Walking on Broken Glass

by Christa Allan

  “You got her,” I answered in my best perky voice.

  “I’m Cathryn. I work days.” She reached out to shake my hand.

  “I guess I’ll know I’ve been here awhile when I’ve stopped shaking hands. How many more of you are there?” Judging by Cathryn's deadpan stare, not too many mornings kicked off with someone's skewed sense of humor.

  “Not enough. Not nearly enough,” she answered. With both hands, she tucked her bangs into the uneven mass of hair on the top of her head. “I’ll introduce you to the group, then you and I will walk to the cafeteria together so I can catch you up on what you’ll be doing today.”

  Bodies littered the drab room of yesterday. Two were lying on the sofas, hands cupped under their heads, eyes closed. One stood in the middle of the room and aimed the remote control at the television; stations flicked on the screen in measured beats. One sat in the back, legs crossed, and flipped through a magazine. Cathryn and I walked into the middle of the room. No one noticed, or they pretended not to notice.

  Surely, this Tropicana orange blouse was a shocker to anyone's morning.

  “Everyone, this is Leah. She arrived yesterday afternoon,” Cathryn said. Magazine-flipper raised her head, glanced at me, and nodded. Station-flicker waved over his shoulder with his free hand and continued cycling through the cable offerings. Sleeper number one, I learned later, was Doug. He grunted without even bothering to open his eyes. Sleeper number two actually stood, swaggered over, and patted me on the back. He was young enough to be one of my students.

  “I’m Vince. Welcome to Junkie Paradise. Even though you don’t look like no junkie. Whatta ya’ in for?”

  “Thirty days,” I answered, and he howled in laughter.

  Cathryn waved him away, “Vince, be nice. Save it for group.”

  “Aw, Ms. Fitz, you know I’m nice. Just tryin’ to make conversation,” he said and turned to me. “Sorry if you thought I was laughin’ at ya. I thought you was tryin’ to be funny.”

  “No problem,” I mumbled and wished I’d worn something in military camouflage so I could disappear into the surroundings. Go figure. When I thought I was funny, everyone looked at me like I’d just spit. I answered a question honestly, and I’m the last comic standing. This place was definitely off center. Sober people must operate in an alternate universe.

  Cathryn flicked the overhead lights on and off, a move that stirred Doug enough to open his eyes and grunt twice.

  “Stop flashing those lights in my face. I feel like I’m home with my old lady.” Doug pushed himself up into a sitting position, but his body slouched into his lap as if his muscles were still asleep.

  “Doug, if your old lady wanted you home, she wouldn’t have stuck you in here. Again. Benny, hand that thing over; you don’t have a license to speed through all those channels.”

  Benny pointed and clicked the remote directly at Doug. “Sober, drunk, sober, drunk, sober, drunk.”

  I shuffled behind Cathryn, wondering if she’d provide sufficient protection when Doug flew off the sofa to beat the blazes out of Benny. That familiar spool of anxiety unrolled in my gut, and its threads flew into my hands and knees. I rocked back and forth, heels to toes, heels to toes, stirring the nervousness as if I could somehow dilute it through the motion of my body. The body in the corner sighed hugely and, without even lifting her eyes to the scene playing out in front of her, continued to flip magazine pages. Vince disappeared into what I suspected was the bathroom.

  Doug stood, dragged the back of his knobby hand over his wide mouth, then wiped it across his well-worn Levis, and wrestled the remote from Benny. But instead of this being the prelude to the battle I anticipated, both men laughed as Doug, now in control, pointed the remote at Benny, “Pot head, Coke Nose.”

  “Are you two kids finished now? You’re about to be late for breakfast.” Cathryn shook her head back and forth in the way harried mothers do after telling their precious Rambo-tots to stop eating bugs for the zillionth time.

  Vince appeared from around the center station and pounced on the elevator button. When the doors opened, the men filed in. Vince straddled the space between floor and elevator. “So, Annie, ya’ coming or what?”

