“Go ahead, ask my friend if I have any.”
I didn’t even know this kid, but I was putting all of my cards on him. The cop pulled him aside and I saw them talking as I sat on the curb without care in the world. I wanted to go to jail; I was sick of my life, it was finally up, and my time was now. The guy came back with a smile and I was sure that Blake’s friend had tattled on me.
“Your friend says there’s nothing and that you were giving him a ride home. Still, I don’t believe him; are you sure you have nothing in the trunk?” he asked again. “This is your last chance, Logan; either tell me and I let you off easy, or I find it and you go to jail.”
For the split second, I saw an image of my mom crying, with me in jail, and all of my dreams to make things right vanished. I hoped one day to make things right again, but I had waited too long.
“Go ahead, officer, search my car.” The officer looked shocked as he saw me look right in his eye and give permission.
Now, you might think he would believe me and not call my bluff, but he replied, “Okay, great; I’m going to pop the trunk then.” He walked over and with each step he took, I swear I could see my life ending. He popped the trunk and, of course, saw nothing except a spare tire. Under the spare lay my fate. His hand slowly went to the spare tire as he smiled; the heat beat down on my forehead as my whole life flashed before my eyes.
BEEP! BEEP! “We have an urgent matter; there has been a shooting; we require assistance immediately.” If I ever believed in signs from above, this was the time. The cop slammed my trunk shut and said, “Get out of here.” My fucking mind was blown; was I the luckiest guy on earth here, or was someone looking out for me? Blake’s friend and I jumped in my car and drove away, both silent the whole way back.
I had never felt so relaxed to just sit on my couch and watch TV. If things had gone the other way, I would have been calling my mother from jail, sitting in a cell, and awaiting a trial date. That night, I had the whole house to myself; my mother was working and Jared was out. I smoked a joint to my head and laughed, watched T.V. and ordered pizza. Thank you, God.
•••
September arrived and my brother was now starting his school year, along with my former friends who were starting their sophomore year in college. It was another calendar year coming to an end, and I was stuck working at my dead-end construction job. I stopped selling pot for a month after the cop incident, but still went to Lowell and partied on most nights. All of my money went to my mom, though, and after I stopped selling for the month, money was tight. I was happy that I could give my mom four hundred dollars a month, but I had none left for me.
A few weeks later, Blake and I were at his house and he had a pound of weed just sitting on his table. “Toss me that; I’ll sell it,” I said.
He laughed and said, “I knew you couldn’t resist.”
I should have been in jail. I had basically been given a second, a third and a fourth chance. I knew it was just a matter of time before my luck would run out, but I didn’t care.
Over the next couple of months, I continued to sell pounds of drugs, but was very cautious. I got my car fixed so that it wasn’t loud, and started to make back that extra cash that I needed. My boss said I was a very hard worker and told me I was doing a great job. I think I always worked so hard because it took my mind off things currently going on in my life. Up until this moment, I had been so selfish that I didn’t realize how much I was hurting my family. All I cared about was “Poor Logan” and ignored the fact was that it wasn’t about me—it was about my mother. The night that transformed my life began with a phone call on Thanksgiving eve, right before my twentieth birthday.
Thanksgiving is a time for drinking, when all of the college kids come back to spend time with their families. Families reunite for another year, acting thankful and having a celebration. I decided to stay local, going to some bars in town, where I saw faces that I hadn’t seen for years. My old friends were back from college and were excited to see me; they talked about how perfect college was and told me all of their bullshit stories about how successful they would be. I ignored it all and bought everyone shots, and then just continued to drink. My mother had the night off, so she was home with my brother, Jared. The locals and I all took shots celebrating another year, which honestly I didn’t care about: I was just feeling lucky that I wasn’t in jail.
I went outside to have a cigarette and to get away from all of the stories about college; I hated hearing them. My phone rang and I looked down to see that Jared was calling. Usually Jared wouldn’t call me around eleven p.m. when I was out drinking at a bar, so I figured it must have been urgent. I picked up, but I was high and slurring my words.
