Storymania - The Masochist Boy by Pearl S

The Masochist Boy (11)
Pearl S

"Robby, calm down, breathe."

"I-I can’t! I can’t-ah-I want to bleeping-" stumble, trip, he dragged himself along the floor, chest heaving, "-I want to bleeping kill myself-no, I just-"

"Robby, calm down-sit down, Robby-" she lowered her voice, took his arm, murmuring softly: "Hush, Robby, breathe, breathe-"

"No! I don’t want to breathe!" He flung at her, shaking. "I want to die! I wish I would die! I wish I would-"

He grabbed at his chest uselessly.

There was a pause of silence, during which only his rapid breathing made a sound. She watched him with fear in her eyes.

She put her arm across his back, helped support him down the stairs, through the door.

She sat him down on the front porch, sat next to him, watching. For all that it was March, the air held spring’s warmth; the tree leaves blossomed even as they gazed. The wind washed through her, a burst of freshness, cleansing and reinvigorating the muddled mess her mind was becoming. It had that affect sometimes.

She looked at him.

He leaned his head against the railing, eyes closed, breathing. There was plenty of air to be had out here, it wasn’t like the musty panic of four enclosed walls. He breathed in the cleansing air, and every breath was slower, calmer, less desperate than before. He was so pale.

After a time, she said: "Better now?"

He nodded. He said quietly: "Sorry, Vivien. I…I didn’t mean…I didn’t mean for that to happen."

"I know that, Robby." She paused. "Robby…does it really hurt that much? It hurts enough for you to say something like that?"

"It…it does hurt. I don’t know why I said that, though. It…the detoxification, it’s eating away at my patience and my endurance. I just…just lost it. I’m sorry."

"That’s alright. It happens to everybody. I’m serious, Robby, just watching what you’re going through now is a good enough reason not to ever start on drugs. Somebody should videotape this and show it to the kids in public school."

"Videotape the worst week of my life…that’s cruel."

She hesitated, considering, and then shrugged: "I guess you’re right. I hadn’t thought of it that way. It’s still true, though; I can’t imagine having to go through it first hand." She paused again. "You know what my parents told me, Robby?"

He shook his head, watching her warily. The wind blew past again, and he got another gust of air.

"They said-they said G-d never gives anybody more than they can handle. They said…they said He gives every test He gives a person is one that that person can pass. Maybe only that person."

"But then how do you explain…suicide. Drugs. I don’t know, diseases that nobody can cure."

She looked ahead, at the newly-born tree leaves. "Suicides-that’s a person quitting. They’re saying that they’d rather give up than live. It doesn’t achieve anything, except they’re dead and everyone is sad. Does it end their pain? I guess it does…but at what price? They’re ending an existence. They won’t feel pain anymore, Robby, but they won’t either feel happiness or laughter. Maybe if they’d have hung on, they would have overcome whatever obstacle it was…and been happy. Diseases no one can cure…you’re right, the person isn’t going to live forever. Maybe their test isn’t solving the disease; maybe it’s dealing with it, accepting it. I don’t know. I’m no prophet. But I think, Robby…I think that G-d gave you this detoxification period-and really everything in your entire life- because He knew you could deal with it. I might not have been able to. You see?"

He leaned against the rail. "I guess."

A small quiet. The sounds of the cars whizzing past the street, and a screen door slamming; soft in the early spring fuzziness.

"It’s almost time for you to go to the methadone clinic, isn’t it?"

"Yeah."

"Why don’t you tell them about this?"

"Yeah," he smiled, "maybe they’ll up my doses."

"No. You can’t use one illegal substance to kick an addiction to another. It just doesn’t work. No, I was thinking maybe it’s normal for recovering heroin addicts-"

Recovering heroin addicts. The words echoed in his head; he almost wanted to laugh. It sounded like a phrase you’d see in a psychiatric help book.

"-maybe everyone has this kind of breakdown. They might be able to prescribe something you could do to take your mind off of it."

"They might."

"Like helping me with my homework."

"Me? Helping you? With homework?"

She gave him a look.

"We could do it out here," she said. "Come in with me and get a jacket so you don’t catch a cold."

"You did a better job with that line than my mother," he said, and laughed quietly. "You’re right. It doesn’t hurt as much. Vivien…"

She paused, hand on the door. "Yes?"

