Only One Thing Left

In the spring of 1973, I was trying on different lives like some people try on dresses, hoping to find one that would fit.

There was the life I was born to, the one in the perfect middle-class suburban home. It had two-way magic mirrors for windows. Anyone looking in from the outside saw a home beautifully decorated with love and happiness. Inside, looking out, I saw only the reflection of rooms furnished with anger and walls painted with abuse. So I made a point of not existing there.

I maintained my second life with my best friend, Debbie. She lived with her parents in a two-bedroom, single-wide trailer in the west end of town. Her mother wore bright red lipstick, chain-smoked, and talked on the phone all day. Her father smoked big cigars and did imitations of The Three Stooges. They bought dented canned goods at a discount, shopped at the thrift store, and sometimes ran out of hot water. They let me stay there whenever I needed to. Somehow they knew life in a perfect middle-class suburban home wasn’t always what it appeared to be. Debbie’s cousin lived with them because her mother had left and her father couldn’t care for her. She didn’t like me. I’m not sure why. Maybe I took up too much room, or food, or attention. One time she shit in my sleeping bag just to make her point perfectly clear.

My third life was with the druggies at Heritage Garden Apartments. I met them when I was sixteen years old. I was going out with Carl at the time. I had known Carl before he took drugs. It wasn’t until after he started using that he wanted to go out with me. I think I reminded him of his old life, and he could pretend he was better than the other addicts because he had me.

On our first date, Carl brought me to the Sunday outing of druggies at the Crystal Lake Cemetery. We walked along the winding road past the reservoir toward the hill of gravestones. My long, straight, blonde hair hung like a vest over the fitted white eyelet lace dress that touched the tops of my bare callous feet. Carl’s shoulder-length dark hair swayed back and forth to the rhythm of his Neanderthal walk. A wife-beater shirt clung to his sweaty torso. Muscular arms sprouted from his shoulders and hung stiff by his sides. He held my hand firmly in his clenched fist, like King Kong bringing home his bride.

I could feel the tension when Carl introduced me to Maxwell, the group’s leader. His long white ponytail whipped around as he motioned Carl aside.

“You didn’t ask permission to bring her here,” Maxwell said. His angry voice was hushed but traveled easily in the crisp spring air.

“She’s cool, Maxwell,” Carl assured him.

“We’ve got business here today, Carl. We’re taking care of that narc, Andrew.”

“She can handle it. I swear.”

“Swear it on your life, then.”

Wrapping my arms around my slender body, I made a futile attempt to ward off the chill in the air. In the distance, I saw a boy with blonde hair and a slight build walking gingerly toward our motley group. He smiled with ease as he raised his arm and waved.

He approached Maxwell first with evident respect. Maxwell pulled his arm back and sucker-punched the boy square in the face. I watched as his nose seemed to explode in slow motion. He staggered back, blood gushing into his mouth. I assumed this was Andrew, the so-called narc that Maxwell had referred to. Maxwell stepped aside and motioned to Carl. Most of the group was in no physical shape for a fight. They depended on Carl’s strength as a bodybuilder to do the dirty deed. Unlike the rest, drugs hadn’t sucked the life out of him yet. Carl did his job well. When Andrew lay limp on the ground, the others kicked and spat on the lifeless body. Maxwell seemed pleased with the way they had taken care of Andrew.

I watched in muted horror as they rolled the bloody body over a bank near the lake and left him for dead. I was aware of Maxwell watching me. I met his cold hard stare with a look of indifference that I knew would save my life for at least another day.

Instinctively, we all stuck close together the following week. No one mentioned Andrew or the incident at the lake, but they checked the papers daily. There was no report of a body found. Maxwell decided it was best to stick to the group’s regular routine the following Sunday, so we all returned to the cemetery. We settled down on the patchwork blanket and pulled out a loaf of bread and peanut butter from the food pantry bag. Maxwell casually walked by the bank where we had last seen Andrew alive. He discretely shook his head, and we all exhaled a little.

Maxwell was walking back to the blanket when we saw someone in the distance walking toward us. When Maxwell turned to see what we were looking at, we collectively inhaled. Even from a distance, the purple and yellow colors of Andrew’s face were visible. His nose lay across his left cheek. Oddly, he smiled, and some of his teeth were missing. He waved without apparent malice, and Maxwell walked to meet him. They stood and talked a while. Andrew held out his hand. After the slightest hesitation, Maxwell shook it solidly. He put his arm around Andrew as they walked toward the group. Maxwell announced that Andrew had earned the group’s trust and was now one of them. He nodded to me. Whether I wanted to be or not, I was one of them as well.

