The Fix

by Kristin Rouse

  I try calling Constance one more time, even though I hate her and don’t want her, because I know there’s no way Dylan will take my call. The call goes to voicemail, as I should expect it to, but instead of barking out a panicked message, demanding she call me and come and help me before I do something really, really stupid, I ball up my fist, arch my arm backwards, and aim for the dead center of the window. I don’t even realize I’ve whipped my arm forward and flung the phone out of my grip until the window shatters and my cell disappears through the hole in the middle.

  The cat shrieks. I might be shrieking, too.

  I hate my mother. I hate my father, for leaving me. I don’t have a brother. Whatever is left of me isn’t fit for human consumption. Why is Juliana wasting her time with me? What am I to Anja but a pathetic project? Mattias and Lukas can’t possibly think of me as anything but a pain in their asses. Mama A, sweet Mama A… She deserves better than an interloper like me invading her family’s life.

  "Oh my fucking God, cat, shut the fuck up! He’s not coming back for you! You’re stuck with me!"

  I rip open the freezer to pull out a fresh pack of cigarettes. Of course I’d be out now. How the fuck did I manage that?

  I stuff my feet into shoes and yank the front door open. I shouldn’t have left my car at Jules’s… The closest gas station that sells American Spirits is four blocks away and scary-close to Comrade. Maybe I can make do with some Camels, or Marlboros….

  A blur of tan fur whizzes past my feet and down the cement stairs. All the air leaves my lungs

  "Birdie!” I scream, finally using the cat’s real name, “Birdie, come back!”

  I fling myself out the door and race down the stairs. This was the one thing I could do for Mac—I couldn’t stay sober at his funeral, couldn’t be with him the day he died, couldn’t even say goodbye the right way, but I could take care of his cat. His declawed beast of a cat who’s already disappeared from my view. I can’t fuck this up too.

  It’s better on foot. I can check the park and in people’s backyards. Up trees. She can’t have gone far, I tell myself, and I can’t fuck this up. I just can’t. I owe Mac more than that.

  My legs are leaden and it’s nearly impossible to keep them steady underneath me. I keep moving forward through sheer force of will. There’s no trace of her in the office park, no sign in the neighborhood behind my apartment. Dusk is coming on, but without my phone, I have no way of knowing what time it is. There’s more traffic on the streets. I should go back home and see if my cell phone is salvageable, because surely Juliana will have called me by now.

  She shouldn’t, though. She shouldn’t be bothering with me. Why is she bothering with me?

  There’s a park and a bike trail on the far side of the strip mall Comrade is in. There’s signage warning about the presence of coyotes. I have to check there—I have to make good to Mac, even if I’m useless in every other way.

  My legs are rapidly numbing and my throat feels like it’s on fire. I’ve been calling the cat’s name over and over, long enough to go hoarse and craggy. The park is empty, the streets are getting more crowded, and tears are burning at my eyes.

  There was one day I never told Anja about. It was after she’d given me my one-month chip, and in spite of how proud she was, I hadn’t been able to control myself. I’d gone into Comrade while my laundry was running, and ordered my favorite of their drafts. The bartender was different, must have come on new after the incident with Dylan and my subsequent sobriety. She’d poured me a drink, given me change for the ten I’d slid across to her, and puttered on about her business. I’d stared at the glass, at the frothy head and the bubbles floating up from the bottom. My hands were clammy and absolutely itching to take hold of the glass. Instead, I’d grabbed the red chip out of my wallet and rubbed it hard between my finger and thumb—maybe that was when the engraving began to smooth away.

  I’d taken off, the beer untouched, collected my still-damp laundry, and gone home. I left the drink on the bar, and deciding that must be the epitome of self-restraint, I’d never mentioned it to Anja, because it didn’t count because I didn’t drink it.

  Rationally, I know there’s no way that beer from ten months back is still on the bar.

