Matthew in Rockland
by Positively
Warnings for drug use, mentions of suicide, and allusions to rape and prostitution.
Chapter 2
Now
Before I know it, two weeks are up and I'm due for another session of having other people bring up the most painful parts of my existence and analyze them in excruciating detail. My bi-monthly reminder of why I tried to kill myself. They call this "therapy."
I'm pretty sure my therapist, Dr. Kirkland, has given up on getting me to talk and now is just doing his damnedest to make sure I'm suffering as much as he is. Fair enough, I guess. If they won't join you, beat them.
Kirkland works at the treatment center with the thirty-day program clients like me. We had sessions every other day back when I was inpatient; now that I'm outpatient, we have a session every other week. Mostly to check up on me, see how I'm adjusting to polite society and basically make sure I haven't relapsed. It's up to me how long I continue the outpatient sessions, by which I mean it's up to Alfred. He seems to think it's a good idea, so. Whatever. It's his money.
There's also a free Twelve-Step meeting every day, but Alfred's not stupid enough to drag me to those.
In the waiting room, I see some of my buddies from Group, who'd either enrolled later than me or opted for the ninety-day inpatient program. There's Sean, who has been in and out of rehab for a couple decades and is miraculously still alive (though his mind is another story); Natalia, a crazy-eyed woman who jitters around like she's still on speed; and the Bull, whose nickname has apparently hilarious origins that he won't disclose to anyone. The Bull and I have a sort of understanding, and he winks at me when I sit down with Alfred.
"Matthew Williams?" Kirkland emerges from his office to shake hands and make aggressive eye contact with Alfred. I can't figure out if they hate each other or if they're planning to elope next week, but now's not the time to be worried about it. Because the Bull has been sidling closer to us for the past two minutes, and he uses their distraction to close the gap and discreetly press a small rectangular package into my hand. I slide it into my back pocket and he slips off.
"Come on in, Matthew," Arthur says, beckoning me into his office.
Alfred follows, which I'm pretty sure isn't standard operating procedures, but Kirkland doesn't protest. I guess he needs someone to tell him whether I'm eating, sleeping, or god forbid using again.
A witness to the massacre of my spirit. I love that.
"Sit down, Matthew, let me pull up a chair for Alfred here." He does so with minimal grumbling then sits behind his tall desk. It feels like a sentencing: defendant Matthew Williams, prosecutor Alfred Jones, judge and jury Arthur Kirkland.
A massacre.
"Today is going to be a pretty informal session. I just want to catch up a little, figure out how you're adjusting to your new life. Is it okay that Alfred's here?"
I fail to indicate otherwise, so he continues. "Well then, first things first I guess. Are you having any thoughts of relapse? Leaving treatment means returning to old problems and old temptations. How have you been handling it?"
A beat. His dark green eyes are so encouraging, even a little hopeful. Like he thinks moving out of the treatment center would magically make me want to talk again. Alfred looks uncomfortable and embarrassed, like I'm his ward who won't show off properly in front of guests.
"Are you thinking about your recovery in terms of the Twelve Step Program?"
Well, I repeat it to myself whenever I need a laugh.
"You ought to stop rolling your eyes, Matthew. It's tried and true. It's helped thousands of addicts stay clean."
"Agreed," Alfred interjects. He's really into the idea of me finding a sponsor and admitting my powerlessness and all that. Major obstacles include: a) the fact that nobody wants to sponsor someone who refuses to exchange a single word with them and b) I don't hold with the idea of a Higher Power and c) any encouragement to do so quickly turns me sour.
"How are you adjusting to life outside of the treatment center, Matthew? Is it easier than you thought? More difficult?"
I have no clue. As opposed to rehab? It's hard to say. Really the only measuring stick that matters now is whether it's preferable to dying on the streets. And, I mean, duh.
"Still not talking, then?" Now he directs the question at Alfred and I know I've won. The rest of the hour will be them talking about me like I'm not in the room, so I'm free to mentally leave. I'm on a sailboat, out at sea, alone. It's lovely. The breeze snaps at my clothes, rips at the little package hiding away in my pocket…
"I don't get it," Alfred is saying. "It's not even a childish 'I'm not talking to you' deal, it's like he's honestly mute. But I'm trying to help him, you know, so why can't he even try?"
Abruptly remembering that I'm the client here, Arthur turns to me and says, "I think you have a lot of resentment towards the world, Matthew. Do you think maybe you're misdirecting it against the people who are trying to help you?"
Not really.
"I think perhaps you don't know how to start over. I think you don't know who you are without the drugs."
