“What’s wrong?”
Heather stared into me as if the question was an insult.
“First off, the NA meetings. What do they do there anyways? I am losing her. You see how distant she is? She is mine. I know her best, others might love her, but I know her. I know how to make her feel better when she is sick, I know what she needs. I know her heart and what it wants.”
“She’s fine. She texted. We met her sponsor, she has a sponsor. What is really going on with you?”
“I don’t know. It’s nonsense. Not logical. My muscles are all cramped up, my body itches, and I’ve got some kind of flu bug. Do we have anything stronger than Excedrin? I need something strong, I can feel it.”
She stormed off to the bathroom and started digging through the medicine cabinet. I could hear her shuffling through the shelves and whatever she was finding wasn’t what she wanted and met with a curse word. Tylenol, Pepto-Bismol, travel-size shaving creams, that was all we had, and much of it was being dropped to the floor before she stomped back down the hall. The house shook with each step.
“Didn’t you hide some of Tara’s OxyContins? Didn’t you? Or did you bury that too? Long as you didn’t burn it first, I’ll find it, you know that. Can’t be buried that deep…”
Time stopped. Her words struck like lightning and shocked my soul, but I let on nothing. I feigned bewilderment and stayed silent.
“You need to eat,” she said, as if in conclusion. “Then you’d understand, then you’d feel it. All that you planted, everything you put into the Garden, it fed the plants and now it’s in my soul. The red peppers are his veins, the tomato his plump red heart, and the sage his uncut hair.”
Train whistles screeched in my ears, my head swirled in figure 88 infinity. I heard the clanky wheels of a grocery cart. How much time passed, it’s hard to say, seconds or hours, but after Heather had torn through a few more drawers and shouted things like I know what’s best for her and she’s expecting me, Tara finally came through the door. She put her keys dutifully on the coffee table, Heather watching her every move, circling about like a shark smelling blood. I sat helpless, wondering what sort of attack was being planned. Tara could read a room as well as anybody, and knew enough to stay silent until it showed itself.
“Stacey seems brilliant, just brilliant. She really does,” Heather said, her voice was fast and pressured, each syllable dripped in poison. “You think she knows what she’s talking about, though? You think she really wants to stay clean?”
Tara’s eyes darted back and forth, and she ran her fingers through the black spikes of her hair. This all must have seemed a trick to her, and she knew the question had no answer.
“What I mean is, are you sure Stacey has stayed clean all these years? Nonsense to think she’s not used any kind of drugs. If she’s learned how to quit, you sure she just doesn’t just use a little bit, now and then? It would make sense.”
“What kind of question is that? She’s an addict, like me, she doesn’t use just a little bit of anything because she can’t.”
“Well, your father and I smoked weed before, we told you that. Weed is natural, it is a plant, just like the vegetables. You know, if you get bored, it’s logical you might want to smoke some weed. It just happens. And then there’s surgeries you’ll need. Doctors, dentists, they’ll need to prescribe you opiates. I am not trying to trip you up, but imagine never using a single drug again. It’s not possible for people like you.”
Tara sat silent, aghast. Moments like these she’d usually blow up and dash out.
But we’ve never had a moment fully like this. And I had somehow become a witness instead of a player.
Heather walked to where Tara sat on the couch, stood before her, and grabbed her arm. She turned it to reveal her wrist, then ran a fingernail down her tattoo. Her fingertip followed the blue line of her vein, up and down, as if looking for a weak spot, finally stopping where the vein was at its thickest. Then she gave a tap-tap-tap, like a phlebotomist, ready to draw blood.
“I know what you need now,” Heather said. “I finally know you for real. Your veins have been rested. It’s time to stop this nonsense and make you feel good again.”
Tara yanked her arm back to her side, stood tall, and then bolted to her room. T-Rex followed.
I was alone with someone who just revealed a face I had never seen.
