by Steven Kuhn
“Matt. The doctor will be in in a few minutes,” Karen said as she tapped on the door.
I nodded my head as she walked over, and stared at Barry Eugene asleep.
“Matt,” she said as she looked back over her shoulder. “You can’t talk like that to Barry Eugene anymore. He went to Carl last night and complained that you wanted to sleep with him. He was screaming about how he hated homosexuals and if they come onto him he’d kill them. It took Carl and two of us just to get him to go back into the room to go to sleep.”
“He went to Carl?” I said as I grinned. “Now that, I wish I could have seen.”
“It’s not funny…” she said as the doctor interrupted her.
“Matt H. So how are we doing today?” he said as Karen stepped aside.
“Feelin’ pretty good,” I said.
“How is your appetite?”
“A lot better than before.”
“Well, hold out your arms,” he said as he gently placed my hands in the palm of his hand.
No, no, no, no, no, I mouthed the words.
He released my hands and wrote on his clipboard.
“Well, you’re still shaking, but it’s not as detrimental as before.” He took a deep breath. “So you can be released from detox.”
My shoulders dropped as I released the stress from my body. Finally, I could get out of this crazy floor and go up to where the normal patients were, I thought.
“Well, you’re still going to have to take the medication for your symptoms, but I see here that your blood pressure is starting to be controlled. I know you’re happy to get out of here, but you still have a lot of work ahead of you.”
“Hey doc, can you check me, so I can go home?” Barry Eugene mumbled as all eyes turned toward him.
“This is Barry Eugene S., the patient we previously discussed with you,” Karen told the doctor.
The doctor walked over to him and flipped through his clipboard as Barry Eugene sat at the side of his bed with his arms stretched out, his hands shaking uncontrollably.
“My chart says that we need to perform a few more tests on you, Barry Eugene, before we can proceed with treatment.”
He put his arms down. “What treatment? I want to go home today,” he said, becoming agitated. “I’ve been coming here by mistake. I was supposed to go to the corner store and got left here by my wife. No one will let me use the phone to call her or my daughter to come to pick me up and it’s like I’m stuck in the Twilight Zone or something. It’s nice that you gave me some clothes, but I had to give you blood for them. Also, you keep giving me pills that make me fall asleep and you stick me in a room with a faggot. I mean, is this some kind of gay hotel?”
The doctor leaned over to Karen and whispered in her ear. Quickly, she exited the room.
“Look doc, look at my arms!” he said as he shoved them out in front of him. “Look, I’m Superman. Look at me fly. Is that what you want?”
He laid his face down on the floor as the doctor cautiously took a step back.
“Do you want me to do push ups? Here, I’ll do push ups, 1…2…3.” His arms strained with every motion.
Karen entered the room with Carl, and they looked around for Barry Eugene. I pointed downward to the floor behind the bed. As the doctor moved again, Carl passed him, reached down, and grabbed Barry Eugene.
“Come on, Barry Eugene, let’s go down to the nurses’ station,” Carl said as he struggled with the dead weight.
“I don’t want to go to the train, I mean nurses’ station. I want to go home.”
“We’ll go down there to discuss you going home. Okay?” Karen said soothingly.
“Okay, because I’m going home today, it was a mistake that I got put here.” His voice faded as he hobbled down the hall.
The doctor tapped the back of his clipboard as he walked toward the door, and gave one last, stern look before he left. “It’s all up to you now,” he said.
I sunk to the side of my bed, ashamed of what I had done to Barry Eugene. A little fun was all I wanted. I never wanted to be the cause of so much turmoil and shouldn’t have gone that far with someone as sick as him, I thought.
“Matt, you can go to the nurses’ station and tell administration that you’re being transferred to the non-detox floor and would like your new locker key,” Karen said as she leaned into the room. “Don’t forget to turn in your old one.”
“Uh, okay. Thanks.”
I checked my pockets to make sure I had the key, walked to the nurses’ station, and replayed the situation that Barry Eugene was in, oblivious to the horde of patients around me. I had never witnessed complete desperation before, and wished I could apologize to him, but decided it wouldn’t have been a good idea, considering the state he was in.
I approached the hole in the wall and waited for the next available nurse.
“How may I help you?” a young, thin, white, dark-haired nurse asked.
“Yes, my name is Matt H. and I’m being transferred to the second floor. I’m supposed to get my new locker key.”
“May I have your present one?”
“Yes.” I handed her the key and stared at her breasts, where the Matchbox car print on her uniform looked like Tonka trucks.
“I’ll be right back,” she smiled.
She returned from the records cabinet, my file in hand.
“Here you go,” she said as she handed me my new key. “Just go ahead and pack up your belongings and take the elevator to the second floor.”
“To all patients, the 10 o’clock group will start in 10 minutes. The 10 o’clock group will start in 10 minutes.”
“Thank you,” I said as I slid the key into my pocket. Quickly, I wove my way through the patients in the hall, and completely forgot about Barry Eugene as my excitement grew.
