by Dina Kucera
I wish someone had told me what would come later. That we would have to learn to live in it. We still work, pay our bills, eat dinner. We watch movies, go on trips, take a swim. We laugh, cry, fight. Some days are good, some not so good. Sort of like before, but not really. I hope someday the fear will fall away. Hope is the main thing. Love them, kiss them, and have hope. I wish someone had told me.
Carly was sixteen and an intravenous heroin addict on state-funded medical insurance. So the state sent a caseworker to my house to see Carly and report back on her condition so they could take the appropriate steps.
The caseworkers are professionals for troubled teenagers who are “experimenting” with drugs. The state is not equipped to assist serious drug addicts who are under eighteen. The state emphasizes counseling, which doesn’t work so well with an adolescent heroin/meth addict.
It was clear that this particular caseworker hadn’t run into the likes of a sixteen-year-old chronic drug addict like Carly. He was a tall, very slim, balding, twenty-two-year-old guy with dress slacks pulled up above his belly button. He was on a one-man mission to save kids from drugs and bad behavior, but most of the kids he saw were involved in bad behavior, not drugs. Now here he was, face-to-face with Carly, who was withdrawing from heroin. He was actually holding in his hand the physiology books he had just been reading.
As with many people in this book, I can’t say his real name or feelings will be hurt. So let’s call him Lenny. Lenny was in way over his head.
Lenny pulls me aside and whispers, “I’m going to try a technique called ‘mirroring.’ It’s where Carly says something and I repeat it so she feels that I understand her.”
I whisper, “Okay.” Lenny and Carly sit at the kitchen table. I stand at a distance on the other side of the kitchen.
Lenny says to Carly, “It’s a real treat to see you, Carly! You look fantastic!”
Carly stares at him with a green face, eight-five pounds and dark circles under her eyes, but makes an effort at her manners. “Yeah. Thanks. It’s nice for you to come and see me.”
Lenny: “So... it’s nice for me to come and see you?”
Carly: “Uhm, yeah.”
Lenny: “So, yes?”
Carly: “I’m sorry. What are you asking me?”
Lenny: “So you’re sorry and what am I asking you?”
Lenny looks over at me and winks as if he’s really plowing through Carly’s mental minefield with the mirroring. Carly could have a seizure at any point during the mirroring process. Her arms are infected, and I am not completely sure she is even aware that Lenny is in the house much less mirroring her every word.
Lenny begins to talk really loudly and slowly, as if Carly is deaf: “Carly! We have some activities that we would like you to be involved in! Does that make sense?”
I cut in: “You know, Lenny, we were hoping you were making arrangements to get Carly into an inpatient program...”
Lenny waves me off. “It’s in the works, it is. I’m just thinking until that happens we could get Carly doing some really fun activities. “Again speaking really loudly and slowly: “Carly? Would you like to do some fun activities?”
Carly, staring out the window: “Activities?”
Lenny: “Activities?” There is a long pause because he’s still mirroring but he has nothing to mirror. “Yes. Activities.”
I can’t stand it and I interrupt again. “Okay, Lenny, listen. I don’t know what activities you’re talking about, but Carly is really sick and needs to be in a drug rehab...”
Lenny holds his hand up again. “I know this. But until then I have some ideas. Carly. Numero uno. Camping with some great kids who are your age—and of course that includes a lot of terrific water activities. Two. Picnic in the park. And three, saving the best for last, Cosmic Bowling! Carly? What do you say we get our Cosmic Bowling on?”
Carly, still staring out the window: “I’m tired.”
I really can’t take anymore. “Listen to me, Lenny. She needs help. She needs treatment. How long is it going to take to make it happen?”
Lenny crosses his legs and says, “How long is it going to...”
“Don’t mirror me. How long?”
“Well, four to six weeks. That’s our process. We always hope the youth will decide not to take drugs anymore by doing some of the fun activities.”
“Listen, Lenny. Carly could be dead in four weeks.”
Lenny walks over to me and whispers, “We don’t like to use the ‘dead’ word. It may be the most negative word ever.”
I whisper, “Yes. It’s very negative. But so is using heroin ten times a day.”
Carly: “I think I better go lie down.”
Lenny, as Carly is walking out of the room: “So you think you better go lie down?”
Carly has asked me a thousand times, “Why did God make me this way?”
I don’t know how to answer that. I’ve asked myself the same question. But I don’t really think God made her this way. I think it’s a hundred different things. One of the pieces is me. The drinking, screaming, and the long list of things I could have done better. Another piece is Carly’s dad. Another piece is Carly’s sisters. And on and on.
The best way to know if you’re making the right decision as a parent is to ask people who don’t have children. For some reason these people have the answer for every situation. They would do this, or they would do that. This wouldn’t have happened if you had done it this way. They’re the same people who say, “I don’t have any children, but I completely understand because I have a cat.”
Let me explain this loud and clear: having a cat or a dog or a yak is nothing like having a child. You will never have to pay for drug rehab for your yak. I could not put my child in a crate while I went to work. Actually, I could have, and looking back, I probably should have. But it’s illegal.