I took a walk among the gravestones when I saw Andrew making his way back from the lake. “Hi,” he greeted me. His smile still came easily, but his teeth were scattered like a jack-o-lantern. His blonde hair was matted and clung to a head still spotted with clumps of dried blood and scabs. He offered me a drink from a jug of water.

“What’s your name?” he asked as I took a long swig.

“Jackie.”

“I haven’t seen you around before.”

“I saw you last week. I thought you were dead.”

He laughed and then winced as he caught his tongue on one of his jagged teeth. “There were times last week that I wished I was dead. I almost gave up hope.”

“I know the feeling.”

“Hope’s a funny thing, though,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s all you have left.”

“It’s not something I see a lot of.”

Maxwell maintained a three-bedroom residence at Heritage Garden Apartments. Some of the druggies just hung out when they needed a place to crash, but most of them ended up staying. It was there that Andrew and I became friends. I knew we would never be anything more. From the first time I saw him walking toward the group in the cemetery, I knew his preference was not for women. The others didn’t seem to notice. Drugs had drained all their stamina. There wasn’t much sexuality left to any of them. Andrew was just another addict in their eyes. I saw something more.

“I noticed you don’t do any drugs,” he said.

“I don’t use.” 

“Well, I’m not hard-core. My choice of poison is speed. They’re small white pharmaceutical tabs, clean and cheap.”

Every drug has its problems. With speed, it’s tolerance. It didn’t take long before more were needed to maintain the same high. Andrew was up to fifty a day, still clean but not so cheap.

“Why did you come back?” I asked him one day.

“Same reason you keep coming here,” he said. “No other options.”

I smiled but did not comment. I liked to think I did have other options. The truth was Heritage Garden was my best one at the moment. It was a warm place to crash for the winter. Welfare paid the rent and utilities, so they never ran out of hot water. All of them got food stamps. Addicts don’t eat a lot, but Maxwell made sure there was always enough food before taking the remainder of the stamps to sell on the street and purchase more drugs for the group.

They had their own unique forms of entertainment. Sometimes we would watch The Wizard of Oz with the volume down and The Wall by Pink Floyd blasting on the stereo. Even though I wasn’t high, it was still eerie to hear the words aligned with the movie. Eric the head-case amused us occasionally with his original interpretation of “Stairway to Heaven” in pantomime. We cheered wildly at the end, and he bowed dramatically.

Carl and I never actually broke up; we just fell apart. But, by the spring of 1974, I was getting antsy. This was about the time I started developing my fourth life at Henderson’s Lounge.

“Lounge” is a fancy word for a trashy bar where all the losers hung out. Some of the druggies would come by from time to time. Debbie met me there on the weekends when a band played. Mostly I went by myself. I sat next to two old guys who had permanently reserved chairs at the end of the bar. They would tell stories about the good old days and how kids these days had it easy. They boasted about fighting in the Second World War and making love to the native girls. I didn’t mention the war I was fighting. They didn’t want to hear it anyway. It seemed ironic to me that the three of us ended up at the same shitty bar looking at our lives through a bottomless glass of rum and coke.

The drinking age was eighteen then. I had barely turned seventeen. “Seventeen is close enough in horseshoes, hand grenades, and Henderson’s Lounge,” one of the old guys would say every time I came in the door. Then they would laugh with their mouths open, and I could see their toothless gums—no need for teeth when you maintain a liquid diet.

When I was in Henderson’s Lounge, I drank and swore because that’s what girls who hang out in bars do. The night I met Kenny, I was standing on the bar screaming at the bartender to “give me another fucking drink” when a strong hand grabbed my arm.

“Get down, and I’ll buy you a drink,” Kenny said.

It wasn’t a question, and I didn’t argue. He was a man of his word. I sat beside him, draining my drink. He sat studying his. His body was firm and tanned. I could smell the fresh scent of his clean brown hair.

“I know everyone in this fucking bar,” I said. “Even the piss-ass bartender that wouldn’t serve me, but I don’t know you.”

“I came to meet a friend,” he said. “She didn’t show.”

“I can be your friend,” I said, because that’s what girls who hang out in bars say.

Over the next three months, Kenny and I hung out a lot. He met the druggies at Heritage Garden Apartments, and I introduced him to Debbie’s family at the trailer. He accepted them all, and they all approved of him. I never brought him to the perfect middle-class suburban home—no sense in pressing my luck.

