Lifeline

by Abbey Lee Nash

  “I would’ve been here yesterday,” he continues, “but you came in on such short notice, and well, you know how it is. First day off in three weeks.” His eyes flicker to my abandoned tray. “If you’re done eating, why don’t we take a walk?”

  “Nah. I’m good here, thanks. Plus, I’ve got, you know, things to do.”

  “Funny. You’re a funny guy, you know that?” But Richard doesn’t look like he thinks I’m funny. The look on his face vaguely reminds me of ones I’ve seen on the lax field, usually on the faces of the opposing team.

  He stands, lifts his mug in one hand and my tray in the other. “You’re scheduled to be in my office at 8am tomorrow anyway,” he says. “Might as well as find out where it is.”

  He heads across the cafeteria to the trashcans by the exit, where he pauses to scrape my tray, then hands it over to the waiting orderly with a tub full of dirty dishes in his arms. “You coming?”

  Several people near me turn around to see who he’s talking to. I sink lower into my seat and shake my hair down over my eyes like a shaggy shield. And then I see Libby, a couple tables up from me. Her ravaged arms are covered in a thin green t-shirt, and her frosty gaze meets mine with complete disinterest. But for some reason, I don’t want to look away.

  “Move it or lose it, Eli,” Richard shouts. “I’m clocking out in five minutes whether you’re in my office or not.”

  Somebody behind me chuckles. Heat rushes up the back of my neck. I shove off from the table and hurry to follow Richard out of the room.

  Richard Fisher’s office smells like day-old coffee and a dirty ashtray. Dog-eared books cling to an over-stuffed shelf on the rear wall. Two framed diplomas hang cockeyed behind Richard’s desk. A worn sofa faces it, bumping up against a scratched wooden end table where a nearly dried-up water feature gurgles pathetically.

  “Nice digs,” I mutter. A black cruiser helmet with flame decals perches on a magazine rack in the corner. “You ride?”

  Richard’s shuffling through one of two towering stacks of manila folders and stapled paper packets on his desk. “Rain or shine. You know anything about bikes?”

  “My dad had one.” So did the first guy Mom dated after Dad moved out. A Harley. I hated the boyfriend, but loved his bike. Which makes it even weirder that I scratched a key through its shiny black paint one cold October morning on my way to catch the bus.

  Mom didn’t date after that—until Steven. The way Steven tells it, one of his golfing buddies referred him to the “best accountant in town,” and it was love at first tax return. But Dad used to say that Steven wanted Mom to do more than his taxes, “if you know what I mean.” The thought still makes me want to gouge out my eyeballs with a soup spoon.

  “Bikes aren’t my thing,” I say. “Too dangerous.”

  Richard cocks a bushy brow. “Yeah, you strike me as a guy who likes to play it safe. You know, except for that whole heroin thing. A-ha! Here it is.” Richard pulls out a thick white folder like the one I’d seen Red reading and hands it to me. A typed label on the front reads STEP ONE: Honesty, Open-Mindedness, Willingness.

  “Flip through that tonight,” Richard says, carefully patting the mound of paper on his desk back into a relatively stable pile. “It’s your Step One packet. Go ahead and do some of the questionnaires. We’ll go through everything together tomorrow, but it wouldn’t hurt to get started.”

  I hold the folder loosely between my thumb and middle finger, flipping it up and down. “Nobody told me there was going to be homework,” I mutter.

  “What’d you think you were going to do for 28 days?” Richard asks. “Sit on your butt and eat chicken parm?” He gathers up a few things, hoists his briefcase onto his shoulder, and tucks his helmet under his arm. “Walk me out?”

  Richard Fisher locks the door, and I follow him down the dimly lit hallway. “Mr. Fisher?”

  He glances up at me, his thick fingers fumbling to hook the loaded key ring back onto the carabiner at his hip.

  “I don’t know why I’m here.” The words I’ve been carrying around for the last 36 hours fall out of my mouth, followed almost immediately by gripping anxiety.

  Richard Fisher scratches his chin. “I expect you know how you got here, right?” He gives me a pointed look, and I know he’s talking about my overdose.

