by N. K. Smith
I drive fast. Too fast. For a brief moment, I think about what it might feel like to slam into a concrete barrier. I think about how news would travel all over the world about recent Oscar winner Adra Willow’s death. So many people would attend my funeral. Most of them would be relative strangers because while they’d be famous, they never really knew me.
But I don’t drive into the median, or slam into another car, or crash into concrete walls. I just drive home and leave the keys in the ignition.
Tearing through my house, I grab anything I think I might need. Coke, pot, alcohol, clothes, toothbrush, shoes.
I toss it all into the backseat of my car and take off. I don’t care where I go, as long as it’s not here.
Chapter 50
I only make it to Colorado before I realize I’ll never be able to outrun the whole world. I make it to Chicago before truly understanding I don’t have enough coke to stay high for long. My underlying intent is to get to New York, but while I’ve spent time there, my drug connections aren’t exactly solid. Jude used to take care of all that. While it’s true that drugs will find me if I stay still enough in these big cities, I left in such a hurry that I didn’t think about bringing security with me. I’m not sure how comfortable I’m going to be buying from just anyone.
I wish I was still with Jude. He had hook ups no matter where he was in the world.
I guess we never did officially break up, but I don’t know if he’s back from his tour, and I’m not sure I want to go down that road with him again. I don’t want to be his lover just for a drug connection. The thought makes me shiver. Of course, that might also be me starting to come down.
Pulling over on the side of the road somewhere in Ohio, I try to remain calm as I look at my dwindling supply of coke and remember how much Jude and I used to snort. Unbidden tears roll down my cheeks.
I’m fucked up inside. It’s a rotting, stinking mess in there.
There’s nothing I can do. I’m inert. I’m trapped. I’m a fucking victim of everything, my parents, Hollywood, Elsie, boyfriends, and my brain.
But isn’t that the story of my life? It’s the same cycle I always fall prey to. I realize I’m a victim, then I make the same choices over and over again, and those choices make me a victim once more until I realize I don’t want to be a victim. So I make a new choice, but then I fall back into making the same decisions I did in the first place. I don’t change, I just pretend to.
Thinking about things like this makes me feel like shit, so I pour a little pile of coke on the cover of my tablet, scrape it into a line, and snort it. It takes about two seconds for it to work, and when it does, my mood lifts. I don’t feel like garbage anymore because I’m not garbage; I’m awesome. I’m an award-winning actress who is so in demand I could ask for the world and producers, directors, and studios will give it to me without question.
Hell, yes, this is perfect. I’m perfect. When I get to New York, I’ll get back to work. Maybe I’ll do a play—Oscar winner turned Broadway star. I almost convince myself that I’ll do it, but deep down I know that I’m not going to New York to be fabulous or to be a star. I’m going to New York to get away, to hide inside the most populated city in America, to disappear in the crowd, even if it’s just for a short time.
Once I clean up the tablet, and lick off the last of the coke residue clinging to it, I check my cell. Fifty new voicemails, but I don’t check them. I just scroll through the missed calls. Peter. Peter. Peter. Peter. Liliana. Peter. Peter. Meg. Peter. Peter. Some number I don’t recognize. Peter. And more Peter.
I toss it onto the passenger seat and take off again. I’ll be in New York soon, and even though I worried about where I was going to find blow just a minute ago, I’m not worried about it now. Everything will be taken care of.
I am strong enough to make my life happen the way I want it to happen. When I get there, I’m going to grab a hotel room and get loaded.
Chapter 51
“I’d like to check in,” I say. My nose itches and my eyes water.
The lady in the pink and white medical scrubs raises one eyebrow. “You’d like to be admitted?”
I nod. “I looked you up online. It said to come here.”
The woman rises out of her seat, pushes a button, and rounds the desk. “Of course. Are you on anything now?”
Two other people join her—another female and a dude the size of the Terminator. No one touches me, but they’re close enough to.
“Are you on anything?” she asks again.
“I think so.”
“Can you tell me what?”
My mind is sluggish and racing at the same time. I try to run my fingers through my hair, but it’s still too short, so I press the heels of my hands against my temples. “I can’t remember.” I can’t even remember how long I’ve been in New York, but I feel weary, like I’ve been here for a while.
“Do you have anything on you right now?”
I nod. “There’s a bunch of shit in my pockets, but you don’t have to take it away, do you?”
“Honey, this is detox, that’s what we do.”
As the words soak in to my soggy brain, I think about making a dash for the door. It’s only a few feet away, and it’s not like I’ve signed any paperwork committing myself to this place. I lift a foot and turn my body, but then I’m hit with images of myself that run through my mind like a gossip show.
Months, or maybe years, worth of drifting away from everyone and everything while hiding in New York.
Peter’s calls. Buying drugs on the street. Running from everything in my life. The gossip shows speculating about where I am, what I was doing, reporting on the people all over the world who could be me. The pity in Liliana’s voice when I finally listened to one of her messages—“Adra, I know things have been tough, but we’re pretty worried about you. Can you just call us? We want to make sure you’re safe. There are a lot of good programs out there to help people get better”.
