Postcards From the Edge (7 page)

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POSTCARDS from the EDGE

fended her. He was attacking her and I stuck up for her, and I wound up getting nailed to the wall. That’s my thanks. Fucking Stan. Doesn’t he know who I am? Doesn’t he know who I’ll be? I’ve got to get out of here.

I’ll just leave, right? What are they gonna do? Call the police? I’m not breaking the law. I’ll just leave. I’m not … What am I doing here anyway? I hate it here. I hate these nurses with their little name tags, and they won’t give you any aspirin. They’ll give you Tylenol. I’ve got a flaming headache. I’ve got a flaming headache and all I get is two little Tylenol. Well, that’s not enough.

I’m just gonna check out of here and then she’ll feel bad. She’ll be sorry she didn’t talk to me, even after I took her side. Stan was attacking her for being too nice or something-what is his point? I don’t understand his point. He should have a problem like being too nice. It’s like he thinks he’s God, but God never took drugs.

How dare he come after me? He thinks I’m “nervous,” does he? Well, I’m not nervous! I’m tense. I’m not nervous. “Nervous” is a ditsy kind of a … I’m … Sometimes I’m tense. I think to live in this world, everybody’s tense. I’m not the only tense person. Stan is tense, with his jaw clenched so tight it twitches.

Fuck it, I don’t care. I don’t care about any of them. I don’t care about how Wanda’s father doesn’t like her. I don’t care about Carl and his scrawny legs. I don’t care about Sam and his homemade tattoos. And Mark. Mark! Manson’s buddy. These are my peers?

And this fancy fuckin’ jargon. It’s like being in est. Well, I didn’t want to do est and I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to sit around and swap war stories about drugs and alcohol. I’m sick of it. It’s bullshit.

And Suzanne! At least Carol came in and said, “Come to the mall with us:” But Suzanne, who I defended and got slapped down for my trouble, did she come in? No. I might have gone if she’d asked me.

I’m sick of this place. I don’t like the blanket on my bed, I don’t like the noise of the toilet, I don’t like the homo pubic hair in the Jacuzzi, I don’t like Ping-Pong. I don’t like the food at all. I can’t

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stand the cute little desserts, those squares of pink and white cake, and I loathe Jell-O. And I don’t want to watch The Outer Limits anymore. I’ve seen all the episodes. I have them on tape at home. I can watch The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits anytime I want. I don’t have to sit and do it in a drug clinic, and I don’t have to have them ramming themselves up my nose about how nervous I am. I’m not nervous, I’m pissed. It’s a waste of time to sit in this place. I’ll just sneak past the nurses’ station and …

Fuck it! Then Suzanne will think I’m a wimp and I can’t take it. Well, I can. I can take anything they can dish out. I’ll stay. But I’m not gonna like it. I have my own opinions, I have my own tastes, and they can’t take that away from me. They’re not gonna turn me out like something on a conveyor belt.

God, I want out of here …

DAY TWENTY-FOUR

Alex walked out of group today. Stan had been on my back about my “wonderful girl act.” He said I didn’t just want people to like me, but that I wanted to make an impact on their lives they’d never quite recover from. It wasn’t a startling revelation. I’ve been in therapy since I was nineteen, so Stan is not likely to be giving me stunning insights into my being that I’ve never considered before, but he was trying. He said something about how I probably hoped people would mistake my nervousness for vivacity. I was about to make some glib comeback when Alex suddenly leapt to my defense.

Stan slapped him down by saying, “Oh, and I guess you’re hoping people will confuse your nervousness with aloof cool.” Stan can really be a bastard. An addict made good-now he’s a marathon runner. The junkie of the seventies is the athlete of the eighties. Anyway, Alex bolted to his room and refused to come out for our excursion to the mall. Carol tried to persuade him, but Stan told us to leave him alone. I feel bad for him.

Shopping was hilarious. We went as a group of ten and

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crawled all over the mall like a giant junkie spider. We bought popcorn, cotton candy, cola, and chocolate. Stan said I eat just like a heroin addict (but I break just like a little girl). It was hard to keep the group together. Sam wanted sunglasses, Wanda needed styling gel, and Carl ate three hot dogs. I’m so glad I overdosed now. If I hadn’t, I never would have been in a rehab and shopped with junkies.

