The Last Straw (37)

Every single word written here is an extraordinary exaggeration of events that have played out in my head... based on the stories I have heard from people I have met in jail or while I was dealing with my own stupidity and carelessness, resulting from my own addiction to alcohol and drugs. This is in no way a glamorization of drug use, but a tool to lend some humanity to a subculture that has been demonized and written off as a hopeless and worthless part of our human family. I do not condone or promote any of the behavior or activities herein.

            The night passed quickly.  While I was busy click-clacking away on the computer’s keyboard and detailing the events surrounding my introduction to Bull and the lifestyle I had come to embrace over the last year of my life, my wife and stepdaughter slept soundly.  I could scarcely see the light changing on the new dawn’s horizon before I realized how much time had passed.  I became queasy at the idea of my wife inquiring about my sleeplessness when she recovered from the bottle of wine she had consumed the evening before.  The ill-feelings passed though, as I dropped several more shards of dope from the baggie Rhonda had given me on the computer desk in front of me, smashed them into powder with the broad side of my lighter, and snorted the powder with the tooter I had made earlier with the bendy straw.

            As the buzz crept into my head, time pressed onward and words poured from my racing thoughts, through my fingers, and onto the obnoxious light of the computer monitor.  Before I knew it night had become day and I became quietly aware of the sounds of the house behind me stirring.  The first door that opened in the house was Lil’ Step’s.  I quickly wiped the white, dusty residue from the spot where I had been crushing dope throughout the night and licked the remnants from my fingers before she appeared in the door behind me.  I pushed the tooter and baggie hastily into my pocket and feigned a yawn as she walked into the room.

            “Wow Steppy… you’re up early.”  She stated while yawning herself, and walked up behind me and rested her chin on my shoulder.  “Whatcha writing… a book?”

            “I really don’t know yet darlin’.  It’s actually just a couple of stories about what I was doing while I wasn’t living at home here with you and your mom.”  I minimized the document, and turned the chair on its spindle to face her.  “Do you want some breakfast or something?”

            “Is mommy still asleep?”  She looked back out of the room towards the bedroom door, behind which I imagined her mother was still sleeping soundly, still oblivious to the headache that would more than likely accompany the inevitable opening of her eyes.

            “I imagine so… I could make you something to eat if you want.”

            “Nah, that’s okay.  I usually eat cereal on Saturdays.  I think I’ll go jump on the bed and wake mommy up.” She turned towards the bedroom and began walking away from me.

            “That’s probably not a wise idea Lil’ Step.  Your mom probably has a headache.”  I laughed quietly.  “She drank some wine last night before bed.”  I was actually hoping to avoid having her wake my wife up before I had the chance to try and crawl into bed with her, and hopefully alleviate the bucketful of questions she would have about my spontaneous insomnia after drinking nearly twelve beers.  I realized the futility of this, as Lil’ Step would no doubt report that she had found me at the computer when she herself had woken up.  “Why don’t you get some cereal and watch some TV while I see how she’s feeling?”

            “Okay… if you say so.”  We walked together to the kitchen where I passed her on the way to the bedroom door.  She was rummaging through the pantry for her favorite box of cereal as I slowly eased the door open, revealing my wife’s sleeping body underneath tangled sheets.  Her body was sprawled diagonally across the mattress and her head was underneath a pair of pillows leaving only room for her mouth and nose which were snoring softly.  I stood over her sleeping body until Lil’ Step hollered from the kitchen.

            “Mommy, wake UP!  Its Saturday and I’m ready to be bored after breakfast!”

            “Shhhhhhhh….” I hissed, but it was too late.  My wife’s arms emerged from under the tangled covers and patted both sides of the bed.  When she realized she had been sleeping alone both arms fell heavily to the bed with what appeared to me as frustration.

            “Where’s your stepfather?”  She followed her question with a moan of quiet agony.

            “I’m right here, sweetie… everything’s good.”  I spoke softly and promptly sat on the edge of the bed.  “How’s your head this morning?”  I was trying in vain to seem nonchalant, but the sweet softness I was attempting to attach to my voice sounded guilty even to me.

            “Why didn’t you come to bed?”  She hoisted her arms to the pillows covering either side of her face.

            “I started writing something at the computer, and I checked on you a couple of times but you were sprawled out diagonally and I felt bad about moving you.”  It was a hopeful lie and a stab in the dark at best.

            “I would have moved…”

            “That’s not the point, my love.  My brain was occupied anyways… so I let you sleep how you were.”  I touched her arm gently as I spoke, hoping to quell any further questions.  She pulled one of the pillows away from her face and squinted through one eye in my direction.

            “Did you sleep at all?  It doesn’t look like you did…”  She let the pillow fall back over her face.  “I don’t think I want to know, but are you high?”

            “No.  No…  I was just awake and writing at the computer.  I think I fell asleep in the chair for awhile, but I was pretty buzzed up.”  My words were racing from my mouth too quickly, but I couldn’t stop them.  “I’m sorry I didn’t come to bed... I won’t let it happen again.”

            “Give me a little while to wake up, okay?”  She shoved her arms back under the covers and rolled away from me.  “My fucking head is pounding.  No more wine for me.”

            “Can I get you something?”  I asked as I stood up from the bed.

            “No, just let me wake up…”  She moaned.  “I can’t believe you didn’t sleep.”

            “I’m sorry.  I’ll close the door.”  I shut the door behind me and heard the sound of her hands pounding the mattress repeatedly as I crept through the kitchen and living room.  Lil’ Step was eating cereal on the couch in front of the television and singing along with Spongebob about this being “The Best Day Ever” or something ridiculous.

            “This is my favorite episode,” she said taking a break from singing, and talking to me with her mouth full of chewed-up chocolate cereal.  “Wanna sit down and watch it with me?”