Chapter Nine: Tara Snyder
The feel of Mom’s skin on mine, since I was little, had always felt so warm and wonderful. A true natural high. It was why it made sense to me when I heard people say heroin is like the warm embrace of being back in my mother’s womb. But at that moment, all I could feel was Mom’s fingertip tapping at my wrist, hoping to raise a vein, as if trying to trigger me to get high.
And it worked. God I needed to shoot some dope into my vein.
I needed Brett. Where was he? He would know how to take this pain away.
I texted his number from my bedroom. No response. Same way it had been for months. I was sure he was in jail, but he was supposed to be on work release. I understand why you dumped my body. Everyone does that, I wanted to say. Now please, just come back to me. I need you now.
I sat in bed, arms wrapped around my chest and fingernails clawing into the opposite arm. Hugging. Rocking. T-Rex sniffed at my cheek, his nostrils cold, his nose wet. He licked my face, two quick ones, then stopped as if sensing the taste of my hurt. He laid his head down on the blanket and breathed a sigh. He knew—dogs know everything—that the dam inside me was about to bust.
I had nobody. Just Stacey. I sent her a text.
You were right. I need a halfway house. Can you pick me up in the morning?
I stared at the phone, willing a response. It worked.
I will be there. Go to sleep tonight, don’t leave the house, don’t get high. Tomorrow I’ll be there.
I started to pack.
Chapter Ten: Gregory Snyder
I could feel Brett’s stink inside the house as I lay in bed that night. It stuck against my skin like the humid air of a Florida day, obligatory thunderstorm gathering on the horizon.
Heather was barely sleeping. She lay there trembling, sweaty, the sheets wet and stained. When she did slip into sleep, her dreams crept into mine and I opened my eyes afraid to be trapped by her nightmare.
Clearly, she was sick.
The clock read 3:15 am. I walked the house. I knew Tara was up, her light was on, and the creek of the hardwood floor revealed my movements.
I thought of Number 88. God I needed to see him. Or some vodka. Or just a beer, but our house was completely dry, as it should be. Instead I dug some expired cough medicine out of the medicine cabinet. Directions called for two tablespoons, I took over four. The alcohol warmed me in an instant and the decongestant unclogged my gunk. I was finally able to sleep, dark and dreamless. I woke with a headache and an empty space next to me.
I walked out of the bedroom to the fragile day ahead. Heather was up, cooking over the stove, her hair dangling free over the heat, not pulled up as usual.
“Omelet. Basil seasoning, tomatoes, peppers, onions. Then I’m going to my mom’s. I need to help her with her pain meds.”
I had planned my words to say to her during my sleepless moments of the night, but the day light revealed how weak they really were, so I forgot them all.
“Something is wrong, Heather. You’re not right. You said things yesterday. We need to talk about what you said.”
“No.”
She shot me down and ate in silence, her fingers trembling with fork in hand, her nerves twitching. Usually there would be a plate waiting for me as well, but now there was none.
“I’m going to my mom’s house. She’s got what I need, I know she does. That much will get me going. Then, I’m going to the grave and setting free the body you buried. Nobody should die like that. I will be back home with the skull. Then Tara and I are going to fix up with some Oxys, then I’m going to take her to Russell’s. Same place you kill
ed someone. We’re going to buy some dope. I may sell some ass for dope, just because that will really make you suffer.”
“Do you hear yourself?”
“I do. Tara needs to get high. She should suffer no longer. God grew us a garden of opium and cocoa and cannabis. We finally know her like never before, and we can cure her sickness from this garden and make her well.”
Never in my life had I prayed for a brain tumor, but that was what I was praying for. That Heather was psychotic from some growth pressing on her brain stem. Soon she would collapse, or vomit, or go so delirious she’d be rendered incapable of performing daily living skills and I would be driving her to the emergency department. Sanity would be restored after a series of tests.
But instead of madness, her senses seemed acute. She moved about the house vigilantly, a powerful golem of sorts, animated from elsewhere. After she went out the front door, car keys in hand, the silence of the house crashed in behind her. I waited in silence, hoping she might rush right back inside, put the keys back on the hook, and confess her lunacy, but nothing. My move. I needed to fix things, protect things, stop the noise from getting in. I rushed to Tara’s bedroom, knocked as I entered, and my voice was like a morning fire alarm.
