We Were Invincible...Right? FINALE
This is the finale of a seven-part serial. This piece was also included in full in our recent collection of spiritual writing, Spiritus Oppidum, Vol. 1. Past online installments can be found here.
Instead, the below-the-fold headline in this morning’s paper was a different kind. Still tragic, yes…but with a much more local bent, which was what prompted me to commit what you have just read to paper.
According to the article, there was a robbery which had escalated to a fatality. A pharmacy, part of a strip mall in a city about two hours from here, was held up. A man with a pantyhose mask (based on the mugshot, he doesn’t even look thirty) stuck a .357 magnum in the pharmacist’s face and demanded not condoms, not mouthwash, and not neti pots, but – you guessed it – narcotic pain medication. According to the article, a partial list of the things he asked for included hydrocodone tablets, morphine, oxycodone, fentanyl patches...whole shooting match. Tens of thousands of retail dollars’ worth of dope, no doubt.
Although he took all the narcotics that the bag would hold, the article states that the first one he demanded (as well as the only one he asked for by its patented trade-name) was my very own “contribution” to society. My cash cow. My baby. Eyewitnesses claim the pharmacist complied with the gunman’s wishes, but to no avail. The man shot the pharmacist in the face anyway.
The good news? They caught the bastard, by Christ. Caught him at a Cumbys less than ten miles from the scene, putting gas in the Camry he was using as a getaway vehicle. Once in custody, the man, through a river of tears and remorse, claimed he never wanted to hurt nobody, no sir and no ma’am, it was just that he needed those pills, really needed them, hadda have them, the pain was so bad, the pain was turrible. Allegedly, his doctor had put him on my drug six or eight years earlier, after the future pharmacy stick-up man had been involved in a boating accident. Thing was, now he couldn’t seem to function without them. Thing was, if he didn’t have any he became violently ill. Thing was, he didn’t wanna be sick, so he had stolen his brother-in-law’s .357 and the rest was now history. Thing was, he was turribly sorry for what he did.
I know how the latter felt, all too well. Being sorry counts for something. Right?
The bad news?
The pharmacist on duty that day was none other than my baby sister.
Abyssus abyssum invocat.
It took me a few tries as I mentioned, but once I was able to stand, I went to the sideboard, overcome with that peculiar feeling of déjà vu the whole time, and pulled out those three things that now share the top of my desk with what I’ve just written: my trusty dump doll and an old newspaper clipping, culled from a long-ago edition of the very paper I picked up this morning. The clipping is no headline, though; it is my baby brother’s obituary.
He had been involved in a motorcycle accident a number of years ago, around the time our folks passed away. But that wasn’t what killed him; the heroin overdose took care of that quite nicely. The kid would have a cocktail or two now and then, but had never been into drugs before in his life, to my knowledge. Certainly not while Mom and Dad walked the earth. His Triumph had come out from underneath him going around a corner after a rain shower, him sober as a Puritan. What was left of his left leg could best be described as powder. He hit his head without a helmet, but no fractures there…kid always did have a fucking hard head. Against my recommendations, his doctor put him on a merry mixture of dilaudid and fentanyl lollipops when the injuries were fresh. Over time, they took away the lollipops, and kept him propped up with my brainchild as the “healing progressed”. His leg came out ok, but they must have done a shitty job weaning him, because when they finally, after a year or so, cut him off from that godforsaken garbage I let loose on the world – the one I lied about and falsified reports or sealed documents to protect – the withdrawals incapacitated him. He discovered (as many do) that heroin worked even better at controlling his pain and keeping the withdrawals at bay – all without having to even go see a doctor. And it’s cheap to boot. Or so I hear.
Now things have come full circle. As a poor nobody immigrant kid from New England, I did what every parent or teacher encourages children to do. I found my passion. I set my sights high, had clear goals, and worked hard to attain them. With my relentlessly withering but always smiling grandfather constantly in mind, I was determined to help ease needless suffering in the world, to improve the quality of life of those around me, and yes, to make a few bucks in the process. My tendency is to succeed when I put my mind to something, and I did. I succeeded. I “helped” people. I was well-known. I had lots of money. I was On the Map.
And all it cost me was my family, the people I loved the most.
At times like this, I agree: hell invokes hell, and one misstep really does lead to another...but my missteps were too severe, happened too long ago, to be atoned for, I'm afraid.
At times like this, I think about that doll, the one sitting on my desk right now as I finish writing this confession. Times like this, I think about Dad’s lesson. Those eight little words. Times like this, I can’t help but wonder if this, this time, will finally be the time those words fail me. They never have before, but then times have never been quite like this, either. No,they’ve never failed, but if they do, there’s my old snub-nosed .38 – the third thing I brought from the sideboard – that won’t. Let’s see what happens.
Keep smiling and let it all roll off.
Keep smiling and let it all roll off.
Keep smiling and let it all roll off.
Three times. Like a charm.
Right?