugly green couch I bought at my neighbor’s yard sale, I look Ed in the eye and tell him that I’ve been dating a woman who does a little bump now and then. She’s sweet, I say. Kind. Likes the kids and has one of her own. The blow isn’t a problem. Weekend thing. Besides, she wears these tight jeans and white tees, powder blue Cons. Man, she looks good. Yeah? Ed says, shaking his head. I came all this way to hear you tell me about some weekend warrior’s wardrobe? How long, you think, before you’re shooting speedballs in her bathroom?
The next day I break it off with the woman and tell myself that this is what recovery looks like: making the hard decisions that put my kids’ lives first. I know I need to come clean about wanting to use. I’ve learned that diming myself out makes me responsible for the crazy shit that runs around in my head. But I can’t quite get it out of my mouth, like somehow saying aloud that I want to use confirms that I am what I think I am: a hopeless junkie destined to die with a needle sticking from his arm.
When the phone rings, I know it’s Jeff before I pick it up. Don’t do it, I tell myself. But, of course, I do. I’m a loyal friend. Where you been? he asks. Ain’t heard a peep. I tell him that I’ve been working. Just got promoted to manager, I say. Busting my ass trying to give these kids a chance. Things are going really well. That’s righteous, bro, he says. But listen. Arlene and I are having a barbeque. Why don’t you drive down? The kids are invited, too. That way, you know, you won’t have to sweat it. We’re taking a break, anyway. Been too much heat in the neighborhood. I tell him that I’m starting my first semester of college in the fall, paid for by my work, and need the rest of the summer to prepare. I’m nervous, I say. I don’t know shit about business management. In his silence, I can sense his disappointment. College, huh? he says, finally. Bro, I’m so proud of you.
But a few weeks later there I am, sitting in Jeff’s small backyard, penned in by its rusted chain link fence, and talking with guys I haven’t seen in years. We’re reminiscing about days I would rather forget. Who’s dead, who’s in prison. I take in their leather vests and thick arms inked with tattoos. Meet their girlfriends and wives. They’re all big hair and long colorful nails. I watch all of them sip their cold beers. They disappear into the house and come out sniffling, their eyes a bit brighter than when they went in. Chatty. They tell me how good I look. Working out? they ask.
Charlie is playing with my kids. He’s HIV positive. Years ago, we used together. But I’ve been tested three times since getting clean. Negative. He looks good, bushy brown hair under his sweat-stained Phillies cap, and that thick goatee that has always made his mouth look too small for his face. Taut ropes of muscle shape his arms. He seems healthier now than when we were running the streets. I’m amazed, too, because so many of my friends went quickly. Diagnosis one day, coffin the next.
I should go. Grab the kids and drive home. Get as far away from here as possible. Maybe head over to Ed’s, where it’s safe. Confess my bad intentions. But Jeff calls me into the house before I can go anywhere. I linger, sitting in one of his ratty lawn chairs, its frayed straps tickling the crook of my knees. Charlie’s chasing Jessie around the yard, roaring like a lion, until Sandra and Sean tackle him. They’re giggling and screeching with delight. Sean stands up and makes a muscle-man pose. It’s a rare day when he’s happy. I know that if I go into that house I’m going to throw it all away. When I don’t move, Jeff nods, steps away from the door, and then closes it behind him.
I leave without using. I’ve done the right thing. But there’s no feeling good about it. I wanted to get high or I wouldn’t have been there. In fact, I feel ripped off. I’m suffering all the guilt of relapsing without any of the pleasure of using drugs. I am miserable and want to use more and more every day. I go to meetings and talk about the obsession. It’s relentless, I say. Maddening. An itch that I can’t scratch no matter what I do. Flirting. Fucking. Telling myself I’m staying clean for the kids. Nothing works. People assure me that it will pass. Hang on, dude, someone says. I’ve been there and got through it. You can, too. Focus on other people. Do things with your kids. Reach out to newcomers. But fuck that. There is no “through it.” There’s only one thing to do and I know exactly what it is.
I take a break from recovery and stop going to meetings. Start avoiding my friends. On the phone, I lie to Ed and tell him everything is fine. I never mention the barbeque. Meetings, meetings, meetings, I say. Until one Friday after work, I walk into a South End alley to cop an eight-ball of crack. It’s fine, I tell myself. Crack was never my thing. You know, I’m not shooting heroin.
One night. That’s it. After that first euphoric hit, I go straight to paranoid. Cocaine psychosis. But I keep hitting the pipe all night long, the kids asleep, the apartment quiet, every creak the sound of the cops climbing the stairwell preparing to bust down my door. I keep pulling back my shabby curtains, peeking onto the dimly lit street, looking for movement: cops hiding behind cars, maybe the flash of a burning cigarette in the doorway of the warehouse on the corner. They’re out there. I know it. Why can’t they just get it over with?