The flash of a fist as it speeds toward my face.
“Let’s go over here,” the nurse says as she points to a door. “We’ll get you signed in and evaluated, and then we can talk about what’s in your pocket.”
“Don’t tell anyone I’m here, okay? I don’t want Lili to think she’s better than me.”
This doesn’t faze her. Her only reaction is to raise an eyebrow. “We’re not allowed to tell anyone anything about you unless you have a court order to be here.”
“I don’t think I do.”
She smiles at me. It’s kind and genuine, and I think it means that she likes me. She reminds me of someone else. Someone I’ve only met a few times? Who the hell am I thinking of? Dark hair, nice smile, kind. A person who gave of herself?
The shelter woman. What was her name? Halley? Helen? Hettie? Whatever her name was, Candice reminds me of her. I wasn’t a star to her. I was just some person coming in to work at the shelter to purge the evil in her soul. Now with Candice, I’m just a junkie looking for some help, I guess.
Maybe she doesn’t recognize me, and she’s just nice to everyone. “I’m Adra Willows.” I hold out my hand and offer her the crumpled page of a magazine. It’s proof of who I am.
She hesitates, but takes the paper, unfolds it, and looks it over. Again, she doesn’t look impressed. “I know who you are. I’m Candice. And this is Jeffrey and Theresa.”
Candice takes me by my arm, and I notice that she, and Jeffrey and Theresa are wearing latex gloves. “I’m not a street person, you know. I’m Adra Willows.”
She lets me repeat myself, and then repeats herself. “I know. We just have standard procedures. We have to be careful with everyone.”
She leads me through the door, and panic sets in once I hear it click behind me. “Maybe I’m in the wrong place.”
“I don’t think so,” Candice says. “I’d like to see what’s in your pockets, and if you can remember what you took before you got here, it’ll help us know how to help you.”
There
is a part of me that no longer wants to play this game. I don’t want to pretend like I don’t need to get this under control. A part of me wants to settle down, give the lady some information, and ride out the storm.
But the junkie inside me wonders if I make a mad dash, could I get out that door before they tackle me? The junkie is wondering if that door is locked. The junkie is plotting how to use all the remaining drugs in my pocket before they confiscate them.
I don’t know which one of me was going to win, the sliver of hopeful human who wants to get better, or the addict who’s writhing for more.
No one is here to tell me what to do. Since I’ve come to New York, no one’s told me what to do or even given me an opinion. I’ve listened to voicemails, but I’ve ignored every incoming call. In fact, I don’t even know where my cell is anymore.
I don’t have much left. I gave my car away to some mom and her kids who were hoofing it through nasty neighborhoods. I don’t remember why I thought it was the best thing to do or why I thought I was any safer in that neighborhood than they were. Most of my clothes are filthy rags according to high class standards. All I have is my bank card and the millions of dollars within my accounts. I never got fucked up enough to lose that.
Poor me.
“People know I’m in New York, you know.” I think it’s a logical thing to say, but Candice gives me a look that indicates my words come out of nowhere. She tries to touch my pockets, but I’m not ready for that so I bat her hand away. It’s not forceful, just enough to let her know to back off. “I saw it on TV.” I turn to the tall guy. “I’m on TV, you know.”
“Yes, I’ve seen you before.”
“So, Locker was being all investigative and told the whole world I was hiding out, which I am, but shit, people just need to . . .” I point to a chair. “Can I sit down?”
I don’t wait for an answer, I just walk to the chair. Well, I pretty much fail at the walking part. The only reason I don’t fall flat on my face is because the guy grabbed me around the waist. He feels warm and nice. I snuggle back against him, but he carefully pushes me forward. He keeps his hands on my waist to steady me as the other lady nurse wraps an arm around my body.
They help me to the chair, and after I’m seated, I say, “I like that wallpaper.”
“How long have you been in New York, Adra?”
“I don’t know. Months and months, I think.”
Candice asks the next question. “How did you get that black eye?”
Bringing my hand up, I tentatively touch the skin around my socket. It hurts. “I don’t know.”
“And what about your hands. They look like defensive wounds. Was someone hurting you?”
It takes me a minute to respond as I search through my mind to figure out what I was doing immediately before coming in to this place. “I don’t know.”
“This is important,” Candice says as she kneels down in front of me and looks me square in the eyes. “Do you remember what you took?”
With the new information that I have a black eye and some kind of injury to my hands, the scales have tipped in favor of coming clean and getting clean. My life has been full of loneliness, but nothing in my past compares to what I’ve experienced living the life of a junkie. I can remember pieces of it but not the majority and definitely not most of today.
What I do remember was that it was something I drank.
“Adra?”
“I’m trying to remember.”
I got up, did a bunch of coke, then wanted to take a nap hours later, but couldn’t, so I took something. Pot hasn’t been able to help me sleep as much as before, so I bought something from someone who said it would help. “It was something with initials.”