I wish Alex had come shopping instead of hiding in his room. I’ve never really talked to him, and he’s been here for over a week. He just seems so tense. He doesn’t seem to get that this is a serious thing. I do think I’m lucky in a way. I had a frightening thing happen: I had my stomach pumped. It was a fairly graphic illustration that my way wasn’t working. If I had to have my stomach pumped the last time I took drugs, why should I think the next time I could take a normal amount? And just what is a “normal amount” of Percodan? Alex probably still thinks he can take normal amounts of cocaine. There but for the grace of overdose go I.

“No, we don’t need to talk about what happened yesterday! I’ve talked about as much as I’m gonna talk in this place. Yeah, I know my parents are coming in. Oh, you would? You’d like the four of us to sit down? You’d like that? Good, the three of you sit down and talk, ‘cause I’ve fuckin’ had it. I’ve had it! I’ve sat in rooms with my parents and I’ve sat in rooms with you, and I didn’t like either one and I don’t think I’d like both. I’m fucking out of here! I’m gone, so you can kiss my ass good-bye. 1 don’t need this clinic, and I certainly don’t need some asshole ex-junkie like you.

“Oh, really? I don’t get it? I get it, mister. From the day I came in here I got it. I got that you were an asshole and this place sucks. I don’t need this place to not do drugs. No, I don’t. What happened to me was purely accidental, and you can tell me from here to tomorrow all this shit about me being an addict-you, with your shooting up. Carl told me you even murdered somebody once to get drugs, and you’re gonna tell me? I grew up in this nice part of town and

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you, Mister Murderer Junkie, are gonna tell me how to stop doing drugs? I have nothing in common with you. Sayonara, you asshole, I’m outta here:’

Ha! I told that fuckin’ asshole, that murdering junkie son-of-abitch. I told him, I fuckin’ told him. Christ, I’m so sick of the sterilized smell of this place.

“Hold the elevator!”

I bet they think I’m just gonna walk out of here and do drugs. Well, they’ve got another think coming. I’m not the cliche everyone else in here is. I’m different. I know they told me everybody here thinks they’re different, but what about the poor son-of-a-bitch like me who really is different? Why do I have to pay for everyone who came through the door and thought they were different and weren’t?

Aaaahhh! I’m out. Aaaaaaahhhhh! What a relief to be outside and not in a fucking group going to the park to listen to Carl go on and on about that stupid wife of his. I don’t want to know about anyone else’s personal life. I don’t even want a personal life of my own. I’m so sick of personal lives.

Whew! I’m never gonna end up in one of those places again. It’s like I got out of jail. I could sing with relief. So, I guess I’ll go home. Maybe I’ll read. I’ll have an old-fashioned Norman Rockwell kind of Sunday. I think I can really appreciate this kind of normalcy I’m gonna go for now after that prison camp experience in the clinic. That’s behind me now. At least I got a little of that anger off my chest. How was that for dealing with my emotions, Stan?

Okay, how do I get home? How do I get home? I’ve got a little cash, I’ll take a cab. First I’ll stop in the Blum’s and have a little cake and celebrate. I’ll eat a little something, maybe have a couple of beers and go home …

Nah, I’m not gonna have any beers. Fuck it. Sure, and what if that asshead comes looking for me and finds me with some beers. “I told you so, Alex:” Well, fuck you, you know? Suck this, you know what I’m saying? I’m no alcoholic. I’ll have some cake, maybe a lit

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tle chocolate ice cream and French fries, and I’ll get home. And no red meat. I don’t want to fuck up my arteries …

Aaahhh! My own apartment. Goddamn, it’s good to be back. My car is back in the garage … I wonder how they got it back. Who cares, it’s here. Let’s see, did I get any messages? Two? Only two messages in ten days? Okay, who called? Jesus Christ! Joan. My mother must have told her. “I’m so glad you went into a clinic:” God, that 1-knew-it-all-along voice. Gloat, why don’t you? Who else called? Shit. My mom. So they know I left the clinic. Great, now I’m not safe in my own house. This is a nightmare. .

Wait, what’s this? A lude. No. No. If I take this, they’ll say it proves their point. Well, I’m not one of their traditional druggies. Here’s the lude, I’m throwing it in the toilet, it’s gone. Goodbye lude, hello no drugs.