            “I don’t think so kiddo.  Spongebob isn’t exactly what I need right now.”  I kept walking towards the computer as she resumed singing along with the TV.

            I sat back down at the computer desk and maximized the document I had been writing.  I was absently reading and scrolling through the text when I heard the bedroom door open at the back of the house.  I could hear my wife open the refrigerator, followed by the cabinet.  I assumed she was pouring a glass of tea.

            “What the hell is this?” I heard her mutter.

            “Morning Mommy!” Lil’ Step offered happily.  “What the bleep is what?”  Any time she felt the need to repeat a question that was asked with the aid of colorful adult words she slyly exchanged the curse word for ‘bleep’ or ‘bleeping’.  It usually drew a smile from whoever made the decision to swear in front of her.  This time her mom ignored the inquiry as I heard her marching through the house towards where I was seated.  Before I could turn around to greet her approach and ask her myself, she dropped the pink, bendable joint of the straw I had hastily cut last night for my tooter onto the desk in front of me.

            “I found this on the floor of the kitchen.  Do you want to tell me why you’re cutting straws apart after I go to bed?”  I could hear stifled fury in her voice.  “Do I need to ask you again why you didn’t come to bed?”  She turned about face and started to walk away from where I sat stunned, staring at the straw remnant I had so carelessly let fall to the floor the night before.  “You know… just forget it.  You’ll just lie to me and assume I don’t know what you look and act like when you’re high.”

            “Baby, wait…” I started and was cut off.

            “No, goddammit,” she turned back around and hissed at me through clenched teeth.  “No, BABY… you wait.  I’ve been sitting here alone and freaking out, waiting for you to get your shit together for months and come back to us.  I came and got you from that fucking jail and vowed just to be thankful that you were finally home with us.  I sat here for months and cried myself to sleep every night while you were out running around cooking dope and getting high with those assholes!  I was actually relieved that you were finally back here with us, regardless of what brought you here!”  She stomped her foot on the floor, and I watched tears well up in her eyes and cascade over her eyelashes and down her face, “and the very first opportunity that you have to spend a normal day with the two of us again…” she trailed off and looked over her shoulder where Lil’ Step had risen from the couch to investigate the surprising disturbance happening right in front of her.  “It’s only been a few hours that we’ve all been in this house together again dammit… and you chose to get high and start this fucking roller coaster all over again.  I can’t believe you would do that to me… that you would do that to her.  God damn you!”

            “Baby, please… I didn’t think it…”

            “No, you didn’t think at all.  You didn’t think about anything but what was important to YOU!”  She walked out of the room and stopped in front of her daughter.  “I’m sorry sweetie, but I have to take you back to your aunt’s house already.  I want you to get dressed.  I’ll bring your things by later, okay?”

            “But mommy, I don’t want…”

            “PLEASE DON’T ARGUE!”  My wife instantly made a visible attempt to calm herself in front of her daughter, as Lil' Step's face appeared to be ready to manufacture her own tears any second.  “Please honey, do as I ask.  I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

            Lil’ Step silently put the half-eaten bowl of cereal on the coffee table in front of the couch where she had been enjoying the musical escapades of Spongebob Squarepants only minutes before.  She looked grievously in my direction and then turned towards her room to do as her mother had asked.  I finally rose from my chair at the computer desk as my wife walked from the living room through the kitchen towards our bedroom.  I followed her and stood in the door frame of our bedroom and silently watched her slip sweatpants on underneath the long nightshirt she had worn to bed.  She was still struggling with the tears flowing from her eyes when she finally looked in my direction.

            “Could you have possibly thought that I wouldn’t know?”  She wiped her eyes with her forearm.

            “Baby I’m sorry.  What can I do to fix it?”  I was pleading quietly.

            “You’re already spun way the fuck out.  I can see it.  I can FEEL it!”  She threw her hands above her head in exasperation.  “Any resemblance that you had yesterday to the man that I married years ago jumped on the first bus out of town.  I’m sorry mister, but I don’t think that you can fix it, and I don’t think that I have any business trying to help you fix it with my daughter close enough to see you like this.  More importantly, I don’t think you have ANY IDEA how to fix what has happened to you!”  She closed the distance between us, and whispered, “You are completely lost to me.  Do you understand?” 

            “Please…” I felt my frustration building, but any emotional impact I was hoping to achieve with words at this point was being muted by the lingering effects of the last line of dope I had done.

            “I am looking at a complete stranger right now.”  She placed both of her hands on my shoulders and tilted her head one way and then the other in an exaggerated and melodramatic examination of my face and eyes.  “This shell that you’ve inhabited belongs to my husband.  I don’t know who you think you’re trying to kid because I can recognize my husband from a mile away… but whoever you are in there…” she raised her hands to my face and shook her head, “I wish you’d let him have his life back.  But if he’s dead and gone…” one last tear fell onto her cheek.  “If he’s dead and gone then I wish that whoever you are would just leave us alone.”

            She grabbed her keys from the dresser and pushed quietly past me.  She met Lil’ Step who was waiting in the living room.  My wife took her daughter’s hand and walked through the rest of the house and out the front door.  When I heard the door shut I walked to the front of the house and watched them walk together to the car.  I watched as Lil’ Step climbed into the back seat and fastened her seatbelt.  I watched as my wife started the car and pulled out onto the road in reverse.  I watched them both leave me alone in the house without looking back to see if I was following them down the sidewalk to the driveway to make one last vacant protest to this tragic turn of events.  I watched from the house as the car drove out of view.

            If I had known that those last shameful, frustrating moments I had shared with my wife in our bedroom would be the last time I ever saw her alive I think I would have tried harder to keep her from leaving me.  I think I would have begged her to stay.

