One by One

by Nicholas Bush

  All he ever says about her death is, “When I die, I want to be buried next to her.” He is just fifteen at the time of her death and he is so innocent, such a good kid, like Allison was. I am angry and figure I will numb the pain through drugs and eventually the anger will go away, but Austin is clearly crushed. I wonder how any of us will ever make sense of this loss.

  After the funeral, a few of my cousins whom Allison and I were always close with, stick around. They tell me that my cousin Chris, who lived with Allison and Dusty, had said he did all he could to save Allison the night she died. Apparently, he and Dusty had discovered my sister in a similar condition a few weeks after phoning my parents, passed out and not responsive, but this time she wasn’t breathing and had a very weak pulse. Apparently, Chris had said that he and Dusty had frantically tried to look up on the internet how to revive a person who has overdosed on heroin. Once they realized they weren’t making progress, they removed all the illegal narcotic paraphernalia from their small home out of fear of getting into trouble, and then dialed 911. But by that time, it was too late. An ambulance came and the paramedics pronounced Allison dead at the scene.

  When police confronted Chris the night of Allison’s death, he refused to give a statement. Shortly after, he hired the best criminal attorney money could buy and that was the end of the investigation. In time, his involvement in my sister’s death will create a rift in my family that will linger for years to come, and he will subsequently become excommunicated and ostracized.

  In what appears to be a direct result of Allison’s death, a “Good Samaritan” law will be created, basically protecting anyone calling the police in a similar situation from being charged with a crime. I believe this has a lot to do with my dad pressuring the detective in the weeks and months following Allison’s death; he just won’t let it go without some answers. He deserves credit for this. When my father pressed the issue of charging those at the scene with a crime, or tried to find out what exactly happened, the detective in charge of the investigation told him he had done all he could, which was, I believe, getting the Good Samaritan law enacted.

  I had no idea that Allison was on heroin. Nobody did, except for, it seems, Dusty and Chris. One time, after we hung out on the Fourth of July weekend, I saw a puke stain streaked across the side of Chris’s vehicle, where either Allison or Dusty had been riding the night before. Given that Allison is the only female in that equation and has a lower drug tolerance than the guys, I had a sinking feeling that it was her who had gotten sick and it crossed my mind that maybe she was on something worse than what she was being prescribed to treat her shingles, but when I asked her about it, she lied to me. Instead, she chose to continue going down a diseased pathway to her own death, just weeks later.

  When Allison died, she was a senior in college, a premed student and also a published award-winning poet. She always wanted to be an anesthesiologist because they make a lot of money, and she thought it sounded really smart. She was so beautiful, popular, smart, and hardworking. And she was so kind, man. She really loved other people and they really loved her back. And now she is dead.

  The hard part for me, I know, is having to accept the fact that such a wonderful person could make such horrible, hurtful choices. But she had a disease, called addiction, a mental illness, that caused her to make choices that hurt those she loved most and even caused her to take her own life. How could I be mad at her though?

  When we clean out Allison’s apartment, we find it loaded with heroin paraphernalia. It becomes clear that Allison was doing heroin to numb a horrible pain. She had been diagnosed with shingles in high school, and the disease took root before the doctors knew what it was and could intervene. As she went into college and began her modeling career, serious nerve pain ensued. One of the most beautiful things she ever said to me was, “Whenever I am with you, I don’t feel any pain. I can do anything.” When we hung out together, it was just her and me spending quality time together; I felt free of my past and she felt free of her disease.

  She coped with the condition as best she could, going to different doctors to get the best pain meds and finding creative ways to hide her rash during her photo shoots. She confided in me that she didn’t dare reveal it to her agent or photographer, out of fear of being dropped from the agency. But as time progressed so did her tolerance to pain medication, and once she tried heroin, there was no going back. It was only a few years before the combination killed her. It’s widely believed even to this day that she died as a result of the pain medication, but that’s not the case.

