by Alexa Land
I ate a toast fragment before saying, “You didn’t mean that about me staying a month, did you?”
“Of course I did. Stay as long as this place feels good to you.”
“I can’t keep disrupting your life.”
“Honestly? My life needed a little disruption,” he said.
“Still though.”
“I want you to stay. Plus, Chaplin might learn some social skills if you stick around.”
“Is he named for Charlie Chaplin?” TJ nodded, and I picked up a fork and moved the eggs around on the plate. After a few moments, I said, “You have to promise you’ll tell me when I wear out my welcome. And just so you know, I plan to be better company now that I’m not violently ill. God, that was awful.”
“You got through it, though.”
“Thanks to you.”
“Oh no, that was all you. I was just your pit crew, on standby with clean sheets and glasses of water. You should feel so good about getting through that. It took a hell of a lot of inner strength.”
“I don’t feel strong,” I admitted. “Just the opposite. I think if I’d had some heroin with me, I would have shot up about a million times over the last few days, just to make the pain stop. I’m still craving it too, constantly. I wonder if that’ll ever go away.”
“You’ve gotten through the physical side of addiction, but the psychological part doesn’t just disappear. The counselor I told you about will help with that. It’ll also get easier when you feel better and build up your stamina. Right now, you’re completely worn out, so it’s harder to deal with those cravings.”
I put the fork down and said, “I feel so lost. I have absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to do with the rest of my life. Even before the heroin, I spent years abusing one substance or another. They numbed me to everything, and that was exactly what I wanted. It was easier to go through life in a haze, rather than feeling all that pain, and guilt, and fear.” I looked up at TJ and asked, “How am I supposed to deal with any of that if I stay clean?”
“With the help of your counselor, and your friends, and me. And by learning you’re so much stronger than you think you are.” TJ picked up my hand and held it between both of his. “Right now though, it’s not your job to worry about the rest of your life. Just focus on this afternoon, or just this hour. Think about eating a few more bites of your toast jigsaw puzzle. Drink a little tea. Then tell me what you want to do next. Maybe you want to take a nap, or read a book, or watch a movie to take your mind off your cravings.”
“I’d love to read, but my head hurts too much.”
“I’ll read to you then. What are you in the mood for? I have a pretty broad range of genres.”
“Science fiction. Let’s leave reality in the dust.” I looked at the stacks around me as he let go of my hand, and then I slipped a thick paperback from a pile to my right. “How about this?”
“Neal Stephenson, great choice. Come on, let’s go to the couch and get comfortable. You bring the book, I’ll bring the tea and the thing you made out of your toast.” For the first time in days, I felt like smiling.
Chapter Twelve
Over the next month, life settled into a surprisingly comfortable routine in the book-filled apartment above the repair shop. My only responsibilities were getting better and attending my sessions with Murphy, the drug counselor. Since he was a personal friend of TJ’s, he came over for dinner twice a week in lieu of payment, after he finished his shift at a halfway house. The three of us ate together, and then Murph spent an hour or two talking to me while TJ worked in the shop to give us some privacy.
I’d been anxious before our first meeting, but that went away within about thirty seconds of meeting Murphy, because he was completely awesome. He was a big African-American guy in his thirties, with dreadlocks, lots of tattoos, thick glasses, and a skewed sense of humor. That included an unfortunate love of bad puns, which were regularly featured on his T-shirts. He never wore the same shirt twice, and I found myself looking forward to seeing what he showed up in every Tuesday and Thursday.
The rest of my time was spent with TJ. As soon as I felt well enough, we started spending part of each day making wind-up toys downstairs in the shop. I even designed one of my own, and he helped me plan the moving parts. It was a wonderful distraction, and he was great company.
Once or twice a week, he’d get a repair job, usually from someone in the neighborhood. It never took him more than an hour or so to get whatever it was up and running again. I asked him how he managed to keep the shop open when it wasn’t exactly busy, and he told me the landlord (who’d moved to New York when he found true love at age seventy) didn’t charge him rent. In exchange, TJ acted as the building super and looked after the place and the other tenants. He thought he was getting a hell of a deal, and I thought the landlord was damn lucky to find someone so reliable to take care of his property.
Each night, after closing the shop, we’d cook dinner together. Reading to me became a habit as I dealt with the residual effects of my addiction, so after our meal or after my counseling appointment, we’d get comfortable under a soft, warm blanket on the couch and TJ would pick up our book-in-progress. We stuck to the Sci Fi theme, because the escape from reality was so very welcome.
I avoided my friends, with the exception of Gabriel. He came to visit me at the shop after I’d been clean almost three weeks, and fidgeted with a wind-up toy as he sat across the workbench from me. “Thanks for getting my phone back to me,” he said. TJ had asked Murphy to run it by the hospital when Gabriel was still a patient, since TJ wouldn’t leave my side that first week.
“You’re welcome. You doing okay?”
He shrugged and kept his gaze fixed on the toy, and I took the opportunity to study him. He looked thin, but healthier. His long hair was tied back, and he wasn’t wearing much makeup aside from a little eyeliner, which was unlike him. “I guess. I haven’t been using, partly because my mom’s still staying at our apartment. She wants me to come home to Martinsville with her.”