  But something I can’t deny, can’t stop, makes me go in and check.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Here’s what I know: I’m Ezra Mackenzie. I was twenty-six on my last birthday in November. And I was twenty-three days (three and a half weeks, 553 hours, however you want to measure it out) from being sober for exactly one year when I fucked everything up by going into a bar, ordering a drink, and forgetting everything else that happened during the past three days. I had myself a nice little three-day bender to make up for the eleven whole months I was sober.

  At least when I do something, I do it big, right?

  I shouldn’t have a sense of humor about this, but it’s a defense mechanism that feels almost not terrible right now when everything else feels so hopeless. I’m lying in a hospital bed, tubes coming out the crook of my arm full of stuff that’s supposed to keep my brain from swelling up and dying, my leg slung up above me and hurting like hell. I feel like every bit the complete piece of shit that I know I am, so I need something to keep me going. So gallows humor it is.

  I remember the first couple of drinks at Comrade—the calm that washed over me with the first few sips, the lightheadedness that came with finishing the second, the hazy feeling that this really wasn’t so bad, I could handle this, I’m totally in control, and if I’m not, who cares, by the time I ordered the fourth. And then there’s all these weird fragments, these pieces I’m sure made sense in my stupor but now mean absolutely nothing. I couldn’t tell you how I ended up where I did when the cops found my sorry ass this morning. Maybe it’s locked in the recesses of my brain or something. Maybe it’ll come back to me in a day or a week or a month as I berate myself for being such a spectacular moron.

  This hospital I woke up in is on the complete opposite side of town, closer to where Constance lives than where my apartment is. In addition to fluids, they’re giving me just enough prescription-grade ibuprofen to offset the pain of my broken fibula—another mystery of my relapse is how I made it across town, probably on a broken leg. They think I might actually have walked on it after I broke it. That I feel like I’d remember by sheer virtue of how much it hurts now when I so much as look at it.

  I wonder if they’ve called an In Case of Emergency out of my phone, but then I remember that my phone is back at my apartment, probably shattered to shit with a seriously dead battery. It snowed sometime last night—it’s probably double-dead, done in if not by my excellent throw through the window, then by water damage. They haven’t asked me for a contact name or number, at least, not that I can remember or would have been cogent enough to give. I think I still have Juliana’s card in my wallet, but her old Brazilian phone number would be useless. I hope they couldn’t contact anyone, and that I can sign myself out of here without having them ask me about my family, my friends, my girlfriend. I want more than anything to pretend this didn’t happen, but after three days of not answering my phone, I’m betting that’s a pipe dream.

  Even if she hasn’t already guessed this is what happened, I know I’ll have to ’fess up to Anja and give my chips back. I’ll have to start all over again.

  The weight of what I’ve done is all-consuming—I’m a failure. I’m a loser and an idiot. I’ve let Anja and Constance down when both of them have found ways to stay sober. I’ve let Mama A and Mattias and Lukas down, who only wanted to see me get better and stay that way.

  And then there’s Juliana, who had been expecting me home. She’d been expecting me for dinner, for the night, for everything. I wonder how many times she might have called me, trying to figure out what I was up to all day. I wonder if she got worried when I didn’t reply and never came back. She had to be worried—of course she was worried. I wonder when worried became angry. When angry might have become
panicked. She didn’t sign up for a three-days-missing boyfriend. When I think of putting her through that, my leg thrums in pain and I have to sink down lower in the uncomfortable, lumpy hospital bed with my face in my hands. I’m so far past humiliated and ashamed, it’s pathetic. I’m pathetic.

  I try to shift around in bed, and it sends a jolt of pain up through my leg and into my gut. I grasp for the call button on the outdated, corded phone attached to the bed frame. The last thing an idiot like me needs is to add Narcotics Anonymous meetings to my repertoire for a new prescription drug addiction, but ibuprofen isn’t anywhere near enough for me right now.

  A nurse comes in. She’s got a halo of dark hair, big pretty eyes, and full lips ever-pursed in a smile. I can tell she’s doing her best not to look at me like I’m completely pathetic. For a minute she looks familiar, but I’m sure it’s just because she’s probably been on duty for hours and has checked on me before I was ready to realize what’s going on.

