Satan…Ah Forget It. Part III

“The smoke alarm is going off and there’s a cigarette still burning, please tell me why…I am my own worst enemy…” (the band Lit)

 Where was I?

Ah yes, the physical dependency. I had been through that rodeo, before my short lived sobriety, after four days of pounding beer and liquor with the neighbors (somehow this park might be my personal worst enemy). I didn’t have the shakes at first (only when I started driving my car) but I considered drinking gasoline, I was that desperate (I think it was more of a passing thought, but I looked at the container and I thought i wonder what that would do…anyways I ended up in the hospital after that ( don’t worry I didn’t drink it)). 

After the cruise which was basically a week of heavy drinking, it wasn’t so much physical as it was consuming my thoughts, like I need to be drunk right now (the mind and the body are connected after all), but I could feel the discomfort in my body as we walked down the terminal. So I got what I wanted, cause I’m a pretty girl and not too smart. Day drinking became my new hobby. I struggled to get that first coffee in (because to not do so would be rude, and meant I was a chicken shit), but after that it was the bite of the pussy cat (I’m trying to make that popular): vodka and sunny D or homemade margaritas (which was ice, mixer, and vodka. Not the fancy frozen kind).

Then I got the bad phone call with the bad news, the news that changed mine and a lot of people’s lives: my sister was found dead on our grandmothers couch. I had already started my drinking that Saturday morning in May (for the life of me I can’t remember the date but I don’t want to), but suddenly I needed a water. That might be what shock feels like. I think my dad said something like, don’t worry it’s going to be alright sweet pea (that makes me tear up now. My poor dad). He said if I was already drinking just keep drinking but be careful (my dad is an alcoholic too). I should have ran to my nana’s house, but my dad said to probably not, she was a wreck. So I kept sipping and tried to let reality sink into my buzz. In a trance I stared at a patch of wildflowers between the trailers and thought wow those are beautiful…

My boyfriend was sympathetic but not comforting. I guess if I wanted comfort I should have shown like I wanted it. I wanted to accept it but also to shove it down and not let it interfere with my life, my boating, cruising, drinking life. I told myself she got what she had coming because she did drugs wrecklessly (she probably was very safe about her drug use for all I know. She had narcan. Why didn’t anybody use it on her???). Truthfully, she didn’t deserve to die at 33. She could have got clean and sober (I did. Though we had different taste in substances. Alcohol did nothing for her. She had actual taste). The family didn’t deserve this. Nobody’s does. 

I should have taken a leave of absence from work, but I needed the money. My mom and brother came down for the memorial service, which never happened, and there was no funeral because she was cremated (there was disagreement about that). I was all nonchalant with a beer in my hand. I didn’t even try to cut back my usage for them. In fact, it got worse, and even worse after they left. My brother gave me the pack of Marlboros they found in my sisters purse. I smoked them all quickly without a thought. 

Honestly I wasn’t doing any justice to my sisters memory. An absence of tears and flowers in lieu of free flowing LTD. More boat rides. I skinned my knee really bad on the island and it looked infected. “They’re gonna have to cut your leg off,” he said in that slow southern drawl. It hurt, too. I had previously hit my knee hard on the trailer hitch of his truck. I was suffering from the drinking, but numb enough not to care. I remembered that not too long ago my nana had invited me out to lunch with herself and my sister, and I had said no. I’m pretty sure the last time I saw Justine was in October, when we cooked crab rangoons and watched Ron White standup and shared cigarettes. She always tried to turn me onto new music, but my taste was narrow. She told me to forget about the people that I thought I had fucked over, cause really I wasn’t that important. She had been sleeping on a small mattress on the floor in our nanas room (I assume trying not to do heroin). She liked chocolate milk. 

There reached a point where my boyfriend didn’t know what the fuck I was doing, and I didn’t either. Sneaking onto the back porch to pound beers before 8 o clock in the morning. Calling out of work. Throwing up and taking random naps. Falling asleep on the boat. I couldn’t even be counted on to make a salad to go with dinner. So one evening he had enough and said the effect of: “why don’t you go on home cause I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing and you ain’t helping me. Come back when you got some sense for christs sake.” He made me a cocktail to go. He had never kicked me out before, and i was surprised and crushed. Another shock. So I walked the short walk back to my own trailer, and found Tommy sitting in the yard working on a beer. “He doesn’t want me anymore,” I cried. And I cried and cried. 

I needed a Whiskey Lullaby.