To Be Fearless
A Novel
(Fiction)
Jesse Mattson
Published Online By Couch Sesh Critics and ECB Productions, Los Angeles, CA
To my Family and the Boys.
Chapter One
This life is a carnival.
You go in planning on having a great time. You see a couple of things that scare you, a couple that make you laugh, and others that make you cry. You have a piece of greasy food or two, a sausage or maybe a Bloomin’ Onion with a tall cold hand-pressed lemonade. You see the old timers looking into their past and young guns into their future. You lose a little money playing games you never could win. You pay eight dollars for a gold fish that’ll die before you get to the car. Your whole time there leads up to the magical ride on the Ferris wheel with the girl you’re going to marry and a teddy bear that emptied your wallet. You go up and down and then up and down. And then you have to get off.
The carnival is over.
Chapter Two
I graduated from St. Jude Academy with an acceptance letter to Colgate. I had dodged a serious bullet. I always thought that as long as I was smart enough and saw all the angles there wasn’t any situation I couldn’t manipulate in my favor. Getting into Colgate though wasn’t my manipulation; it was an act of the world. I didn’t deserve to go to Colgate with all the bullshit I had pulled in prep school. When I looked back at my time at Choate and St. Jude, I only saw how much I wasted; I only saw wreckage. I realized that there was nothing I could do about all that though. It was done, over, time to move onto the next challenge, and no matter how much I wished I could have done it right, I couldn’t go back and fix it. I knew I had fucked up, but I was going somewhere great now and that erased and negated all the bad. None the less, I was excited, and especially excited to be rooming with Dan again, who I had roomed with at Choate and had also been accepted to Colgate, but to play hockey.
It was going to be a summer of celebration.
Early in June, I called up Twink. Twink was a girl I had gone to high school with in Vermont for a couple of years before I left for boarding school. She was originally from California so when we first met my freshman year in high school, we had a slew of things to talk about. I could always talk to her, call her up and just vent. She was tall and lean with long blond hair and like the most normal person I knew. Her face never betrayed her feelings and her smile, well, just made you feel better. She could have modeled professionally if she wanted. Our relationship had always remained platonic although there was a mutual attraction, but it had just never happened, and that was okay by me. Whether we had become intimate or not had no bearing on the way I felt about her. She always called me out on my shit and I loved her for it.
I remember this one time when I was a sophomore, I was dating a girl who was a freshman and on Twink’s JV cheer leading squad; Twink was a cheerleader once and I never let her forget it. Not that there is anything wrong with cheer leading, she just wasn’t that type. Anyway, my step-brother, Jason, and my best friend at the time, Matt, and I snuck out of my house through the basement door. This was after we put stuffed animals under the covers of our beds so that if my parents came to check on us in the middle of the night it would look like we were sleeping, pretty standard. We walked eight miles, the first quarter on a dirt road, to the girl’s house that I was dating. When we arrived she and I hung out in her little brother’s tree house while Twink hung out with Jason and Matt. For some reason I don’t remember, I got into an argument with the girl and stormed out of the tree house to where Jason and Matt were with Twink and I demanded we walk back to my house. Twink had her car and offered to give us a ride home, but I refused in offensive bold fashion like an idiot trying to prove some point. We were about halfway back home when Twink’s soccer-mom van came storming up and she rolled down the window and began yelling at me about how I was stubborn and inconsiderate. She followed us home going two miles an hour the whole way why we walked. She wouldn’t let us get in until I apologized. That was the way she was.
At our Vermont high school, Jason and I were in student government and Twink was the president of our class. Jason was good with finance and I had a special eye for party planning, so he and I came up with this school dance event to raise money. I designed a rave-like environment where kids got flashlights and glow-in-the-dark everything when they arrived at the dance and Jason figured out a crazy way to cut the door price in half and double the total profits. He even gave a further discount for kids who brought canned goods, just really socially aware; to this day I don’t know how he did it. At the end of the dance Twink grabbed me and pulled me on the dance floor for the final slow song. There’s a high school dance cliche everybody experiences that goes something like, you danced at that one dance with the person you’ll always love and it was the perfect moment where you were truly happy; something along those lines. Dancing that night with Twink was my high school dance cliche.
I called her in the morning and she answered.
"Hey, bub, it’s me," I said.
"Hey, what are you doing?" she asked half asleep.
"Nothing, I’m bored, what are you doing?"
"You call me with nothing to talk about, not even a topic?"
"Yep."
"Call me when you have something to talk about, I’m sleeping."
"Sounds good."
And that’s how it went.
I felt good about things. I was happy. I worked the first half of the summer at the college my dad worked at, for the grounds crew. We called it Facilities Operations, but it was just cutting grass and picking up trash. It wasn’t all that fun. I liked the people I worked with. Our job was simple. We would run around the campus and take care of all sorts of odds and ends. Sometimes we would hide in one of the dorm rooms for hours. It reminded me a little of when I was a kid and would play on the playground castles. The campus itself was buried in the mountains of Vermont, very hilly. It was beautiful scenery appreciated by only the parent’s of prospective students and the faculty. There weren’t any bars or clubs in town and the police were aggressive with house parties. It wasn’t Gainsville.
That summer was the summer I met Rose. She had long legs, long brown hair and high cheek bones. To me she seemed very responsible and always put together, well-dressed, but not stuck up or English-dry like you would imagine somebody like that being. She had a friendly exterior and a guarded interior and it made me want to figure her out; it made me want to get to know her and figure out why she was that way. She did her job well, which was some sort of supervisor of what we did. Her father was a short rugged mason with a permanent five o’clock shadow. They were true blue Americana. Rose reminded me of a native war chief’s first born daughter, you know, beautiful but don’t fuck around.
So, day in and day out I would tease her. I would say, "You must have a crazy side that you don’t show any of us." And she would laugh and assure me that she went home every night after work and read the bible and said her prayers. She thought I was this smart ass punk high school kid, not that I was older than her. This went on for weeks. It’s funny how life unfolds because one night when I arrived at my friend’s party in Burlington, Rose was there chugging a beer and playing Flip-cup. I laughed loud and she saw me and looked at me like her father had just walked in the door.
"I told you I would find out," I said.
She walked up to me, "What are you doing here?"
"I went to high school with these kids."
"I didn’t realize you were that old."
"I know, after twenty it’s all downhill."
"I didn’t mean it like that."
"I know."
"Are you going to tell the guys at work?"
"What, that you drink like a fish?"
"I do not. It’s just that I have a reputation there."
"Oh, I’m telling everybody," I laughed.
She hit my arm, "Please don’t."
"Of course I won’t," I said.
From that night on, we had this little thing, this building spark. We lived two lives. We had our work-life, where we would constantly tease each other in front of our colleagues trying to get one to spill their guts about the parties of the other, and our weekend-life where we would laugh about the things that happened that week at work. It was fun. The world we put ourselves in made us naturally closer. It was the small things that kept me coming back, like a knowing smile or a passing touch. The link between personal relationships is the love for a similarity. Two people regardless of age, sex, religion, and race will create a strong bond if one connects on a level similar to the other.
Rose and I made a connection.
One weekend I was at a party at a house of a good friend of mine. Around one o’clock the cops showed up and started giving out tickets to the kids who were underage. I hesitated for a second frozen by the reaction my father would have if he found out I had gotten a drinking ticket, then I slowly made my way up the stairs and into the bathroom. I pulled myself out of the bathroom window and onto the roof of the house. Getting a drinking ticket wasn’t an option and when you’re drunk and stubborn, you just find the way out. The roof of the next house was six feet away and I ran across and jumped the gap landing hard on the neighboring roof. I looked back and realized the danger I hadn’t considered. I shimmied down the back porch of the house and jumped a fence into a side street.
As my feet met the wet cement I took a deep breath trying to calm the nerves I had ignored. I touched my brown leather shoes. I never went anywhere without those shoes on; they were my lucky charm and I loved them as if they were a part of me. They were my first pair of leather shoes and had been given to me by my father some Christmases ago. I remember him teaching me how to polish them and keep them clean; now they were torn to shreds but I still polished them. I still worked the brown stinking wax into the surface twisting my elbow because they meant so much to me.
My heart popped like the one two beat of a drum. When I was drunk, my actions weren’t thought out or planned. I acted only on instinct. I didn’t mind my instinct either because I felt invincible. And feeling invincible meant total invulnerability.
I didn’t have anywhere to spend the night and my car was back at the party, so I called Rose who had an apartment in Burlington close by.
She picked up, "Hello?"
"Hey it’s me, can I spend the night at your place, Adam’s got busted."
"Yeah, definitely come over."
The ten minute walk to her apartment was nice. Burlington in the early summer is always nice. It gave me a chance to settle. A wave of happiness came splashing in over me. My whole life I always worried about tomorrow, thought about the consequences of not doing something, in school with homework, in sports with lifting, in relationships with calling. When I had nothing on the horizon I felt free. I hated the constraints of my life holding me to myself like a straight jacket.
I arrived at Rose’s apartment. She was wearing a pair of loose sweatpants and a white tank top. She smelled like cookies; I think they had baked some earlier.
"Hey," I gave her a hug, "I’ll sleep on your couch."
"You can sleep in my bed if you want; it’s big enough for two people."
Most of the time when a girl told me I could sleep in her bed it meant we were going to hook up, but for some reason with Rose, I didn’t lock in to that mode. I was nervous to make the jump from flirting to make-out because I was unsure if she wanted to and I liked her a lot. Looking back now it was obvious; at the time though I still doubted it. I took off my clothes and jumped into her bed; it was a small queen with too many pillows and a comforter that matched the size of the mattress. She snuggled up next to me and I held her. I held her all night, no make-out, no seductive touching, no sex. I didn’t even try, just two people embraced sharing a bed.
The next morning I went home and my parents were fighting about something stupid, my step mother was too sensitive, my father too stubborn. They fought often and as much as it upset my brothers and me, we never worried about them getting a divorce because they had been together like this for fifteen years; it might as well have been forever in our minds. Later in the day, I went and worked out at the gym. I called Rose to see if she wanted to hang out, but she said she had to work overnight at the college, setting up some assembly in the field house for the morning.
That night I was restless. My friends from home weren’t drinking because of the busted party. Twink was out of town. I hated wasting a perfectly good Saturday. My mind was racing and I couldn’t sit still. Nobody was in my house and I didn’t like being alone. I wasn’t afraid of the dark or anything like that, I just didn’t like myself. So, why would I want to hang out with me?
I hopped in the car and drove the hour to the college. I picked up some treats at the gas station for Rose and the guys working with her, nothing serious just some candy bars, chip and soda. I looked at my watch; it was midnight.
"Hey Conway," the guys yelled when I entered the auditorium.
"What’s up, Billy, Mikey. I brought you guys some goodies."
"Did you bring any beers?"
"Na, where’s Rose?"
"She’s in the back room."
"Toss me one of those candy bars," I said as I walked into the back. The hallway was dark, but I could see the room was lit.
"Hey, what are you doing here?" she smiled and put her hair in a side pony.
"Nothing, I was bored at home."
"So you drove an hour to come see me?"
"I was in the area, I thought I’d stop by," I handed her the candy bar.
"Thank you for this," she unwrapped it and took a chunk then handed it back to me for me to take a piece.
"Can I ask you question?" I said.
"Yeah."
"Do you know what you want to do after college?"
"Yeah, I want to work in finance."
"And you’re one hundred percent sure?"
"Yeah, I think. Why? What do you want to do?"
"I have no idea."
There were very few things in the world that scared me and most of my fears I tried to tackle head on and that’s what I liked about Rose. She was so sure about where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do. The only thing in this world I was afraid of was the future and it was because the future was unknown. If there was something I didn’t know about a certain subject I would go find out about it and learn. You can’t go online or find books in the library about the future. I wanted to do something great and my biggest fear was turning around and being forty working a nine to five job. There’s nothing wrong with a job like that, but I didn’t want that. Because I didn’t know what I wanted to do I had a lot of anxiety about it. I had this voice inside of me saying, "Come on, come on, figure it out, you’re running out of time." The greatest mistake I made was thinking that somebody else could figure it out for me. What was I going to do though? I didn’t know how to fix it.
.***
Three weeks later I began working at a hockey camp as a counselor. The camp was also on the campus of the college my father worked at. I had worked the camp for a number of summers prior and it was a fun job. I was able to train for sports and make a little money at the same time. That’s when I first met Fitz Booker. The director of the hockey camp, Penny, wanted me to help the new counselors find their way to the dorms and show them around. I wasn’t particularly excited about being a tour guide. Fitz was a new counselor. At first glance, Fitz Booker looked sure of himself, a little cocky even, but not the campus. He was about my height with short blond hair and a lean build. He didn’t say much, kinda quiet, not shy.
"Hey, I’m Sam, I’ll be showing you around," I said to Fitz and shook his hand.
"Alright," he said and we started walking to the dorms.
"Where’d you go to high school?" I asked.
"Northfield Mount Herman."
"Really? I went to Choate."
Northfield Mount Herman was another boarding school in New England. In fact, they were in the same athletic league as Choate. I asked him if he knew a couple of friends of mine at NMH and he did and I knew a couple of friends of his at Choate.
"How do you guys have fun out here?" Fitz asked me.
"You sort of have to make your own fun," I laughed.
"How’s working at the camp?"
"It’s fun, but the kids can be a handful. I got one tip for you, don’t take any shit from the campers on the first day or they’ll walk all over the rest of the week."
"Alright, thanks."
Fitz moved his stuff into the room across from mine in the dorm where the counselors stayed and then we met up with the other coaches in the dining hall to shoot the shit and officially meet everybody.
That night Rose came to the dorm to hang out. We had been seeing each other for a while now.
"How was your day?" she asked.
"Good. I had to show a bunch of new people around."
Her eyes lit up, "I think my cousin is working the camp here this summer and then coming to school here as a freshman in the fall."
"What’s his name?"
"Fitz Booker."
I laughed and she gave me a weird look as I opened my door and walked across the hallway and opened Fitz’s door. He was sitting on his computer.
"Yo, what are you doing? I said.
"Nothing, just checking some emails."
"Come over here for a second."
He walked over and stood in the doorway, "Is this Fitz Booker your cousin?" I asked Rose. She sprung up from her seat and gave Fitz a hug. They talked about family and stuff. We hung out for a while and watched a little television. Around midnight Rose left.
Fitz nudged me, "Hey, you dating her, not a good idea."
I was startled but not surprised because I figured he had some information about her or was looking out for her and didn’t want me to date her, so I asked, "Yeah, why’s that?"
"Because if we cause some trouble around here with the ladies, I’m going to feel bad if you cheat on my cousin."
We laughed and then decided to get some beers at a late night gas station that sold alcohol, even though it wasn’t supposed to past eleven. As we pulled up in Fitz’s red Chevy s-10, I saw a couple of kids from town that I had had a little run in with a year earlier. We were going to have some problems. I stepped out of the car and heard, "Look who it is." I didn’t really want to get into a fight so I ignored the gesture.
"Hey, we’re talking to you," came from the other side of the parking lot.
"Yeah and?" I yelled back.
They came over and I immediately sized up the situation. There were six of them, one with a tire crank and one that wouldn’t fight, so five. Fitz stood next to me with a straight stare. I was interested to see how he would handle the situation.
The ring leader said, "You have two options. One, you leave right now and the other well…"
"Well what?" I said.
"Well, we’ll fuck you up," he said looking side to side to his friends. I played out the fight in my head and figured we wouldn’t get out of there without some bumps and bruises. It was hard for me to fight when I wasn’t in the mood too, so I gave myself a million excuses from, what if a cop shows up, to, it’s not a fair fight. I looked to Fitz to see where he was at.
"If you wanna scrap, I’ll scrap with you," Fitz said in a stern voice. And that’s when I knew. That was the moment I knew I would be friends with Fitz Booker for a while. He didn’t know me at all, or really know me, and he was willing and ready to jump into a dangerous situation where we would probably take a beating, for none other than loyalty. I would have done the same thing in his situation and I inferred he was like me. We were the same.
***
The summer crept on slowly unlike most the summers I had known. Rose and I found ourselves often at "the falls", a place of rock jumps into a river. Partway through a rough patch of forest, the trees opened up and a giant clear pool of natural water sat underneath a cliff. The water was always freezing, properly refreshing. We spent hours there talking about nothing, picking the dirt from between our toes and tanning brown from the warm fat sun. Fitz spent a lot of time with Hillary, a school friend of Rose. Hillary was very present in any moment. Her and Fitz got along well because they were so different and the four of us ran around the state of Vermont in true Kerouac fashion. One weekend we made our way to the North Kingdom to a back woods cabin attached to a post card scene getaway. If you had watched us we did nothing. We had times we’d remember all our life and yet could never truly explain to other people. I think we sat and talked and had drinks, a simple utopia that seems elusive at every turn and behind you when you look back.
Another time Rose and I sat on the train tracks in the middle of the woods late at night. It was warm with a cool breeze swooshing the trees, as close to perfect as it gets. The metal rails leaving dirt red prints on my swim trunks began to shake and we stepped aside as a massive machine sped by. I can still feel her hands around my neck holding tightly.
The problem with human nature is our unsettling affair with change and complacency. We see what we want to see at every turn. Unfortunately, I was masking my hidden problems with these nice moments. I was drinking heavily consistently daily maintaining an even balance between hangover and drunk. I was gaining weight and not working out for an upcoming lacrosse season that would surely be the most difficult I had faced in a while. One day Rose pulled me aside.
"Are you happy?"
"Yes," I said.
"Are you truly happy?" she asked more forcefully.
"Yes, why are you getting in my face about this?"
"You don’t seem like you are."
"Well truly and happy are both subjective terms so I don’t know how you want me to answer."
"You smile when you look at me and frown when you look away."
"That’s because when I look at you I am happy."
"When you look at me, you look right through me," she prodded.
"That’s not true."
But it was. I wasn’t happy and not because of Rose. She was a great girl and I didn’t deserve the level of respect and attention she gave me; she deserved much more than I could give her. The problem with problems that aren’t worked out is that they never go away. Like ghosts they die, and linger forever in purgatory until found and resolved. All the issues I had in prep school, the deaths and drugs and alcohol and family issues and girls got pushed over the edge, but these issues, they held on and slowly over the summer and unconsciously grudgingly they scraped their way back to the top of my head and now they stood strong at the line ready to battle press their will into my actions.
And it all started when I met Mia.
One night, when we had nothing to do I walked into Fitz’s room and started watching television while he slammed away on his computer keys. I watched him for a couple of minutes as he was entranced in what he was doing not paying any attention to his surroundings. As I turned up the volume to see if he would eventually pull away from the things keeping him so attached, he turned and gave me a look.
"What are you doing?" I asked him.
He turned back to the computer, "Writing."
"Writing what?"
"Just a story."
I became very interested because I liked writing, "Yeah, let me see."
"Why, you write?" he said with a smirk.
"Yeah, a little."
I read over what he had on the page he was working on and it was pretty good.
"This is pretty good," I said, "Hey we’re going to Club Lightning tonight, you coming with?"
"Yeah, alright."
Six of us, counselors, packed into a little sedan, we looked like goddamn circus clowns trying to fumble our way into a mini cooper. Some of the guys had some beers in the car and I pulled out a bottle of vodka from a bag. That’s when I knew I was different. I couldn’t just settle for a beer or two, I always turned up the volume and it was dangerous; Jesus I didn’t even really like the taste of beer, I preferred hard liquor. It got you drunk faster. I felt happy when I was drunk, like everything was going to be okay. We drove about half the way when a hockey friend of ours, Lloyd, a Manchester, New Hampshire renegade, began to wiggle around in the car.
"Dudes, I think I gotta take a crap," he said.
"We’re going to be at the club in like fifteen, just wait."
He became more agitated, "Nope, it’s coming full steam brohousen, pull over."
"I can’t pull over, I’m on the fucking highway."
"Yo, I’m gonna shit in my pants here in this car, if you don’t pull over," he yelled.
"Haven’t you ever heard of holding it? You can’t hold it!?"
His face twisted, "Do you know how bad that is for your rectum, not to mention the rest of your body, to hold poop in? We weren’t meant to hold in our own feces! PULL OVER!"
"Even if I get over, you’re not going to have anything to wipe with."
"You are going to have to wipe shit out of this car if you don’t pull over."
We pulled the car over trying to avoid a major collision and Lloyd ran into the woods and proceeded to use the bathroom. After about five minutes he returned smiling.
"What’d you wipe with?"
"Had to use the underwear, it was not pretty."
"I hope you’re not still wearing them."
"Na, I threw them away. Sorry about that, guys, but you can’t fight with the body because then nobody wins."
We arrived at the dance club around midnight with our fake id’s and got right in. Most of the time bouncers and people working at the door don’t really care if you’re old enough as long as you look old enough and you have some sort of identification that says you’re old enough. We grabbed a table and some drinks and watched dancers and light shows. It was sort of our normal routine to scope the place out for about half an hour. Then I saw Mia.
The dance floor flooded with bodies, hers was the only one I saw. Moving perfectly in sync with the beat of some rap song I can’t remember, her short blond hair sprinkled across her face and semi over her white blue dark mascara covered eyes. She was on fire, arching her back in pure lust coaxing the hearts of the young men around, staring in awe of something that can only be described as honest unrestrained expression. I had to talk to her.
I took two more shots at the table, liquid courage I didn’t really need but thought I did. It was always easier to interact with tequila in the blood stream; something about being drunk eased my nerves, made me less aware of myself which I tried to hide. When I didn’t think, I ran on unadulterated charisma.
I walked over and started dancing.
"Well, hello," she smiled, "I’ve been waiting for you to come over."
And that was it. We danced the rest of the night and traded information. I was so attracted to her, I couldn’t turn away. I didn’t know what I was going to do about Rose. I really cared about Rose and I hadn’t done anything wrong, yet. But I knew I eventually would if things kept going the way they were. How could I not be satisfied with one great girl? I was always baffled by that fact. Was it human nature to be this way, or was it my human nature to be this way? What was I going to do when it was time to get married?
Mia came from a small town forty five minutes from campus. Her mother had MS and was always very sick and her father worked two jobs. She also worked two jobs as a waitress and something else I don’t remember and lived at home to help take care of her mother when her father couldn’t. Despite this difficult upbringing, she glowed. She lived life to the fullest every second of every day. Happy-go-lucky is the phrase that comes to mind. It was easy to enjoy her company because she was so positive and it rubbed off on me. I began hanging out with her more and more.
The next week Fitz’s identical twin brother, Freddy, came to work the hockey camp. They looked the same but they couldn’t have been more different. Freddy arrived in rock star fashion with long blond hair and a six string, as he used to call it. He was outgoing and without a care in the world. The three of us got along really well. My personality fit right in the middle of the two.
