Shauna comes rushing down the stairs. She came with me this morning to my house to help pack Alexa’s clothes and toiletries, and we decided to stay at my place for the rest of the day. A change of scenery, mix things up, keep me out of a funk-amateur psychology, but we’re doing the best we can.
“Take this,” she says, handing me a pill. I’m past seven hours now. I did a shit job of planning this thing. “Don’t chew it, Jason, no matter how much you want to.”
I do what she says. I swallow it and wash it down with water she gives me. It will work the way it’s supposed to-slowly releasing pain suppression, albeit over a short time window-instead of the way I typically took it, crushing it between my teeth to get the entire impact all at once. Every time I’ve taken one of these over the last several days with Shauna’s oversight, I’ve had to fight the instinct to bite down, to release all of the glorious love instantaneously. This process would probably be easier if I had the kind of OxyContin that is typically marketed these days, time-release pills that are crush-proof so addicts can’t do exactly what I used to do and go for the instant home run. But someone would have to prescribe that for me, and nobody will, certainly not Dr. Evans, whom I haven’t seen in a month. So I’m left with the ones I purchased from Billy Braden, the crushable boys.
Shauna helps me up the stairs, which isn’t easy given our size differential, but somehow I make it to the couch in my living room. I curl up on my side in the fetal position while she examines me. I am shivering and sweating. My head is screaming, the high-pitched whine that televisions make when they’re doing a test: This is a test, this is a test of the emergency broadcast system, this is only a test, BRRRRRRRRRRRR-
“This is too hard for us alone,” she says. “I was beginning to think we could do this. You were doing so well. But Jason, this is-”
“I’m not. . not checking into a. . not yet. . not yet. .”
She buries her face between my neck and shoulder. “Keep fighting, Jase,” she whispers. “Will you keep fighting?”
“I’ll keep. . fighting,” I say, as I lurch forward again, more dry-heaving. “Shit, Shauna,” I say between halting breaths, “how did I. . ever let this. . happen?”
“It happens to the best of people,” she says, wiping my wet hair off my face, stroking my cheek. “It’s poison. It ruins people. But it didn’t ruin you, Jason. You stopped in time. You’re going to break free of this. You have to believe that.”
“This isn’t. . this isn’t going to end well. . you know that. .”
“It is going to end well, Jason. You’re going to beat this.”
“No,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut, my hands clutching my stomach. “I mean Alexa. . Something bad’s go-going to happen. .”
88
Shauna
4:30 P.M.
Jason begins to stir, making wake-up noises on the couch, where he’s been since he came home a few hours ago. Something really turned him sideways today. None of these days has been good, but these last few hours have been the worst by far. It’s unnerving, to put it gently, seeing him like this. He was taking this on bravely, using exercise and activity to keep his mind off things, even extending his withdrawal interval from six hours to seven. It was bad, sure. He threw up and cramped up and couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t a picnic. But he had a game plan and he was sticking to it. He seemed to be succeeding. I was beginning to think I’d overplayed this whole recovery thing in my mind, that this was going to be easier than I thought.
I don’t think that anymore. The hour that Jason endured when he first stumbled into the house was his worst hour, twenty times over, constantly retching and seizing up, sweating profusely and trembling at the same time. I almost dialed 911 for an ambulance, but he wouldn’t let me, he said he was okay. After some amount of OxyContin infiltrated his system, he began to calm, but still not as much as I’d hoped. It wasn’t until he fell asleep an hour ago that I felt safe even leaving his side on the couch.
He sits up now, moaning. I’m behind him, by the breakfast bar in his kitchen, looking at my laptop online at detox clinics. “Hey, sunshine,” I say, coming over to him, sitting next to him on the couch. “Rough ride you had there.”
His hair is matted from sleep and sweat. “Yeah, it wasn’t too fun. I got too cute with the time intervals. I need-”
“You need to get professional help,” I interrupt. “You need to quit trying to self-administer your recovery. I don’t care about ‘James Drinker’ or Alexa or anybody else. That will all sort itself out. I only care about one thing right now, and that’s getting you clean. You need to go in now, Jason. Tomorrow. Let’s do it the right way.”
“Okay.”
“I know how much you-What? Did you say. . okay?”
“Okay,” he says. “You’re right. If I don’t beat this, nothing else will matter. I’ll check in somewhere tomorrow.”
“Oh, Jason.” I put my face against his. It’s not like Jason to give in so easily on something like this. He must realize it now, too, the climb he’s facing, how hard this really is.
“This thing is kicking my ass,” he says. “I took way too much of this crap for way too long.”
A bit of color has returned to his face. Out of the woods, for the moment. Some awful moments, followed by some not-so-awful moments. That’s what this is going to be like, I realize, this roller-coaster recovery.
“You want to eat?” I ask. The only thing he’s been able to tolerate is peanut butter toast.
“No. . not now.”
“You have to try.”
“Later. Don’t make me eat right now.”
At five o’clock, his highness finally dines on peanut butter toast and a bottle of water. At five-thirty, he throws up. At six o’clock, he does push-ups to failure (that’s how jocks talk about weight lifting, doing reps “to failure”), which in this case is seventeen push-ups, not bad by most people’s standards but low for Jason. At seven o’clock, it’s time for another pill-back to six-hour intervals-and he forces himself to swallow it; at first I think the pill must be hard to swallow, but then I realize that’s not it, that he’s really fighting the urge to chew it up and get a surge of the good stuff all at once.
At eight o’clock, he’s feeling pretty good. He has good color. His eyes are clear. He has enough energy for thirty-five push-ups.
At a quarter past eight-actually 8:16, to be precise-his telephone rings, the landline, a portable phone collecting dust on a rechargeable cradle in the corner of the room.
“Hey, my cell phone,” he says, patting his pockets as he stands up. “Where’s my cell? Oh, shit-I left it at Alexa’s. I left my cell at Alexa’s.” He walks over to the portable phone and checks the caller ID. “Speak of the devil,” he says.
“Don’t answer it. Or answer it, if you want to,” I quickly add.
He lets out a long sigh and picks up the phone. “Hello? What? I can’t under-Okay, slow down. . slow down, what? Where-where are you? Where are you?” Jason goes quiet for a long time.
“Jason, what’s going on?” I holler.
He puts a finger to his lips to shush me-right, he doesn’t want Alexa to know I’m here with him, and there I go shouting to him.
Jason turns his back to me, resting a hand on the top of his head as he listens. “What now? It’s hard to hear you-we’re talking over-go ahead. I said go-what? Say that-say that again.”
Jason’s posture goes ramrod straight.
“I’m coming over,” he says. “Sit tight. I’ll be right over.”
“What?” I say, when Jason punches out the phone.
He turns to me. “I have to go,” he says. “I–I have to go.”
89
Jason
8:50 P.M.
I find a parking space on Wadsworth, a few houses down from Alexa’s bungalow, and race up the steps to her door. I knock on the door and it falls open.