by Forish, E.
The trooper’s face barely flinches as his stern features manage to become even graver like the frozen expressions of Medusa’s victims, and the cold stare coupled with the resulting silence conveys his clear lack of interest in regards to the proximity of my intended location. With a heavy sigh that seems to admit defeat within itself, I surrender my license and registration, and, after examining each, the trooper tells me to please step out of the vehicle.
Although completely aware of the numerous crimes currently in progress, I feel as though I have yet to behave in a fashion that warrants such a demand, but perhaps my bloodshot eyes expose my current state of intoxication more than I care to acknowledge. As I internally question whether or not the trooper can legally mandate such a request, especially from an individual with a valid license and registration, I, nonetheless, oblige to his command and stagger out of the vehicle. Immediately, I feel like an adequate candidate for the part of the criminal as passing drivers with their prying eyes slow down to stare at the flashing lights, judging the unknown actions of this potential convict.
With my freedom unexpectedly in jeopardy, I become overwhelmed by the need to escape but remain trapped by the inconvenient impossibility of swallowing a pill or bumping a line, and my adrenaline shoots into overdrive to compensate for the sudden trepidation that rages through my heart. I nervously shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans without much thought and finger the weed and pipe stashed inside, hoping that if I make contact with another object, it will eliminate the feeling of paresthesias surging through my fingertips, but my imprudent gesture instantly raises the officer’s suspicions.
“I’m going to conduct a weapons search for my own safety,” he announces.
I’m fucked, I think. Completely and utterly fucked.
The beating of my heart accelerates like a drummer preparing for a passionate solo, and the subsequent resonance inside my skull strengthens the already looming sense of vertigo. As the trooper’s hands pat over my pants’ pockets, I hold my breath, causing the sound of my own heartbeat to echo and intensify. “You have a little bit of marijuana in your pocket, Ms. Carroll?”
I ignore the question, for I must concentrate instead on reminding myself to breath, but my lungs fail to cooperate, and despite the deceptive feeling of suffocation, the sounds of my own heavy, jagged inhalations prove that my respiratory system still functions. My mind, however, shuts down entirely as it prepares to collapse under the pressure of pure panic, and as the reality of the situation attacks my equanimity, I lose all sense of composure.
I breakdown into a fit of tears. My skin flushes with false fever. My breathing becomes more strained. My hands feel numb. My chest tightens. “Look, I’m bipolar, and I don’t think I can handle this,” I manage to gasp out amidst hysterical sobbing.
“It’s okay,” he says calmly. “Take a moment to collect yourself.”
I gather all my energy in an effort to stop crying, but find myself too absorbed in this faithless reality, filled with so much feedback and static that my immediate surroundings just seem to disintegrate into a dark void, to control my emotional torrent. My mind detaches from my physical body in an effort to hide from the overwhelming distress that sears the receptors in my brain and damages their ordinary cellular responses. I consciously transmit instructions to my neurons to part my lips and speak, but instead I just choke on the tears and fail to produce a coherent sound. With the lost ability to vocalize my tormented mindstate, my world finally tumbles over like a row of dominoes, and I weep even harder as I feel my sanity slip away in this terrifying fashion, wishing for death and simultaneously fearing it may already be present.
The trooper patiently waits for my nerves to recoup with his arms crossed firmly, lips pressed together tightly, and facial expressions lacking any sympathy. After allowing me to marinate in these horrible symptoms of psychological mayhem for several minutes, he repeats the question. “Ms. Carroll, is that a little bit of weed in your pocket?”
I dissociate myself from the moment, placing a mental distance between my emotions and their debilitating effect on my logical thinking, and blurt out the only words I seem capable of uttering. “Yeah, it’s weed
[lvii] .”
“You can either give me verbal permission to retrieve the marijuana now, or I can obtain a search warrant to do so
[lviii] .”
