I'm used to being stared at, used to the constant looks Brighton Beach residents aim my way as I casually saunter down the gritty, pebbled sidewalk in the baking heat of summertime. I'm Harrison Goldfarb and Marion Silver's daughter. It always figures they're gonna have something to say. But still. I try in many ways to differentiate from my parents' heartbreaking past. If you don't know the story, they were hard core drug addicts for a goddamn while. I'm talking heroin addicts, the whole injecting needles into their veins and getting high shit. Fun, right? Not if you plan on losing your arm like my pops did or becoming a prostitute like my mom, or even going to prison like my parents' good friend Ty ended up doing. It kind of sucks, but you gotta stay on the bright side, especially living in Brighton Beach(pun fully intended).
In a lot of ways, I'm like Marion with her pouty lips, seafoam green eyes; I have my dad's long, dark scruffy looking hair and my Grandma Sarah's caring nature, high cheekbones as well as her namesake. My mom never thought it would happen this way. She was so deep in the drugs, that she never strayed from thoughts of doing dope, but getting pregnant with me and realizing I was Harry's baby, truly changed everything for her. For awhile, she hooked up with mad guys and never stopped whoring herself out, just so she score a bundle of heroin and make it through the day, into the night, where her cravings ran rampant. My pops Harry and his good buddy Ty got caught in Miami. Harry had to go to the hospital to get his arm looked at because he'd repeatedly injected the same vein. The vein itself ended up collapsing, Harry's arm grew insanely infected, turning black and blue, he was near death when Ty drove him to the ER.
It's sad, I'll admit reflecting on all that now, and tears threaten to overtake my vision. But that's not the only thing that occurred in the grand scheme of my parents' seemingly erratic lifestyle. My grandmother, Sarah, of course got caught up in swallowing palmfuls of amphetamines(which is your synthetic speed, shit like Adderall) in the vain hope of losing weight and fitting into her red dress. The story is this: she got a phony, crank call from some dude on the television network, claiming she would be on the show, and from then on she abandoned sitting as a couch potato and watching infomercials, just to become a star. Sounds crazy, no? But there's something you need to know about my Grams. She has a lot of courage, she has such a divine soul and only wanted things to stay normal and change. Of course, my father grew up and Grandma Sarah only sank further into a deep depression, once he stopped making rounds to her apartment and visiting her. These pills became her way of escaping the world. True, she lost a colossal amount of weight, but she became emaciated in the process, it only worsened her depression and in the end, her brain chemistry, her state of mind, her whole persona was fried beyond fixing. Dad told me she raced onto the Subway one day, took the goddamned train to the TV studio. She was barefoot, he said, wearing her frayed, red ratty dress, the one from the graduation photo taken with my dad and his father, my Grandfather Seymour, who died ages ago. My Grandma's dyed flaming red hair stood on end, bruised rings circled underneath her heavy, blood shot eyes. She was frantically screaming in a drug induced stupor about being on TV, paramedics rushed in and shot her up with morphine, to put her to sleep, sedate her, and from there she was transported to Brighton Beach's finest psych ward. That's where she is, her head shaved, an absolute vegetable hooked up to coils of wires, an IV machine drip, dripping into her veins. She still watches the same infomercials on repeat. My dad refuses to let me see her. "It's for your own good, hun." He's muttered to me tiredly on the many occasions where I try my best to wear him down and get him to grant me permission to see her. I am nineteen, but that still doesn't mean I know the exact floor where Grandma Sarah is located, besides I wouldn't feel fully comfortable going behind my father's back and visiting her when his initial answer was no in the first place.
I don't even know why I'm telling you all this. I guess it's because, my life up until this point, has been an endless series of constant hang ups, constant hurt, that ebbs and flows within me and makes me want to do something drastic, say like drugs. But I know I'm better than that. I don't need to enhance myself through doing stupid shit, like snorting lines or injecting. My dad has no arm, a severed stump, a phantom limb because of his addictive gene and his former love, heroin. My mom risked contracting sexual diseases from the many men she slept with. Ty is lucky to be out of prison now. I've heard countless stories chronicling the pit fall of drugs in general, enough to completely turn me off from the temptation to use.