We partied every night and our rooms looked like bomb shelters with dip bottles, beer cans and green apple slushy mixed with vodka that tipped over when Mia and I were rolling around on the floor. It was getting out of control. I think at one point I was drunk for a week straight only leaving my room to use the bathroom or read something to Fitz that I wrote. Freddy disappeared for two weeks with some gold-haired Norwegian goddess who was a foreign exchange student. The day he got back he sat down exhausted and said, "I can’t even begin to tell you where I’ve been, but I can tell you you’d be proud of me." We laughed.
I met up with Twink in Burlington one weekend for lunch at some pizza shop. I think I ordered a couple of slices of pep and she had a chef’s salad.
"I feel restless," I told her.
"Why?" she asked.
"I don’t know; I just feel anxious."
"When I feel anxious it’s usually because I’m not doing something I’m supposed to be doing."
"Yeah, but who’s to say what I’m supposed to be doing?"
"Well, you. Or you are internally validating the pressures that someone or something is putting on you."
"Yeah, I don’t know. How are you doing?"
"I’m good. I’m having boyfriend problems."
"Talk about internally validating…don’t let his problems become your problems."
"It’s easy to point out other people’s problems."
"Exactly! That’s why I have you," I laughed as she poked me.
"You know Colgate is half an hour from my school. I’m coming to visit."
"Of course you are."
By the end of the summer my bad habits were back in full swing, turning my feelings on and off like a light switch, suppressing the bad ones gladly drowning them in drink, firing off the good ones like firecrackers. How easily we forget where we came from, not three months before when I was at St. Jude I had collapsed from a conflicted life. Being like this was comfortable for me, it’s what I knew well and it felt safe.
Freddy went back home to play a year of junior hockey in Springfield, Mass. Fitz moved into his dorm room at Norwood and got ready for his first year of college. Rose and I had a long talk about being just friends; she was hurt I think by this, but I didn’t know what else to do. Mia stayed in her little town and told me if I ever came back she would be waiting for me. I said goodbye to my younger brother and step-mom; they wished me good luck. My dad drove me to school and when he went to leave I couldn’t look him in the eye because he knew I hadn’t corrected any of my bad habits.
I arrived.
Chapter Three
"I call the top bunk," I said standing in my new dorm room at Colgate.
"Not a chance in hell you get the top bunk," said Dan who was standing next to me. Dan towered over me, but knew better than to use his size as a tactic for intimidation.
"You can’t have the top," he said as a matter of fact.
"Yeah, and why’s that?"
"Because you have a problem with rolling around in your sleep; remember that time you fell off your bed at school?"
"That’s bullshit. You’re like eight hundred pounds. You should be on the bottom bunk."
"Do you know how strong these frames are? They’re made out of oak. Do you know how strong oak is?"
"I weigh less. I get the top bunk, end of story," I declared, "That’s standard procedure. It’s my birthright."
"You’re pulling that outta your ass."
"By the way, when are you going to shave this shit?" I pointed to Dan’s face, referring to the stubble that he had tried to grow.
"It looks good right?"
"Na, it looks like you have crap on your face," I laughed.
"I’d like to see you grow a beard."
"I know I could grow it a lot better than that."
"Don’t write checks your face can’t cash," he said.
I was getting impatient, "What are we going to do about the bed situation?"
"One guy gets the top for the first half of the year and then we’ll switch."
"Alright, I want the top first."
"We’ll flip for it."
"Fine, I want heads," I said.
"You know I always pick heads," Dan whined.
"Okay, flip to see who gets heads."
"Fine," Dan conceded.
"I want heads now though," I laughed.
Our room was small, but Dan and I had lived in dorm rooms for so many years that we knew how to arrange the furniture to get the maximum free space. Colgate had a beautiful campus and facilities, big brick buildings and a nice New England feel even though we were in New York. We set up the room with Dan’s parents help, they were awesome.
The first eight days we spent at Colgate were mandatory orientation, only freshman and freshwoman put in groups of maybe twelve to fourteen peers with a leader of responsible upperclassman, you know the kind of kid who genuinely wants to make sure you aren’t lost on campus but won’t leave you alone when you get it; these people always feel like force feeding you their good natured will whether you want it or not, kind of like devout Christians trying to convert you to school spirit. My best friends at Colgate were introduced to me in the first three hours I was on campus and I’m going to introduce them to you like they were to me in rapid succession and completely unbiased.
Dan White, my roommate, looked over me like a ball busting older brother and was completely antagonistic to anybody on Saturday nights after eleven. Confident sometimes even arrogant with a heart bigger than Santa, Dan couldn’t have been a better roommate and best friend.
Then there was Ridley and his roommate Pierre, both Canadian hockey players, well Pierre was French Canadian. Ridley had a sharp look with chiseled facial features and a girlfriend who could be described as a little overbearing, but very nice. Pierre had the kind of French accent that most actors try to make fun of and the sense of humor most actors wished they had. I met them both that day and by nighttime we were already friends.
Down the hall from us lived Boggy. He was a hockey player from western Canada, and would basically live in our room. His dry sarcasm was the perfect exclamation point to any outrageous conversation taking place. We were all twenty and I think our age, although a mere two years older than the rest of the class, gave us some false sense of strength. We thought we were better than normal freshman and that we could do whatever we wanted. With the exception of Dan, we were all very blue collar amongst a very white collar background. This was something I was used to though and felt it to be very manageable.
Classes and practices didn’t start for a week and with only ridiculous orientation sing-along events taking place in the day, we began to party heavy at night. The first night I laced up my brown leather shoes and we went to the hockey house as most of the older athletes came back to school to scope out the new crop of students. Dan introduced me to the older hockey players and to my surprise they accepted me right away as one of their own. Usually there is trial period where you get sort of watched and felt out, but there was none of that with me. I’m pretty sure it was because Dan told them I was okay. We played beer pong and quarters and all sorts of drinking games with cards and I don’t exactly remember how I got back to my room but I know I got back there with some red haired girl who left before I had woken up.
The next morning we walked to our orientation groups still drunk and a girl told me I had some brown stuff coming out of my mouth and across my face; I had passed out with a dip in and had dip spit dried on my cheek and I was surprised that I hadn’t seen it on my pillow which of course didn’t have a cover on it.
I leaned over to Dan’s group, "Hey, you weren’t going to warn me that I had shit on my face?"
He laughed, "Oh my god, I didn’t even notice that was there."
"Yeah, right. Thanks a lot roommate."
"I swear JD, I didn’t know," he was still laughing.
"You’re a real great roommate," I said sarcastically.
I have this theory that people are like onions. I’m sure somewhere in some other book somebody has said it before, but I like to say it too. The core of the onion is a person’s personality under extreme pressure, what are you like in crisis. The layers of the onion represent different levels of who you are under different circumstances. There are people that you’ll meet in this world who, because of events in their life, will only show you the outer layer of their onion. They don’t want anybody to know anything about them other than what is on the surface, a sort of defense mechanism. I am like this; I try to make the surface of my onion fun and exciting so that people won’t even bother to look deeper. Sometimes you meet people who will have the key to open you up, for me that’s Dan or Twink; for some reason I can’t be dishonest around them, they just know. Other people are so open about their everyday personality that they are always the center of their onion because that is their true self and that’s all they know how to be.
Two girls who lived in our dorm were exactly like this, Amanda and Daisy. Both blond, Amanda from Connecticut and Daisy from New York, these girls were hard to dislike. They were perfect roommates and if you didn’t know any better you would’ve thought they knew each other before they came to school. They were fun; I remember laughing a lot when they were around.
Our third night on campus, we had some drinks in our room with Amanda and Daisy before we went out for the night; it’s called pre-gaming and we did it often. We went to the most popular bar a little ways off campus and when I say a little ways I mean like maybe a hundred yards. The older hockey players got us right in; it felt nice to be taken care of. We drank and danced. The girls went home before us and around three we walked back to our room. Halfway back Dan and some football player got into a verbal discussion, there were a lot of "fuck you’s" and some "asshole’s" thrown in there too. A group of them formed and the five of us walked towards them. You know how when there’s going to be a fight you always have one or two guys in your group who you know won’t fight, well with these guys, there wasn’t. Some shoving started and both groups were waiting for one from the other to throw a punch. One bigger kid, some white lineman, grabbed Dan. Seeing this and pretty intoxicated, I grabbed the lineman hard and pulled him off of my friend.
"Fucking let go of me you fucking midget," he said.
"You fat ass fuck, I’ll put you in a box, buddy," I yelled.
He didn’t do anything. That’s the funny thing about people who don’t really want to fight; these guys didn’t really want to fight. See, if somebody throws a punch and a full blown fight breaks out then you know at least one person is getting kicked out of school and its probably the guy who threw the first punch, if not all of us. When I look back on these little scuffles, I have to laugh because it was really a bunch of guys shoving each other pretending like they were going to fight, when nobody really had any intentions of doing anything. I think the reason I got so aggressive was because I was very protective of the people I cared about. And I was drunk.
The other major problem is that in our culture in the United States there are no ways for our youth to matriculate into society as adults. There is no legitimate initiation process like in other cultures. The Masai in Africa have to kill a lion, the Spartans in Greece had the lone walk and the Aborigines in Australia had the walk about. We have nothing. I believe we, the youth of today, have this innate desire to show the world that we are strong, but how do we prove our strength physically and mentally? Our grandfathers fought in the World Wars while our grandmothers worked in the factories. Most of them experienced extreme racial prejudice, poverty, immigration, and death. They lived through a national depression. They worked hard for very little. They cherished and respected the idea of family. And they never complained. Our parents were raised with a strong religious moral code and a firm hand to enforce the rules. Their parent’s humility easily matriculated into their well-built ethics. Where is our societal validity? Where is our great life changing experience? So many of us turn to drugs, alcohol, fighting, athletic or academic greatness to reach that higher level of understanding because we yearn for something more, our moment to shine, and we don’t know where to find it. "I can drink the most, I can do the most drugs, I have slept with the best looking people, I am the toughest, I am the smartest; I am the best athlete; I am the most popular. This makes me the best." With these singular acts we try to achieve dual outcomes: to experience a higher existence and to parade a fierce will. We are like small children nagging at our parent’s clothes, "Look what I can do?" This is our feeble offering to the elders. But none of this can live up to the strength from where we’ve come. We tear ourselves apart to grab even the slightest bit of clout, when all the while we just want somebody to tell us that we are okay, that we are good enough, that we are loved, as equals. Still, we are the generation of Black sheep. Our character will always be questioned.
***
After eight days of orientation and eight nights of partying, school started. I went to my classes; I remember I had one English class and then I’m not sure about the rest. I went to lacrosse practice. If you know anything about lacrosse, know this. Lacrosse is a sport of running, a lot of running and lacrosse practice is probably five times the amount of running one game would consist of. I couldn’t breathe halfway through my first practice. I was twenty-five pounds heavier than I was supposed to be and after the irresponsible summer and eight crazy nights, I didn’t think I was going to make it. Colgate Lacrosse was Division One and I wasn’t prepared for the challenge mentally or physically. I felt horrible about myself. Sports were the one thing I was sure that I did well and now I was coming up short, and because of me, because of my actions. Embarrassment and humiliation oozed through my mind as I struggled to finish the practices that week. The guys on the team were great though, encouraging me. It only made me feel worse. These feelings turned to anger immediately. I felt so inadequate. The coach pulled me aside, patted me on the back, and assured me that I would catch up to speed in no time.
It’s funny, my father always says anger perpetuates anger, negative always perpetuates negative. It’s probably why on my twenty first birthday late in September, I decided I was going to take twenty one shots. I knew doing something like this could kill me so I planned it out accordingly. I had an outrageously high tolerance. I would take three shots an hour over the course of seven hours. Burning about a shot off an hour that would mean by the end of seven hours I would only be feeling the effects of about fourteen shots. I was halfway through when Daisy and Amanda came over with an Ice Cream cake, they were so great. Joe, a New Jersey Italian, came over; he was a true freshman and lived down the hall. Then Dan, Boggy, Ridley and Pierre came when their practice was over. We partied for a while and then Dan realized what I was doing.
"You’re not taking twenty-one shots," he said.
"You know there’s nothing you can do to stop me," I said as a matter of fact.
"How many do you have left?"
I held up the number three with my hands because I was so drunk.
"Do them right now, in a row," he lined up three shot glasses and poured the vodka out. I was confused, but I didn’t question anything because I could barely stand up. He looked at me and nodded; he could see right through me, how badly I was hurting emotionally. I took two shots one right after the next and then grabbed the third glass and cheered the air and drank it down.
The last bit of liquid touched my lips and Dan grabbed me so hard around my chest and under my arm that I spit out half the shot. He dragged me out of the room; I didn’t know what was going on, but I didn’t put up a fight. Dan kicked open the bathroom door and pulled me into the stall. With one hand he held my head up; he took his other hand and shoved it down my throat until I threw up. He did it two or three more times until I continued to vomit on my own. The next morning I thanked him for his assistance and he said anytime as if nothing had happened. Dan knew that when push came to shove the reality of the situation, which was that stupid things were going to get done and between the two of us if one was able to help the other when those moments took place that we were going to be alright.
I couldn’t move for a week and I assumed I had some level of alcohol poisoning. I didn’t do anything, go to practice, classes, nothing. I was useless.
***
Colgate is built on a hill and most of the school including our dorm was on the hill, but the school had these shuttles that ran all day to take you to lower campus and town, so one rainy Saturday I took the shuttle down to the book store to get my books. It was already about a month into class and I was starting to fall behind. I ran in and got what I needed and then jumped on the next shuttle back to upper campus.
"It’s kind of rainy outside," came from a voice behind me.
I turned around to see a beautiful big smiling face.
"Hi, I’m Laura," she held out her hand.
"I’m Sam. It is raining," I said laughing.
She was from New York and had a heavy accent. I loved the way she said the words meatball sub. And she always laughed after she said it and so I’d try to get her to say it often. We talked the rest of the bus trip and I don’t why, but I offered to carry her bags to her dorm for her. She said it was nice meeting me and maybe we could go for a walk sometime. I agreed even though I wasn’t big on walking. Laura was a breath of fresh air. She was my complete opposite and I knew if things progressed the fights we would have would be vicious and irreversible; they always are when people can’t get past themselves and see opposing views as if they were their own and we both lacked that sort of Buddhist surrealism. I would love her and hate her and all of the above. But she took an interest in me and I did with her. When somebody takes an interest in you, it always makes you feel good; it makes you feel like they care and the feeling of having somebody care about you is better than nice. For me, having people care, meant a lot. I wanted so badly for people to care about me.
After buying three hundred dollars in books, I was broke. The school had work study opportunities and I found a job where you would sit at a sign-in desk at the art museum on campus. I always had a strange draw towards art; it was weird to me that people would pay huge sums of money for some splatters of paint on a canvas or two pieces of wood nailed together. I was however very interested in trying to figure out what the artist was thinking when they were creating the art, what were the feelings that spawned such interesting works? Of course, nobody would ever know that I took the job because I liked art; merely that it was the highest paying work study on campus. Over the course of the semester I spent hours there, finding peace and consolation in the puzzles of speculation.
As a side not to this story, back in the dorm we had started a series of shenanigans with the other guys. You know from shaving cream bombs (stick a thumbtack into the bottom of a shaving cream bottle and then pull it out and the shaving cream flies everywhere) to ketchup messages (spell out people’s names in ketchup on their desk) to porn backgrounds (change people’s backgrounds on their computers to disgusting porn). You know real genius stuff; it’s too funny not to mention.
Lacrosse started to come along as well. I was playing better and beginning to connect with some of the guys on the team. Things were picking up after the slow start and I had this sort of happy high. Laura and I were spending more and more time together, having fun talking and watching movies and such. One night we went for a walk all over campus.
"I have to tell you something," Laura said.
"Yeah, what’s that?" I asked holding her tight.
"I don’t want to deceive you at all, so I want you to know," she paused, "I have a boyfriend, from home."
I let go of her. My facial expression didn’t change, my breathing remained the same, my anger flared. Why hadn’t she told me before, before I started caring about her? I didn’t want her to know how badly it made me feel.
"That’s okay," I said, "I think you might have mentioned it before actually."
"So, you’re not upset?"
"No, I mean we can be friends and then if something doesn’t work out with your boyfriend, maybe we try it out," I lied.
"Wow, I thought you’d be angrier. You are really mature."
I wasn’t mature, at all. I was mad. Who would have thought she would break my heart before I would break hers? That’s always the case with the good ones and you’ll find out; you hurt the ones who will never leave you and the ones that hurt you, you’ll never leave; irony at its best, a little Shakespearean too might I add.
When I got back to my dorm some of the guys started drinking while watching the hockey game on TV. I took two beers to the bathroom in my pockets and drank them both in the time it took me to take a piss. I came back to the room and opened another and sat down next to Ridley and ate some pretzels. He asked me if I was alright; I think he could sense something was wrong. We heard a knock at the door and I looked through the peep hole to see our RA who was a real prick. I smiled because I knew what was about to happen. The guys put their beers on the table and I opened the door.
"Yes?" I said.
"There has been some complaining that a lot of yelling has been coming from this room," the RA instructed.
"Yeah, we’re watching a hockey game."
"Actually there is another issue here. You are drinking, so I’m going to ask you to throw that beer in your hands away and all the other beers in here, before I call security."
"No," I said laughing. The dorms weren’t dry dorms, but it was assumed that all freshmen were underage, so any beer in the freshman dorm was assumed to be illegal.
"I’m going to report you, throw that beer away!"
"No."
"You are under the legal age to drink. I will call security."
"I’m not underage, so why don’t you get outta here before you embarrass yourself."
"Do not talk to me that way, I am your RA and you will respect me. You are a freshman, you are not twenty-one."
"Hey, fucko, here," I handed him my ID, "Now get the fuck outta my room."
"Easy JD," Dan said.
"This is a fake ID, you can’t be that old."
I snapped, "Do you want me to put a hole in your face, buddy? Look at you in your fucking pink and purple double polo shirts and your moccasins. Do you have any idea what I would do to you?" Pierre was holding me back at this point. The RA left quickly and I could feel my emotions being pumped to my muscles like blood from the heart.
"Cool it, Conway, cool it," Pierre kept saying.
"Well, I think we should invite the RA to our next party," said Boggy.
***
I figured I needed an outlet before I did something stupid. I found out that there was a club hockey team and I knew that being on the ice would keep my emotions somewhat in check. After lacrosse practice I went to see my coach in his office because I knew I needed his permission to play any other sport.
"Hey, coach, can I talk to you for a second?"
"Yeah, come on in Sam," he said.
"Coach I was wondering if it would be alright with you if I could play club hockey. It’s just that I’ve played since I was four and this is the first year I won’t be playing and I miss it."
He looked at me in a fatherly way, "You need this huh?"
"Yes, I do."
"As long as it doesn’t interfere with lacrosse then okay. Don’t get hurt, although I have a feeling you haven’t been hurt often."
"Thank you coach, I really appreciate it," I said and I got up to leave.
"Sam, are you alright?"
"Yes," I said.
"You know you can always come talk if you want."
"I know and thank you." And I left.
That week I played with the club team and had a great time. I played as much as I could because for me hockey was a stabilizer. In my own head I associated the time on the ice with my childhood before things got crazy. My furthest memory back was being on the ice with my father and I remember it as a good place, a safe place where nothing could go wrong. I think subconsciously that memory made me feel at ease and anytime after, when I got on the ice, my brain made a connection to the euphoric state that memory caused.
Twink called me on Wednesday.
"Hey, what are you doing this weekend?" she asked me.
"Nothing, you should come up, there’s a home hockey game."
She said okay and on Friday I cleaned up our room a little. Saturday, she pulled up in her car around four. I gave her a big hug and carried her stuff into the room. I introduced her to Joe and Amanda and Daisy and Laura. Laura and I still hung out a lot, we tried to keep it non-sexual but it was becoming more and more difficult. The hockey guys were already getting ready for the game which was at seven.
We came back to the room after meeting everybody and Twink jumped in my bed and said she wanted to take a nap. I jumped in with her; we had slept together before it wasn’t a big deal. Then something odd happened. She leaned her hips into me. The first time I chalked up to an accident but then it happened again. I turned her towards me and kissed her softly, she kissed back. I gently kissed her again and we became entangled.
While this was going on I thought about what was happening. Here we were, two friends, sharing a moment. Call it what you will, passion, love, lust, who knows, but I wasn’t thinking about what this meant to our relationship or friendship, and I wasn’t thinking about what would happen tomorrow. I was merely thinking about how beautiful she looked and how when you are truly in love with somebody nothing else in the world matters but that person. This is how I felt in that instant, it wasn’t spoiled with the delusion that afterwards there would be questions that needed to be answered. I didn’t have any questions, I knew what it was and the knowing allowed me to fully enjoy her company.
Before we went to the game, Twink and I sat eating snacks in our makeshift living room.
"It looks like you have a good set-up here," said Twink.
"Yeah, I don’t know," I said.
"What’s wrong, love?"
"For some reason I don’t feel like I belong here."
"Why not?"
"I just feel like this school isn’t for people like me."
"Like you how? You are a division one athlete, you are a great friend, and as much as I hate to admit it, you are very smart," she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
"Yeah, maybe. We better get going."
Twink made me feel better, but I didn’t feel any better about the situation. I was usually very confident some would say almost cocky and yet I felt worthless. I didn’t feel like a division one athlete; I had miles to go before I got to playing speed. I didn’t feel smart; I was doing horrible in my classes. I didn’t feel like a good friend; the only thing I could offer anybody was a hard fist to throw. I was poor; the majority of kids were wealthy. I had no goals; everybody else had lots. I felt bad and everybody else seemed good. Well, then I was going to be the worst.
***
I took a bus home after my finals exams in the winter. I began working for Seward Construction like I always did when I had a vacation. A friend of mine who lived down the road Olly, who I actually grew up with, would pick me up in the pitch black at the bottom of my driveway every morning at six and we would drive to the construction site and meet up with Hans, my other very German friend. We were the demolition crew and on this particular occasion we were tearing out the entire third floor of a hospital. It was hard work, but it was honest. We busted our asses and if we didn’t dislike it so much I think the three of us would have chosen to be demolition men because we were good at it. During lunch we sat in a cleared room and talked about school and such.
Christmas arrived in its usual swift merry fashion taking over December like the Europeans conquered the new world. My parents went big for the holidays and we always gained like five hundred pounds because my step-mother made so much good food. We ate pounds of her garlic humus and this celery thing with cream cheese and green olives and the fudge, holy shit, the fudge was so good I wanted shoot it up intravenously. She baked a mean looking golden fat turkey, with smooth potatoes and stuffing and asparagus and green beans; I wasn’t so hot on veggies but they looked good. My father stacked the presents halfway up our twelve foot monster of a tree, shinning and gleaming in all it’s over decorated glory; that tree was aggressive. My brothers and I got everything we asked for and more. I loved Christmas time.
