“Me, too!”
“Wow . . . how old are you really?”
“ . . . Seventeen. What about you?”
“Me, too!”
We laugh, sizing each other up. I like her.
She tells me she’s majoring in fragrance marketing at FIT, whatever the fuck that is. She says she got early admission to get out of her hometown as fast as she could. She lives in the dorms on Seventeenth Street and Seventh Avenue. We agree that we should hang out.
I don’t see her again until New Year’s Day. She is brash and unconventional enough that I feel like she won’t judge me on the house or my insane mother. Somehow I know she’ll just work around it, so I invite her over.
She’s unfazed by the chaos. She comes in with bags of groceries, cracking jokes and chugging beers, laughing so loud the neighbors can hear. She manages to cook a feast in our excuse for a kitchen, careening around like a puppy with paws too big for its body, dropping things and scooping them back into the pan. We smoke joints and talk until we pass out.
It’s two in the morning when a pot starts slamming into the kitchen counter. Francesca shoots straight up in the bed when my ma screams, “Fuuuuuuuck!”
“Don’t worry. It’s just my mom. She’s harmless.”
“Holy shit, dude. Is she gonna hurt us?”
“No. Don’t worry. She’ll calm down eventually.”
She doesn’t. The screaming goes on for so long that Francesca starts shaking. She tells me her dad was abusive like this and it’s freaking her out, so I go into the kitchen and tell my ma to cut the shit. I’m scarlet with embarrassment. Ma is mad because we didn’t do the dishes and now there’s no cup for her to drink her tea out of. She doesn’t look at me when she screams, “What is this, a fucking hotel?”
We go back and forth for a few minutes, and ultimately I swear I’ll do the dishes first thing in the morning if she will just shut up and let us sleep.
Francesca and I become inseparable. She is gregarious and charming and I am enamored. I love that her nickname is Frankie although she’s such a girl. She doesn’t judge the situation or even think my ma is that weird; she makes light of everything. Her father is a famous musician, so music pours out of her. The piano is an extension of her body, and she’s teaching herself the guitar. All she wants to do is hang out, smoke weed, and write songs.
She teaches me how to do my makeup and lends me clothes to dress up when we go out. She introduces me to the world of nightclubs because she knows some promoters. We make out and occasionally fuck when we’re wasted, at the end of a long night. For a few months we both wonder if we’re in love, but ultimately, my heart is saved for Nikita. I want to end up in Europe, with her, having a family. Francesca is straight anyway, so we start to go boy hunting together. Sooner or later, she introduces me to hard drugs.
THE FIRST TIME I do cocaine I ask how I’m gonna feel. Frankie says, “Like a supermodel!”
We’re at some loft in Chinatown with the guy who introduced us.
The bed sits isolated in the center of a tacky room. I stare at the raw beams holding up the high ceiling as the guy cuts lines on a mirror. This is like a scene from a shitty movie, where the rich older dude lures the two underage girls to his circular bed with a tray of drugs and tries to fuck them both. He alternates making out with each of us while flattening coke nuggets with his Platinum MasterCard. It’s a joke.
I do the tiniest rail and I can’t feel my teeth. Supermodel my ass.
A week later, we’re out at a cheesy club and I’m bored, so I do it again, and again for the same reason the week after. It’s not a habit, and certainly not a problem.
Then it’s a couple of times a week.
Then there’s a six- or seven-week stretch where we’re doing it regularly. We get all amped, have this incredible night, and go to bed feeling sexy and sexed and smiling. I wake up the next day feeling pretty all right even though I spent hours walking around in the dead winter freeze wearing nothing but a vest. Supermodel maybe.
By month three we’ve lost ten or fifteen pounds and all the bouncers and bartenders know our names. I think I look great (skeletal is hot, right?), but my throat is starting to burn from the constant coke drip down the back of it. My nostrils are numb, so I’m constantly rubbing my face and I’m starting to wonder if people are noticing. At school? At my lame part-time job?
