I walk over next to Sue Ellen. “No, it’s okay. I’ve come to announce that, as of about three minutes ago, Sue Ellen and I are officially off our no-communication contract.”
She stands up. “Is that true?”
“Yeah, totally. We can talk as much as we want.”
“Or as little.”
She laughs at her own joke, and then everyone takes turns congratulating us. I mean, honestly, I think they all approve of me ’n’ Sue Ellen as a couple. At least, they all act super supportive. They can tell the difference, you know? This isn’t just some desperate, quick-fix substitute for getting high.
We really care about each other.
This is love.
Believe me, if it was anything else, I would never be capable of doing something like this. I mean, I’ve been on the other side.
When I first got here, there was this kid Matt, from Maine, who immediately took it upon himself to really try ’n’ mentor me. He was a tough kid—tatted up—with long, wiry hair and a thick, thick accent. He’d really fought the place when he got here, just like me, so I guess that’s why he took an interest. He’d sit up smoking with me, even when my body was still seizing from the detox, telling me about the way he’d been when he first got to treatment—how he’d packed his bags five different times with the intention of ditching this place. He’d been running the streets his whole life. The hell if he was gonna let these touchy-feely, soy-fed, patchouli-smelling, incense-lighting, mama’s little pansies order him around. All he had to do was clench his fists and the whole lotta them would flinch back.
But by the time I met him, Matt was like a totally different person. He’d become gentle and caring. He reached out to me when no one else did.
“I know this place seems like it’s all full of shit,” he told me, his bug eyes popping out beneath his thick brow ridge. “But just try doing, like, one or two things they tell you to. That’s what it took for me, man. One day I just decided, you know, ‘Matt, you’re gonna fuckin’ try this thing.’ I got a little boy in foster care ’cause his mom ’n’ me are both dope fiends and can’t take care of him. I know for damn sure his mom ain’t gettin’ clean ever, so that means I’m the only chance he’s got. ’Cause the hell I’m gonna let my boy be raised by some goddamn strangers. So I told myself to give this place a shot, you know, and I started participating in group and then, man, here I am. Gonna be outta here in a couple weeks, and they already got me parental visitation rights. I know it ain’t too much, but it’s a start for now.”
But then, a few days later, after a group trip to the aquarium in Albuquerque, we were all gathering down in the community room for our nightly meeting. Both Matt and this girl Rachel were absent, which was weird ’cause I’d been with them all day on the outing.
When the meeting was over, I ran up to the main lodge and saw Matt in there, with Rachel, closed off in the counselor’s assistant’s office, surrounded by, like, every staff member in the entire place.
An hour later two taxis showed up, one for Matt and one for Rachel. I watched them load up their different bags ’n’ things. Matt’s head was hung real low. He couldn’t make eye contact with any of us. He couldn’t even come say good-bye.
Of course, it didn’t take long for the details of what had happened to get passed down to us. It was basically what I’d expected—one of the counselor’s assistants, this club-footed woman named Sonia, was going from cabin to cabin reminding everyone about the community meeting. When she got to Rachel’s, however, she heard some sort of noise and stuck her head in the door. According to the rumors, Sonia hadn’t actually caught them in the middle of the act itself, but they were lying naked in bed together. Within less than two hours, they’d been removed from the premises. No trial. No jury. Just execution.
And as much as I felt sick about it, I had to admit that I understood why they’d been kicked out. I mean, it’s like that Peaches song that used to be so popular. “Fuck the pain away.”
They used to play it at, like, every goddamn club in New York when I lived there.
I guess that’s no wonder.
“Fuck the pain away.”
I mean, fuck it, drink it, shoot it, smoke it, snort it, cut it, binge it, purge it all the fuck away.
Get high. Relapse. That’s what we do.
And that’s what Matt and Rachel did.
So, yeah, no big surprise they were thrown outta here.
Even if that kid of Matt’s ends up having to stay in foster care.
Even if one of them gets loaded and ODs, or both of ’em do.
I cried, actually, as their taxis drove off, the smear of red taillights disappearing behind the first bend in the gravel driveway. There was a feeling like… like the time in San Francisco when this guy on the street sold me forty dollars’ worth of H that ended up being just a chunk of black-colored soap. I felt embarrassed—sickened—like I never wanted to tell anyone how easily I’d been suckered. And, man, this rage was surging through me—pounding—like blood filling my head so my ears exploded wide open—leaving me blind and dizzy and fantasizing about tracking down the motherfucker and bashing in his skull. With Matt getting kicked out, there was a rage like that. I’d trusted him. I’d genuinely believed all that bullshit he’d been telling me. I’d looked up to him. I thought he’d really changed. But it was all a con, man, a fucking con. He’d ripped me off, just like that guy in San Francisco. So, uh,