            But I didn’t know that then.

            Instead, when the silhouette of her car disappeared from my view I went to kitchen and found a roll of aluminum foil in the pantry.  I tore a piece of aluminum foil from the roll and folded it meticulously into a tiny trough and set it down on the kitchen table. I retrieved the bag of dope from my pocket that Rhonda had given me to celebrate my release from jail.  I undid the twist-tie and dumped several large pieces of dope into the foil trough and sat down to get high.

This work is the intellectual property of Jerome J. Panozzo

High Again (36)

Every single word written here is an extraordinary exaggeration of events that have played out in my head... based on the stories I have heard from people I have met in jail or while I was dealing with my own stupidity and carelessness, resulting from my own addiction to alcohol and drugs. This is in no way a glamorization of drug use, but a tool to lend some humanity to a subculture that has been demonized and written off as a hopeless and worthless part of our human family. I do not condone or promote any of the behavior or activities herein.

“Will you ride in the back seat with me on the way home, Steppy?”

            I looked towards my wife, who smiled and shrugged as if to reiterate the I Told You So’s that she had been littering our conversation with throughout our visit at her sister’s house.  Lil’ Step only left my side while we were inside for the moments it took to retrieve her backpack.  She didn’t say much during our visit with her aunt, but she also hadn’t let go of my hand or taken her head from resting on my shoulder.  These tiny gestures spoke volumes to me about her resilient ability to forgive my extensive absences over the better part of the last year.  I felt guilty and uncomfortable while being bathed in her affections, as my own thoughts were wandering towards the aching urge to get high as soon as possible with the contents of the bolt-stash resting heavily in my pocket.

            “Sure… I’ll ride in back with you.”  I opened the door to the car and Lil’ Step threw her backpack in and piled in after it, sliding to the far side and pulling her seatbelt in place while looking after me expectantly to do the same.  The afternoon was dwindling, and I was thankful that my wife’s sister had provided us with a light dinner of cold sandwiches and potato chips before we left.  This meant that there was one less chore to complete upon our arrival home, where I could start drinking beer while my wife drank her wine after Lil’ Step went to bed.  The sooner my wife opened that bottle of wine, the sooner she would succumb to its effects and find her own way to sleep so I could be alone with the dope.

            The ride home was uneventful and to my relief, Lil’ Step was snoring softly when we pulled into the driveway.  I nudged her with my elbow when the car came to a stop.  “We’re home snoozie.”

            “Good,” she replied sleepily.  “Can you get my stuff?  I’m going to go to bed.”  Suddenly her eyes widened, as if she realized for the first time that I was in the car with her.  “You’re not going anywhere, right?  You’re going to be here when I wake up?”  My wife turned around from the driver’s seat to take part in this conversation.

            “That’s the plan, Lil’ Step.  I’m not planning on going anywhere.”  I reassured her.

            “I won’t let him,” her mother insisted, casting her eyes sternly in my direction.

            “Okay, good.  I’m pretty tired…” she fumbled with the door handle, stumbled out of the car and towards the darkness of the waiting house.   I gathered the backpack, beer and wine, and followed them from the vehicle. When we had all navigated the sidewalk path from the driveway to the house, we let ourselves in, and that was the last I saw of my daughter for the evening.  I flipped light switches throughout the house, and made room for the beer in the fridge.  As I was about to plant the bottle of wine in the ice bucket in the freezer to give it a quick chill, my wife’s hand intercepted it.

            “That’s not necessary… this stuff is pretty good at room temperature.”  She slid the bottle out of the bag, and retrieved a cork-screw from a drawer and opened her bottle.  I ripped the cardboard box of beer open, and found a lukewarm beer covered in condensation sweat.  I popped the can open and drank deeply from the contents.

            “I wish I could say the same about PBR.”  We both laughed and sat at the kitchen table.  My wife poured a glass of wine into a tall, neon-green, plastic cup.  Nearly half the bottle of wine seemed to fit in the unusual wine glass, but she made quick work of the contents.  We sat silently in the dimly-lit kitchen.  My wife drank her sweet, red wine, and I suffered through three more beers until the refrigerator started to do its job cooling the cans.

            “Are you going to be alright, love?” My wife asked me while filling her cup a second time.  The contents of the bottle had been reduced to a splash left at the bottom, which she poured directly into her mouth.  “They really ought to make these bottles bigger.”

            “I don’t think they intended it to be drunk from plastic kid’s cups, though…” We both laughed while she waited for a response to her question.

            “Are you…?”

            “Who knows…” I responded hastily, finishing off the last of my fourth beer.  “I hope I’ll be okay… but let’s see how it plays out.  I have court next week, and they’ll probably put me on probation… or make me do some jail time.  I’m trying not to think about it, though.  Can we just not think about it?” I got up from the table and fetched another beer from the quickly diminishing case in the fridge.

            “I’m sorry I brought it up. I’m just worried about you.”  She drank from her cup and wiped her mouth as wine dribbled down her chin.  “You haven’t even talked with me about how you feel without having meth around the last couple of days.”

            “I feel like shit.  How’s that?”  I sat back down at the table, opened the beer in my hand and drained more than half of its contents before I continued.  “I don’t even know how I feel about it really.  I want to get high.  Is that what you want to hear?”

            “Of course it’s not what I want to hear, but I think you should talk about it… don’t you?”  My wife’s hands reached across the table to take mine in an attempt to console whatever I was feeling.

            “I don’t know… If I talk about it, it just makes it all that much worse.  I kinda just want to get drunk right now.”  I really wanted her to get drunk and pass out.

            “That’s fine, baby… I just want you to know that I’ll listen to you, even if  all you need to bitch about it.”  She pulled her hands away from mine, and drank from her glass.  “I’m not going to be able to stay awake much longer though, you know how wine does me.  Are you gonna be awake for awhile?”

