From my spot at the entrance of the basement, I give Red a once-over. He is a skinny black guy wearing a black do-rag over his head. The man in the turtleneck stands behind him, holding the Happy Meal bag in front of him with both hands. His head is cocked to the side in a perfunctory manner. Large, packed black garbage bags line the wall behind them.
Red looks at Giovanni and says, “Whatcha need?”
“More scripts, man,” Giovanni responds. “Me and my buddy came a long way so we’re hoping to get, like, some kinda deal, you know, same as last time.”
Red agrees to this, but tells him to come alone next time. He then snaps his fingers and the turtlenecked giant spills the contents of the McDonald’s bag out on the table. There before us lie little baggies of blue 80 mg Oxy pills, two per bag. Red calls it “government heroin.” Then the giant jumps in, “Shit, I got that load for cheaper if you boys want.” We decline, thinking heroin is for junkies, in the same category as meth and crack, so Red shakes his head and holds his hand out to the side to wave off his associate, who returns to his post in front of the garbage bags.
“But, uh, you got any weed in those?” I ask, nodding toward the garbage bags.
Red snaps his fingers and the other guy rummages through each bag until he finds what he is looking for. He plops a full garbage bag on the table, out of which tumbles hundreds of dime bags full of the highest quality weed I’ve ever seen. “Kush,” they call it. He combs through the product, flaunting this wealth of narcotics and tempting me to purchase.
“Chi-Town kush, man, you know,” Giovanni says, as he hurriedly gestures for me to go to the table and pick some, to decide as quickly as possible how much to purchase. We quickly strike a deal for the weed and then one for the pills. The whole thing lasts less than five minutes, and I am happy to get the hell out of there.
As we leave, I throw up a peace sign and say, “Later,” and both men look up at my hand and freeze with an ugly grimace. They are making sure I’m not flashing a gang sign, which if done incorrectly or in the wrong place could mean a bullet wound if you’re lucky, death if you’re not. Annoyed, the large black man continues to contort his face and says, “White boy . . .” as we freeze. It is one of those moments where you can hear a pin drop. The muscular associate pulls out a chrome pistol and cocks it, but Red laughs and motions for him to put away the weapon. We scurry up the stairs and out of the house.
In the car, Giovanni jabs me for having been so nervous, but soon laughs it off. We hurriedly focus on crushing up some of the pills and grinding the weed, storing what we aren’t going to ingest during the drive in an empty laundry detergent bottle hidden in a pile of dirty laundry in the trunk. We snort several massive lines before hitting the road and spark a few joints of the finest weed I’ve ever smoked as we head back to Giovanni’s college.
After spending a few days with Giovanni, I return to my parents’ house. I am struck by my father’s indifference about me being there. The man has been prescribed sleeping pills and anxiety medication, and he combines the two with heavy drinking. He lounges around the house very sedated. It’s not long before he has a mini-stroke and heart attack, which ultimately result in him having to endure spontaneous bouts of slurred speech and having to get a heart stint.
It’s during this stay that Austin and I become best friends for the first time, as I continue to refuse to get a job and instead stay at home at all times, smoking pot. I know not to take my relationship with my siblings for granted, and we spend all our free time together during the week, which means any times he’s not at school, and party together on the weekends. Austin has become a marijuana user himself since entering high school, and we like smoking together. I share what “wisdom” I can with him, and try to set him up with girls. I’m very protective of him. It really pained me to see how he struggled after losing Allison, who used to refer to him as “my little pickle,” and I want to compensate for it. It seems like our fun will last forever.
Never outspoken or brash, or proud or imposing, Austin’s personality is the polar opposite of mine. He is thin and tall for his age, and has an awkward gait, probably due to his pigeon-toed feet. It’s clear after spending just a minute with him that he is totally harmless—very naive, trusting, genuine, and sensitive. He’s also personable, not shy, and well liked. People love him without his having to sell out for affection. My little brother is like my deceased sister in these ways.
Austin seldom offers his opinion and is especially slow to speak when it comes to our relationship. A school counselor once told me that he was afraid of me. Haunted by this, I fight tooth and nail after Allison’s death to take him under my wing. I actually start doing pretty much everything with the kid. And it’s meaningful for me too; it’s healing to have a loyal companion so readily available to me after the death of our sister.
To be able to look after Austin and have him accept the friendship with no questions asked is uplifting, almost empowering. My attitude around him is, “That’s it, enough of life’s bullshit, we’re going to take on the world and nobody is going to fuck with us.” And nobody does! I will later realize that I imposed this relationship on my brother, who was so cordial and easygoing that he didn’t object in any way. At the time though, it seemed to me like he embraced me 100 percent as I latched onto him, utterly overwhelmed by life and death. It was as if a silent agreement between us was made, an understanding that this was how it would be from here on out.
Sometimes when he came home from school, I’d say, “Wanna frolf?” and he’d shrug and say, “Alright.” Ever agreeable, Austin would Frisbee golf with me as we trudged through the wooded course and talked about his day at school.
