Rage
"The abandoned infant's cry is rage, not fear." - Robert Anton Wilson
I was in a bar when I found out, at the bar itself in fact. I was with some guys from my squad, washing down a grim day on the streets with a beer or six when I became aware of a body pushing up behind me and two strong arms trapping me against the bar.
I didn't bother to turn round. I knew who was responsible. And I was pissed at him. Playfully pissed, but pissed all the same.
"You're late O'Grady."
"You're hot Benson." I felt his lips brush against my neck and knowing Preston O'Grady like I did I knew that if I let it continue we'd be practically fucking on the bar within minutes. I pushed backwards, turning to face him,
"You're still late. Your beer went warm." I handed him a bottle from the bar, "Enjoy."
He drank from it, taking half of it down in one go, then turned his attention back to me, pulling me to him and groping my ass as he did so. None of the cops around us paid much attention since it was nothing out of the ordinary. O'Grady and I had become 'friends with benefits' when we were at the academy together, and although we'd been assigned to different precincts, we'd been enjoying those benefits ever since, no matter who was watching. He leant inwards, brushing his lips against mine, "Forgive me? I would have been on time but I got a last minute shout."
"Anything interesting?" Working in different parts of town he and I ended up trading cop stories nearly as frequently as we traded sexual favours. Little did I realise how badly that was going to pan out for me on that particular occasion.
O'Grady shook his head, "Nah. Complaint of noise coming from an apartment on Lexington, some drunken lush had taken twenty too many sleeping pills with her stereo on at full whack."
I knew instantly that it was her. Sure, she wasn't the only drunken lush in the city, probably wasn't the only one who lived on Lexington, but my gut told me instinctively that she was the one in question.
"Where on Lexington?" I asked O'Grady, trying to keep the tone of my voice level to hide my desperation from him. O'Grady didn't know about my mother and I planned to keep it that way.
If my question puzzled him, he didn't let it show, instead getting his notebook from his pocket and flipping through it until he found what he was looking for, "Building 125. Just up from 28th Street. I called for a bus, got her taken to hospital, left the medics searching for a next of kin and made my way straight here to you sexy girl."
I didn't stop to explain, instead I pushed him away and dashed from the bar.
If she wasn't already dead, I was going to kill her myself.
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I walked to the hospital. I could have got the metro, or hailed a cab, but I needed the time to cool off.
She'd really done it this time.
Wasn't it enough that I'd spent my childhood taking care of the two of us? All the times I'd made my own breakfast, or helped her into bed when she was too intoxicated to walk. I'd done everything I could have done and more, and this was how she repaid me. By resorting to this.
I think it was the timing that got to me most of all. I was fresh from the academy, bright eyed, bushytailed, loving each and every minute of it. I'd never been happier. And she knew it. Was that why she was sticking the knife in? It sure felt like it. Apparently I wasn't allowed to be happy.
I thought I was calm by the time I arrived, even managed to start to feel sorry for her as I searched the emergency room looking for her. But then, when I pushed back the curtain to her cubicle, all that went out of the window.
She was laying on a gurney, IV in her arm, a vague smile on her face.
So nothing new there then. It had always been that way. She self medicated with prescription drugs and alcohol, she got to escape, I didn't. I got the pain and the guilt and the shit.
There was a nurse with her and when my mother noticed me she turned to the woman, her silly smile intensifying. "This is my daughter. She's one of New York's Finest."
I felt the rage building in me at her words. This was the woman who had missed my graduation from the academy. Who couldn't bear to look at me most of the time, and now she was bragging about me. I couldn't help it, before I knew what I was doing I heard the sound of the slaps ring out and my hand began to sting, as my mother clamped her hands to her cheek, a stunned expression on her face.
I should have felt guilty. But I didn't. I felt good. It wasn't nice, but then neither was what she had done. Wrong it might have been, but I felt it was justified.
The nurse apparently however didn't agree with me, positioning herself between my mother and I, glaring at me viciously.
"I don't care if you're the Police Commissioner of the whole NYPD young lady. You do not go around assaulting my patients."
I opened my mouth to retort but my mother beat me to it, "Its ok. I understand why she's angry."
And yes, she was defending me, and yes, I should have been grateful for that but actually her words angered me all the more, and I rounded on her angrily once again.
"No mom. You don't understand. How could you understand? You have no idea what its like to be me right now? I've just been told by cop in a bar that my mother took an overdose. How do you think that feels mom?"
She looked at me, looking like a chastised puppy, "Darling, it was an accident. I didn't mean to…"
The lady doth protest too much. I picked up her chart, and glanced at it, confirming what I already knew before looking back up at her, snarling angrily, "You took 20 pills mom! Now I know you spend a lot of your days seeing double but I doubt even you could be that stupid… or drunk. You did it on purpose!"
She didn't argue a second time and I took that as my cue to ask the questions that had been whirling around my head during the walk to the hospital.
"Is this because of me? Because I'm not home as much?" I was asking in part out of guilt, in part out of resentment and in part out of curiosity. As traumatic as my home life was growing up I'd always been there because I knew my mom needed me, but since I'd been on the job I'd been there less and less; between the shift work and the nights, and the nights I'd been spending with O'Grady, I was very rarely home.
"I miss you baby."
I felt physically sick at her words. Other mothers might have lied, tried to protect their offspring, but not my mother. It was all about her. It always had been. I think that was why I reacted as I did, with anger again, and not guilt.
"Well that's very odd." I threw her chart down on her bed, my voice raising in volume the angrier I got, "Because 9 nights out of 10 when I was home you were too pissed to acknowledge my presence."
The nurse stepped between us again, "That's enough."
I shook my head, "Oh no. I'm just getting started." I turned on my mother again, "I can't be at home every night mom. I'm on the job now, it's a different life and besides that, I'm not a kid any more. I have a life of my own. Friends, Boyfriends."
Her eyes clouded at that and I know I should have stopped there and then. If there was one thing my mother didn't need ramming down her throat it was my love life. Correction, sex life. Sex was always a sticky subject with her. But I was fired up, I wasn't prepared to stop.
"That's right mom. I'm having sex. I like sex. And I'm going to carry on having it no matter how many overdoses you take. Because I'm not going to end up lonely and alone like you."
I paused for breath then, and that was the moment I realised I'd gone too far. It may have been verbal and not physical but my mom looked like I'd slapped her all over again.
God I felt like a bitch. We'd had a lot of rows over the years, vicious rows but I didn't remember ever throwing her single status at her before. After all, it was fairly obvious why she was single, after what my father - although I was loathed to call him that - had done. I looked at her, my rage subsiding as the guilt came fully in to play.
"I'm so sorry mom."
She reached out, took my hand, and the mere sight of her bony hand, complete with IV needle wrapped around mine was enough to move me to tears. Without the anger to keep me warm, I broke down, as tears started to trickle down my cheeks.
"You could have died."
"I know honey. And I'm sorry too." Mom smiled again, but there was more to it, like the verbal battering I'd given her had sobered her up a bit. She squeezed my hand reassuringly, and I knew instantly that my outburst had been forgiven. Christ knows why, but it had. All the same, I started to apologise again, needing to say it again, even if she didn't need to hear it, but I didn't get chance. Mom was already changing the subject.
"So Miss Olivia… tell me about this boyfriend…"
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