I think it's ridiculous that Alfred's paying two hundred dollars an hour for this bullshit.
"So you don't know what to say anymore. You're supposed to be becoming this new person, someone who is not an addict, and you don't know what to do. What to say. So you don't say anything, in case you muck it up."
My therapists are always trying to tell me why I don't talk.
"Does that sound about right?"
A downside: nobody ever knows when you refuse to dignify something with a response. If all your previous responses are said inside your head, they can't tell the difference.
He and Alfred talk about my antidepressants and whether I'm feeling suicidal—how the fuck would they know?—and essentially commiserate over not being able to get me to talk. Alfred assures Arthur that his assumptions about my mental health are perfectly sound (despite the lack of input from the patient in question); Arthur assures Alfred that our cohabitation has had a very positive impact on me (despite no measureable change in my behavior at all). A mutual exchange of comforting bull.
Whatever. It's their shitshow. I'm just along for the ride.
All in all, that was a relatively painless session. Sentenced to hang, rather than being skinned and drawn-and-quartered. He didn't bring up my past, or at least the assumptions he could make about my past from the medical records. That's good, because if he had asked me about STDs and turning tricks in front of Alfred, I might have died of shame on the spot.
"You're really lucky that they're so tolerant over there. Because they could have refused you for admission, you know? Arthur was telling me that if you don't cooperate, they can throw you out. They don't have to accept your money."
Nope. Nobody has to do anything for me. Thing is, I never asked for anyone to do this for me. They just do. I don't fucking get it either.
The buzzing in my head is louder than ever, like it always is after talking to Dr. Kirkland. Probably I've just been conditioned to freak out after leaving his office. Pavlovian response. Back when I was inpatient, he came up with all these different art therapy and guided meditation methods to shrink my head without actually needing me to talk to him. I played along, because I was there to get better and he wasn't asking much. But…he has a way of getting in there and stirring things up, things that should be left alone. What's that saying about wild animals: don't bother them, and they won't bother you? Well, it's like that. There's a wasp in my head and it buzzes and stings and hurls itself at the walls whenever I think too hard. He's very good at bothering it.
I'm pretty sure this is not the kind of relationship one is supposed to have with one's therapist. As a person, I admire him; as a body, I'm attracted to him (in a detached, vaguely appreciative sort of way); as an entity with masculine presentation, I'm terrified of him; as the man who knows my history best of anyone, I want him dead.
Well, okay, I know my own history better than he. And I've tried to take my secrets to the grave. But that's how I met him in the first place.
When I get back to my bed, I remember the package Bull gave me. Taped on the outside is a note: Stay strong, little mouse! Figured you could use some smokes, since your boyfriend told you not to buy them.
The little package is a box of Camel Lights. Not my brand, but you work with what you get.
The Bull was out on the Smoke Porch last month when Alfred visited and politely requested that before moving in I kick my smoking habit. Y'know, along with the meth habit and heroin habit and suicide habit. "That's rough, man," the Bull had told me when Alfred left. "It's hard enough giving up the illegal shit, right?"
Kirkland's got me so freaked out today that I start tearing up. Bull is a saint, and I am a sap, and also kind of an ingrate since I'm about to smoke the shit out of these cigarettes even though Alfred asked me not to. Oh well. He's put up with a lot for me, what's a little second-hand smoke between friends?
Not boyfriends, like Bull seems to think. That's got me tearing up again, but not in a warm fuzzy way.
I'm a masochist. I'll love anyone as long as it hurts me.
Recovery is weird. In my experience, and in the experience of those I've heard talk about it, drug addiction is a game of amnesia. It's clear enough why you're getting clean in the weeks of detox and withdrawal: with all the puking and shaking and scratching you do, it's kind of hard to forget why drugs are a bad idea. And it feels good, getting it all out of your system. Purging it. There's a certain masochistic satisfaction in the unpleasantness of detox, the mental connection of pain to the draining of impurities from the body.
But after the withdrawal is over, you start feeling healthy again. Physically, I mean. You forget that the drugs made you feel like shit all the time. And now that you can think straight, you remember how fucked up your mind is. The drugs had shut everything down. The good parts of you, yes, but also the bad parts.
Basically, you have to decide which is more desirable: a healthy body or a muffled mind. To any sane person, the answer is obvious. But to an addict, the answer changes from hour to hour.