“Tara. Sweet-Pea. Wake up. What are you doing today? We need to go. Mom’s not okay. You saw that. Tara, Stacey is wonderful, wake up…”
Stop. Breathe. I was moving too fast. She looked at me with one eye closed, the other squinty and red. She’d been up late, which was clear from her face and from the bags packed and ready to go. A Nike duffle bag, her laptop, and a bag full of toiletries were placed bedside.
“I’m gone, Dad. I’m gone. Soon as Stacey can get me, I’m gone.”
“You know what? Good. Maybe that is a good idea. You get some space, for a while at least. Things are going on. Your mom…”
“It’s not just her, Dad. It’s everything. You think Stacey is smart, I know you do, and she has been telling me to accept you and Mom for who you are. Says you are doing all you can but you never parented me. You never parented me, just little versions of yourself. Mom mistakes doing nothing for letting me grow, and you just fence me in to control me. The first pill you gave me was just one mistake, but you’ve been pumping me full of your medicine ever since. Always trying to make me be something that you wanted, something that made you feel good, damned what I feel. Boys like Brett are all I could find. Brett’s right, you love me but don’t know me.”
Her words were sharp and hurt like a paper cut. This wasn’t the dope speaking, this wasn’t insanity, this was clarity. Her post-NA meeting coffee shop talks with Stacey had given her such insight. T-Rex gazed up at me with sad eyes and in silent agreement. I had no argument back.
Wrongs needed to be undone, best I could.
“You’re right. We’ll talk, I’ll do better. I’ll drive you anywhere you need to go. I will. Let me track down your mom first.”
God how I craved a hug and the words “love you” at that moment, but there was neither to be had. There were trials to be faced before I deserved an embrace, and I was off to face them.
I needed to deal with Heather. She was going to her mom’s house to ‘manager her pain meds’ and then going to the Garden. I would cut her off there.
I drove there with precision, and upon arriving, circled the place slowly, as if on a stake-out. Nobody was there, and the fence was wide open. The sign ‘Garden of Friends’ was coated with neighborhood dirt but still more fresh than its surroundings. Rows of tomatoes, twining up the stakes, peppers dangling from stalks, all of it seemed a wild urban garden salad for the world to feast on. The scarecrow stood in the center of it all, his body slightly tilted, as if shifting in the soil. His smile remained, his gaze empty, and I envied his life without worries. Plastic bags blown by the wind had gathered along the fence.
Somewhere underneath it all, I pretended Brett was still alive and trying to crawl his way out of his grave. His heart beat against the inside of my skull.
What will I do when I see Heather anyway? I did not know. Ideas and solutions rushed through me:
Dig up Brett’s grave before Heather arrives.
Call 911. Let them witness Heather’s insanity and take her away.
Put Heather down, keep the noise out.
Ideas got more ridiculous with each second passing, each one worse than the last, all of it aimed to find the pressure valve in my head and release what was inside.
There was only one way to silence the world: a puff of crack rock and the whistle of the train. I needed to see Number 88. Just the thought of it pumped adrenaline through me and stopped my fear. I could go get some and be back in just moments. The car seemed happy with my choice, and navigated along the familiar trail from Garden to dope house.
My stomach gurgled with digestive juices strong as battery acid while I walked up to the house and knocked. Eyes through the peephole sized me up, facial recognition happened quick enough and the lock was undone, and there he was. Russell.
The man’s shirt was off, and the handle of a gun stuck out of his waist band. Behind him, the front room was empty, so different from last time when it was nearly full. I wondered if Number 88 was still inside. Perhaps he had never left and was stuck in the basement, eating insects off the ground, begging for drug money.
“You say. Whatchu want this time?”
“Just looking to smoke a bit, in your basement, if I can.”
He grunted with disgust and stretched his arms in the air.