Then my report card came to the house. My GPA was a 1.8; oh my god I was a dead man. I got an A in English, so you can imagine how bad my other grades were. My parents went ballistic. There was a lot of yelling and none on my part; I couldn’t say anything because I didn’t do any work. I had a thousand excuses, but not one real one. My father figured I had a drinking problem and that I needed help. I thought he didn’t know what he was talking about and was angry at the fact that he was making assumptions about me, when I hadn’t lived at the house for four years.
"You have a problem with alcohol and drugs," he yelled.
"I’m sorry about the grades, but you don’t know what you are talking about."
"If you want to go back to school, there are some things you need to do."
I wanted to go back to school badly and not be in the house with angry parents. My father drew up a contract and the stipulations were that I couldn’t drink or do drugs; I had to see a therapist once a week and I had to get my grades up. There were a few more things, but I don’t remember what they were.
The day my grades arrived my father took me to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I’ll never forget it. I listened to a man talk that had lost everything. He lost his job, his family hated him, he had no money and on top of all of that he was a heroin addict and an alcoholic. This man had been sober one year and said that he had never been happier. I’ll never forget the meeting because I remember thinking to myself I was nothing like this man; I hadn’t lost anything. This guy was a train wreck and now with only his job to show for his year of sobriety, he was ecstatic and all the people in the room were ecstatic for him. I remember how crazy I thought they all were.
I had a conversation with my coach before I had left for home and he said that he wanted to see me lose some weight so that I would be faster on the field. I weighed close to 210lbs and he wanted me down towards 185lbs. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to drink at home because now I was an alcoholic, so I used the time after Christmas to lose the weight. It wasn’t easy.
I was still working at the hospital so I would go to work with Olly and Hans, my German friend, at six, eat only a sandwich and a yogurt for lunch, then after work go to the gym and run for an hour and a half and then lift and then eat dinner. A couple of days into the routine, I was starting to feel amazing, like I had a lot of energy in the morning and mentally not disliking work as much. I’m sure my father would have said it was because I had stopped drinking.
Then something amazing happened. I woke up one day and thought I was going to turn this thing around; I was going to lose the weight and do well in school and sports. I had this adrenaline boost of righteous confidence and it felt unreal. The next three weeks I was a machine and burned the weight off to a measly 183lbs.
I didn’t associate the good feeling with the not drinking, but rather my own will and determination, which I knew at times, could be very powerful towards my actions. I left for school that Sunday with Olly; he went to school near me. His car broke down like four times on the way there and it became a running joke.
As we were waiting for a guy to come jump the car Olly said, "So, do you think you’re not going to drink at school?"
"I don’t know. I don’t think it will be possible for me to go to a party and not drink," I said honestly. I was always honest with my friends.
"Yeah, but you should try man. You look good now."
"But I like the way being drunk makes me feel."
"You like it more than the way you feel right now though."
"I like it more than feeling shitty."
"So, anytime you feel shitty, you’re going to drink?"
Yes.
***
I arrived back at school and people couldn’t believe I was the same person; I was the same person when I left for Choate. I told people I wasn’t drinking and they also couldn’t believe that. The day I got back, I opened our college boy fridge and had a beer; the day I got back to school.
For a while, things were going well. I was fast and agile on the lacrosse field, my coach was very pleased. I went to see the substance abuse counselor and we actually got along. I wasn’t not drinking, but I was controlling my drinking to one night a week and I wasn’t telling people that I was drinking. I got drunk in secret. See, I had this talent; people could not tell the difference between no drinks and ten drinks with me. Once I got past about nine or ten drinks I got sloppy, but before then I really could hold it together. Dan was the only one who knew; he knew he couldn’t control me though.
One night when we were out Laura pulled me to her on the dance floor, "I broke up with my boyfriend." And that’s when I knew it would end badly. When somebody breaks up for you and you don’t show up, the regret takes over and ruins your perfect image, your honeymoon.
"Is this a hiccup break or a real breakup?" I laughed.
"No, we really broke up."
"Oh, congratulations."
"You’re an ass, you know that?"
I held her around the waist and kissed her.
She pulled away, "Have you been drinking?"
"No, I used mouthwash before I came down here." I was quick.
I was really happy. Laura and I would study in the library and go for walks. She was so expressive. When she was happy she would giggle and play and when she was stressed she would yell and cry; I had never known anybody like that before. I met her parents when they came to campus; that’s when you really know its official when you meet the parents or when you throw it up on the relationship status on Facebook. I would sleep over often and I got to know her roommates. One night we were lying in her bed.
"Why do you like me?" she asked.
"Because you say how you’re feeling."
"That’s silly, a lot of people say how they feel."
"No, they don’t. You live the reality of what’s going on in your head."
"Don’t other people?"
"And the fact that you don’t know any different makes you so pure and honest and I love that about you. It’s something I wish I could do."
She leaned on top of me and gave me a big kiss. I was a huge bull shit artist and I could sweet talk with the best of them, but every word of that was true. I wish I could have been open and honest with Laura; I was too afraid. I felt badly lying to her about drinking and the person she knew me as. All she saw was surface and she would never truly know how much I loved her and how much she meant to me because I wouldn’t ever let her know.
That weekend we were coming back up the hill from a bar and this little weasel-like kid was drunk and kept bumping into Dan and me on the bus. After four or five warnings, he started running his mouth and the second we got off at our stop he shoved me accidentally getting off the steps and sent me flying into the pavement. Dan turned around and punched the kid in the face, squishing his nose under his fist. The kid started crying and grabbed his cell phone and called security. I knew right away that Dan would get thrown out of school if security came and took him. I wasn’t that drunk and I had to figure out a way to spin this in our favor and quickly. It came to me in an instant.
"Yo, get outta here, I’ll take care of this," I said to Dan.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I got it, don’t worry."
"I’ll see you back in the room."
The weasel was still drunk and covering his face which was now bleeding. I went to work. I walked up to him and put my hand on his back like a friend.
"Hey, did you see that kid who pushed me down?" I asked the kid who pushed me down.
"No," he said more occupied with himself.
"How did you not see him, it was the same kid who punched you in the face."
"Yeah I saw him. He pushed you down?"
"Yeah, that asshole, I cut up my knee and shit, I’m calling security."
"Don’t worry about it, I already called them," the weasel assured me.
"Do you know where he went, I’m going get that kid," I laid it on thick.
"No, I didn’t see where he went. I remember what he looked like. Are you alright?"
"I remember exactly what he looked like," I smiled.
Security showed up and took our names and then asked us for a description of the culprit. I spoke up and told security that I was a little less drunk and I think I would remember best, and the weasel agreed. I told them the assaulter was short, thin with red hair and freckles, and the weasel also agreed. To the best of my knowledge, Dan is tall stocky with brown hair and no freckles, but hey, sometimes we forget. I got back to the room and didn’t feel bad at all about what I had done. It was actually just a big misunderstanding. See Dan didn’t know the kid’s push was an accident. Dan’s punch was a protective punch, not malicious and so it would be silly for Dan to get into trouble for something that wasn’t intended to hurt somebody else. I had to lie to protect my friend, not a malicious lie. Sometimes it’s too easy.
Fast forward three weeks and I’m sitting on our couch with Ridley and Boggy watching something on TV while Scarface and Rocky watch from the walls. My phone rang and I picked it up, it was my step-mom and she was crying. Her and my father had gotten into it again, another run around argument with the ending and change both being nothing. I tried not to get involved emotionally with their situations, but it was impossible. Fuck, I was so good at controlling my feelings and my whole foundation was rocked and cracked with the ease of a seven pop earthquake to the fault line through California. I hated them both when this bullshit happened. I hated myself for not being able to control it, so I pushed it down, real deep. And when I couldn’t push it down, I drank to sink it.
The Lacrosse season started and I couldn’t play club hockey anymore. I wasn’t good enough to crack the line-up as a freshman at Colgate and the frustration being built by watching games from the sidelines wasn’t able to wash itself clean on the ice. I sat in my therapist office silent.
"What’s wrong?" she asked.
"It would take too long to explain," I murmured.
"Do you want to try?"
"What makes you think I want to be here or talk to you. The only reason I’m here is because I have to be, so why don’t you stop talking and let’s just sit fifty minutes in silence and stop wasting each other’s time."
I called my father up after the session and blasted him for making me go see a therapist. He felt bad because he was watching his son deteriorate in front of him and he couldn’t do anything about it.
Halfway through the season my parents and little brother came up to watch one of the games I wasn’t playing in. We went out to eat and I could visibly see the distance growing between my father and my step-mom. It made me sad and angry and when I looked at my brother it tore me apart inside. They stayed the weekend and then went home. Dan could tell something was wrong.
"Are you alright, buddy?"
"Yeah."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
"Why don’t you come to dinner with me and the rents tonight?"
"Na," I choked out.
"Yeah, you’re coming."
We met up with Dan’s parents at a nice restaurant and talked about school and hockey and stuff, nothing really important and yet very important stuff. Dan’s father pulled me aside after the meal, "If there is anything you need, ever, don’t hesitate to ask." It made me feel better.
***
I woke up and didn’t know where I was. I remembered being at a party and then I blacked out. I grabbed my brown shoes and walked outside and realized I was at some townhouse on lower campus and caught the bus back to my room. I began drinking openly now and I didn’t care who knew. I went to all the parties, the hockey parties the lacrosse parties the frat parties the club hockey parties. I knew quite a few people on campus and I think Tuesday nights were the only nights I didn’t drink; I couldn’t stay away from the party. People were happy at parties, the energy was high and it was infectious. I only felt happy when I was in this environment and drunk. I rarely went to class and passed in my homework even less. I really began drinking a lot because it made me laugh and laughing was the only good thing I had left.
Laura came over to my room, "You’re drinking again."
"Yeah, and…" I said.
"Sam, you are becoming very short with people."
"I’m fine, will you leave it alone."
"See, this is what I’m talking about, you would never talk to me like that."
"Talk to you like what, I’m talking regular."
"You need to stop drinking."
I laughed, "You can’t tell me what to do, nobody can."
"Baby, what’s wrong? Just talk to me," she begged.
It made me angry to think she was trying to "help" me. I didn’t need anybody’s help.
"I don’t need your help."
She was crying, "If you don’t stop drinking, we can’t be together."
"Well, I’m not going to stop. So, maybe we shouldn’t be together."
"Why are you acting like this?"
"I don’t think we should see each other anymore," I said without tone.
"Are you serious?" she sobbed.
"Yes."
She got up and wiped the tears from her eyes and walked to the door. She opened it and looked back at me, I nodded and she left. I’ll tell you this, to this day, Laura is the only girl I dated who I wish I was still with. She was beautiful and sweet and I fucked it up. In your dating career you’ll always have the one that got away. I felt so horrible about myself after it ended, but I choked up strong suppressed the feeling hard and in a couple of days I forgot all about it.
Some of the guys down the hall were smoking this new stuff called Salvia. I guess it was supposed to be a lot like weed but before you got high you would have vivid hallucinations. At this point I was willing to try anything. We went into the second floor bathroom and opened the window. Dan came with us to watch, but he was in mid season so he didn’t smoke at all. Normally, I didn’t do stuff that made you hallucinate because I just figured I had so much bad shit floating around in my head that there was no way I’d have a good trip.
I took three huge puffs and in seconds I was floating on the water in a boat. It was the perfect day and the perfect temperature and I felt amazing, happy and excited. All of a sudden a pirate ship full of hot woman in hot pirate girl costumes appeared in the distance. The girls were yelling for me to come join them and I began paddling in my dingy. I felt like I paddled for hours and they were within distance when I felt a hard hand grab my shirt.
This is where it gets weird.
When I looked behind me I saw Dan and the bathroom and all the guys and Dan was holding the back of my shirt. When I looked in front of me I was back in the boat waving at the pirate models. I was caught between two worlds and they both seemed real.
"JD, get your ass back in here," said Dan. I was hanging halfway out the second story window.
"Na, it’s cool. I’m gonna go with the pirates for a little bit and then I’ll be back."
"HEY, you’re about to jump out the window, snap out of it."
I realized what was going on, "Holy shit, I’m about to jump out of the god damn window."
That was the last time I ever smoked Salvia.
The reckless partying continued with my brown leather shoes and I eventually got fired from my job at the museum. I think I was the first kid who was ever fired from a work study job. But it’s pretty easy to get fired when you never show up. I learned that one real quick. I liked the job and I pleaded with the staff to let me stay on. It was pretty pathetic to watch me grovel for something I didn’t deserve. People continually asked me if I was alright, from my coaches to my friends. They could tell something was going on and I would just smile and nod. It’s funny to me that the people who need the most help never want it. I hated charity especially emotional charity which is what everybody wanted to give. They all wanted to give some emotional change, dimes and pennies mostly, to the poor guy on the corner with permanent raccoon eye dark circles and the blank stare equivalent to an introvert on a self-cleansing roller coaster; some gave dollars. In late spring Twink came to see one of my lacrosse games. After the game she stayed to talk.
"You look like shit, what’s going on?" she asked.
"Thanks, for that. I’m fucking falling apart," I told her.
"You can’t beat it?"
"Obviously not. My parents are fighting, I broke up with that girl, and my grades are shit, and I lost my fucking job."
"You gotta find something to hold onto."
"I know that, Twink, I fucking know."
"You might want to ease up on the drinking and ..."
"I can’t stop. It’s the only thing that makes me happy."
Twink wasn’t like other girls. She understood the human journey; you can’t interfere with somebody’s journey. She didn’t project herself on my life. Let’s say life was a video game and you had to go through different stages to achieve higher levels of understanding. Well it never helps someone to tell them how to beat a level if they don’t understand the concept how. They’ll just be screwed on the next level. But, you can tell somebody that within a level they need to get more ammo or heath points, things that are in play on that stage. For example, she would never say, "You need to find God to find yourself," because if I don’t believe in God then what good is that comment. She would say, "You need to get more sleep, or don’t drink so much." Twink could see the road I had to travel just as I could see the road she had to.
"You have some tough times ahead of you," she kissed me on the side of the face.
"I know," I said.
Things sometimes fall into your lap when you need them most. Some people call this fate, some a miracle; I don’t know what to call it other than luck. Dan came into the room beaming from ear to ear one day late in the spring.
"What?" I asked him.
"JD, do you ever just wake up and thank God that you know me?"
"What are you talking about?" "You can stop all that moping around that you do, because I got some news."
"What is it?" I yelled.
"Guess who just got you a try-out with the hockey team next year?"
"YOU GOT ME A FUCKING TRY-OUT!?"
"I GOT YOU A LEGIT TRY-OUT!" he yelled.
"How?"
"Talked to the coach, told him who you were and how much of an animal you were on the ice and he said he’d give you a try-out and if you impressed him he’d take you on the team as a walk on."
I grabbed Dan and gave him a huge hug. All I ever wanted to do was play hockey and now I had the opportunity to play at one of the highest levels with my four best friends. I was so happy I began to cry. I couldn’t believe it, so sweet I dropped to my knees and started yelling it felt so good. A rush of overwhelming feelings hit me, all the problems gone in an instant.
"YEAA!"
Dan jumped on my back, "Huh, JD, how about it?"
"YEEEAAAA!"
I called my dad and told him the news and he was thrilled.
***
The sweeter something is the more it hurts when it gets taken away. Because my grades were so shitty, I had a mountain to climb in a month, but I knew I could do it. I worked day and night, passing in as many late assignments as allowed and studying when I could. During finals week I never left my room. I took the bus home and waited the excruciating two weeks before grades came out; two weeks never felt so long. When I got my transcript my heart sunk. My GPA was a 1.65, worse than last term. It had been too late. I appealed and the school did everything in its power to keep me in, but I didn’t deserve it. I failed out. I failed out when I had the sweetest cherry right in front of me. I was destroyed. And how selfish was I that not once did I think about how it affected my mother and father.
I called Dan the day after I found out and had to hold back tears.
"Hey," I said.
"What’s the verdict?"
"Not so hot."
"Oh, Sam."
"I’m sorry, Dan, I’m so sorry."
I let down my best friend in the world, a friend that continually picked my ass up off the ground and protected me and would have done anything for me. I let him down and it was all my fault.
I hated myself.
Chapter Four
When I failed out of Colgate, I didn’t talk to anybody for about a month. I sat in my basement room and wrote and watched movies. I was so embarrassed and ashamed; I think a part of me thought it was just a bad dream that I would wake up from. I didn’t know what to do. I’d stop eating for a couple days at a time and I sunk into a depression. Despair is a dark place, and thoughts start to creep in your head so foreign to your nature they startle you for a second. You begin to think about heaven and hell. You think: how could anything look good for my future after this? Then why live? Depression sucks because it’s really not proactive at all. You know how when you feel bad about certain things and you dig deep to find the meaning, you actually learn something in the process. If you fall into depression, you learn nothing; its one huge pity party. You stop searching and become flat soda. Somebody has to rescue you, extent their hand into the pit of despair, dust you off and carry you back to the light of reality. For me, it was my father. My whole family was upset and particularly upset with me, but my father set aside his own feelings to help me. He got me a job as a hockey counselor again that summer at his college. He said I needed to get out of the house and I did.
The camp flew by and I remained in this funk. I drank to blackout when there were parties; I didn’t care about anything and in fact I developed this "fuck you" attitude. The hate I had for myself, I turned onto everybody else; I got into a number of fights. I began to blame my parents for my Colgate fiasco; they were the ones who sent me there in the first place. They should have known I couldn’t cut it there. I remember waking up next to a number of girls I had no interest in. It’s ridiculous I know, but that’s how off center my thoughts were.
Every aspect of my life suffered: my health, my friendships, my family and it was everybody else’s fault; internally I was dying.
Towards the end of camp I was sitting in the dining hall alone eating a sloppy Joe. The camp director, Penny, came in and I nodded to acknowledge her. I had known Penny for a number of years and she looked after me like a surrogate mother. She got a drink and came over.
"How you holding up?" she asked.
"I’m doing alright," I lied.
"Yeah, your dad told me about the Colgate thing."
"Oh, yeah, that Colgate thing."
"You really messed up, huh?"
I looked up quickly at her, surprised by how up front she was, and nodded looking back down at my empty plate so that I wouldn’t start crying.
"Life came at you fast and knocked you off the top of the mountain. You wanna know what the best part is?"
I shook my head.
"You, Sam Conway, are the king of comebacks. No matter how bad it gets, you always climb back to the top of the mountain."
I nodded.
"You just have to stay out of your own way, you understand?"
I said yes and she stood up and gave me a hug. And with that hug came feelings of determination and desire which I had grown to know like twin brothers and loved but had lost drearily in the actions for mentioned. I had forgotten about them, ignored them, and to have them back once again made me feel strong like a weak Popeye beaten by Brutus and then somebody stuffed some spinach into his pipe and somehow he eats it and becomes rejuvenated. I was a broken down car running on fumes and Penny filled me back up; I was still broken, but I was going to figure out a way to make it to the body shop. I was Rocky before the sports training montage.
With this newly formed source of bravado and the blessing from my dad, who at this point was going through some complicated marital issues, I enrolled in the college he worked at. I think he was happy that I was going to be closer to home and I think he thought that he could keep a better eye on me. Fitz and Lloyd lived off campus in the small town of Norwood, where the college was located, in an apartment building that looked like it was about to cave in on itself. It was three stories and I’ll tell you every time I walked up the stairs to the apartment I felt like it was going to be the last set of stairs I would ever walk up. The interior was alright, there were two bedrooms a living room and a kitchen. The guys invited me to live there because they wanted a third roommate to split the rent with and they were doing me a huge favor; I had no place to live and to live at home and commute to school would have been an hour both ways and the gas would have been outrageous not to mention the fact that my family didn’t have a third car for me to use.
Apartment 15, good ol’ apartment one five, was the breeding ground for a lot of shenanigans and nothings. We were like three’s company. I moved in around early August when the breeze failed to mask the coming winter. Vermont could be the greatest place in the world in the summer, the perfect getaway, but when you felt winter coming you better run for the border and the Mexican border at that. My dad bought me this cheap futon somebody was selling for forty dollars and then bought a slip cover from Wal-mart, the true American shopping experience. I dragged it up the three flights of stairs sweating my ass off and threw it in the apt.
School didn’t start for another three weeks or so and Fitz and I got a job at a local pizza place, the kind of job that paid seven fifty an hour and if you stayed for half a century you could get a raise of a quarter. Nineteen pepperonis to a large pizza, I still remember that. Most of my large pizza’s were in the twenty to twenty one roni range and quite a few times I was taken off pizza duty; it could have also been the fact that I never weighed out the shredded motz cheese on the mini scale. We were horrible at making food. The job I always had to do at the end of the night was restock the drink cooler; you had to pull all the drinks out to stock it back to front, like fucking soda is ever going to go bad. The best part of the job was that at night we got to take home any left-over pizza and because we worked with a bunch of girls who never ate after dinner, Fitz and I took home all the pizza. One night we were hungry and it didn’t look like any pizza was going to be left. So we called Freddy and told him to call-in a meat lovers pizza that we knew wouldn’t get picked up and therefore we could take it home. I think that pizza had close to thirty ronis on it. The problem was that the name he left the pizza under was Youngblood and I guess there was a Youngblood family in Norwood, so one of the girls offered to drive our pizza to somebody else’s house. Karma’s a bitch.
We quite our jobs maybe a week after the Youngblood incident and school started. I met with my academic advisor who was a good friend of my father’s. The guy was the most reliable person I had ever met. I picked my classes and major and it was relatively easy, a sign from the semi-universal unseen I thought the way the world worked. When I couldn’t get a ride to campus I would walk, it wasn’t that far maybe half a mile. The town was nice but I didn’t usually think about the town as I walked through it; I was usually somewhere else. Because I had failed out of Colgate I had to sit out a year before I could play sports again, so I became the manager of the hockey team with the push of my father. I didn’t mind being the manager; I knew all of the guys on the team and they were cool. I got tape and laces and blades and sticks and loaded the bus on away trips and opened the door when they had to change lines. What else can I say other than what it was; I did get paid for doing it as work study, the first work study job I was good at. Classes weren’t all that difficult with the exception of this one math class I had to drop because I didn’t understand what the teacher was saying. Every time I thought about school work or was doing some sort of homework I always thought about Dan and Colgate and hockey and if I had just done a little work I would have been fine; I mean I’m not stupid, well in the sense of academia, I mean some of the things I do I could definitely be called stupid, but I mean like study for a test and do alright. It’s so easy to dwell on things you have no control over anymore. I had to stay away from it or I knew I would fall right back into the pity party.
