Long Blue Line: Based on a True Story (39 page)

It was a Friday afternoon and Derrick had come home from work and fallen asleep. I was bored and feeling depressed more than ever. These days, our refrigerator was always stocked with beer, thanks to Donnie. Donnie and Casie were gone and probably selling a sack, so I decided to start drinking some beer. I popped open the top with my lighter and chugged about half of it. Within ten minutes, I was on to the next. Since I got out of jail this last time around, I had a constant feeling of depression. It wouldn’t ever let up, and I was always feeling sad and worried. I thought that I knew what it meant to be depressed before, but I was wrong. This last mistake I made relapsing and losing my third child over it was enough to put me over the edge. I was young and resilient, but there is only so much emotional damage that a person can handle. I was broken, and this time, I had no hope to hold on to. I had nothing to look forward to, and my only purpose was to simply survive. I came to the conclusion that it was never going to end, and my life would forever consist of a bad series of events until I eventually died of a broken heart.

I was sipping on my third beer while sitting on the concrete stairs of my front porch and smoking a cigarette. I was waiting for Donnie and Casie to get back to see if we were going to get high for the weekend. Derrick was starting to become a little worn out from all the partying, but he wanted it. I tried to talk him out of letting Derrick and Casie move in, but he insisted. I made the best of the situation and eased my depression with meth as much as I could. After finishing my third beer, I sat on the couch. I noticed how oddly silent it was. Out of nowhere, the silence started to scare me. I began to feel extremely dizzy and disoriented. I couldn't figure out what was going on, and my heart started to pound. I couldn't breathe. I thought I was going to die. Gasping for air, I barely made it into the bedroom where Derrick was sleeping. "Derrick!" I managed to scream as I was shaking him and trying to wake him up. "Derrick! I can't breathe!" I cried as he lay still, snoring. I accepted the fact that he was not going to wake up, and I accepted the fact that I was going to die. I was dying. My life was about to end. I laid flat on my back on the foot of the bed. I closed my eyes and said a prayer. Our Father, in Heaven, hallow be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth...

I opened my eyes, shaking and still feeling the rush of adrenaline. I was still alive. With tears rolling down my cheeks, I was thankful for that fact. But I was mostly sad. I was sad that I was convinced that I was dying, and Derrick did nothing to bring me comfort. This was when I needed it the most, and he offered me nothing. I thought back to the time when Danielle, Derrick and I were at the grocery store. I became dizzy, not knowing at that time that I was having a panic attack, and crouched down in the middle of the aisle. "Derrick, I feel like I'm about to faint. Don't leave. I just need a minute..." I begged him. He became furious. Gritting his teeth, he walked over to me pushing the cart with Danielle and the groceries. "Get the hell up," he quietly growled. "You look like a crazy idiot!" he condemned as he walked away. He left me in the middle of the grocery store to fend for myself. When we got to the parking lot, he told me that I was an embarrassment and needed to get my head together.

When the effects of the panic attack went away, I lifted myself off of the bed and walked into the living room. I was scared and feeling extremely helpless. I didn’t know what to do, so I called my mom. I went outside and sat in the car so Derrick would not hear me. “Hi Lizzie” she answered. “I just had the worst panic attack of my life!” I broke down. I told her everything, including the part about me using drugs. I told her how Donnie and Casie had moved in, and it had been nothing but chaos. “I’m sorry Liz. I know you’re suffering, but this is the life that you are letting yourself live. The only way that you’re ever going to feel better is if you just leave, and you know that I am always here for you if you ever decide to do that. But you have to be sure,” she said. She was right. There were many times that I called her wanting to leave only to change my mind in a matter of hours. When I did decide to leave, it had to be for good. My mom and step-dad taking me in wasn’t something to take lightly. I’d probably only have one shot at that, and if I messed it up, I would really have no place to go. She told me that she loved to me and to call her back if the situation got worse.

