Death Will Help You Leave Him (7 page)

“Did he say anything about hitting?” Barbara asked.

“Not to me!” The black woman bared her teeth. “I tole him I’d cut him if I caught him being mean to women.”

Bluffing. A knife sharp enough to cut into human flesh would have been confiscated when she got to rehab. And however streetwise, she’d been knocked around. Like most addicted women, she’d lost some teeth.

“Yeah, he did,” chipped in a runty little guy with a pale, pinched Irish face and flaky, faded ginger hair. “Some things you only tell the guys.”

“The girlfriend? He beat on her?” Marla said. They all looked at Luz, who gazed out into the street, watching an SUV try to parallel park in a space big enough for a Volkswagen. “I guess I’m glad I didn’t know. I kinda liked Frankie. Some things he said, I could identify. And then he croaks and doesn’t get a chance to make amends.”

“Did anybody particularly not like Frankie?” Barbara asked. “I mean, so it was noticeable.”

They all looked at each other before anybody answered, but I couldn’t read the looks.

“Oh, no,” the Irish guy said. “We’ve all done bad stuff when we were wasted. Everybody thought he was okay.”

“Yeah, Frankie was cool,” the Hispanic guy said.

“We were, like, all in it together,” Marla said.

“Like Kevin said.” The Hispanic guy nodded at the Irish guy. “Frankie wasn’t the only one there who beat up his wife.”

“His wife? He beat her too?” Barbara asked.

“Yeah, he spit it out one day in men’s group.”

“Nobody’s perfect,” Mars said.

When the phone rang, I was having a drunk dream. Jimmy and I were at the beach. We lay on chaise longues in the sun. We were drinking Chivas Regal straight from the bottle.

It felt so real. My unconscious had perfect recall. The first shock on the tongue. The slow burn down the esophagus. The warm glow in the belly. The elbow going on automatic. Then pleasurable stupor gave way to dismayed realization that now I’d have to start sobriety all over.

I came abruptly awake. I lay flat against the mattress, feeling like the dead man with sixteen men on my chest.

“Damn!” I said aloud, both glad and sorry I hadn’t picked up after all. The phone was ringing. I groped. Dropped it. Scrabbled for the receiver. Managed to hoist it in the general direction of my ear.

“Yeah,” I barked. I squinted at the red glow of my digital clock on the dresser. Half past two in the morning.

“I’ve got a bucket of water and a razor.” The deep voice dragged.

“Oh, God, Laura.” Suicidal. I bit back,
Do you know what time it is?
“What happened?” Silence. “Talk to me.”

“Sometimes words aren’t worth the trouble.”

“You’re depressed.”
No shit, Sherlock
. I hated when this happened. But I couldn’t blow her off. She had never done it. But each time, she might. “Is anyone with you?”

Besides the procession of men in her bed, Laura often had a dysfunctional friend or two crashing in the loft. Mental patients she knew from various treatment programs. Drinking and drugging buddies. Artsy farts she’d met at craft fairs: jewelers and potters who lived in Vermont or Maine and needed a place to stay. They didn’t know talking Laura down in the middle of the night came with the package.

“Mac was here, but he left.”

The unsatisfactory boyfriend. I managed not to say,
Did he leave before or after you got out the razor?

“Come on, Laura, you know you want to live.” I wasn’t so sure it was true, but it couldn’t hurt to say it. “You have talent. You’re beautiful. You have friends who love you.”

“I don’t care. It’s all bullshit.” Every word thumped me in the gut. Reason said I wasn’t responsible. Reason didn’t help. If Laura killed herself, it would be my fault. I sat up in the bed. I wished I had a cup of coffee. It would be a long night.

“Laura, put away the razor.”

“Or I could cut myself.”

“Please don’t do that, Laura.” I heard my pleading tone, which never helped, and steadied my voice. “Cutting doesn’t help.”

Laura had done this bizarre thing since her early teens. She’d score her arms with a razor, hatching the skin with dozens of little slashes. Borderline personality, Barbara said when I asked her once. It’s what they do.

“It does too. When I cut, at least I know I’m alive.” Laura said what Barbara said they say.

“So you do want to stay alive.” I grasped at the offered straw.

