Recovery Road

Y
ou can’t tell what Spring Meadow is from the road. The sign, nestled beneath a large oak tree, could be for a retirement village. It could be a bed-and-breakfast. It could be a corporate office or a small women’s college.

The road to the main building is confusing because you think you’ve entered a campus of some kind, but then you drive along a row of small houses, none of which seem to hold actual families.

At the end of the road, you’re faced with a low, modern building that looks like a school or an office complex. There’s still no indication of the purpose of the place. There’s no medical equipment, no wheelchairs, no people with clipboards. There are no guards or attendants, no one who seems equipped to handle a crisis situation.

If you arrive on a rainy night, in wet clothes, with bits of vomit still in your hair, nobody comes running to your car to help you inside. Nobody offers to clean you up. You can clean yourself up later if you want. As with many things at Spring Meadow, it’s up to you.

There’s a chemical smell to the main building. It’s a smell you’ll get used to. If your parents brought you, they will talk to Ms. Rinaldi, who takes your patient information and fills out the insurance forms. These have to be completed before they put you in a room. And if you’re sixteen, of course, there are issues of guardianship and consent.

If you’re shaking slightly or having trouble focusing due to extreme levels of alcohol and/or drugs in your bloodstream, well, that’s your problem. It’s not like the movies. Nobody gives you a shot of sedatives to calm your nerves. Nobody lays a blanket over your shoulders. Nobody puts an arm around you and tells you everything will be fine.

You stay in the main building that first night. You lie down in a cell-like room, on a too-hard mattress with a too-flat pillow, and stare at the bare yellow wall in front of you. If you’ve, say, stolen a car that day and driven it into a ditch, you might still be feeling the impact in your wrists and chest, you might have cuts, scrapes, and bruises from the air bag. You might see things coming at you at high speed when you close your eyes. That’s not fun. But that’s nobody’s problem but your own.

In a couple days you will be cleaned up, clothed, your stomach settled, your vision cleared. You will walk around the main building in your bathrobe and your slippers, with your herbal tea and your daily schedule in your pocket. Your daily schedule: drug and alcohol classes, drug and alcohol counseling, drug and alcohol group therapy sessions. There’s not a lot of variety of subject matter.

But that’s what it is. Spring Meadow. Rehab. That’s your first twenty-eight days.

In some ways, those are the easiest.

I
’m trying to brush my teeth but I can’t find my toothpaste.

It’s 9:30 in the morning. I’m standing in the bathroom, in my bathrobe and underwear. I’ve completed my twenty-eight days in the main building, and now I’m in my second week at my halfway house.

Which sucks. But it would at least be tolerable if I could brush my teeth, which I can’t, because I can’t find my toothpaste.

I know I have some. I just bought it two days ago at the Rite Aid.

I open the medicine cabinet. I move stuff around. I start pulling crap out. I am sure I left it in here.

Who took my stupid toothpaste?

I shut the cabinet. The bathroom is disgusting. The floor is cold and sticks to my bare feet. The mirror is so scratched and old you can barely see yourself. I look through the shelves against the wall. They’re full of cheap, abandoned beauty products. Pert shampoo. VO5 conditioner. Kroger’s hand and body lotion.

I go back to my room.
Our room
, I should say, with its six bunk beds and group closet. I start digging through the shelves there, slamming things around.

Then I know who did it: Jenna. The new girl. The one who threw a hissy fit about her kitchen duties. Tough shit, Jenna. You gotta wash the dishes your first week.
THAT’S HOW IT WORKS. THAT’S WHAT EVERYONE DOES
.

That reminds me. Trish said something about her dental floss. She bought some and the next day it was gone. This is Jenna’s doing too, no doubt.

I go into Jenna’s room. I don’t know which bunk is hers or which suitcase. I start tearing through the shelves and the closets.

I storm back into my own room. I am furious. I am spinning in place, looking for something to break or throw or turn over. If I had my cell phone I could call Trish right now and we could find Jenna and beat her skinny ass. But I don’t have my cell phone thanks to my asshole parents who locked me in here and
TOOK AWAY MY CELL PHONE LIKE I WAS SIX YEARS OLD.

