The Hurricane
It wasn't a calm blue sea like in the one in the picture I’m staring at as I write this. It was more like an emotional hurricane churning away blowing deadly wet wind trying to drown me the day I packed my personal items in a cardboard box I’d found in the back of the supply closet at work. There was no family photo to dust off and pack away. The department store chain I programmed for had rules against such things. I think the fear was that they might clash with the carousel and antique cash register theme so carefully carried through the halls and offices. So, the only things I had to protect from prying eyes were the list of telephone numbers I kept tucked away under the desk blotter, the extra pens that rolled around the back of the pencil drawer, and a file folder containing detailed plans for a dollhouse I wanted to build, but feared I never would. I carried my mostly empty little cardboard box out to the trunk of my car and drove home to God only knew what.
There were no tears. Just quiet. The storm without a name waited.
I pulled into the garage. I didn’t look at the gray cedar four level split home that just a year before had seemed so perfect. I didn’t think about the breath-taking pink spring blooms that would come testifying to God’s goodness from the massive crab apple tree anchored in the front yard. I didn’t think about anything, not consequences, not repercussions, not pain, and certainly not death. The only thing in my head was the vision of falling to sleep forever. The ultimate kind of rest.
I entered the house through the downstairs garage door and took the stairs to the master bedroom. When I passed through the living room I didn’t see the antique settee I’d made payments on as a twenty-one year old who probably should have been buying sexy clothes and getting her hair done. I didn’t see the huge gilded mirror I’d talked my grandmother out of that was hanging over the English writing desk I’d bought for next to nothing at a downtown antique store. I didn’t lift the corner of my mouth at the memory of the storeowner running his finger along the delicate carving of the newly cleaned and polished wood shaking his head as he realized that he’d sold it way too cheap. I didn’t see, or hear, or feel anything until I walked past the spare bedroom I’d turned into a craft room. There, I saw all the pictures I’d collected of the people I loved. Then I screamed.
It was a desperate howl that came from a dark place so deep inside me that I didn’t even know it was there. It was the plaintive wail of the dog in the OJ saga. The nameless storm was bearing down spewing forth flashes of memory. Pulsating pictures of my recent life exploded in rapid succession pushing aside everything else. Standing at the phone in the kitchen with an American Express bill for so many thousands of dollars that I couldn’t connect the amount with anything real. One hundred dollar cash advance, two hundred dollar cash advance, every hour or so, hundreds of dollars charged on a tiny bit of plastic. Day after day after day after day. Me, reaching for the phone, “What is this?” His voice, “Work stuff. Had to buy tapes. For transfers. It’s reimbursable. Waiting for the check.” Panic. Unspoken panic. The secretary’s voice at the other end of my phone at work two weeks later. Me, trying to sound casual, “Hey, did that check for the transfer tapes come?” The secretary, “What check? What tapes?” At home, him demanding to know if I’m trying to embarrass him in front of the work people.
Mornings, evenings, nights spent standing at the bread maker my mother gave me for Christmas. Making bread. He’s getting so thin his eyes are popping out of his head. He tells me not to worry, “There is a problem with my thyroid. The doctor has me on medicine.” Oh, poor thing. This could be serious. I beg him to let me go to the doctor with him. I know he’s afraid of sickness. I know he hates doctors and hospitals. I don’t know how to take care of him. “Let me go to the doctor with you,” I ask again and again. “No,” he insists, “I’m doing what the doctor tells me. Everything is fine.”
He doesn’t sleep. He walks through the house at night. Lights on. Lights off. Up, down, paint the bathroom at two am. He’s too busy to pay the bills. Everything is behind. Perhaps he’ll allow me to take over. He works so much. I could take over the bills. “No,” he says, “Haven’t I always seen to things.” Yes, he’s always seen to everything, he just needs rest. He needs to eat more. I’ll make bread. Raisin. White. Garlic Dinner Rolls. Cinnamon. I’ll make bread and everything will be okay. Standing peering into the empty kitchen cupboards. His mother calls. She’s talking. Always talking. Asking me why we don’t fly to the islands for the holidays. “The others are flying to the islands for the holidays.” Oh, look - a box of macaroni and cheese. I can make it with water. I can get two meals out of it.
The screaming doesn’t stop. I’m clawing at the master bedroom curtains my mother helped me make. They’ve come off the rod. They land in a pile on the floor. The floor is covered a foot deep with clothing from the double closet and items that belong on top of the Duncan Phyfe dressers. I brought them from the man who’d rubbed his fingers across the fine finish of my writing desk. I’m in trouble. “I need help!” I scream into the phone, “Come home, now!”