Your dog will never scream at you, “I hate you!” and go into his dog house and slam the door.
Your cat will never date a felon. And it’s not because she has higher standards. It’s because she’s a cat.
Amazingly enough, the same people are experts on drug and alcohol addiction. They have all the answers. Don’t take drugs. Or, if your kid is on drugs, kick his ass. Or get her into a sport. Throw her out on the street without her clothes and tell her you won’t be her parent anymore.
John and I tried all these things and none of them worked. We should have used the crate.
I’d like to pretend this next incident didn’t happen. Carly was at a party doing heroin with her new drug dealer boyfriend, “Phil.” The police showed up at the house. Carly had several packages of heroin wrapped in tinfoil in her pocket. She swallowed them so the police wouldn’t find them.
The next morning we were sitting with her in the intensive care unit. She was unconscious except for an occasional mumble that wasn’t actual words. The doctors said they couldn’t get an exact answer as to how much heroin she swallowed, so they didn’t know what would happen when the heroin dissolved through the tin-foil. They said she could overdose right in her hospital bed.
They told us if we had family that lived other places, we might want to call them so they could come and be with us if something happened. There was again a nurse posted by Carly’s bed twenty-four hours a day.
The nurse walked in the room. At this point John and I had been clean of alcohol and drugs for almost six years. The nurse did her nurse thing, and then put her hands on her gigantic hips and said to me and John, “Where in the world were you two while all this was going on?”
John and I stared at her with dark circles under our eyes, filled with complete desperation and sadness. Our hearts completely and utterly broken. We were so broken we couldn’t even defend ourselves. And at the exact same time, I had been thinking, Where was I when all this was going on?
Carly stayed in that unit for seven or eight days until they said she had passed the foil or it had dissolved. So they discharged her. The hospital gave us medic
ation for heroin withdrawal to help Carly “sleep it off.” They said we absolutely had to keep her under complete lock and key because between the heroin and the withdrawal medication, if she used street drugs on top of that she would overdose. They said it over and over: Do not let her out of your sight. She will overdose if she uses with all that her system has been through.
They said we should check her into a drug rehab straight from the hospital. But when we said we couldn’t pay for a drug rehab, the hospital came up empty handed as far as any rehab that would take Carly without a giant pile of cash. I asked if it was a bad idea to release Carly in this condition, but they waved their hands and said she was okay.
So they rolled her out in a wheelchair, and we put her in the car because she was hardly able to stand up. She fell asleep in the backseat on the way home. When we got home, we called rehabs and got the same answer at each one: no money, no medical treatment.
That night we gave Carly the medication to help her sleep even though she wasn’t really awake. We just wanted to be sure she would pass out for the night, and the doctor said that was what we should do. She took it and she was out. She was really, really out.
John and I went to bed and thanked God for saving her. Again.
Three o’clock in the morning: Jen walked into our room and said, “She’s gone.”
At first I thought Jen meant Carly was dead. We jumped up and ran to her room. Carly was gone. She was fucking GONE! Now we were all up, pacing and screaming. How did she leave? Who did she go with? She couldn’t even stand up! All her clothes were gone! The bottle of pills that the hospital gave us was gone.
The next morning, I had to go to work because I had already taken the week before off to sleep at the hospital with Carly. At my job, I was under constant threat of being fired. I did not like my boss, and my boss did not like me. That was fine with both of us. As with other people in this book, I don’t want to hurt feelings so I’ve changed his name. In this book I will call my boss “Ballsack.”
When I went to work, Jen and April went online and got Carly’s cell phone records. The night before, there were several incoming calls from the drug dealer boyfriend, Phil. And some outgoing calls to Phil. So Carly was with Phil. He had come and picked her up in the middle of the night after we had all fallen asleep. She had packed a bag with everything she owned, took a thousand dollars out of her father’s wallet—rent money that John was going to deposit—and now Carly and Phil were gone with the rent money.
Let me say something about Carly’s cell phone. Many people would say that if their kid was using drugs, the cell phone would be the first thing to go. But as time passed, there were times when the only way to get to her was through that cell phone. That doesn’t mean she would answer it. But she would get our messages, and if we said just the right thing at just the right time, she would call us back and we could go pick her up. Most of the time that was our only line to our daughter. Without the cell phone, we felt completely cut off from her. And remember, she was sixteen, not twenty-five. If nothing else it made me feel better to at least call and leave a message saying, I love you, that’s all. I love you.
I’m standing at my register, and I’m getting text messages from home—even though I’ve signed a paper saying I wouldn’t use my cell phone at my register. But I have to take the chance so I can get information about Carly.
I get a text from Jen saying, “We found out where Phil’s parents live. Me and April and Dad are driving over there.”
I feel panic and drop the phone in my pocket. Another employee comes up to me and says, “Ballsack wants you in his office.”
I walk in and there is Ballsack and another manager. Ball-sack tells the other manager to shut the door, and then says to me, “Have a seat.”
I sit.
Ballsack, crossing his arms and pacing back and forth: “Can you tell me what your PSS is?”