One day I asked him point blank, “So, are there any girls you like?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“What’s her name? Tell me about her.”
“Well,” he sighs, “she’s out of my league.”
“No, no, no,” I say rapidly, waving my finger, “Nothing under the sun is out of your league. You are the league. No girl, no party, no concert, no bro bash, no road trip, nothing, nothing is out of your league! You’re my brother, you understand? If someone has a problem with you, they have the biggest problem they’ve ever encountered in this life, you hear me?”
I can tell my words are lifting his spirit, but he’s not convinced yet. He tells me he doesn’t want to upset anyone.
“The only person you’re upsetting is yourself. There are only two steps to living this life: find what you want, and get it. Nobody is going to give you anything, nobody.” His innocent conscience is conflicting with his ability to carry out my ideals. “My brother, man, my brother, look . . . I’m lucky to have you as my brother! You’re awesome, dude. And you don’t even know it. Say it, say, ‘I’m awesome.’”
“I’m awesome.”
“Louder!”
“I’m awesome.”
“Louder!”
“I’m awesome!”
We repeat these words to each other until we are shouting them at the top of our lungs, much the way a football team gets pumped up in a huddle-like formation before taking the field before a game. We hug and high five and punch each other with the good feeling found only in the brotherly bond that exists when two blood-related men become best friends.
Neither of my parents voices any concern as I sell my car during this time in order to finance my addiction to pot and OxyContin. As an unemployed addict, I spend my days either walking around my old stomping grounds in Indian Trails, my parents’ neighborhood, or taking a trip down to Milwaukee to visit the friends I had there before dropping out of college.
I have about ten different social circles and various cliques where I’m known well enough that I can hang with them, so there’s plenty to do. Some of them are kids my age that never left town, and others are my brother’s friends who’ve made a habit of hanging out with older kids, like I did when I w
as younger. As I bounce around, I hook up with girls and take them down to Milwaukee to party, where we stay at Giovanni’s place. I’m pretty much all over the place.
My relationship with Francesco and Greta is pretty strained by now. They reach out fairly often, wanting to be closer, but I keep myself at a distance. Of course, I still see Giovanni, and also Adriana from time to time.
Adriana has come into her own and become one of the most attractive young women I’ve ever seen, but our relationship has never been romantic or sexual. She is in her late teens and has men in their thirties in her back pocket. She’s also gotten thick into pot dealing, and I’m talking wholesale. Sometimes I accompany her when she makes a sale, as I used to do with Giovanni, to provide security. She gives me cash and pot for being the middleman, and, as with Giovanni, I refer people looking for drugs to her. The sexual tension with her is so palpable and uneasy that the angst I feel is like a dog in heat, but what always stops me from making a move is the mental image of Greta and Francesco. The fear and respect I have for them is even greater than my desire for Adriana. Besides, Giovanni is still one of my best friends and I could never betray him by getting involved with his sister.
As time passes, I develop a routine of feeding my lust for scripts by taking a Greyhound bus to Giovanni’s place to acquire the drug and then riding back to my parents’ house to spend time with Austin. Eventually I run out of money and fall back on my old ways, stealing money from my parents’ wallets and even ordering synthetic marijuana online using their credit cards.
One night I have a dream that I’m standing in my parents’ kitchen when I am suddenly overcome with a feeling of pure joy, as if the moment before one bursts into laughter is going to last forever. I look around, smiling broadly, and suddenly my deceased sister walks right into the room from around the corner and strolls up to me. She’s wearing a gold dress, her eyes are intensely illuminated, and her body is vivid and glowing as if electrified by lightning. She looks into my eyes and says, “I never meant to hurt you.” It seems as though she is fully aware of the downward spiral that my life has taken since her death. I nod, awkwardly.
Then, meeting her eyes once again, I ask, “What’s God like?” She leans in close as if confused and asks me to repeat the question, and I do. This time, she simply smiles and hugs herself in response. At this, I, for whatever reason, grow frustrated. I start to rant about how I don’t know what to do with my life, that my pain is killing me, and that I didn’t realize how much I loved her, and how she meant so very, very much to me until she passed. I tell her that she died before I had the chance to tell her how much I love her.
“Me?” she asks, and I cry out, “Yes!” with great enthusiasm because maybe this is my last chance to tell her. She has a look on her face that uncannily expresses the term, “Duh,” as if she knew I loved her all along. Then she glances to the side for a moment before locking eyes with me. “Love Christ,” she says.
I awake the next morning to the familiar experience of my name being barked at me, and this time bank statements are being waved in my face. My parents tell me that this is it—that they can’t take it anymore. They’ve decided that from today on, they’re going to lock me out of the home every day from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. It’s the dead of winter once again, but I can’t bring myself to argue with them, so I get up, get dressed, and take to the streets. I walk the streets of our icy, suburban Green Bay neighborhood for twelve straight hours and I think about my dream, too awestruck to think about anything else.