Time stops. He walks, no runs into the bedroom his lose fitting suit coat is billowing out behind him. He’s looking around. Astonishment on his gaunt face. The wall crucifix my family’s priest friend gave us as a wedding gift is lying on the floor where the brass Jesus is peeking out of the pile of bedding I must have ripped from the bed. He collapses onto the foot of the bed. Half on, half off. He whispers, “Is this what I’ve done to you?” His hands are floating lost in the air before his face. He’s looking from one to the other. I don’t think he knows to whom they belong. I freeze. I don’t breathe. The silence of death has replaced the screaming. “No,” I think, “It’s my fault. I’m the one out of control. I can’t make it like the dollhouse world where everything stays in its place. I’m falling apart. Help me! This is about me!” I don’t say this. I only think it. I’m not there enough to actually speak, to form words. Everything comes to me in images, flashes. This must be the animal mind. “I’ve used all the money for drugs.” He cries. Thick snotty tears take over his face. The hurricane is here. In full force. Deadly.
A huge gust of gritty wind knocks me to the floor. My eyes sting. My skin burns. I’m huddled in a ball in front of the six drawer beautifully bowed antique dresser. One of the signature Duncan Phyfe drawer pulls is poking me in the back. The screaming has finally stopped. Somewhere in the distance I can hear him murmuring, “All kinds of drugs, marijuana, and gambling to make up for that, and…CRACK.” He spits the word at me like some unsuspecting restaurant patron biting into a spoiled piece of luncheon meat. Now the hurricane has a name. It is Crack.
“I’m not a junkie,” he moaned softly. He kept repeating it over and over. He sobbed it. He cried it. He screamed it, “I’m not a junkie.” I crawled over the remnants of my old life, the clothes and bed sheets and decorative items that made a place homey. I pulled myself to him on my knees reaching for the hands he no longer knew. I knelt before him and grabbed his bony flyaway fingers in my own.
“Of course not,” I said, “Of course not.” But he was and no matter how intensely we denied it the truth lay in our devastated bank account, his ravaged body, and the life of lies and deception that we would both begin leading.
“You must be so relieved,” I said, “The truth is out. You must be so relieved. No more secrets.”
Forgetting my own fear, I wiped at his tears and rocked him back and forth; setting aside my pain I began devising a survival strategy. First, I needed money for the sort term. I needed to hold onto my job, I needed a real job, no more part-time just for fun jobs, because I could no longer count on him being able to keep his. If the truth ever got out that would be the end of ten years with a stable income. I needed to see the bills. I had to know the extent of the damage. I had to protect us. There was so much that had to be done, but first I had to tell someone. An unbiased professional. Someone who knew how to bring the dead back to life.
The sky was darkening around us. The bedroom’s gloom came not only from the fact that it was almost six, but the fact that the lights had gone out on a marriage that should have survived a lifetime. He told me that he had to properly lock up his office. He told me he’d be back. I didn’t want him to leave, but I couldn’t hold him there. He promised me he’d be back, so I let him go.
After he left, I grabbed the phone book. I knew just where to turn. For weeks I’d been sitting nervously on the edge of my king-sized bed thumbing aimlessly through the yellow pages unconsciously locating numbers for councilors and hotlines; lifelines for the lost. It dawned on me that something, some force, had led me to practice for this day. On some level I knew this was coming. All of a sudden my discomfort with his alcoholic father came to mind. I saw myself side-stepping his half drunk dad whenever he reached to hug me or tried to engage me in conversation. Even then I was trying desperately to avoid catching a frightening glimpse of my own future.
I picked up the phone and dialed an agency specializing in drug abuse. “I need to talk to someone,” the words tumbled from my mouth into the receiver, “My husband is on crack and I don’t know what to do. Please, please, I have to get help right now?” I don’t know what all I said, but by the time I hung up the phone I had an appointment to speak to some guy in an hour.
I put my business clothes on. I needed to look nice, put together, not like some street woman with a drugged-up-thug-of-a-husband. I needed to look respectable, calm.
I picked up the room while I waited for my husband knowing all along that chances were he wouldn’t return. When it got to the point that I’d be late for the appointment I left on my own to face the kind of pain that had a grown woman heading for the basement rafters.
The waiting room was what you’d expect - very doctor’s officey except for the unusual number of posters dedicated to AIDs and drugs and mental disorders. Posters that a month ago would have been completely ignored now drew my attention like a styrofoam take home container would draw the starving. These people I was sure would have the answers.
The councilor that greeted me was young. Maybe 25. He had thick black hair and a healthy build that spoke of hours working out in a gym. I looked at him and thought about my emaciated pop-eyed husband and started to cry. The story came out in torrents of tears. So much for the calm respectable woman. The thing I remember this young man telling me, the thing that scared me passed death was that my husband had brought the devil into our home.
“I’ve seen it,” the young healthy black haired councilor told me, “time and time again, I’ve seen it. All a crack addict cares about is crack. He’ll sell you on the street to get it. Don’t think he won’t.”
I flew home to begin the most difficult years of my life. I tried. I really did. I got him in treatment, I took over the bills, I did every thing I could think of doing, but he kept going back. Back to lying, stealing, killing himself. Killing me. I finally just couldn’t take it anymore. I ended up hating him, I really did.
Dear Readers,
I hate to leave you at such a low point. There is more – much more. And I’ll tell it, but not today. I will, however, tell you this:
Because God is good, because he can turn tragedy into triumph, because he is... there is victory, and forgiveness, and personal growth.
Stay Tuned...
posted by LightAndShadow at
8:54:00 AM
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