"Thank you for letting me stay," he said simply. "I feel so much better here."

"That’s ok. I like having you here. My parents…I think they’re realizing they were wrong about you."

"I can see how having me throw up in their bathtub would change their opinion of me," he nodded.

She smiled. "That’s not what I meant. You’re different than any of the other kids around here, and I think…I think you’ve got a brighter future than that anyone, Jason the Idiot included."

He said slowly: "Thanks, it’s…it’s nice to know someone really does think that. You’re not like most of the other girls around here, either."

"That’s right. I’m a geek. Come, I really do have to get that math done."

It wasn’t easy. Day by day, hour by hour, that week seemed to last forever. Everything was strange, everything was new and mystical; like the hour of creation itself. Yes, that’s what it was. He was creating, redesigning his world, patching the torn fabric of his existence. During that week there was nothing that escaped his eye, no coincidence nor triteness in anything. He saw through and past every single person; he saw their pain and their beliefs, their essence and their fears. He saw the color and shape and warmth of every object and every life. Time passed strangely for him, his thoughts were slow and beautiful. Despite the pain, despite the suffering of his body, his mind seemed sharper and more alert than ever he remembered it, even without the heroin and coke.

He still went to the Narcotics Anonymous meeting on Tuesday night. It was so odd. All the kids looked at him with a newfound respect, awe, like rebels watching a martyr walk to his death. It was oddly silent as Jeff spoke, as they went around the circle.

The other kids had not gone into detoxification yet. Their eyes still shone like headlights with the effects of their various drugs. Monica sat shivering in the corner, chair pulled away from the rest, nose twitching convulsively; the kid in the shorts, whose name Robby didn’t remember, bit his lip and sent furtive glances back at him; even Twister looked at him curiously, purple-spiked hair tilted to one side. They all seemed to be watching him, waiting to see what would happen.

After the session ended, Monica whipped from the room; the kid in shorts paused at the doorway, at the verge of speaking, then he lost his nerve and swirled out. Robby had one arm through his thin too-small jacket when Jeff called over the desk: "Robby, my man. How are you doing?"

He pulled his other arm through the sleeve, and shrugged.

Jeff sighed, tossed something into his book bag, and came to sit by him.

"I want to hear everything, Robby," he said. "I want to hear everything. It’s vital for me as an instructor to know what kind of effect this is having on you and your body."

Robby paused, and glanced at Twister, who had frozen at the doorstoop and now stood listening.

He made a decision then. The truth or nothing but the truth. He wouldn’t lie to impress anybody. The new clarity he had gained wouldn’t allow for it.

He said, looking at the floor: "I’m…I’m having a couple problems."

Jeff nodded, hands clasped on his knee. "What are they?"

"I don’t know. First I was staying at home-I wanted to go to school the first day, but without the heroin, I couldn’t move, so I ended up at home. One of the reasons I took the heroin was because being at home is very depressing. Without even that, and also for some reason I’ve been low all week-"

"Your body’s readjusting to its normal levels of dopamine," Jeff nodded. "Eh, dopamine is something your brain makes that gives you a pleasant feeling…a good mood, in speaking terms. Let me explain this a minute. Now, you see, what drugs do, like heroin, is they manipulate your natural dopamine levels so that the brain releases all the dopamine it has at once, which is what makes the ‘high’. But after a while, Robby, that wears off, and your brain has no dopamine, which plummets you to the ‘low.’ How long had you been taking heroin?"

"Oh…since I was eleven."

Jeff blinked.

He shrugged, and sank a little lower in the chair.

"Well…then that would explain why you’re having such a difficult time. You’ve been abusing it for almost seven years. So after seven years of abnormal dopamine depletion-big words, I know, bear with me-your brain has to reshape itself to make normal levels of dopamine. Right now, it doesn’t have any, and that’s why you feel low like you do. Now, I’ve had students, unfortunately, who really just…burst at this point. Because of the low, I mean. They fell into a mental depression, completely suicidal state, tried to kill themselves, and wound up in the emergency room. You haven’t had any feelings like that, have you?"

He looked at his shoes.

"It’s not your fault if you have, Robby. I’m not blaming you. I just want to know how you’re doing."
"I tried to hang myself the second day."

Jeff sucked in his breath, resettled his hands.

"And failed?"