I’ve had vivid dreams before, ones I thought were real, but this feels very different. I’m certain that this was real. Allison, the real person, not just a manifestation of her, really came to me in a dream. As I try to process this, I think about how Allison and I were forced to take a confirmation class together at some church when I was ten, and that she genuinely believed what they taught during the class. When we got home from the class, we hung out outside, playing in the driveway. She was drawing with chalk and I was shooting a basketball. Frustrated at the whole thing, I said, “I didn’t even study. I got half the questions wrong on that stupid test, and they still passed me!”
“I only got two wrong, I studied really hard for it,” Allison said in a caring manner.
“Why, what’s the point?”
“Because it’s important, Nicholas. Don’t you believe in Jesus?”
“I guess I do, but I’m frustrated because I don’t get how some guy dying on a cross two thousand years ago for my sins can help me today. I mean, I get it, if I believe that story, or whatever, I get to go to heaven when I die. Who wouldn’t want to believe that story, then?”
“It’s okay if you don’t fully understand it, that’s why there’s faith. Do you have faith?”
“What? Well, yeah, I guess I do,” I said, somewhat putting her at ease.
“Then He will come and get you.” She smiled.
Chapter 8
After months of meandering around all day long in the middle of winter, mostly walking but occasionally sitting in parks and frequenting the gyms and coffee shops within a ten-mile radius, I am determined not to return to my old lifestyle. I’m not happy with myself, and my relationship with the person I value most, my brother, Austin, is starting to get edgy. Each night I come home frozen solid and he gives me the same look of disgust that I get from my parents, as if to say, “You’re still here?”
I don’t know how much longer I can continue on like this. I’m determined to find a better way of life than what I have known so far, and walking around all day in the cold gives me a lot of time to think. I’ve come to realize the path I’ve been on will surely lead to death or prison if I stay on it. I’ve also realized that the bitterness I harbor toward, and refusal to forgive, those I resent in my family, is causing me to self-destruct, and I want it to stop. The best revenge, I heard somewhere, is to live well.
It dawns on me as I trek endlessly through the city that I am homeless. It’s weird to think this about myself, but once I realize it I decide to make my way to the homeless shelter eight miles away. There I can sign up for a waiting list to get help from them; they provide less fortunate people with three square meals a day, use of a computer lab to job hunt, and a shared bedroom with a shower. When I get to the shelter, I beg and plead with the workers to at least help me get access to a computer, so they call the library near my parents’ neighborhood and just like that I get a library card enabling me to use that library’s computer. This means I can apply for jobs, and I soon discover Job Corps, a federally funded vocational school. I apply and am accepted, scheduled to begin in late February at twenty-two years old.
Job Corps is certainly a step in the right direction. Many of its students are people around my age who are also down on their luck and looking to better themselves. Some are court ordered to be there, but it’s certainly not a punishment. The general consensus among the students is that one gets out of the program what one puts in. Some people want to get through it as quickly as possible and get a job, others want to milk the experience for all it’s worth and avoid having to face the real world. It also offers a nice place to connect with others. Two members of my intake group whom I become friends with will end up getting married and having children together.
During the first two weeks, each trade that’s part of the school holds seminars for intake students to help them choose what job to pursue. Believe it or not, I choose to become a certified nursing assistant. As a kid, I had absolutely no ambition when it came to a professional career. I was preoccupied with survival, and although I wasn’t exactly the homeless child of a prostitute and living in a garbage dump foraging for food, I truly was too busy fighting for security and a semblance of love to have ambitions for my future. But after Allison died, I eventually came to the conclusion that I wanted to change my thuggish ways, and now I want to help people for a living and save lives, hopefully in a hospital. The other trades eith
er involve computers or are skilled labor positions, but I want to make a difference in this world by helping people, no matter what the cost or how it looks to others. Over the next six months, I apply myself and successfully complete the program, which isn’t so bad.
On graduating, though, I still have an uphill battle as my parents mandate that I find a job and a place to live within a week. I take the easiest housing I can find, in the inner city, and snag a job at a nursing home. It actually feels good to be fully independent and a legitimate law-abiding citizen for the first time. I have cleaned up my habits too. I still get high and party now and then, but my old lifestyle of constantly being high and partying all the time is dead. I want to make it in the real world.
My job entails helping elderly residents get out of bed and dressed for the day, and then leading them to the dining room for breakfast. Many of them need help taking showers, using the bathroom, and changing their clothes, and this takes up my time from the morning to the early afternoon. Often, the female residents feel uncomfortable having me, a heterosexual male, take care of them in some of the more intimate settings, so I trade shifts to avoid these situations, but the challenges keep coming.
One day, a resident is frantic and crying, clearly very upset. She doesn’t have any mental deterioration that would leave her irrational or confused, she is just plain old, so I sit with her to help her calm down. I don’t ask for details on why she’s upset, but I find out that one of her sons paid her a visit that left her feeling devastated and confused. Her two sons live in the area and visit often, which is very kind; many of the other residents’ family members basically leave them to rot to death.
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