I see my Grandma's friends in the distance, all clustered on the sidewalk. Once they spot me, they're lounging in their old, aqua blue and distorted candy pink chairs, tanning, and gossiping wildly, their eyes widen in adoration. Ethel is the first who gets up and walks over to me. She is the one who visited my Grandmother many winters ago and reported back to my Dad on her "deteriorating, vegetable like mentality". She can recall crying, tears silently streaming down her round, sallow face as she exited the hospital in her heavy, mink coat and went home to her other girlfriends.
My dad feels guilty as hell, sometimes. I know because he'll drift about my Grandma Sarah's apartment, where we live now, and depict a haunted soul. His bright blue eyes are all hollowed out, bags weigh them down, and he still looks skeletal thin. He puts on layers of clothing to try and hide his ever steady shrinking frame. Dad lives off a steady supply of black coffee, and Newports. "It's my fault, Marion." I heard him say the other night, when he and my mom were holed up in the tiny, sparse kitchen, at the hour of twelve a.m. They thought I wasn't listening but of course I make sure to catch each and every word they say, in case I miss something important. "I should never have left her alone."
"Harry," my mom said, rubbing soothing circles into his bony shoulders and chewing her lip thoughtfully. "Don't ever say that. You're dead wrong. These things happen and sometimes we're unable to stop it from happening. It was her choice to take the drugs and look where she ended up. I never want to hear you blame it on yourself ever again. I'm sorry, but a lot of stuff was going on in that moment and you know that. We were screwed up too and I know it doesn't change things, what happened to your ma, but as a family, we are truly blessed. We have beautiful daughter, who is a reminder of everything we could have lost, had we continued living the way we did."
My dad was silent after that, ruminating over everything she had said. He coaxed a cigarette, from the nearly crushed cellophane pack, resting in his front jean pocket and lit it up. "You're right," he said yawning as he took a deep pull and regarded her softly. "I should never doubt everything we have been given."
At this, I had cried quietly into my overstuffed pillow on my full mattress. I had been given the best of everything throughout my lifetime. I suppose my parents made up for what they did, through guilty impulse buys. Everything they had purchased for me: a plasma flat screen hanging from my cheerful lavender walls, my black and white zebra striped duvet on my bed intact with a glossy, cherry finish bed post, my thousands of bracelets and various other pieces of jewelry hidden in a small, quaint silver "treasure box" on my impassive dresser, my floor to ceiling gilded mirror, to the many clothing pieces I'd acquired over the years, everything was on my dream list of things to have, everything they did for me was out of love. And yet, I still had this nagging suspicion buzzing in the back of my skull. I sometimes pondered the state of my life. I wondered if my parents would just up and leave me for drugs, sometimes. I'd purchased a bracelet online that read: "I hate heroin" for the sole fact that I was uncertain as to chances that addicts in recovery would not resort to their past, become selfish and do it ever again.
I feel like there's that sporadic pull in life. If you want something so badly, your inhibitions are lowered, there's that determined spark that tingles and draws you in. My parents loved heroin. They were head over heels for the feeling, that euphoric high it gave them. Who's to say it wouldn't happen again? I also am aware of the fact you can't ask what if's. Because you never know what's going to occur, which is a completely frustrating aspect of life, if you ask me.
"You doin' allright, dear?" Ethel fixes me with a concerned expression. She must think I'm on drugs or something, since I've been zoning out hard core for the past few minutes.
"I'm great," I nod, my head bobbing up and down like a buoy in the water.
"Good, just making sure. You know, your father always wants me to keep an eye on you." Ethel laughs.
"I'm aware," I say waiving off her concern with an easy smirk back.
