Memoirs Aren't Fairytales (16 page)

“Is it because you didn't get help after the rape?”

“That doesn't even make sense,” I said.

“Then why are you pregnant and addicted to heroin?”

“I don't know.”

I liked the way smack made me feel. I liked watching the needle glide into my vein and feeling the chamber empty into my body. I liked how it took me away into a dream, where I didn't have to think about my past or future or make any decisions. Everything inside me and around me was beautiful when I was high.

Why wouldn't everyone just leave me alone? I had to listen to Claire and Henry this afternoon, and now Michael too? How was I hurting them? This was the first time I'd asked anyone for money.

“I just don't want to be pregnant anymore,” I said.

“Are you selling your body?”

“It doesn't matter.”

“It does to me,” he said.

“I'm selling it to anyone who will buy it. Now give me the money, so I can go.”

His face cringed like I was the most disgusting thing he'd ever seen.

This was another reason why I used heroin. The look Michael had just given me and the questions he asked wouldn't have sunk in if I were on dope. But because I was sober, I felt his look all the way down to my toes.

“Do you want to die?” he asked.

I wanted to get out of here. And to make that happen, I needed to try a different approach.

I sat on the chair across from the couch and looked him in the eyes. “Michael please, I just want to get rid of this baby,” I said. “I'll come back to your apartment after the abortion and do whatever you want me to.”

“You promise me? You swear on my life?”

“I swear.”

He stood from the couch and disappeared into his bedroom.

I wasn't going to die, at least not from heroin. I was good at injecting. I knew how much dope to shoot so I wouldn't OD and how to get all the air bubbles out of the rig. Panhandling wasn't going to kill me, and Richard was harmless. Michael was just trying to scare me.

There was an envelope from CVS on his coffee table, and to keep my mind off puking, I opened it up. The pictures were all of Michael and some guy posing in front of Boston Harbor and Fenway Park. I didn't recognize the dude. He wasn't one of his college friends. He must have been a buddy from work.

I flipped to a photo and it showed—no. Michael had his arm wrapped around the guy's neck. And. And they were kissing. The next few pictures showed different stages of their kiss, from a peck to full-blown tongue shots.

Michael was gay? But he always had a girlfriend. In high school and college, the girls were all about him, and all my friends had a crush on him when we were growing up.

I put the pictures back in the envelope and placed it on the table. All except for one, the photo where their eyes were open and Michael's tongue was in the guy's mouth. That picture went in my purse.

“His name is Jesse,” he said from the doorway of the living room. He walked over to me, put the cash on the coffee table, and kneeled on the floor with his hands on my knees. “And we've been dating for over a year.”

“A year?”

He nodded his head. “I'm in love with him.”

A year ago, I'd found heroin. How funny, we'd both fallen in love at the same time.

Why didn't he tell me he was gay? We used to talk about everything, our relationships, dirt on our friends, and even stupid things like TV shows. And then I started using, and our friendship changed. When we spoke on the phone, I was high and did all the talking. I couldn't remember the last time he'd shared something personal with me.

“Do mom and dad know?” I asked.

“Not yet, they've been too worried about you, but…”

My mouth started to water.

“They won't have to worry anymore,” he said. “You're going to rehab tomorrow, right?”

“Michael, I'm—”

“You promised me,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Why don't you stay the night, and I'll take you to the doctor tomorrow?”

My stomach cramped, and a hot flash sent drips of sweat down my back.

“I don't feel good,” I said. “I think I'm going to be sick.”

He put his hand on my forehead. “You're burning hot.”

“Will you get me some water?” I asked. “Water and Tylenol?”

“Why don't you lie down on the couch.”

I knew if I moved, I'd throw up. That wasn't such a bad thing, I thought. At least if I hurled, it would get him out of the living room for a second.

He helped me out of the chair, and after my second step, I leaned forward. My stomach churned and puke poured from my mouth. My sneakers were covered with chunks, and it splattered on my shirt.

“Don't move, let me get you a towel and a clean shirt,” he said and sped off towards the bathroom.