            “Probably… I think I’ll just finish these beers and surf around on the computer for awhile.  Is that okay?”  I looked toward her hoping to find acceptance for this decision in her eyes.  I had lucked out.

            “Yeah… that’s fine with me.”  She finished the contents of her obnoxious wine glass and got up from the table to deposit the empty cup in the sink.  “I’m going to shower and try to get the mud off of my knees from our adventure in the park.  That was pretty fun, by the way… I’ll be in bed if you want to try it again in cleaner confines.”

            “Sounds good.  Maybe I’ll take you up on that in a little while.  I’m sorry if I’m acting like a bear.”  I drank the last of my beer as she turned towards me.

            “I’m just glad you’re home.  I’m sure it’ll take some time for you to feel normal.  Just don’t get squirrely on us.  I don’t think your Lil’ Step would understand if you went running again.”  My wife’s voice was starting to slur a little.

            “I’ll do my best.” I was frustrated and anxious to open the bolt.  “I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

            “I hope not.” She walked the short distance from the sink to the table and wrapped her arms around my neck and head in an awkward hug.  “I love you so much.  Drink your beer and come to bed.  I’m about to be drunk I think… that might play out to your advantage.”

            Probably more than you realize, I thought to myself.  “You bet.  Go shower.”  She disappeared from the kitchen into our bedroom, and moments later I heard the sound of the shower starting, and the sliding glass shower door open and close.  I got up from the table, grabbed the torn cardboard case of beer from the fridge, and peered through the bedroom door to see my wife’s silhouette behind the cloudy, soap-stained door of the shower.  I turned back towards the kitchen table and set the case of beer down and retrieved the bolt from my pocket.  My hands were trembling as I fumbled with the large nut on the threads of the bolt.  After several turns of the nut, the bolt split into two pieces and I tapped the open piece on the table softly.

            Out of the large cavity of the stash slid a single unused syringe with an orange cap, and a large bag of dope.  There must have been two grams in that twist-tied baggie.  A smile broadened across my dumbstruck face, as I hurried my shaking hands to put the syringe back into the bolt, and tighten the nut.  I dropped the bolt back into my pocket and stared at the baggie on the table.  The crystals were large and looked like shards of glass.  This wasn’t the farm-dope I had become accustomed too, this was ICE… the holy grail of meth to poor country folks like my meth buddies.  My mouth was watering as I turned the twist tie of the bag to expose the contents.  I dumped a couple of crystals onto the table in front of me and fumbled for the lighter in my pocket.  Using the flat part of the side of the lighter I crushed the shards of dope into a powder.  Looking around the kitchen I saw a cup full of bendy straws next to the microwave that could be used as tooters.  I grabbed a bright pink straw and a dirty steak knife from sink.  I chopped the straw in half, watching the bendy part fall to the kitchen floor.  I raced back to the table and bent over toward the small pile of dope I had created and put the straw deep into my nose and inhaled the pile.  I sat down as the anticipation of the impending buzz overwhelmed my conscious thoughts.  I replaced the twist-tie on the small plastic baggie just as the shower stopped running in the other room.

            It was too late.  I was high again.  Butterflies were fluttering in my head and stomach.  Nothing else mattered.  I pocketed the baggie of dope, and grabbed my case of beer and made my way to the computer in the front of the house.  I grabbed two beers and set them in front of the computer monitor while tapping several keys on the keyboard breathing life into the sleeping computer.  The monitor brightened as I opened a beer with one hand and navigated the mouse with the other hand to open a blank document on Microsoft Word.

            I began typing…

Chapter One

When I Met Him...

Lil' Step Puts Me on the Spot (35)

Every single word written here is an extraordinary exaggeration of events that have played out in my head... based on the stories I have heard from people I have met in jail or while I was dealing with my own stupidity and carelessness, resulting from my own addiction to alcohol and drugs. This is in no way a glamorization of drug use, but a tool to lend some humanity to a subculture that has been demonized and written off as a hopeless and worthless part of our human family. I do not condone or promote any of the behavior or activities herein.

              I’m not sure whether it was fortunate or not, but my wife had never been introduced to Rhonda, so she was relatively clueless about my unexpected face-to-face with her in the package store, and the subsequent delivery of the bolt-stash into my pocket.  She did, however, notice that my mood had shifted significantly in the brief minutes I had left her alone in the car.

            “Everything okay?” she asked as I got into the car and placed the beer and wine between my feet on the floorboard.  I felt strangely grateful that Rhonda had dropped the bolt into my right pocket, which gave me a better opportunity to keep the bulky bulge from out of my wife’s line of sight.

            “Yeah… I guess so.  I ran into Bull’s cousin in there… she had all kinds of questions that I didn’t feel like answering out here in public though.”  I pulled my seatbelt over my shoulder and clicked it in place.  “I’m ready to see Lil' Step… let’s get out of this town before somebody else recognizes me, okay?”

            She put the car in reverse and we escaped from the parking lot.  “Is that who that woman was who walked out of there right before you?  I thought I had done something wrong to her by the way she eyeballed me when she walked past the car.”

            “Nah… you probably misread her.  I’m pretty sure she was high… no… on second thought, I’m positive she was high.  I told her I didn’t have time to deal with a bunch of Q & A because you were waiting for me out here.  She was probably just curious to see what you looked like and trying to figure out if she knew you.  Who knows?” I was fidgeting nervously and thinking about the prospect of a small baggie of dope inside of the bolt-stash now occupying my pocket.

            “Are you sure you’re okay, love?  Did seeing her like that make you want to get high?” My wife asked and reached for one of my hands as we came to a brief halt at the traffic lights of a vacant intersection.