  Annie abandoned her page-flipping and strolled through the room to where I stood next to Cathryn.

  “Y’all go ahead. I’m taking the stairs.” Her Southern drawl suited her unhurried style. She pulled a purple hair clip out of denim overalls that must have fit looser three sizes ago, and clipped her streaked brown hair into a fat ponytail. Her eyes were the color of green signal lights, so unreal they looked like wet paint. Midnight-black eyeliner edged her lids, which were covered with moss-green eye shadow. Her lashes fanned out like they’d been dipped in wax. I made a mental note to discuss her foundation choice, a tan that made it seem as if she’d taken her face to Florida and left her body behind.

  “After Theresa arrives, the women won’t be outnumbered,” Cathryn said, as she unlocked the stairwell door and held it open.

  Annie looked me over like a statue she might have been deciding to buy, glanced at Cathryn, shrugged her meaty shoulders, and said, “Yeah, guess not,” before she traipsed down the stairs.

  Cathryn closed the door, stepped back over to the central station, and grabbed a clipboard hanging on the wall.

  “Leah, open the door next to the one I just closed. We can talk in that office.”

  An acid pit sloshed against my stomach walls. Tiny creatures pounded bass drums against my temples. My hand started to itch again. I couldn’t stay here. I didn’t belong in this institution. I wasn’t like these people, this subculture of misfits. Our mutual exclusion of one another proved that. Molly meant well, but she pushed me too far, too fast. Too enthusiastic. I should’ve waited. Clearly, I didn’t fit the definition of a textbook alcoholic. I’d already proved I could give up alcohol for more than twenty-fours hours. I’d explain all this to Carl, who would explain it to whomever who would then arrange for my discharge.

  “Is there a phone in there? I need to make a phone call. A private phone call.” I hoped I’d used my best assertive voice, but the one I heard belonged to a child. I just need to relax. I mean, one phone conversation with Carl, and I’m headed to the beach house. Or Molly. I could call Molly. She’d understand once I told her about this bizarro world I’m locked in. I’m sure we can find a place for people more like me, people I’d feel comfortable with.

  Cathryn walked around me to the office, and I thought I heard her say, “No phone calls” as she passed.

  “Did you say, ‘No phone’ or ‘No phone calls’?” I massaged my forehead where the temple drummers had relocated. Phone deprivation? What would the ACLU think of this? Surely this was a Civil Rights issue. No answer. Maybe she hadn’t heard me.

  I wandered into the office, a sparse, ugly room. Cathryn sat behind a submarine-gray steel desk, creating handwriting havoc in a chart. My body was as hesitant to move as my mouth was to open. “What did you say about the phone?”

  The tidal waves in my stomach intensified. I wanted to sit, but I might constrict the pool of nausea. Besides, there was no phone in here. I’d have to go someplace else anyway.

  She looked up at me. “No phone yet. Sit down, and I’ll explain.”

  “I don’t want to sit down. I want a phone. I know there are phones here. I’ve seen them. I’ve heard them ring. I want a telephone. I want to call my husband.”

  My words marched out of my mouth like good little soldiers, slowly and deliberately.

  “No one has phone privileges for the first seventy-two hours. That's one of the things we need to discuss.” She closed the folder, stood, and tilted her head toward me to make eye contact. “Let's talk. You can eat breakfast after that.”

  I sent the troops out to battle one more time. “I don’t want breakfast. I want a phone.”

  “I know. In forty-eight hours you can use the phone. But, for now—” she slipped the clipboard under her arm, and pointed toward the doo
r “—we’re going to breakfast. Your face is as white as the paper I’m writing on.”

  I was clearly not winning this battle.

  11

  My trauma over the phone issue re-prioritized after I bolted out of the office in a desperate search for the nearest bathroom. This business of moving to sobriety wasn’t much different than moving away from being drunk—they both involved throwing up. I didn’t remember this being mentioned in the brochure, either.