When I heard him open the closet door, I grabbed the cash and ran out of his apartment. I bolted into the stairwell and shut the door behind me. Hopefully, he'd check the elevator first, which would buy me some time.

I made it out the back door of his building, and there was still no sign of him. I took side streets, and by the time I got on the train, I knew I'd lost him.

When I got inside Richard's bedroom, I gave him the five hundred dollars. What he handed me was the fattest sack of dope I'd ever seen. There was enough smack to last me about a week if I rationed it like Eric had.

I sat in the back of the train on the way home. The jerking and stopping made me throw up all over the floor again. A little taste would take all my sickness away, but I didn't have a rig and I couldn't snort a line in front of all these people. After each heave, more people stared or got up from their seats to move further away.

I held my stomach and ran to the hotel. There was a note taped to the outside of our door. It was from Claire and it said to meet her at Boston Medical.

Why was she in the hospital? And if she was sick, how did she have enough time to leave a note?

Before I went anywhere, I needed to get straight first. Sunshine wasn't home, and there weren't any rigs lying around, so I snorted the powder. It took a few lines for the hot flashes to stop and for my stomach to feel good enough to walk to the hospital.

Claire was sitting in the waiting room of the ER. When she saw me come in, she stood and pulled me into her arms. “What's going on?” I asked.

“It's Sunshine.”

“What's wrong with her?”

Claire told me she'd heard Sunshine crying in our room and rushed over to see if she was all right. She found Sunshine on the floor, and there was foam coming out of her mouth. But that wasn't all of it. Her face was swollen and bruised. She'd been beaten up and there was blood on her legs.

Had someone raped her?

The last time I'd been in a hospital, dried blood had been all over my legs too.

“Did she tell you who did this to her?” I asked.

Claire shook her head.

“Is she going to be okay?”

She said she didn't know.

We sat by the reception area, waiting for the doctor. Claire cried and held my hand. She'd let go to blow her nose and then squeeze my fingers again.

If Sunshine was going to be in the hospital for a while, I needed to find a way to get needles. Maybe I could steal them from the hospital. There had to be a storage room with boxes of rigs, or I could snatch some from those carts the nurses pushed around.

What about the hotel? If Sunshine couldn't fuck Frankie, would he let me stay for free or would I have to bang him too?

Damn, Sunshine. Why did you have to let yourself get beat up?

Someone was always screwing things up for me. Eric had died, leaving Renee and me with one less income. Que and Raul had gotten arrested and that left us with no place to live and no more free dope. And then Renee took off and I was alone. Now Sunshine, too?

At least I had a fat sack of dope. Yes. I didn't have to panhandle with a whole week supply of heroin. And if I could get some needles, life would be really good.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Finally, around two in the morning the doctor came into the waiting room and gave us the news on Sunshine's condition. He said when she came in, she was under cardiac arrest from overdosing on heroin. He injected her with Narcan, which reversed all the symptoms. Once she was stable, he took her into surgery and repaired her collapsed lung. Her kidneys were bruised, and her lip and forehead were stitched closed. He didn't say anything about the blood on her legs. But he said once she healed, she should have a full recovery. He told us she'd be in the hospital for about a week, and if we'd like to go see her, he'd give us a couple minutes.

In the elevator, Claire warned me how bad she would look. Claire was right. I didn't recognize Sunshine. Most of her face was wrapped like a mummy, but her eyes were black and swollen. Her hair was a tangled mess, and her bangs were pink from the blood. There were tubes in her nose and an IV in her hand.

Claire sat on the bed and rubbed Sunshine's leg. She was still asleep, but that didn't stop Claire from telling her how much we loved her and how we'd been praying. Maybe Claire had prayed, but I was still thinking about needles and how I was going to steal them from the hospital.

“It's time for us to go,” Claire said.

I was standing at the foot of the bed. In the corner of the room by the chair was a plastic bag and printed on the front were the words: Patient Property, Boston Medical.

“I'll meet you in the lobby,” I said.

When Claire left the room, I opened the bag and inside were her clothes and purse. I found her container of clean rigs and tucked it under my jacket. Just then, I heard someone coming down the hall and rushed back over to the bed.