I look around. I’m gonna break something
BUT EVERYTHING’S BROKEN ALREADY
in the stupid
HALFWAY HOUSE
, because it’s full of
CRIMINALS
and
DRUG ADDICTS
and
TEENAGE PROSTITUTES
or whatever you are,
JENNA, YOU STUPID BITCH.

I am really worked up now. I grab my bunk bed and shake it, smashing it against the wall until a painting falls off and breaks on the floor. Angela’s secret ashtray drops through the springs of our bunk bed and scatters ashes and butts over my blankets.

I grab one of the bureau drawers and yank it out of the cabinet. Clothes fly around the room.

That’s when a small white tube pops out of my bathrobe pocket, hits the floor, and bounces at my feet.

My toothpaste.

I pick it up. I look at it.

I
do not have an anger problem,” I tell Cynthia, my counselor, the next day.

“Are you sure about that, Madeline?”

“No,” I reluctantly admit. I’m slouched in the chair in her office. I dig at something under my nails, some green slime I got cleaning the toilets. That’s what you do during your second week at the halfway house.

Cynthia stares at me like she does. “Where do you think the anger comes from?”

“From my demented brain?” I say to my thumbnail. “From my abusive childhood? Because I’m an evil bitch? How would I know?”

“You’re not an evil bitch.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” I say.

Cynthia sighs. “So how’s the transition residency?”

“You mean the halfway house?” I say. “It’s gross and filthy and disgusting.”

“Why don’t you clean it up?”

“I do clean it up. That’s all I do. When I’m not working at my so-called ‘job’ doing laundry. I’m a teenager — I’m supposed to
be working at the mall. I’m supposed to be folding sweaters at the Gap and flirting with emo boys at the Cineplex.”

“Is that what you think normal teenagers do?”

“I have no idea what normal teenagers do. And I don’t care either.”

She watches me across her desk. “How are you getting along with the other women?”

“Let’s see,” I answer. “Jenna’s a total criminal. Angela hates white people. Britney drinks fifteen Diet Pepsis every day and God help you if you even
touch
one of them in the refrigerator.”

“I thought you said Jenna
didn’t
steal your toothpaste?”

“She didn’t steal
that
. It doesn’t mean she’s not going to steal something else. Have you seen her face? She’s total trailer trash.”

“What about Trish?”

“What about her?”

“You guys are the same age.”

“She’s eighteen. I’m sixteen. That’s not the same age at all. And that’s another thing. Why do we have to live with old people? I hate old people. Why can’t we have a house of just young people?”

“Would that make a difference?” asks Cynthia patiently. “Would you like the people better?”

No
, I admit silently to myself.

“So what’s wrong with Trish?” asks Cynthia.

“Nothing’s wrong with her. I just don’t need any friends right now. I haven’t had alcohol or drugs for thirty-eight days. Isn’t that the point of all this? What else do you want from me?”

“Have you thought about how they feel? Have you considered it might be hard for Angela to be here? Or Trish? Could you maybe help them in some way?”

“Why should I help them? Why don’t they help me? I mean, you lock us inside this place and then you want us to do your work for you. It’s ridiculous.”

“I’m just suggesting the situation might be easier if you made some friends.”

“I don’t want any friends! I have my own problems to worry about.”

Cynthia watches me from across her desk. “You need other people, Madeline. There’s a great freedom in knowing that. And accepting that. And letting people in. Letting them help you.”

“Yeah, whatever,” I say. “I can only do what I can do, okay?”

“If you say so.”

A
fter dinner, I retreat to my bunk bed with a crossword puzzle. Trish comes into my room and stands in the doorway. If I had to describe Trish, I would say: “high school parking lot.” She smokes. She wears too much makeup. She probably gives great hand jobs.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” I say back, without enthusiasm.

“Whatcha doing?”

“Nothing.”

“You wanna go to movie night?”

“Not really,” I say.

“C’mon, it might be fun. You get to ride in the van.”

