Needle Too (22 page)

“That’s not what happened!” I finally snapped as I felt my horns come up.

“How do
you
know?!”

“BECAUSE I ATE ALL THE DRUGS!”

After clearing
that
up—along with any question about the effect a decade of heroin addiction had on my tolerance for opioids —I felt as though I really needed to put a knife in the rumors, especially where Jon was concerned.

I snuck away from Momma’s house and drove to my apartment, though I wasn’t entirely sure why I was going or what I expected to accomplish, and when I arrived it took several moments for me to gather the composure I needed to enter. When I did, the first
thing I noticed were two empty beer cans sitting in the battered wastebasket by my bedroom door, which were apparently the same two that Jon and Billy were sipping on the previous night when I returned home as 22
unopened
cans remained in the refrigerator.

With alcohol eliminated as a contributing factor I instinctively began looking for the remaining drugs because I
knew
Jon would never recklessly swallow a bunch of pills and more than anything I wanted to prove it. So I began the search in earnest which was easier said than done because the cluttered condition of my apartment made it difficult to find the furniture let alone the pills. However, after scanning the apartment for about ten minutes the first of the missing drugs was discovered as I was somehow able to distinguish two, yellow, Perc-10’s abandoned and almost completely obscured by a mountain of colorful mess in the middle of a completely cluttered table.

“Excellent!” I rejoiced with a sense of profound relief and extreme vindication for my friend as I carefully leaned over the messy table, rescued the valuable pieces of evidence and washed them down with a beer. Now all I needed was to find the missing Xanax.

For two hours I searched high and low in every nook and cranny of that apartment but came up empty. Exasperated, I took a seat on the couch where Jon spent his final night and for some reason instinctively stood up, walked across the living room and found myself looking through a pile of laundry that at some point had been relocated to the coffee table. And beneath that heap of clothing I soon stumbled upon a CD case which I’d never seen before but was certain it belonged to Jon. Almost as if the collection of music was my own, I unzipped and opened the case and flipped past the plastic sleeves before uncovering a Velcro-sealed compartment attached to the back cover. Without having to reveal the contents of that compartment, but with the same conviction and certainty of whom the music belonged to, I
knew
the missing Xanax was in that sealed little space and of course they were…
all four of them
.

I returned to the house and gave Emily the Xanax, and as the last few friends departed the residence Momma felt she needed to see where Jon slept the previous night. Truthfully, the last thing I wanted was for Emily’s mother to see the perpetual clutter I lived in but of course I couldn’t and wouldn’t ever deny her, especially under the circumstances.

As we headed down Cape Coral Parkway I still couldn’t believe what was happening—what
continued
to happen—as I was now well into my 30’s and still willing to live so recklessly and escape unscathed while the innocents continue to go down around me. Nothing seemed fair.

Though I agreed to Momma’s request the moment it was made, as I unlocked the door and ushered her into my dark and dirty dwelling the reality of the situation quickly came to light and I was embarrassed and upset at having to reveal such sloppy living conditions. But really—
who else was there to blame?

“Wow, they really made a mess in here during all the commotion, huh?” Momma somberly said to me while referring to the emergency personnel from earlier that day.

“
YEAH
…dirty fucking cops.”

35

Mother of mercy, hold me close,
Don't you leave me or let me go 'cause I hear these angels singing hymns of praise,
I guess I forgot my way
,

Give me another day
.

Candles burning, set the sky in flames,
Holding on but it's hard to tame,
I hear the angels, they start calling my name
.

Did I forget to breathe?
I swear I couldn't see.
(But you don't believe me)

Oh mother mercy, then take me up higher.
I guess I'll come up with you and rest awhile.
But I never wanted it to end this way, a forgotten dream in a broken day.
I fell asleep
.....

Jonathan A. Marcott

Jon’s funeral was a heart-wrenching affair made only more upsetting by the official cause of death, which, provided by the city—was so vague, essentially meaningless and ultimately forgettable that it lived up to its potential, but these days I feel it isn’t worth the anguish of researching and rehashing for anyone that was affected by it. Certainly, however, at the time we knew something was amiss when the medical examiner—or whoever’s responsible for determining the cause of death in a city of ding-dongs—came banging on the door and asking for more information. And of course, I told him there was no more information to give because I ATE ALL THE DRUGS. And though by now I’d already discussed this critical detail on several occasions with just about anyone who would listen, I decided not to mention it to Jon’s father when we first met for the first time to bury his son—who took a piece of me away with him.

Jon’s passing seemed to necessitate relocating from my apartment, which Emily was now understandably adamant about especially since we had plans to live together. And given the tragic situation it wasn’t long before Empathizing Emily decided to invite Billy along as she thought it better for us to live together, until I broke my fist on his forehead and she thought it better for us to live apart. With that it wasn’t long before she and I secured a comfortable, two-bedroom apartment on the other side of town and of course, the second bedroom was for Savannah when she was visiting which continued on as usual.

That summer and fall were difficult to get through for everyone, especially Emily and Momma Marcott, and the winter holidays would quickly escalate the anguish as only a few days separated Jon’s birthday from Christmas. And on that first Christmas Day without her son, a despondent Momma Marcott called to ask if it would be alright if Emily, who was supposed to be spending the day with her, could instead join Savannah and me at my mother’s condo in Bonita Springs because she was too distraught to celebrate and besides, my mother would be going through the motions.