The ladies suddenly titter, gazes distracted by the sight of a tall, lanky boy walking in their direction with a relaxed gait. It's Ty's son. Ty, after his five year stay in prison, became engaged to his high school sweetheart Monique and they had a strapping son, about my age, but a couple years older. His skin is coffee added with just a dash of cream, his eyes sky blue, mirroring that of his pale, blond mother. His head is shaved down, shorn straight to the scalp. He always smells good, like fresh clippings of grass, Earth, and cologne all rolled into one: essentially boy. The ladies know I have a huge crush on him. Always have. We've snuck kisses beneath the stairwell of my apartment building. We have an easy relationship, a firm connection through the card our lives have been dealt. He gets it. He understands my pain, and my frustration I never express when in the company of my parents, because I'm afraid they wouldn't totally get where I was coming from.
"Hey, Trey." I say shyly, unable to meet his gaze.
Trey grins widely. "Hey, Sarah."
Just the way my name rolls off his tongue fluidly makes my insides tingle. My mom comes rolling up in her battered sand color Crown Victoria just as Trey is about to lean in and kiss me. Mom steps out of the car, clicks open the back trunk and motions for me to come and help with groceries. My dad is sitting in the passenger side, playing on his i-phone. Ty is in the back seat, rapping a mile a minute, as though he's still trapped in high school.
"Uh-oh," Ty notices our bodies in close proximity, mainly me close enough to brush Trey's arm. "Aw, hell nah; what's going on here?"
"Dad," Trey's rolls his sky eyes exaggeratedly. "can you not right now?"
"Trey, I'm your dad." Ty scoffs. "I'm meant to be an embarrassment. But this is simply going too far."
Marion shakes her head in amazement. "Sarah, I didn't know you hung out with Ty's boy. I'm glad you made a friend, but you understand this is seriously awkward for me, Ty, and Harry's expense?"
"Aw, come off it Mare." My dad chuckles from the front seat. "Can't you see our girl's in love?"
"She's nineteen," Ethel snipes. "She doesn't know what love is."
Trey is turning absolutely scarlet. "We're not in love or anything, yet." He says sheepishly. "I'll admit I like her, you have a mighty fine daughter here, Mrs. Silver."
"Goldfarb," Mom corrects flashing her tiny, modest diamond ring.
"We raised her well," Dad shrugs helplessly. "But our daughter should be focusing on work, not hanging out with boys."
"Especially ones who are currently grounded for life," Ty retorts, leveling Trey with a glare that could melt ice.
"You're grounded?" I say in a hushed tone, incredulity stitching my eye brows in two.
"Temporarily," Trey confesses, shrugging helplessly. "Dad found some stuff he wasn't too happy about."
"Like what?" I lean in to whisper in his ear, so our parents can't eavesdrop.
"I can't really say," Trey's eyes grow dark with shame.
"Tell me," suddenly curiosity is snaking its anxious fingers down my backside, causing a chill to caress my spine and worry spike my mind.
"I really don't think I should," Trey says quietly.
"What? Why not?" I shoot out, mind resorting to memories of being cradled in his arms, our lips melding together, taking walks to the pier and holding hands. This image vanishes though as soon as he drops the deadly word. Shock drains my face of color, and I back away startled.
"Told you I shouldn't have said anything." Trey calls after me. "Sarah, wait!" But I'm running upstairs, so fast and furious my feet burn a hole in the ancient threadbare carpeting leading up to my apartment. Mom is following after me, her face flushed with worry.
"Sarah, what's going on?" I collapse at the bottom of the stairs, trying to catch my breath as sobs spiral from the wells of my chest and ricochet off the echoey walls of the downstairs complex foyer.
"He. . . tried heroin." I'm absolutely devastated that the guy I trusted, the guy I liked, is just as bad as my parents were. I thought he was a straightedge, a good student, a smart debater, a nice guy, not some lowly, drug addict; looking for a high. Turns out I never knew him.