Guts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs of a Giant Disaster

by Kristen Johnston

  “My God, man, she was grotty,” he said, as he shakily lit a cigarette. “Lord forgive me for speaking ill of the dead, but I never liked that alien programme. The wife always fancied ’er, but I always thought she was butters. ’Sides, I never could tell ’er apart from that chubby lass from Cheers.”

  All right, I have to stop. What kind of sick, deranged person would have fun writing her own faux-bituary? With her name misspelled, no less. Jesus, I creep myself out sometimes, I really do.

  Let’s get back to boring stuff, like the Rip.

  I groggily woke up from my Elvis catnap hours later the same night, having no clue as to where the hell I was. Whose red bathroom is this? For the longest time I was just stumped.

  Then an overpowering smell of copper.

  What the fuck?

  Blood? Eww, gross.

  Since no one else was there, I assumed that the blood was mine. I had clearly puked blood everywhere, as if in a passionate frenzy. That’s when I got an inkling that something very, very bad had happened to me. Uh-oh.

  I tried to sit up.

  A venomous pain walloped me with such a supernatural force that I was slammed back into the tile. Oh, Jesus, oh my God. I began to cry the silent wail of a four-year-old who’s just had her hand slammed in the car door. The silent cry that threatens to turn into a scream at any second. A pre-cry, I guess you’d call it. A cry that’s far, far worse than a cry.

  I’ve felt pain before, real pain, but this was my first introduction to sheer agony. And it did not go well. I immediately wished for death, just to escape it. If I had had a gun at that moment, I would’ve used it without hesitation. The only sane thing I could think of was Call someone, maybe they’ll have a gun. Or a machete. I’d even be happy with a butter knife.

  For the first time in my entire life, I had no idea what to do. I was lost, deep in a terrifying dark forest of torment, and I hadn’t a clue as to how to get myself out.

  Never had I felt more totally, utterly alone than I did at that moment, in the early-morning hours of that cold December day in my rented flat on Cadogan Square. Well, up until that day, that is. I was about to become very intimate friends with alone.

  I began silently praying, Get to the phone, just get to the phone, everything will be all right if you can just get to your stupid cell phone. All while screaming my openmouthed silent cry. It was almost as if giving my pain a sound would’ve been disrespectful to it. Or awaken it further.

  “Ohhhhh,” I said softly as an ice pick rammed into my side. I realized the pain was actually getting worse. It was this pulsating, living thing that seemed to emanate from just under my left rib cage.

  Think, you dumb fuck. Where’s your stupid phone?

  Just then I remembered my habit of dumping everything on the bed of the tiny guest room when I got home with a carefree Oh, I’ll deal later, I gotta open the wine to let it breathe, which no alcoholic would ever do.

  Even though my flat wasn’t big, it sure felt pretty enormous when seen from an inch off the floor. Every time I’d move even slightly, a thousand knives instantly plunged into my stomach. I found the tiniest bit of relief in “child’s pose,” which I soon discovered is not a speedy form of travel. But what choice did I have? There I was, inching along like an exhausted turtle, covered in blood and vomit, sweat pouring down my face, sobbing like a four-year-old, completely committed to the fact that if I was gonna die, I was damn well gonna do it next to my goddamn phone.

  I have no idea how long it took me, but my reasonable estimate is an hour. When I finally reached my coat (which I had taken off mere hours before, when I had been a virgin to real pain, blissfully innocent of my coming fate), I yanked it off the bed, found my phone in a pocket, and shakily dialed 999. Eerily, just a few days before, back when I was the old me, someone in rehearsals had mentioned that in the UK their 911 is 999.

  When the operator answered, I discovered I couldn’t speak. I mean, I tried to talk, but I couldn’t. Later I would learn that during my Elvis catnap my perforated tummy had leaked out my stomach contents, which had filled up my body, preventing my diaphragm from moving. This meant that I couldn’t speak or even take more than the tiniest of breaths, and I had no idea why. I’m fairly certain that I wouldn’t have felt better if I had known, but it was terrifying just the same. What the fuck is wrong with me?!

