Authors: Joe Putignano
Acrobaddict (46 page)
There are those odd moments in life when the music we hear actually accompanies our situation—and that was one of those times. It was the Wednesday of our last week of shows, and I was sitting on a toilet, high on heroin, wondering what I would do next. How could I tell Jonathan I had relapsed again, after all this time? How could I tell my friends at my meetings what I had just done? I wouldn’t. I would pretend it never happened. I would feign being drug-free until I figured out my next steps. I would use a few more times, then throw this shit away and return to where I had left off in recovery.
How could I do this so soon after handing Twyla my letter declaring her importance in my life as a role model and cornerstone of my recovery? Here I was, backstage of her baby, digging holes in my arm and inviting darkness back in to my soul. Would she understand? Would anybody understand? I didn’t even understand . . . how would anyone else? And there I sat, reprising the role I knew best and hated the most—the needle-marked heroin addict, surrounded by opportunity and love, and incapable of stopping. What had I done?
That night I went home and tried to avoid Jonathan, not wanting him to figure out what he probably already knew. After a few hours he asked if I was high. I told him I got a migraine during the show and took the medicine that makes me feel sick and spacey. I tried using sparingly for the next few days and concealed my high to appear somewhat sober.
Our final performance was on a Sunday night. I couldn’t believe we were closing. I shot up all week and, despite wanting to experience that day sober, I had to stay high or risk feeling shitty and performing poorly. My decided last use was always the worst. I went down to the same bathroom and, as I brought the golden-brown liquid up to a boil in my spoon, the lyrics of “Desolation Row” drifted through the monitors.
I raised my syringe in honor of our last Broadway performance and prayed this would be my last time shooting up. I pushed the needle into my thick vein, dismantling the painful and sorrowful reality surrounding me. I collapsed into the wall in slow motion, eyes closed to heaven, waking up sometime later to “Rainy Day Woman.” I burst out laughing. I decided to watch the end of the show from the balcony, high as a midnight kite, seeking a moment of joy in my self-made prison.
Then the unexpected happened. After the finale, the lead actor called the entire cast onstage to bow together.
No way!
I thought.
I’m obliterated and can barely walk a straight line. I’m not standing onstage with those good people who became my family in this state of disrespect
. But a dancer grabbed me, forcing me down with the others to accept the audience’s unending standing ovation. I had
performed the show in San Diego, but never on Broadway. And there I was, freshly shot up with my relapse on full display, making my first public appearance on a Broadway stage. The audience silhouettes created a cavern of dark shadows, and from the second-floor center Twyla extended her arms out over the crowd, like a ship’s figurehead, bowing to us. Her limbs broke through the powerful stage lights as the applause and adulation resonated through the cast’s years of hard work; and I stood among them, left with only a drugged-out feeling of emptiness. All that applause and hard work for that one single moment, and I felt nothing but shame. I was nothing.
I
T’S HARD TO WALK A TIGHTWIRE BY LOOKING BEHIND YOU; TO GO FORWARD ONE NEEDS TO FOCUS AND PUT ENERGY TOWARD WHAT LIES AHEAD, NOT WHAT REMAINS BEHIND
. T
HE CONNECTION, PRESENCE, AND AWARENESS OF THE BOTTOM OF THE FOOT ON THE WIRE ALLOW THE BODY TO APPEAR SUSPENDED BY A FORCE FROM ABOVE
. T
HIS IS A
H
UMAN
B
E-ING: PRESENT IN THE MOMENT, IN A STATE OF ONENESS, ALLOWING HIS OR HER STILLNESS TO ADVANCE TOWARD GREATER GOODNESS AS AN INDIVIDUAL AND TO LIGHTEN THE WAY FOR OTHERS
.
“Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.”
—Zhuangzi
Sitting in the back row, traumatized and beaten, I restarted my recovery day count with the predictable mumbling, “One day back.” Why was I always the guy with this problem? I was never the man in the meeting who came and surrendered completely, never touching another substance again.
I thought back to the time before doing my first snort of heroin, standing together with my friends, peering into the brimming well of enchanted water. This captivating liquid had the potential to alleviate all our sufferings, and once we tasted it, satiating our curiosity, I soon became terrified it would leave us eternally thirsty. I never foresaw
drinking the well dry, falling to the bottom, and interminably trying to claw my way out. For years I had battled my way up to the edge, only to have my brittle fingers slip between the damp bricks, sending me plummeting back into the underbelly. Now, my skeleton lay bone-dry at the bottom of the well, the solitary remains of countless shared blissful memories and highs. Was it all worth it? Was there anything to show for it?
Jonathan, dismayed and bewildered by my relapse, began to comprehend the disease of addiction. The part he couldn’t understand was why I would choose drugs when my life was traveling in a positive direction; but addicts will relapse for no apparent reason, frustrating and infuriating those who love them. The aftermath of a relapse is always unique, but this one brought a shocking discovery—I liked being in recovery more than being high!
A pleasant intensity and vibrancy filled the still-awkward feeling of recovery, which I had only started to recognize over the previous two years. The world inside an addict’s high is false, factual only to the user. If others cannot witness our experiences, does that make them less real? Recovery allowed me to live without guilt and shame. I only came to truly hate myself due to my inability to stop using drugs, but without drugs my self-hatred evaporated. My moment of realization: on drugs, this would be the best it would ever get; but by staying in recovery I could go beyond the best, consciously choosing and creating a continuously better life.