  Breakfast was a culinary disaster. Foods that ordinarily and happily co-mingled on a plate proved less appealing in stainless steel troughs guarded by hair-netted people wielding long slotted spoons. Whatever hope I held out for the coffee dissipated as soon as I spotted “de” in front of “caf.”

  Could I survive a month on Nutty Buddies? Maybe rehab was a blessing in disguise. Sobriety and weight loss. Double-teaming the addictions. A real two-for-one. Grams would be so proud I had scored such a deal.

  I settled for two buttermilk biscuits with strawberry jelly, and warm orange juice with what I hoped was pulp clinging to the sides of the glass. Cathryn and I sat at a table for four in the corner of the cafeteria. Floor to ceiling panels of glass were evenly spaced between wide stucco columns. On one side of the room, diners could look beyond the glass into a wide semicircle of bushy purple azaleas. They surrounded a three-tiered pineapple-topped cement fountain flanked by black wrought-iron benches. On each side of the garden, red brick walkways wove through manicured sections of crepe myrtle trees, small magnolias, Mexican heather, and eager sunflowers. No evidence a frenzied world lurked beyond the landscaped perimeter.

  “Finish eating. I’m going to ask Dr. Rizzuto to escort everyone upstairs,” said Cathryn. She walked over to a wiry-haired man whose white lab coat hung from an inverse hourglass body. He scraped his leftovers into a deep plastic bin, gave her a thumbs-up, and ambled over to the group's table.

  “Okay, folks. Make sure you don’t leave anything behind. We’ll head back up and have time for a smoke break.” Maybe I should start smoking. Even the intense sun, soggy humidity, and suffocating cigarette smoke would have provided a welcome break from the stale air inside.

  I stared at the human mishmash as they shuffled plates and chairs on their way out of the cafeteria. They discarded me, a broken toy on their playground. I was either an untouchable or invisible.

  “Don’t you worry, honey,” my mother consoled me from the heavens. “They may be ignoring you, but remember God's always awake.”

  Well, Mom, today was one of His narcoleptic days.

  I shifted my attention to Cathryn, who had refilled her coffee cup. She slid into a chair and launched into my agenda items for the next two days, none of which included recess. At the end of the those forty-eight hours, we’d have another chat about my schedule of individual and group therapies, phone and visiting privileges, weekend releases, occupational therapy, and mandatory on- and off-site AA meeting attendance.

  “So, how are you feeling? And spare me the ‘I’m fine.’ I know you’re not.” She sipped her coffee and waited.

  “I’m not fine. I don’t even know what fine means anymore.” I knew what it used to be, long ago and far away. I checked Cathryn's hands. No engagement ring or wedding band. Maybe she won’t even understand what comes next. “Some things, some parts of my life I’m, um, not missing at all.”

  Coffee cup down. Eyebrows up.

  “Really, I mean that. It's hard to explain. Well, not hard to explain. I guess I never had to explain it. But, anyway, I’m scared to be here, but I’m scared not to be here. Then I have these gigantic headaches and a three-ring circus going on in my stomach.” I took a break from talking and twisted my paper napkin around the empty orange juice glass. I had to be careful. I already sensed a trickle in the floodwall I had so carefully constructed. If I said too much, I couldn’t contain the breach. It would unleash an uncontrollable emotional torrent.

  I took a deep breath. “I feel bad for Carl. It's not like he asked for any of this. I just dumped all this stuff in his lap and ran here. He called my dad because I just couldn’t do it. And what's he supposed to tell our friends and neighbors when they ask where I am? Like poor Mr. Rossner at the end of our block, who started a petition to ask the network for a Houston CSI. By the end of the month, he’ll suspect Carl's buried me in the backyard.” There. Good word play. End on a grin. I’d run out of dry napkins to twist, so I stacked the little gold tin jelly containers.

  Cathryn slid her empty coffee cup to the side.

  “Well, has he? Has Carl buried you?”

  “Would I be here if he had?”