They rattle off a bunch of letters, but then one sequence of letters catches my attention. “That’s it. GHB.”
Candice nods and the other nurse says, “Well, that would explain the disorientation and lack of coordination.”
“Memory loss, too,” the guy chimes in.
“Anything else?” Candice stands, and it feels very much like she’s towering over me now. I curl inward so I’m as much as a ball as I can be. “Adra, it’s important you tell us—”
“I do a lot of coke.”
“You snort it.”
“Yes.”
“Do you inject it?”
I don’t bother answering it; I just hold out my arm and push my sleeve up to show her. The weather has been warm enough to wear short sleeves, but since I started using the needles for a different kind of cocaine experience, I’ve worn long sleeves to hide the marks.
“What else?”
“Morphine and phennies.”
“Phenobarbitals?” she asks, and I nod. “So you like stimulants and depressants?”
I look up at her. “Well, mainly stimulants, but the others help me . . .”
When I don’t finish, she supplies the rest, “Come down? What do you do the most of?”
“Coke and morphine.” I pause, but then remember. “Lorazepam.”
Candice twists up her mouth and sighs through her nose. “That’s a very scary combination.”
“I like morphine a lot.” I try to smile as the memory of how it makes me feel washes over me. “And coke, but morphine is . . .” I nod again as if I’m answering a question. “You’re really pretty, you know?”
“Thank you.”
“You should be in a movie or something.”
As the medical team hoists me up, she smiles. “You think?”
“Uh-huh. You could be in one.”
“I’m going to check your pockets now.” She says it quickly, so quickly, in fact, that I don’t really even register it. Before I can even make note of the hands wedging themselves into the pockets of my jeans, she continues. “I did a bit of modeling in college, but I developed anorexia and a meth habit, so I quit.”
I guess I should be shocked that she had a drug problem. She seems so together. But instead of commenting about the meth, I look her up and down. “You look great. Did you look like this in college?”
“Before the starvation and drugs, yes.”
“Then why did you think you needed to change?”
Candice stops and locks her eyes with me. “Because I felt fat standing next to all those perfect women with all their perfect bodies and their perfect white skin. I couldn’t change my skin tone, but I knew I could change how my body looked.”
“That’s sad. You have a beautiful skin. It’s very smooth.”
“I’m better now.” She gives me a wink. “You’ll be better soon. Come on.”
She leads me farther into the facility, and it’s only after I sit down with some paperwork that I realize I have no more drugs left on me. They took them all. As I sign my name again and again, I realize I can’t back out of this.
And finally, by not making a conscious decision on whether to stay or not, I’ve made what should be the best decision of my life.
Chapter 52
Rehab, man.
The first few days are hell. After I came down from my high, I stayed in one room with an attached bathroom for two days. Nurses and techs checked on me every hour, and took my vitals. They also talked me out of leaving, which I probably threatened to do each and every time they came in. Of course, I wanted to leave, regardless of what the staff said, but I felt so incapable of getting up.
“This is the morphine withdrawal,” one tech said to me.
I wanted to ask where Candice was, but my achy body and my spinning mind limited my communication to grunts and monosyllabic replies.
There may be nothing worse in the world than feeling like complete and utter shit for days at a time, but the one positive is that it is only for a few days. When I start to turn the corner from physical withdrawal to just having to deal with the mental addiction, I’m able to get out of bed and walk more than just the few steps to the bathroom. On the first glorious day I wake up not drenched in sweat and puking, one of the nurses tells me I’ve been there fo
r three days as she shows me around.
“It’s smaller than I thought it was. I thought rehab was, like, bigger or whatever.”
“Oh, we’re what’s considered a detox center. We aren’t a full rehabilitation clinic.”
“Um, so what . . . where am I going to go?” I guess I’d thought this was an all-in-one kind of place. I begin to tremble just a little as we walk. Not knowing where I’ll be in a few days makes me anxious.
As we enter into a small kitchen area, she says, “Well, that’s what will be decided today. Help yourself.” The woman points to the coffeemaker.
When I have a big cup of cheap, strong coffee, I follow her to a little room with a small, cluttered desk. Behind it sits a man who looks like he should be a college professor or something. He’s frumpy in his oversized gray cardigan and his wild, gray hair that sticks up in odd places.
“I’m Doctor Humphries.”
“Hi.” No one tells me to sit down, but there’s a hard wooden chair sandwiched between his desk and the wall, so I carefully sit and take a sip of coffee.
“So, cocaine, opiates, benzodiazepine, barbiturates, and depressants like GHB?”
I’m not sure I should answer, so I drink more coffee. When he looks up at me from my file, I nod before I drop my eyes back down.
“That’s an impressive list of drugs that will kill you quickly. How long have you being doing them?”
“What month is it?” I ask.
“July.”
I try to do the math in my head, but my brain is unwilling to cooperate. A guess will have to do. “I’ve done coke for about a year maybe. And I took off from California back in April, I think, so I’ve been using the rest since then. Except for lorazepam. My doctor prescribed those before I got into coke.”
“Would you say your memory loss was significant?”