“Are you going to go?”
“I don’t know. There’s not much for me there. It’s a small town, very rural, and let’s just say boys like me don’t exactly fit in. But then, it’s a million miles off the radar. My ex would never find me there.”
I asked, “Do you think maybe you should just give back whatever you took from him so you don’t have to worry about your ex coming after you?”
“I can’t do that.”
“Are you ever going to tell me what it was?”
“Probably not.” He stared at the little silver dragon in his hands, and after a pause he asked, “Do you still feel like using? Because I do, all the damn time. I mean, it was scary as shit when they told me my heart stopped for a couple minutes, and I never want to go through withdrawal again because it sucked so fucking bad, even with the medication I got at the hospital. But still, I keep thinking about it.”
“I crave it all the time, too. Maybe the trick is just to accept the fact that we’re always going to have cravings and to learn to live with them.”
“That’s pretty much my whole life right now, learning to deal with the cravings, and learning to go through life without that drug buffer.” Gabriel glanced at me, then returned his gaze to the dragon and said, “You look good, Zachary. Happy. You never looked like that before. I guess your new boyfriend is taking good care of you.”
“What new boyfriend?”
“Um, the cute guy that’s upstairs making us tea right now?”
“TJ? We’re just friends.”
He looked up again and blinked at me. “Bullshit.”
“I’m serious.”
“Well, then that’s one hell of an intense friendship you got there. I mean, I love my bestie Scottie and all, but I don’t hug on him whenever he’s in the room.”
“It’s soothing. I’m lucky he lets me do it.”
“Hey, who am I to judge? Viva la unconventional relationships.”
“When
you and I were using, you’d always climb in bed with me and snuggle. How is that different?”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow and said, “I’d climb in bed with you because I wanted you to fuck me. Something about being wasted made me need that. You never caught on, though.”
I was totally shocked. “Well no, because you never said anything.”
“I wasn’t any good at telling people what I needed when I was strung out. Plus, if I made you uncomfortable, or worse, if you got pissed off at me for trying to like, use you for sex or something, things could have gotten weird between us. I couldn’t take that risk. I really needed you there when I was wasted, maybe because part of me always knew I’d end up exactly like I did. And see? If you hadn’t been there and found me, I’d be dead now. You saved my life, Zachary.”
“No I didn’t. Gracie would have found you.”
“Maybe in a few hours. By then, it would have been too late.” He pulled out his phone and checked the time. “Shit, speaking of late, I’d better go. My mom’s expecting me to take her to the hairdresser. She hates going anywhere in this city on her own. Tell your unconventional relationship I’m sorry I couldn’t stay for the tea party.”
“It was just tea, not a party. No Mad Hatters or anything.” We both got up, and I hugged him as I said, “Make sure you tell me if you move down the coast.”
He headed for the door and said, “I will, and even if I do exile myself to the farm for a while, I’ll be back. I just need to wait until things have cooled down with my ex. Word on the street is, he’s actually getting more pissed off at me with each passing week, but that has to level out eventually, right?”
I watched him leave and sighed quietly. When TJ came downstairs with a tray a couple minutes later, I was still staring through the glass front door, lost in thought. He asked, “Did your friend take off?”
I pulled myself back to the present and said, “Yeah. Sorry, I should have texted and told you not to go to any trouble.”
“No trouble. I just baked the cookie dough we had left over from last night to kill some time. I thought you two might want a little privacy.”
I picked up a warm chocolate chip cookie while he poured us some tea and said, “This is nice. You used the good china and everything.”
TJ grinned at ‘good china.’ That was what I called his set of four white ceramic plates he used when Murphy had dinner with us, as opposed to the plastic plates patterned to look like the planets, which we used for everything else. “I got fancy. So, how’s your friend doing?”
“He’s pretty much right where I am in his recovery. He might be moving back home for a while, to a small farming community. I can’t decide if that’s more likely to keep him off drugs or push him to use again.”
TJ circled the work table and sat on the stool Gabriel had vacated, then asked, “Is there a reason you’re still avoiding the rest of your friends? Chance is getting antsy. Apparently he ran into my son when he went to dinner at Nana Dombruso’s house and peppered him with questions about how you were and when you’re coming home, none of which Trevor could answer, since I hadn’t told him anything about this.”
“You didn’t? Why not?”
TJ shrugged. “Trevor’s busy. He has a baby on the way, his son just started high school, and he has that high-pressure job at the restaurant. Plus, there’s all the drama going on with his husband’s family. They’re worried about tracking down an arsonist, for God’s sake! So I don’t call him a lot, because I figure his plate’s already overflowing.”
“Are you worried your son will think I’m taking advantage of you or something?”
“No, of course not. I just don’t tell him everything that’s going on with me.”
I said, “I thought you and he were close. You told me the other day that he’s always trying to get you to go with him to parties and family functions with the Dombrusos.”