This guy who Lloyd new from home, Kerry Adam, who was a freshman and played hockey, was always at our apartment eating Chinese food; I guess he hated the dining hall food and in Norwood there’s only a choice between Subway, pizza and Chinese. Kerry was tall and like able and often he and I traded South Park lines.
One day I was sitting on our couch in the living room with Lloyd and Kerry working on some advertising homework for this teacher I actually really liked Mr. S. Tall. Lloyd was watching TV and I’m going to try and reenact how this conversation went for you:
Lloyd changes the channel to Maury Pauvich.
I start, "Well Lloyd, you ARE the father, OOOO."
"Sam, the lie detector test determined THAT was a lie," he laughes.
"Do you know how much ass Maury gets?"
"I want to be the guy who tells Maury He is the father."
He changes the channel to Harry Potter.
"Being a wizard would be so kick-ass," I say.
"Not to mention how much hot witch-ass Harry probably would get."
"If you were a celebrity wizard within like the wizard crowd, forget about it."
"I would cut my pinkie off to be Harry Potter for one hour, well maybe not the whole pinkie but definitely the tip."
He changes the channel to CMT and Sugarland is playing.
"That guy who plays the mini guitar is NOT cool."
"I bet that guy though he was cool for being different by playing the mini, and then when he saw himself he realized how un-cool it was, but it was too late."
"I bet girls are like all over him because they think he’s a Rockstar and then when they find out he just plays the mini, they bail."
"That guy gets so much bailed ass."
He changes the channel to Romeo and Juliet the Leo version.
"Leo comes on way too strong with the L-bomb in this movie."
"The L-bomb is the reason why Leo and Danes die at the end."
"Huge mistake on Leo’s part."
"Yeah, Leo should have known better than to drop an L on the first date; rookie mistake."
Fritz walks by to use the bathroom, "Watch out, I think its diarrhea."
"I really prefer a hard shit," I say.
"Yeah, much easier clean up," says Lloyd.
I look at Lloyd, "We’re going to get along."
"You bet," he laughs.
And that is what we used to call a Couch Session.
***
When I was at Colgate you didn’t have to declare a major until after your sophomore year and I had no idea what I wanted to major in. I had no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. You’re supposed to have it all figured out by 18, what you want the next fifty years to look like; that makes a lot of sense, but okay okay you have to follow the rules of the society you choose to live in and where else could you live this free and say this kind of garbage and have people listen? When I got to the school in Norwood, they had this major called communications and essentially what it is is learning how to produce edit and write movies radio commercials television shows and marketing them and such. I took a real interest in the story telling aspect of these things as you can imagine. The professor in charge of the major was Prof S. Tall. Eccentric as subtle, Prof Tall taught us all sorts of cool things about production, Fitz and me; Fitz had switched his major to communications. It felt different to be learning something for the first time I actually was interested in; it was kind of nice. I mean in high school and grade school they feed you what they want you to eat.
That night Fitz and I and a bunch of the hockey players went to a house party. House parties are always entertaining, a little drinking games, a little something gets broken, a little police maybe, maybe not. In the background we were playing a little Kanye, Soulja Boy, TI, and T-Pain. I sat on the couch shooting the shit with this basketball player and some girl; we were watching MTV with the sound off; where’s Bret Ellis when you need him? I wasn’t all that drunk, maybe seven or eight drinks deep and I was nursing some chewing tobacco on the left side of my mouth while drinking.
This is how all confrontations start at house parties, as misunderstandings. Without looking I grabbed a cup on the table half full of orange juice that I figured was left there from the morning and spit a considerable about of dip spit into it. The basketball player before noticing what I was doing, grabbed my arm but it was too late and said that I had just spit in his screwdriver; orange juice and vodka, I should have known considering the drink was in a red solo cup, but hey I was a little drunk. I told him how sorry I was and that I would go get him another screwdriver and he said it was no problem and slapped me five.
Another basketball player saw the interaction and started hooting and hollering, jumping up and down like he was going to get in my face.
"Yo, buddy relax," I told him.
"Don’t fucking tell me to relax you just spit my bro’s drink," he yelled.
The guy whose drink I had spit, came over and tried to tell the other kid that it was cool, but the kid wasn’t going to let it go. I took a long slow look at the mildly aggressive jumping idiot, watching his face carefully, trying to get a read whether this guy was actually going to fight or he was just putting on a show. I looked down at my trusty brown leather shoes and I smiled.
"What the fuck are you smiling about?" the kid yelled.
"I’m smiling because I’m gonna break your nose off your face," I told him calmly.
He started to do more chest bumps and head nods and some girls tried holding his arms back and he wasn’t having it. The whole time I stood in front of him not moving but watching his movements exactly so I could duck and counter a punch if he ever decided to throw one. Just as I thought he was about strike with a straight right hand jab, I saw Fitz fly through the air like a drunken Irishmen and grab the kid, one hand on his throat and the other hand on his shirt. Fitz threw the kid around, first against the bar and then the wall as other kids tried to pull him off and girls began to shriek like they’d never seen a fight before. I stood there and laughed as my 165 pound friend manhandled somebody twice his size. They fell to the ground and what looked like a football pile-up surrounding them moved around. I saw Fitz emerge from the pile, his blond hair rabid and shirt twisted around his body wearing a furious smile and yelling something down into the group of kids. Lloyd picked him up and brought him to the couch and gave him a beer and the three of us laughed the rest of the night.
A couple of weekends later Fitz had to go home I think to drop some clothes off or maybe it was to clean some clothes I don’t remember. He only lived about an hour and a half south from school and Freddy was going to come up from Trinity and their friend Lee, a farm boy real Timberland Carhartt wearing bear wrasling woodsman, who they went to school with was coming too. The twins’ house was buried at the back end of a long dirt road. Their father had built it while they lived in it when they were younger. It was what I thought a humble home would like. It was obvious they didn’t have a lot of money, but none of us did. They hunted in the back yard during season and a number of animals shared the land. Off the side of their house was a fire pit where we found ourselves sitting in lawn chairs that night around midnight drinking beers and singing songs mostly country songs drunk. Their mother would bring out bug spray and blankets, the winter was coming, and their father brought out white kernel popcorn popped by hand on the stove and lightly salted. It made me sad to see their parents because they were so happy together and the child in me wished my parents would get along like that, the adult in me reasoned the situation to a mere they love each other in their own way. We spent a couple of nights there not doing too much.
We drove back to school, Sunday mid-afternoonish.
"You ever think about writing a screenplay?" Fitz asked.
"What?"
"Have you ever thought about writing a screenplay?"
"Like a movie?"
"Yeah like a movie."
"Na, I guess it’s just dialog."
"I think I want to write a screenplay," said Fitz.
"About what?"
"I don’t know, you want to write one?"
"Yeah, I’ll write one, but it’s gotta be good. I don’t want to write a shitty one."
"Obviously, why would we write a shitty screenplay?" he laughed.
"I don’t want to write a movie that’s bad."
"Of course we wouldn’t, why would we?"
"I’m just saying, if we write one it has to be good, like a good story."
"What should we write about?"
"Let’s write about two kids who are friends," I said.
"That’s real creative," Fitz said sarcastically.
"Oh okay, you don’t even know what you want to write about."
"How about one kid whose father dies?"
"Whoa, dude, you think your dad’s going to die?" I asked.
"No, it’s a story, it’s not real."
"All stories are real."
"The other kid is his best friend and he doesn’t have a father and his mother is a junkie."
"Why are we writing a story about two kids who don’t have dads when you and I both have great dads?"
"Because it’s a story, are you going to help?"
"Do you want me to run with this?"
"Yeah, let’s see what you got."
"The main character whose father dies, he lives in a house by himself let’s say, maybe his mother is estranged, maybe she left, he’s lonely and all he has is his best friend, the second kid, and that’s why they get along so well, kindergarten friends you know. The main character’s father is like the second kids father too. There’s a girl also, like a best friend type girl, neighborhood girl, she’s like them. She has it real bad for the main character, but you don’t find out until the end."
"We have to give the main character a talent, something to be good at, maybe sailing."
"Sailing? What the fuck do we know about sailing?"
"I love to sail." Fitz said, "The kids should be poor too and they work at a marina and the main character falls for this rich girl with an attitude, a good contradiction. He has a problem with letting her in though and he has to know why he has a problem but not know how to overcome it. He has to be smart enough to know the problems and where they come from but not know how to solve them. Honest is knowing why you act, how you act, the change is dishonest, alien to the person, the skin that gets shed, what’s interesting."
"The rich girl has to have some draw to the main character, but something has to separate her from him. The interesting relationships in life are the ones that never get solved."
"That’s a good start."
I laughed, "We should do this for a living?"
***
"I wish people would still do the Macarena," Lloyd said.
"Oh come on," I laughed.
"I don’t know why the Macarena became this running joke, it was a great dance."
"You’re way off."
"The Macarena is a classic, now people do that stupid Soulja Boy dance," Lloyd got up from the couch and did the Macarena while saying the word Classic.
"How’d you do on that paper, the one I helped you on?"
"Fucking A mines, brosef ."
"A MINES, sick! You must be pumped."
"Oh yeah, hey you ever taken back an apology before?"
"Like apologize to somebody and then take it back?"
"Yeah."
"No, why?"
"I was getting with this girl and I hooked up with someone else because we weren’t exclusive, you know, and she found out and I apologized even though I wasn’t really in the wrong and then I found out that she had hooked up with someone else too, so I called her up and told her that the apology I gave her was now void, bounced check."
"You can’t take back an apology, once you apologize it’s over, you will have always said sorry."
"No, no, no you can take it back."
"No, the only way to even it up is if she apologizes to you."
"Yeah well she’s not going to do that after I called her up and blatantly told her that that apology was bullshit."
"I don’t know why you even care, apologies really are for the person giving them."
"Ah, I think they make the other person feel better."
"But, when you apologize you’re relieving your responsibility, the problem is no longer yours, and in that way it’s really for you."
"The closure that somebody else gets when they receive the apology may help them move on though."
"They shouldn’t need the apology to move on."
"That’s easy to say when you’re not the one waiting for an apology" Lloyd laughed.
"You got that right, I should be apologizing for my entire life."
Fitz came out of the kitchen and joined us on the couch with a plate of Ramen noodles, the cornerstone of any college diet, and he had his phone on speaker and was saying tell them what you just told me.
"Who is that?"
"It’s Freddy."
"Hey you bitches, you’re coming down to Trin this weekend, it’s the biggest party all year, naked girls and beer and party ahhhhhhh," he yelled through the phone.
"Don’t you both have girlfriends?" I asked Fitz and Freddy.
"Oh yeah, I have to go see her before we go to Trinity," Fitz said. Fitz had been dating this girl from Connecticut, Elizabeth her name was I think, or maybe Liza or Liz I’m not sure. She was a senior in high school, don’t worry she was eighteen.
We packed up the red Chevy S-10 on Friday after our classes, I brought my best friends, the brown leather shoes, and we were off. We stopped at Burger King, got a Rodeo burger and a Jr. Whop. It was dark when we pulled into the town Fitz girlfriend lived in, it was a wealthy town with big houses and gated communities; he called her up and she was still at work so he asked if we wanted to go hang out at his girlfriend’s best friend’s house for a few and we were hesitant but said okay. We pulled up to a nice house average normal size in a normal neighborhood. We walked up to the door and Vivianne answered.
I had to look twice, my brain playing tricks on me, squinted eyes. I saw Megan, my ex-girlfriend from Choate. Of course it wasn’t her but Vivianne’s resemblance to Megan was uncanny. How funny our subconscious plays to our emotions, I felt flush my heart pounding, it wasn’t even the same person Jesus. We walked into the house and the entire time we were there I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Besides the fact that I am so shallow and superficial, she had a great personality, fun and energetic, good conversationalist. I’m a big fan of good conversation; it’s really a must-have in a relationship. I became very interested in her, but of course played it cool like I didn’t care at all. When we got back in the car Fitz said, "You liked that girl huh?"
"Yeah, she’s alright," I laughed.
"Yeah? Well, she thinks you’re alright too."
"Can you put that shit out of your mind though for tonight, because I want to have fun with the single Sam Conway, the Sam who gets crazy and does whatever he wants?" Lloyd asked. We laughed and drove to Trinity.
Trinity College was pumped full of New England prep school kids, I knew a lot of kids from Choate who went there and actually saw one of them when we got on campus. We met up with Freddy and his roommate and their room was small. They had a couple of beds and dressers and two desks and that was it, but that’s typical for a freshman room. The walls were covered in your usual college garb. Inside Freddy’s dresser he had a mini fridge stacked with beer and we all grabbed a couple and started to drink because we wanted to be drunk by the time the party started and it was already nine thirty and we were leaving the room at eleven. A girl walked by and Freddy called out her name, Dawn, and she came in and we were introduced to her. She was small and skinny and had a face that could start wars. I asked her where she was from and she told me a town in Connecticut where I had a friend and I asked her if she knew that friend and she said yea and we had a ten minute about the kid and how it was so funny that we both knew him, typical. I told her that we would see her later and she gave me her number so that I wouldn’t forget where she lived even though it was down the hall.
By ten forty five I was pretty drunk and we left to go to some frat party. Freddy and Fitz got right in but the two kids at the door both wearing tan khakis and collard shirts didn’t like the look that Lloyd was giving them so they weren’t going to let him or I in. Lloyd whispered in my ear, "You take the one on the left, I’ll take the one on the right and we’ll push them down the stairs," he winked. The party was in the basement of the house and so the stairs leading down into the basement was the entrance. I didn’t think that it would be a good idea to fight these two because then we couldn’t enjoy the party.
"You look familiar did you go to prep school?" I asked one of the kids.
"Yeah, we both went to Taft," the kid pumped his chest out.
"That’s where I know you from, we go to Taft now," I lied.
"Oh man," the kid got all excited, "that’s sick, you know Mr. Delany?"
"Yeah, Lloyd has him right now, eh Lloyd?"
"Yeah, I’m taking his class, he’s a real son of a bitch that Delany," Lloyd played along.
"He is, he is," the kid said, "Well, I’m not supposed to let any more guys in but you two are alright."
"Thanks man," I patted him on the back, "we’ll tell Delany you said hey."
As we got to the bottom of the stairs I opened the door to the party and it looked like what I imagined hell to be. The heat hit me in the face and red steam was rushing to the cold outside, but it was awesome and I was excited. Just as we entered Lloyd leaned out the door and in a real loud and obnoxious and totally antagonistic voice he yelled, "TAFT SUCKS." And we closed the door. I don’t remember much more of the party after that, we drank.
Walking back to Freddy’s dorm around four I ran into Dawn and we started making out and she invited me back to her room and I accepted, thinking that even if we didn’t fool around I wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor in Freddy’s room, which was nice. We hooked up for a while and then I decided to leave because I couldn’t get a good sleeping position in the small twin. On my way out I grabbed a bottle of vodka on Dawn’s desk and finished it and then blacked out. I don’t know why I drank that vodka. I was already really drunk and I didn’t need it. I don’t know why.
In the morning I woke up on the porch of some house and I couldn’t get back into Freddy’s dorm, you needed some stupid key card and my cell was out of batts and I only had one shoe on. I walked to the Chevy S-10 and squeezed through the back window and fell asleep in the seat until Fitz came out to the truck laughing and let me in. When I got to the room Lloyd was yelling that he met this girl and they went back to her room and then she told him that she was really religious and that she was a virgin, catholic I think, and Lloyd left because he never wanted to be anybody’s first. He then went on and said he went back to the party picked up another girl and she said she was Jewish and really religious and she was a virgin also. Lloyd kept screaming, "Two virgins in one night, what are the chances; not only does the Catholic God hate me but the Jewish God hates me too."
After another night, we drove home hung over and beaten up. Every time I moved my head, my whole body would ache, it felt like somebody had me by the spine and was shaking me like a rag doll. I often thought why would I drink so much if I knew I would feel this way the next day and the only logical answer I could come up with was that the amount of fun from the previous night had to be worth the pain in the morning and for me specifically the feeling from the party was worth the pain.
***
The hockey season went on and being the manager started to become tedious, but I was good at it and I couldn’t really quit and I liked hanging out with the guys. The one good thing about being the manager that year was that the next year I would be able to be on the team as a player.
The script that Fitz and I were writing was really coming along and I think the combination of our two different styles of storytelling formed well. We were about halfway done and we started rewriting the dialog and having Lloyd and Kerry act out scenes so we could get the feel of the flow. Kerry didn’t like it when we made him play the girl roles and so we always made him play the girl roles. The thing I found out about writing a screenplay is that you have to be word conscious. You can’t just have two characters go on and on about nothing talking and gabbing about coffee and their days and how they hate their bosses just blabbing and rambling not really saying anything but still making small talk like they are on the view. You see what I mean.
***
The school went on break around the middle of December. My little brother was playing youth hockey for the local team and I went and saw a bunch of his games. He was alright and gradually getting better and better, but he started playing much later than my step-brother Jason and me, so he needed more time.
I went to a party at Adam’s house in Burlington with Hans and Olly, who were both back from school. I saw a bunch of people from high school who I hadn’t seen in a while and had to lie and say I transferred schools so that I didn’t feel too shitty about myself. Hans and I won a bunch of games on the beer pong table and then lost. I was pretty drunk when I heard a loud commotion from the kitchen and I ran up to see what was going on. A group of kids, skin heads, were jarring with a couple of kids from our high school.
I got in between the two groups and tried to reason out the situation because I didn’t want the cops to come to Adam’s house again, they had been there so many times. I knew we were going to have a problem when the one skin head ripped his shirt off and had a bunch of Nazi tattoos covering his arms and he started to spit a little while he was yelling. The other skin head began punching the refrigerator at random moments in the argument and was putting pretty good size dents in it. Our friend Adam was black and he had a lot of friends at the party who were getting visibly upset with the group of six skin heads and one girl, who was actually kind of cute without the dark eye liner and the whole white nation thing. This house party fight was not a miscommunication.
The skin heads started talking about shooting people and that’s when I got worried. I walked over to the kitchen, looked down at my brown shoes and opened a drawer and grabbed a long steak knife and held it behind my back so nobody could see it. I walked back over and told the leader skin head that if they didn’t leave there wasn’t a good chance of them getting out of the party not beaten up. I said it in a very calm voice and as a matter of fact, not trying to bully them out of the house. Hans saw the knife behind my back and gave me a look but I ignored him. The skin heads smashed a box of cereal, Captain Crunch, and left the house.
People calmed down and my heart was racing. I walked over to the big fluffy couch and sat down and watched muted Sport Center. Hans came over to where I was sitting and gave me a solo cup filled with rum and coke and I drank it down in one sip.
"What were you going to do with that knife?" he asked me.
I didn’t say anything because I didn’t have an answer. I think if the skin head had pulled out a gun I would have stabbed him, I really do. Was I capable of killing another human being? I was so drunk and running on so much adrenaline, I think I would have stabbed him. Shock and fear came over me that I thought I would do that, like I was two people, one drunk and aggressive and a stabber and the other, a scared afraid person who couldn’t believe that their other self would do that. I was confused.
Jingle Bells Jingle Bells Jingle all the way..to freaking Christmas with the Conway’s. The winter had encased our back yard like a baby shaking a snow globe. The smell of oven roasted turkey and poor man’s caviar filled the house. We opened the mountain of presents as usual, but something seemed different. The house didn’t seem as happy as it usually did and I could tell there was a riff between my step-mother and father. I was mad. I wished they could have concealed it a little better, because they’d probably be fine in a couple of days. Whatever.
My grades came to the house as usual and I figured they would be alright nothing special. To my surprise I had made the honor role, what? My parents were excited and I was excited and they let me go to Quebec City with my friend from the team, Ralph, and a bunch of other guys including Lloyd. Ralph lived in QC and we were going to stay at his house. Even though he was going to be a doctor, Ralph partied hard and knew all the great spots to go to for New Years. On Wednesday, we packed into a bunch of cars and headed north.
Quebec City looks like it belongs in Europe. We walked around for a while on the cobblestones and had some poutin, French Fries with cheese and gravy, then went down a sled run in teams.
On New Year’s Eve night we went to a three story club called the Dag wearing tight t-shirts and gelled hair and designer jeans and of course I had on my brown shoes. We walked in the back door because Ralph new a guy and the sounds were blending together into one giant heart beat. The lights flashing everywhere we got drunk with a bunch of girls, girls from Quebec are unreal and always put together. I was really drunk. The guys talked about going to an afterhour’s club and I agreed even though I shouldn’t have. Lloyd went home with a girl who looked like the cavemen in that commercials. I began blacking out and what I remember was being at a hotel lobby with Ralph and then when I came to, I was by myself walking alone in Old Quebec without my jacket and I was freezing. A police woman pulled up next to me and I thought I was going to get in some sort of trouble but she asked me if I needed help. I told her I lost my friends and they told me they were going to an afterhour’s club. The police woman, who was very good looking, told me she would give me a ride to the club which was about ten miles outside the city. So I hopped in the cruiser and we had a pleasant conversation about her family for ten minutes. The afterhour’s club was crazy and reminded me of a rave party. I looked around for my friends and didn’t see them so I went to the bar and had a couple of shots and then looked again. Some girl grabbed my shirt, she wore a blond short haired wig and a white skirt and a white bra top and started to dance with me. Obviously I didn’t refuse and she popped some pill in my mouth and I swallowed it. It was seven in the morning. I danced with the blond wig and she told me she wanted to go to the bathroom and told me I should go with her so I went. We slammed into one of the stalls and I picked her up, she had a small tight body. We made out for a while and then the lights came on and it was eleven in the morning and they told us we had to leave because the club was closing down. I was still high and drunk. The girl went with her friends and I started walking back to the city in my sweat drenched shirt. I thought I was going to get hypothermia and walked about four miles in the frozen air when an elderly couple picked me up and I spoke broken French to them and told them thank you and they drove me to the hotel I though Ralph was at. When I found out that Ralph wasn’t at that hotel I walked to like five other hotels and none had heard of my friend so I had to call my father Collect back in Vermont and ask him to call Ralph and come pick me up because I didn’t have my cell phone. It was three in the afternoon; I was still drunk. Ralph pulled up to the hotel half an hour later with a huge smile and he gave me a big hug and laughed and drove me back to his house.
I couldn’t have been more irresponsible or stupid; I could have died at any number of occasions and I didn’t care. I don’t know why, but I didn’t care. Somebody was looking out for me.
That was my winter vacation.
***
When I got back to school in Norwood I called Twink. I was dreading the call because I knew I had to explain a lot to her. She picked up.