  I must have managed to somehow gasp something because, after I passed out again, the next thing I knew, the paramedics were buzzing. As I slowly inched toward the intercom (thankfully only a few turtle crawls away), I realized I was wearing a vomit-soaked tank top and bloody sweatpants. Not my usual outfit when welcoming the cavalry. Then, with one heroic movement, I used the last of my strength to reach the buzzer and press.

  As they came up the stairs, I unlocked the door and slumped down into a puddle next to it. Thank God, I did it, help is here. Unfortunately, any relief I felt at being rescued turned immediately to disappointment when my saviors finally barged in. Two small men entered, emanating frustration and annoyance. Much later, I would find out that my call had come in at the very end of their shift. But at the time, all I knew was that I had clearly done something terrible to them, and all I could do was gasp out a pathetic “I’m sorry.”

  I’ll never forget the expression on their faces when they caught their breath and really looked down at me. It was total, absolute revulsion.

  Wait a second, hold on. Could it be possible I was the grossest thing they’d ever seen? At least in America we have people who are so obese they haven’t gotten out of bed in ten years and need a crane to get to the hospital. In America, a sobbing B-list actress stewing in her own juices would at the very least be asked for her autograph. Then she’d quickly be filmed with a cell phone. People would view the shaky footage, and they’d feel just terrible for me, while secretly e-mailing it to their friends to gross them out. Eventually I’d get my very own E! True Hollywood Story, where I’d alternate between being totally hilarious and weeping with shame, and the ratings would be so high I’d get my own reality show and I’d finally be back on top!!! USA! USA!

  I digress, get over it. Anyway, I guess I convinced them that I wasn’t some crazy, suicidal drunk—ha ha, fooled ya—and that something might actually be seriously wrong with me. Even in my pain I marveled at how these curmudgeons did their jobs every day, when clearly they were far better suited for tollbooth workers or prison guards. Besides, I think it’s terribly rude to judge someone who, even though she looks as if she’s an extra from the set of a horror film, is still hotter than either of you.

  My flat was on the fifth floor, and I pensively waited for them to load me on the stretcher. Except that they clearly had no stretcher. They expected me to walk to the exquisitely slow, miniature elevator, which was obviously built at some point during the Elizabethan era. They then expected me to stand up in this rickety, minuscule contraption for four minutes, the length of time I knew it would take to deliver me to the first floor.

  Which was absolutely out of the question. An impossibility. But as I looked up at them from my knees, my face caked with tears and blood, into eyes that showed me no pity, I realized that’s precisely what I was going to do. No, no, no, oh my dear God. . .

  “Come on, miss, up, up, up, you go. Cheers, yeah, right, up on your feet, that’s right, I’m sure it’s right painful, here we go.. . . Well, you’re going to have to, no two ways about it. Miss, your screaming isn’t helping matters.. . . Keep on, there you are, almost. Right. Yes, yes, a few more steps. And here’s the lift. Just get on the lift, miss. And here we are. Now that wasn’t worth all the fuss, was it?”

  Imagine walking completely bent over, like an upside-down L. Imagine smelling what I suppose a decomposing corpse must smell like, and then picture being crammed into a tiny, airless moving closet with two people who are clearly already revolted by you. Imagine all of this while being in the most pain a human can bear while remaining conscious.

  Finally the elevator door opene
d, fresh air whooshed in, and for one brief and glorious moment the three of us experienced exquisite relief. I learned one new thing on the elevator ride from hell—if you smell so bad that you actually gross yourself out—man, you stink.

  Much, much later, when I first recalled these men and their awful carelessness and lack of empathy, thoughts of the elevator ride instantly filled me with an evil glee. I guess Vengeance via Olfactory is better than nothing. I’d like to stress that these are my perceptions of what happened to me, just as they’re my perceptions of people’s behavior at the time. Through this experience I discovered that when you get truly sick or are in a great deal of pain, it’s as if you’ve suddenly put on glasses that force you to see everything through vicious and cruel lenses.