“I think that’s just because he wants me to be more social. He’s an adult with his own life, and I didn’t come back into it until just a few years ago. Trevor doesn’t need me for anything, and I in turn try not to take up too much of his time.” When I frowned at that, he said, “What?”
“I bet he’d love to spend more time with you.”
“Well, he knows where to find me.”
“And you know where to find him! It probably wouldn’t kill you to take him up on some of his offers, aside from one Christmas party a year.”
TJ looked at me closely and asked, “Why are you getting upset?”
“Because you think your son can’t be bothered to see you, but I know that’s not the case. You’re his dad and he loves you. I hate that you’re making excuses to avoid spending time with him.”
TJ’s voice rose a little, which I’d never heard before. “That’s not what I’m doing!”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Don’t you get it? I haven’t earned the right to make any demands on his time! I was a shitty parent who used drugs, went to jail, and ended up missing his entire childhood. And now, I don’t want to accept his pity invitations and go to a bunch of loud, crowded parties where I won’t even get to talk to him because he’ll be busy with his husband’s huge, colorful family. All I want is to turn back the clock and get those missed years back, but that’s never going to happen!”
I was quiet for a moment, while we both took a breath. Then I said, “I’m sorry. This is none of my business. I was just thinking about my own dad and me, and how I wish I could see him, but I can’t. And you and Trevor live in the same city, but you only see each other for two hours every other Saturday. Actually, since you’ve been taking care of me, you haven’t even been doing that, which makes me feel guilty for taking up so much of your time.”
“Don’t feel guilty. You need me right now, and to be honest, it’s nice to be needed.” We fell silent again. After a while, his expression softened, and he told me, “I should have known you were upset because it made you think about the situation with your dad. Sorry I got defensive.” I’d told him as much as I’d told Alastair about my dad’s prison sentence and how I wasn’t allowed to visit.
“I’m sorry, too.”
“I wish I could do something about the fact that you’re not allowed to see your dad.”
“Thanks, but there’s nothing to be done.”
“How much longer until he’s paroled?”
“I don’t know. He was eligible this year, but he keeps getting into fights in prison so his parole hearing keeps getting pushed out.”
“You know, you never told me why he went to prison in the first place. Not that you have to if you aren’t comfortable talking about it.”
I hesitated for a long moment and turned partly away from him. Finally I admitted, “He’s in jail for second-degree murder. And before you think all kinds of horrible things about him, you need to know he’s innocent. My dad’s a great man and a wonderful father. He was just protecting me. It should never have been tried as murder in the first place. His shitty public defender didn’t even try to get the charges reduced.”
“What happened?”
I swallowed hard and tried to keep my emotions under control as a night from six years ago began playing out in my mind’s eye. “When I was in my senior year of high school, I was attacked by these two college-age brothers. They dragged me behind a convenience store and called me a fag and every other name they could come up with and beat the shit out of me. My dad was picking me up at that store to give me a ride home after work, and he went to look for me when I wasn’t out front. When he saw what was happening, he jumped in and tried to help me. One of the brothers pulled a knife, but Dad got it away from him. Then the guy lunged at my father, and the knife went into him. I saw the whole thing. It was an accident! My dad never meant to stab him.”
My voice broke, and I had to take a deep breath before I could continue. “That guy died, and the other one twisted the story around because he wanted my dad to pay for his brother’s death. By th
e time he was done, the cops and the jury were convinced my dad had tried to rob them at knifepoint, which is completely insane, and that I was lying to cover up what my father had done. Dad was a mechanic barely living above the poverty line, with a couple priors for possession. Nothing bad, he used to smoke pot in his twenties and got busted for it. But those convictions were enough to make the jury think he was a criminal. Meanwhile, the guy who died was the son of a wealthy family with a spotless record, maybe because his family swept everything he did under the rug. Nobody believed the truth. There were no other witnesses. The security camera behind the store wasn’t even working, so it was just our word against the dead guy’s older brother, and of course he totally had the jury’s sympathy.”
“Oh God.”
“All my dad did was try to keep me safe,” I said. “Now, even though he’s in jail, he’s still defending me. Every time some asshole inmate makes a derogatory remark about gay people, which is all the fucking time in that hell pit, my dad gets in their face, so he ends up in a lot of fights. All that does is decrease his chances of being paroled any time this decade.”
“I’m so sorry this happened to you and your dad.” He watched me for a minute before asking, “Are you alright, Zachary?”
“Yeah. Don’t worry, I’m not going to run back to drugs just because I’m talking about this. I’ve had six years to try to come to terms with it.”
“Have you talked to Murphy about any of this?”
I shook my head. “I already know what he’d say: what happened isn’t my fault and I shouldn’t feel guilty about it. But I do anyway, and I always will. A person’s dead, which is terrible even if he was a gay-bashing sociopath, and my dad’s in prison for trying to protect me, because I couldn’t protect myself.”
“There’s more to this story, isn’t there?” He held up his hand and said, “You don’t have to tell me. I don’t want to stir up any more bad memories.”
I looked up at him and asked, “How do you know there’s more to it?”