“I’m okay, I guess.  I just got a little nauseated and sketchy when I realized she was high.”  I rested our interlocking hands on the center counsel between our seats.  “I’ll be better after I see Lil’ Step.  Does your sister know we’re coming to get her?”

“I called her while you were in the store.”

The light turned green and we drove out of town in silence.  Although I am aware that the trip must have taken fifteen minutes or more, I was so completely absorbed by the thoughts of the dope in my pocket and the systematic way my brain was scheming to find a way to get high with it as soon as possible, that when we pulled into the long, narrow, gravel driveway of our destination it was as if I was waking up from a very lucid dream.  I did my best to shake the cravings that were consuming my thoughts as my wife and I opened the car doors and walked hand-in-hand towards the house where my step-daughter’s face was plastered to the large picture window with her hands waving madly in our direction.

“See,” my wife elbowed me gently, “I told you she was excited.”

I smiled and returned Lil’ Step’s wave.  She disappeared from the window, leaving a sweaty smudge where her face had been.  A moment later the heavy front door opened and she burst through the screen door, running full steam until she crashed into my lower body wrapping her arms around my mid-section.

“STEPPY!!!!!!” 

“Hey there Lil’ Step,” I hugged her in return, and bent down to kiss the top of her head.  I was surprised to notice that I couldn’t remember her being quite so tall, but chalked it up to impending puberty and the accompanying growth spurts.  She was relentless with her embrace, until I reached behind my back to retrieve her small hands.  I held her arms out and looked her over from top to bottom.  “I think you got taller…”

“That’s what mom says, but I can’t tell.”  She tore her hands from where I held them and wrapped her arms around me again.  “So… mommy said she had to pick you up from jail and I had to stay here because you weren’t feeling good.”

“She was right… but I think I feel a little better now.”  She dropped her hands away from my back, placed them both on her hips and stepped back to perform her own examination of my appearance.  I noticed the beginnings of the goofy grin at the corners of her mouth that I had become familiar with when she was close to saying something off-color or meant to make fun of me.  “What’s so funny child?”

She looked up at me, grinning ear-to-ear.  “I told her you probably didn’t feel good because you dropped the soap!”  She shrieked with laughter while I groaned with dissatisfactory laughs of my own and a lunged to playfully spank her.  She dodged my attempts and hid behind her mother, several steps to my right.

“You think that’s funny, huh?”  I hung my head in playful defeat.  “Where do you hear stuff like that?”

“From YOU!!”  She yelled and laughed defiantly from behind the relative safety of her mother.

“I told you so,” my wife affirmed, quietly smiling to herself.  I closed the distance between the three of us, and we continued walking towards the house.  My step-daughter drifted from her hiding spot behind her mother to the space between my wife and I, leaning against me as we walked, pressing the bolt uncomfortably into my hip.  She noticed the bulging object in my pocket and patted it innocently with her own hand.

“What the heck is that?” she asked while manipulating and stretching the denim of my jeans to examine the shape of the bulky bolt without actually reaching into the pocket.  I felt the instant heat of my face flushing and tiny drops of sweat forming on my forehead.  My wife’s attentions were now diverted from the door of her sister’s house to the object that had captured Lil’ Step’s attention.  I was left with little else but to hope that the bolt-stash I had created in the garage out on Bull’s property meant to deceive any overly-curious cops (if and when I happened to be in that predicament) would withstand the impromptu inspection by my wife and daughter as I struggled to find a lie to explain its current occupation of my pocket.  I pulled the bolt from my pocket.

“Actually, I’m kind of puzzled about its meaning too.”  I held the bolt in my trembling hand, blindly hoping that I could play this situation off with nervous, nonchalant carelessness.  “I ran into a friend of mine at the store before we got here, and she’s kinda weird... to say the least.  She told me it was to replace the screw I had loose in my head.”  I laughed nervously.  “Think it’s big enough?”

Lil’ Step grabbed the bolt from my hand and turned it over a couple of times before she handed it back to me.  I felt a wave of relief wash over me when I realized she wasn’t going to try to unscrew the giant nut from the threads, potentially exposing the unknown contents.  She appeared just as confused as my wife, but for all intents and purposes my improvised explanation of how the bolt ended up in my pocket had worked.  I dropped the bolt back into my pocket and shrugged at my wife with feigned confusion as I took her hand in mine again.

“You’re right… your friend is weird,” my wife offered a crooked smile and thankfully let the subject drop before enough sweat had collected on my forehead to call attention to my lie.

“You’ve got a screw loose alright…” my daughter cackled a laugh and walked the final steps towards the door of the house just ahead of us.  “Are we going home now?  I miss my Xbox games… all of their games are boooooooring.”

“Yes, we are homeward bound.  Get your stuff while I talk to your aunt for a couple of minutes,” my wife instructed.

I had dodged a bullet, but regardless, now my attention was solely focused on the bolt and its contents.  I couldn’t wait to get home and watch my wife drink the wine waiting for her in the car and fall asleep so I could acquaint myself with the dope I was now certain was waiting for me… hiding in the bulky steel bolt inside of my pocket.  My stomach rumbled, and I felt like I was going to have diarrhea. 

I couldn’t remember ever feeling this dope-sick.

This work is the intellectual property of Jerome J. Panozzo

The Story of Lil' Step & The Bolt's Unexpected Return (34)

Every single word written here is an extraordinary exaggeration of events that have played out in my head... based on the stories I have heard from people I have met in jail or while I was dealing with my own stupidity and carelessness, resulting from my own addiction to alcohol and drugs. This is in no way a glamorization of drug use, but a tool to lend some humanity to a subculture that has been demonized and written off as a hopeless and worthless part of our human family. I do not condone or promote any of the behavior or activities herein.