  I fix my eyes on a dark spot on the carpet. “That was an accident. It wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m not an addict, not like Red, or that girl, Libby. Those kids are seriously messed up.”

  Richard chuckles, not unkindly. He reaches under the folder in my hand and elevators it up to waist level. “Read through this tonight,” he says. “There’s a reason we start with Step One.”

  “Yeah, but . . .” I try again, but Richard’s already heading down the hall. A red EXIT sign flickers at the far end.

  “Just read it, kid.” He lifts an arm overhead to wave without turning around. “We’ll talk in the morning. My office, 8am.” Then he pushes through the double doors at the end of the hall and disappears.

  I stare down at the folder in my hand. “Thanks for nothing.” My words echo in the empty hallway.

  Day 4

  The sun is blinding. The tips of my light-up sneakers disappear into white fire as the swing carries me up, up, up. I shut my eyes, pushing backward against the wind, as I swoop back down into my dad’s waiting arms.

  “Higher!” I yell. “Higher!”

  Dad grips the metal chains, and I jerk forward, suspended in midair. My back presses against his chest; his breath is warm on my cheek. “You sure?” he asks. “You won’t let go, right?”

  I shake my head furiously. “Under-duck! Under-duck!”

  Dad’s laugh rumbles through me. He pulls back on the swing until his arms are straight, and my legs are dangling nearly over his head. “Hold on tight!”

  And then he’s running, pushing me forward like wind in the folds of a paper kite.

  “Under-duck!” I turn up my face to the warmth of the sun, so certain that I’m flying, that I forget my promise to my dad. My fingers uncurl from the chains that hold me in flight, and I let go.

  A spasm shutters through my body, and I jerk awake, my heart throbbing against my ribs like I just ran laps. I push myself upright, rub my eyes. The dream slips away.

  I peer up at the clock on the wall—8:05. Red’s bed is unmade, and the bathroom door’s shut, the shower running. I flop back against my pillows.

  The water turns off in the bathroom, and the door opens. “Dude. Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere?”

  Red’s standing in the bathroom doorway, a white towel wrapped around his skinny waist and water dripping into a puddle around his feet. Tattoos mark geographic regions on the pasty terrain of his chest and ribs—his arms are riddled with track mark scars.

  “8am, right? The hippy biker?”

  Shit. I groan and roll over to my side. The Step One folder stares at me from the bedside table where I left it last night, unread. I run my hand across my face and squint up at Red. “Do you think I have time for a shower?”

  He glances up at the clock. “Depends, I guess. You going for sorry-I-overslept late or complete-and-total-asshole late?”

  I reach for my dirty jeans, crumpled on the floor at the foot of my bed. “More like this-is-an-absolute-waste-of-my-time late.”

  Red laughs, shrugging his arms into a clean blue t-shirt. “Sure. I bet that’s gonna go over real well.”

  Richard Fisher is pissed off. His fingers drum his desk beside an empty paper coffee cup, and he scowls up at the clock when I drop onto the faded brown sofa. “8:30,” he announces.

  I shove a chunk of cream cheese slathered bagel into my mouth. “I had to get breakfast.”

  Richard Fisher’s voice is tightly controlled. “Look, Eli. I’m not exactly a morning person. As a matter of fact, I’m on my third cup of joe, and it’s still taking every ounce of self-control not to toss you out of my office.”

  “I
could leave if it’s easier.” I thumb the last bite of bagel into my mouth and push up off the couch.

  “Sure, that sounds like a brilliant idea. Walking away from a get-out-of-jail-free card sounds like the kind of grade-A thinking that got you here in the first place.”

  My spine stiffens. The chunk of bagel goes down like concrete. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The way I hear it, you walk out of here, your first stop is the courtroom. The judge decides where you go after that. Does that sound like a good idea to you?”

  Richard’s sarcasm nips at my self-control; heat pricks the back of my neck. “What’s your problem, man?”

  “No problem. I’m just calling your bullshit.” A pair of reading glasses hangs from a chain around Richard’s neck. He sits them on the end of his nose and flips open a manila folder, all casual, like he’s reading Newsweek in a waiting room.