I guess I’d better go out in case my parents show up. I’ll go for a drive. I’ll just go out and drive around and enjoy life like I’ve never enjoyed it before. I’m straight, and I threw away a lude. That proves I’m the master over this. I’m not what they thought I was. Hey, here’s that Valium. Down the toilet with this, too. I’ll show them. I’ll throw all my drugs away. There goes the Valium, and there goes that little piece of hash. All right. All right. No real drug addict could throw away their drugs. They’d laugh out of the other side of their clinic if they could see me now. All right! No junkie I.

So it’s drive time. Maybe I’ll go to a movie by myself. That’s kind of a mature thing to do. I’ve seen people do that. It looks desperate, but it’s probably not desperate at all. I don’t want to see any of my friends yet. I don’t want to talk about this. I’m gonna have to reevaluate a couple of things. I think I’m really getting a sense of what my life is about now. I’m feeling real strong after throwing away all those drugs. I’ll show them …

Wait. Wait just one minute … My secret stash. My secret just-incase-gram-hidden-in-the-holed-out-dictionary stash. I’ll just throw … No. No, I won’t throw away my coke. I’ll leave it there and never do it.

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That’ll show them. Yep, there it is. If I was really a junkie I wouldn’t be staring at it right now, I’d be snorting it.

Well, I’m not. I can just imagine them laughing and saying, “Yeah, yeah, what a drug addict:” Well, I’m not. I threw away all my Valium and my hash and that lude, and now I’m just looking at this cocaine. I’m not doing it. So there.

All right, all right, let’s go for that drive. Should I take the gram with me, as kind of a willpower test? Nah, I’ll just leave it right here, as a symbol of the new me.

A drug addict, am I? I’ll show them …

DAY TWENTY-FIVE

Alex left today He and Stan had a fight and he marched out. I was in my room with my mother, and suddenly, from down the hall and behind his closed door, we heard him yelling, “Fuck you!” and so forth. I guess it’s not a tremendous shock. He was never totally here to begin with. It’s as though he came to leave. But what a departure. It was almost operatic in its melodrama.

It’s always frightening when someone bolts back into the blue. I guess he hasn’t been scared enough. Just because everyone else thinks he’s hit bottom doesn’t necessarily mean he has.

Mom brought me some peanut butter cookies and a biography of Judy Garland. She told me she thought my problem was that I was too impatient, my fuse was too short, that I was only interested in instant gratification. I said, “Instant gratification takes too long.”

The glib martyr.

… What a stupid film. Doctor’s Orders. What could I have been thinking? There’s a lesson here-just ‘cause a movie is playing near your house doesn’t mean it’s not a piece of shit. Jesus, I could act better than that. I could certainly write a better script. I should write a script. I’m gonna start writing my script.

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I wish I could do speed, though. I always wrote better on speed, the ideas would just come. I wrote my first pilot in two days on Dexedrine. I bet I could take that again. I don’t see how they could say I’m a drug addict if it’s for work …

So, my script. My script about my experiences in the rehab and my insights into that whole world. Maybe it could be the story of somebody who is accidentally put into a clinic, like Cuckoo’s Nest. The guy is just having an allergic reaction to some drugs, but they put him in a clinic with all these addicts and one’s a celebrity, and they fall in love and get married. Maybe I could take a couple of Didrex and write it. I think that would be okay, if I only take speed to write. I think that’s fair, because I’ve always had a lot of trouble writing without a drug. I don’t even think speed is technically a drug. You can get it from doctors, and if doctors prescribe it, it’s a medication. And I need a medication to write.

God, it’s so good to be back in regular life and just be driving onto my street in Laurel Canyon. It’s a nice night, I had a mature evening. I went to the movies in my car. I’m in my life. Everything is going my way. It’s all uphill from here.

Oh, fuck. My fucking parents! I can’t even have a normal night at the movies by myself. Almost thirty years old. I should be able to come out of a clinic and go back into my life unattended. I think I’m quite capable of doing that. I shouldn’t have to come home from a movie and find my parents’ car in my driveway. I can never grow up if they keep treating me like a baby. Well, if they think I’m a baby, I’ll act like a baby. They can have it their way. If they think I’m such a junkie, I’ll be a fucking junkie. I’ll go out and get loaded. Fine. If they want to worry, I’ll give them something to good and well worry about. Fuck ‘em. I’m going to Brentwood. I’ll fucking go back to Brentwood …

I would never have done this if they hadn’t come over. I would never have done this if they hadn’t driven their Cadillac up to my house, where I’m trying to relax and enjoy the rest of my youth, the twenty more minutes I have left. I go to the movies, I’m handling it