            I watched my wife return to the car, open the door, and sit in the driver’s seat with her feet still planted on the ground outside.  I felt her watching me, as I approached and knelt down in front of her so she wouldn’t have to crane her neck to look up at me while we talked.

            “Do you know what I just realized?” I steadied myself by placing my hands on the bare skin of her legs just above her knees and underneath the long, flowing material of her skirt.

            “I want to respond by saying something funny or dirty about all the public sex we just got away with, but by the look in your eyes I know that I’d be wrong.”  I could feel goosebumps beginning on the skin of her thighs underneath my chapped, papery hands.  “What did you realize, my love?”

            “I haven’t seen Lil’ Step since I got home.  Where the hell is she?”

            “I dropped her off at my sister’s house on my way to come pick you up from jail.”  She dropped her eyes away from where they had been meeting mine, “I wasn’t sure what kind of shape you would be in, and I didn’t want her to see you bedridden and vacant-eyed, when I realized that’s how you intended to remain for a couple of days.  I don’t think it would have been good for either of you.  Are you mad?”

            “No… of course I’m not mad.  Why would I be mad?  I wasn’t sure I wanted you to see me after I finally saw what I looked like in that mirror-window at the jail.  That was good thinking on your part.  Thank you for being so thoughtful.”  I stood up slowly, and my knees popped painfully in the process.  I was only thirty-six years old, but I suddenly felt as though my body was tired and twice that age.

            “The only person I love more than you in this entire world is my daughter.  I’m sure you know that,” she raised her head look in my direction.  “She knows your home though.  I think…” she hesitated, “well… I know she’s excited to see you.”

            “What makes you so certain of that?”  I leaned against the rear door of the car.

            “She stopped asking about you after about a month of you not coming home.  I think she got tired of how I would cry when I couldn’t make her understand.  Fuck… I didn’t understand why you weren’t coming home, except maybe that you were getting high full-time.   I did my best to explain it to her without scaring her… but I think when I would start crying she got scared anyways.  She’s a smart kid, ya know?  If something scares her or if she thinks something she does is upsetting to somebody, she just figures its best not to do it again.”

            “Okay…. But you said that you know that she’s excited to see me.  What changed?”

            “Well, after I talked to you at the jail I made quick plans with my sister to keep her for a couple of days so I could figure out what to do about you.  Then while she was helping me pack her bag she said, ‘I heard you talking to Steppy on the phone, mommy.  Is Steppy coming home?’  Well, hell… I couldn’t help it… I love when she calls you that… and I started to laugh and cry at the same time right there in front of her.”

            My wife’s daughter had started calling me ‘Steppy’ shortly after her mother and I got married.  As far as I was concerned it was about the greatest nickname I had ever been given in all of my life.  Sometime shortly thereafter I returned the favor by calling her ‘Little Step’… which eventually evolved into Lil’ Step as my hard northern accent adopted a more comfortable southern flavor.  My proudest moment came nearly a year later, when a long-time friend of the family innocently called her by this term of endearment and was promptly informed of his mistake.   She looked directly into his eyes and said firmly, “Please don’t call me that.  Nobody calls me that except Steppy… and don’t let me catch you calling him Steppy either.  He’s my Steppy and I’m his Lil’ Step.”  That’s just how it was from that moment on.

            “So what did you say?” I asked, continuing my line of questioning with my wife.

            “Well, I told her that I was pretty sure that you were coming back home.  I told her that I wasn’t sure if you were feeling well, though… so I hoped it was okay that I was going to take her to her aunt’s house for a couple of days until you felt better.  She got pretty quiet for a couple of minutes, but she was smiling all goofy, so I asked her to spill the beans.  Then she said, ‘Steppy’s in jail isn’t he?’  I told her the truth, and asked why she thought that was so funny.  Do you know what she said?”  My wife chuckled a little and slapped her knees.

            “What smartass comment did Lil’ Step come up with?”

            “She said, ‘Steppy’s probably not feeling good because he dropped the soap in jail,’ and we both laughed until we couldn’t stand it.”  My wife’s laughter while she recalled this story was immediately infectious and I joined her with heaving laughter of my own.  It was the first time in what felt like years that I had laughed so genuinely.

            “Should we go pick her up?” My wife asked after our laughter subsided.

            “I think it’s about time, don’t you?” I walked around to my side of the car and let myself in while my wife closed her door and started the car.  As I slid the seatbelt over my skinny frame I asked, “Where the hell do you think that kid gets this shit?”

            My wife dropped the transmission into drive and said, “Don’t look at me, buddy.  She was a perfectly normal, sweet little girl before you showed up.”  She pulled out from our hiding spot, and grabbed my hand out of my lap.  “Despite these last couple of months, I really wouldn’t have it any other way.”

            “I’m glad.  Do you think we can stop and get something to drink before we leave town?”  I was parched from the afternoon’s activities.

            “Yeah… that’s a great idea,” she said while turning out of the park and into town.  “I’m thirsty too.  What are you thinking?”

            “I would love some beer, and I’ll get you a bottle of wine.  Head over to the liquor store on Mulberry Street.”

            “You bet… but let’s wait until she’s asleep to start drinking.”

            “Okay.  I can do that.”

            We drove to the tiny package store on Mulberry Street where my wife gave me a twenty-dollar bill, having decided that she would stay in the car due to her disheveled appearance.  I got out of the car, and immediately noticed the familiar gray sedan belonging to Rhonda.  I looked around the parking lot, and assumed she must be inside the small store buying her own beverages.  I walked to the entrance and let myself in.  The door closed quickly behind me, agitating a string of bells on the inside handle meant to alert the owner of an incoming customer.  I scanned the aisles of liquor bottles to my right and the large hallway in front of the beer coolers to my left.  The front of the store was empty except for me.  I wandered towards the beer cooler wondering momentarily if I had been mistaken about the ownership of the gray sedan in parking lot.  I finally saw what I was looking for in the very last cooler door, and opened it to retrieve a 12-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon.  When I closed the cooler door I was startled by Rhonda who must have snuck quietly behind the foggy, glass door after I had opened it.