"Hello," I said.
"HEY," she sounded startled, "I can’t believe it took you this long to call me."
"I know I’m sorry."
"Where are you? What have you been doing? Don’t you ever wait that long to call me again."
"I know I won’t. I’m back in Vermont."
And I explained the whole situation to her in like ten minutes. She read through my exaggerations and omissions and asked me the questions I didn’t want to answer. I couldn’t escape this girl even if I wanted, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to unload all my bullshit and start with a clean slate. But Twink wasn’t a garbage dump, she was the wife telling you to take out the garbage and as much as you hate listening you have to because you know they’re right. We talked then for a while about what she was doing and how her life was going. She was about to graduate from college and try her hand at modeling. She was what normal people called a free spirit; I just called her adventurous. When I hung up I realized how much I missed her.
The classes I took second semester were alright, a little harder than the ones before. Later that week we found out that a kid who had played for the team the year before, Matt, had been killed. I knew the kid and it was horrible. He had been hit in the head with a brick during the outs on a fight. I couldn’t help but think how many fights I had been in and in any one of those fights been hit in the head and killed or even worse hit somebody else in the head and killed them. Matt was the nicest kid; isn’t it always that way, the good die young and all that; probably why I was still alive. We went up to his funeral in Canada and the hockey team was real emotional and it was really sad. Even my father looked choked up, and I had never once seen him cry. It goes without saying, we would never forget Matt. His father was such a good man and was now broken and I thought about what my father would look like if I died; I didn’t think about it too long because it made me sad.
We returned back to school and I called Vivianne to talk. We’d been talking for a while on the phone now; like two or three hours at a time, it’s awful I know. Fitz would be on the phone with his girlfriend, Elizabeth and Lloyd and I would always give him shit about it because from time to time he would do this little high mushy face voice followed by a giddy baby rabbit laugh; it was gross. But soon enough I caught myself doing that stupid voice with Vivi. I think everybody once or twice in their life does that voice, come on; I’m trying to justify it, but it’s not right.
Anyway Vivi and I became real close and we began dating, which was not smart because she lived three hours away. We got along well and we had great conversation and I think that was enough validation to dive head first into a long distance relationship with no face time.
Lloyd and I were sitting on the couch and he was eating one of those brownie plates that Betty Crocker makes and I was on the phone with Vivi.
"Where’d you get that brownie plate?" I asked Lloyd
"What is he eating?" Vivi said.
"The black market," Lloyd laughed.
"He’s eating a whole plate of brownie," I said in the phone, "Do you even know what the black market is?"
"I know they sell these," said Lloyd.
"You get them in the baked goods section," said Vivi.
"You wouldn’t know where the black market was if it was in this apartment," I said to Lloyd, then in the phone, "No, I know where to get one, I’m saying I didn’t know we had one here in the kitchen."
"I know plenty about the black market," Lloyd said.
"I’ll send you guys some of those if you want." Vivi said.
"Oh, you’re just the king of the underground brownie plate," I said, "No, we don’t need any, but thanks."
"My mom makes the best brownies with junior mints in them," said Vivi.
"Hey man, you need a brownie?" Lloyd mimed like he was a drug dealer, "Carmel or double fudge?"
"When are you coming down?" Vivi asked.
"Well we play Trinity in a week, so in a week."
"Do you want to stay at my house?"
I was hesitant, "Yeah."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
That weekend we were in Connecticut for the weekend of games. I sat with Vivi at one of the games when I wasn’t needed by the team. She reminded me so much of Megan it was scary and I think that played a major part in the reason I kept my distance, as much as I could in a relationship anyway. When she asked me at the end of the game if I was going to her house, I told her that I was going to party at Trinity for a couple of hours and then have Fitz bring me when he left to go to Elizabeth’s house and she said okay. I had no intention of staying over at her house and when it was time to go, I disappeared drunk down the hall. The next day I had to deal with an earful of explanation and disappointment but two things were going on with me. One, the whole thing about how she was a clone of an ex-girlfriend and two, I wanted to party and get drunk and those things were more important and worth the shit I received the next day. I’m not a total asshole, I felt really bad and promised to make it up even though I didn’t know how I was going to with no car no money and no way of seeing her. But as the scale tips one way we move the opposite, I didn’t deserve her and I was wrong.
When we got back to school, Fitz and I continued to write the script and we were having a discussion how people deal with problems because our main character needed to work some shit out.
"The main character needs to have an outlet for his problems," Fitz argued.
"Not always," I said, "It can build up inside of you and then pop."
"But there has to be a manifestation of the problem that we can see so the viewer knows what’s going on."
"Yeah. What if we doubled up on sailing?’
"What do you mean?"
"Well, his special talent is sailing; what if his problem outlet was sailing too. That way we could show the inner struggle personified as the rough water, his outlet for problems with the sailing, like he sails when he’s upset, and his special talent for boats."
"And we could lock his dead father into that as well with a scene of him as a young child sailing with his dad."
"I like it."
The script was starting to take form. One night while we were writing, the movie Cocktails came on and we decided to get a bottle of vodka and have some vodka waters while we wrote and watched. Two girls came over, Bea and Liz, who were friends of ours and they began drinking with us. I called Vivi to say goodnight early because I knew she’d be able to tell I was drunk if I waited until later. The four of us drank the whole bottle and I blacked out. When I woke up in my bed around ten in the morning I yelled to Fitz.
"Fitzy!"
He sounded hung over, "What?"
"What the fuck happened?"
"I don’t remember, I blacked out."
"Did we have sex with the girls?"
"I still have all my clothes on, so I’m gonna go with…no."
"Yeah, I still have all my clothes on too."
"Then we probably didn’t."
That’s when I finally realized how bad my drinking had gotten. That and one night I ate some trash and another night I pissed my pants and another night I emptied all the contents of the refrigerator onto the ground and flipped every piece of furniture over in the apartment. I didn’t care if I had a problem because I wasn’t going to stop; I loved the way alcohol made me feel; I loved it.
The hockey season drew to a close and the team lost in the semi-finals of the tournament. Lloyd came home with Kerry after a long night of drinking and I was cooking some pasta on the stove. There was a peanut butter cake with chocolate frosting sitting on our kitchen table and Lloyd grabbed a handful and started eating it and then he grabbed another handful and slammed it into Kerry’s face as he said, "Hey Kerry, have some cake." Then he threw cake in my pot of boiling water with noodles and I shut off the burner and then he threw cake all over the apartment. Finally he sat down and he and I had a chew and he lit a cigarette as well. And we laughed.
Later in the spring we went back down to Trinity for a spring party and I saw Dawn, but we were both seeing other people so we didn’t hook up. I was again supposed to stay over at Vivi’s house but told her that my friends wanted me to stay around and I couldn’t. She yelled and screamed and rightfully so, but my friends were more important to me. I went and saw her before we left to go home. Freddy’s girlfriend came and brought with her four friends who were all gorgeous and we partied. It’s funny to me in those days we were like party junkies. Our drug, the party, gave us this euphoric sense that we were on the verge of greatness and nobody could stop us. We were the party and so we were the drug and therefore we were addicted to ourselves.
Lloyd, Kerry, Fitz and I moved out of the apartment and into a house down the road where we were going to live for the next year of school along with two other hockey players like us Casper and Craig. It was an old house, two story, with a noticeable warped bump in the living room wood floor but it was big and it had a nice yard to play whiffle in and so we loved it. Vivi called me up and asked me to go to her senior prom. I was twenty-two and going to a senior prom; I don’t even want to say anything else about it; I was twenty-two. Fitz was going with his girlfriend Elizabeth and he and I stood out like Yoa Ming and Michael Jordan in Ireland. To say that it was awkward is truly an understatement, but we forced ourselves to have a good time because we didn’t want to be the guys that ruined Prom for somebody else; that sucks. After prom, Vivi and I got high and ate Taco bell. We dummied so many burritos; we laughed a lot, probably because we were so stoned.
Fitz and I came home and relaxed at the house for a while and Lloyd and I watched TV and made our usual remarks.
Then I got a phone call.
"Hello," I said.
"Hey Sam," it was my father.
"Hey dad, what’s up?"
"Mom moved out of the house today."
I didn’t understand, "What do you mean?"
"Mom…she moved out and she wants to get a divorce."
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, "What?"
"I know it’s a lot, I’m going to come get you and we can talk about it."
"What about Woody," I thought of my younger brother who was only fourteen.
"He’s pretty upset, but he and I are going to drive and come get you, okay?"
"Yeah, okay."
This was the beginning of the end for me.
Chapter Five
I got off the phone with my dad and stood there while Fitz and Lloyd looked at me. I had one of those moments, out of body moments, where I realized my entire life would be different, like I was god and could see the world unfolding in front of me and I only saw it for a second and it was enough to scare me back into my body. I was confused and I hated being confused. I told them what had happened and they had your typical best friend response. The problem is that they wanted to help, but unless they could get in my head and relieve the fear and hurt and anger there’s nothing they could do.
My father showed up and my brother was in the front side passenger seat, eyes red from crying. I threw my backpack in and my dad tried his best to explain to me why my step-mother had left. He said they had been fighting for a while and I knew this and he also said that he didn’t expect that she would leave and I knew this as well. My immediate reaction was really nothing because I didn’t know what to do. How am I supposed to react in this situation? Days later the flood of feelings would come. Shock and awe; I was in the shock and awe phase.
My dad asked me if I would move back home and commute to school for the rest of the year and of course I said yes. It was second nature to help my family and especially my brother who was distraught to say the least about the situation.
What actually had happened was my step-mother and father weren’t getting along and so my step-mom fell for somebody else and finally she just left to move in with the other guy. This small detail only made me that much angrier.
***
The next day I drove down in my gold Buick LeSabre to go to my classes and packed up my shit from the house to move home. Fitz helped me, but he wasn’t happy about it.
"I don’t understand why you have to move home," he said.
"Because my dad wants me to, so I can be there and support my little brother and give him rides and stuff."
"But that’s not your responsibility, that’s your parents."
"Yeah, well my dad has to work and my mother, well who the fuck knows what happened to her, but my bro doesn’t want to be around her, understandably."
"Yeah, I guess. What about your life, does that matter?"
"I’ve never done anything for my family, maybe it’s time to make a little sacrifice, plus I’ll be back down here next year."
"What about the script?"
"We’ll finish it, we’ll get it done," I assured him but he didn’t believe me and I had a feeling that there was a small resentment growing. Fitz had a lot of friends but not many close friends and I think he was worried that if I moved away our friendship would take a hit. I wasn’t all that worried about it.
When I was done packing up my shit, I walked to my dad’s office to tell him I was headed back to our house.
"Hey."
"Hey," he said, "You get your stuff packed up?"
"Yep. I have to get a check to those guys for my deposit for next year on the apartment."
"What are you talking about?" my dad asked.
"I need to give them a check for the beginning of next year’s rent," I said.
"But you’ll be living at home."
"Next year?"
"Yeah. I’ll need you home when I have to travel for work."
Then a haunting thought came to me.
"So, I can’t play hockey then next year, because one of us has to be home for Woody."
"Yeah, we can’t both be away at the same time."
And that’s when my numb body went flush with understanding. My little brother wanted nothing to do with his mother, my step-mother, for the moment because she had left. That meant I had to become his second parent. I wasn’t going to be able to play hockey because my father and I wouldn’t be able to be away at the same time. To say that I was angry would be a severe understatement. I was mentally hyperventilating, my brain frantically squeezing and relapsing inhales and exhales of my past. I guess the anger was triggering memories of similar feelings. I didn’t even listen to music on the forty-five minute ride home, I always listen to music in the car; I shut my phone off and I rode in silence.
When I got home I pulled up into the long driveway and then into the car port because I had a lot of stuff to unload and I didn’t want to carry it very far. My step mother was waiting there actually putting some of her stuff in her car. She saw me and tried to give me a hug but I shrugged her off and she asked me why I was moving all my stuff back and I told her because of her bullshit. The look on her face, saddened and disheartened probably by the whole experience, told me more about her feelings than I wanted to know. I didn’t want to know her at all in any form. I didn’t want to know her or ever know her; my goal was to erase her all together. She stood there not moving, waiting for me to yell or scream or cry, one or the other; I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of knowing I was so angry that I wanted to tear my skin off my body. Blank stare, no sadness, no anger. When she realized my mental fortitude for emotional damage and when she knew all she was going to get was stone, she said she was sorry. Blank stare. The control it took to keep up the force field-like charade started breaking down and of course, before I snapped I went inside to my basement room and broke down:
"FUCK! FUCK! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH, MOTHER FUCKER!"
I drove to the store and grabbed a chew and a handle of vodka, there was nothing I loved more than vodka-water and a chew. In this time of desperation I needed those two things by my side. I thought about calling Twink and even dialed her number but hung up before she answered. I don’t know why; I didn’t want her to know how vulnerable I had become. I didn’t talk to anybody for a while and I got quite a few voice mails from Vivi worried about what had happened to me. I called her back a week later and explained. Most of the time I spent was with Woody playing PlayStation, gotta love that PlayStation. We didn’t talk much about what was going on; I think it was easier to pretend that it wasn’t happening. He’d never cry in front of me, but he moved into my basement room and I’d hear him cry at night sometimes. I had always taught him to try and be strong but he hadn’t seen as much of life’s adversity as I and it took a toll on him at night I think.
The following Monday I woke up around five in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I took an early shower and sat and read a little before I had to leave for school. Jesus Christ I was reading; I hadn’t read anything in a while other than shit that Fitz or I wrote. I drove the hour to school and arrived at what was supposed to be my house and Lloyd was up making some eggs and bacon.
"What’s up, buddy? You want some eggs?"
"Nah, I don’t feel like eating."
"Yeah, I hear ya. How’s that shit going with the fam?"
"Fucking awful. It feels like shit."
"I remember when my dad took off. It was hard for about the first year."
"A year?"
"But you’re a tough piece of shit, Sammy Boy, and I was five at the time. It probably won’t be that bad for you."
"I don’t feel tough, I feel like a child."
"Ahh but you’re not. You’re a twenty-two year old half guine half mic, mother fucker."
"You make me a Bloody Mary?"
"Atta boy, spoonful of medicine."
I woke Fitz up and we went to class but I couldn’t concentrate and I was sure my grades were going to plummet. When your parents are getting a divorce, regardless of how old you are, it just seems overwhelming. I didn’t give a shit about school really to begin with and now with the separation of my parents, it all just seemed so minuscule, like it didn’t really matter. When something happens, that is drastic, the rest feels so small. On top of this "nothing matters" attitude I was developing, grew a sort of "fuck you, try and take me down" spiritual layer. I was mad with God. I didn’t know if I believed in God, but if I did, he and I weren’t on good terms. I wanted to challenge God, give me all the adversity you got and see if I can’t handle it. I didn’t think it was fair that God allowed things to happen, and I wanted him to make it right, and if he wasn’t going to than I would. I thought I was fighting God, but I was only punching my own melon.
***
That night there was a party at the house and we set up beer pong tables and had sort of an afternoon barbecue launching into a full blown party and bomb fire. All the hockey players came over and some girls from school. Around midnight Vivi called me and we got into this screaming match about how I never came to see her and how I didn’t really give a shit about her. The problem was that the Buick LeSabre I was driving was old and my father didn’t want me driving it four hours down to Connecticut because it could break down at any time; I thought he was probably being a little paranoid, but it was his car not mine, so there wasn’t much I could do about it. As for options to get to CT, I was out of luck. I could have taken a bus maybe.
Anyway, we yelled at each other for a good forty-five or so and then I just hung up because I was getting drunk and I was starting to say things I knew I was going to regret later. This did not go over well with Vivi and, I won’t read you the text messages I received but just take my word for it they were not pretty. I started playing beer pong with Lloyd as my partner and we were playing against Fitz and some other kid. Halfway through the game Fitz started chirping me about moving home and how my dad ran my shit and how I had no respect for my life, a little heavy for a beer pong game, but I understood he was pretty upset that I wasn’t moving into the house and that I wasn’t going to be able to see or spend as much time with my friends as I used to, so I let it go. He kept pushing and pushing and I told him to shut the fuck up and he didn’t like that much and came back with some more over the top insults. Finally I walked up to his side of the table and got in his face.
"If you gotta fucking problem with me, then let’s have a go," I said.
"You’re going to fight me, one of your best friends?" he said.
He looked sad. He looked like he was watching one of his friends slowly die and he couldn’t do anything about it. I wanted to assure his that I was going to be okay; I really wanted to show him that I was strong enough to deal with the situation in front of me, but I couldn’t and my anger and pride and drunkenness was all that was left. I had so much anger about so many different things that when somebody got in my face or made a comment or challenged me about anything, I just lost it; I went off the reservation.
"If you don’t shut your fucking mouth, you’re going to have a big fucking problem," I yelled in his face.
"We miss you around here, man," he said to me and looked at the other guys, "We know you gotta take care of shit at home, but it’s not the same without you here, some of us rely on you too."
My heart broke, but I stood strong; there was nothing I could do, I had to take care of my brother at home and to do that, I was letting my friends down. I hated letting my friends down; I hated it just as much as I hated letting my family down.
You set your tracks in the earth and the setting holds the importance, but once the tracks are laid the ride has no significance on our life, as we have no control, yet the ride is all we want to analyze and fear. I had to live with my decision.
I blacked out that night later and broke my cell phone when I dropped it on the wet grass and then for no reason I raked the entire lawn at four in the morning and then army crawled up to my bed and broke some stuff and flipped some stuff over and that’s how school ended for me and the summer of hell began.
Chapter Six
Early in the summer, once school was out, I got a job working for Seward Construction, the same company who I’d work demolition for. This time though I would be training to be a carpenter, so I could do more stuff for the company. I’m sure big JC would have been proud, well probably not; chances are Jesus was a much better carpenter than I was, actually you never know, he might have been a very mediocre carpenter, I haven’t really heard anything specific about his skills; at least he was honest. Being a carpenter’s assistant is not all that great. You basically do all the work for the carpenter that he doesn’t want to do and most times that’s the grunt work like carrying boards or snapping lines or whatever. It’s very standard, so you don’t complain because every carpenter has gone through it.
My first job was working on a house in Middlebury and the first day I actually had to tear apart the garage which was made out of this fiberglass roofing. I took the sledge out and finished it in an hour or so. It was a hot spring day, not too many clouds in the sky, but still muggy and Mr. Seward, the owner of the company and the father of my close friend from school, came to the job site and ate lunch with us. He was tall man, with a keen eye for human interaction. He had an eerie ability to sense when something was wrong by just watching how you interacted with your tools or other workers on the site. And when you spoke with him, it was like he had the answer sheet to all your math problems. I had known Mr. Seward since I was a kid and my brother and I and all our friends had worked for him on and off since we were sixteen. He was like a second father to us all, like an older uncle you go to when shit’s bad at home. He treated us as if we were his own children.
He sat next to me at lunch, "Hey."
"Hey," I said back.
"What’s up?" he said like he already knew.
I didn’t even try to walk my way around the grey areas of the conversation so I jumped in, "My parents are getting a divorce and my step-mom moved in with this new guy and I have to live at home and can’t play hockey. I have this enormous rage inside of me, this sick unwavering anger."
"Anger is…"
"Anger is hurt that hasn’t been worked out, I know that," I said.
"Then why are you still so angry?"
"Because I don’t know how to get rid of the hurt and therefore I don’t know how to get rid of the anger."
"You have a deep anger which means you have a deep hurt. Find the purest stem of the hurt and you’ll be able to beat the anger."
"I’m so blinded by hatred, I can’t see anything."
"Ask God for help to allow you to see."
"I’ll never ask God for anything, I don’t want his help."
"Then you’ll be blind, about this."
"Then let my hatred guide me, and I’ll endure.
"The amount of punishment you choose to endure is up to you."
"There is no amount of punishment I can’t endure."
"I hope that’s not true," he gave me a pat.
***
With school out of session and most of my friends from home still away, I felt very lonely. Often I would hang out with my brother or go see a movie; Vivi was in Connecticut and Fitz was in Brattleboro and Lloyd was in Manchester. My morning routine consisted of waking up around five and taking a shower and then driving thirty minutes to meet up with Barry, the carpenter I worked with, and then we would drive another hour to the job site. Then we would work all day until about three thirty and then drive an hour to my car and then another half hour to my house. Then I would eat and sometimes work out and I would go to bed around nine or nine thirty and then wake up and do it over again until the weekend. I didn’t mind the job that much and I even enjoyed learning all the carpentry; the weather was hot and extremely humid, but it wasn’t that bad, and the driving was tedious, but it was just driving. The work was hard work.
I think what got to me was that it was so monotonous. Day in and day out doing the same thing over and over again was like torture and having all day to relive the experience of my step-mom leaving again and again made it so that when I got home I needed a drink just to relax. And that’s how it started. I would have a couple of drinks to relax when I got home from work (not to mention that I drank like a fish when I was at school); I was drinking every day.
So, this guy Barry I used to drive to work with and work for was a great guy. He was a heavy set guy with white hair who had been to Vietnam; he looked like a white grizzly bear. He and I would talk for hours about all sorts of stuff and as silly as it sounds when he and I were jabbering at each other I’d stop thinking about my life. It was a nice change of pace from the rat wheel my mind was usually on. Most weeks we could talk right through the week and by Friday I hadn’t thought about my step-mom all week.
I got home around five o’clock on the Friday of that week and made some dinner for my younger brother; I made myself a vodka-cran. We ate and talked about how he was doing with the whole divorce thing. He was getting stronger and I could see that there was edginess in his attitude; he was slowly growing callous to his environment and it was sad for me to see on one hand but I was happy he was adapting.
The phone rang and I saw in the caller-id that it was my step-mom and I told Woody that if he wanted to answer it he could, but he just let it go to voicemail. Caller ID saves lives, I swear it. I was surprised to see it happen, but the phone rang again and again he let it go to the machine. I made myself two more drinks, heavy, and finished them. Seinfeld was on the television as we ate the rest of our dinner and we heard the door open and assumed it was our father.
Anne appeared in the doorway of the dining room and she didn’t look happy. Woody and I looked at each other and smiled.
"So, nobody’s answering my phone calls?"
"Did you call?" I laughed; I had a good buzz going.
"Woody, let’s go, I want to take you out," she demanded.
"He doesn’t have to go anywhere if he doesn’t want to," I said back.
"Let’s go!" she raised her voice at him.
Then I changed. One moment I was civilized, and like a vampire, the next moment I had fangs. The surge of adrenaline was instant and pure. I stood up from the table fast and pushed it away from my body. Woody saw the aggression and stood up in front of me.
"What the fuck did you just say?" I yelled, "Look at me!"