"I couldn’t-I couldn’t get high enough for it to work. I couldn’t walk, and my uncle’d been smashing me around-"

"Smashing you around? That’s got to go. Detoxification is hard enough without abuse. Do you need a place to stay?"

"No…I’m staying with Vivien."

"Vivien? Relative?"

"No…"

"Ah. Your girlfriend."

"I…I guess," Robby said quietly.

"Have you tried to kill yourself since then?"

"No. I said I would, but she…she stopped me right there."

"So she’s keeping an eye on you. That’s a good girl. Us at NA, we need people like that. Do you think you need more help dealing with the mental low?"

"I don’t know. I hope I can make it. I would be sure I can make it if the physical stuff would just go away."

Jeff frowned. "Really? Are you having a lot of pain? Isn’t the methadone doing anything for you?"

He nodded uselessly. "Yeah, a little bit, but mostly it just makes me numb. When I’m not numb, I feel like I’ve been run over with a garbage truck. I throw up everything I eat…my head aches all the time…my heart is beating funny, faster than it usually does, sometimes I can’t breathe, sometimes I can’t move…I feel kind of…weak, dizzy. Like I haven’t been drinking and eating."

"Well…that’s an extreme case. I remember one other kid having that much trouble…I think his name was Daniel. Terrible pain. He called me up on his fourth day, and he was crying. I went to his house and found him lying on the middle of his bedroom floor with the telephone cord draped from the hallway to where he was lying."

Robby shivered, and folded his arms across his own chest.

"He was a frail kid, though, and from what I can see of you, I’d have to assume the same. Have you been sick a lot since you were a child?"

"Now that I think of it…yeah."

"How many times have you been hospitalized…I mean before you started drugs?"

"I don’t know…six or seven times."

"Yeah, that sounds right. You aren’t very strong to begin with, so your body doesn’t deal well with withdrawal. It’s a good thing you quit young, or you would have been dead by the time you turned twenty-four. Now we have to move onto another important matter: food."

"Food?" said Robby with disbelief.

"Yes. I know you think it’s trite, but the truth is that a lot of my students went on an eating binge during their detoxification…I mean a real caloric free-for-all. Some of them really put on a lot of weight, and a few became very sick. You have to be very careful. How much have you been eating?"

"Not very much. I told you, I’ve been throwing it all up."

"Have you eaten anything?" said Jeff, alarmed. "Drank?"

"I had a little bit of Seven-Up."

"You didn’t eat anything?"

"I wasn’t hungry."

"That’s not good, Robby. Did you eat anything yesterday?"

"I had some toast."

"Before that?"

"Two days ago I think I had some cereal. I told you I feel really crummy. Vivien keeps trying to shove things down my throat anyway."

"That Vivien of yours is a smart girl. You should listen to her. Your body can’t readjust to its normal levels if it’s being deprived of energy and nutrition! You have to eat, and you have to drink or you’ll get dehydrated again. That could contribute to your physical pain. You know that, Robby."

"Yeah…I just don’t like throwing up."

"Maybe you won’t anymore. You’re already more than half the way through. Some of the withdrawal symptoms should be starting to fade."

"I don’t know. I’ll try."

Jeff stood. "That’s what I like about you so much, Robby. I know you will."

He paused, a distant look in his eyes.

Then he said slowly: "You know what, Robby?"

He shook his head.

"It was hard for me too."

Rob stared.

"I was your age in the sixties, you know. All of my friends did drugs. LSD, heroin, opium. They all did it, and so did I. For a long time, that’s what I used to relax myself. The detoxification thing was the worst week of my life, and I wasn’t even on a methadone program. I thought I would never be happy again. But you know something, Robby? Look at me now, twenty years later. I’m not serving some sentence in prison for drug-related crimes; I’m not living on the streets because I sold my house to pay for LSD. I have a wonderful wife, two beautiful children…and a job that makes a difference in the world. Think about that, Robby. It takes a lot of determination to get off the drugs…but your future…I think that’s my entire point. Your future…"

He turned around, shook Robby’s hand. "Good luck-you’re doing a great job. You’re a great kid. You tell your girlfriend to take care of you, ok?"

Robby smiled. "I don’t need to."

Jeff laughed, clapped him on the shoulder, picked up his bag and walked out the door.

Press pause for a minute, will you? Thanks.

Robby survived the week of detoxification. It ended on March 22, 1996.