  Truthfully, I don’t know if the cruelty and carelessness shown to me during this time was real, or if it was simply my pain and self-hatred that boiled over and tainted everything I saw and felt. I think that if my stomach had blown up during a yoga retreat at a Buddhist temple, I’d more than likely be writing about what assholes the monks were.

  Eventually with a crisp yet reluctant manner (which okay, that I get. . . no one wants to wear someone else’s dinner home to the missus), one of them lifted me up and heaved me into the arms of the other guy in the ambulance. Or lorry or trolley or tippy or proggy or foggy or pram or whatever cloyingly adorable fucking name they use. I wonder what they call a stretcher, because I sure as hell could’ve used one earlier. Then they strapped me into what, in my insanity, looked like a booth at Bob’s Big Boy. I’m sure it was a bed or something, but what are you gonna do, get all James Frey on my ass? It’s my stupid story, I say it was a booth.

  After they seat-belted the Big Girl to her Big Boy booth, they drove me “to ’ospital.” (They don’t say “the hospital.” They say “‘ospital.” Don’t ask me why, I’m from a country that believes in dentists and ice cubes.)

  As we made our way through the cobblestoned streets of London, my vicious saviors were oh so careful not to miss a single pothole or red light. I didn’t even rate that cool weee-waaaaaw, weee-waaaaaw, weee-waaaaaw sound.

  Much later I’d have to take a cab to ’ospital for checkups, and I couldn’t believe it took exactly six minutes. I’m convinced that (like a New York cabbie with an unsuspecting tourist) these fuckers took the scenic route. During the ride, I hoarsely begged them for something to ease my agony. How odd to actually mean it, for once. They gave me the gas they told me they give to women about to give birth, which helped not even a little. (But then, my tolerance was so high at this point, I don’t think an elephant tranquilizer would’ve made a dent.)

  The next while was a blur—getting to the hospital, being forced to wait endlessly until someone decided to help me. I was in a little curtained-off area of the emergency room, lying on a cot with my knees up to my chin, beyond freezing and terrified to realize the agony was getting far worse with each passing moment. None of their occasional shots of morphine seemed capable of wrangling this kind of pain.

  Oh, the hilarity. Here I am, a gal who’s laid waste to miles and miles of Vicodin. Now when I truly needed it, it was rendered useless? I mean, that’s fucked-up, even for Satan.

  I wondered if pain itself could kill. I tried desperately to concentrate on something happy or pretty, but I couldn’t remember anything, and it was so fucking loud in the ER I couldn’t even think.

  It was only when a nurse angrily tossed open my curtain and shouted, “Miss, do stop screaming, as you’re disturbing the other patients!” did it dawn on me that the constant, earsplitting screams were my own. Later, when thinking about those awful hours—and trust me, I do so as rarely as possible—I’m just crushed that I was so sick and in such terrible straits and clearly so close to death, and yet no one gave a shit about me. Least of all me. Never once did it cross my mind to demand to be treated better. Or to scream at the paramedics to bring up a “stretchie” or to at least drive the speed limit. Or to karate-chop that rude twat of a nurse’s head off.

  You see, in the darkest part of my heart, I’d always known this day would come. I was simply reaping what I had sown, getting exactly what I deserved. So there I lay, the ugliest American, imprisoned in the politest ER in all of London, a creature of my own making—a now silently screaming, sweating, freezing, smelly, and very, very lonely turtle.

  It began to sink in that I might actually be in big, big trouble. That thought was immediately followed by this staggering, mind-blowing realization: that despite years of slowly killing myself, all I wanted, with more passion and ferocity than I’d ever wanted anything else in my entire life, was to live.

  five

  THE ENGLISH PATIENT

  when people say they simply don’t understand how a person could keep using drugs or alcohol even after they’ve started to lose their job, their friends, their family, their health, I give them this chilling example:

  After spending a good hour sequestered in my own curtained-off hell in the ER, the shots they consistently gave me must’ve finally started working, because I felt oh-so-slightly better. By that, I mean the level of agony had been dialed down from a twelve to a ten, and my screams had died down to loud moans. Finally, my curtain was drawn back by a nurse endowed with an impressively large bosom and an equally impressive mustache, which, even in my state, I craved to pluck. She was quite sweet, as all women with excessive facial hair seem to be, and she cheerfully began the lengthy process of admitting me to the hospital. She asked no-brainers like name, age, race, etc.