“I’ve ridden in vans before.”

She leans against the doorway. “There might be boys.”

“I thought the boys were off-limits.”

“So they say.”

I frown and scratch out one of my crossword answers. “I don’t want to get dressed.”

“Oh God,” says Trish. “Don’t you want to go somewhere? Aren’t you sick of sitting around here?”

I am. Massively. And it’s November and all it does is rain. I’ve barely been outside for a week.

Trish stands at the door. I remain on my bed. She awaits my decision.

I throw my crossword puzzle on the bed.

“Good,” says Trish. “I’ll meet you out front.”

Fifteen minutes later, we’re standing on the porch. The Spring Meadow van arrives at 6:25. We climb in, Trish and me and another woman from our house.

The van continues down Recovery Road, picking up other people from the other halfway houses. There’s an old gay guy in a blue blazer. There’s a tattooed, middle-aged rocker dude. There’s a creepy boy with big ears and a rodent face. Last but not least are two fifty-year-old women in hideous tracksuits.

The driver takes us into the town, Carlton, Oregon, which is basically one street. He pulls up in front of an old movie theater. It’s called The Carlton — surprise, surprise. We pile out of the van like a bunch of retarded people.

We stand there. It’s very embarrassing. We are just about the worst-looking group of human beings imaginable. If I saw us walking down the sidewalk, I wouldn’t just cross the street, I’d run home and take a shower.

Trish bums a cigarette from one of the tracksuit ladies. I stand with her while she smokes. At least she and I are young. If you cleaned us up and gave us decent clothes, we might actually look presentable.

We wait. Nobody knows what movie we’re seeing. Nobody knows when it starts. Nobody has a watch. Nobody goes to see.

Vern, the gay guy, finally gets the great idea to buy tickets and go inside. The rest of us follow along.

The Carlton is a dump. The lobby smells like moldy carpet. The wallpaper is peeling. It’s cold, drafty, damp. Popcorn is only a buck, though. So that’s good.

Trish and I get popcorns and Cokes. We stand together and stay close to Vern, so that Middle-Aged Rocker Dude can’t hit on us.

In the theater, we sit in a line. Me on the far end. Then Trish. Then Vern. Then everyone else. The previews play. I zip up my coat, pull down my hat, take a long breath.

Movie night.

The film starts. It involves guns and drugs and a suitcase of money.
God, I’d love a shot of Jack Daniel’s
, I think. Or a beer. Or anything.

The movie continues. I have no idea what’s happening. I’m totally bored and I’m getting the squirmies. The squirmies is when your body says to your brain:
WHERE IS OUR DAILY DOSE OF DRUGS AND ALCOHOL? WE WANT IT. GIVE IT TO US NOW!

I shift around in my seat. I feel like wires are being tightened inside my chest and shoulders. Or like a billion tiny insects have invaded my nervous system. I lose all focus on the movie and I clench my teeth and my fists and I feel like my whole body is being turned inside out.

Then I blank out. My brain shuts off. I forget where I am and what I’m doing. And then five minutes later, I’m okay, everything’s fine, I’m totally cool. I eat some of Trish’s popcorn.

That’s how it goes with the squirmies.

The movie, meanwhile, continues to suck. There’s an especially idiotic part where the ex-cop sees a picture of his children and remembers how much he loves them. Violins actually play.

“Who gives a shit?” Trish says out loud to the screen.

“Shhhhh,”
says someone behind us.

It gets worse. There’s a love scene that is so stupid I almost barf. Trish starts giggling. This makes me start giggling. We can’t help it. People get mad. Then Trish starts laughing so hard she can’t stop and she blows Coke-snot out her nose.

“Would you please be quiet?” says a man in front of us.

“Would you please eat me?” says Trish.

We finally calm down, but then during the final ten minutes, when there’s car chases and explosions, we get a little carried away.

“Kill that asshole!” screams Trish when the good guy holds one of the bad guys at gunpoint.

“Shoot him in the face!” I yell.

The other moviegoers are not happy with us. We don’t care. Life is ridiculous. It’s not our fault.