Kasher In The Rye: The True Tale of a White Boy from Oakland Who Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental Patient, and Then Turned 16 (33 page)

“I robbed a liquor store.”

Pimples looked at me up and down. “What about you, white boy?”

“I bit my mama,” I growled. “Better watch out before I bite you, too.”

The kids pretty much left me alone after that.

I did my work, minding my own business. The last thing I wanted to do was make friends. One more time I’d landed myself in some dumb shit quite without my own consent.

Before that trial, though, I had to go back to Kaiser and in front of all my peers there face the music of what I’d done.

Tim was waiting for me, armed with the information he wanted. He knew just what I’d been up to. He looked delighted at the prospect of calling me out in front of everyone.

“You wanna tell us about what happened last weekend?” he asked me, pretending to sound concerned.

“Not really, Tim. No, not really.” What was this dickhead trying to buddy up with me for? Trying to connect with me? Fuckin’ yeah, right.

“Well, after an incident like the one your mother told me about, we can’t continue here without you discussing it. It’s a pretty big deal.” Tim crossed his arms.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to cross our arms, Tim. Don’t you know that’s a sign of defensiveness?”

“Making smart-ass comments isn’t going to get you out of this,” Tim said flatly.

“Look, just please leave me alone. Just stop fucking pushing me.”

I was getting desperate, close to tears. I was so fucking ashamed and confused. But I wasn’t telling this guy that. He’s trying to get me to admit this shit in front of a group of kids? No way.

“Well, then, we might need to ask you to leave the group.” Tim sighed and crossed his legs.

“Yeah, you’d like that. Here I am finally trying to quit and nobody gives a fuck. Nobody wants me to get better, they just want to talk about how fucked up I am. Kick me out then. I don’t care anymore.”

We sat in silence for thirty seconds. A standoff.

“Let’s take a break, guys.” Tim looked at the group like they were all in on something I wasn’t. Only Donny was on my side but
he was high as fuck. I knew
that
for a fact. “Take five and we’ll regroup for family session.”

Family session. Ugh. My mother would be there, bandaged. Everyone’s parents would be there, staring at me, disgusted. I couldn’t fucking deal with it.

Donny and I climbed into the elevator ready to go have a smoke and calm down. I was shaking.

Right as the elevator doors inched to a close, a hand darted in. Nails flashed the sensor and the door opened back up.

Pantera Neck. We called this chick Pantera Neck because of the shaved high back, rocker hairstyle she sported. She jumped into my elevator giving me the stink eye.

“The fuck are you staring at me like that for?” I snarled at her.

“I don’t like you. You give Tim too much attitude,” she said, frowning. Hadn’t she just been flirting with me last week?

“Lucky me, I don’t give a fuck about your opinion of me.” I turned to Donny to ignore this bitch.

“Fuck you, don’t turn your back on me.” She grabbed my shoulder and spun me toward her.

I shoved her away from me, yelling, “Hands to yourself, ho!”

She leapt at me, her hands spinning furiously at me like a feral cat’s. Her manicured nails slid down my face, raking a red streak down my cheek.

Did she just cut me?

I felt a trickle of blood dripping down my face like a tear, calling back to mind the memory of the blood I let from my mother’s hand. I snapped. You see, somehow, the impotence I felt at the hands of all the women in my life, my mother, my grandmother, Dr. Susan, played itself out in overcompensation in the rest of
the world. I would lash out at the few girls in my life at any slight disrespect. I’d yell and mock them mercilessly, hoping for tears, hoping for a breakdown. I had no idea at the time that I was just wresting from them the power I never had over the real women in my life, my mother and my grandmother. I didn’t think about the deeper implications of all this of course—I just snapped.

I pounced on Pantera Neck, snapping, throwing her up against the elevator wall screaming, “Don’t ever fuckin’ put your hands on me, you tweaker bitch!” I shook her, grabbed a handful of hair, and yanked her head back. She spat at me.

Donny lunged over to stop me, and just then, the elevator hit the ground floor and the doors opened to all of my peers staring at me with this chick in my hands, their mouths agog.

They rushed in and pulled me off her.

Time for family session!

Ten minutes later, Tim shuffled into group having just debriefed with Dr. Dallas in the hallway. The elephant in the living room was me. I could feel the tension in the room. I’d felt it before. I’d lived my life as the “identified patient.” I was used to being the subject of conversation wherever I was. Used to being the problem. Every eye in that place was on me, silently accusing me of being the worst of the worst. Shit, maybe I was.

“What? I’m the one who’s cut!” Blood was dripping down my face. I dabbed it away with my sleeve.

Pantera Neck and her entire family glared at me from across the room with death in their eyes.

I shrugged, like, “Sorry?”

I was embarrassed.

I’m sitting here looking like a brute. How did I get here?

Worst of all, my mom’s interpreter that night was this guy I’d always looked up to. Mike Hicks. A cool interpreter. Might not mean much to you, but interpreters were a ubiquitous feature in my life by then. I was the subject of so many meetings, there were so many reasons to need an interpreter. They sat in the back like the silent third party. A passive conduit of the information that bore my sins. They knew all my secrets. Bound by a code of ethics that swore them to secrecy and nonjudgment like the Federation of Planets from
Star Trek
, but I knew better. I knew I was a hell gig for them. I was nasty and unforgiving to interpreters. Nobody liked me. Except Mike. I knew he liked interpreting for me. Mostly because he didn’t quit like all the other interpreters who’d come to family session. Mike was like me, the child of two deaf parents. He wore leather ties and signed like he knew what he was doing. He had long hair and a chimney sweep, E-Street mustache. A cool guy. An ex-drinker himself, he didn’t seem to be judging me like every other adult in my clinical malaise. He was almost like me.