“Give me 30, I give you a nice rock, a place to smoke, and then you get the fuck out.”
The transaction happened fast and familiar, just like a regular at a coffee shop. I walked down the stairs, the steps creaking louder the lower I got, but all was silent at the bottom. I ducked my head under the wooden beam.
Nobody was there at all. It was both silent and empty. I kept waiting for something to stir, a shadow to move, a person to pop out who had been camouflaged in the clutter, but nothing. Just a washer and dryer, old clothes, a furnace. A bottle of Gilbey’s gin sat on a card table. Tin foil wrappers on the ground. Syringes lined the corners of the wall like baseboard.
I needed to do this fast. Things were happening back in my real world, and ready to explode. I found an old stem, my insides so loose and excited I feared I’d shit my pants. My heart pounded against my sternum, everything inside on edge waiting for the orgasmic release that would come once I sparked up the lighter and flame hit rock.
And it came. The cold, metallic smoke filled my lungs and the train whistles screeched. My spine tingled and shot up erect, my eyes bulged open, my jaw hung loose and low. My heart boomed from somewhere deep as the hells of the earth. I could hear the blood rush through my ears, too much to bear, so I fired up the flame again, took another hit. Ahhhh, one last huff, the tiny rock took everything away, my brain rattled, no longer a train whistle but the rattle-rattle, clank-clank-clank of a broken grocery cart.
Out of the smoke, I heard a familiar voice speak to me.
“It’s just us. Hell is empty. The devils were here, but now they’ve risen, looking for Tara.”
His words were vivid, but his body hazy. Infinite circle 88’s seemed to be moving like snakes inside his green T-shirt. The man seemed more shriveled than the first time I saw him. His cheeks had sunk into his jaw and his eyeballs bulged out as if they might fall to the ground. His hand reached out to me, summoning the crack from my hand, and I handed over stem and lighter on command. He put it to his lips, the flame shot from lighter, and I heard the crackling of the rock.
He puffed out the smoke in such relief.
“All of them were here. All of the devils. All of the dope fiends. All of them from one truck. A bunch of lost, homeless souls. And they bought a stash of dope. And just like you, they said to me, we are looking for Tara. We used to get high with her. Have you seen her?’ You remember that?”
He took another hit, this one like a scuba diver sucking on his oxygen tank.<
br />
“What did you tell them? How many were there?”
“Baker’s dozen at least, hard to say, but I didn’t tell them nothing. What you think I am? I just said, ‘Nah, it’s been a few days. Ain’t seen her.’ That’s how we lie around here. We don’t say the full truth.”
“Thank you. Thank you. I am the one trying to keep her safe. I’m her dad, that’s right. I’m her dad.”
“Oh shit. Her goddamn dad? Well, bad news, Bro. They all said they know where she’s at. Said they know where she lives. They busted out of here real fast, armed with enough dope to make an army nod out.”
His eyes kept bulging, both of them ready to drop and bounce on the floor.
“Bullshit. You’re lying. You’re not even real. Nobody is here right now. I’m not here. I’m leaving.”
I got up to leave, but my body seemed not my own. I was just a vapor of smoke, blown in the air from this scraggly crackhead, and his voice boomed like a god or a devil.
“You fucking idiot. Just reaping what you’ve sown. You made them what they are, each one of them has a chunk of Brett inside them. Of fucking course they want to shoot some dope into your daughter’s veins. They are going to chop her up. You hear me? Just like you did to Brett. Chop. Her. Up.”
I ran up the stairs, racing as if the devil were at my heels, and went straight out the front door. The outside air was a cold pool compared to the hell of the basement below.
Still, the words wouldn’t stop.
Chop.
Her.
Up.
Chapter Eleven: Tara Snyder
When you wake up, text me. I need to talk.
The text to Stacey was sent, but I hadn’t received a reply. It was still early. Stacey stayed up late and slept in late. Her biological clock was etched in stone from snorting coke in New York bars then walking home when the sun came up.
Garden of Fiends Page 12