“What’s up?”
“Logan, I don’t know what to do.”
“About what?” I replied as I began to sober up.
“It’s Mom; something’s wrong with her,” he said in a shaky voice.
“What is it?” I yelled.
“I don’t know. Just get home; she’s shaking and crying.”
I had immediately gotten straight; I jumped into my car and drove home as fast as possible. I didn’t even care about getting pulled over. What’s wrong with my mom? I practically drove right up to the door and jumped out, leaving the keys in the ignition. I ran inside to see that my brother wasn’t in the living room; I yelled his name.
“Jared! Mom?” Jared ran out, looking scared, looking like the very young man he was, and he told me to come into the room. When I opened the door to see my mother, it became a living, breathing nightmare. My heart raced with fear as my eyes slowly glanced up at her face. Her eyes had tears in them as she clenched her chest and wheezed. The look she had was exhaustion; she looked pale and empty of life.
I tried to hold my tears back as I ran over to her, as Jared anxiously called 911. I held my mother as she wheezed for breath, and I wiped her tears away. Jared screamed into the phone in the other room, “My mother’s sick, she can’t breathe and she’s wheezing for air, please help!” After a minute of panic, Jared was able to give our address, and they were on their way.
Holding my mother gently in my arms, I could not disengage a feeling of selfishness. The feeling waved through my body into my chest, and I felt like I was going to lose grip of everything any minute now. I ground my teeth together as I tried to catch my breath and stay together for my mother. I held her as I gently helped her take deep breaths. “It’s okay, Ma, deep breaths, I’m here for you.” Her tears dried as she clenched my shoulder harder, and wheezed for air like it was her last breath. Each time she took a breath, I thought I was going to lose my mother. I wanted to cry so badly because I was not the son she wanted. I couldn’t let her life end with her son being a junkie loser. I prayed until the ambulance came, which felt like eternity.
Jared opened the front door quickly and yelled, “She’s in there!” The EMTs arrived and put an oxygen mask over her face as she gripped my shirt tightly, and she slipped into unconsciousness and was placed on the stretcher. Jared cried, and I called my aunt to come pick us up. My aunt arrived and rushed us to the Lawrence General Hospital. I felt so embarrassed. Drunk and high, I mumbled my words in the front seat of my aunt’s car. All I could think about was my poor mother by herself, without me.
Finally at the hospital, I ran to the front desk and asked for Maria Michaels. The nurse led me to her room, and as I entered I saw her. My face went blank; she was smiling. She was sitting up, her tears were dry, her face had some color back in it, and she looked full of life and super-relaxed.
She smiled as Jared and I hugged her, but we were very confused as she laughed. “I’m sorry boys, I suffered from the same panic attacks my father use to have. I hope you don’t get them.”
“Holy shit, Ma, you scared the hell out of us,” I said as my chest relaxed and my worries started to fade.
The nurse then approached the room and tapped on the door gently. “May I come in, Maria? You might want your boys outside, I have s
ome news you may want to keep private.”
My mother replied, “These boys are my only reason for living, so whatever it is, you can tell me now. . . .
Chapter 14
THE END OF INNOCENCE
Usually our memories fade and we forget about things we have done in the past—or try to forget. For me, there was a crystal-clear moment on August 2. I still remember the smell of my dad’s old car engine running as he worked under the hood. It was, of course, a Sunday, and he had the day off.
It was scorching hot, but with light humidity. The neighbors were out on their porch, an older couple who liked to sit and watch us kids have fun outside. We probably reminded them of how easy youth had once been. Our neighbors invited us to swim in their pool but for some reason we declined, maybe because we knew that just the four of us was all we needed that day. My father set up a sprinkler. Jared and I ran through the spraying water, laughing and pushing each other.
