My Friend Leonard (3 page)

I take a ramp off the road into the center of the city. Towers of steel and glass on every side, crowded streets, horns. Pedestrians are heavily dressed, they lean slightly forward as they walk, they hurry to escape the bitter, bitter cold. I move inland, north and across the Chicago River. There are icicles hanging from the iron rails of the bridge, smoke and steam drifting through the girders. I look for Dearborn that is the name of the street. Dearborn. She's on Dearborn.

I see it and I turn and I start scanning the buildings for an address. I start to get nervous, excited, scared. My hands start quivering trembling shaking. I can feel my heartbeat increase, it starts pounding, pounding. The last time I saw Lilly we were in a hallway at the treatment center. It was the day I was leaving. We stood in the hall and we held each other and we kissed each other and she cried and told me she was going to miss me. I told her to be patient that I would come to her as soon as I could. We said I love you, we held tight, we didn't want to let go. I walked away and Lilly stood and cried. I told her to be strong that I would come back to her. I find the neighborhood, which was once the most glamorous in the city, fell into disrepair, and is now coming back. I see the building. It is a large stately home. Four floors, white columns, tall framed windows, a grand entrance. It is ragged, but still gorgeous, as if in a previous life it was an embassy or the home of a corporate titan. There is a small subtle sign in the front yard that has the name of the treatment center and in smaller letters reads Residential Extended Care.

I see an open parking space about half a block away. I drive down the street, pull into the spot. I see a florist at the end of the block. I fumble with the keys, my hands are shaking, I get out of the car. I walk to the florist and I open the door and I step inside. There is a woman behind the counter. She has gray hair and brown eyes, she is wearing a bright red turtleneck. She smiles, speaks.

Cold, isn't it?

Miserable.

You should wear warmer clothes.

I would, but I don't have any.

As I look around, I take a deep breath through my nose. I let it out, speak.

Smells nice in here.

Good. I'd be worried if it didn't.

I smile.

I need some flowers. I've got thirty-four dollars in my pocket. What can

I get?

What would you like?

I don't know shit about flowers.

She laughs.

What's the occasion?

Reunion.

What type?

I smile again. I can't help it. Lilly is down the Street.

I just got out of my jail. My girlfriend is in that halfway house down the street. Her Grandmother just died, and I want to give her something that will make her feel better.

The woman nods.

You want to cheer her up, and you probably want to show her that you love her.

I smile.

Yeah.

The woman steps from behind the counter, leads me toward a cooler. The cooler is filled with flowers sitting in white plastic buckets and arrangements sitting on shelves. She opens the cooler and she reaches into a bucket and she pulls out about twenty red roses, she pulls out every rose in the bucket. She closes the cooler. I speak.

I can't afford all of those.

She smiles.

I'm having a sale. How's thirty dollars sound?

I smile.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Do you want them wrapped?

Is that what you do?

Yes, it is.

I smile again.

I can't stop smiling.

I'd love to have them wrapped.

The woman steps back behind the counter. She reaches for some white
paper, pulls it from a long roll, tears it along a sharp edge. She sets it on the counter in front of her and she sets the roses the beautiful red roses on top of it. I turn and I walk to the window. I look down the street toward the halfway house. It is almost dark, there are lights in the windows, on the front porch, along the front walk leading to the porch. Lilly is in there, in that house, I will have you in my arms soon. Beautiful Lilly, beautiful Lilly. I have missed you so much. I will have you in my arms soon. I have missed you so much.

I'm finished.

I turn around. The woman is holding the roses wrapped in paper, baby's breath surrounding them. I step toward her, reach into my pocket.

Thank you.

I set the thirty dollars on the counter, take the flowers. The woman smiles.

Have a good night.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

I turn around and I walk out of the shop. I'm smiling still smiling. I start walking down the street. It's cold, but I don't feel it. I start running, gradually faster, as fast as I can, I'm running and smiling. I turn up the walk, I'm on the front porch, I open the door, I step inside.

