I made my way downstairs to the cool living room, and as I lay on the couch I began to grow sleepy, and then suddenly very scared.
I didn’t want to die. What had I done? I dragged myself up off the couch and made myself go into the kitchen and call 911. I could barely push the three numbers on the phone. My fingers wouldn’t hold the receiver.
“What seems to be the trouble?” The operator wanted me to explain exactly why I needed the ambulance, and I was growing dizzier by the minute, hardly able to hold my head up. I tried my best to speak.
“I need help…” The last thing I remember about the call was the loud clatter of the phone as it crashed to the kitchen floor.
The EMTs had to break through the heavy metal front door of my sister’s home. I was rushed to the emergency room at nearby Hahnemann University Hospital, where the nurses pumped my stomach and forced a charcoal solution down my throat to make me throw up. Because I was unsure exactly what I had taken, they gave me Narcan, a drug that reverses opiate overdoses. This, of course, cleaned out the remainder of the methadone from my body and threw me into instant opiate withdrawal, making me feel much worse than I already did.
I told the doctors in the emergency room that I was only trying to find relief while I was detoxing off methadone. I couldn’t seem to let go of those last few milligrams, and reality was too much to face drug-free. I suppose my faulty suicide attempt had been my way of asking for help.
My sister was called to the hospital, and I watched as she talked quietly with the doctors and nurses in the far corner of the room. Later I found that my family had arranged for me to go straight from the emergency room to a huge mental hospital on the outskirts of Philadelphia. I was to finish up the methadone detox there.
The big hospital reminded me of the Tekakwitha boarding school where I’d spent time years before. Like Tekakwitha, the mental hospital was made up of rambling, dark stone buildings with miles of green, grassy grounds surrounding the massive structure. But it was peaceful there, and I craved peace and quiet most of all. My jangled nerves wanted to be left alone to mend themselves.
I was put on a blind detox. The doctors had figured out right away that not letting me know my dosage was the best way to trick my mind and my body into letting the last few milligrams of methadone go. And it worked. I was finally able to stop worrying about how sick the detox might make me, and instead focus on getting better.
***
“So how do you feel now that you are drug-free?” The doctor who had treated me during my final days at the hospital spoke to me from behind his large wooden desk. He seemed slightly bored and was clearly reading off of a list of required exit interview questions.
Even though we had talked several times during my stay at the hospital, I had never divulged much about my time in New York, saying only that I had run away from home in Virginia many times and somehow ended up in the city. Ashamed, I was still not ready to tell anyone the whole story of my past. I hadn’t even told my family what I had done all those years in New York.
“I want to blow up all of the methadone clinics so that no one else goes through what I had to go through trying to get off it,” I said.
He stopped scribbling in his notebook and stared at me over his glasses. “You are not planning on returning to New York or to your sister’s home here in Philadelphia, are you?”
I was not. My life had so many limited choices, and this was another one: go out to Washington State to live with the brother who had abused me so many years ago, or move back to New York and make my way on the streets as best I could.
I couldn’t return to New York. That was a life I never wanted to experience again. So I had stirred up whatever courage I had and agreed to go live with Bill and his family in their small suburban home in Pullman, Washington. At least it was thousands of miles from New York City.
“Are you going to be staying in Philadelphia?” the doctor asked again, fiddling with his pen. He seemed anxious to hear my answer.
I was ready to leave him and the hospital behind me. “I’m leaving tomorrow for Washington State, as far as I can get from the East Coast.”
The doctor seemed relieved.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Six months later, I stood in the pitch-black dark on the highway that led out of Pullman, Washington, staring up into the clear night and waiting for someone to come by and give me a ride. The sky was a beautiful deep blue, studded with tiny, sparkling stars and a round, pale-yellow moon. I could smell the scent of the towering pine trees that lined the asphalt. Even though I was standing alone on the road, I could sense animals in the nearby woods, watching me from their hiding places.
I whistled a made-up song to myself as I walked along the highway, the gravel by the side of the road crunching loudly under my feet and echoing into the night. A huge winged animal, maybe an owl, passed close overhead, swooshing into the nearby pines. I hugged my lightweight jacket closer and peered down the road. As the amphetamines rushed through my veins, I decided this was the best idea I’d had in a long time.
I had been in Washington State for half a year, and I was sick and tired of being drug-free and trying to fit into a life that seemed as alien to me as the planet Mars. I had done my best to act square like my brother and his family. I spent my days at a mental health center, learning life skills with other adults who needed assistance. I even wore Birkenstocks and drank tea to fit in with the earthy vibe of the town.
But nothing about a normal life felt right. School, friends, vacations, doctor and dentist visits, holidays, and all the usual milestones of the teenage years were missing from my memories of growing up, and I had nothing to replace that lost time with but thoughts and nightmares of things I did my best to forget. Most of the time even that felt too hard to do. I struggled each day out in the hilly lunar landscape of Pullman, Washington, and one day I had enough. I bought a bunch of low-grade speed pills, and before I knew it I found myself slipping out of my brother’s quiet home and marching down the road out of town.