“Not necessarily.” Arguing with a depressed person was frustrating. “I want to feel something, anything. But then I can’t stand the feelings. They hurt me, Bruce. You can’t make them go away, can you? There’s nothing but the razor and the bucket.”

“What about your medication?” By this time, I felt hopeless myself. Depression is infectious. I don’t know how shrinks stand it.

“It doesn’t work, not really.”

“That’s not true,” I argued. “I’ve seen it work for you.” But only when she took it as prescribed. And didn’t mix it with Ecstasy or crystal meth.

“The doctors play with my head. I’m tired of being a statistic.”

True and not true. Barbara always said to validate the feeling and correct the cognitive distortion. Now if I could just remember what the hell that meant, maybe I could say the right thing.

“You feel out of control when they’re figuring out the medication. I understand. I know it feels scary. But they are trying to help you.”

“Then you take the medication!” she shot back. “Maybe it’ll help you.”

God grant me the serenity
, I said in my head,
to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can.

What to say next? It came to me, one clear thought.

“Laura, listen to me. If you don’t put away the razor and the bucket, I’m going to call 911.”

Oh, shit, I was having a spiritual experience. If you pray, the answer will come. The Serenity Prayer is so deep you can’t deny it. But I had always assumed folks who said “God talked to me today” were wackos. Maybe this was what they meant. “Call 911” wasn’t a burning bush, but it was something.

“No, no, Bruce, don’t do that, please don’t. I don’t want them to take me away.”

I could tell she was crying. Now I really felt swell.
And the wisdom to know the difference.

“Then put away the razor,” I said. “Wrap it in a paper towel or something and throw it in the garbage. I’ll stay on the line while you do it. I’m right here.”

In the past, I’d always grabbed a cab and rushed down there. Or before that, when we actually had a relationship, I’d have been there already. If I gave in now, it would be tears and threats till morning.

“I don’t have a paper towel.”

“Then use a napkin. Go on, do it.”

Of course she had more razor blades. I had checked her medicine chest on general principles when I’d been down there. If nothing else, she used them to chop up cocaine. But throwing it out had symbolic value. This whole thing was a ritual. I’d never varied my role before.

“I’m looking for a napkin. Is it okay if I put down the phone?”

“Sure. Whatever.”

Amazing. I actually had the upper hand. I could hear her rattling around her kitchen.

“Okay, I did it. I even threw coffee grounds and part of an onion on top so I wouldn’t fish around for it. Now what should I do?”

My God, now she was seeking my approval. If I didn’t watch my step, I’d find myself back together with her. I had regained enough sanity since I stopped drinking to know I didn’t want that. No way.

“Take the bucket and dump the water down the sink.”

“There are dishes in the sink.”

I sighed. A childlike, compliant Laura was no less difficult to deal with than the manic sex goddess or the depressed voice of doom.

“So they’ll get wet. Or go into the bathroom. Dump it down the bathtub. Or the toilet. Your choice.”

She put the phone down without comment. Laura was oblivious to irony at the best of times. Sometimes it amazed me that we’d ever gotten together. While I waited, I put the phone back down on the dresser. I lay down head to foot on my bed so the cord would reach and tucked the receiver against my neck so I didn’t need my hands to hold it. I yawned so wide my jaws ached. I might even get back to sleep if Laura let me go.

“Bruce, will you come down?” It would have been a childish whine if she’d had an upper register. No matter what she said, it sounded sexy. God grant me the serenity, because some things never change.

“No.”

Wow. I couldn’t believe it. No was a complete sentence I’d never used before. I still felt addicted to Laura. But maybe there was hope for me.

*

The next evening, I met Jimmy for dinner and a meeting. I was reluctant to tell him about the midnight phone call. I still felt protective of Laura. I didn’t want Jimmy judging her. He’s not a judgmental kind of guy. But he will tell you what to do to stay sober. I didn’t want to hear, “Give her up, or you’ll drink again.” So we talked about alcoholism, as usual.

Her name came up anyway.

“Did you drink when you were happy, or did you drink when you were sad?” Jimmy asked. Rhetorical question. The answer is always, “Both.”

“Speaking of sometimes happy and sometimes sad,” he said, “what’s with Laura?”

“Is that the clinical definition of bipolar?” I asked. “Sounds a little understated to me. Honestly, I don’t know.”

“Are you seeing her?”

“You don’t ‘see’ Laura. You close your eyes and surrender.”