            “Boo Motherfucker!”  Rhonda hugged me quickly while I regained my senses.

            “I thought that was your car out there, but nobody was in here when I came in.”

            “Nah… I was in the back taking care of some business.  What do you know?” Rhonda wasn’t really asking me anything, as it was a pretty common greeting around here.  “Guess they did the same for you as they did for me, huh?  Kept you a couple days in lockup and let you go after Bull told them we wasn’t doing nothing… God bless his heart.”

            “They charged me with possession since I was holding the pipe when they showed up.” I responded.

            “Well that sucks, but maybe it won’t stick.  That’s a lot better than what Bull’s looking at, huh?  Have you heard from him?” Rhonda was grinding her teeth while she talked, which was an obvious sign of being high… at least it was to me.  My body began to tremble slightly under my baggy clothing, and I started to feel the familiar pains of being dope-sick.

            “Yeah, but I don’t have a lot of time right now.  My wife is waiting for me in the car outside.  Can I call you later?  We’re going to pick up my kid.”  I started walking towards the wine rack close to the register at the front of the store.  Rhonda grabbed my shoulder and turned me around to face her.  I felt her hand reach into the loose pocket in the front of my jeans, and the cold familiar weight of the bolt stash I had traded to her over a week ago fell heavily against my leg.  She patted the bulge of the bolt.

            “I want the bolt back, okay youngster?  But whatever is inside of it you can have.  You deserve it after what we’ve been through.  Call me when you can.”  She walked away from me towards the door in the front of the store.  With a loud jingling of bells and a brief wave to the owner who had appeared in front of the cash register, she disappeared.  I continued walking towards the wine rack and picked up a bottle of sweet red wine from a local vineyard.  It was one of my wife’s favorites.

            I walked quietly to the register and had an awkward exchange of greetings with the owner while he rang my purchases up with his index finger.  I recognized an almost unnoticeable trembling in his hand.  He was grinding his teeth behind pursed lips when he gave me my total.  I offered the twenty-dollar bill which he traded for two crumpled dollar bills and some change.

            “You have a nice day.” The owner offered as I retrieved my beer and wine from the counter and turned around towards the exit and my lovely, forgiving, and patiently waiting wife.

            “Well, I don’t know about nice… interesting maybe… but I’m starting to lose faith in the concept of nice.”  I opened the door and left the store to the obnoxious sound of the ridiculous bells.

This work is the intellectual property of Jerome J. Panozzo

Lustful Distraction (33)

Every single word written here is an extraordinary exaggeration of events that have played out in my head... based on the stories I have heard from people I have met in jail or while I was dealing with my own stupidity and carelessness, resulting from my own addiction to alcohol and drugs. This is in no way a glamorization of drug use, but a tool to lend some humanity to a subculture that has been demonized and written off as a hopeless and worthless part of our human family. I do not condone or promote any of the behavior or activities herein.

            When I had used every available envelope in my house to fill with the letters that I had written on Bull’s behalf, I began the tedious task of addressing each one by hand to a laundry-list of churches.  In the end I counted ninety-seven envelopes destined for parsonages and congregations throughout southern Illinois and parts of Indiana.  With a giant vase of loose change under my arm and the rubber-band bundled envelopes in my hand I followed my wife to her car in our driveway and we made the journey into Ft. Justice to purchase stamps and relinquish my efforts into the hands of an impatient and frumpy looking mail clerk. 

            My wife, who had offered to help me (which I had regrettably declined) with the folding of letters and their subsequent insertion into empty envelopes, simply accompanied me quietly on this journey.  I was gradually becoming aware that she had been watching me at a distance for some time now, with the vacant curiosity of one cat watching another cat attempting to satisfy an impossible itch.  There was nothing she could do to help me satisfy this suddenly passionate task that I had involved myself in.  The nature of my motive was apparently confusing to her, and she meant to rectify that confusion on our way down the stairs in front of the post office.

“Can I ask what you hope to achieve by mailing that letter off to all those churches?” She asked quietly, while interlocking her slender, soft fingers within my own digits, which felt like they were covered in sandpaper to me at the moment.

“Well, I hope that the good Christian people whom I intend those letters to be read by will be compelled by their conscious decision to live a life according to the teachings of the divine Savior Jesus Christ to take pity on Bull Gunville.  I hope that the words that I have taken such care to describe his unfortunate life so far will fall on sympathetic ears.”  I found myself happy to be hopeful in this moment as I felt the last rays of the hot afternoon sun on my malnourished face and exposed arms.

“How do you think the sympathy of those people you have written to will help him?”  She used her free hand to pull her long, beautiful hair away from her face while she turned to look up at me.  The gesture struck me dumb with a surprising carnal desire that I couldn’t recall feeling the entire time I had been away from her.  Using dope daily had effectively rendered my sexual drives into mute submission for a very long time.  She dropped the captured hair over her far shoulder where it fell gently across her pale purple, button-down shirt.  It was warm today, so she hadn’t felt the need to button the shirt completely.  Lengths of her violet-tinted, auburn hair fell inside the purple fabric, where I saw the stray locks come to rest on the tanned, fleshy curve of her breast.  I was suddenly aware that she had chosen not to wear a bra on our quest into town, and I was grinning at the thought with aching gratuity.

“Well?  Answer me space cadet?  How is this going to help him?”