An hour passed. I shivered in my thin T-shirt. I hadn’t thought about how little traffic might be passing by at that time of night, so I’d packed nothing more than a light change of clothes. The deep mountain air was getting colder, and my earlier confidence was starting to fade. Then, like magic—I thought I was seeing things at first—I noticed a set of headlights far away, twinkling ever so faintly in the distance. A big truck was coming down the highway, headed right toward me.
When the truck finally rumbled to a stop, I ran toward it, my heart pounding, and climbed into the cab without giving the driver any thought at all.
The driver of the truck said that his name was Claude, and that he was from Canada. We pulled out onto the highway and Claude smiled as I began to ramble on as fast as I could get my words out.
“Where are you going, beautiful?” he interrupted me. His heavy French accent sounded sophisticated and cool. It made him seem more interesting than he probably was.
“Oh, I am going back to New York. I can’t stand it out here. Are you going that far?” I was confident that Claude would not be able to resist my charm.
For some reason I was drawn back, back to the city where I had experienced some of the most horrible days and nights of my life. I had been beaten, jailed, raped, and addicted to drugs. But I’d also grown up on the streets of New York. Living a normal life in Washington State had been too confusing. I needed to feel something familiar, even if it was bad.
“City girl, hmm? New York?”
I glanced over at Claude, trying to gauge just how much or how little I should tell him. Before I knew it, I was sharing much more than I probably should have.
“Ever been to New York? I lived there for a long time, but now I’m out here in Washington State and I cannot stand it. It’s so boring.” I chattered on, fidgeting as I talked and talked and talked. “I think things will be better when I get back to the city. I’m gonna try and get a job.” I had no real plans for when I d
id get to New York, but in my speed-addled state of mind I hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“Yeah, you’re a pretty one. You should have no problems in that big city,” he told me. “You know what? You are my type of girl! I been driving for a long time along this road, but I never saw a girl like you out here.” He winked at me and told me how happy he was to have found me to keep him company.
Claude never really answered my questions, so it shouldn’t have surprised me when he pulled the rig into a squalid set of teepee-shaped cottages next to the highway after we had driven for what seemed like hours.
“Come on, girl,” he called to me as he climbed down from the truck.
I was confused. “Why are you stopping here? You said you were going to New York. You promised me you would take me all the way there!” The bright morning sun was beginning to peep through the clouds, and the cheap speed I had taken was leaving my bloodstream. I knew I was about to crash.
“No, no, no, girl, Claude never said that!” He smiled at me. “We’re going to Canada.” He pronounced it “Caa-naa-daa.” “Back to Quebec! You’re coming with me, beautiful.”
A horrible feeling came over me. I’d thought I was charming him into driving me across the country, but in reality Claude had conned me and taken me just where he wanted to. I thought of all the miles we’d covered while I’d talked Claude’s ear off as we sped through the night. For a brief moment I thought of going along with him and maybe getting some rest, but I was pretty sure Claude’s plans didn’t include much sleep.
Worse, he was laughing at me. “Okay, beautiful, your choice.”
I was getting sleepier and more pissed off by the minute. The crash from the amphetamine high added to my rage. How dare he laugh at me! I considered pleading with him one last time, but I sensed it wouldn’t work. At that point I still saw all men as tricks who would either give me something or not. He was one of those guys who would do just what he wanted, nothing more.
“Thanks, but no thanks.” I turned and stomped off toward the ramp leading onto the nearby highway.
He called after me, asking me to stay, but laughing at me the whole time. And for one of the first times in my life I held my ground and kept walking. I knew that staying with Claude might have been the easiest thing to do right then, but in that moment I made the choice not to take the easy way out.
The sun was breaking through the clouds at a good pace as I walked along the side of the road, grinding my teeth and yawning furiously. I was feeling worse and worse. What had I been thinking when I left my brother’s?
I couldn’t keep running away every time things went bad or I was confused.
I walked further down the highway, trying to find an interstate sign. A big green marker came into view: State Route 99, Pacific Highway South. I had no idea where I was.
Many years later I would come to the horrible realization that I had been standing directly on the stretch of highway where serial killer Gary Ridgway had trolled for victims during the 1980s and 1990s. He had killed as many as seventy young women, girls who were pretty much just like me: runaways and street kids and prostitutes, girls Ridgway thought society would never miss. He was quoted as saying he was doing his victims a great service.
That day I dodged death when I missed Ridgway and his madness on the highway. But I also found something I hadn’t known existed. I didn’t know it then, but the small spark of confidence inside me was fueling something, a great big fire that would rage through me until I knew I needed to break free and make a difference in my life and in the world. I had no idea what my future held for me, only a vague sense that things would get better. I waited and hung on to the spark of confidence that told me to be strong.