It starts to seem like a really great idea to do drugs. Because, I mean, fuck this. I don't believe in that Twelve Step bullshit, and everyone tells me that without it, I'll relapse. Okay then. If that's the case, why drive myself insane even trying. You know? And anyway, the steps are always going on and on about how powerless I am against my addiction. What a convenient excuse! "It wasn't me, Alfred, who wanted to do the drugs. It's not my fault. See, I'm powerless against my addiction."
And clearly he buys into that. So why not take advantage?
I want opiates. Like, really bad. It's not the kind of craving you're thinking of, that I need to shoot up or I'll claw my brains out need, because I've felt that and lived through it, and this isn't it. It's like the difference between starving to death and just wanting to eat because you're bored.
I'm as bored as God after the seventh day. Lazing in Alfred's apartment, eating his food, watching television. Staring at the wall. Pretending to be somewhere else. What's even the point of getting clean if this is what the "Real World" is about?
And the really truly maddening part is that it's so perfectly clear that getting high is a good idea, when not ten minutes ago it was perfectly clear that I should never do it again.
All I ask for is a little consistency. My brain's a traitor, but what's new? It's why I use in the first place.
"Hey, Matthew, can I come in?"
That puts me on my guard, because it seems like he's trying to trick me into responding reflexively. But he looks bashful when I get up to open the door, so I forgive him. "Hey, listen. I just want to talk. Don't look at me like that! I mean that I want to talk. You know. At you. Just, about things."
He wanders over to the desk, perches on the edge of the chair. The still-blank notebook he left on my desk shushes as he flips the pages. "Remember when you used to write all that poetry? And those short stories? For the lit mag. They were really good, you know." He looks over at me. I imagine what a picture I must make, leaning against the headboard of the bed. Pale, minus thirty pounds from high school, dull-eyed and messy-haired. Ashamed, I look away.
"And you were so good at biology, we all thought you were gonna grow up to cure cancer or something." Okay, so it's Rub-Matthew's-Failure-in-his-Face Day. Great. "I was really proud when you got valedictorian. Like, I bragged to my parents and all my relatives that my best friend was the smartest kid in the class." Oh, how sweet. He was proud of me. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside now.
"You know, you're still that kid everyone believes in."
That's so ridiculous I give him a look. He shrugs at me, unfazed. "It's true, Matthew. You've made bad choices between then and now—"
No. Bad choices were made for me. I've just been living out the consequences ever since.
"—but you're still the same person. You know. Potential-ridden," he says, making it sound like a disease. "So, I don't mean to be all Pollyanna and stuff, because I know you never fell for that in high school. And probably even less these days. But you have plenty of options. You're smart. You could go back to school. You could major in something besides Film Studies and actually get a good job, unlike me. You could…you could do anything you want, so don't think for a minute that relapse is the only option."
Ooh, nail on the head. Maybe he's more perceptive than I give him credit for.
"And I know how you feel about the Twelve Steps, but since you don't have a sponsor I'll have to try to convince you myself. So, do you admit that you are powerless to drugs and your life has become unmanageable?"
He stares expectantly, and what the hell. I nod. It's weird, but he doesn't make a huge deal about my first act of intentional communication in several weeks.
"Okay, here comes the hard part. You have to come to believe that a power greater than yourself can restore you to sanity. I know, I know, stop looking at me like that. But I mean, your Higher Power doesn't have to be spiritual, right? It could just be nature. Biology. Knowing you, you've read all about what drugs do to you. Believe the neuroscientists who say drugs will fuck up your brain. Find out how. Show yourself how much healthier you'll be when you're clean."
But I don't mind if my brain is destroyed. It's not a place I much like anyway.
And if it's better to be clean, then I don't deserve it.
Should I say it? Maybe he'd tell me that I do deserve to get better. Maybe he'd even convince me. But I haven't spoken in so long; it almost seems ridiculous to break the silence. And terrifying besides.
As if reading my mind, he says, "You're making this much harder on yourself by not talking. I don't know how you're feeling, or what you need from me. If you need reassurance. If you need a punch in the face. I don't know."
I meet his eyes and try to communicate: I need something to do. I need to get out of this apartment, where there is nothing but silence and my own thoughts until you return. I need a reason to want to be better.
"I know you're not big on faith, Matthew. But you have to have it. Or at least hope. Hope that you've got a chance at this."
I want desperately to ask why, convince me, please convince me. But then I remember it's pointless, I'm pathetic, and Alfred is chronically trite and clueless. This conversation doesn't deserve the air it consumes.
"Please. Just…try it out. I know you think it's stupid to pin your hopes on…well, nothing, really." Alfred F. Jones, motivational speaker extraordinaire. "But there's something worth staying here for, okay? Just give it time."