The relapse was short-lived. And, while I fortunately didn’t become physically dependent on heroin this time, I still suffered an entire month of feeling terminally ill. All my previous recovery time disappeared, and I started the process from scratch, exactly where I had dropped my needle. I heard addicts recount the same experience, but it seemed scientifically preposterous. If I had two years of recovery under my belt, wouldn’t it take years to fall back into my depth of addiction? Had I gained no merit for time served in abstinence?
The hard truth is that no matter how long I stayed clean, one relapse and I would lose the title of recovering addict. My disease was dormant like the trees in a winter forest while I was substance-free,
but it would spring back in full bloom with the slightest hint of encouragement. My compassion had grown for all addicts with the realization that we ailed from the same chronic, progressive, incurable, and life-threatening disease.
I returned to training and auditioning quickly, thinking if I physically kept improving I could escape that poisoned well forever. Auditioning and preparation were arduous, but there was no other way. If I hoped to emerge a butterfly, I needed to create within the cocoon.
Bouncing back from the relapse and remaining abstinent, I realigned my life to the path I was on: training, writing, contorting, auditioning, and attending twelve-step meetings. I performed on various projects with Jonathan’s performance design firm Acroback and returned to the Met stage with
Turandot
.
Backstage, the Met posted a casting call for acrobats and aerialists for a new production of
La Damnation de Faust
. The audition called for me to transform from a man into a devil—a story I’d lived, but trying to act it in front of strangers was mortifying to my ego. But I let go of self-criticism as I tried to physically express my descent from a sober man into a heroin addict, finding great irony in the situation: a boy pretending to be a man, pretending to be an actor, pretending to be a devil.
Although I felt it wasn’t the greatest audition, I booked the job. We immediately started rehearsals, learning how to safely maneuver aerially in a harness suspended high over the stage. The straps hurt our legs and tore the flesh around our abdomens, but after a few days we toughened up. The project generated huge excitement because it was directed by Robert Lepage. Lost in my addiction, I had never heard of him, but people around me described him as a genius, one of the great theatrical minds of our time.
My prior experience in theatre had taught me that directors only interact with principal performers; acrobats and other background performers are left to the devices of choreographers and production assistants. But as a director, Robert proved to be the exception. He spoke with us as if we were on the same level as the opera singers, erasing the usual performer hierarchy. His approach with the entire
cast was kind, respectful, and collaborative, rather than that of a dictator. We connected through the creative process. I believe our shared internal dissatisfactions solidified the friendship. We were both searching for something through our work, feeling unsatisfied and restless until its discovery.
La Damnation de Faust
received great reviews. After opening night, Robert left for another project, but we stayed in contact through email. One day he sent me a message asking if I would be interested in joining a new Cirque du Soleil show he was creating, as a featured character. As I read his invitation, I had to laugh. My whole master plan had been to get into recovery and get hired by Cirque du Soleil in order to get Jason back. Life had now come full circle, though this time with me standing firmly on the other side of the Gates of Hell.
The tour schedule for Cirque du Soleil’s production of
Totem
included parts of Europe, Canada, and the United States. I hadn’t traveled much in my life, having been primarily imprisoned on the island of Manhattan by heroin. I had to take that opportunity. The contract would take me away from Jonathan, but we agreed taking the job would expand my growth as a performer. Though I felt flexible and strong, I was hesitant—Cirque’s legendary performers and acrobats were top-notch, whereas I was no longer performing daredevil skills. There comes a time in every gymnast’s career when he or she stops performing risk-ridden skills, and I had reached that point. But Robert kindly eased my anxiety by saying, “You’re plenty good enough. You will be my guest and it will be a good time.” I took the job, and was excited and honored to be a part of the company.
I had acquired over two years of recovery again—the longest I’d achieved to date—when I signed the massive contract and went to Canada in November, moving into the Cirque du Soleil Artists Residence in Montreal. I wanted to make friends and needed to move out of my comfort zone, but instead of talking to people I isolated in my room—the way I did when using drugs. I didn’t have the desire to get high, but I also didn’t have the self-esteem to talk to others. How would I survive in Canada? How could I perform in front of thousands of people every night when I was still crippled by my
dis-ease
?
The day after arriving, I walked into the kingdom and artistry of Cirque du Soleil. It was a world beyond anything I’d ever known. A kind young woman with a thick Quebecois accent gave me a tour of the facility. I tried to hide my fear behind a false smile, but I grew breathless whenever I made eye contact with another human being.
That first day of training involved integrating me into the opening act of four highly skilled, muscle-bound gymnasts swinging on high bars. I met the two acrobatic coaches and sat on a blue crash mat, visualizing where I could athletically fit in, and becoming increasingly nervous about the consequences of my fourteen-year sabbatical from competitive life.
The performance structure resembled the decaying bones of a turtle, with the two steel high bars rigged over a long trampoline. Two large speakers surrounded the turtle shell, blaring music from an iPod shuffle ironically playing songs I’d listened to as an active addict, songs I still loved but had promised myself never to play again.
The speakers poured out haunting melodies from Radiohead and Pink Floyd. The addict’s dying fire in my soul bubbled up reminders of the sparkling, sharp syringe and the lingering astringent scent of rubbing alcohol—my entrance to heaven and my gateway to hell—all glistening before my eyes. Those songs had made me, created me, molded me, and in that powerless moment I looked up and searched the ceiling for a hint of God. Where were the angels now who had carried me to that point? I didn’t want the music or the memories to stop, but I knew I couldn’t stay with them either.