When I went back inside, Derrick was awake and in the kitchen making dinner. He was in a good mood, and I was the complete opposite. I told him what happened, and he seemed more irritated than concerned. “You are such an ass hole!” I screamed at him, unable to hide my anger. “Whatever,” he mumbled. I locked myself in the bedroom and got into bed. I cried again. I just wanted to fall asleep and forget about the last three years of my life. If they could be erased from my memory, I would maybe have a chance. A few minutes later, Derrick was tapping on the door. “Unlock the fucking door. Quit being dumb. Dinner is done.” He said as he walked away. I wasn’t in the mood to eat, and I certainly wasn’t in the mood to be anywhere near him. He always claimed that he had my back, but where it counted the most, he failed miserably. Ten minutes later he was furiously banging on the door. “What the hell! I made us dinner and you’re just going to sit in here all night!” he yelled. “I’m sorry if I don’t feel good! I am not in the mood to sit out there and pretend like things are okay. “They’re not!” I screamed. I set him off into a serious rage. He kicked the door open, breaking it to the point of wood chips snapping to the floor. “You are such an ungrateful bitch!” he wailed. “After everything I do for you, this is what I get? FUCK YOU!” he yelled. I was scared at this point. He was mad to no return. I didn’t yell back because I didn’t want to make it worse. He was acting furiously unpredictable. He quickly paced into the kitchen and in just a few seconds returned with a hot frying pan that had a sizzling steak in it. “Here’s your fucking dinner!” he loudly yelled. He grabbed the hot steak out of the frying pan with his bare hands. Before I could even comprehend what was happening, the steak flew past my face so closely that grease splattered on me. It hit the wall so hard that it made a loud bang. In shock, I sat in bed quietly, hoping that there wasn’t more to come. When he left the bedroom and began eating his dinner, I quietly grabbed my purse and quickly bolted out the front door. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew that it was dangerous to be in the same house as him. I sat away from the front door, on the side of the front porch. I was shaking and scared as all hell. It was late, and really, I had nowhere to go. After sitting outside in the dark for almost an hour, Derrick came out to apologize. I knew that I would never forgive him for what he had done, but at least for the time being I could go back inside and think about what I was going to do. When I left for good, I was going to have to carefully plan my escape. If I wasn’t discreet enough, I could end up leaving in a body bag instead.

The next day, I went to the local clinic. I knew that my depression had control over me, and I wasn’t going to be able to tame it without help. I explained my symptoms to the male doctor who I had seen before. He wasn’t very nice and he was very quick to Judge. "Look," he began. "Just because you come in here and tell me that you are not feeling well, doesn't mean that I can automatically hand you prescription drugs." He was indirectly accusing me of trying to get drugs out of him for reasons other than what I really needed them for. I was desperate to feel better and I wasn't about to take his crap. "You don't understand what I am telling you. I've tried everything that I can think of to feel better without medication, and it's not working. No matter what I do, I am constantly sad and thinking about negative things and I have zero motivation to accomplish anything." I began crying and he could see the frustration in my face. He started to ask personal questions about my living situation, trying to figure out what the root cause was. I was forced to beat around the bush because I could not tell him the full situation. I was too humiliated and I just didn't want to talk about it. I only wanted to feel better. He prescribed me an antidepressant and an anti-anxiety medication. I began taking them right away because I knew that it could take up to two weeks for them to kick in.

When the medication did finally kick in, it definitely took away my depression, but it also acted as a numbing agent. Things didn't bother me as much as they did before, and I lived my day-to-day life on autopilot. I noticed a significant difference, mainly because the little things that would normally upset me had no impact on my mental stability. The first few days when I started taking the medication, I had another meltdown. Everyone living in my house was a complete slob, and they never cleaned up after themselves. After nicely asking Derrick to help me do the dishes and him blatantly refusing, I was at my wits end. I took every single dish in the house and smashed it on the kitchen floor. If there were no dishes to eat on, there couldn't be any messes. I ended up slicing my foot on one of the shards of glass, and I was gushing blood and didn't even notice it. When Donnie and Casey walked in from one of their drug deal missions, their mouths gaped open in shock. Derrick didn't react in his angry rage like he normally would have, probably because I even shocked him. I was going crazy. He even cleaned up the broken glass with his shop vacuum when my rage settled. I must have gotten my point across, because from that point forward, people went out of their way to clean up after themselves.

As the weeks moved on, I began to notice something strange about Casie. She was eating a lot for someone who was high on meth, and she was actually gaining weight. But she was only gaining weight in her abdomen. I wasn’t sure if she even noticed it, because she wore shirts exposing her stomach on a daily basis. When one of my friends was over, I asked her to pay attention to my suspicion and tell me what she thought when Casie wasn’t around. After bringing a bowl of soup to her bedroom, my thoughts were confirmed. “Oh my God! She is definitely pregnant!” Crystal said. I was baffled. How could she not know and us know, that she was pregnant. I had been pregnant enough times to know that she was about four or five months along.