A simple foyer. Dark carpet, beige walls, a worn wooden desk, a cheery landscape on the wall behind. There is a woman sitting at the desk smoking a cigarette. She looks up at me. Her eyes are red and swollen.

She speaks.

Can I help you?

I step forward.

Is Lilly here?

She stares at me for a moment. Her upper lip quivers, she looks like she's about to break.

Who are you?

My name is James.

She looks at me, bites her lip. She takes a deep breath and stands.

Just a minute please.

She steps from behind the desk, walks to a door, opens it, leaves. I stand with my flowers and my smile and my pounding heart, my pounding heart.

The door opens and a man steps into the room. He's in his late thirties.

He has short dark messy hair, wears baggy jeans and a wool sweater. He has bags under his eyes, which are also red and swollen. He speaks.

James?

He reaches out a hand. I shake it.

I'm Tom. I'm the director of this facility.

What's up, Tom?

Would you mind coming back to my office?

Why?

I need to talk to you. I'd prefer to do it in private.

Where's Lilly?

Why don't you come back to my office.

I want to see Lilly, Tom.

Please, James.

I'm not going back to your office, Tom. Just tell me where the fuck Lilly is.

He looks at the floor, takes a deep breath. He looks up at me.

Before I tell you, I just want you to know that Lilly loved you very much.

She talked about you all the time and . . .

What the fuck is going on here?

He looks at me. He doesn't speak. His eyes are wet.

Tell me what the fuck is going on here.

He looks at me, bites his lip, takes a deep breath. My heart pounding.

Lilly.

His voice breaks.

Lilly.

His voice breaks again.

Lilly passed away this morning.

I stare at him. I am holding her roses.

What?

My heart pounding.

Lilly died this morning.

My heart pounding.

What happened?

Pounding.

She took her own life.

I stare at him. My heart, my heart, my heart. He stares at me, speaks.

I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry.

Her flowers slip from my hand.

What happened?

My heart.

We don't know. Her grandmother had just died. She was very shaken. We found her hanging from the shower faucet. She didn't leave a note.

I turn around.

I walk out of the House.

My heart.

My heart.

My heart.

 

N
o no no.

Suicide.

It is dark and it is cold.

No no no.

Suicide.

I start walking toward my truck.

No no no.

Suicide.

My legs start shaking. Yes, suicide. My chest starts shaking. Yes, suicide. My arms start shaking and my hands are shaking. Yes, suicide. My face is shaking. Yes, suicide. I take a step and my knees buckle. I try to take another, my legs won't support me. I fall, fall to the sidewalk. I try to get up, but I can't, yes suicide. I look around me. I'm on a street I don't know in a city I've been in twice. Yes, suicide. I came here for Lilly and she's dead, hanging in the shower, she's dead. Yes, suicide. She was supposed to wait for me. I told her I would be here she was supposed to wait. Yes, suicide. She hung herself in the shower, I can't believe this is happening. She's dead. She killed herself. I can't believe this is happening. She's dead.

I start crying. I sit on the sidewalk and I cry. It feels like there's a hole in my chest, it feels like everything has become a deep dark horrible fucking hole. There are tears, I shake. I lose my breath. There's a hole and I can't get out of it, I can't escape. I'm falling deeper, deeper, deeper. I cry, I can't breathe. I bury my face in my hands I feel tears dripping from my eyes and my nose, streaming across my cheeks, running down my neck. I was coming I got here as fast as I fucking could. She didn't wait for me. She went into the bathroom and she tied a knot a strong knot. I want out of this hole I want out I want to stop crying. She put her neck in a noose she knew I was coming to her she knew what she was doing to herself. She
put her neck in the noose. Please please please let me out of this please.

