by Alan Semrow.
The day I got here, I met with the head counselor, Ursula, and she told me that I was about to dive head first into the hardest thing I will ever have to do in my life. She said, “This is a community and we are here for you, Marshall. You just need to accept us. You need to let me in. You need to let everyone in.”
I replied, “Ok.” And I did so, because it was the only thing I could really say. I was stoned out of my mind on heroin.
It all started when my girlfriend, Diane, and I started using when we were eighteen. It began as innocently as using heroin could. We would smoke it on a piece of tin foil, using a little plastic straw. It wasn’t too much and it wasn’t too little. It was always perfect and it made me feel like nothing was wrong, like nothing had happened and nothing could happen. Diane always assured me we’d be alright, as long as we stuck together and were smart. We agreed never to shoot it.
Within a year, we were shooting and, two weeks ago, a day after Diane left me, I came very close to overdosing, parked right off Sunset Boulevard, staring into the sun, waiting for God or whoever to take me. Some passerby found me. I remember being ready, but they found me, which I think is strange because L.A. is full of assholes.
I checked myself into rehab after the hospital released me. After my initial consultation with Ursula, she showed me my room. It looked like a hotel room. A nice hotel room. A nice hotel room, within a nice hotel. They really did it up. Tan everything. Palm tree this, palm tree that. Marble. Lots of marble and cherry wood furniture.
In my room, I had nothing. My bags were in the midst of being checked for contraband. They told me I couldn’t bring my compact make-up or my mini mirrors or my nail files.
It took a while to adjust, but Ursula was right about this being a community of people ready to help each other. My goal for this month is to begin to open up like a flower.
I’m sitting in the middle of group right now. Wendy is telling us about her crystal meth days. How she used to drive while using, how she used to hide bags up her asshole. I’m hardly listening, though. I’m only scratching and thinking about how badly I want Diane. How badly I want to shoot up.
Ursula looks around the circle and asks if anyone else would like to share. She looks at me. I look back, thinking about how wonderful it used to feel and how awful everything feels right now.
She asks me if I’d like to go, to share my story. My entire body is shaking. I need my fucking fix. I need some fucking methadone. A lobotomy!
“Marshall?” she asks.
I gasp for air. I say, “Fine.”
Ursula puts her hands in her lap and gazes at me, waiting.
I breathe in and then breathe out, just as the meditation specialist had taught me last week. “I was twelve years old and I was walking along the railroad with my best friend, Scotty. He was so smart. We were both so smart. He was talking about fucking Ulysses by James Joyce. I hadn’t read it, but fucking Scotty of course had. At the fucking age of twelve. I had only read Portrait of an Artist, but I loved and it spoke to me and I wanted to speak to Scotty about it, but he just wouldn’t stop fucking talking about Ulysses. And I just kept listening. And there was no one around. And he was telling me about different parts in the novel and about all the gratuitous sex that got it banned and I was laughing with him, because we both had a very haphazard understanding of sex at the time. I mean, you know, I was twelve. So, anyways, he was my best friend. We spent all the time in the world together, sneaking R-rated movies from our parents’ shelves and watching them, discussing them. He talked to me about Buddhism and how he was very interested in getting involved in it once he had a car and a license. And I just imagined the two of us, friends forever, going off and doing all these new things and living together, just maintaining this brotherhood. We talked about it all the time and he agreed with me and told me that all he needed in his life was me. And, anyways, Scotty stopped talking about Ulysses eventually and we kind of just walked in silence. We started heading for home, because it was starting to get dark. We were planning on having a sleep over. We ended up taking this shortcut through the woods and it was so quiet and Scotty kept saying how beautiful it was, how beautiful a night, a day it was. And, you know, I didn’t hear it at first. Or maybe I did, I just couldn’t comprehend it. Or it didn’t register or something, but it was hunting season. And someone shot at something. And, like I said, it was starting to get dark. And the bullet hit Scotty right in the fucking head. It didn’t kill him instantly, but it happened really quickly. And I bent down on my knees and I held him so tight, just holding him and holding him and screaming. And he looked at me and Scotty said, ‘Don’t worry about me.’ And I held him and I cried into him and he just died there in the middle of the woods. And I lifted my head and I screamed and then I bent down and I kissed him on the lips. And I said, ‘I’m not worried, buddy.’”
I open my eyes and look out at the group and they’re all crying and I’m crying and we’re all crying. And I think they understand why maybe I started using in the first place. I think maybe they get why I’m here right now.