Shards (18 page)

My mom winced. She could see in my eyes that I was going to run, and she was trying to find a way to contain me.

“Okay,” she relented. “We don't need to go to the ER, but I'll make an appointment with Dr. Warren. She's known you your whole life.”

“Fine,” I said, knowing I would leave before going to any appointment.

I spent a week with my mom, sleeping and getting high. She had a new dog, a mastiff named Bella that she had rescued from a shelter. She had gotten Bella with me in mind and had started the paperwork to send her to Maui to be with me. Mo had been a special dog, but so was Bella, and I liked her immediately. I spent a lot of time cuddling her that week.

The day before the doctor's appointment my mom had scheduled, my mom and I got in a big fight. I knew I couldn't go to the doctor, but my mom wouldn't let it go. I finally had to resort to a new lie.

“Look,” I said. “Okay, I have been sick. I just didn't want you to worry.”

“What do you have?” she asked.

“I'm on sick leave from the department. It's a blood disorder, but I'm almost cured now. When I get back to Maui, I'll definitely see my doctor. I promise. I don't want to go to the ER here. They'll just run a bunch of expensive tests and start from scratch.”

“What sort of blood disorder?” my mom asked. “Is it serious? Are you—”

“My spleen hasn't been functioning. I'm on antibiotics. I just need to get back.”

“I don't want to put you on a plane in that condition,” my mom said. “You're not making any sense. We'll see Dr. Warren tomorrow afternoon. She knows us. She won't—”

“No!” I shouted at her. “There's
no time
. I have to go. MPD is expecting me tomorrow morning for a deposition. I've got to be there.”

“Something's really wrong, Alli,” my mom said. “I know you. I can tell.” And then, for the first time in a year and a half, someone asked me the right question: “Are you on drugs?”

I looked at my mom. I was a pro at making up lies on demand. Usually I started talking before I even knew what I was going to say, but my mom's question stunned me. I hesitated for a second, and then I felt pissed. Pissed that I'd given my mom enough evidence to ask such a question.

I yanked up my sleeves and showed her my arms. “Do you see tracks, Mom? Do you?”

“Alli . . . ,” she said slowly.

“No tracks. Why would I be on drugs?”

I could tell she thought my reaction was strange. She was debating what to say, how to handle me.

“I'm going now,” I said. “Either you drive me to the airport, or I'm calling a cab.” As if I had enough money for a cab.

“What time's your flight?”

“I don't have a ticket yet,” I said.

“Well then, let's get you a ticket.” This seemed to cheer my mom up a little. Here was a way she could actually help. She could get me a ticket.

“I'll buy your ticket,” she said. “We can book it online.”

“No, I'll get it at the airport. It would be better if you just gave me cash.” I still didn't know where I was going, but I knew I would need cash for dope.

She drove me to the airport and tried to come in with me. “I have an idea,” she said. “I'll fly with you as far as California. Just to make sure you're okay.”

“That's ridiculous,” I said. “I need to get to Maui. If I waste any more time, there will be a warrant out for me. I have to go.”

“Honey, call me the minute you get there. The very minute.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I love you,” she said.

She gave me a big hug and a wad of cash.

I walked away.

I didn't look back.

As I waited for the plane, I started to formulate a plan.

I would go back to Maui to die. My plan was to eat my gun.

My firearms were at Erin's, and I didn't want to kill myself there. I didn't want her to have to deal with that mess, all the guilt. I was going to have to get my gun out of Erin's without her seeing me. I didn't want to see her. Or Keawe. Or anyone. I just wanted to die.

My plan was hazy.

I got as far as LA. I had less than a gram of meth with me, not nearly enough to make me comfortable enough to pull the trigger. At this point I was using almost an eight ball a day, and I didn't have enough cash to buy more meth.

I was out of options. I couldn't go to Maui and face all my lies. I couldn't go back to New Mexico and be hauled off to the ER.

By cruel process of elimination, the only safe place for me was with the dealer in Seattle.