“She needs her sleep,” the nurse said from the doorway.

I said goodbye to Sunshine, and Claire and I went back to the hotel.

Sunshine was awake when we visited her the next afternoon. Her eyes looked more swollen than they had the night before, and her face was still wrapped in gauze. But she talked just fine and wanted to know if I'd scored any dope. I told her I'd gone to Richard's.

“What happened to you last night?” Claire asked.

Sunshine didn't answer right away. And when she finally responded, her words came out slow like she had to think first. She told us she was walking home from the store when some guy pulled her into an alley, put a gun to her head, and asked for all her money. She told him she only had a couple dollars, and he punched her in the face and knocked her to the ground. He beat her and kicked her in the stomach before leaving her there to die.

“What did he look like?” I asked.

“He had a mask on,” Sunshine said.

“Did the police question you?” Claire asked. Sunshine nodded. “I didn't have nothing to tell them.”

“Someone must have seen—”

“It was dark and I didn't see nobody around,” Sunshine said.

Claire turned in her chair to face me. “You need to be careful at night,” she said. “Those streets aren't safe.”

Sunshine getting beat up wasn't going to keep me off the streets. If I didn't hook, I wouldn't have enough money for dope.

I remembered then we were out of toilet paper and went into Sunshine's bathroom. I unraveled half the roll and stuffed the wad into my purse. When I came out, Claire was sliding our chairs away from the bed to the far wall.

“Our conversation must have tuckered her out,” Claire whispered.

The side of Sunshine's face was resting on the pillow and she was snoring. We left the hospital so she could get her sleep.

Frankie came knocking on my door the next morning. He told me if I wanted to stay for the week, it was seventy-five bucks. I needed to either pay up or fuck him. Claire must have told him how long Sunshine was going to be in the hospital. The choice was easy to make. I didn't have any money to give him.

When I first started tricking, I hated doing older men. Their skin was wrinkly and hairy, and they had bad breath. But I'd grown to really prefer them—even more than younger guys—because the sex didn't last very long. And if I were on top, that position made them bust real quick.

I rode Frankie on the couch and he came within a minute. Before he left, he said he'd be back in a week to collect again.

We visited Sunshine every afternoon and on the sixth day, the doctor let her go home. Claire got her settled in bed, and once she left to make dinner, Sunshine asked if I had any dope.

“I'll spot you, but you owe me,” I said.

I had enough smack for two more days. But if I had to feed her too, I'd be dry by morning.

I dumped three bags on a spoon and heated it with a lighter.

“Hurry up,” she said and searched her arms and legs for a vein. “The morph's wearing off.”

She said the morphine IV they gave her in the hospital didn't get her high, but it kept her from being dope sick.

“I've been dreaming about this shot,” she said. “The shit's been haunting me at night.”

The only time I'd dreamt of heroin was during one of my nods, but I'd never gone more than eight hours without a shot. I also hadn't been doing smack for as long as she had.

I filled the syringe and walked over to the bed. “You owe me,” I said again. Sunshine's memory wasn't too good.

She found a vein on the back of her thigh and stuck it, but she hit muscle. “Will you stick me?” she asked, wiping the blood off the needle hole.

I injected the vein, and she fell back against the pillow with her eyes closed. The purple bruises on her face were fading, and the swelling on her cheeks were going down. The stitches were still noticeable, but they were starting to dissolve too.

She kicked off the blanket and I saw bruises on her inner thighs. I wondered if those were from the rape. She still hadn't said a word about it. Claire and I hadn't asked her either. When she was ready, she'd tell us.

Since Sunshine's face and body were still bruised, we agreed not to trick until she was healed. To make money, we panhandled together. My jacket was too tight for a baby bump, so I changed my sign to read: Homeless and Hungry. We couldn't sit on the sidewalks or benches, since they were covered in snow. We used a milk crate to sit on, but it didn't fit us both so we took turns sitting down. I thought we'd make a lot of money panhandling in the winter, but people didn't seem to feel bad for us.