  After the funeral and all the sentimental bullshit that ensues, I have nowhere to go. My parents sometimes sort of attempt to broach the subject of what my next move is, but I make it clear that I have nowhere to go and no intention of leaving, and hint at the idea that everything is their fault.

  When Greta and Giovanni call, I agree to go visit them. “So is this a wake-up call, or what?” Greta asks.

  “Yeah,” I say, and then I think to myself, fuck you. I hadn’t told them how she died, but knowing me, and the way my family is, they must have guessed. People don’t just die peacefully at a young age.

  I am no longer willing to put my best foot forward and give life the all-American try. Just when I had started to flirt with the idea of working with Joe at his dad’s company, starting some sort of career, and going straight, everything came crashing down.

  Over the next few months, my heart aches nonstop and I find myself frequently grimacing, and holding my chest where my heart is. There are points throughout each day when I can’t breathe. I know life will never be the same, and I am convinced it may not even be worth living. Either that, or I’m just not ready to live it.

  In the weeks after Allison’s death, I shut myself in her room in our summer home and make it my own. I park a television with a video game console across from the bed and drink nearly a full bottle of vodka a day, combined with heavy pot use. It’s not long before, in a drunken rant, I start screaming at my parents, telling them that they were the sole cause of Allison’s death, laying heavy accusations on them. My father calls the police, who quickly arrive, handcuff me, and drive me to a crisis center. There I speak with a social worker until the early morning hours. At one point, the social worker asks, “Don’t you believe in God?” When I say I do, she says, “Then what are you so worried about?”

  I try to explain to her what I have been through up to now, that I have fallen into a dark hole of drugs and crime after years of abuse and was just about to crawl out of that pit when I was pushed in deeper by this tragedy. She doesn’t cut me any slack; she says I’m trying to justify my behavior.

  During this desperate time—while I’m living with my parents and mourning the loss of my sister—I have several run-ins with the law. I’m not actively in the game of dealing or in the party scene or running some crime ring, but I’m not on the straight and narrow either.

  When we leave the summer home, I go back to my parents’ home and spend my time in their basement, getting high and drinking, numbing the pain. It gets to the point when I know I need to move on, but I just don’t know how. I am stuck. Rather than shifting in the foreground, my past continues to claw at me incessantly.

  One day, while I’m on the treadmill in the workout room, I hear our family dog barking, so I climb off and head up the stairs, only to find policemen walking all over my parents’ yard. I open the garage door and ask, “What’s going on?”

  “Are you Nicholas Bush?”

  “Yeah, what the fuck you want?”

  “You’re coming with us, put your hands behind your back. Anything in your pockets?” I shrug and after they cuff me, one of the cops searches me and finds a joint. Afterward, they march me in front of the neighbors to their car; I protest the whole time. “What did I do? You fuckin’ Nazis can’t take people out of their homes for no reason and arrest them! What are you taking me in for?”


  “Relax, stoner boy, we’re taking you in for questioning. A detective wants to see you.”

  “Tell him to fuck off, goddammit, I have nothing to say. I want a lawyer you pig piece of shit!” With that, I am suddenly back in jail undergoing shock incarceration all over again. I am given a familiar tattered jumpsuit and placed in the drunk tank to await the detective’s arrival. While there, a man vomits all over the place and another begins punching the walls and bashing his forehead into the door, bloodying himself thoroughly. The putrid smell is that of the derelict pits of hell itself, a stench of rotten foulness that cannot be described other than to say I would rather die than endure the confines of that odorous, cramped holding tank again.

  I am forced to endure a barrage of questions from a detective. He asks about stolen property, break-ins, and witness testimonies, and makes all kinds of accusations. I refuse to engage and over and over again I say that I want a lawyer. He grins at me sickly, “That’s funny, because all you’re going to get is a jury trial and they don’t give a fuck about dope fiends. You’re going to go down, and I’ll see to that.”