Jimmy closed his own eyes and muttered, “I will not get preachy. I will not get preachy.”

“You better not, big guy.” I gave him an amiable punch in the gut. “Anyhow, anything you could say, I’ve told myself already.”

“Can I say just one program slogan?”

“You already have.” I tapped the side of my head. “I channel you these days. ‘People, places, and things,’ right?”

“Glad to hear you’ve been listening,” Jimmy said. “She still stocks the pharmaceuticals, then.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want any,” I protested.

“Yet.”

“I know, I know, I think I’ll never have another craving I can’t overcome, but that’s just the disease talking dirty to me. Can we talk about something else?”

“OK, forget program, but Laura is still Laura. She could always suck you in.”

“I’m setting boundaries,” I protested. “And don’t grin at my vocabulary, dammit. Anyhow, she’s got a boyfriend.”

“Oh, man, you’ve got it bad.”

“I do not.”

“You do so.”

“Do not.”

“Do so.”

When we were kids, the next step would have been a tussle. The two of us rolling around on the ground. Or the floor, depending where we were. We were getting old.

“It’s not like you think,” I said. “I’ll never end up back with Laura. But you’ve never had an ex. You don’t know what a habit it is. I worry about her. I don’t think this new guy treats her right.” Jimmy raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Not candy and flowers, you chump. She’s got bruises.”

“You can’t save her, bro,” Jimmy said. “That’s what ‘powerless’ means. Do you know how many times that little Luz called Barbara in the middle of the night? First time she said he’d left, we thought, okay, he left. She’s in shock, it’s a big deal. We wanted to do whatever we could to help. Talk her down, invite her over, tea and sympathy and take her to a meeting. By the fourth or fifth time, we realized it was a dance they did. He was never gonna leave, not for real.”

“But he did leave,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, being dead will do it.”

“Barbara doesn’t think she did it. How about you?”

“Man,” Jimmy said, “I have no idea. She’s so little, and she swears she loved him, whatever that means when the guy knocks you around.”

“Plus the mind fuck. Leaving but not leaving, jerking her chain for the fun of it. I think this Mac guy of Laura’s does the same thing. I can’t stand to think of her putting up with that.”

“You married Laura,” Jimmy said. “You know her a lot better than any of us, including Barbara, knows Luz. Could you see her murdering Mac if it got bad enough?”

“That’s not it.” I swallowed hard, a lump in my throat and a little flutter in the pit of my stomach. This getting in touch with your feelings shit sucked. “I’m afraid she’ll kill herself.”

“Like I said, you’ve got it bad. If you don’t watch out, you’ll find yourself in Al-Anon talking about your ‘qualifier’ and how to detach with love.”

He’d given me the answer: Al-Anon. So I didn’t ask the question: How the hell could you detach when you saw someone you cared about doing ninety downhill on a dead end street?

I lay on Jimmy and Barbara’s living room sofa, envying Frankie. Dead or alive, he didn’t have to sleep on the couch. Home meant drunk dreams and midnight calls from Laura. So I’d stayed over. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. The couch looked great on the outside, six feet of butter-soft leather in a color decorators called merlot. As close as I got to a bottle of wine these days. But down under the skimpy thin-enough-to-fold mattress, like any other foldout couch my spine had ever met, it resembled a medieval torture device. When I called it the rack, Jimmy pointed out that it didn’t stretch my body out in opposite directions.

“Okay, what did they call the one that stuck metal bars and bumps up into your back?”

Being Jimmy, he went straight to Google. And as usual, he fell right in.

“Hey, listen to this. ‘We custom build a range of torture and medieval restraining devices including thumb and toe screws, cages, belts, and shackles.’ And it gets a lot of hits.”

“Thank you for sharing. Next you’ll tell me ‘there but for the grace of God’ and I should put your damn sofa on my gratitude list.”

“Very good, son.” Jimmy chuckled. “You’re beginning to get it.”

I was, but it made me grumpy.

“Coffee,” I said.

“Coming right up,” Barbara said, appearing from the kitchen like the Good Witch of the North. She had intelligently brought the whole pot. “If you’d gone home last night, you would be stumbling around making your own right now. Or wondering if you had the strength to make it to the nearest Starbucks.”

Much too grumpy to admit she was right.