She strung herself up. She let herself down. She lost the ability to breathe. No, I can't believe this is happening, no. She put her neck in the noose and she hung herself and she couldn't breathe and she didn't stop, she didn't stop, she didn't stop. Why she didn't stop. Why didn't she fucking stop. I came here to help her I came here to give her everything. She hung herself. I can't stop crying I want to stop crying I can't stop. Hang, my beautiful Lilly, hang. I would have done anything for you. Hang my beautiful Lilly, hang. Let me out of this fucking nightmare please let me wake up, let me wake the fuck up. She stopped breathing. I'm not waking up. She stopped seeing thinking feeling she stopped breathing. I can't get out. She hung herself and she's dead. She hung herself and she's dead.

 

T
here is a church on the next block. I can see the steeple and I can hear the bells. The bells ring every hour. I can hear them above the wind. The streets are empty. It's late and it's dark and it's cold as hell. I am sitting on the sidewalk. I am crying. I have been here for hours. Just sitting and crying. The crying comes in waves. Tears, sobs, screaming. The crying hurts. Hurts my chest and my faces, hurts the things inside that do not have names. Tears sobs screaming. Everything hurts. The same word over and over.

No.

No.

No.

Crying.

Sobbing.

Screaming.

I can't stop.

I can't stop.

The bells are ringing.

The wind is screaming.

Nine times I hear the bells.

And it starts to slow.

Gradually slow.

Slow, slow, slow.

I stop crying. I stand. My legs hurt and my chest hurts. My face hurts, my eyes and lips hurt. I am cold. I am shaking. It's dark and I am cold and my entire body is shaking. I can see the building down the street. The building where Lilly lived. The building where she was supposed to be getting better. The building where she was waiting for me, the building where we
were supposed to meet. I can see the building. The building where she killed herself. The building where she killed herself.

My lips quiver. A chill shoots down my spine. I can see the building. I turn away and I start walking down the street. I stop at my truck. I take my keys out of my pocket. I open the door, climb inside, shut the door. It is warmer inside, but not much. I put the key in the ignition and I start the engine and I turn on the heat and I wait and I start to cry again. I start to cry. I want to stop, but I can't stop. I want to take a deep breath and tell myself that everything is okay, but I'm unable to do so. I have no control over myself. I have no control over my emotions. I have no control over my body's need to express those emotions. All of the time I spent sitting alone in my cell trying to teach myself how to regulate my behavior is worthless, irrelevant. Lilly killed herself. Hung herself in the shower. She's dead. She's fucking dead. It doesn't matter that I don't want to cry. It doesn't matter that I want to stop. I can't do anything. I have no control.

I cry and I wait for the heat. The heat comes and I sit in front of the vents and I stop shaking. The inside of the truck becomes warmer and warmer and I stop crying. My body needs a break, needs to rest, needs to try to let my mind and my heart accept what has happened. They don't want to accept it. They know one word. No. They keep telling me that I'm going to wake-up and find her waiting for me. No. They keep screaming she's not dead, she's not dead, she's not dead. No. She is the only person I have ever truly loved. She is the only person who made me want to live. She is the only person on Earth who could hurt me. She killed herself this morning. Walked into the bathroom and tied a knot and hung herself from the shower. It didn't matter what I felt, how much she meant to me, how much I loved her. It didn't fucking matter. She hung until she stopped breathing. She's dead. My mind and heart don't want to accept it. No.

I reach for my pack of cigarettes. I take one out and I light it. I take a deep drag, hold it in, exhale. I stare out the window. I feel empty. I feel like my heart has been ripped out of my chest. I feel disconnected, as if my body and mind are no longer part of the same vessel. I am exhausted. As I lift my arm to bring the cigarette back to my mouth, my arm is heavy, my hand is heavy, the cigarette is heavy. Everything I do takes great effort. I inhale slowly. I feel the smoke traveling through my throat and into my
lungs. I exhale slowly, feel the smoke coming back. I am so tired. What the fuck am I going to do. Somebody please help me.

I finish the cigarette, put it out. I look into the rearview mirror, see the house down the street. I want to be away. I put my truck into first gear. I want to be away from that House. I pull out of my parking space. I want to be away from that fucking house. I start driving down the street. I have no idea where I am and I have no idea where I am going. I just want to be away.