  I expect to be kept in jail for the duration of a jury trial, however many months that will take, and I don’t care. My life is hopeless anyway. I’m living off my parents and don’t have a job, so what the hell else am I going to do? I try to think up a future for myself, but there is darkness where visions of a career, a home of my own, maybe even a family, should be. Finally, a lawyer is assigned and comes to sit with me.

  “What the fuck, man?” I ask, even though he’s on my side. “I’m at home minding my own business and I get thrown into jail for nothing? I didn’t do anything. My sister just died and I don’t even care if I live either.” The lawyer sighs and leaves. A few minutes later, he returns and says the cops have nothing concrete and are going to let me go with a possession fine. I am so relieved when he says this that I actually begin to cry.

  Later a guard comes to get me. He gives my clothes back and after I have dressed, he walks me to the coveted exit door of the jail. It is midnight, the middle of winter, and I have no ride home. I trudge along the highway, wearing only sweatpants and a T-shirt, until Austin comes to get me.

  While in the midst of my destructive reclusiveness, Giovanni calls and invites me to stay with his family for a while that summer. I decline at first, but Greta gets on the phone and convinces me. Time is a powerful thing, and it seems like they missed me. Weeks pass, and when they see me, they embrace me warmly. In the days that follow they try to talk with me about Allison’s death. They want to talk about how she died, and encourage me to move on. They tell me that I’m not to blame for Allison’s death, and neither are my parents. They say Allison made the choices that killed her. I know better than to argue with them, so I just say, “I know, you’re right.”

  What else can I say? I wish I could believe them and absolve my crushing guilt and frustration, but I just can’t. I can’t write off Allison’s death so quickly. Deep down I know that to really move on and heal, I have to forgive my parents and even Allison, who successfully hid her addiction from us and ended up killing herself. I also have to forgive myself for not blowing a louder whistle about my suspicions. I replay the last time I saw her again and again in my mind, how I sold her an ounce of weed and hugged her goodbye in a McDonald’s parking lot near the Tower Drive Bridge on the northeast side, while she and Dusty were on their way out of town, moving to Madison. It was just a few weeks before she died, shortly after the Fourth of July.

  After I’ve caught up with the Russos on my first day back with them, Giovanni and I head into his room. We begin smoking weed and he asks me what I’ve been up to.

  I don’t tell him that I’ve been an emotional mess or that I just got out of jail. Instead I reply sheepishly, “Pshhh, getting fucked up.”

  He cocks his head to the side and responds facetiously, “Really? You don’t say.”

  I ask what he’s been up to himself and he licks his chops in an annoying way, then he says, “So have I,” and pulls out a miniature treasure chest full of pills, razors, powder, and rolled up dollar bills. It seems that he has been able to obtain entire prescriptions of OxyContin. This is particularly impressive given that Oxy has become the most sought-after drug.

  Then, even though I’m skeptical that it will affect me—I’ve always thought scripts are weak—I swallow a handful of them. I took Vicodin growing up and various forms of hydrocodone at the military school, but Oxy is much stronger and it doesn’t take long before my whole body feels numb and I fall into a state of blissful relaxation. If Vicodin is like stepping into a puddle, Oxy is like swimming in the ocean. There’s even a feeling that great things are ahead, like the president gave me the keys to Fort Knox and there are so many possibilities suddenly within my reach. I’m blown away by the sheer power of the drug—finally something that truly masks the guilt.

  Giovanni confides that he has become heavily engaged in the acquisition and resale of OxyContin, specifically, high-dose 80 mg pills. Without me in the picture, it seems as though the dynamics of the relationship between father and son have changed. Without me to be the wild one, to be the one who doesn’t take things seriously, it’s as though he’s adopted the same attitude instead.

  As this was happening, Francesco was nowhere to be found; often he was traveling to Italy, China, or other places. Without being feared and revered by his family, I’m guessing he found this elsewhere. My questions about him are met with disdain.