I could hardly think about an answer to this question, as my attention was completely focused on catching a glimpse of what I had begun to imagine was a firm nipple being hidden by the whisps of glimmering hair inside of her shirt.  I fumbled for my words like a lust-struck teenager.

“I hope that somebody takes pity on him and rattles the states attorney’s cage about her lack of desire to send him to rehab,” I stammered.  I was still grinning wildly, now staring directly into my wife’s huge brown eyes.  I stopped walking and examined the features of her face.  I scanned her small, upturned nose and brilliant white teeth behind full, long lips.  The sight of her mouth called into my currently overactive memory the illicit visions and ghost sensations of her tongue escaping from behind her teeth to offer its moist caress to the most intimate areas of my flesh I had reserved for her use alone over the course of our marriage.  The aching in my inner thighs was fierce and warm as I greeted these memories.  I resisted my instinctual urge to turn her around right there on the concrete steps in front of the post office, and lift her flowing black skirt above her hips where I could only hope I wouldn’t have to negotiate a bothersome piece of lacy, black fabric covering her perfectly round ass and neatly groomed pubic hair before I penetrated what I knew to be a delicately moistened crevice that I had been painfully neglectful of lately.

“Hey there, mister…” My brief fantasy was called to a halt by my wife’s soft, playful voice.  “What’s on your mind?”  It was a rhetorical question, as she obviously had witnessed the lust swirling around in my eyes as I was examining her mouth.  “Wanna find someplace close to work this out, or can you make it back home without making a mess of yourself?”  Her hand fell down between my legs and softly caressed my tightening pants.

“Someplace close, please…” I mumbled, feeling my face begin to radiate with the heat of an impending blush.  We began walking towards her waiting car.

“I was starting to wonder if you were ever gonna fuck me again...” she stated as she let my hand go and stepped quickly to the driver’s side of the car.  I opened the passenger door and slid hastily into the seat, slamming the door behind me.  She turned the keys in the ignition and the car came to life. 

While she was navigating the parking spot in reverse and maneuvering our position onto the street, I pulled the long, flowing skirt above her knees and ran my hand along her inner thigh.  I was pleasantly surprised to find no troublesome fabric to keep my fingers from locating the sweet, moist nub of her clitoris.  As my fingers negotiated the slender vertical lips hiding this hyper-sensitive bulb of skin, my wife stiffened momentarily before she released a stifled moan from behind the teeth she was using to bite down on her full bottom lip.  She released one hand from the steering wheel, never glancing away from the road.  With her free hand she pushed my fingers from where they had found sweet satisfaction further down and into the soft wet crevice.  I slid a solitary finger into the inviting, tight, wet cavity at her hands request.  I was quickly corrected by my wife’s instructive hand as she pushed two more fingers from my hand into her trembling vagina.  She gently pushed and pulled on my wrist to establish a rhythm while she negotiated a sharp turn into the city park.  Her hand slid away from mine to find her exposed clitoris, where she began to massage it gently while I fucked her obediently with the three fingers of my right hand.  Moments later I felt the increasingly fluid response of her orgasm building as she pulled into the far side of the park behind a large dumpster, underneath the shade of an enormous oak tree.  Before she could put the car in park her body stiffened and she finally closed her eyes and screamed joyfully as she found satisfaction and the release of the first orgasm I had provided for her in seven long months.

We made love three times that afternoon on top of her car, parked underneath the shade of the oak tree and behind the cover of the large city dumpster.  When we had finally exhausted ourselves, she turned towards me while adjusting her tossed clothing and picking a bright green oak leaf from her hair.

“I’ve missed you…” she reached for my hands and placed them on her hips, wrapping her own arms around my neck and locking her fingers under my shoulder-length hair.  “Any words I offer will never be able to satisfy the depth of that simple statement, so I’ll just leave it at that.”  She was smiling carefully, and her eyes were glistening with the unyielding promise of tears that had become commonplace in our rare moments of intimate conversations since she had retrieved me from jail.

“I love you… and I missed you too… even if I didn’t recognize it while I was knee-deep in meth and dope-sick,” I offered softly, “I hope you want to believe that I realize it now.  I want you to know how sorry I am that I let this go on as long as it has.”  My spontaneous apology was instantly haunted by the words I had shared with Bull the previous day.

…If you say you’re sorry, then you intend to do that same shit again someday that you’re apologizing for…

But I felt sorry… and apologetic.  I didn’t retract the apology I had offered to my wife, but I began to silently examine the wisdom of Bull’s theory on apologizing in my head.  I truly loved my wife, but I began to doubt the sincerity of my apology, and along with it the validity of my concerns for the emotional roller-coaster my wife had endured as the result of my addictions.  At that moment I began to feel like my ability to feel regret for anything other than Bull’s current position was next to impossible. 

My wife didn’t notice my wandering thoughts, as she was apparently still floating on the cloud of endorphins we had created in this remote corner of the city park.  She closed the distance between us and embraced my impoverished body and the baggy clothes hanging from it.

“I love you too,” as she spoke, I felt her lips moving on the flesh of the arm I was using to return her embrace, “and it makes me happy to hear you say those things.  I prayed really hard that I would have a moment like this with you again… even if it was only one more time.  I forgave you a long time ago when I realized just how hopelessly tangled-up you were with meth.  Don’t apologize anymore… okay?”

“Thank you…” I whispered into the sweet smell of her hair.

She groaned playfully and pulled away from me.  She began to spin happily in several circles as she wandered towards the driver’s side of her waiting vehicle.  “Are you gonna tell me that meth feels better than what we just did?”

“No… meth cannot make you feel like that,” I replied walking to my side of the car, although I was thinking to myself…

But it does make you forget that feeling that good is possible.

This work is the intellectual property of Jerome J. Panozzo.