Then the worst part is, I do a bump—off a key in a bathroom, off the tip of a credit card—and the high only lasts twenty minutes. I have this arc, of not even feeling amazing, just okay, vaguely normal for a short stretch, then there’s fifteen minutes spent worrying about coming down, ten minutes of actually coming down, and it’s back to the hunt, eyes scanning, fingers tapping, lips sucking vodka straws. Over and over, all night long.
Getting out of bed in the morning starts to really suck. My body feels like garbage and the subway ride to my gig stuffing envelopes for ten bucks an hour is a test of endurance.
If I’m not high, I’m cranky, pissed off, uncomfortable, and guess what: I’m seventeen and I’ve bunked off work in a coke haze so much that I’ve gone broke, so when I feel like too much dog shit to go out to a club, there isn’t the option of calling a dealer or a delivery service to help with the fact that I’ve developed one of the most expensive habits there is.
So I throw on a dirty hoodie and begrudgingly end up at the corner deli scouring the shelves for something with caffeine in it to make myself feel better. My eyes land on the diet pills on the counter, right next to the horny goat weed. That shit gets you high, right? I spend the dollar and eat a handful of Stacker 3s and I’m up for the next four days, hands shaking, craving beer or something vaguely digestible that will fit into my shrunken stomach.
Then I get sick. Real sick. My tonsils gets so swollen I can’t even swallow water and my ma has to take me to the emergency room in the middle of the night, two nights in a row.
The first time, she holds my hand and coos when I cry because they have to stick a six-inch needle into my infected tonsil and pull the pus out. She fills the prescription and pays for my antibiotics, even though she can’t afford to, and makes me take them even though she thinks they’re evil. She wants me to gargle tea tree oil, but she knows I’m beyond homeopathic remedies.
The second time, she bundles me into a cab that she pays for with her food money, because I was crying out in my sleep. The pain was too intense and breathing was becoming difficult. She is patient and kind when I try to apologize for us having to go back, and she rubs my head when I whimper in the waiting room. She out and out cries when I do, tears rolling down both our faces, while the same young doctor holds my jaw open and slices my tonsil with a scalpel to relieve the pressure.
Two days later I show up at the neighborhood Medicaid clinic, in size zero stretch jeans that are hanging off me, and pass out in the middle of the hallway trying to make the four-step walk to the bathroom to throw up. They pump me full of a bunch of drugs, feed me intravenously, and tell me they’re going to have to operate.
My ma looks pale under the bright fluorescent lights, holding my hand, face crinkled in concern. My eyes can’t focus as I dip in and out of consciousness, but when I come to, I use her as my stabilizing horizon. I wonder what I’m doing here. This feels like somebody else’s soap opera.
My nostrils are filled with the sterile stench of hospital anti-air; thoughts of all the addicts in my family float through my consciousness, and I wonder if it’s hereditary. Even with this garbled brain, I know that beating the genetic imperative is a lot more interesting than being a teenage fuck-up.
I am propelled by something much stronger, much bigger than a desire to destroy myself. I want to leave something good behind, something better than a sob story, a warning to other kids, something that helps people. Even if I don’t make it past thirty-five, I want to be sure that my death is at least a loss.
I don’t want to wear my tragedies on my skin, in my teeth, in my walk. I want something different t
han what I’m inheriting, but I’m going to have to make that happen for myself, and it’s not gonna be like this.
It’s time to get my shit together.
Chapter 41
The Hospital Incident
New York City, April 2003
FRANCESCA HAS FOUND HERSELF A BOYFRIEND FROM THE projects on First Avenue named Victor. He’s a handsome Dominican guy with a sharp business sense and a soft demeanor. He drives a nice car and pays his mother’s rent. Victor wears a uniform of gray sweatpants, wifebeater, and classic fitted Yankees cap, with a tire of paunch around his middle. He rolls with a posse of no fewer than three guys at all times. Frankie loves the bad-boy thing. We got tight, Victor and I, as my throat healed up while I lay on his new couch playing video games with him.