  The couch cushions crunch as I sink back down. I eye the lopsided diplomas on the wall behind Richard Fisher’s desk. “What kind of a therapist are you, anyway? Are you sure you’re qualified for this?”

  Richard glances at me over the rim of his glasses. “In more ways than one.”

  “Then help me out. Everybody keeps saying I need to get better, but there’s nothing wrong with me. All this work you want me to do, it’s a waste of time.”

  Richard leans back in his chair and takes off his glasses. “You got friends sniffing heroin?”

  The question takes me off guard. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Just curious. I mean, you OD’d at a party, right? I’m thinking there was booze there, probably pot, maybe even a few pills getting passed around. But according to your intake report . . .” Richard Fisher holds his glasses over the open folder on his desk and peers through them like a magnifying glass. “. . . you were alone when the EMT pulled you out of the car.”

  “And?”

  “And I’d bet a fifty that most of your friends at that party, maybe even a few of the ones popping pills, woke up for church Sunday morning, worked a lawn mowing gig, crammed for Monday’s test, whatever. But not you. You overdosed and woke up in the hospital.”

  “That was an accident . . .”

  “Sure, it was. An inevitable accident. You’re not reinventing the wheel, Eli. I’ve been working this job for twenty years. You snort, you smoke, whatever. First, it’s only at parties, but then you’re doing it every weekend, alone, while your friends are out having lives. You use in the afternoon, in the mornings before school. When snorting doesn’t get you there anymore, you turn to needles. Sure, your family’s got money, but eventually they get sick of this shit—everybody does. They kick you out, or you run away. Next thing you know, you’re blowing some crack head on a street corner for your next score.”

  My stomach twists in revulsion; my fingers curl into fists. “That’s fucked up.”

  “Sure, it is,” Richard Fisher says. “But it’s the path you’re on. Just because you’re hovering at the starting line doesn’t mean you’re going to finish any different. You’re on the cusp of a serious addiction, but you’ve been given an opportunity to choose a different way. If you’re happy with the direction your life is taking, then by all means, go on home. But if you want things to be different, you’re gonna have to show up and do the work. My office, every morning, on time.”

  The old brown couch has folded up around me like it hasn’t had springs for decades. I’ve heard this before. Savannah sitting next to me on the hospital bed, her cheeks streaked with dripping mascara: You need help, Eli.

  Richard’s staring at me, waiting for my decision. There’s a smear of cream cheese on my thumb, and I wipe it on my already dirty jeans. If showing up here and talking about my “feelings” with this headshrinker is the only way to make it up to Savannah and get back to my life as it was, then I might as well get it over with. “Fine,” I say. “When do we start?”

  Richard’s mouth curls into a crooked smile, and he shakes his head a little. “Like I told you last night, the only place to start is the beginning. I’m guessing you didn’t look at your packet.”

  I stare at him.

  He sighs, glances at the clock. “And we’re almost out of time for today. Tell you what, fill out the Step One questionnaire by our meeting tomorrow, and we’ll get started with the rest of the packet then. In the meantime, they tell me you’re relocating today.”

  “Relocating?”

  “To Unit 8. Phase Two. We need to get your schedule squared away.”

  Over the next fifteen minutes, as Richard and I go through a pile of pamphlets and paperwork, I gradually figure out that the next 24 ½ days of my life are going to be occupied in hour long increments, including daily meetings with Richard Fisher, large group lectures, small group counseling, art therapy, and “personal reflection time,” whatever that means.

  By the time I’ve left Richard’s office, I’ve got a printed schedule, a map of the facility, and five minutes to get to my small group. But all I want to do is go back to bed.

  “Remember,” Richard says, as he walks me to the door, “Step One questionnaire by our meeting tomorrow. 10am, right after group. No bullshit. Got it?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I mutter, squeezing sideways through the half-open door and almost bowling over Libby, who’s standing in the hallway like a deer caught in the flash of headlights. She clutches a purple spiralbound notebook to her chest; the skin around her fingernails is puffy and red.

  “Sorry,” she squeaks. Her eyes trail past me to Richard Fisher. “I didn’t realize you were in session.”

  “We don’t meet until three, Libby,” Richard says. “Everything okay?”