I couldn’t stop myself, I knew what I was about to say was wrong and I still couldn’t stop it. I was watching myself become evil.
"It’s okay, Sam. I’ll go and be back in an hour," Woody said trying to calm me down.
"Stop bullying your brother into not wanting to see me," Anne said.
"Get the fuck outta my house!"
"DO NOT TALK TO…"
"Stop talking and get out of MY house."
"YOU ARE A SELFISH…" she tried to yell, but I was more imposing.
"And you are a horrible mother!"
She stopped and slumped down like a sword had been run through her heart and gave me a look of absolute sadness. I couldn’t feel anything; I was numb with juice. She turned around and started to walk out of the house and I followed behind to make my point.
"Tell your boyfriend, if I see him, I’m gonna take a bat to the side of his fucking head."
She got in her car and Woody gave me a hug and got in with her. I was shaking I was so angry. I went back into the kitchen and took a long pull off the vodka bottle, then I put a chew in and made another vodka-cran and sipped on it. The buzz hit me and finally I stopped shaking. I felt bad my brother had to see that. He was just a fourteen year old kid and even though I always said it was okay for him to see his mother I think he thought I would be mad at him if he did. The truth of the matter was that I drew a line; if you were on my side then you hated everybody I hated and if you didn’t then you were on the other team. And so this is how I isolated myself from everybody; everybody but, Woody. I hated anybody that was on her side of the family because I thought they were all loyal to her and she had five brothers and sisters and a full boat of cousins and nephews who we had all grown up with. I hated my older step-brother because he was her son. I hated my father especially because even though he was sad about what happened and he thought what she had done was wrong, he still forgave her. He said he forgave her and I hated him for it.
That Sunday I left to go to Maine with Fitz and Freddy and Lee and some other guys we knew. As we went deeper and deeper into the northern territories the road shrank smaller and smaller. The Bookers had an uncle who had a cabin on a big lake; it took us ten hours to get there and on the way while we were on this tiny gravel patch of a road going forty in the pitch black a giant bull moose ran out in front of the car ahead of us and then dodged in and out of the woods. We stopped, got out of the car and the moose turned around and looked at us. His brown fur matted in spots on his body, he snorted a couple of times. I had seen a moose before in our back yard in Vermont but being ten feet away staring at this mammoth of an animal had a calming effect. I felt like the wild beast was gazing directly at me, trying to tell me that it was going to be okay and for that twenty seconds the anger vanished. And then he disappeared.
We stayed at the cabin for about a week and it was a week of relaxation for me. I felt at ease and the relief that the lake and fishing gave me was much needed. The last day we stopped at a special spot on the lake. The Bookers had a friend who had passed away the year before and the place we stopped was their friend’s favorite place. They each said some words about him and it made me sad because I thought about all the friends I had lost. I thought about how I had never really grieved properly and how they still seemed alive to me because I had never let them go. I didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. You are supposed to always remember the dead, but if those memories always cause pain then what good is it? I think you’re supposed to remember the happy times; in a sense though I think you have to be willing to let them go and I was never willing to let them go because my friends meant so much to me. I didn’t want to leave Maine.
I came home and went back to work, back to my tedious day to day life. My friend who was very German, Hans, and Olly returned home and on the weekends we would go out to Burlington and cause trouble. We’d go from bar to bar and see all of our old high school pals and I pretended that everything was fine and didn’t tell anybody about the divorce because I was too embarrassed. Every time somebody would ask about my mother and father I told them they were good and fine and it gave me a sick feeling to have to think about it every single time I saw somebody; it would happen at least ten times a night. I would ignore it and take another shot or order a couple of beers to try and steer the conversation to other places. One morning Hans asked me what was going on because I think he could sense something was off with me and I flat out told him the deal. He felt bad and he didn’t have any control of it but I felt pitied and I hated feeling pitied. People want to be sympathetic and that is the proper reaction to have; if you’re like me though it makes you feel like less of a person, like somehow the person who feels sympathy thinks that they are better then you even though they really don’t. I remember my best friend in the eighth grade told me his parents were getting a divorce when we were at a high school football game and all I said was I was really sorry. It must have made him feel like shit and I wished I could go back and tell him something else knowing now what it was like. I remember he was different from that day on; I mean we were still friends but his personality changed, I could tell. He was more cynical and aggressive and tried things he wouldn’t normally have tried all because the divorce had flipped a switch inside him. I was afraid that was going to happen to my brother who was young. That is why I think I was so firm about being around when the whole thing went down; I thought he was going to turn to something dangerous. I could always see change in other people. I always had the ability to see people’s feelings as they were having them or see their mind work, but I could never see my own and even if I could, I couldn’t change it or didn’t want to. Like when something is your own, your way more protective of it or you want to harbor it and tell anybody who wants to change it to fuck off.
***
Midway through the summer the situation with Viviann grew worse and worse. Every night we would talk for hours and it would always start out great and then I would end up venting for an hour about how horrible I thought my life was and she would grow fed up and start yelling about how I never saw her and I would tell her that I had no control over what was going on. The only reason I stuck around was because I loved her; I really did care for her. And for some crazy reason, even with all the bickering and fighting, I was still attracted to her and we could have great conversations. I was being really selfish though, expecting her to stick it out with somebody who was so emotionally damaged and who never saw her. I didn’t want to let her go and she didn’t want to leave. I have no idea why.
I also was reassigned to another job location; this one was about an hour away working on renovations for an elementary school and Barry was the foreman, which was good for me because we had a good working repor. The company hired a new kid about my age named Jacques Legoff and he and I worked together most of the time. Jacq was a good kid, tall and lean; his father had been a carpenter and therefore he knew most everything there was to know about being a carpenter. The first job we had to do was work in the attic replacing thick beams. This job was normally pretty difficult and because we were in the attic the temperature would get up to about 122 degrees and it became almost unbearable. Barry made us come down every hour for five minutes to take a break and drink water. Eight hour days never seemed so long and by the end of a day I was running on fumes. It reminded me of what I thought hell might be like. You couldn’t breathe because of the insulation or think and it was like being in a steam room. We had been doing this for a couple of weeks when I noticed that it was taking a huge toll on my body and I was losing weight. This was when a string of bad events started taking place. After a day’s work I would go home and eat and then drink myself to sleep because I was having major sleeping issues and the only way I could fall asleep was to force it. In the morning I would wake up at five and take almost six hundred milligrams of caffeine just to be able to function. I was strung out.
One day after work on a Thursday, my dad was away recruiting, I took the car from work and drove two and a half hours to Fitz’s house and when I arrived his mother and father couldn’t believe how bad I looked. Fitz’s mother fed me and tried to give me a talk about taking care of myself and letting go of the things holding me back in my life, but there wasn’t anything I could do at that point; I was committed to hating and so that was the path I was going to follow. I told them I was going to drive another two hours to see Vivi and surprise her and Fitz demanded to come with me because he thought I was going to get into an accident from exhaustion. We drove the two hours and Vivi was happy to see me but I could only stay until two in the morning because I had to be at work the next day. At two thirty Fitz and I got back in the car, my sweetheart the Buick LeSabre, and I popped four hundred more milligrams of caffeine and had a Red Bull and a chew to stay awake. I dropped Fitz off at his house in Bratt and refused to call in sick as he pleaded and had another Red Bull and a Monster and arrived at work on time. I worked all day in the attic and felt like I was dying. I legitimately felt like I was going to die. My heart was pounding out of my chest and my mind was shutting down. When I got home after work I promised myself I wouldn’t drink. I had to fall asleep though because I was going out that night in Burlington with Hans and as I was sitting there across from the bottle of vodka I tried so hard to not open it. But I couldn’t. I watched my body open the body as my mind was yelling no. I drank four or five shots and fell asleep and then woke up at ten, took a shower and went out for the night.
My thought process was this: do what makes you happy. That’s it! When I saw Vivi I was happy and so I went down. I had to go to work to get a paycheck and having money made me happy. I had to go out with Hans because partying made me happy. I was so angry, everyday, for so long, that I felt like if I didn’t do these things I was going to crack. I also felt like I had a free pass to do whatever the hell I wanted because God didn’t give a shit about me. How could a fair and just God allow these things to happen to me?
***
Another time after work on a Friday I drove to Norwood and partied with Kerry and some other guys and drank until I almost blacked out then I had Kerry drive me to a bus station an hour and a half away to catch the last bus to Boston. I got on the bus at two in the morning and listened to some Eminem on my iPod and wrote until I got there. I always had this strong connection with Boston. Both my parents were from Boston suburbs and we’d fly back from LA for Christmases. I don’t know what it was exactly I just always felt at home there. I got off the bus and had to make my way through the city to meet up with Fitz and Freddy. They had spent the night at a friend’s penthouse.
As I walked through the city I started to remember moments I’d had when I was younger. I remembered my childhood with my uncle Mark, my step-mother’s brother, who treated me like one of his own when we became part of their family. He would take us to water parks and go-cart tracks and spend so much time with us. I remembered my new uncle Jamie who played hours of video games with us and let us beat him even though we couldn’t and his wife who took us to countless New England Patriot games, tailgating; it was the reason I started playing football. I remembered my Aunt Pauline and her husband who worked on an ambulance and took us for rides and blew up latex gloves and put them over their faces and then taking us to buy Jaws for Nintendo. I remembered my Aunt Martha who took us to the space museum and the aquarium and to her pool to go swimming with the family afterwards. We had a cookout. I remembered my Aunt Cindy and her husband renting a house on Lake Winnipesauke and letting us ride jet skis and go tubing.
These memories were staples of my youth, things I went back to when I was having hard times. When things were falling apart for me at such a young age these people took me in. They looked out for me. It felt so good to be cared about. It felt so good to be loved. And now I had so much hatred for these people. I never wanted to talk to them again because my stubborn hurt labeled them disloyal. They were all traitors. I began to cry walking at six in the morning on the streets of Boston still drunk remembering these people.
When I got to the house where Fitz and Freddy were, I had a beer and two shots and the memories were gone. We went to the Chesney concert and drank all day in the parking lot and ate great food that our friend’s father cooked up on the grill. I got inside the concert and drank more and blacked out. When I came to, I was sitting in the nosebleed section behind the stage that was roped off, by myself missing my hat. I had no idea how I got there. There was a smudge on my brown leather shoes and I licked my finger and wiped it off; it was important to me that they were clean. I thought of my father and how sad he’d be to see me sitting there drunk. I was in a packed concert filled with screaming fans and friends; I never felt so alone.
***
The next weekend Vivi broke up with me. She said she couldn’t go out with someone she never saw. I couldn’t blame her but I couldn’t help but think that if I wasn’t trapped in Vermont because of my step-mother, it wouldn’t have happened. I was devastated. That night I convinced Hans to go out with me even though he told me repeatedly that it wasn’t good for me and I think he came because he was worried that if he didn’t something bad was going to happen. We went to a couple of bars and at the end of the night I was almost blackout, again. We walked into the parking garage on the third floor where we left the car. Hans was fumbling with the keys.
I grabbed the edge of the cold concrete wall and smelled the gasoline residue left on the cement barrier. I ran my hand across it and felt the bumps. I jumped up onto the edge standing free and looked down to the sidewalk thirty maybe forty feet. The clouds had cleared leaving only a couple of wisps’ to remind of the rain. This was a good night to go I thought and my breathing became heavy. I was filled with so much sadness and anger and I mumbled, "I have fallen too far. My life has become so unbearable I can’t get any air and I’m drowning. I’M FUCKING DROWNING!"
I picked one foot up and just as I was about to step off the ledge, Hans grabbed me and pulled me to ground. I’ll never forget the look he gave me. Horrified. I only returned a blank stare.
After that little escapade, you’d think I would have come to my senses. You’d think I’d wake up and try to fix things. I didn’t. Instead, I got this notion in my head that I was invincible; that I couldn’t die even if I wanted to. I challenged God. Kill me, if you can. I was delusional, full on crazy with a false belief I was supernatural.
***
I came home from work to an empty house that Wednesday. My dad had taken my brother to a lacrosse camp. I made myself a drink with my dinner and then had three more while relaxing on the couch watching some Seinfeld reruns; I loved that show so much. My dad called to check in and see how the dogs were doing and to see if I was okay. I told him I was fine; I could hear the anxiety in his voice. My father was a strong person, but the divorce had taken a huge toll on him. To see him emotionally fragile angered me. He was trying hard to be strong for us and show us the right way to process the events that had occurred. I could read through it though and could tell he was really upset. He hung up and ten minutes later my Aunt Cindy called. By this time I was already pretty drunk. I had been dehydrated throughout the work day and my body was weak. As I was on the phone something funny happened. I opened up to my aunt, vented for twenty minutes about my thoughts on the divorce and she listened. She didn’t have to, but she listened and responded kindly. I mean of course she would that was the type of person she was. Even though it felt good to relieve some of the pressure, as I hung up this huge feeling of embarrassment came over me. I felt soft and it killed me. I went into the kitchen had another drink. Then the room began to spin and I passed out.
A girl I had called earlier while I was making dinner, Cheth, came to the house not long after I collapsed. I knew Cheth from way back in the day and we always seemed to bump into each other at the oddest times. According to her, she knocked on the door a couple of times and obviously I didn’t answer because I was on the ground. Because the door was locked she walked across the lawn to the back door where she could see the kitchen and saw me down on the floor with my dogs licking my face trying to wake me up. She went around to the side of the house and found a window that was unlocked, climbed through it and called an ambulance. She said she tried to wake me up a number of times and felt for a pulse and there was nothing. The ambulance arrived and the paramedics scooped me up and drove to the hospital. She told me later that while driving to the hospital at one point they thought I was dead and they pumped on my chest a few times and then found a heartbeat.
You can imagine how surprised I was when I came to and was in a hospital bed. This goes to show you how nuts I had become. When I finally woke up and the doctor explained to me what had happened, I demanded to be released. My BAC was .25 and RISING. I became more aggressive and Cheth tried to calm me down but it was no use and I berated her for calling 911. I pulled the IV out of my arm and my hand and jumped off the bed with my ass hanging out, you know in one of those gowns, and blood started squirting everywhere. I don’t know where I thought I was going I didn’t have a ride or clothes. Two orderlies grabbed me and I wrestled with them for a few minutes until finally they got me back in the bed and strapped me down. I hated constraints; I had real anxiety about being held down.
"You think these fucking straps can hold me!" I yelled to everybody in the room, "Nothing can hold me down. I’m fucking invincible."
I closed my eyes with all the insanity I could muster and dislocated my right thumb, slipping my hand from the cloth wristband. They handcuffed me to the bed, hard, and I tried again. The metal cut into my skin and I gave up. Cheth walked back into the room and said she had my step-mother on the phone and I yelled, "SHE’S NOT MY FUCKING MOTHER!" loud enough so Anne could hear. She walked out and then back in and said she had my father on the phone and put it up to my ear so I could talk to him. I always wanted to talk to my dad, even if I knew I was in trouble. Whenever I got into some mess, I never cared what anybody thought, the school, some doctor, extended family, as long as my father still loved me I didn’t care. He got on and told me to calm down and just relax, that they were trying to help me. I told him I was fine repeatedly but he wasn’t budging and so I became angry and told him that if he didn’t tell them to let me go he wasn’t my father anymore. To this day I regret saying it because it must have hurt him badly. After a few more hours, when my BAC began to drop they sent me to the drunk tank in a holding cell. I’m not all that claustrophobic, but I hated being held against my will and I yelled and screamed for them to let me out. The officer told me that when my BAC came back down to 0, which was in ten hours, they would release me and so I began doing push-ups and sit-ups furiously. I worked out for five hours, drenched in salty sweat, and my BAC was 0. I can’t explain how it happened; I just know that the power of the mind is endless in both directions, good and bad. My anger and hatred were so strong it made me feel strong, like Darth Vader in Star Wars. The guards were baffled and let me go and Cheth had been waiting there for me the whole time. I hated her for what I thought she had caused, but I apologized to her for all the things I had said and she drove me home. She was great, always there for me with an unbiased helping hand. I never did, but I should have told her how much she meant to me. I should have said that without her friendship I wouldn’t be alive and that I’d always love her for being that person, regardless of what happened between us.
What amazes me about this incident is that I thought I was always loyal to my family, no matter what happened I always had my family’s back. Doing this though was the most disloyal thing I could have done. I created so much worry and anxiety and fear in them. It goes to show you how selfish I actually was. I didn’t think anybody else was hurting as bad as I was about the divorce and I wanted them to understand. I wanted them to see with their own eyes how it destroyed me.
***
My dad and brother came home and I didn’t even apologize to them about what had happened. I asked my brother all sorts of questions about the lacrosse camp, asked him if he had fun. My father tried to keep me relaxed, such a good dad. At dinner, after my brother was finished and had left to play video games downstairs, he tried to coyly strike up a conversation about what was going on with me. I was too aware though, especially in one on one dialog, and I danced around his prodding. I couldn’t get out of my own way. It was only a matter of time though. I was on a collision course and the impact would come sooner than I thought.
The Friday after the hospital incident I lied to my dad and told him I was going to see some friends in Norwood and not going to drink. I was actually going to Brattleboro to see Freddy and Fitz and the gang. I drove the two and a half hours in an hour and fifteen minutes and picked up some liquor and beers and was drinking a vodka slushy by the time I arrived. The neighbors had a hired a local band to play and we went over and listened to the concert for a couple of hour while the night closed in around us. I drank but felt shitty and I couldn’t drink enough to get rid of the feeling. It became more and more frustrating. We built a fire and ate some food. I think we had steak and corn. After dinner, I was barely conscious and I couldn’t stop thinking about my life.
Freddy was sitting to my right drinking a loaded Corona and strumming his guitar trying to figure out the chords to his next song. Fitz sat to my left spitting into a beer can with the top ripped off looking into the woods. I was in the middle with two beers, one in each cup holder of the lawn chair, glazed over and dead inside. Then as I looked through the fire to the other side of the pit and glowing people started to appear from nowhere, first one and then another and another. I knew I had either fallen asleep and crossed over into a dream world or I had lost it all together. So, I indulged.
I asked the people their names: Cameron Reece, Hunter Reece, Jasper, Levi, Alice, Sara, Jonny DeWare, Jason White, Courtney, Liam, Valerie, Adam Maize, Franklin Tidal, Jillian Maize, Alexia Walsh, Billy Blacken, Red Chambers, Jen Whethers, Preston Whethers, Dominic, Rasso, Silvia, Theodore, Sebastian. But as they said them I somehow already knew them. I told them they could join us and they said nothing back.
"We are here to help you," they said, "And we’re waiting."
I immediately ran to my car and got in. I heard the guys yelling my name to stop; I couldn’t. I thought about what Twink would say. I put the keys in the ignition and then the car in drive. I hit the gas pedal hard and the vehicle warning stuttered, but went forward. It begged me to stop; I wouldn’t. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I was tired of being the person I was.
I yelled aloud, "IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED? I’VE HAD ENOUGH! I’M FUCKING MISERABLE! I CAN’T TAKE IT! I CAN"T TAKE IT! I FUCKING GIVE UP!"
And then softly, "I give up."
I let go of the steering wheel heading straight into the woods at fifty miles an hour with no seat belt on and whispered, "God, please save me. Please." Bang!
Chapter Seven
I woke up.
You are the Problem.
And because you are the problem, you aren’t as happy as you wanted to be. You aren’t as successful as you wanted to be. You aren’t as popular, good looking, funny athletic, smart or as reasonable. But above all, you are not the person you wished you were.
You aren’t your mind’s ideals and the fear and shame attached to these shortcomings only gives you more reason to be embarrassed.
I came to this haunting reality the moment I regained consciousness hanging upside down in my father’s car with the steering wheel lodged in my chest. I was drunk and struggled to focus my vision. I could hear the wheels spinning, the windshield painted with spider webs and bent like a wave. The gold Buick LeSabre from the inside looked like an accordion. I was particularly upset with the destruction of the car because I had grown fond of it over the past year. I called it my Golden Chariot of Fire. At the moment it was a Golden Chariot of shit. That car rode so smooth too, like what I picture a hovercraft to feel like.
I looked around the car and was relieved when I didn’t find anybody else. I could see a telephone pole had split the front hood. I tried to move my body other than my neck and couldn’t. I was still drunk, so instead of having a good cry about maybe having snapped my spinal cord, all that came out was a nonchalant, "Ah fuck, I’m paralyzed."
A couple of moments later the sensation came back into my hands and then eventually into the rest of my body. I hurt all over and I checked my arms and legs for broken bones, none. I looked out the side window to see if anybody was there but couldn’t see anything because of the shattered glass. Next to the window was my unbuckled seat belt.
With my hands free, I touched my face and body to see if I was bleeding. There wasn’t any blood. I had just driven into the woods, with no seat belt on, going fast enough to flip my car, hit a telephone pole, and didn’t have a scratch on me. For a second I thought I was dead.
My thoughts stampeded into my conscious. Why am I alive? Why am I not dead? Why did I get in my car when I had planned to spend the night at their house? Why did this happen? None of those questions would ever get answered though because from that moment on none of those questions mattered.
The only question that mattered was, why did you drink so much?
Unfortunately, as my face began to fill with red, I was stuck. I tried to loosen myself from the steering column, but nothing I did made any difference. If I didn’t get out of this car I would die. Was I supposed to be aware of my own death or maybe I was supposed to be aware of my own helplessness? Where were my friends? How come I didn’t remember anything from before the crash?
The far door swung open and Fitz appeared. He looked at me and smiled when he saw I was alive. I smiled back to show him I was alright.
He reached for my shoulders to pull me out.
He said, "It’s time to go buddy".
Chapter Eight
August-One Minute Sober
"It’s time to go buddy," Fitz said from the side window.
He pulled me out of the car and I looked around confused. I couldn’t remember anything. My vision was blurred and I rubbed my eyes. Nothing came into focus and I rubbed them again and I could see a little better. The air was hot and I was sweating. The sound of metal caught my attention and I turned around to see my car destroyed.
"My dad is going to kill me," I said aloud.
I sat down on the side of the road. Fitz sat next to me wearing his only pair of torn jeans and a light long sleeved flannel trying to catch his breath; he had run after the car when he saw it drive away. He took his Red Sox hat off, which an old girlfriend had given him like seven years ago and whipped his brow. He sat and patted me on the back, no lecture, no yelling, just a pat on the back. I think he was relieved I was still alive.
The sky was a dark red color, covered with clouds and there was dirt on my brown shoes; I didn’t wipe it off. The tall green trees loomed over me, but didn’t rustle. Everything seemed quiet, no birds chirping or squirrels running. It was like nature was waiting to see what was going to happen. I could hear myself breathing and just as I closed my eyes a cruiser pulled up fast with flashing lights and a siren and skidded to a stop two feet in front of me. The neighbors had called the police. They were nice people living in a regular sized house, sort of the simple America I had come to love.