I try to decipher the screaming panic inside my head into a sensible decision, but given my two choices, either response promises a dismal conclusion. Before I even have the opportunity to fully process both options and weigh their consequences, the trooper asks, “Do you have any more marijuana in the vehicle?”
I hesitate, wary of what may result from the wrong answer. “No,” I reply.
“Are you sure?”
“No,” and I instantly realize that I made a gross error and try to correct it as quickly as possible. “I mean, yes,” but it’s too late.
“Ms. Carroll, do I need to obtain a search warrant?”
I shake my head slowly as I reach into my pocket for the weed and glass pipe, handing the objects over to him and thereby providing probable cause. After stowing away the evidence, the officer pulls a small card from his breast pocket and recites the jargon-riddled statement typed across its surface. I cannot understand the intricacies of the information presented to me but do comprehend the general principle that the documentation wants my consent to search the vehicle.
No longer able to grasp even my most basic rights pertaining to the escalated situation, I stand there in body but not in mind, wholly confused as to my next course of action. In order to bide time to straighten out my thoughts, I request to read the card myself, but all the sentences just blur together before my blurry vision. When I make it to the bottom of the paragraph, I remain clueless and just stare blankly at the ground.
“Is there something else in the vehicle, Ms. Carroll?” the trooper repeats.
I remain utterly silent.
“Ms. Carroll?”
I release a heavy sigh and respond weakly, “Yeah. Everything. Absolutely everything.”
“Will you grant me the consent to search your vehicle or will it have to be impounded?”
I can no longer think, let alone clearly, due to the raw emotion that paralyzes my mind. Upon the final blow to my rationality, I lose control not only of my mind, but also my body, and as if manipulated by some primal level of basic motor functions, my lips blurt out sentences that, despite the clutter of excuses attempting articulation, happen to express the truth.
“It’ll take you hours — literally hours — to search through all the shit in my car,” I admit softly. “Just look in the purse on my passenger’s seat. Everything I got’s in there.”
Rather than pausing to search my Camry, he continues with the interrogation.
“Have you been drinking tonight?”
He already knows the answer.
“Yeah.”
“When did you start drinking?”
If I lie, will this all go away?
“Around 4:00. Maybe after. I dunno.”
“When did you stop drinking?”
Or am I already in too deep?
“About an hour ago. Maybe.”
“It’s my legal obligation to conduct a Field Sobriety Test.”
Maybe if I can just pass this, there’ll still be hope.
The trooper shines a small flashlight into my eyes while explaining the intricacies involved with walking the line and standing on one leg. Still caught in the depths of psychological anguish, my mind seems ineffective at listening to the directions, but like a puppet this soft machine performs the required tasks. My feet methodically walk across the line; I do not stumble. My leg effortlessly dangles in thin air; I do not fall.
Maybe there’s a li’l hope for my future after all.
“You didn’t turn correctly on the line, and you used your arms for balance on one leg,” the trooper announces.
I failed?
“I’m going to have to ask you to comply to a breathalyzer.”
I failed.
And all at once I lose that last iota of hope like so many dead daydreams of the past, for the trooper’s words negate the subconscious delusion of my invincibility to consequence.
* * *
After two hours of fingerprinting, mug shots, questioning, and paperwork
[lix] , I’m charged with two counts of possession of paraphernalia
[lx] , one count of possession of marijuana
[lxi] , three counts of possession of narcotics
[lxii] , one count of driving under the influence
[lxiii] , and, additionally, one fine for an open container
[lxiv] . Released into the custody of Jay Fires, we step outside the station doors of the State Barracks in West Brattleboro, and I collapse onto the ground, crying uncontrollably. Jay just stares at me, allowing me to wallow in my emotional torrent. He tolerates this behavior for several minutes before pulling my writhing body from the ground and guiding me into his cherry red Saturn.