He has a partnership with an Armenian kid he grew up with, Lance. Lance lives in a place his parents left him on the East River, and he has a taste for downers. The first time we’re introduced we all end up at a twenty-four-hour diner in Hell’s Kitchen after the clubs. Lance tells the waitress to go into the fridge, take his steak out, put it on a plate, and serve it to him just like that. He wants it completely raw, and he’ll tip her twenty bucks for the health code breach.
Lance and Victor hired me to run weed and coke for them because they figured a white girl on a skateboard was less likely to get pulled over by the cops. At first I found the idea charming and exciting, but I quickly discovered the unseemly reality of seeing respectable people at their ugliest. Friends turned to customers would relentlessly beg for deals and freebies until I stopped answering their calls. Then my voice mail filled with frantic pleas at all hours of the night, so I shut it off. Seeing the great equalizer morph normal people into amped-up freaks has been good for my need to be doing less blow. I’m starting to think it’s gross.
School is a no-brainer. A lab rat could do it. My history teacher is a fifty-year-old black guy who dresses like a marine who became a tennis coach. He can’t pronounce Saddam Hussein’s name, and he says “nucular” instead of “nuclear.” One day it comes out that I was in school in Europe, and after that he defers all questions he can’t answer to me. It’s embarrassing.
I told the school that my abundance of physik credits on my old report cards from Germany meant I’d studied physics, even though it means physical education, so I got out of science forever, but I can’t weasel away from the final exams. It’s been weeks of studying and research on all kinds of shit I’ve never taken a class in, so I’m nervous. If I flunk the tests I can’t graduate. If I pass, I can take off for Europe right away. I’m desperate to see Nikita and get as far from all this shit as possible.
I’ve been spending time with Naima, my old friend Mira’s best friend since they were five. She’s a tiny half-black, half–Puerto Rican poet whose formidable vocabulary cuts the world into shapes I can comprehend. We smoke blunts and talk about things that matter, and being around her helps me to not get back on the yay. She keeps me calm and centered while I’m trying to ground myself before the tests.
Ma and I have been getting along decently since I had my tonsils removed, but I’m wary of getting too close during an upswing, so I’ve been staying out of her way. My exams happen to fall on her forty-sixth birthday. I haven’t made any specific plans, but if we manage to stay decent with each other, I’ll take her out to dinner. Maybe Indian at Panna, our old haunt on Sixth Street, for nostalgia’s sake.
The night before the big day, Naima and I are up talking. It’s late, she tells me; it’s time to sleep so I don’t fuck up on my tests. She’s sleeping over, like a boxing coach the night before a big fight. I turn out the light and we lay down on my futon.
It seems like the second I close my eyes my ma starts screaming. I have no idea how long Naima and I here been asleep, but we both jolt alert.
Naima is nervous. I tell her not to worry. Ma is obliterated, wasted. I am calm, just sleepy and annoyed. Tomorrow is important, and I wish she wouldn’t pull this tonight of all nights. I go into the kitchen, where she is teetering by the telephone, and ask her to please stop. She doesn’t seem to hear me.
I don’t want to yell at her because it will scare Naima, but she’s unreachable. Finally, I grab her by the shoulders and pull her to face me. Her eyes are red and swollen. She’s not even in there. It’s the visitor.
“You don’t care that it’s my birthday tomorrow. What kind of child are you? It’s my birthday, and you haven’t even seen me in days!”
“Ma. It’s your birthday tomorrow. I’m gonna take you out to dinner.”
“You don’t even care about me! You only care about yourself. You don’t even have the decency to make plans with your own mother on her birthday. Psssh. Godddd.”
There is a sound she makes only when she’s drunk. It’s like a teeth-sucking, attitude-giving noise. It lets me know she is on the other side of rationale. When she makes this noise, I shut down. I stop trying to reason with her. She wriggles out of my grasp and turns toward the bathroom, staring at nothing.
“Ma, I need you to be quiet. My final exams at school are in the morning, and I need you to keep it down so I can sleep. I will take you out to dinner tomorrow. I promise.”
“You don’t even care about your own mother! What happened to real children who treat their parents with some kinda respect!”