  Weeks pass by during which I tiptoe in and out of my reclusive grief-stricken shell. One day Giovanni asks if I want go stay with him for a while at his townhouse in Milwaukee. When we arrive, his girlfriend greets us at the door. I instantly notice how much thinner she is than when she joined Giovanni at school a year before, but I keep this to myself. We’re not in the house for more than a few minutes before someone breaks out a few full bottles of Oxy. The pills are quickly chopped and snorted away. The excitement of the first line is the best. I lean forward with a twenty-dollar-bill held tight in one nostril. There are butterflies in my stomach and an anticipatory excitement like I had just before the first time I smoked pot. After having tried just a little bit a few days earlier up in Green Bay, I sense I am getting into something terrible that I have yet to truly discover. I don’t want to go back.

  Giovanni’s pretty girlfriend holds a mirror up to me with lines of the prepared drug on it and I crush the lines, inhaling exuberantly through the bill while rapidly covering the length of the line and then exhaling while looking away. A couple lines in, I let out a gasp of air, as I immediately stand fully erect and then emit an orgasmic moan. My nostril burns much in the same way that the perfect amount of hot sauce tickles the tongue, and I press one side of my face with the side of my hand in order to intensify the sensation. I rock back and forth, repeating the words, “Thank you, thank you, oh, thank you, dude.”

  We burn through a script of the smaller dose pills, called “Roxys,” in one sitting; they last the three of us just part of a day. The high is life changing. I am invigorated and perfectly content at the same time, feeling the most concentrated amount of physical pleasure throughout my entire body that I’ve ever experienced. I alternate between mental and emotional relief and elation. I finally feel in control again, powerful even, and not at all concerned with the tragedy that just occurred in my family. My true introduction to opioids, other than the one time at Giovanni’s, culminates with us lying half-naked on an open futon bed in the center of the room with fans blowing on us from all directions and the shades drawn as we binge watch Netflix, caressed by pleasure.

  Over the course of the week, we break into higher and higher doses; the pills typically run between 10 and 25 mg or so, but Giovanni has some 80 mg ones stashed away. There are about twenty-five pills in a bottle and we finish each bottle we open. I don’t think about my sister, my life, or any of my problems for hours, and then days, at a time. I
t’s not long before we are running low on our final high-dose script, so Giovanni wastes no time in setting up a deal to take place a few hours away, in Chicago’s South Side, and we head out that same afternoon.

  It’s just after dark when we pull off the interstate and Giovanni calls the dealer, a guy he calls “Red,” to tell him we’re nearby. Red asks what our car looks like and tells us to park in front of his home, and that he’ll be back shortly. Simple enough, I think. I don’t know who Red is or how Giovanni got in touch with him. At one point he’d said in passing, “All the good shit comes from the niggers, dude, there’s no way around it.” I didn’t ask questions about this at the time and I don’t now.

  I’ve trusted Giovanni with my life on several occasions, though I never really valued it in the first place and have never been scared enough to second-guess a situation. If we needed security, I was the one who provided it, even if I was in over my head. I had learned to exude confidence. Giovanni has a habit of sweet-talking his way into getting somebody’s connection to a drug source, going over a supplier’s head by feigning friendship, and then, after having gained access to his source, never talking to the person again. Giovanni has done this on several occasions, and if the person put up a fight or got clingy, I would scare the shit out of him.

  After we park, we sit in the car for about ten minutes before a very muscular black guy with huge arms comes strolling up the sidewalk and enters the home we are parked in front of. He is wearing a black turtleneck sweater and carrying a McDonald’s Happy Meal bag. At this, Giovanni gets out of the car and calls Red, who tells us to come around the back of the house and enter it through the basement.

  We follow his directions and as we head into the basement it becomes clear to me that the house is actually a vacant dope house. There is a table in the middle of the basement and a dim light hangs above it. As we enter, I say to Giovanni that it looks like a dungeon, and the guy in the black turtleneck hears my comment. The turtlenecked guy asks the other guy there, who is clearly Red, what he thinks of my comparing the basement to a dungeon. Red says he likes it, and then casually points at Giovanni and motions for him to approach the table.