Back in the room, I threw my suitcases on my bed with abandon and opened my closet door. Hurriedly, I shoved my belongings into the suitcases, still in their neat and proper order. I threw the duffle bag over my shoulder, and looked around the room to make sure nothing was forgotten. I started to leave and clicked the handle up from my bag. The wheels of the suitcase hummed as I sped out the door.
“Sorry, Barry Eugene, but I am out of here,” I said, as I looked back one more time and saw a cleaning woman wheel her cart into my room as the elevator bell rang.
Chapter 7
Impatiently, I stood and wished the doors open as I pushed the second floor button one more time. A bump in the elevator signaled I had reached my destination as the heavy door opened tiredly. In my imagination, a heavenly fog rolled, engulfed the elevator car, and carried me to a place of purity, where all the figures were angelic, with golden wings and faces of gods.
“Watch it, buddy,” one of the figures said as he passed. I was transported back into the reality that lay before me.
It was like a busy train station depot, where all the people were of different makes, models, and sizes that used to be on the first floor; being clean was their only connection. They all walked in the same direction, when it dawned on me that they were all headed to group. I saddled up to the side of the wall and hastily pulled my key from my pocket. My room number was 245, and I sped down the hall. It didn’t matter which direction I went; I’d find out soon enough if I was going the right way, I thought.
“230…232. Good, I’m going the right way.”
Hmmm.
“245.” I opened the door and held my breath.
No one was inside, but I was quick to notice, with fresh towels on the bed and an empty closet door open, that again, I had the bed closest to the window. I rushed over and threw my bags down. As I grabbed my information folder, I looked to see where my group met and then dashed out the door.
“Room 2A, 2A,” I repeated to myself, as I turned left and followed the herd.
I turned right down another hallway and noticed the patients as they started to fade into different rooms. The black and white sign on the vanilla wall, next to the first open door
, read “2A” and I entered.
A large desk sat against the far wall, facing a large window. Eight red desk chairs stared at one another from across the small room. A young, tiny, white woman with short blonde hair and blue eyes, sat at the desk in her oversized brown leather chair, nervous, perhaps from too much Prozac and caffeine. Nothing was said as I entered the room with my deformed face. The woman smiled, leaned forward nervously, and stretched her arms out to the chairs like Moses did when he parted the Red Sea.
“Dude, you finally made it up here,” Bobby said as he slapped me on the back.
He passed and sat to the left of the entrance; I filed next to him.
The young woman leaned back, as the remainder of the group scrambled into the room.
“Hey, Peter, didn’t see you. You’re gonna have fun in this group,” Jack Jack said, as he sat in the chair closest to the young woman’s desk.
I was happy to see Jack Jack.
Pat, who was the last one to enter, closed the door and sat in the end chair opposite Bobby and me. He realized that I was the new member, smiled, and gave me a nod.
“Good morning, group, and how is everyone today?” the young woman asked.
The entire group incoherently mumbled.
“Good. Now let’s start the group off like we usually do, starting with your name and your purpose here.”
“My name is Jack and I’m an alcoholic and an addict.”
“My name is Robby and I’m an alcoholic.”
“My name is William and I’m an alcoholic and an addict.”
“My name is Pat and I’m an alcoholic and an addict.”
“My name is Matt and I’m an alcoholic.”
“My name is Bobby and I’m an alcoholic and an addict.”
“My name is Ben and I’m an addict.”
“My name is Craig and I’m an alcoholic and an addict.”
“And I am Maureen Ballstik, alcoholic, addict, bulimic, and your counselor.”
They were all alone, beaten, diseased, and old before their time; I looked around the room and realized that I, too, was also one of God’s masterpieces that had cast themselves aside.
“All right, we’ll pass around the sign up sheet, but before we get started we have a new member in group, and I would like him tell us what brought him here,” Maureen said and smiled.
Nervous, I struggled to utter the words.
“Go ahead, Matt, and every time you begin to speak, remember to start off with your name and purpose,” she said as she rested a clipboard on her lap, and prepared to take notes.
“Okay. Well, uh, I have been drinking most of my life, but started to drink heavily the past four years. During that time, or gradually, I started to stay to myself, gradually losing what friends that I had. Uh, wasn’t really taking care of myself and was losing a lot of weight. Uh, started to defecate blood and vomit stomach acid. Um, I kept trying to quit and figured this one day was going to be my last. So I drank…probably a gallon of bourbon, blacked out, cracked my head, wound up in the hospital, and came here.”
I was so nervous and ashamed, I not only forgot my name, but gave them just an outline of my situation and sped through my speech as I neared the end. In my mind, I couldn’t express in great detail exactly what I felt. I hadn’t tried to be difficult; it was all I had.
“Oh, now, that is not going to fly. You have to come up with more!” Ben shouted.
Ben was a bald, black, middle-aged man. I later learned he was a homosexual and ex-homeless person, who had been living in the halfway house behind the hospital for almost two years. The crack and the street had weathered his face and limbs into snake skin, pleated and stretched tight over time. The few teeth that he had left were strongly protected by his rancid breath, and his bloated stomach looked as though it hoarded away food, afraid to discard any for fear it would never see another meal. He was a proud man who cherished his earned belongings, from his new glasses all the way down to his worn, pink slippers.