After pointing out my thoughts about Casie to Derrick, he started to become more aware of the environment that we were living in. He began paying attention to the horrible details. She was still getting high every day. We were high every chance that we had, but we didn’t have a baby growing inside of us. Derrick asked Donnie if Casie was pregnant. He completely denied it. We concluded that because they had nowhere to go, we might as well start looking for another place to live. We were in a bad situation and mutually decided that we wanted to try to get our lives together. Casie had gotten a bad cold the following week and had her mom take her to the emergency room. When they came back home from the hospital, Casie was holding an ultra sound picture in her hand. “Apparently I’m pregnant,” she announced with a look of curious hesitation on her face. I tried to act as if I was truly shocked, but it was pretty difficult to be surprised over the obvious. The following week, on a day that we knew they would both be out of the house, we packed our things and moved. We moved without telling them because they had made up their minds that we were going to support them and pay all of the bills. We found a small trailer across the highway. The only reason that I was okay with moving there was because it was brand new. No person had lived in this place before and it even had vaulted ceilings. The place looked cozy and would definitely work out until we were able to leave. At this point we had exactly a year left. I was scared to get my hopes up, because I knew that a lot could happen in a year.

When Donnie got back to an empty house, he called Derrick and flipped out. We were pissed. Derrick held his ground, and before hanging up on him, pretty much told him to grow up. I was so happy in our new place. It was clean, and people-free - for the most part. A couple of months went by, and Donnie and Derrick started talking again. Donnie and Casie managed to get into their own house, which was just down the street from where our old house was. We went over to visit not knowing what to expect. The house was bigger than I expected, and it was definitely an older house. Casie was definitely looking pregnant. She seemed to be clean as well. Donnie was definitely not. All I had to do was look at him and it became obvious. I felt bad for Casie. I didn’t know how she was able to deal with that.

We went over to their place to hang out on a regular basis. The group of junkies grew, too. It was pathetic seeing everyone, including myself, sitting in the living room for hours on end, just in case Donnie might return with a sack. Usually he did, but sometimes he didn’t. Using crystal meth had become a way of life. It became normal to us again. Nothing positive or productive ever resulted from using it. The guys would spend hours, and sometimes days on end, working on a vehicle that wasn’t even broken in the first place. Both Casie and I did crossword puzzles. Although she was sober, I could tell that she was struggling.

This time in my life that I had more than one encounter where I thought I would die. The three of us, Donnie, myself and Derrick, were all coming down after days of no sleep. Marnie had been our supplier lately. She was Donnie’s ex. She eventually moved in with them. I thought it was kind of odd, but her and Casie got along like best friends would. Marnie was working, Casie was extremely pregnant and sleeping a lot, and Donnie and Derrick were working on the same vehicle that they began to work on over two weeks ago. I was really tired and wanted to go home. I asked Derrick about five times to take me home and he was completely ignoring me. Finally I grabbed my purse, walked passed him, and said, “I’m going to be waiting in the car, I’m ready to go home.” “Alright. It’s gonna be a while though,” he replied. After patiently waiting for ten minutes, I got frustrated and honked the horn. It pissed both of the brothers off. They were on the verge of paranoia, because they were coming down and it was a side effect. “Control your bitch,” Donnie said to Derrick. “Excuse me!” I retaliated. “Hey! Sit there like the bitch you are, and I’ll take you home when I’m ready, dammit!” I was so infuriated that Derrick had not stuck up for me, but he was siding with his brother!

Without thinking about my safety and the probable precautions, I decided that I was going to honk the horn until Derrick got into the truck and took me home. I was extremely upset and I felt like they were ganging upon me and calling me derogatory names did not help anything. It was only adding fuel to my fire. When Derrick realized that I wasn't going to stop honking the horn, he turned to his brother and said, "I'll be right back row," as he angrily paced to the truck. He started yelling and screaming at me the second that he got in. "Bitch, you want to go for a ride?" he laughed in an eerie way, and I knew that he had some sort of idea. As he backed out of the driveway, he was burning rubber. He was driving psychotically and I was definitely scared. The moment that I knew I was in danger was when he turned the opposite way on the highway from where we lived. "Where do you think we're going?" he laughed. "I don't know Derrick, but I just wanted to go home and you were ignoring me. I don't feel good and I didn't think that it was unreasonable to ask you to take me home when I have been waiting for hours." "Too late now, bitch. I'm gonna take you on a fucking ride, bury you in the dirt, and maybe I'll even dismember you after I kill you." He laughed. His laugh was pure evil. I knew that there was something seriously wrong happening, because his laughter seemed genuine. No sane person would laugh after threatening to murder someone. No sane person would threaten to murder someone in the first place.