When we reach the apartment, I sprawl out on the futon, unapproachable in my fit of hysterical tears. After placing four 10 mg. pills of Ambien
[lxv] on the coffee table as a gesture of compassion, Jay and Bailey relieve themselves of any duty to care for me, providing me with the solitude and privacy necessary to sort through my problems. My defeated body feels frail and helpless in this suspended state of emotional despondency, and as the sun ascends into the morning sky, the pains of alcohol withdrawal commence, but the damage inflicted on my psyche supersedes all physical pain.
No accurate description can depict the psychological malaria that inflicts my mind throughout the following hours, but upon acceptance of the impossibility of sleep crosses my thoughts, the ingestion of speed seems like the only logical cure for my mental ailments. As the sun burns white light through the haze, a thousand tragic selves slip away with the rush of amphetamine. I close my eyes, forcing myself to feel confident about the girl inside, and after two more lines, I almost believe that incessant voice as it exclaims, “You’re gonna make it, Kid.”
By mid-afternoon the arrest feels like a distant memory, but bit by bit the insanity will continue to decay at my insides like a terminal cancer. I pretend as though the symptoms are treatable, for each pill waits to rob an emotional tumor; each pill waits to remedy the wrongs. Anesthetized by this chemical stupor, I remain oblivious to the common knowledge that although people in a manic episode usually deny that anything may be wrong, a person suffering from psychosis remain completely unaware that anything is actually wrong in the first place.
The arrest, a clear warning sign that something is, indeed, wrong, seems like an utterly reasonable occurrence to have transpired in my day-to-day existence, and as my apparent psychosis makes it increasingly impossible to distinguish facts from fantasy, my life drifts further into the realm where reality and delusion merge together as one in the same, the realm where even truth sounds like fiction.
CHAPTER VII: ON CLARK STREET
“And, Spaceboy, they’ll kill me before I’m dead and gone, and anyway you choose me… we won’t belong
[lxvi] .”
NOVEMBER 24, 2005. IT’S THANKSGIVING DAY, and the entire world glitters with pure white snowdrops that promise the clarity of winter’s sobering chill before my dazzled eyes.
I opt not to return home to celebrate with my family and instead decide to trek towards the Canadian border for the simple reason that our northbound neighbors do not recognize the national holiday. As I maneuver my Camry across the highways, the accumulation of snowfall commences to accelerate, but I refuse for my mission to be dissuaded by the weather conditions. A phone call from Blake, however, thwarts my efforts, for he hints that it may be unwise to attempt to cross through customs with an invalid license.
Two days prior, the judge revokes my driving privileges but little else. I stand inside the courtroom of Windham Country, and, even with the absence of professional legal counsel, I manage to get six out of seven charges dropped without complication. With only a D.U.I. on record in the state of Vermont, my civil autonomy remains uncompromised beyond the suspension of my license, and, furthermore, out of sheer luck, even that charge fails to inhibit my freedoms. Due to a minor clerical error, all paperwork on file states that I am a licensed drive in the state of Vermont rather than Massachusetts
[lxvii] . Once I pay off nearly $900 in fines, it’ll become as though the arrest never happened
[lxviii] .
I celebrate my legal triumph by ingesting an ounce of ‘shrooms in less than 48 hours, and tonight as I retreat southbound towards Brattleboro in my Camry, I make a pit stop at the 7-11 with the intention of refilling my gas tank. I ramble indoors to pay for a few gallons of gasoline, but am distracted by the aisles lined with the metallic shine of snack food packaging and the refrigerated cases filled with the rainbow hues of various beverages. The brilliance of the colors throughout the convenience store bewilders my visual senses, and as I wander with dilated eyes that shine with the glossy grace of a shellac finish, I stumble upon a cooler stocked with packages of Lunchables. I cannot resist the impulse to buy the meal variety containing turkey, cheese, and crackers, for in my warped mind it seems like an adequate substitute for a real Thanksgiving dinner.