I drive. I smoke another cigarette. I turn on the radio and I turn off the radio. The neighborhoods all look the same. Row after row of brownstones. Tree-lined streets with sidewalks and overhead lights. I see churches and schools, fire stations and playgrounds. I see all sorts of small shops; shoe shops, clothing shops, candle shops, art and sculpture shops, real estate shops, book shops, garden shops. I see grocery stores and restaurants, convenience stores and gas stations. I see bars and liquor stores. On almost every block, I see either a bar or a liquor store. Beautiful bars filled with people drinking. Beautiful liquor stores devoted to alcohol. Beautiful establishments where I can make this nightmare go away. Beautiful bars and beautiful liquor stores. On almost every block.

I feel the urge. Drink. The instinct begins to assert itself. Destroy. My old friend the Fury starts to rise, it says kill what you feel, kill what you feel. The Fury rises it says kill.

My hands start shaking. I can feel my heart beating. My teeth chatter. I take a deep drag of my cigarette, it doesn't help. I am an alcoholic and a drug addict. I have used substances to control and to kill my emotions and my insecurities and my rage for my entire life. I have spent the bulk of my existence using alcohol and drugs to destroy what I feel so that I wouldn't have to feel it. I have never felt like this before. Never even close. I know death, I have seen it and been close to it, but not this type of death. I know grief and sorrow and sadness, but I have never felt them so deeply. I know horror, but I have never cringed before it, I know self-destruction, but it has never made me shake. I don't know what I am going to do. There are beautiful bars and beautiful liquor stores on every block. I can make this all go away, the Fury says kill kill kill, it is time to destroy. I am an alcoholic and a drug addict. I can't deal with my feelings.

I pull over, park. I turn off the engine take out the key turn out the lights. I look up and down the block. There are two bars within eyesight, one liquor store. I have four dollars in my pocket and I have three reasonable options. Go to the most crowded of the bars and take half-finished drinks from tables when people stand and leave. Go to a less crowded bar and find a drunk. Drunks are stupid with their mouths and stupid with their wallets, and if I find one, I can probably get them to buy me a drink or several drinks. Fuck the bars, go to a liquor store. If they sell what I like to drink, which is cheap, strong, gutter wine, I could probably afford a bottle. I need something now. I need to make this go away.

I open the door. Step outside. Close the door. It's cold, I look around me, I start shaking. The wind is screaming. I start walking. I walk toward a corner where there is a bar across the street from a liquor store. I can see people through the windows of the bar. They look young and happy. They are jumping up and down, dancing, moving to the beat of some cheery music. All I want is a drink, two drinks, as many drinks as it takes to make it all go away, to send me hurtling toward oblivion, to destroy. Fuck those happy people. Fuck that cheery music.

I walk toward the liquor store. It is on the opposite corner. It is a small store. It has a bright neon sign hanging above the door that reads Liquor, the windows are filled with bright posters of bikini-clad women holding beer cans. Behind the posters I can see rows and rows of bottles. Beautiful bottles filled with alcohol.

I open the door and I step inside. It is warm and bright with fluorescent light. There is a counter along the front wall, a man stands behind it. There are cigarettes above the counter and candy bars below it. There is a television behind the man. It is broadcasting images of the store taken by cameras in each of the corners. I am the store's only customer. I can see myself on the television and I can see the man behind the counter on the television. He is staring at me. I ignore him. I start walking down one of the aisles.

The man watches me as I walk, I stare at a set of coolers along the back wall. The shit I drink is always in a cooler along the back wall, always hidden away so that respectable customers don't have to see it. It is of the lowest class of alcoholic beverages. Produced by liquor companies for poor
drunks who need a strong, quick charge. Though it is called wine, it doesn't resemble real wine in any way. It is much cheaper, much more powerful. It comes in thick, squat bottles that are effective weapons when empty. It tastes like grape juice mixed with rubbing alcohol. Long term users of it often die from the effects that it has on one's internal organs. It burns holes in the stomach. It eats away the lining of the intestine. It causes cirrhosis of the liver. It is liquid death. Available in a pint or a quart. Sometimes a liter. Always in a cooler along the back wall.