  “How’s the leg, Ezra? Scale of one to ten, ten being the worst?” The pain I’m feeling must be plastered all over my face.

  “E-eight,” I gulp out between deep, sucking breaths. “Maybe nine.” It’s worse than I can ever remember feeling anything hurt before, even my fucked-up nose the last time my shit-for-brains ass ended up in a hospital bed.

  She pulls out a key from a long retractable chain at her waist, unlocks a door above the sink in the corner, and pulls out a tiny bottle. She sticks a syringe in the vial, then presses the contents of the syringe into my IV tube. Whatever it is is powerful—it’s only a couple of minutes before I can breathe again.

  She checks my vitals, makes a couple of notes on the computer plugged into my IV pump, and then, instead of leaving, pulls up a chair by my messed-up leg. “You know, you’re lucky the police found you when they did. There’s another freeze warning tonight. And if you’d been on that leg any longer, you’d probably have severe nerve damage.”

  There’s something biting and nasty on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t find it in me to be mean to the woman with the drugs. I nod and shove the back of my head deep into the limp pillow and stare at the ceiling. Whatever she’s given me hasn’t made me sleepy—yet—but I hope if it looks like I’m about to drop off, she’ll leave.

  “One of the other nurses told me you were asking for your personal effects a little earlier; do you remember that? We figured you wanted your shoes to try to take off, although I really don’t think you’ll be going anywhere on that leg without crutches for a while. And we won’t give you those until you’re being discharged and someone from OT can come in to help you on them.”

  “I don’t want to take off,” I say, and I vaguely remember why I must have asked for it to begin with. Subconsciously, I think I was looking for it when I wiggled around and jarred my leg. “I just want my wallet. There’s something in there that I—”

  She holds out her hand. In her palm are several colored, nearly-rubbed-smooth anodized aluminum chips. My chips. I look at this woman with her kind face, and try to figure out how she knew it was my chips I wanted. She tips them into my palm and I clutch my fist to my chest. Not that these things mean anything now, but for a second, having them makes me think maybe this wasn’t all as bad as it seems.

  “You’re missing your one-year medallion.” Her tone has taken a different tone. I’ve heard that tone in meetings time and time again.

  “Won’t be getting it now.”

  “It’s a hard one. Don’t beat yourself up—lots of people have to try and try again. This isn’t failure—it’s a reset button.”

  She’s an addict, too, I realize without her having to say it.

  “You’ve had visitors in the lobby for hours now, but we wanted to wait until you were lucid enough to consent to see them.”

  “W-what? Who?”

  “A very bossy woman with a thick accent who keeps telling us she’s a nurse, too, to get us to do what she wants. Two guys your age. Two pretty girls, a blonde and a brunette, who’re spending about as much time fighting with one another as they are hugging and crying. And your mother. If you’d like to see any of them, I’ll bring them in. If not, I’ll tell them you’re not ready for visitors and have them come back tomorrow.”

  How the hell did they find me? I wonder. “Did I tell someone who to call?” I ask, searching my hazy memories for one where I’d have done something like that.

  The nurse looks sort of hurt. “I recognized you, Ezra. I called your mother. I thought it was the best thing to do, considering. You don’t remember me, do you?”

  I stare at her long and hard until I piece together why she looked familiar. Then I remember Thanksgiving—she’d been there. She’d had to leave before pie, but she’d been one of Constance’s friends from her AA meetings. We talked for a few minutes about our jobs, and I remember now thinking she had the same sort of energy as Mama A and wondered if that was just a nurse-thing. I feel like a total asshole as it comes rushing back at me now.

  “I’m sorry…,” I say.

  She waves me off.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m excellent at forging almost no impression whatsoever—that’s how I got away with my own bad habits for so long. Constance was going out of her mind by the time I called. They all showed up just a little bit after that.”