Most of the time, Kenny would take me to the apartment of his friends, Tom and Sheila. They would have parties on the weekends where they laughed and talked and cooked food. Sometimes they would drink and smoke weed. One night when we were there, I sat with Kenny in an oversized chair. I wrapped my arms around his neck.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“I want to go out,” he said.

“Are you going to puke?” I jumped up.

“No, I want to go out with you.”

“So let’s go. Why are you being weird?”

“You don’t understand.” He pulled me back into his lap. His warm hands surrounded my face, and he looked into my eyes. “I want to be with just you for the rest of my life.”

Sometimes I was the invisible child in the house of horrors. Other times I was the misfit in a room full of druggies. Still other times, I was the tough, foul-mouthed drunk at Henderson’s Lounge, but not that night. That night I was just a naïve seventeen-year-old girl who knew nothing about true love.

“There’s something I want you to have,” he said. I watched as he took an object out of his pocket and held it in his hand. “It’s not anything great, but I’ve had it for a long time. I’ve always kept it with me, like a good luck charm, you know? No matter what, I’ve never thought to give it up—until now.”

He placed the object in the palm of my hand, closing my fingers around it. I held it tight for a moment feeling the heat it had absorbed from being near his body. Then, slowly I opened my fingers and stared down at the round solid silver object.

“It’s a silver dollar.” I looked up at him with tears in my eyes. “But what about you?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve given me your luck.”

“Oh,” he smiled. “I don’t need luck anymore. I have you.”

The following week, Kenny called me every day. We made great plans for the future. But dreams are only dew in the morning sun. Nightmares were the reality in the places I lived. Now that I think about it, I believe he was already dead. Over the phone, I could hear the molecules of his body evaporating like a shooting star. The night of the car accident was only the formal death. He started dying the night he’d given me the coin.

We had both been looking forward to the weekend when we could see each other again. Friday finally came, and Kenny was supposed to pick me up at Debbie’s trailer. Instead, he called to tell me that the lights on his car had gone out. “I know someone who can fix them. I just have to get there before dark. Don’t worry. I’ll come to pick you up. I’m just going to be a little late.”

I didn’t hear from him again. Finally, I couldn’t stand the quiet of the trailer any longer. I left a message at Tom and Sheila’s. I told them what I feared and gave them the phone number for the Heritage Garden Apartments.

I hit the buzzer in the outside entrance of Heritage Garden, two long and one short. The door clicked open. I walked in unnoticed among the usual chaos. Andrew was standing against the wall by the buzzer and the phone. I told him I was expecting an important phone call. There were probably a dozen people there, in different stages of highs and lows. I watched as if through a window. They were my friends, as far as drug addicts go. They still had hearts, but drugs owned their souls. Several people gathered around the kitchen table. Carl was about to shoot up. It was odd to see the joy on their faces like they got some kind of a high just from watching him.

The phone rang. Andrew answered and motioned me over. It was Sheila.

“Is he dead?” was all I said.

“Yes,” was all she said.

We were both silent for a few minutes. I don’t know what Shelia was doing. I was watching Carl as he tied a long thick elastic band around his upper arm and pulled it tight with his teeth. He laid his arm out on the table. In his other hand was the hypodermic needle. He saw the vein he wanted and slowly pierced his skin. He let the elastic band slip from his teeth precisely as he pressed the fluid into his vein.

“Are you ok?” I heard Sheila asking me over the phone.

Carl’s head tilted back, and his eyes rolled up into his head, an addict’s bliss. The gaunt faces standing around him licked their lips as they watched.

“No,” I answered and hung up the phone. Haunted faces looked at me. “Kenny’s dead,” I said.

It was hard to see the emotion in their sunken bloodshot eyes. Their arms hung limp, having long forgotten what real physical comfort was. Eric, the head-case, slowly held up a thick rubber band and a full syringe. The only comfort he knew. I was well aware of the self-sacrifice in his offer. There was edginess in their faces as they watched me, anticipating my choice. I was always the light in the darkness to them, the one who could resist. But what did I have left to live for? Everything good I had, died that night.

Andrew stood in the back of the room. I recognized the look in his watery blue eyes as they met mine. It was hope, and it was the only thing any of us had left. I turned and walked out the door. Standing on the landing, I heard the door open and shut behind me. Andrew walked up behind me and took my hand. 

“Only one thing left for people like us,” he said. 

He tossed a bag of pills in the dumpster as we walked through the parking lot. There was no way of knowing where the future would take me next, but I had come too far to let it stop here. I still had hope.