  She then asked me about my health.

  “Do you drink caffeine?”

  “Not much.” (True.)

  “Do you smoke?”

  “A little.” (A lot.)

  “Do you drink?”

  “Not excessively.” (Not counting the two bottles of wine I sucked back a night.)

  “Do you do drugs?”

  “No.” (More than you could even begin to imagine, pretty lady.)

  There I was, in sheer agony and probably quite close to dying, yet I lied instantly. Even though the truth could possibly have saved my life. This is the hardest part for knitting or golf addicts to comprehend. The cold, hard truth of it is, if this woman had said to me at that very moment, “I can guarantee you that all of your pain will go away this instant if you tell me the truth right now,” I would still have lied. Without question.

  That’s how strong He is. When He’s got His evil talons in you, you don’t care. You will lie to protect Him, no matter what happens. He’s your most devoted better half, your longtime lover. He’s adoring and reliable and He’s never let you down. It’s certainly not His fault that He’s killing you. Like a battered wife, you take Him back even though He just knocked out your two front teeth. You lie to your weeping mother even though He’s convinced you to steal the painkillers she actually needs. You will die protecting Him, no matter what.

  Because no one will ever, ever love you as much as He does.

  I’ll never forget the first time I met Him. It was about fifteen years ago in Los Angeles, and I was deep in the throes of navigating the truly terrifying waters of overnight fame. I was also suffering my first-ever migraine. (Real, by the way. The fake ones came later.) My boyfriend at the time took me to the emergency room of Cedars-Sinai, and about two minutes after the nurse injected Him (in this case, He was morphine) into my ass, I distinctly remember saying to myself, Holy shit, this is the answer!

  Suddenly, the closet walls fell away and I wasn’t depressed or anxious for the first time in years. I can’t begin to express the vast sensation of relief that coursed through me. I felt good and confident and at peace. I was me, only much, much better. I even signed autographs and posed for pictures on the way out, much to the amusement of my boyfriend. Go ahead and laugh it up, buddy. ’Cause my heart no longer belongs to you.

  Of course, like any good love story, it took many years for us to finally give in and admit our feelings for each other. I kept Him at bay for as lo
ng as I could. But He was so persistent. We’d see each other, break up, then I’d give in again, then dump Him. His given name was Opiate, but He went by many aliases. (Which should have been my first red flag.) I didn’t care what name He went by, I’d have known Him anywhere. He was known as Codeine, Heroin, Fioricet with Codeine, Vicodin, Hydro-codone, Hycodan, Darvocet, Percocet, and my personal favorite, Morphine, to name just a few. I adored them all, but I must say I’m exceedingly grateful I never ingested either Heroin (a powerful derivative of the opiate), or his rascally, good-for-nothing cousin OxyContin. Because I know with absolute certainty that, if I had, I’d be deader than a doornail. Doorknob? Whatever, I’d be dead.

  All opiates, also known as painkillers, are derived from opium, which is extracted from the seeds of the poppy flower. Scientists have created imitators, but I’ve never been a fan. It’s kind of like your boyfriend being suddenly replaced by a robotic replica. (You know, it just occurred to me that when Dorothy was surrounded by all those poppy flowers, she wasn’t forced to fall asleep, she simply had a good, old-fashioned heroin nod. See? I knew there was a reason I always liked that witch!)

  Back to my point. I’ve talked to many people about painkillers, both drug addicts and the knitting/love/work addicted. This is a purely unscientific study, but I’ve discovered that drug addicts and the knitters have completely different experiences when they take painkillers. Almost all of the knitters said they had pretty much the same experience. The drugs made them feel kind of nice for a bit and helped relieve their pain, but they mostly just experienced itchy skin, constipation, and nausea. Most of them said that they were happy and relieved to stop taking the pills. A few admitted they liked to save one or two to have later with margaritas and I knew I’d be seeing them in a church basement at some point in the next few years. But have fun, “knitter.”