  “I want to see her,” I say. “Constance. I want to see her,” I clarify, surprising myself. I didn’t want anyone ten minutes ago. Surely I should say, “I want to see my girlfriend,” or “I want to see my sponsor.” But no—for not the first time since I was old enough to know better, I want my mother.

  The nurse nods and pats my good leg through the blanket. “I’ll bring her in. It’ll be all right, you know. I know that sounds like something everyone just says, but I promise you it’s true. Believe me—I’ve been there.”

  “Thank you.” I lean back and will my heart not to pound out of my chest. I wish it was Mac about to walk in the room, not Constance. It stings too much to think about Mac right now, though. I push him out of my thoughts because the last time I thought too much about him….

  “Ezra!” I look up to see Constance rushing towards me. “Oh, honey, oh, I’m so, so glad to see your eyes.” Her eyes are glistening and her hands are shaking.

  “Mom?” I haven’t called her that in decades, but it slips out and doesn’t feel terrible. It makes things a little less hopeless for a second. I try the name again. “Mom… I’m sorry.” It’s all I manage before I begin to sob.

  “Oh, honey.” She perches on the side of my bed and throws her arms around me. For so many years, there was nothing comforting about my mother’s arms. Her embraces were scarce, and never soothing when they were offered. Now they provide all the comfort I crave. She pulls me up and folds me against her chest. Her fingers comb through my hair and I hear her shushing me, her voice low from the back of her throat. "You have nothing to be sorry for, nothing at all. We’re just so relieved you’re all right.”

  I shake my head back and forth in disbelief. She pulls away and holds my face in her hands, forcing my eyes to lock on hers.

  “Honey, listen to me. This is a setback. This is just a setback. This doesn’t define you. This doesn’t make us any less proud of you. Do you understand me?”

  “But… I f-fucked up….”

  “We all fuck up, Ezra. That’s the constant in our lives, especially for people like us. You’ll put this behind you, and next time you’ll do better. This doesn’t ruin everything. It just starts something else.” She strokes my cheeks with the pads of her thumbs to blot away my tears. This tiny gesture means absolutely everything. Every moment growing up when I craved a mother who didn’t stink of red wine, who never said my name at a normal pitch that wasn’t jarring and abrasive, comes back to me in an instant. I feel every one of those feelings begin to pour out of me like water. I shake like a leaf, but she’s there. She holds me tight and tells me she loves me and how sorry she is. My body convulses as sobs rip out of my chest and th
roat. And she’s there.

  When the shaking, the sobbing, the intense self-loathing finally comes to a head and mixes with whatever the nurse shot into my IV, Constance (Mom) lays me back and smooths my hair against my forehead. “You need to rest, honey,” she says. “You need to rest and relax.”

  “I can’t fail again, Mom. Please tell me what to do so I don’t fail again.”

  “Tomorrow,” she says. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow. Right now you just need to rest.”

  I do. After all, there’s plenty more time for self-loathing tomorrow.

  ***

  In the year since my last hospital stint, I forgot how often nurses come in to check on you. Some try to be quiet and even apologize when they see they’ve woken you up. Others bang the door open and closed, snap on lights, and talk to you with no regard as to whether or not you’ve been sleeping. Because of this, I sleep fitfully when I manage to sleep at all. Mostly my head races to every possible conclusion it can in the state I’m in. I don’t see the nurse who’s friends with Constance again that evening; she must have left for the night. I feel bad that I don’t remember her name, that I can’t even pick it out of the list of nurses’ names scribbled on the white board across from my bed.

  I drift off around dawn, and at last get some quality sleep. When I wake up, Anja is sitting in the chair next to me. My skin turns icy—I wasn’t ready to see her yet. I wonder if I was ever going to be ready to see her.

  “Ez,” she says, her voice somewhere between a gasp and a sigh. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  I should apologize, right? That’s the logical thing to do. My vocal chords don’t seem to be working, though. I try to smile, but it’s a grimace at best.

  “This is a ridiculous question, I know, but… how do you feel?”