As we began to drive through a suburban neighborhood, which was leading to a four-wheeling trail that I was familiar with, I knew that I needed to somehow bring attention to myself, in case I didn’t come back. If I suddenly went missing, at least I could maybe have a witness to get this psychopath locked away. I saw a woman standing in front of her house, watering her yard. I rolled down the window and screamed “CALL NINE-ONE-ONE!” Derrick laughed even more. “You are so fucking pathetic,” he cackled. He was getting joy from my fear. The woman looked up and smiled at me. You have got to be kidding! I’m probably going to die in a few minutes, and all I get from a bystander is a damn smile? It was just my luck.

Derrick sped through the bumpy trial, catching air a few times. I made sure that my seatbelt was tight around my waist, and I firmly gripped onto the overhead bar. I hadn’t seen Derrick laugh so much…ever. When we got to the peak of the mountain, overlooking the airport and the huge green forest, He stopped the truck. He turned it off and looked at me. “You know, if I wanted to, I could kill you right now, and no one would ever know. No one would even report it was you because no one likes you. YOU’RE A FUCKING LOW-LIFE!” he yelled. I sat in my seat silently, looking straight ahead, with tears rolling down my face. I did not respond to Derrick because I wanted to decrease my odds of being slaughtered. He stopped talking and just sat there for about ten minutes. We sat in silence. He started the truck and began down the mountain. The ride home was silent, and he dropped me off at home. Luckily, he went back to his brother’s house.

I called my mom crying again. She had to be getting tired and stressed out from all of these horrific stories. She said what she could to comfort me, but I knew that as long as I was with Derrick, I would never really be safe. That night, Derrick came home acting as if nothing even happened in the first place. I still didn’t know how I should react to him, because he had been becoming more and more unpredictable. He sat in the office while I laid on the couch blankly staring at the TV. “Elizabeth, come here,” he demanded. I went into the office to see what he wanted. “You wanna smoke some shit?” he asked. I had head that phrase come out of his mouth more times than I could count. It was his way of saying I know you don’t really want to get high, and I know you don’t want to live the life of a drug addict, but I know that if I ask you, you can’t say no. It was almost as if it was his way of justifying his own use. As long as he had the green light from me, it was my fault that we were addicted to meth. And of course, I couldn’t say no. My body and my mind were trained to instantly accept this evil substance. It lied to me when it always told me that it would make me feel better.

The next morning, I read the newspaper online with my coffee as I always had when I woke up. On the front page was a picture of a young man who went to the same school as I did. His name looked familiar, so I clicked on the article. This brave man was killed in Iraq. He was a native to Tahoe, and he was also the brother of a girl whom I had become acquainted with over the years. She was on the same cheerleading team as Merri and I, and she also worked at the daycare that Chloe, Zoe and Danielle attended. My heart was breaking for her and her family.

Derrick and I took a drive into town to get breakfast and then continue our binge at Donnie and Casie’s house after. The radio was on one of our favorite country stations, and a song started to play that instantly reminded me of the soldier that was killed, and what his family must be going through. This is just a dream… the song went on. I got dizzy and started feeling sick. I reached into my purse to swallow what was left of my last anti-anxiety pill. Derrick knew that when I reached for those pills, I was in distress. He was surprisingly compassionate, but he didn’t ask me why I was having a panic attack. I didn’t tell him either. I was feeling incredibly guilty and selfish. Soldiers were fighting in a war overseas in a totally foreign and dangerous place while I was wallowing in self-pity and getting high every minute that I had the chance. Soldiers like the one in the paper were losing their young lives to keep a low life like myself safe and free. My morals, values and everything I once held a firm grip on were gone. They had faded away and I hadn’t even stopped to notice it. I thought about the grieving family and prayed for them every day for the next month. I wanted God to know that I still cared, and a part of my true self was still in me, begging to come out. I prayed and asked God for his help to just get me out of the situation, no matter what it would take. Although my prayers weren’t immediately answered, God gave me plenty of warnings and chances to run away. I had them all along.