socks and mildewed towels, and the printer from college sits in one corner gathering dust while robust marijuana plants stand tall in another.
Stepping over some junk, I reach for his backpack. There’s another empty wine bottle and a corkscrew inside. I’m pretty sure these came from the room where Joe and I keep our liquor locked up—a recent precaution in case Joey ever came over. I guess he found a way in. If his room wasn’t so filthy, I might allow myself to crumple up on the floor and cry until tomorrow. Instead, I call out Joey’s name, this time loud and sharp.
Like rusty old hinges, his eyes slowly creak open, get a little stuck, close, and creak back open. Merely a crack. He remains deathly still. And silent. I’m fairly certain Joey’s not aware I’m here, but I yell at him anyway. I let go of my fury over last night’s drama, drugs, and deceit. I feel a little better, but I’m not quite done.
“Take a look at your life, at this mess, at everything you are throwing away. Get a grip. Grow up. Be responsible. Take control. Make something of yourself, Joey. Make a life you can be proud of. Oh, and, one more thing. I love you. Don’t ever forget that.”
“How about a bike?” Joe asks me.
“No. I can picture Joey riding around in traffic while high or drunk. How about if we reduce his debt?” I reply.
“I don’t think so. That would send the wrong message and set a bad precedent. An iPod?”
“He’d sell it for drug money.”
Finally Joe and I decide to give Joey a bathrobe for Christmas. Boring yet safe. And a handmade certificate decorated with yellow smiley faces—admission to Havenwood Addiction Treatment Center (redeemable at any time). Not at all sure how Joey will respond to the certificate. Since he was wigged out last week when he admitted to needing help, we are relieved when he says he will use it.
“I think my life is a little out of control.”
I’m so happy I can hardly stand it. I’ve already talked to the Havenwood folks up in Minnesota so I know there will be space available for Joey in a few weeks. I whip out my list and start preparations. I buy Joey’s airplane ticket and move $25,000 of his college funds into our checking account to pay for the first month of addiction treatment. With three days to go and everything lined up to go except Joey, I set out to track him down—he hasn’t answered any of my calls since Christmas—and find him at the restaurant where he works. When Joey says he’s not going to Havenwood after all, I crumble. A snuffling, begging mess. Joey cries a little too, wrapping his arms around me and patting me on the back.
“I’m so sorry for everything, Mom. But everything will be okay now. I’ll go. I’ll go.”
A dollop of something sweet floating in our sour pot.
Almost a year to the day after he moved out of our house, Joey moves back home. For one night. It’s another cold January day of packing up boxes, but this time around my emotions aren’t mixed. When I arrive at Joey’s apartment, the only indication he’s even thought about moving is the absence of his marijuana crop. I don’t care where it went. I only care that it’s gone. Joey is high. Hazy and weird, he keeps negotiating to get rid of me. Fat chance. He mentions wanting to break up with Julianne.
“We do too many bad things together.”
The breaking up part is a bit of good news and I hang onto that.
Chucking Joey’s jumbled bundles of stuff into the back of my SUV, I’m startled by the appearance of a husky, dark-haired young man at my side. But he’s smiling, asking if I’m Joey’s mom and if Joey is upstairs.
“Yes and yes! He’s in the apartment, packing; the door is open,” I say, smiling back, and then get back to my chucking. Moments later I hear loud curses and thumping. Whirling around, I see Joey shoving The Smiler down the stairs from his second floor apartment. Then Joey is screaming at me, right up in my face.
“Mind your own fucking business! That guy is a dealer who wants to kill me and you go fucking let him into my house? You have no fucking idea what you are doing! You are crazy!” Only when Joey storms away do I dare move. I lean into my car, rearranging the mess into a different mess. Swallow hard. Blink hard. Try to focus on the goal.
By the time we dump Joey’s belongings in our basement, it’s already dark, Joe is home from work, and we enter a new moon of madness. Looking over the Havenwood packing list—no cell phone, no iPod, no laptop, nothing sharp—Joey balks.
“No fucking way. What the hell are you getting me into?” Then he calls Julianne and walks out the door. Joe steps out after him.
“Don’t be too late! You’ve got laundry and packing to do! And you need to wake up early!”
As though we let Joey leave. We know Joey is leaving whether we let him leave or not. What we don’t know is if he’ll come back.
Joe and I decide to poke around in Joey’s things. We find glass bongs and metal pipes, a small scale, a rectangular mirror, and other, unidentifiable paraphernalia. Now what do we do? If we throw it all away, Joey will notice—assuming he returns tonight—sabotaging the goal for tomorrow. If we confront him, we’ll need to draw some kind of line in the shifting sand. That will likely send him right back out the door. My vote is to wait until he’s gone and then throw it all away.
“Nope, I’m done being held hostage,” Joe says.
When Joey stumbles through the back door, bumps off the wall, and spins around in our direction, Joe and I are waiting for him—grim-faced, barefoot, and wearing our PJs. Joey’s drug supplies are spread out on the kitchen counter.
“What the fuck? You went through my shit? That’s my personal property. You fucking violated my rights!” Red-faced and weaving, he fumbles around with the paraphernalia, trying to stuff it all into the front of his shirt. “You can’t take these! I bought them. I’m going to hide them where you’ll never fucking find them!” Joey barrels back out into the night, curdling my blood with his fury.
Tossing and turning, I can’t sleep. I sneak out of bed and down the hall, avoiding the squeaky floorboard just inside my study, and ease the door closed behind me. Without turning on the lamp, I burrow into the cushions of my overstuffed chair. Joey is banging around downstairs—high, agitated, and unpredictable. Over the years I have felt afraid for Joey. But I’ve never felt afraid of him. Until tonight. Tonight, I am both. So here I sit, quietly sewing one bump and thump and slam into the next with the stitch of my breathing. Maybe somehow my vigil will carry him all the way to sunrise. Somehow keep him from lighting up or sneaking out or running away. Joey needs to be here come daylight; he’s got a flight to catch. So, I take a breath. I hold it as I wait for the next bump. I breathe.
And I think.
Sometime between the first hint of a whisker and the nudge from the nest, Joey crossed an invisible line—a line where experimentation became addiction. And dalliance became disease. He was a kid when he started down the path that brought him here to this night—just a kid when he made the choices that turned out to be bad choices, influenced by feelings and pressures more powerful than his tender young self could withstand. Besieged by music, movies, magazines, and malls, Joey was lured in.
“Drugs, drinking, party! A carefree life! A dream life! A pain-free life! Sign in blood here.”
Such intoxicating enticements. (Don’t bother to read the fine print.)
An addict is a pea-in-the-pod who spoils the party, shunned by the very same peers who had passed the poisoned apple, as well as by those who slyly winked or looked the other way.
“This is so unexpected, so shocking.”
“What a disgrace.”
“What a mess.”