“Shut the fuck up, gentle Ben,” said Jack Jack as he came to my defense. “Every time someone doesn’t give you what you want or it’s not to your approval, you start in on that person.”
The group began to disintegrate.
“I do not…”
“Jack. What did I tell you about your language?” Maureen said.
“I’m sorry, but he doesn’t know how to talk to people properly.”
“We can handle the situation…” Maureen began and then was interrupted.
“He’s right, Maureen,” Craig said.
“Wait one second, Craig,” Maureen said as she tried to control the situation.
“Every time we meet, there’s an argument,” Robby mumbled.
“I only want the best for my fellow patients,” Ben stated.
“Fellow patients?” Jack Jack yelled. “Are you nuts?”
Bobby leaned back in his chair, extended his legs, and whispered to me, “Didn’t take long for this to get out of control.”
“Stop…everybody please stop!” Maureen screamed.
For a few moments, there was silence in the room as I sat astonished at what just happened. As I looked around, I tried to gather any information I could from the expressions on peoples’ faces, but was distracted by the laughter that had come deep from within my stomach. I took another look around the room and realized that these people were all crazy, but for some strange reason, I felt at home.
Maureen closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She leaned back in her chair, and rubbed her temples.
“Now, I know I have been your counselor for only two weeks and some of you get the illusion that I am inexperienced. But let me tell you, I have twelve years of experience in counseling, and you people are worse than the prisoners I had to counsel when I started.”
She took another deep breath, leaned forward, raised her clipboard, clicked her pen, and prepared to start again.
“Maureen, I have a question on that homework you gave us?” Robby mumbled. “The question asked was what I was going to do to stop from drinking. Well I wrote “AAA,” is that good enough?”
“What?” Maureen asked, puzzled.
“I said, if I wrote AAA, was that a good enough answer for my recovery?”
“He means AA, not triple A,” Jack Jack said.
“Yes, that’s fine,” she answered.
Robby was a medium-built, middle-aged black man with white hair. I later learned he was an airline mechanic who lived with his wife and three stepchildren, who beat him on a regular basis. The company sent him here as a last resort to treat him for alcoholism and to guarantee that, if he did not complete the program, they could fire him without getting sued for racial discrimination. He had worn only two different sets of clothes for the three weeks that he had been here, and showed definite wet brain symptoms. His insurance would only cover another two weeks and the amount of care given to him would only assist him so far.
Craig handed the completed sign-in sheet to Maureen, who laid it on her desk.
“Okay, let’s start with Craig. Tell us a little about how your day went yesterday,” Maureen said, probably preparing for the worst.
Craig was white, dark haired, middle-aged, and, from what I could gather, an attorney, who had his own practice and who prided himself on his intelligence and self-assuredness. He was of medium build that looked like he exercised whenever given the opportunity, from his jogging outfit to his hi-priced water in hand. But his young appearance hid the fact of his long alcohol and drug use.
“Um, checked in with my business partner and he says he’s able to handle the case load so far. It’s just hard on him going out to lunch or dinner with new prospective clients.”
“Why would that be?”
“Because, it eats a lot of your time away. You have to go to a nice restaurant, order drinks, and if you’re lucky, you’ll have a new client to justify the bill.”
“Well, who says you have to drink?”
“It’s just common practice
, that if you go out and everyone is drinking, so do you.”
“Well, if they come to the lunch or dinner wearing jeans and you’re wearing slacks, do you go home and change?”
“No, but…” Dumbfounded, Craig could not answer.
She wrote on her clipboard and proceeded to the next patient on her list.
“Bobby, the last time we spoke, you mentioned your friends and working as the manager at a building supply store.”
Bobby sat up in his chair and lowered his head into his chest, a strong contradiction to the individual he was outside of the room.
“Yeah. Well, I was thinking yesterday exactly how much money my friends owe me for all the advances I gave them before I came in here. And the total that I came up with is about fifteen thousand,” he said sheepishly.
“And these are the people who you did cocaine with, and sold to?”
“Yes.”
“Well, do you expect to get that money back when you have completed your treatment here?”
With tilted heads and heavy eyelids we did our time. We listened half-heartedly, and became consumed by our own selfish gain. Lost inside our own amusement, we sat, waited impatiently, and awakened only to the sound of our names.
“Yes, I expect getting my money. I mean, that’s a lot of money owed to me.”
“And what will you do if they don’t have the money?”
“I’ll just pull out my Glock and go all ninja on them.” He slapped the fat under his arm, and pretended a gun was hidden there. “Because, things will go down that way if need be. I’ve done it before.”
I watched Bobby in disbelief, and imagined that, yes, a gun indeed could have been stored in one of the many layers of fat. But for Bobby to cross his arm to retrieve it was another matter in its entirety.
“So you’re going to go back to the same environment as before, when you know you need to change the people, places, and things in your life to stay sober?”