I find four different types lining the bottom shelf of the corner cooler. I am familiar with all of them, have experienced the horrors of each. The worst of them, and the one I enjoy the most, is known as the rose. Its label calls it a fruit-flavored, ethanol-fortified dessert wine. I call it a quick ride to hell. It is available in one-liter bottles. At the height of my drinking, I could down three of the one-liter bottles before losing consciousness. At this point, having not had a drink in almost six months, one bottle will do everything that I need it to do. I need it to kill. I need it to kill.

I open the cooler pick up a bottle look at the price. Just under three dollars. With my remaining dollar I can get myself a bag of potato chips. This is not what I expected to be doing here. Getting drunk and eating chips on my first night of freedom, my first night in Chicago. Were it up to me, I would be with Lilly. Were it up to me I would be asleep in her arms. She's dead, in a cooler in some fucking morgue, and I'll never sleep in her arms again. The thought of it makes me sick, and it makes me want to join her. The rose will help me. It is time to start the killing. Time to fucking start.

I walk to the front of the store. The man behind the counter watches me the entire time. As I pass a rack of chips, I reach out and I grab a bag. I don't look at the flavor because the flavor doesn't matter. All I'm going to taste is the rose. I arrive at the counter and I set my wares down in front of the man and as he rings them up, I take the four dollars out of my back pocket. I set the money in front of him and he takes it and puts it in his register and he hands me a dime. I have ten cents to my name. Ten cents and a bottle of wine and a bag of chips and half a pack of cigarettes and a beat-up truck. The chips and the wine will be gone in twenty minutes. The cigarettes will be gone tomorrow. I'm starting to think I will follow them.

I walk out of the store. It's cold, the wind, the motherfucking wind. I walk to my truck, I open it, I get inside. It is still warm. I climb into the passenger's seat. I know that if I get caught drinking in the driver's seat I can be charged with Driving Under the Influence. It doesn't matter if the car is moving or not, I can still be charged under the laws of every state in America. In the passenger's seat they can charge me with open container in a motor vehicle, the equivalent of a parking ticket.

I settle into the seat. I light a cigarette. I open the chips put a few in my mouth chew. I set the bottle in my lap. I take it out of the brown paper bag that is holding it. I stare at it. My hands start shaking and my heart starts beating faster. Like Pavlov's dog I react when alcohol is in front of me. I smoke with one hand, hold the bottle with the other. I have a decision to make. Yes or no. The Fury is screaming drink, motherfucker, drink drink drink. The grief I feel says I will leave you if you feed me. My heart and my hands are shaking like dogs they want the taste. I know if I open the cap and put the bottle to my lips, pour and swallow, I will be taking a road from which there is no return. I know that once I have it in me again I will use it until I die from it. I was almost dead six months ago. Dead from the damage that hardcore drug and alcohol abuse cause to the body, dead because I didn't want to live anymore. I chose life because of Lilly and Leonard and because once I tasted life again it tasted good, good enough to try to live it. Lilly is dead now. Dead by her own hand. The how and why don't matter. All that matters is the end result. Death. I can't believe I'm here. I can't believe I'm in this position. What the fuck am I going to do.

I stare.

I have no money.

I stare at the bottle.

I have no job, I have nowhere to live.

I stare at the bottle.

I am an alcoholic and a drug addict. I have been incarcerated for the last six months of my life in a treatment center and in a jail.

The bottle.

I am shaking. The Fury is screaming. The grief is overwhelming me please please please. I can make it all go away. I can kill it. Killing it will be the first step toward killing myself. Everything I have dreamed about and
hoped for and wanted and expected is gone. It's dead and it's not coming back. There is no nightmare to wake from, this is my fucking life.

What am I going to do.

The bottle.

I start to cry.

What.

Cry.