Me: “Uhm. What is a PSS?”
Ballsack: “You’ve worked here nine years and you don’t know what a PSS is?”
Me: “I’m sorry. Maybe if you said the words instead of the letters...”
Ballsack: “PSS. Personal Service Score.”
My phone vibrates with another text message. My stomach rolls with panic. “Wow. I’m sorry. What was the question?”
Ballsack: “What is your Personal Service Score?”
“Oh. Thirty-seven?”
Ballsack: “No. Eighty.”
“Oh, wow! Eighty! Eighty is good. Right?”
Ballsack: “Is that how you live your life? Eighty percent?
That’s good enough for you? Is that what you give your family? Eighty percent?”
“I actually only give my family thirty percent.”
Complete silence. My phone vibrates again.
Ballsack: “I’m going to have to ask for that other twenty percent.”
“Okay.”
Ballsack: “Okay, so, when you make eye contact with a customer, what percentage of those times do you smile and say ‘Good Morning’ or ‘Hello, how are you today?’”
“Eighty percent. Just kidding. One hundred percent.”
Complete silence.
Ballsack, handing me a piece of paper: “Sign this acknowledging that we had this conversation. And if you have to sign two more papers because you’re twenty percent short of what is required of you, you will be fired.”
“I am hearing you. One hundred percent.” I sign the paper. Every time I turn around at work I am signing another piece of paper.
While I’m signing, my phone vibrates again. I walk back to my register and check my messages.
Phil was the first person to teach Carly to shoot up drugs. The first several times, he had to do it for her, but then she learned. He also was more into meth than heroin. After Phil picked up Carly in the middle of the night, he told her she should shoot up heroin and meth if she wanted to get completely high. After all they had a thousand dollars. But they ran through that money quickly paying drug dealers who wanted to kill Phil, so they had to make more money. So they were selling drugs and guns. Phil told Carly that she needed to carry all the drugs and whatever gun they were selling because if they got pulled over, the police wouldn’t search Carly. Fuck bag.
We called Carly and Phil, and left messages pleading with Carly to come home. We told Phil that Carly was sick... that she could die if she took any more drugs... and that if he cared about her at all, he would just drop her off somewhere, and we would go and pick her up.
Once Phil answered the phone and told John to “fuck off.” After a short time both their phone mailboxes were full.
We called the police because we wanted to have Carly arrested. The police officer told us he couldn’t arrest her. He said she’s not doing anything. We explained her week in intensive care and what the doctors told us. We begged, but he said he wouldn’t look for her.
John began screaming and told the police officer, “I hope you never have to experience this kind of pain!”
The police officer said he wouldn’t because he was teaching his kids to have morals.
We hoped Phil’s parents would talk to Phil and persuade him to bring Carly home. We called. They hung up. So John and Jen and April found their address and went to their house. Phil’s mom screamed that she was going to call the police. John said we were just trying to find our daughter. Phil’s mom called the police, so John, Jen, and April left. Quickly.
It’s difficult to explain the terror we were feeling right then. All I could hear in my head was the doctor saying Carly would die. We were all terrified—completely desperate to get her home. So we went on Carly’s MySpace page where there was a picture of Carly and, by luck, a picture of Phil. We made flyers with both their pictures that said, “If you see either of these people please call...” and left our phone numbers. We put them up all over the city. We also put them up by Phil’s parents’ house hoping this would pressure them into calling Phil.
We put the flyers in convenience stores
in the heavily drug-populated areas, in grocery store windows, everywhere.
We start getting calls, but not the kind of calls we were expecting. We got calls from several drug dealers saying if they found Carly they’d bring her home, but Phil owed them money and he was as good as dead. We also got several calls from people who said Phil invaded their homes and held them at gun point and stole all their drugs.
I’m on my register getting updates and Ballsack walks by: “So where’s today’s smile? Remember your smile is part of your uniform!”
I smile. Because it’s part of my uniform.
My cell number was also on the flyer. I am standing at my register and my phone vibrates. As I scan groceries, I glance down and see that the number doesn’t look familiar.
I smile at my customer, and then I stop scanning, kneel down behind my register, and answer my phone.
A man says, “If I find your daughter, I’ll get her to you. But I will put a bullet in Phil’s head first.”
I say, “Okay then. Thanks.”
I hang up the phone and stand up. My stomach is churning. I smile again at my customer who is now glaring at me with hate. I scan and say, “So did you find everything you needed today?”
Ballsack walks by and I smile because it’s part of the uniform.
We got one call from a single mother who had to move all the way across town because Phil had done the same thing with her daughter. When she finally got her daughter back, Phil drove by their home and shot out all their front windows. There were several calls from people who said Phil had shot up their houses.
The phone rang off the hook with Phil stories. These stories only made us more fearful for Carly. Now we were out of our minds with worry. Then we got the phone call that started the most insane movement from our house that I have ever experienced.
It was in the middle of the night. It was a girl who used to date Phil. She saw one of the flyers and said she still saw Phil on occasion. She said she could convince him to meet her, and that would give us an opportunity to grab Carly.