She’s beyond my reach. I turn and go into my room, closing the door.
“Open that fucking door!”
I rip it back open.
“Ma! Shut the fuck up! Naima is in here asleep and you’re scaring the shit out of her. Stop fucking screaming at me.”
“Open that fucking door, iO. I don’t want closed doors in my house.”
“I’m gonna close the door, Ma. I need to sleep.”
“Open the door!”
I close it and lock it behind me, apologizing to Naima. My ma tries the handle but I push my back against it to be sure she can’t get in.
“I’m sorry. She’ll pass out soon.”
“Don’t worry, boo. It’s all good.”
Naima is being a good sport, but I can see that this is making her uncomfortable. As I get back into the bed something crashes into my door. Naima jumps. This is exhausting. Opera starts blasting from the next room, and there are more crashing noises through the wall.
When I pull the door open, I see that my ma has thrown a guitar case and a giant metal frame at it. I can hear her sobbing. I don’t understand what the fuck is going on. This is madness.
Ma is on the floor in the small room, one leg bent up under her at a strange angle, trying to tie her sneakers. She hisses at me and calls me a liar. She says I’m vile and a poor excuse for a daughter.
“Ma, listen, your birthday isn’t until tomorrow. You need to calm down. I’m gonna take you out, I promise.”
I am embarrassed that Naima is witnessing this psychosis.
“Ma, where are you trying to go?”
“I’m gonna leave this civilization.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m gonna take the train to the end of the line . . .”
“Okay . . . why? Then what?”
“Then I’m gonna get out and walk.”
If she means this metaphorically, she’s seriously considering offing herself. If she means this literally, she’ll end up deep in the Bronx at four A.M. and her metaphor will become reality. Either way, this is a problem.
In my bed, Naima has turned on the light. I sit down and we discuss our options. She calls a friend who is a social worker, apologizing profusely for waking him, and explains the situation. He recommends calling an ambulance to prevent my ma from hurting herself. He explains that the police have something called “AOB,” which means that if there is alcohol on your breath and you’re threatening to harm yourself or anyone else, they have to detain you for the night.
The idea of calling 911 on my ma, the night before her birthday, finally kicks fear into me, but what option do I have? Naima and I whisper
to each other in stressed tones. This is the last thing I want to do, but the only conclusion is that Ma has to be restrained or she might hurt herself. So, with regret, I call.
Ten minutes later, there’s a knock on the door. Ma is still struggling with her laces as I pass her to let in four cops and two ambulance attendants. I’m shaking. I explain the situation to them and ask them to please be as gentle with her as they can. They agree, but just the squawking of their radios gives me nerves.
I can’t watch as they enter the little room and start badgering my ma with questions. I stand in the hall for the five minutes it takes them to determine that she has AOB and needs to be taken in. The sound of their radios echoes through the entire building. I imagine the neighbors are being woken by this drama.
I turn away as they bring her out of the apartment, an attendant holding each arm. She hisses at me that I’m a traitor, and I catch a second of her imploring, horrified look as they pass. I feel party to a witch hunt. This pulls at my stomach like a claw.
I ask the cop I’m standing with if it’s okay for me to go and explain to her what’s happening, just to calm her down and so she’s not alone. He says sure.
I’m in my pajama pants, T-shirt, and socks.
In the ambulance I find that they’ve strapped her into a chair by the waist and wrists. Her veins are distended from struggling against the restraints. I feel sick knowing that I did this to her. Naima stands outside listening as I try to explain to my mother why this is just for her own safety. Within seconds we are screaming at each other.
The female attendant, callous and exhausted, looks at me strangely and says, “Are you also inebriated?”
“What? No.”
“Your pupils are dilated.”
“I was just in bed.”
“Then why are your pupils dilated like that?”
“Oh, I don’t fucking know, maybe because I’m seventeen and it’s four in the morning and my mother is screaming, wasted, and strapped into an ambulance getting taken to the loony bin?”
“That’s it. You’re intoxicated. You’re coming with us.”
Darling Days Page 25