  Libby shakes her head. Bleach-fried hair spills out of her ponytail and frames her face in subtle waves. “Something came up in group that I need to talk about.” Libby’s voice is scratched and sweet. It sounds like an ink black night with stars that go for miles. “Can I have fifteen minutes?”

  “Of course,” Richard says. He steps back, and Libby slips into his office.

  I turn away from the door. Richard’s voice catches me up from behind. “10 am, SHARP.”

  “I heard you the first time,” I shoot back, but the office door has already closed.

  My small group meets in the rec room. There’s a Ping-Pong table and a couple of dingy couches that face a huge flat screen TV. In the center of the room, a few guys are already gathered. They lounge on metal folding chairs and slurp coffee from steaming white Styrofoam cups.

  I spy the coffee on a table against the far wall. I’m adding a third sugar to my cup when a heavy hand claps me on the shoulder. “Eli, right? Nice to see you again.”

  I look sideways at Mo, who’s beaming at me like we’re old friends. I remember how he laughed at me, and I shove his hand off my shoulder. “Wish I could say the same.”

  Mo seems to take it in stride. “This your first group?”

  I take a short draw of my coffee, testing its heat. “Yep.” I turn away and reach for another sugar packet.

  “Glad to have you.” Mo waits while I stir my coffee with a red plastic wand and toss the empty sugar packets in the trash. “C’mon over,” he says. “Meet the guys.”

  Mo says it like we’re on a ball field or at a poker game—like the rag-tag group of junkies nursing black sugar water are his friends. “This is Eli,” Mo tells the group gathered in the center of the room. “Just started Phase Two today.”

  I sink into an empty seat while the guys around me nod in acknowledgement or mutter introductions I can barely hear. I avoid eye contact.

  “So what did you guys think of the speaker this morning?” Mo asks the group. A couple guys start talking. I sink lower in my chair and hope nobody asks for my opinion.

  “The speaker was a counselor, ten years sober or some shit like that,” the scrawny dude next to me says, filling me in. He’s sporting a Kool-Aid blue faux hawk that looks fluorescent against his brown ski
n, and he reaches a skeletal hand to shake mine. “I’m Will. Just moved up yesterday.”

  “What do you think so far?” I ask.

  Will gives me a crooked grin. “Too much talking. Everybody wants to tell you how they feel, and they want to know how you feel. I feel like I’d give my left nut for a stamp bag. You?”

  I laugh. “I hear ya.” Will’s leg is bouncing up and down like he’s working on his 18th cup of coffee. This kid’s a junkie through and through.

  “Got a roommate yet?” Will asks.

  I shake my head. “I’m moving today—not sure where yet.”

  “Preppy over there’s my roommate.” Will points across the circle to a clean-cut dude with a popped collar. “He graduates in two weeks, and then I’ll get a newbie.” Will coughs out a crunchy sounding laugh. “Poor guy.”

  “Morning, folks.” A tubby guy in a yellow button-up shirt and khakis strides across the room, legal pad in hand. His mousy brown hair is combed to one side, like how Mom used to make me wear mine for school pictures. “For those of you who are new,” his eyes flicker toward me, “my name’s Howard. I’m a counselor here at LakeShore, and I run this group.” Howard drops onto a metal chair, his bulk protruding over the sides. “We usually follow a similar format to a 12-step recovery group. Each morning, I’ll introduce a topic, and then we take turns with individual shares. Sharing is expected, not optional.”

  Will elbows me.

  Oh no, I don’t think so. I’ll do the freaking worksheets, and I’ll show up wherever to prove to Savannah and her dad that I’m “better.” But showing up and participating are two completely different things.

  As if reading my mind, Howard continues, his voice stiff and monotone, likes he’s reciting a script. “If this is your first group, you may be feeling nervous about sharing, or even unwilling to do so.”

  That’s the understatement of the century.

  “I encourage you to keep in mind that each person here, including myself, was at one time in the exact place you are now. That’s why we come together in this way, to learn from each other’s experiences, strength, and hope. Don’t worry about what you’re going to say, just speak from the heart and try to keep an open mind. Okay?”