I approach the register to finalize my purchase, but a basket filled with greeting cards diverts my attention. Each card portrays a different artistic representation of the seasonally dramatic Vermont landscape. I shuffle through the pile and develop a fixation on one particular image, a colored photograph of a birch tree dappled with snow and contrasted by a crisp, blue sky. The branches appear to sway gently in a winter breeze as I witness the image convert into a mobilized dreamscape. I snatch the card to add to my purchase, ring out with the cashier, and exit the store, leaving behind its colorful collection of junk foods and trinkets.
I climb back into my car with the new intent to visit Potash Hill, but shortly after my departure from 7-11, I notice the orange glow of the low fuel light on my dashboard. Slightly annoyed that simple commodities distracted my obligation to refuel, I am unwilling to make a second stop and, instead, choose to make a u-turn and drive back towards Brattleboro. Within several minutes, I arrive at Bailey and Jay’s apartment and knock on the door, but no one answers. I peer through the windows, but only pure darkness stares back at me, and as opposed to entering the vacant apartment, I trudge along the sidewalks that lead towards downtown.
The snow covers my surroundings with crystallized beauty, and its untainted whiteness restores my faith in the future, for I am purified by the cold dust that transforms into liquid droplets on the surface of my exposed flesh. As I drift through alleyways and parking lots, the shadows of dormant maples dance before my eyes as their branches reawaken and ripple in the whirl of winter winds. Although the clouds gather above my head, I pretend that they’re transparent and look passed them towards the stars that gently glide down from their place in heaven only to melt into glitter and merge with the flakes of snow that billow around my long, black coat.
I wander down Elliot Street through the icy mists like a mysterious stranger caught betwixt the comforts of familiarity and the confusion of falsity, and as I absorb snippets of conversation that circulate through the night air amidst laughter and faint music, the sounds commence to amplify the closer I creep towards the Weathervane. A hundred yards ahead lies a cluster of five people who, in a desperate attempt to be individualistic, all resemble a common stereotype: flowing pleasant skirts on the women and tan Carhartt pants on the men, tattered t-shirts with the faint scent of thrift store, modest accessories from homemade hemp necklaces to hand-knit wool caps, Birkenstock sandals despite the wintry conditions, and, of course, the ever-present glowing cherry of a clove cigarette all the accoutrements of the modern hippie with little knowledge of the countercultural values that powered the original movement.
I slide through the gather
ing without pause, seeking the promise of alcohol’s sweet refuge offered just beyond the recessed doorway. A blast of warm air surges around my chilled body as I step into the soft glow of barroom lighting. Adorn with sleigh bells, the glass door jingles as it slams shut behind me, but the patrons fail to hear the clatter over the folk-rock melodies that erupt from the sound system. I immediately approach the bartender to order a Magic Hat #9, and after popping open the bottle, he reaches towards the garbage can to toss the cap aside.
“Wait, lemme see that,” I say quickly.
The bartender pauses to shoot me a quizzical look.
“I need my fortune
[lxix] ,” I explain.
He pivots, turning back in my direction, and places the cap inside the palm of my right hand.
The inner copper color of the cap appears to twinkle and radiate shy luminescence under the dull gleam of the interior lights, and in crisp, black typeface, it reads, “YOU’RE IN FOR A SURPRISE.”
I flash a sly smile before shoving the bottle cap into the pocket of my coat. As I walk away, comfortably contented by the beer in my hand, the bartender remarks, “Hey, ya gonna pay for that?”
“Oh, yeah. Shit.” I dig through my purse in search of my credit card and, once located, toss it in his general direction. “Uh, my apologies,” I mumble as I stagger away to take a seat at the corner booth that overlooks Elliot Street. I stare out the window at the freaks and their strangeness, observing how their breath hangs in the frigid air and swirls together with rings of cigarette smoke like miniature tornados until the wispy spirals blend and vanish into the hovering darkness. The evening shadows play their games, darting between the light of the streets and the dark of the night like a child in search of the ideal source of camouflage in hide-and-seek. For the last time, the man in the moon flashes his canine grin before fading away amongst the billows of snow clouds, thereby eliminating the shadows and their mystical movements that once danced across the snow-encrusted pavement.