Despite his best efforts, Alfred's little pep talk has me feeling proactive for the first time in a while. I decide to make us lunch for once. I pick him up at the coffee shop—it takes him a bit longer than usual, because Lovino Vargas stopped by and they get along infamously—and shake my head when he starts walking towards McDonald's.
"Tired of that cheap shit, then?" he asks, but he's grinning.
My face stretches itself into an almost-forgotten configuration - a smile. I can practically hear my cheeks creaking.
Then
"You've reached the number of Alfred F. Jones! To leave a callback number, press five." A pause. "Please record your message after the tone. When you have finished recording your message, hang up, or press one for more options." Beep.
"Hey, Alfred, it's Matthew. Been a while since we talked, eh? First week has been pretty stressful for me. I wonder how you're doing. Call back soon, okay?"
Yale was kind of a nightmare.
Everybody was smart as or smarter than me. And then most of them were also a hell of a lot richer. The ones who talked loudest went on about boarding schools like they were vacation trips, "Oh yeah, I did Westminster and Georgetown Prep, nearly got kicked out," and they talked about the research they did at Stanford over the last summer semester, and they'd read every book under the sun, and had had teachers who actually knew what they were talking about, and there were the power plays, and the competitions, and god the money, diamonds and brand-name clothes and the dancing, and the drinking, and the devouring everything in sight and throwing it back up.
And they knew how to study, unlike suburban-Californian Matthew, Sunshine they called me, and I was drowning in work and terrified because I was so far from home.
I couldn't admit it to Mom, PhD or Dad, Associate Dean of Academics because they would have been ashamed to learn that I wasn't taking to university like a fish to water.
And then my roommate, Ivan Braginski, was really starting to freak me out.
Beep.
"Hey, Alfred, it's Matthew. Did you lose your phone or something? I've got this crazy Shakespeare professor that I want to tell you about. If you call me Shakes, you wouldn't believe the things this guy says about him. Having his babies and stuff. It's hilarious. Seriously, Alfred, call me back."
"Hello?"
"Hey, Mattie! What's up?"
"Just studying for chemistry. How have you been? How are your classes going? Are you bored out of your mind yet?"
"Aha, no, actually! I'm rushing with the Alphas! It's pretty awesome."
"A frat?"
"Yeah! Don't get all intolerant on me. There are all sorts of guys pledging, and most of them are really cool. And we make secret brotherhood swears and do shit for the senior members. It's not like hazing or anything, just earning our keep. You know. They buy booze and invite the coolest pledges—including me, of course—to parties. There's this one guy, this crazy guy from Korea, name of Yong Soo…"
It surprised me that Alfred would join a fraternity, but maybe it shouldn't have. He had always been such a Boy: quarterback with a killer smile, great with girls and rowdy with jocks and sweet to the rest of us. Fond of parties and friendly with booze. He wasn't into pastel shorts or popped collars, but he got along with practically everyone and loved a good time.
At Yale there was that upper-class Senator's-Son-type (often literally) who had the means and the inclination to party hard, and they weren't nearly so nice as Alfred. I didn't make friends with them. I didn't make friends with the intellectuals like I used to in high school, because the Yale class of intellectual was way beyond my league, or so I perceived. And my fellow floundering low-key students were too busy studying to make friends. Much like myself.
I decided that the most important part of being here was class, and I would save my social needs for fall break.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Alfred. It's been awhile, I thought I'd call you. So I looked it up yesterday, and it turns out we have the same fall break this year. Are you going to be in town?"
"Naw, shit, I forgot to tell you. Me and the other Alphas are staying a week at Lake Tahoe. I'd skip out, but I already said I was game and they'd call me a puss - um, a flake. Anyway I figured you wouldn't be flying cross-country just for a glorified weekend."
"Yeah, probably not. I'll see you when I do head back though, for winter break?"
"Yeah, maybe!"
It got to be a normal thing, to wake up in the night and find Ivan standing over me.
I hadn't made any real friends, only casual acquaintances. The atmosphere was very isolating; you spent all your time studying, or you surrendered yourself completely to parties or politics or extracurriculars (whatever the vice of your chosen crowd) and lost all hope of staying afloat in class.
There was nobody I could tell.
I suppose I should have gone to a professor or the dean or something. But I figured they would just assume I was being dramatic and paranoid. I told myself that over and over and over: you're making mountains of molehills. Stop freaking out. He'd never actually touch you, would he?
He doesn't think he could get away with it, does he?