A police officer got out of his car and smiled at me which I thought was kind of weird but I didn’t say anything because I was too fucked up. He was a tall husky man with white hair maybe about forty years old. He stretched his arms up to the sky and then leaned over and touched his toes. After, he twisted his torso from side to side with his arms on his hips and laughed.
"You can never be too careful," he said to me, "You always wanna get a solid anaerobic stretch in after driving for a while, don’t want to pull anything.
He did some high knee touches and had a sort of all knowing cocky air to him. His badge read Sgt. John Henry Newman. He finished up with some calisthenics and then came over.
"This body," he rubbed his arms, "It’s getting old. I’m going to have to get a new one. Whoa, look at this car; you really did a number on this sucker. How you feeling?"
"Not good."
"Yeah I bet not good. This car is totaled. Look at you," he looked at me, "not a scratch. It still amazes me after all these years. You know with my job I see quite a few crashes a year, some just fender benders but also a lot of real bad ones, people ripped in half and such. But the guy who’s drunk is never hurt."
I shook my head to acknowledge his comment. He picked me up off the ground and I stumbled a little. I thanked him and he brushed me off. I was really surprised at how friendly he was for a policeman. Not that policemen aren’t friendly, but usually they aren’t helping you up and brushing you off.
He wrote down my information in his mini pad and then gave me a sobriety test which I didn’t pass obviously because I couldn’t even stand up. I put my hands behind my back and he laughed and told me to get in the front seat.
"The front seat?" I asked.
"Yeah, get in the front seat," he said.
I said goodbye to Fitz and had the funny feeling I wouldn’t be seeing him for a while. As we rode through the wooded streets Sgt. Newman and I had a talk. He told me about life and drinking and how I had to stop and how he had had a problem and then gotten some help and now his life was a miracle, everyday. I thought it was ironic that the policeman who had arrested me shared my same affliction, but I guess there are no accidents as many people seem to believe. I didn’t know if I believed in fate or "non-accidental" "accidental" run-ins. At this point, I didn’t really care if stuff happened for a reason. I just wanted the pain to stop. I wished to become another animal at the zoo; stripped of all dignity but never hurting. I told Sgt. Newman, in my drunkenness, that I appreciated his talk. I don’t think I sounded too convincing. He brought me to the station and went through the paperwork and a bunch of questions and then told me that he had to take me to jail because their holding cell was full and we rode the forty-five minutes in silence. I fell asleep.
When I woke up I was being admitted into the prison and I had my fingerprints and mug shot taken. I smiled in my mug shot and did a thumbs up sign. What an arrogant prick. Then the door of the cell slammed behind me. The cell was standard, toilet and bed. And that’s when reality set in and my brain went to work. I thought about my future, often I tried to envision my future. Where you might think these thoughts would be negative, in my mind I didn’t see them as that. In a weird way, I was excited for the adventure that I was going to go on. I knew that it wasn’t going to always be pleasant and I knew that it wasn’t going to be nice, but I knew it would be something different and something that would bring me to a higher realization of who I was as a person. I was excited for that. The thing in life that always got me the most irritable was this mundane sense of existence. I didn’t want to be plain and boring. I never understood how people did the same thing every day for years and years, waiting around for a vacation to experience something new. For the life of me I couldn’t understand it and a part of me wanted to be okay with it so that I didn’t have this monkey on my shoulder whispering tales of greatness in my ear. I wished I was okay with being regular, but I wasn’t. And, the anxiety that this greatness caused in me on a daily basis was unbearable. I would be brought to almost panic attacks when I thought of how far off the path I had fallen. But, the journey I was about to go on, the changes I would have to make would be a new and rewarding gift.
These were the thoughts I had in that moment and then the hangover set in and all this magical thinking about self and change vanished. The pain and worry set in and I was once again human and hurting.
Nine hours later they released me and I walked half a mile to the closest gas station and bought a soda and a sandwich, I think it was roast beef. Then I called Freddy on the pay phone because his number was the only number I could remember. Well, I knew my father’s number but I wasn’t going to make that phone call; I wasn’t sure if he had heard the news about the car and I didn’t want to have to tell him on a public phone hung-over with half a sandwich sticking out of my mouth. Freddy came with Fitz and they took me to a McDonald's to get some more food and just relax for a bit. They said my father had called and they explained to him what had happened. I asked if he sounded upset and they didn’t respond. That meant yes. They also said that he wanted me to call home so I used Freddy’s cell and called my house. My father picked up and said only this, "Get on the next bus to Burlington." Then he hung up. That was bad. When my father didn’t say anything I knew it was really bad. One time when I had gotten caught drinking at prep school, he drove four and a half hours to see one of my games. When he arrived I had to tell him what had happened with the drinking and he didn’t say a word; he turned around and walked back to his car and drove four and a half hours back home the same day. He didn’t even stay for the game. Not good.
After lunch we drove to the junk yard where they had towed my car and when I saw it I couldn’t believe that I had gotten out alive. The car was totaled. The worker there, a nice middle aged man with a little bit of a beer gut, pried my trunk open so that I could get my long-board out and some of my tools, which I later put in a duffel bag. Then Freddy and Fitz gave me forty dollars to get a bus ticket and they dropped me off at the station with a hug, a half a meat pie and a good luck.
I got on the bus and immediately fell asleep.
I had a dream of when I was younger. My dad and step-mom and brothers and I went to an L.A. Kings hockey game and sat about twelve rows up from the glass. It was my first professional hockey game. When we entered the arena I was awe struck. The infectious roar of the crowd when two players collided felt like a ghost was rubbing my neck. When a goal was scored it blew my mind. Gretzky had arrived in L.A. and so the rink was always sold out. I remembered it as one of the most fun times I ever had, you know laughing and watching the skaters and hoping someday that I would be able to play on that ice. We ate those good hot dogs with ketchup and pretzels and nachos and soda; soda was a real treat. Then after the game I pretended to fall asleep in the back seat of my dad’s brown Chevy just so that he would carry me into my bed and tuck me in. I didn’t hug my dad as often when I started getting older naturally and that two minute embrace from the car door to my room was so important to me. I knew he really loved me when he held me that tight.
I didn’t want to wake up because my real life had become a nightmare.
My head bounced off the bus window glass because of the holes in the road and woke me up. We were driving through the backwoods of Vermont on the highway about an hour and a half from my stop.
Let’s get poetic about home for a moment: The sweet smell of freshly laid manure pierced my nose flaring up my nostrils. The giant fields of endless corn crumbled under the rolling tractor tires only to leave the town ghosts screaming in emptiness. This was my hometown. A single passenger train forced to stop raced in and out of the town center once a day. My town was the only town in the whole United States where there were two different middle schools for four hundred kids because of a duel that took place a hundred and fifty years ago. It was the only town where there were, in fact more cows than there were residents. I knew everything there was to know about my best friend’s uncle’s cousin’s sister’s grandfather whose funeral I attended because his grandson was my third cousin’s best friend. We had one movie theatre, one supermarket, one post office, one McDonald's, and two gas stations. My house itself was built on the outskirts of town in the wide and weary woods where dark coated deer danced and honest ancient ancestors playfully pursued people to secretly summon and scare. Alliteration euch! It was eight miles and forty five minutes on a bike to town from my house and neither the cable guy nor the cement pavers could reach the road that connects to the road attached to my driveway. The local teen center, the only form of fun in town, was always empty because it was never cool to look like you had nothing else to do than hang out at the teen center. The local burger hub gave out free burgers to any member of the high school varsity football team on the day of a game. When I was younger my friends and I would light inanimate objects on fire and sled down neighboring mountains through fifty year old trees that don’t budge when you hit them going thirty miles an hour on an orange broken plastic sled in which your brother told you was fine and to stop being a baby about. My town was a wicked winter wonderland; the fat snow pocket was the perfect setting for a white Christmas or a fatal car crash. The town stories were shared by both grandfathers and grandsons. At the top of the central mountain was the most beautiful place in the world where pastels mated and gods created simple scenarios out of white puffy clouds. The local coffee house was stained with the smell of roasted fresh coffee beans and was cluttered with moms also stained but with the sound of roasted fresh gossip instead. The continuous cycle of local high school, local college, local blue collar job, local house, local wife, and local kids played over and over again in every household like an old record player scratching sounds of a magnificent noose known as Simplicity.
That’s poetic about home, just for a moment though.
I looked across the aisle of the bus and saw an older woman with long grey hair starring at me with a joyful awaiting expression on her face. I glanced around to see if maybe she was looking at something else, but her gaze was clearly fixed on me. She didn’t have luggage with her, not a handbag or a book or magazine or anything.
"Ah, yes?" I asked.
"Hello," she said.
"Umm hi."
"How are you?"
"I’m alright. Do I know you?" I was confused.
"Oh, no. My name is Edna."
"Well Edna, it sure is nice to meet you," I was being sarcastic.
"Are you new?"
"What do you mean am I new?"
"You have a nice glow about you," she smiled.
"Okay, well thank you, did you travel with somebody?" I figured she was lost or crazy and then she grabbed my arm tightly, surprising me.
She pulled me close and whispered, "Don’t worry, you’re spirit is strong."
I got up out of my seat fast and pulled my arm away. Edna turned forward smiling and seemed content. Shaken, I walked to the back and into the bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror. What is the human spirit? Some people say if you look in the mirror just a moment too long, your spirit will smile at you, a cracked aha smile. If you’ve ever seen this smile you realize you’re looking at something separate from what’s looking. But, you are your spirit, so it is you, the honest you, the You that’s fully confident and uninfluenced by the outside world. You are ultimately looking at the person you are supposed to become. I didn’t see that smile anymore and it scared me.
The bus pulled into the station at Burlington around eight o’clock at night and I began to walk home. It would be a three or four hour walk from Burlington to my house, but I didn’t have any alternative and I didn’t want to call my father because I didn’t think he would come get me. I was wearing long jeans and a t-shirt that were covered in dirt and sweat from the crash and its aftermath. I looked down at my brown leather shoes and smiled; they would never let me down and would keep my feet somewhat comfortable during the long trek. I put my duffel bag around my neck and tucked the long board under my arm and began. About a mile in, I decided that it was pointless to have the long board and not use it so I rode it until I came to a long uphill road that would lead me into South Burlington. I had walked about four miles when my cell phone rang and it was my father. He asked where I was and I told him and he told me to meet him at a store close by. The guy was so reliable; even still he would pick me up. I walked to the store and waited there until he pulled up.
Excruciating ride home! Anybody who has ever been in trouble and had to ride home with a parent will know what I am talking about. My dad said nothing and it killed me. The silence was beyond uncomfortable. Not soon enough, we arrived home and in the driveway my dad stopped and told me to get out. Then he told me to give him my cell phone, computer, skateboard, and wallet. I was stripped of all crucial material possessions. All the things I needed as a 22 year old socially intact person: taken. I walked downstairs to my basement room where Woody sat playing video games and he got up and gave me a big hug. My dad had told him what happened. He hugged me the tightest I think he had ever hugged me and he wouldn’t let go. I grabbed him around the shoulders and squeezed back. I had forgotten how much I loved my brother.
I whispered in his ear, "I’m never going leave you alright? I will always take care of you."
Then my father came down into the basement room and my brother knew to leave the two of us alone.
"What the fuck were you thinking?" he yelled.
"I’m sorry," I said with my head down like a dog that has done something wrong.
"You fucking selfish prick. You knew you had to be able to drive Woody around and now you won’t have your license for six months. What the fuck are we going to do? Did you ever think about that? You really fucked us this time. I can’t believe how selfish you are. You’re so fucking stupid. You fucked your brother over. You fucked me over, asshole."
"I’m sorry," was all I could say. With an old fashioned father, you didn’t dare say anything but I’m sorry.
"What the hell is your problem? Huh, why are you such a fuck-up? Tell me! Tell me why you continually shit all over this family again and again."
I didn’t say anything; I could feel myself beginning to crack.
He pushed, "Huh, you asshole, answer me!"
With tears in my eyes, I looked at him and yelled, "PAIN! I’m in so much fucking pain. Every day I wake up and I hate my life. You have no idea what it’s like to be me. You have no idea what it is like to carry the baggage I have to carry. I don’t know what to do; I don’t know how to get rid of it. I need help!"
He looked at me with deep sadness still breathing heavy. He couldn’t yell anymore. It’s hard to fight somebody who won’t fight back and I had given up. Then he walked up the stairs. I sat there on the couch and let myself cry out. The hot tears flowed down my face and off my cheek bones onto the ground. It felt good. About ten minutes later my dad came back down and I could tell he had cooled off, his body language was relaxed and he had a sort of ease in his step.
"We’re gonna get you some help, okay?" he said calmly.
"I’ll do whatever you want." I said between sobs, "You tell me to wear only blue jeans; I’ll wear only blue jeans. Just tell me what to do."
He walked over and grabbed me, hugging me hard, "You’re gonna be alright, okay bud. We’re gonna get through this thing, don’t worry."
I felt five years old. I felt safe again. I couldn’t speak.
***
The last week in August I was supposed to drive down to situate to go on a fishing trip with my uncle. Because I had ruined the car I figured it was cancelled, but my father felt it would be good for me to get away so he put me on a bus and I was off.
When I arrived in Boston, I met up with my cousin who worked there, he’s older. He had been sober 20 years from the age of 19 and he and I spoke on the drive to Duxbury about getting clean. He told me that it was going to be difficult but if I got through it, it would be worth it. To be honest I was still so fresh, I couldn’t really relate to anything he was saying. I knew it was important and I listened, I just had no frame of reference. We arrived and after a quick dinner I fell asleep.
The next morning, a soft hand grabbed my shoulder and shook it a little as I rolled over in the large queen bed.
"It’s time to get up, Sam," said my uncle.
I looked outside, it was still dark and the clock blinked five AM. My uncle wanted to take me fishing on his boat which always sounds like a great idea at the afternoon barbecue of the previous day, but when it comes time, very few are dedicated enough to get up early. As for me, four days sober and the shitty attitude to go with it, I hadn’t seen the morning side of five AM other than work, in years.
When it came to dedication, my uncle made Jesus look like an ex-con volunteering at a food shelter trying to wheel the director for double the community service hours. I’ll probably go to hell for that, oh yeah, one way ticket first class to the ol’ burn palace.
Let’s get some logistics out of the way. The cousins called him Uncle Henry but to me he was the Inkman. He owned a bunch of newspapers along the south shore. Short and stocky, he played football in high school and college. He fought in a war where he had saved a dying man’s life. Uncle Henry’s life story would be an F. Scott Fitzgerald epic tale of a man flawed by adversity’s gentle love; it would be a tale of a man devouring his fate, carcass and all in humble yet elegant fashion. New York Times best seller, for sure.
I got out of bed slowly. I felt like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, my joints needed some oil. I had been sober only four days and my body was readjusting to life without alcohol. I put on some clothes from the duffel bag I brought and laced my boots up. My uncle smiled at me as I closed the door of the guest room and asked if I was ready. I nodded unconvincingly and we were off.
Situate Harbor in the morning when the sun comes up is beautiful and a part of me wishes I could go back and fully enjoy it. We carried our supplies to the fishing boat already in the water and I sat in the back with my hood over my head while my uncle untied the boat and drove us out into the ocean. The cold dew on my face made me shiver. I appreciated Uncle Henry taking me, I really did, but fishing was not my kind of fun. I think in my whole life I had been a hundred times and caught maybe two fish.
The goal of the trip was to catch something big enough to bring back home and eat later in the day. I wasn’t sure of the specific number I just knew that it had to be a pretty big fish. I baited my line, plunked it in, and waited sourly figuring it would be a long day of worm toss. A couple of hours went by and I was getting restless.
"Ah, Uncle Henry, do you mind if I have a dip of chewing tobacco?" I asked cautiously because I wasn’t sure if he knew and it wasn’t really a favorable habit among some adults.
"Haha, yeah go right ahead," he grinned, "I won’t tell."
It put me at ease. Uncle Henry always had a way of doing that. When we were at family functions and it was getting hectic with people running around trying to do stuff, one five minute convo with him and the world came back into a realistic focus.
The day went on with little success and we talked about the lighter side of nothings. Uncle Henry pulled out the cooler as I let the lines soak. He handed me a sandwich and sat down across from me with his own.
"How’s the sober thing going?" he asked nonchalantly.
Ah, the sober thing. My father had kept my step-mother informed of my recent miss-happenings in all his perfect responsible glory and she in turn relayed to the family. The sober thing was like this. I absolutely knew I couldn’t drink anymore; that was pretty evident. I had passed out and died, kind of tried to commit suicide, and been in an accident so bad it cut my car in half. I didn’t really have a choice. If I kept drinking, I was going to die, that’s it. I used up all my extra lives. The problem I wrestled with was not the whether I was going to drink, but how was I going to get through my life with alcohol out of the picture. See, alcohol was my safety net. I used it to mend the pain. The issues I had didn’t go away just because I stopped drinking. In fact, they were only more prominent. What was I going to do without my crutch? What was I going to do now?
"How’s the sober thing going," I repeated, "Well, I’ve only been sober about four days, so I’m not really sure. Okay, I guess."
"You don’t know how to heal your wounds without a band aid, do you?" he said.
"No, I don’t."
"I’ll let you in on a little secret," he smiled, "Don’t look back."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"You, like me, don’t have the shiniest of pasts. We have been though our share of bad memories and even worse misfortunes. But, we are here. The most powerful showing of life’s greatness is in fact that you are standing here today. You are still alive. The secret, the key to it all, is to never look back. In reality, none of the crap you’ve been though exists anymore. It happened and it’s gone. When you let it affect the future, you give it life. The only thing that matters is now. And now, you are sober; begin again."
The lights got turned on! It all made sense again. Uncle Henry, in just minutes, gave me hope. Like a prophet to a lost traveler, he reset my broken compass back to north. I felt almost overwhelmed and I choked back tears. To be given such an influential gift, when needed so badly made me weak with gratitude and my whispered "thank you" was all I could get out.
Seconds later one of the fishing lines went tight and after a twenty minute battle we pulled in one of the biggest fish I had ever seen up close. The sequence of events seemed unreal and purposeful at the same time.
I left Situate two days later. I could use a tool I previously couldn’t. My uncle taught me how.
***
I got back to Vermont and my dad told me I wasn’t going back to college. He wanted me to take the year off to get sober and there really wasn’t a way for me to live at home and go to school without a car or license. I wasn’t happy about it, but let’s be honest, it didn’t matter how I felt.
I began riding my bike to this AA meeting that started at noon. I rode down my street then onto Cyrprian Street past Potter’s Field and then another four miles to this little white church on Paul Street. My father gave me back my computer to write on and then a couple of days later my IPod. I always rocked the IPod for the bike ride. It made it easier to ride the giant hills with a little Eminem.
At the meetings I always sat in the back and said nothing, well I said my name, but that’s it. My first impression was that there were a lot of old people. I listened to stories I understood, but most of the people had gotten sober as adults in their late thirties and forties. I started to wonder how the meetings were going to help me. I was attending them although I didn’t feel any different.
Then one day it changed. The meeting got out and I unlocked my bike, pulled my head phones out of my backpack and searched a play list. A car pulled up next to me and stopped.
"Yo, let me give you a ride," a kid about my age yelled from the driver side. I had recognized him from the meeting because he was like the only other kid my age there.
"I’m all set, thanks," I said back.
"Just get in the car," he smiled.
To this day I don’t know why I got in. I wasn’t at AA to make friends, but the looming frustration I was beginning to feel needed some sort of answer. I put my bike in the truck and hopped in.
"I’m Georges," he stuck his hand out.
"I’m Sam. Thank you for the ride."
"No problem."
We began driving.
"So," said Georges, "How do you like it so far?"
"Ah, I don’t know. It’s alright I guess."
"You haven’t said two words in the meetings."
"Yeah."
"Well, do you have the awareness to admit you have a problem? Or has your pride not taken a big enough beating."
"I got a big problem," I smiled.
He laughed, "You’re on your way then."
Chapter Eight
September-Eleven Days Sober
Georges was a tall kid and bigger maybe 220 or 230lbs. He had short well groomed brown hair and even though he stood as big a black bear he had a jolly face and friendly smile.
"You hungry?" he asked me.
We stopped at a Subway to get a sandwich. I of course got the standard BMT sandwich, classic, and Georges got the Steak and Cheese, very respectful. We sat down and I knew he had a slew of questions ready to go; I could see it on his face, but he held back because he didn’t want to come on too strong. Probably because most young people don’t want to be sober and berating them with questions and rules usually is too much of a burden to care about.
"So why you going to meetings, court ordered?" Georges started.
I laughed, "Might as well be, I totaled my dad’s car and now he is making me go."
"What do you mean he is making you go?"
"He pulled me out of college and said I had to get sober."
"Yeah, but you just agreed to go? You could have said no."
"Not really, I rely on him for support. I would have nothing."
"Yes, but you still choose to obey what he said."
"Well yes, I don’t want to be out on the street with nothing."
"You made the choice to get sober because deep down inside you know you have a problem."
I furrowed my brow, "What does it matter why I go? Whether it’s because I don’t want nothing or I know I have a problem, it doesn’t matter. I still have to go."
"This isn’t easy, getting sober. And at times it can be extremely difficult. The difference between the two in actuality means nothing. You’re right, either way you are not drinking and you are trying to become a better you. The thing is, is that when you’re back’s against the wall and the shits crumbling all around you and the drink is pressed up against your lips, the difference is what keeps the alcohol in the bottle."
I nodded.
He kept going, "You can shit all over this program and the people in it, but a lot of them in that room have been sober over twenty years and alcohol might not even be the number one problem in their life, but at least it’s no longer a problem."
"What about the whole God thing?" I asked because the last thing I wanted to get into was some cultish people demanding me to follow their rules.
"What about it?"
"There’s a lot of talk in the rooms about higher power and such."
"You are going to find a lot of God talk and religious beliefs in this program. And yes, at times it can be a little much, but really the program is trying to teach you one thing: that you aren’t the deciding factor in life that out there in the world there is a greater force than yourself."
We finished our sandwiches and Georges drove me home. When we got to my house my father was outside gassing up the lawnmowers for a cut. He came over and met Georges and shook his hand and had a little convo. My dad was great with people; probably where I got my people skills from. He would meet somebody out of the blue for the first time and within ten minutes know like everything there is to know about the person and they would love him back. He always had this way of talking that made the other person feel as if they had known him all their life and was like this long lost friend. After they talked, Georges left and my dad and I were left there in the front yard, mowers and gas still out. He looked at me and smiled.