My mother had a patio set, with five-dollar plastic chairs and a foldable plastic table. It was tacky, and Jared and I loved it. She would bring us tuna fish sandwiches with Cape Cod chips and ice-cold glasses of water. She passed us our oversized towels that covered our whole bodies as we dried up under the sun.
After Jared and I finished our lunch, Mom would always tell us to wait about twenty minutes before we jumped up to go back to running through the sprinkler. We, of course, didn’t listen.
“Boys, listen to your mother,” my dad yelled at us on that August afternoon, exploding our fears. Jared froze up and I tried to not freeze as Dad angrily approached. I remember he threw down the rag he used to check the oil of his car, then shut off the engine and came over.
“Guys, you just ate; you’re going to get a cramp.”
Forlorn, Jared and I sat on the plastic patio furniture and waited as the sun scorched our faces.
After ten minutes or so, we both started to shut our eyes from the sun and doze, until we heard the back door open abruptly. My father stormed out in his bathing suit as he dove through the sprinkler like a little kid. Jared and I laughed as we jumped through again. Dad was, for a moment, a young kid. I still remember my father telling my mom, “Maria, let’s go! You’ve been in the house.”
She laughed as she sat down at the patio table drinking an ice-cold lemonade. She never jumped in but the look said it all. She had the family she always wanted, and even though we didn’t have a huge house with a nice patio and huge pool, her heart was filled with love.
That memory of Mom’s smile and joy had gotten me through that sad night at the hospital a week earlier. The woman now before me was beaten down and somber. She had suffered from years of panic attacks and depression, which we had learned to cope with. But, we were floored by the news of her physical condition: After doing some routine tests, doctors found a lump and diagnosed her with stage three breast cancer. She would start her treatment immediately and would have to put work on hold. Another devastating hardship for a woman who should have had a life of joy.
All I could think about, as I stood over her hospital bed, was that it was a warm summer day in August and I had my whole life and youth ahead of me. Now, at age twenty, I felt life’s torment again and I realized that if I was to survive it—for myself and my mother—I had to change. It was time to grow up and live for somebody other than myself. My mother needed me; my brother needed me.
The doctors said that her cancer was spreading quickly, but there was a chance we could stop the spread. If not, my mom had just months to live.
Later in the week, I found myself researching breast cancer. My stomach clenched as I realized that the last impression my mother had of me was of a drug-addicted, unemployed loser—an underachiever, an embarrassment, a source of grief to her. I’m a pathetic, selfish embarrassment, I thought. I deserve better. So does Mom. I am going to fix everything that I have done wrong in the past and show my mother and family that I can bounce back from all of this.
My youth was over and I was ready to accept it. No more fucking around and feeling self-pity. I was going to be a family asset, not a liability. I would help put Jared on the right track, and prove to my mother that her older son was not a loser. Maybe in time I would feel whole again, like I did that Sunday afternoon so long ago, running through the sprinkler with my dad and brother.
A week later, after sleepless nights in the hospital, my mother was finally home. I would need to take care of her while she was out of work and adjusting to her new medication. My biggest fear was her cancer spreading to stage four, because the survival rate significantly decreased at that point. I was praying for all of this to just go away, but I’d had many miracles up to this point. Why would God do another for a selfish prick like me?
The first night home from the hospital was the first night Mom, Jared and I could finally relax. My mother seemed fine and upbeat. Maybe she was in denial about things, but I knew this wouldn’t last forever. “What do you boys want for dinner?” she asked.
It blew my mind that she was still selfless enough to cook for us. I looked into her eyes and said, “No, Ma, it’s time for me to take care of you.”
She smiled and said, “That’s okay, Logan. I love doing it.” After about a minute of persuading her to let me cook she finally gave in. Maybe it was the meds, but she started to look sleepy.
I whipped together spaghetti and meatballs, just like my dad would do for me and Jared. I guess it was a simple recipe for a single guy. Once I’d served up a plate to both Jared and Mom, I looked at them and announced, “I’d like to say a little something.”