But as time went on and I didn't tell anyone, I didn't even tell Ivan off, I was only proving that he would get away with it. I wasn't going to do anything. I wasn't going to tell anyone. I had no friends to tell. I was quiet and timid and internalizing. He got the measure of me soon enough.
I kept telling myself that if I just saw Alfred again, everything would be okay. I just needed a friend to talk to, to tell me I was being silly, to give me advice on how to deal with it. I was so used to letting Alfred deal with my problems.
Beep.
"Alfred? Alfred, I'm kinda freaked out. Like, my roommate's this really creepy guy—I don't know, it's hard to explain—he's not in the room that often, but when he is, it's really weird. I don't know.
"I think he's on drugs, because sometimes he'll come back to the dorm and his pupils are, like, gone. I know it's really easy to find speed in New Haven, what with all the desperate students freaking around.
"Anyway. I mean, I guess it's not a big deal…but sometimes…I like, wake up and he's staring at me. Haha, I know it sounds crazy paranoid, but I'm pretty freaked out. I don't know. Just call me back, okay?
"November is really fucking cold in Connecticut."
Beep.
"Alfred? I'm scared."
"Ah, Matvey. If I had my way, I'd live inside your screams."
He sighed in a satisfied kind of way, and got up to shower. I remember staring up at the ceiling, not seeing anything, not thinking in words. There was a steady buzz-sting-crash on the sides of my brain. I leaned over the side of my bed, vomited, and wished I could just keep puking until my body disappeared. I could still feel him in me like a gun jammed down my throat, like rotten milk spilled where nobody can reach.
I screamed for help.
I always make sure to tell people that, when I tell them. They are imaginary, hypothetical people who want to listen to my problems and fix them.
I always have to make sure they know that I tried to fight back. That I screamed.
But nobody heard me. Nobody ever noticed me. I was invisible.
"Oh, Matvey," Ivan said, sounding almost fond. "Nobody wants to hear you screaming. Nobody cares about you but me. I will care about you, Matvey, because they won't. I'll care about you however I please, because I am all you have."
He'd been fucking me for a week when he first did it: grabbed my arm, took off his belt. I assumed that things were going in the usual direction, and I started the process of dissociation. Closed my eyes, turned off my brain. But he cinched the belt around my upper arm, told me to make a fist, prepped a syringe, and stabbed it home. I struggled a bit, but more out of confusion than panic or protest. I mean, I'd given up all hope of actually getting away from him. He tugged the plunger back, adding my blood to the liquid mixture inside. Then he pushed down. "Your veins are so healthy," he'd said. A compliment, I guess.
In a few months, they would be completely collapsed.
That first high hit me like a wave, stronger than a tsunami, heavier than God. I remember staggering to the bed, blurring and bleeding out of my body's edges, as this feeling spread through me. It was remarkably like peace. It wasn't exactly, "Everything's going to be okay;" no, it was more like, "Who gives a fuck whether it'll be okay." And that was exactly what I needed.
After that I fought it - everything - less. I even approached him once or twice, when I really needed a fix. Opiate withdrawal is an absolute bitch.
He loved it when I came to him. He liked to make me beg.
I don't like to think about it.
Winter break was supposed to be a haven. I was going to see Alfred again, and my parents, and my home state of California. I was going to get a break from this endless course load, from Ivan. From the drugs.
That last part was actually a problem.
When I got off the plane, my parents noticed how thin I'd gotten. My eating habits had not been my primary concern. It took some convincing, but my mom came away believing that I was just an absent-minded academic, and I would try harder to eat next semester. I tugged at the sleeves of my sweater that covered the track marks.
Calling Alfred was not an option. How could I have ever thought otherwise? I was ashamed of what had been done to me. Things were too far gone. I didn't even know the guy anymore. And he certainly couldn't know what I'd become.
He called once. I didn't pick up, and he didn't leave a message. Never even called me back.
Good riddance.
The withdrawal was hell, and I easily convinced my parents it was just the flu or food poisoning. I was perversely relieved to get back to school. To Ivan. Looking back, I sometimes wonder if it was because he paid attention to me. He didn't ignore me in favor of new friends, or believe ridiculous lies because it was easier than acknowledging that I was in trouble. He was trouble. He was my damnation, and in it salvation.
"You are beautiful to me. Like a candle. Like a mirror. I would like to blow you out, to shatter you into a thousand beautiful pieces. I love you enough to destroy you. And you know what? I am the only one who cares. Nobody likes you enough to try to fix you. But me?
"Me, I love you enough to break you."
I got very good at pretending to be somewhere else.