"What?" I said.
"Met somebody your own age in the program, must be nice?"
"Ya, Georges is a nice kid."
And that was that; we grabbed our mowers, started them up and mowed away. Cutting the grass at my house was like a right of passage and more like a ritual. When we were younger my father taught us how to properly mow a lawn and we always hated it, but to me I actually didn’t mind it all that much. I was good at it, not like mowing is something to be particularly proud of. It allowed me to think, clear my head and became more of a meditation I guess really.
On this mow, I thought about religion. I had always had this torrid affair with God. I think I believed in A God simply because I was brought up that way from a young age. People believe or not believe based on a lot of different factors in their life. I always thought that believing was good for the soul. It was an outlet that only belonged to you and this universal power where you could unload your garbage; it was the only thing in life that truly belonged to you. Who really knows what comes after life, I mean we are all guessing, and I think that’s the point of religion. If we were supposed to know, we would. The act of believing in something you have no proof of simply humbles you as a person.
And that was the point I think Georges was trying to make. Whether or not you believe in one god or another, just believing in something and having a relationship with that something ironically makes you more human and compassionate, two things I had none of. At my age being religious wasn’t cool, we always made fun of kids who were super religious or tried to preach to others. I think it’s because we always had this mind set like who the fuck are you to tell somebody else what to believe. It was more of spite against authority than religion. If I was being honest though, it feels good to believe in something; it feels good to believe that there is somebody there watching you and protecting you from harm. That’s why my relationship with the God I believed in was so terrible. My whole life I felt slighted by God; I felt like he wasn’t watching me or taking care of me because all these bad things over the years had happened and I couldn’t get my mind beyond the fact that it was so unfair. I desperately wanted to feel loved by God and around every corner all I could see was shit. I realized that at least fifty percent of that was the glass half empty, but the other fifty was I had been through a lot of stuff.
I always challenged my faith. One minute I would believe and the next minute I would question the existence and I think that’s part of being human. If I was going to get any better though, I needed to fix that relationship. I needed to practice believing again and for no other reason than believing made me feel good. To know that you had the power of the universe at your back whether it was real or not gave me strength. I am not saying that to be sober I had to be religious; there are many sober people out there that believe in all sorts of things. But the underlying fact was that religion was already a part of my life just like any other part, and just like any other part, it was broken and needed to be fixed.
***
The next day Georges and I sat on the steps of the church waiting for another meeting to begin.
"So what are you main issues?" he asked me.
I laughed, "There’s too many to list."
"Right! I mean with the program though."
"I guess I don’t really have any issues with the program exactly, I just have issues with life, that kinda pertain to the program."
"Like what?"
"Well for starters, I’m only twenty-two and now it’s like I can never have fun again or party the way I used to. I used up all of my partying lifetime and now it’s over and that sucks."
"Who said you couldn’t party sober?"
I looked at him and smiled, "Sober partying is gay. People our age go out, get shit hammered, and have a great time. There is no arguing that."
"Yes it is true that drinking makes you loose, makes it easier to hook up with chicks, and be an awesome rockstar. But it’s more like this: if you liked taking rat poison and people loved you for it and you were the king of parties because you could take more rat poison than anybody else, and then a doctor comes by and says listen, rat poison might not kill those other guys, but its gonna kill you. You would probably stop taking the poison."
"No, like I get it I can’t drink anymore or I’ll probably die; I’m just saying that it bums me out that I can’t be a part of that life anymore."
"But see, if being the biggest party animal was the only reason you were cool, then how cool were you really?"
"Pushing the limits further than anybody around me made me cool. I was cool because I wasn’t afraid to go where other people wouldn’t dare."
"Ah," he laughed, "lack of fear made you cool. You were the toughest!"
"Believe it." I stated.
"You know the thing about toughness and essentially ego, is that it’s always gonna compare you to everything out here, external shit. Yes, you are a tough kid, I can see that, but somewhere out there, there is somebody who is bigger, stronger, tougher, will drink more, drug more, fight harder, fight longer, better looking, smarter. Being the toughest or coolest is the greatest illusion out there because eventually you’ll get old and die and all the toughness and coolness mean fuck all in the grave. There is always somebody better and if not now in this moment, then soon in the future there will be and there is nothing you can do about that and how silly is it that we always try to compare ourselves to the thing that is ever changing and never willing to give up that top spot. The only real thing to compare yourself to is yourself the day before and not because it’s some stupid fucking cliche that parents tell their kids who aren’t good at anything, but because it’s the only true way to see if you are better. You were the big shit king taco last month, now you see yourself as the weak guy who can’t do anything and people think is a idiot and a fuck up."
"Exactly!"
"I say you were a popular kid who drank too much because it’s cool and because you were hurting and now you’re the guy who doesn’t want to hurt anymore and taking the steps to eliminate future problems."
"Then why does being sober make me feel like such a loser?"
"Nobody tells you as a kid that going from a boy to man is the shittiest thing in the world. When you’re young, it’s all about being the best, best in the group, most popular; those are the things that matter. When you get released from school and pumped into the real world, it’s not about being the best; it’s all about being better than before. Being a man means crushing your demons, not crushing beer or tail."
I understood what Georges was telling me and it made sense. That’s the thing about true statements; no matter how much you don’t want to hear it or don’t want to believe that it’s true, when you hear the truth you know it’s real. I always wanted everybody around me to love me. When I was younger and had gone through some shit with my biological mother not caring for me and calling me a liar, I felt discarded. I felt unwanted, unloved. And to over compensate for that lack of affection, I tried to make everybody around me love me as much as possible. I wanted to be undeniable. Sports, popularity, coolness, it was all to make people love me. I couldn’t face the reality that I thought my mother didn’t love me. It was too hard. At some point I guess we all have to grow up. I didn’t want to grow up. For all my strength and power and metal fortitude, I was still too weak to reach the next maturity plateau, I was still drunk on the popularity of my youth. And that drunken popularity gave me the strength to feel self worth in the face of feeling worthless every day. I didn’t want to let that go.
After the meeting, I rode home on my bike. Some people were in my drive way with my father and I walked past them and down into my basement room to read. Ten minutes later my dad came down and told me that they were going to be putting new roofing on the house and that he cut a deal with the contractor to let me work with his guys because I had done it before and then the contractor would give my father a discount. Obviously, I didn’t object considering I was about thirty G’s in the hole after crashing his car. Roofing sucked. It was hard manual labor in the hot sun and was never fun for anybody.
The next morning my dad woke me up early and I took a quick shower and had some breakfast. My dad and brother ate with me and then my father went into his room and brought out a box. He handed it to me and I opened it confused to find a brand new pair of Timberland boots, light tanned and felt. I ran my hands over them and asked him what they were for. He said that it was a birthday gift as my birthday was in two days, but my father and brother were leaving in a few minutes to go to a hockey tournament in Canada and they wouldn’t be home to celebrate. He said I could use them when I was helping the roofers. I thanked him and he gave me a hug. They packed up the car and took off and I was left there alone with the two dogs and my boots waiting for the roofing company to come.
***
I got along great with the roofing guys. I expected to though; I had worked on many construction crews and fit right in. We scrapped away most of the shingles in two day and that night once the crew left, I walked around the outside of the house raking the lawn for any loose material or nails so they didn’t jam up the mowers. It was my birthday. I had never spent a birthday alone before. I don’t recommend it either.
I sat down on the porch and put the rake down by my side; I let the dogs out to run around a little bit in the yard. Our yard was huge, I think all together we had about 13 acres with about 4 of those acres being lawn and the others wooded areas. We had an in-ground pool slightly raised off to one side next to our garage, a few big oak trees sprinkled here and there. It was really quiet at my house away from the dirt road; the silence bugged me. Growing up our home was always filled with kids or people. We always had a few people staying with us or some of Woody’s friends, who needed to be away from their homes. Countless barbecue's, and pool parties, and whiffle ball tournies always happened at our house. Now it seemed empty, like an unused ghost town shell of a western. I was waiting for the tumbleweed to roll by. Anne left and took all her stuff and all that was left was me, Woody and my dad. It made me really sad to think about. I hated being alone; I always wanted to be surrounded by people. I missed my friends.
I hopped up and put the dogs back in the house. Then I grabbed my bike and made it like a pseudo mission to stop feeling sorry for myself and ride to the grocery store to get myself a cake. I was twenty three and riding my bicycle to buy my own cake, fucking shameless.
I rode the six miles to the grocery store and locked up my bike; I don’t know why I ever bothered to lock up that bike it wasn’t very nice and nobody in Vermont was really a big bike stealer. As I walked into the store, that cool breeze hit my face and felt good against the sweat. I immediately scanned the layout and saw like four people I knew, so I rushed to one corner and figured out a game plan to not run into them. I was ashamed of how far I’d fallen and trying to lie and explain to people the scenario was like torture. Once I reached the bakery, I scooped up the first vanilla cake I saw and rushed to the checkout, paid, and exited clean like Clooney. Successful mission, check. I jumped back on my bike.
"Sam?" came a voice from behind me. I already knew who it was before I turned around. It was Anne. Of course! Of course, I’d pull off one of the greatest non confrontational cake heists of all time and then get caught by the warden.
I turned my head, "Yeah."
"It is way too dark outside to be riding home in the pitch black on a dirt road," she squeaked out.
"Fuck off," I said.
"I know you hate me, but at least let me give you a ride home so you’re safe," she said looking sad.
"You’re a fucking dial tone, buddy. Screw."
"That bag is huge; you’re never going to be able to ride with that. Is that a cake…it’s your birthday."
I got upset, "You listen to me very carefully, if I see you again, you better walk the other way. That’s a fucking promise."
I peddled down the bumpy dirt road in the darkness, steaming. I could feel the cake smacking against the walls of its container, hitting my leg and front wheel. By the last mile I was so tired from peddling so hard and being angry I got off the bike and walked through the animal sounds echoing forming a canopy-like ceiling over the forest road. I reached the house and threw the bike in the yard. Then I went inside and grabbed a fork and sat on the porch again with the dogs.
I pulled the cake out of the bag and it was ruined. Frosting everywhere, the cake broken into pieces, I popped the cover off.
I sat in the darkness eating cake with a little fat dachshund and an overly mothering black lab, just trying to enjoy a moment.
I had a long way to go.
Chapter Nine
October – One Month, Eleven Days Sober
That year my brother played Junior hockey for a local team and my dad was good friends with Woody’s coach considering my dad’s college recruited a lot of guys from that team. The coach asked my dad if we could be a host family and he gladly agreed. A host family or Billet house as we hockey players call it, is where a kid from another state comes and lives with your family while he plays hockey for the team in your area. It’s pretty standard for Junior hockey.
Our Billet brother was Benny Vaughn. Benny was seventeen, tall and lanky and from Florida. He came from a thick Italian family; his mother and father owned a home window instillation company. They were good people. Benny fit right in with Woody and I, his sense of humor was the same even though at times he could be a little girly. Most hockey players get along with other hockey players as people. The whole situation worked out well because Benny had a car and when my father would be away doing his job, I’d always ride with Woody and Benny to their games and practices. I didn’t mind all that much because I got to watch my brother play and I loved that.
Georges came with me to one of the games and we talked about stuff and ate snack bar food.
"Did you get a sponsor yet?" Georges asked. A sponsor was someone in the group that helped you with the program and answered questions and pushed you to get better.
"Na, not yet. I kinda got a problem with people telling me what to do."
"No shit?" he laughed hysterically.
"Ya, I probably should."
"If you don’t commit to getting better, you’re only going to get worse."
"See! This is why I don’t want to. I don’t want to get berated by someone about getting better all the time."
"I get it; you don’t wanna be told what to do. I’m the same way. But look at it like this: when you’re ten years old and your dad shows you how to do something like homework, you don’t like it, but you do it because you know you want to get smarter. It’s the same thing, you don’t want someone to push you in sobriety, but you know if you do the work it’ll make you better in the end."
I thought about it for a period. I never liked people telling me what to do, I hated it; I mean I don't think anybody likes being bossed around sober or not, but young people with authority issues really don't like it. If I got a sponsor and had to begin working on the program, in a sense I’d be giving up control. I’d have to open up and share and talk about personal stuff that not one of my four or five therapist could get out of me. I guess for lack of a better term it would be a leap of faith. The garbage in my trash had been there for years and by now was rotten, smelly and filled with maggots and I didn’t want somebody over my shoulder telling me to go clean it up all the time. I wanted to get better though, so badly. I wanted to put my life back on track. And really the deciding factor was that I didn’t want to feel shitty anymore.
I leaned over to Georges, "Can you be my sponsor?"
"You want me to be your sponsor?"
"Come on man don’t make it weird," I chuckled, "Can you just do it?"
"Ya, I can be your sponsor, but I’m gonna bust your ass."
"I just don’t trust anybody."
His eyes lit up, "Oh, I’m making a mental note of that one, YUP, we are coming back to trust issues for sure, hard core."
"Fuck you," I laughed.
"You going to the meeting tomorrow, there’s somebody I want you to meet."
The next day Georges introduced me to his sponsor. Big bad Walfred Strabo pulled up in his big Lexus and glided out of it like a nineteen seventies out of work porn star. He was tall and skinny with a beer belly, maybe fifty-five or sixty years old. He worked the parking lot like McConaughey in Dazed and Confused. Knew everybody, talked to everybody, and they all loved him. With all this worry about being cool in sobriety, this guy had a doctorate. He walked over to us.
"Heyo, what’s up Georgy, who’s the newb?"
"I’m Sam," I said before George could answer.
"You got that fresh look in your eye."
Georges shot right back at him, "You were probably held up in your place with a bunch of Canadian hook-jobs getting smashed doing blow right now."
Walfred leaned over, "The hookers were American."
And that moment is when I finally felt like I belonged somewhere. These guys took something that was so serious and totally flipped it on its head. They were very serious about staying sober, but not afraid to keep it light and fuck around.
"Georgy is your sponsor?" Walfred asked me.
"Yeah."
"Well you listen to him and you’ll be alright. I use the phrase ‘alright’ because even after five years the kid can’t learn how to use a fucking cell phone right."
"Hey, listen up old man, I called you like ten times. It’s not my fault you were born using the pigeon messenger," Georges laughed.
Walfred grabbed me around the shoulder and started walking into the building, "He’s lying; he’s gonna have to make amends for that the next time he does his moral inventory."
Georges walked behind us, "I’m not, you are. I’m not making amends."
After the meeting the three of us went to this small dinner a couple of blocks away in town. We ordered our food and gave the waitress wearing long black pants and an apron our menus. Walfred sat across from me and I could see him staring at my hands.
"Your mitts are pretty beaten up huh?" he asked me.
"Yeah, they've taken their fair share of damage."
"You think you'll stay sober?"
"Jesus, Wally, the kid just got in," Georges defended me.
I didn't hesitate because Walfred was interesting and I wanted to know all the stuff he knew, "I don't know if I'll stay sober, I just want my life to be better."
"Ah, see that's good motivation," nodded Walfred, "most people 35 and under get put into the program and struggle because they don't really want to be there or even be sober. They need to be convinced because the ego has too much control. I always laugh when people bitch about having to go to meetings. If you don't have a problem, then why would you be mad about spending an hour every other day listening to other people air out their problems?"
"My dad makes me go everyday," I smirked. Walfred and Georges broke out in laughter.
Walfred nudged my hand, "That's good. You HAVE to have a sense of humor about your problem. Make jokes about it, poke fun at it. Being an alcoholic or a drug addict is not the end of the world like most people think. If you let the problem control you, then it can kill you. Joke about it, but always remain diligent so you don't get to that place where it becomes life or death."
Hearing what Walfred was saying somehow changed my entire perspective about the problems I was facing. I had allowed my issues to grow so large that my drinking took me to a place of despair. I did think it was the end of the world. I had caused some major damage and getting better felt like a task so big I didn't even bother trying to fix it. But this, this made me feel like being sober was manageable, even for me.
After lunch with the guys I decided to ride my bike home. I wanted to think a little and riding eight miles through the woods was the best remedy. I rode through town and stopped at the gas station to get a chew. About halfway home on a long stretch of road between two corn fields, I saw a creature the size of two footballs slowly moving itself like the chicken. Once I got closer, I could see that it was a large turtle with a big snapper. Currently this turtle had made it about one third the way across the street, so I made up my mind to grab the animal and give it a free lift to the other side.
I stopped in front of it and knelt down so it could see me and my face, then I went around behind it because my father had been bitten by a turtle once half the size of this one when it was on our property and it just about took his finger clean off and I wasn't looking to be sober and missing a digit. I grabbed the shell on either side for a second to see if the turtles neck could reach my hand placement. It tried to bite me, but fell short, so confidently I picked up the thirty pound rock.
I had it about waist level when he started wiggling in my arms feverishly like a new puppy. His limbs grabbed and scratched my arms and I struggled to hold on. I started yelling openly at the turtle by this point, "Why are you fighting me? I'm trying to help you!"
And the moment I finished the sentence I had an epiphany. Here I was trying to help this turtle and because he didn't understand what was going on, was trying to fight me tooth and nail. Some higher power was trying to help me, and just like the turtle, because I didn't understand, I was questioning every detail of sobriety. The metaphor seemed so true to my own life, I began laughing.
I got the turtle to the other side, no thanks to him, and rode home.
***
Later in the month my father pulled me aside and said it was time for me to get a job. We argued about it, not because I didn't want to work, but because I was pretty sure there wasn't an employer around who would hire a person with a record or somebody who was drenched in sweat after riding to work on a bike. I wasn't going to be able to drive until November 20th according to the court judge who delivered my punishment. I had made out though because I was supposed to lose my license for six months, but due to my father, I pleaded guilty right away and told the judge about what was going on and he showed me mercy with a reduced suspension.
The first place I looked was the local supermarket. It was weird. I walked in and after talking to the manager for five minutes, he offered me a job as a stock boy from 9PM to 6AM. I took it and my father was happy.
Let me tell you all you need to know about third shift: It's fucking brutal. I would bike to work around eight at night stock for nine hours and then ride home and sleep from seven in the morning to eleven in the morning, wake up and bike back down to the meeting at noon and then bike back afterwards. By Saturday morning I was basically hallucinating for lack of sleep considering that seven to eleven in the morning was not my usual sleep cycle. That Saturday, to my surprise my father pulled up as I was about to bike out of the parking lot and offered me a ride. On the way home, he told me I could look for another job because he could see the toll it was taking on my body. That was the best thing about my father he would push me and push me until the moment I was about to break and then at the last second take his foot off the gas so I wouldn't go over the edge or freak out. He knew the line his son had, but also knew that I could take a considerable amount of punishment before I cracked. Many times we would get into arguments over silly things because I didn't think it was fair for him to push me so hard just because I was able to take the mental anguish. Just because I was good at compartmentalizing the problems in my life didn't mean that he had to push me to that standard every time. Although, some people would tell you that's how you become great. By somebody taking the time to invest in you and bring you to the edge over and over again. Naturally, the conversation between my father and I ended with him telling me to find another job.
The next day I biked down to tell the manager of the grocery store that I would no longer be a midnight vampire when a sign caught my eye. A Polo outlet store was hiring new employees and for some reason I don't know why because I knew they wouldn't hire me, I just went in to fill out an application anyway. The man who greeted me at the door was the assistant manager named Haymo Halbert. Haymo was a bigger guy probably around thirty with a bit of a gut and slightly balding. His smile reminded me of a court jester and his loud friendly personality only enhanced his natural comedy. He was gay, but who cared, it didn't matter.
"Hi, I'm Haymo, if you need any help don't be afraid to ask."
I laughed, "I'm Sam. I was just coming in to check on the job availability."
"Oh, yes, oh, yes, let me go get the manager Lyon," he kept talking as he walked away, "You would be a good fit, here. We need more manly men."
I laughed again. Haymo was something of an anomaly. It wasn't easy being gay in Vermont, contrary to popular belief. Vermont was one of the first states that allowed civil unions, but there was a good size group of people in Vermont who weren't ready for it and still made it very hard for openly gay men. I'm not saying everybody in Vermont was like that, although it would be a shame not to validate the struggle Haymo definitely had experienced. He didn't care he was gay; he didn't jam it down your throat or hide it in the dark. He was who he was; a person. And the timing of the meeting only made the encounter that much more impressionable. Here I was hiding this issue I had with drugs and alcohol because I was embarrassed and ashamed, even though being a druggy and an alchy didn't have near the social stipulation that came with being gay. Haymo reminded me that true strength over fear came only when you stuck the whole hat in the ring, not just half. I think that was the moment I decided to really embrace the struggle, still lost in the woods, though now with a lantern. I met with Lyon, told him the whole truth about my record and problem as if it were a shiny new badge. I got the job.
That night I had to ride down with Benny and Woody to Norwood because they had a practice down there and while they were on the ice I went to my old house I was supposed to live in with the boys. It made me sad to stand there on the lawn in the dark. The boys were away at a hockey tournament which meant my father was away too. It had only been two months since I had been there and yet it seemed like forever. I really missed having the guys around me. They were always my source of strength and being isolated from them was like a punishment. I walked into the back door leading into the kitchen and opened the fridge. In front of me stood thirty cold ones and three handles. I starred at them for five minutes. I could drink one beer or drink five or six shots and nobody would know. I could have totally gotten away with it. To be perfectly honest, I don't know why I didn't take a drink, but I shut the door. Any other moment in my life, the outcome could have been different. I was on a path now. I wanted to give it a whirl.
***
I think the hardest thing for me was accepting the realities in my life and the choices I had made. I hate that I made bad choices. I felt like such an idiot trying to defend the things in my life. I hated that I could never forgive. I wished I was able to forgive the people that had pushed me in the corners and forced me to face hardships. I always felt like number two, which is why I fought so hard to be number one. I didn't know how to let go. But, I had to. I had to forgive, all of them and myself. To be free, I had to forgive. To be fearless, I had to. So, I choose to forgive.
The battles I would face would still be hard. I would still struggle, rise and fall like any other life. The exam only ends when you die. Change on any level is always a constant, as stupid as it sounds.
But, we must always evolve, sober or not, try to do things right; try to make the right choices, and always double back to clean up any messes.
The End
3rd try!
ReplyDelete"Sober partying is gay. People our age go out, get shit hammered, and have a great time. There is no arguing that."
I can argue with that and I don't need to go far to prove it... In his twenties, your father was perhaps one of the greatest party animal ever! He never drank nor did any drugs. He was always the life of the party and the leader of the pack. He went out every night, whatever town or city he was in and would shame any of his friends who wouldn't go out. No one could keep up with him. He had a great time and yes, HE WAS COOL!
Love love love this entire story and the writing is brilliant :)
ReplyDeleteElaine