It seems absurd to me now that I felt I couldn't stay with my mother who loved me or go home to Keawe, Erin, and all my friends in Maui. These people would have done anything for me. Anything. They would have gotten me help instantly. They would have forgiven me. And yet in my warped addict's mind, I saw Seattle and the crazy, threatening, blackmailing dealer as my only refuge.

I called the dealer and he bought me a one-way ticket from LA to Washington.

It would be eight months before I saw Maui again, and when I did I would be in handcuffs.

The dealer picked me up
at the airport. I found him waiting at the curb, leaning against his red truck, holding flowers.
Flowers.
Just like Keawe did, I thought, and then dismissed that thought. He was nothing like Keawe.

“I've missed you so much,” I said, lying, hugging him, smelling the flowers, trying to smile. This was the part I would have to continue to play—his girlfriend, in love with him—in order to get my dope. I chattered on. “I missed you! I'm so glad to see you because I really, really missed you.”

“I knew you'd be back,” he said, taking my bag and throwing it in the back of the truck. It was a tiny overnight bag. When I left Maui, I had packed only for a weekend in Albuquerque, just an extra pair of jeans and a couple of tank tops.

“You get the ticket all right?” he asked.

“Hey, thanks so much for sending it,” I said. “I'll pay you back,
I promise.” He made no response to this. I knew I would be paying for it one way or another.

I continued on. “I'm just a little short of cash right now. I'll get the money to you, though. You know I'm good for it. I just got to the airport and couldn't find my credit card. I know it's here somewhere.” I was meth-talking, running on and on about pointless things. And lying: I was flat broke.

The inside of his truck reeked of cigarettes. I was happy to try any drug in the world, but I had never really smoked, and the smell of tobacco made me nauseous. I was sure he had dope hidden in the truck somewhere, but no one without a dope dog would be able to find it.

How long would he make me wait before giving me dope? Probably just until I slept with him.

I curled up in the front seat, my feet on the dash. I needed a hit.

“You should put your feet on the floor,” he said. I looked down at my feet. All I had on were the flip-flops I had left Maui with. I wished I had brought my sneakers with me. It was much colder in Seattle than in Albuquerque.

I slid my feet down to the floor.

“You should wash your feet,” he said.

I nodded, trying to stare ahead, but instead my eyes darted from the road to the mirrors to him to my feet to my bag. When I looked at him, his expression was stern. He had one of those faces that looked threatening except when he smiled, and he almost never smiled. His bald head, his thick neck, the heavy silver chain he wore around it—almost like a bicycle chain—all these things made him look just as tough as he wanted people to think he was.

I put my bag on my lap and started sorting through everything in it. My bag was my latest tweaker thing. Twenty or thirty times a day I checked to make sure everything was there—my badge, my
phone, my wallet (empty), my ID, the hairbrush I never used, my keys, a collection of empty Tic Tac boxes.

We didn't speak the rest of the drive, but when we pulled into his driveway the dealer said again, “You should wash your feet.”

“Okay, sure. They got dirty in my flip-flops, but I can take care of them right away. Sure. I can definitely do that.”

I got out of the car and walked quickly toward the house.

I instinctively glanced upward as I reached the porch. He kept two security cameras in the front of the house so he could monitor comings and goings.

Inside, the house was cool and dark. He always kept it cool, the drapes always drawn. No one could look in, no one could look out.

I took off my flip-flops and left them at the door. No shoes allowed was the rule. The tile floor felt cold on my feet.

“Let's go upstairs,” I said. Instinctively, I looked for the cat, which always made itself scarce, hiding. It was nowhere to be seen.

The sooner we fucked, the sooner I would earn my dope. I didn't have a plan beyond that. I couldn't think about Maui and Keawe and MPD, or Albuquerque and my family. I had been holding these worlds together with my lies for so long, I must have known they were about to crash down around me. This house was the only place where I could be who I really was.