CHAPTER TWENTY
After I found enough change along the road to make a phone call, I dialed the last person I ever thought I would: my father.
Throughout my life, I had often thought of my father and how he seemed like two different people to me. The first dad was the one who took me camping and called me his little girl. The second was a stranger, a monster who heartlessly abused me those nights in our family living room.
Even as an adult, I found this confusing. How could one man be good and evil at the same time? How could I ever trust another person, especially another man, if my own father couldn’t be consistent? Yet I always came back to him. I suppose I kept hoping I’d find out why things had happened the way they had.
When I finally got through to my father, he seemed happy that I was okay.
“Barbara? Where are you?”
“I’m on the West Coast, I think, and I need help. I need to get out of here. Can I come to your house?” I babbled on and on; I only wanted to get off the highway and into a safe, quiet place.
My father was not the type to ask me questions about what was happening or why I needed his assistance. He either helped or he didn’t. There was silence for a while, and I crossed my fingers behind my back.
“Okay, find the nearest bus station,” he said finally. “I’ll wire you a ticket. You can stay with me in Biloxi.”
***
When I stepped off of the smelly Greyhound bus in Biloxi, Mississippi, someone called out from a passing van, “Hey, baby, want to party?”
Partying was the last thing I wanted to do. The humidity had slammed into my face so hard it felt like a heater was on, and the air was thick and clammy. I was miserable and sweaty in my velour top and heavy blue jeans. The smell of fish was everywhere.
I found my father soon enough, and we headed down I-10 toward his home. He had retired from the Department of Defense and relocated to Biloxi, where he could live out the rest of his days on a federal government retiree’s pension. Since he didn’t need to work, he spent most of his time alone, fixing up old cars.
My dad let me stay in his guest bedroom while I got on my feet again. After leaving Claude behind I had decided that New York was in my past for good, and I was determined to do my best to become part of the square life. I found a job at a fish processing plant in Biloxi and slowly began figuring out the way things worked in the regular world.
Living with my father wasn’t as strange as it might seem. I know each of us is made up of many different parts, and he was no different; I didn’t excuse or forgive what he had done, but in a way I felt like I had my “before” dad back. But we didn’t talk about the past, and he didn’t explain it away like I always hoped he might. We were both adults and kept pretty much to ourselves, except when my mother came by.
The strange thing was that even though my parents were divorced, my mother had followed him to Biloxi and lived there on the other side of town. My parents would continue this relationship until my father’s death—divorced, not even really friends, yet strangely codependent. My father would change the oil in my mother’s car, and she would come by and argue with him from time to time. I suppose no matter how relationships look to people on the outside, each person gets something they want. I never could figure it out.
My mother didn’t have a federal government job to retire from like my father, so she supplemented her income with a cashier job in a small neighborhood market. She told me she was on the wagon again; apparently she was sort of a big shot in the local AA group. The AA and bingo communities were her whole life, she said.
Biloxi seemed a strange place to try to stay sober. Partying seemed a favorite pastime; in fact, there were bars open twenty-four hours a day, and the beach was lined with liquor stores that sported drive-through windows where customers could purchase their favorite cocktails and slurp them down as they drove away. I didn’t suspect a thing until my mother came by and pulled me to the side one afternoon.
She turned to me as we stood looking out the glass patio door, watching my father sandpaper the sides of a small green sports car. “Want to come out with me tomorrow?”
“Out? I guess so. Where are we going?” I had not been anywhere much since I had gotten to Biloxi. I was also curious about why my mother was aski
ng me to go anywhere at all.
“Don’t you want to go out and party? But you can’t tell your dad, okay?”
I probably shouldn’t have agreed to go with her, but I did. The next night, after my father and I had eaten dinner, she showed up dressed in her going-out outfit: black slacks and a V-neck blouse that partially revealed her chest. My father didn’t have much to say, even when my mother told him she was taking me to play bingo. I don’t think he believed her for a minute, but he would never have let her know he knew what was up.
My mother drove her brown Pontiac over to Gulfport, Mississippi, where a bar called the Lil Loafer was located. The Lil Loafer lounge was one of the twenty-four-hour establishments frequented by the men who worked the oil rigs in the Gulf. It was a rough, blue-collar type of place, full of smoke and country music, with pool tables and racks of pool cues lining the walls. Men and women were crowded around a small kidney-shaped bar, and the pretty brunette barmaid seemed to know most of the regular customers. They kept calling out her name when they ordered their beers: “Lily! Slide me another Bud down here! Thanks, hon!”
I soon saw that meeting men and getting drunk were my mother’s main objectives. Getting drunker and drunker, she sat at the packed bar and flirted with anyone who would pay any attention to her. The men had been out on the offshore oil rigs for months, and they were looking to have a good time. My mother was happy to oblige.
After that night, I never went out with her again. Watching my mother grow intoxicated to the point of sliding off the barstool bothered me, and I didn’t like the way she flirted with the men. I also didn’t like lying to my father about where we had been.
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