  I stacked and restacked, knowing if I stopped I might get careless and vulnerable. I stayed focused by making sure I placed the grape jelly squarely on top of the boysenberry. Cathryn gazed at the top of my head for quite some time. She’d probably already figured out I dyed my hair.

  “Well, I don’t know. Maybe that's a question you’ll have to answer eventually … with someone else. I’m not a therapist. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

  I scrinched my mouth to trap the wicked snicker behind my teeth. Her Pee Wee League definition of uncomfortable couldn’t run on the same field with Carl's Professional Leaguers. I swallowed and mumbled, “Not at all.”

  I unstacked the jellies and arranged them in alphabetical order. Apple, boysenberry, grape, raspberry, strawberry. I’m far too entertained by these things. But how else was I supposed to distract myself? I didn’t really want to talk, and I honestly didn’t want to be talked to. I returned the little boxes to the basket and looked at Cathryn.

  “Carl will figure out what to do,” she said. “He was given some ideas last night after we brought you to the unit. You have to trust this is where you’re supposed to be. The universe has a way of accommodating even our most unexpected plans.”

  “The universe accommodating me?” I asked. “It's about time. I’ve been accommodating the universe for most of my life. For somebody who isn’t a therapist that sounds like a lot of psychobabble.”

  She laughed. “I guess you can’t work here for five years and not pick up some babble,” she said. “Universe later … you now. What do you need?”

  “Today, I need to know that whatever I eat won’t make an encore,” I told her.

  “And I want a drink. When am I going to not want a drink?”

  Journal 5

  I learned long ago to use compliance and submission to save myself. That to say no only postponed the inevitable. His demands, his accusations, or worse, his sickening pleas for solitary relief all led to revulsion.

  I’d wake some nights, terrified by the crushing reality of the nightmare, by its unrelenting physical closeness. But sometimes it was not a nightmare. I ’d awake to his weight pressing on me, his hands groping under my clothes, which I often slept in as an irrational defense. None of it mattered—clothes, no clothes. He would be on top of me, and his goal was not ever waking me up—awake, asleep—like the clothes, they weren’t an issue. He wanted a body on which to press his own. I could feel even the mattress beneath me surrender to him.

  There would be no stopping until he was spent. He never asked if I was awake. He didn’t speak. He wanted what he wanted, when he wanted it, and how. I pleaded. He pushed. I cried.

  I remembered how my cousins would ambush me in the pool, knowing I couldn’t really swim. They would shove my head underwater and howl when I struggled. The harder I fought, the louder and deeper their laughter.

  I used those lessons on those nights. I learned to perform—to act as if none of it mattered.

  12

  I spent the day like a human boomerang and traveled from one office back to the central station on the floor only to be sent out to yet another office. A seriously flawed system, it seemed, for psychological assessments.

  While I schlepped around, subjected to everything from blood work to brain busters, I missed lunch. I headed back to the floor to alert Cathryn. I stepped off the elevator, b
ut as I walked to the central station, I saw that I’d have to wait for her attention.

  She and another woman, but one taller and wider, played tug-of-war over a backpack. The woman's hair looked like it had been caught in a blender. Wild strands poked out in every direction, some of them weighted down with colored beads woven on the ends. I definitely wouldn’t want to tangle with her. I stopped and debated if I should hang out in my room until the quiet signaled the storm had blown over. But I’d experienced enough hurricanes in New Orleans to know the eye of the storm seduced people into a false sense of security. My empty stomach growled, so I’d have to tolerate the drama if I wanted food.

  “Theresa, the information we sent detailed exactly what you couldn’t bring here,” said Cathryn.

  “It did not say anything about laptops. No cell phone, no iPods. That's all. Nothing about laptops.” Theresa wore enough rings, chains, and bracelets to stock a boutique jewelry store. Each back and forth tug between the two elicited a chorus of clinks and clanks on her wrists. Her well-ringed hands gripped one bag strap while Cathryn clenched the other. I wanted these women with me at Macy's One Day Sales.