“Do you want to see my Malibu?”
I realized he was talking about cars and said, “Sounds good.”
We went into his garage and looked at his car. “This is a 1977 Malibu. When I got this car it was nothing but rust sitting in a junkyard. Now look at it. I take it down in the summer to the drag strip. Monica helped a lot in putting it together.”
I stared at the car. It was burgundy, and it had giant tires with chrome hubcaps. Milton got in the car and started it up. It made a horrible rumbling sound. He got out of the car and came over to me and said, “Sounds awesome, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“This thing is fast, oh my god.”
Monica came out all smiles, then we raked the lawn. Monica and Milton worked well together. They acted more like brother and sister than father and daughter.
After raking, we went inside and drank more apple cider. Milton said he was going to visit a friend for a few hours and we could have the house to ourselves.
Monica and I went to her bedroom to watch Netflix. We put on a Korean television show called Boys Over Flowers.
We began to kiss. The kisses were soft and sometimes I would kiss her cheek and sometimes she would kiss my closed eyes. We kept laughing the whole time. Monica took the remote and put the Korean drama on pause.
Slowly we started taking off each layer of clothing. First came shirts, then bra, then pants and underwear. It felt like years it took so long, but at the same time it felt like no time passed at all.
I ran my hands over her firm belly and groped her thighs. I kissed her thighs and belly. I ran my hands over her back and she ran her hands over mine. We smiled and said nothing. We were just two people having sex on a Thursday in America.
Both of us were inexperienced lovers. When I did a count, I think I’d had sex with a total of five people. Monica told me that she’d only had sex with three. Neither of us had ever been in a long-term relationship. We had both dated people for a year at most.
We lay there in bed afterwards and she turned the Korean drama back on.
I said, “I think you are wonderful.”
She smiled and said, “I wanted you to meet my father before we had sex.”
I laughed and said, “Why?”
“Because I wanted to know if he liked you. My father was here before you and he will be here after you.”
“If you ever meet my parents you will laugh. They are not like your father.”
“I don’t expect them to be.”
We finished watching the Korean drama. I cuddled her and we went to sleep.
Group Counseling
I was to be trained in group counseling. To better understand what the residents had to live through on a day to day basis I had to attend several workshops. The first workshop was Drug Counseling with Larry the case manager. Larry had worked for NEOTAP for thirteen years and never got tired of it. He seemed like a really nice guy. Many of the employees who had been there for more than ten years seemed really nice. They didn’t have power complexes. I had heard through people who had worked there that several years ago Heidelberg was not in charge and things were different then.
Larry brought me into this office and sat me down. He said, “Now Michael, this drug counseling is very different, just four people are in it. They have been selected specifically because they are middle-class kids who went to college or are in college but can’t get their lives together. It seems that they don’t want college to end. They didn’t grow up in poverty, they weren’t abused when they were little, and they come from good families. We find that the middle-class kids and the poor kids don’t resort to drugs for the same reasons, so having them in the same group seems like more of a conflict than a solution.”
Larry brought me into a small room with windows where the group counseling took place. The three residents were already sitting there. I took a seat among them.
Larry sat down and said, “Okay, we are going to talk about how drugs make us feel today. I want you guys to be honest. No lies, just be honest. Okay, Tim, you go first.”
Tim said, “From the ages of twelve to the present I have done drugs regularly, with some breaks in between. I’ve done alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, acid, ecstasy, mushrooms, Xanax, Oxycontin, heroin, nitrous oxide, ketamine, ether, morphine, and crack cocaine. I think of drugs as a good thing. To me, they are part of a diet. There is nothing different about food, sleep, exercise, what kind of books and music you like, the people you spend time with, and drugs. I mean, some people have no personality and do drugs to replace having to have a personality. But I still like drugs. So I don’t know. It’s all part of the fun of trying to kill yourself slowly and make it look like you’re not trying, I guess. It’s just a way to spend time.”
Gin and Capri looked like they didn’t care about a single thing he said. Alex Guevera looked like he wanted to cry. They were all staring into space, thinking their own thoughts.
Larry said, “Drugs are not part of a diet.”
Tim didn’t respond.
Larry said, “Now it’s your turn, Alex.”
Alex kept fiddling with a pencil in a nervous manner. After he was done fiddling with the pencil he would make paper footballs with paper from his notebook. His whole life seemed like a giant nervous spell. He looked around to make sure it was his turn. He could never quite figure when it was his turn to do something. “I used to use drugs to help me in different situations — Adderall for work, Xanax for sleep, painkillers for pain, you know — but now it’s gotten to the point where I’ll just do anything and everything I can get my hands on at any given moment simply for the sake of getting fucked up and forgetting what a shitty life I live. I know some people would say that I don’t have it that bad but that’s just what some people would say I guess. People say retarded shit, you know? I didn’t start fucking with drugs like coke or molly or heroin until I started chilling with people who fucked with them and I liked them a little I guess, but I still think prescription shit is my favorite. Plus the high is consistent. I use Adderall, Xanax, marijuana, cigarettes and usually some type of painkiller — Promethazine-Codeine syrup and Percocet are my favorites — on a daily basis. Drinking’s not really my thing. My friends and family say that drugs’ll kill me but I honestly feel like…I mean…I know…like…it’s a fact…that if it’s not the drugs it’ll be something else. A car crash, cancer, whatever. And I guess I’d just rather die high to be honest.”
Larry looked at him with confusion and said, “What the hell is Promethazine?”
Gin said, “Yeah, what the hell is that?”
Alex started laughing and said, “Cough syrup. Some people call it lean, sizzurp, purple drank…shit makes you feel like you’re floating in slow motion and shit.”
The residents all began laughing.
Larry didn’t laugh. He responded, “Getting high off cough syrup is dangerous. Responsible people do not get high off of cough syrup. You are in college, you have a bright future ahead of you but instead you are screwing around, ruining it. You are going to end up dropping out and having to work in a dishtank. There are millions of people who would love your opportunity and you’re throwing it away on drugs.”
We all sat there quiet.