“Hey, Emily’s coming over for dinner tonight, okay?” I asked my mother simply as a matter of course because I couldn’t imagine her taking issue, especially given the still recent tragedy and the time of year. After all, Christmas Dinner—in fact the entire holiday for my entire life—was never anything beyond a performance and even with that it was never a showstopper, so I assumed an additional mouth to feed wouldn’t be too much to contend with but—

“Oh, Craig! How could you spring this shit on me at the last second?”

“Spring
what
?!”

“I’m not prepared for another dinner guest!” Mother had the audacity to say especially when her holiday recipe wasn’t all that complicated.

“Just call and order another one!”

“ANOTHER ONE OF WHAT?!”

“ANOTHER ONE OF WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU ORDERED!” I shouted as I returned volley in the stupid screaming match that I was already tired of playing.

“It’s Christmas and they’re closed!”

“Well then she can have mine!”

“You know—you’re nothing but a selfish, fucking, heroin addict!”

Holy crap! Coming out of the clear blue that was not only the first time my mother ever referenced my drug addiction, but the first time I realized she was even aware of it and I was suddenly at a loss for words. But then that went away:

“That means a lot coming from a drunk, baby-beating, worthless fuck of a bitch whose dying husband preferred to have his dick stuck between the scaly thighs of some psoriasis-ridden skank —than be anywhere near the self-absorbed guinea pig he was married to.”

So that put the kibosh on Christmas dinner in Bonita Springs, along with any semblance of a relationship I’d ever have with my mother again—and it had nothing to do with her calling me a junky. After all, I
was
a junky or at the very least a “recovering” junky but as far as I was concerned, her brutal callousness and insensitivity was now a liability and though I’d managed to somehow survive in spite of it all, nobody else needed to endure it. So after 35 years I finally hung-up on my mother, disconnected our
relationship for good and would be lying if I said I ever looked back.

I’m almost certain that for the vast majority of the civilized
and
uncivilized world the notion of permanently severing maternal ties is inconceivable, if not impossible. After all, typically there’d be entangling alliances with family members, extended and otherwise, that would make it difficult to completely avoid the matriarch—but there would be none of those to consider in
my
situation. Indeed, I would eventually learn it was Celine, my sister, who’d recently shared the nitty-gritty of my life with my mother which she learned in a phone call from another junky musician trying to recover twenty bucks he’d lent me during a dopesick moment of recording—which only goes to show you there’s no honor among fiends. Nonetheless, due to Celine’s willingness to disclose the dirty details of my past, I’d make certain there’d be no
immediate
family members getting in the way of my estrangement from Mother, either.

I know from the outside looking in it’s a shocking and perhaps even deplorable thing to so instinctively and decidedly dismiss not only my wildly abusive mother, but also the sister I grew up with—
not to mention the brothers and sisters I grew up without
. However, although I didn’t stop to analyze my behavior back then I have since, and believe my decisions may have been a byproduct of the terminal family dysfunction that historically extended outward and onward for as far back as I can remember. In fact, as a child I was not only puzzled by the strange bond that seemed to exist between siblings, but suspicious of long-winded stories celebrating family togetherness and of course, later—as a resident assistant in college—completely unavailable for emotionally-charged freshman sob stories dedicated to missing mommy and her pumpkin pie. And certainly, I’m not the only one suffering from the family affliction; over the course of a ten-year estrangement from Celine and my mother, neither one of them has ever made an effort to reach out to Savannah—as the same old sickness is apparently a generational thing.

So, on Christmas Day, after Momma Goodman whipped out her yuletide jeer, Momma Marcott whipped up something marvelous and brought it over to my apartment for Savannah, Emily and me to enjoy before returning home to spend the rest of the holiday missing her son.

36

“Where’s Grandma Goodman?” Savannah finally remembered to ask on New Year’s Day while I was driving her back to Jupiter.

“Flying around on her broom.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, Savannah—I don’t know…at home I guess,” I told her as she dropped the subject and thankfully, has only picked it up a few times since.

We made it to Lion Country Safari which Amy recently decided would be the
new
midway meeting point, which also happened to be about 30 miles closer to her apartment. And just to start the new year off on the right foot, my 16-year-old, perpetually ailing Trooper finally decided to break down for good only ten miles into the return trip home before I sold whatever was left of it to a redneck for a ride back to the Cape.

The following day I purchased an old Toyota Camry for $4000 which was most of what I had saved. It wasn’t long before I realized that as my bank balance was rapidly dwindling Savannah was becoming increasingly expensive, and that any fruitful future
for my daughter would depend heavily upon her father becoming profitable. Unfortunately, Martin completely dropped the ball with the resume templates. Besides missing every deadline he was ever faced with his work was shoddy, incomplete and to be honest—I think he was more interested in working on cars than developing websites. Consequently, by the summer of 2004 I decided to drop Martin for a couple of entrepreneurs with whom I had more in common: A pot-smoking glassblower and a restaurant professional with a professional drinking problem.

Nelson—the glassblower—was sixty-years-old, retired, and less a partner than an exclusive vendor and indispensable component in the creation of the Betta Martini, a visually stunning, aquatic pet environment I hoped to market to betta fish or “Siamese fighting fish” enthusiasts around the world. Essentially, it was a 60 ounce, decorative, martini glass that I would purchase at a department store and then equip with a hand-blown glass olive and stirrer crafted by Nelson.

Tony, the other individual involved in my alternate quest for success was originally from New York but relocated to the Cape to manage an Italian restaurant owned by his family and one that Emily and I would occasionally frequent. He had grayish hair and was in his mid-forties, kept the company of another trashy alcoholic named Patty, and in an effort to make himself appear as something of a success to his overly critical father he recruited me to launch a local business magazine that he thought might generate some income.