Surviving detoxification does not guarantee a drug-free life; no addiction, whether it’s to nicotine or heroin or even chocolate, is as simple as that. The physical withdrawal and the low feeling, they went, but the natural longings for something to sweeten his mood stayed, and he had to deal with them every single day for the rest of his life. Every minute was a battle; every week was a war.

And as he would tell you proudly if you could see him now, he has won each time for the past eight years.

Robby’s twenty-five now, and if you look closely enough, you can almost see the happy glow he radiates. Remember that story of his that got spread round the entire Internet? The Story of Jeanine Ann? He was approached by a publisher two years ago, and the book’s sold millions of copies. He’s still riding on its success, and planning for another one, something called Sixtieth and North, focusing on gang kids like Twister. Because of his somewhat strange profession, he’s a stay at home dad; Vivien goes to work everyday. She teaches, if you can believe it; first and second grade. She had always wanted to make something beautiful, and in the year after high school, she’d searched almost frantically for some channel: beading bracelets, painting sunsets, collecting sea-shells. But as the year passed, she’d come to realize that teaching little innocents could be beautiful, and what’s more, it was something she did well. And she had her own little garden on the sill of the bedroom window-her little rebellion for all those years as a teenager when she felt her room wasn’t hers.

Sometimes they sit down at the dining room table-they can’t afford a house yet, only an apartment, so the room’s pretty small-sometimes they sit there and they remember their pasts. They remember the never-there and overbearing parents; they remember the physical abuse and the emotional frustration; they remember feeling alone, they remember feeling worthless, they remember burying their heads in their hands and sobbing without hope.

What they usually remember, though, is sitting in biology class while the teacher prattles on, looking up, seeing each other, and smiling a small, knowing smile.

Who knows what would have happened otherwise. Robby might very well be dead, and if not dead, ridiculously more messed up. Vivien might have stayed a nervous misfit without confidence in her own decisions, destined for depression, break down, and abuse. Maybe they would have formed other friendships; maybe they wouldn’t. But they see clearly now how valuable they both were to each other. They took care of one another when no one else would. Each saved the other from the abyss. Each bolstered the other’s fight, whether it was the terrifying, painful war against drugs or the quiet rebellion from controlling and manipulative people.

And though it’s not as obvious from the account Robby and Vivien put together here, both of them saved some one else from a similar fate without even realizing it.

That some one is me.

I was still little when all this was happening, but I remember it well. The scent of marijuana smoke, the car with one wheel parked in an overrun yard. Empty cupboards and a blank pantry; open pill bottles and the dried blood from my brother’s last cutting binge. I remember it very well. Being told to shut up when I asked my mother to sign my permission slip; mumbled at to beat it when I went to my brother for help and he’d already had his shots. I remember shivering all winter long in my mother’s too big sweatshirt because I didn’t have a coat; I remember the growling of an empty stomach. I remember the beginnings of the depression and suicidal feelings that nearly killed my brother. I remember feeling overburdened. I remember hearing my aunt talk to my mother about foster homes, repossession, bankruptcy, the possibility of my joining a gang and going to prison. It wasn’t a far leap. My brother had been to prison twice on account of drug charges; if things had continued that way, that’s probably where I’d spend a good deal of my life.

But I didn’t.

I didn’t because midway through my eleventh year, Robby and Vivien began to make a change. They took me to movies and parks. Robby sat with me and talked to me and hugged me; Vivien knitted me a little scarf. That March Robby stopped taking heroin; that June he started working at a Burger King, borrowed money from my aunt; bought an apartment, and took me there with him, away from my mother’s cocaine smoke and my uncle’s slamming rages. Vivien came over very frequently; whenever I needed something, she was there. I think this went on while she was still earning her teaching degree. I remember her baking me a cake for my birthday and helping me write a report in sixth grade.

My brother wrote a piece documenting my struggles. But I want the world to know how he struggled. I want the world to see how he and Vivien struggled-and won.

And by changing themselves, changed me, and saved me from all the joys of life on the streets.

Even now. Even now, late at night, when my mother won’t answer her phone and my aunt isn’t around.

Even now, there’s the sound of Vivien and Robby laughing.

"Jenny," they call, "you’re missing all the fun. Stop typing your story for a minute and come sit with us!"

You can’t see it, but I’m smiling. I think I will.

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