I had turned toward the staircase and was putting one foot on the bottom stair when I felt something slam into the small of my back. It felt like an explosion and I fell forward onto the stairs. Before I could even turn around I felt fists pounding me, this time on the upper back.

“I bet you wash your fucking feet for Keawe,” he said. “You think you can get in my bed with filthy feet like that?”

I managed to twist around and spring to my feet. I was a cop; I wasn't going to let someone get away with hitting me. I landed a
punch on his jaw and kicked him in the kneecap, then tried to get him in a choke hold. I almost had him, too, but he was so much bigger and stronger—he had the build of a Tongan, and I had never been able to arrest a Tongan without his cooperation.

It was nothing for him to shake me off.

“What are you doing?” I yelled. “I didn't mean anything.” I couldn't believe what was happening. We had had pushing and shoving fights before, but I had dismissed those as junkie fights, times when we had just gotten too high.

“I'll wash my damned feet,” I yelled. “Don't be an asshole!”

“You will never get into my bed with feet like that,” he said. “Do you understand?”

He pulled me up by one arm like a doll or a small child and led me upstairs to the bathroom, where I sat on the side of the tub scrubbing my feet and crying. When I was done, I tiptoed into the hallway.

“This is for you,” he said, handing me an ice pipe, pulling me into the bedroom. “It's really good dope.”

I grabbed it from him, inhaled as much as I could get into my lungs. He took a hit himself and gave the pipe back to me.

“I'm not a bad guy, Alli,” he said, starting to stroke my hair. “I'm not perfect, but I'm not a bad guy.” He pulled me closer to him and put his arms around me. “I want you to remember something I told you the last time you were here. I love you very much. I love you
unconditionally
. You understand?”

I nodded.

“That means that I will love you no matter what you do. A lot of people wouldn't understand how I can forgive you for what you've done, but I can.”

I nodded again—pretending that I knew what he was talking about—and he started to take off my clothes. My skin was red, but
there was no bruising yet. He hadn't hit me in the face or the arms. Even in his rage, he had that much control. There would be no outward signs of a beating.

I settled into a great high as we started to have sex.

•  •  •

I would like to say that after he fell asleep I ran for the door, got help, and got away, but nothing like that happened. I look back on that first fight and find that, like so many times during my using, there was the right path, the clear path, the path any sane person would have taken, and the other path, the addict's path, the wrong one. I chose the wrong path every time. Every single fucking time.

Why didn't I leave that first time he hit me? It didn't make any sense. Later I replayed the actions of my addict self like someone watching a horror film and yelling,
Don't go into the house! Don't go into the house
, I wanted to scream.
Get the hell out!

He slept for a couple of hours. I didn't. I had at least another week before I would crash again. He had left some dope next to the table so I kept smoking, and when he woke up he joined me. We smoked again, had sex again, and then he said, “I want to do something special for you.”

He put down a line of meth and then heated up a glass tube, thin as a straw and so hot that he had to hold it with pliers.

“Here you go,” he said. “Hot line. The best high of your life.” I inhaled the line of meth through the tube and it went up my nose just as it turned from solid to gas. Of course it burned because it was so hot, but it eliminated that step when you're smoking when the smoke travels from the glass bowl up the pipe to your mouth. The meth felt strong and completely pure, like it was altering the chemical composition of my body. If I were a normal person, it
would probably have given me a heart attack; instead, I felt an explosion of euphoria.

“Oh my God,” I said. “It feels so good. This is just so great. Oh my God. Oh my God.”

“I knew you'd like it,” he said. “I planned it for you.”

I practically forgot that he had hit me. The ice was so great and he was letting me have as much as I wanted.

After a while he had to go work at his fake specialty carpentry job, and he took me with him. He had built a gazebo in somebody's backyard, and he wanted me to help him paint it. I liked the painting. I was so high it felt exciting to me. I kept smelling the smooth white paint, kept watching it drop from the brush after I dunked it into the can. He had to keep reminding me to paint.