“Dear Lord, I thank you for this food and another day of us being together. These years have been tough on us all, but out of tragedy there is always a silver lining. You have given me many chances over these years and now it’s about time for me to make things right. Amen.”
Jared and Mom smiled, but I could tell they didn’t believe me. I couldn’t blame them. I mean, had I ever really kept my word before now? Jared finished his dinner and said, “I’m going out with my friend.”
I asked if he would stay until Mom fell asleep, but he refused. When I became angry he swore at me and stormed out the door. “Jared,” I yelled as he took off. “Jared!” I yelled louder. “What a selfish prick,” I said under my breath. I walked back into the house and saw my mother sinking lower in her chair. I covered her with a blanket and helped her to bed. As I shut the door halfway I glanced in at her. She looked so frail and cold. My eyes teared.
I entered my room and opened my bureau drawer to put away my belongings, and I saw my bag of weed; it carried enough for a joint. As Mom fell asleep I went into the bathroom and rolled up the last of it. Slowly walking outside I grabbed my lighter and sat on the porch alone. I scratched my head. I knew this was wrong, I promised my mom I would change. The agony flushed through my body in waves. It was as if I were trapped in a box, but there was no light, no escape, and no turning back.
I ground my teeth and became angry at myself and made my way to the bathroom. I shut the door as I breathed heavily and looked into the mirror. It was time. I jumped over the enormous emotional waves and broke out of the box and dumped my joint in the toilet and flushed it. “No more,” I said. I looked into the mirror again, suddenly seeing a different person. He looked familiar; he looked like the ambitious self I had lost, and I knew what steps needed to be taken. It would be a long journey, but I knew what needed to be done.
The following morning I jumped into my car. The day was beautiful as I drove over to my father’s house. I knew he had the day off, so hopefully I would catch him home.
He opened the door, looking as surprised as I was to see me smiling. He smiled back and I could tell we were both glad to see each other. “I need your help, Dad,” I said. “Mom has stage three breast cancer and Jared is going down the wrong path.Please help me.”
He paled and bit his nails. He sat down and put his hands over his head. “When did you find out? How bad is it? What can I do?”
&
nbsp; We hugged, and I finally had my father back. It made me want to cry thinking that this man who had been my best friend and father had been out of my life for years. I had missed so many memories with him. As we hugged tighter he told me he loved me and missed me and that he was sorry for everything. “I’m sorry too, Dad. I never meant to distance you from my life. I’m back now and have to make up for lost time.”
My sister came out of the other room looking tiny and shy. I picked her up and hugged her and smiled. “I’m your brother, Logan,” I said. My father smiled with joy and she looked at me, confused, but she had a little smirk on her face.
My dad said, “Logan, whatever you need, you let me know. I’m here for your mother. Let her know that, and I’m here for Jared.”
I told Dad about my plan of redemption and that I was no longer going to be selfish and how I was going to make things right. My first plan was to get my GED and then enroll in community college. Over these past years I had let my depression and self-pity destroy the bright future I once had. I would have to work twice as hard as a normal kid, I would need to fix my mistakes, but I wasn’t turning back.
After one month of studying for my GED exam, I was ready. I had not smoked weed for over a month. My mind was free and clear. Even though the first two weeks I felt like dying, I didn’t give in. I continued to spend time with my mother. Her medicine was finally helping and she wanted to get back to work. She had a checkup with the doctor in another month. Blake, Rory, and Tyler had been blowing up my phone. I just ignored them. I didn’t care about them. My family was more important and I just focused on cramming for the GED.
Finally, the day arrived when I would enter the doors to take my GED exam at Northern Essex Community College in Haverhill, Massachusetts. The entire ride there my heart was pounding out of my chest. I didn’t eat anything all morning and felt sick to my stomach. My throat was dry when I finally arrived in the parking lot. I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. I grabbed my pencils and threw them in my old JanSport high school bag that I’d hardly ever used and walked into those big silver doors.
The Crossroads of Logan Michaels Page 19