By morning, I’m hiding in a closet. The crack is gone but the psychosis remains. When the kids can’t find me, Sean frantically calls out my name. Sandra tries to calm him. Turns on the TV. She knows he could lose it at any moment. I force myself past our raggedy coats and out the closet door, make like I’ve been searching for a lost shoe. I can only imagine what they see, their father pale and panicked, his wild dilated eyes darting around the room, drawn toward the windows, as though some terror lies beyond them. They want breakfast. But I can barely breathe. The longer I stand in the kitchen the more claustrophobic and vulnerable I feel. I throw three bowls and a box of Cocoa Puffs on the table. You know where the milk and spoons are, I say. I’m sick. In the darkness of my room, I try to get it together. I’m too wacked to look for dope. Driving is out of the question. But I need to cut the edge or I’ll never make it through the day. Booze will have to do. It’s eight a.m. The corner liquor store opens at nine.
For weeks I go through the motions of living, caring for the kids as best I can and going to work. I want to die. Not because I’m using but because I’m not. I’ve been sucker-punched by my addiction again. Convinced that there was only one way to relieve the obsession. It was a lie, a lie I’ve told myself many times before but always seem to forget when I’m telling it. The drugs and booze offer no relief. Now I’m humiliated, a worthless piece of shit drowning in a cesspool of self-pity, too ashamed to go back to meetings. Until this moment, I hadn’t realized how far I’d come from that night in Jeff’s bedroom. Somehow, when I wasn’t looking, I’d gained a little self-respect, pride in staying clean. Hope, even. All that’s gone. The despair has returned and it won’t be long before the emptiness settles in.
But then one afternoon at the park, pushing Jessie on the swing, Sandra and Sean climbing the jungle gym—all of them too old for this kind of play, though it’s clear that they’re enjoying it—I hear a distant voice tell me that being clean isn’t just about staying off drugs. It’s about growing the fuck up. My self-pity is nothing but self-indulgent nonsense, the emotional response of a six-year-old who hasn’t gotten his way. My kids need me, me. If I’m going to teach them how to live I’ve got to learn how to do it myself.
So later that day, after weeks of fretting it, I call Ed and tell him about the relapse. What, he says, a smirk in his voice. You think this is news? Get back to meetings, dude, and I’ll be up to see you, soon.
At my first meeting I’m welcomed back by old friends. They’re glad to see me. I get hugs and words of encouragement, offers to get coffee after the meeting. I get a little lift from all the laughter in the room. People ask about the kids. But they don’t ask about the relapse. They know. Even the ones who have been recovering for fifteen or twenty years remember what it’s like trying to get clean. They look me in the eye and tell me I’m in the right place. You don’t ever have to go back to that misery, this one woman says. I know that she’s right, even if it’s hard to hear. If I want a better life for my kids and me—and I do—this is where I will find it. I know it as sure as I know I’m still breathing.
New Year’s Eve. The kids and I celebrate at home. It’s been a brutal winter and attending First Night is out of the question. We’ve been invited to a party thrown by one of my friends in recovery. But we decide against it. I make popcorn and we play board games and watch Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve on television. Just before midnight, they crash on the living room floor. I turn out the lights and look at them in the glow of the muted TV. Sean breathing softly, at peace only in his sleep, his hands and feet already too big for his body, he was determined to make it past midnight and I know that he will be irrationally upset with himself in the morning. The girls huddled on the other side of the room, avoiding him like always. Sandra, thin and athletic, pony-tailed auburn hair; she seems comfortable with her popularity at school, plays soccer and saxophone in the band. And Jessie, soft round face, always ironic, even at this age, wishing she were cool like her sister; she brags about having read all of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s novels. Recently, she’s been diagnosed with epilepsy. The doctor says not to worry.
The girls lie close to each other, heads nearly touching, fast asleep, about the only time when they’re not fighting. They don’t talk about their mother. But I wonder if they loathe her, their repressed anger redirected toward each other and themselves. I know that they’ll grow up bearing her absence, the missing piece that will always make them feel incomplete and inadequate. All I can do is stay clean and listen when they need me to, tell them it’s not their fault. I wish I could explain why she left. But telling them she’s incapable of love doesn’t seem like it would help.
As the ball drops in Times Square, the city sets off fireworks from the high school down the street. Sean sleeps through them but they startle the girls awake. We go to the window to watch the colorful patterns exploding in the black sky. Happy New Year! Sandra shouts. Jessie scoffs and replies, Oh, God. Really? Give me a break. I laugh. You two are so silly, I say. I want to tell them how much I love them but I’ve got no words for that. Instead, I vow to myself to stay clean no matter what and then tousle Jessie’s thick blonde hair and put my hand on Sandra’s back. They lean into me and we gather against the biting cold pressing on our old wood-framed windows.
Christopher Craig teaches literature and writing at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Southwest Review, Radical Teacher, Cultural Logic, and other publications.