Everyone else’s eyes accused me. Even Donny looked at me like, “I can’t help you.”

Ahh, nobody could.

Tim spoke up.

“After today’s group, and especially after the incident in the elevator, I’m afraid we are going to have to ask you to leave the program. I’m sorry.” I almost believed Tim just then. He looked disappointed. Was that possible? I sighed.

“I’m the one with a fucking gash on my face. Why don’t you kick her out?”

Pantera Dad lunged at me, his eyes popping out of his head. His wife held him back or I might have been the first fatality in the Kaiser Adolescent Chemical Dependency Program.

A sign in the break room would’ve read,
IT’S BEEN ONE DAY SINCE OUR LAST WORKPLACE ACCIDENT (MURDER!)
.

“All right, I get it. I really tried this time.” I got up and made my way to the door.

Tim looked up at me. This time he didn’t wink. He turned to my mom. “If you’d like, you can stay in family session without your boy and we can discuss a plan for his future.”

My mother. To her ever-loving credit, she stood up, raised her bandaged hand, and signed to the group, with Mike speaking for her, “If you won’t help my son, who clearly needs that help more than any of these kids, you can’t help me.”

She grabbed my hand in hers and we walked out of group together.

I squeezed her hand gently, and signed, just to her, “Thanks.”

Two rehabs down.

Me, Mike Hicks, and my mom took that elevator to the ground floor.

My mom, crying again, got in the car and started it up. I had opened the door when Mike called me over to him.

“Hey, man, you got a second?” He smiled.

“Ha, I got all the time in the world. I’ve literally got nowhere to be.”

“Listen, bro, I just wanna tell you, man—I get it. I get what’s going on with you. I’m not trying to lecture you, I just want you to know that. Just want you to know I get it. I drank for twenty-five years and smoked my life away. I couldn’t stop. I hurt people. I get it.” He stopped smiling and looked at me in my eyes. Looked at me
like he got it. Looked at me like I was his equal. An adult hadn’t spoken to me like that ever.

“I’m not supposed to be telling you this. You know? We aren’t supposed to interject our opinions. Ha, I could be fired for this, but your mom isn’t gonna snitch on me.”

He signed to my mom in the car, “You aren’t gonna snitch on me, are you?”

My mom laughed her tears away and signed back, “No.”

“Look, man, I just need to tell you, you aren’t a bad kid. Sorry, you aren’t a bad
guy
, shit, you aren’t a kid anymore. You aren’t bad. You’re sick. I was real sick once. But I got well. My mom died this year and she died at my place. I was with her. She forgave me, you get what I’m getting at?”

I didn’t, but I did.

He pulled out a ten-year AA chip.

“I stopped drinking a while ago and got my shit back together. Just don’t let these people tell you you’re a bad guy, because you aren’t. You’re lost. But if you want help, it’s there. You can call me, we can hit a meeting, whatever. I’m only telling you this because someone told me the same thing once upon a time. Saved my life.”

I was shaken up, close to matching my mom’s tears tit for tat. “Cool, man, I appreciate it, thanks.” I turned to jump in the car. Mike grabbed my shoulder. Grabbed me right where Pantera Neck had. I let him.

“Remember, though, you’re gonna have to take a right turn someday. You’re gonna have to decide, you know? There comes a time. You’re gonna have to walk alone. Someday, you’ll have to turn right. You’ll have to walk alone.”

“Yeah, well, thanks.”

He hugged me. Why was he hugging me?

“You don’t need to get good, you need to get well. Later, bro.”

I didn’t know what to say. “Yeah, later.”

I jumped in the car. We drove away.

My mom put her hand on my leg. I looked down at her hand. My mom still loved me. That made one of us.

It was a Wednesday six months later. Or maybe it was a Tuesday a month later. It was a day. In the afternoon. The fog was playing on the ground, unrolling itself onto Oakland like an old gray rug. The fog was everywhere, it was in me too. I’d just been thrown out of the newly minted Oakland branch of the Kaiser Adolescent Chemical Dependency Program. I’d joined right after Walnut Creek Kaiser kicked me out. They kicked me out and shuffled me to a nearly identical program closer to home. You know the comfort you feel when you are out of town or in a foreign country and you go to a chain restaurant that you might resent back home but, in that moment, the familiarity brings you comfort?

This was like the exact opposite of that.

I knew every trick. I’d heard every word. The walls were decorated with the same “Don’t leave before the Miracle happens”
crocheted wall art. I’d managed to gather a few weeks of sobriety but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I got kicked out again.

Another rehab. I was a flagship member. First to be enrolled, first to be kicked out.

Three rehabs down.

This was my life. Nothing had changed. Nothing ever changed.

I laughed about it sometimes. I cried about it, too.

The boys and I were gathered at Rockridge BART again, trying to drum up a plan. One more afternoon in Oakland.

Donny was there. He’d been kicked out of Kaiser right after me for spitting on Pantera Neck in retaliation for getting me kicked out.

That’s my boy!

DJ was there, penny rolls in his fists.

His brother Corey was there, scheming.

Jamie was there, lying.

Miguel was there, being weird.

Even Joey was there that day.

We were all there, all together. The remains of the Pure Adrenaline Gangsters. The remnants of us all.