And now it is tonight

And now it is tonight, eight years since I lost him. It was about now that I'd gotten off work and we'd driven to the West Side--the West Side which is now home, the same place which is about six blocks from the room I'm sitting in right now. And we'd come to the spot at Maypole and Keeler, and he'd gotten out of the car and scored and come back into the car, and we'd driven home, down the Ryan to the Stevenson and off to the offramp to Lake Shore south, off at 31st and then home to the parking lot. It was cold, I remember, and we'd walked along the east side of the building, through the front doors and into the elevator.



I remember in the elevator, doing our usual playing around--waiting til we were alone in the car and then JP taking the packets out of his pocket and throwing them to me one by one, our little game because we knew it would be my job to draw the water and fix the shots. Oh, it was nothing new, not to us; almost mundane except for the utter joy we took from it. Is it wrong to say we were happy?



And then we got off the elevator, ran into the house and into our room, locked the door. I remember what he was wearing--the blue shirt that matches the red one I still wear sometimes, nothing else. And he got out the box of needles and turned on the 10:00 news, while I set up the shots for the two of us. Dump the powder into the cap and add a syringe full of water, hold it over the lighter with the tweezers until it boils, draw it into the cotton and then split it between the two needles. And I handed him one.



I didn't know, of course. If I'd known I would never--does it even bear saying??? that I would never have handed him that needle if I knew it was cut with flour? if there was any tiny hint that it could have even made him UNCOMFORTABLE, much less sick and even more, that it could have killed him?



And it was now, nearly, with the news on in the background, that he took his shot. He put the needle in his arm the way he had a million times before, and then he...



My memory is not at its best, understand.



I remember the look on his face, and I remember him grabbing for his inhaler, and puking into a trash basket. I remember saying "was it a flour shot?"--it had happened before, but nothing like this--and he just gasped and nodded and started toward the open bedroom window, hitting his inhaler over and over. Halfway to the window he fell, face down.



I rolled him over, I remember, and I remember trying to breathe for him, and I remember calling 911 but I don't remember what I said. I remember going into his mom's room to tell her but I don't remember what I said there either. And then the paramedics came, and the police (so I must have said something about heroin) and I remember them coming into the room--the police, I mean; the paramedics had him on the hallway floor and they were working on him. I remember his mom crying "Is he dead?" and the paramedics--god, such assholes they were; I mean, I know we were junkies and I know it was a huge case of wasted potential and I'm sure the interracial aspect of things didn't help matters but they didn't have to treat his MOTHER this way--they looked at her, this crying mother watching her oldest son not breathing on the floor, and they said "Well, he's not breathing and he has no heartbeat, so right now, YES!" And they put him on the gurney and took him out in front of all the neighbors prying eyes...



ANd then the cops took me back into the room and made me show them all our stuff, show them our needles and the cards that said we could have them, asked about the candy spilled on the floor (as if we had a big bowl of pills by the hundreds, all with the letter M on them!) and then they took me out and put me in the car and took me to the hospital. And they put me in the little room and cuffed me, and that was where they told me. The cop came in and said to me "He did pass." And I remember opening my mouth--me, with my huge vocabulary and my 99th-percentile SATs--and all I could say was "He DIED?" Because that possibility, until that very moment, hadn't even entered my mind. He was sick, sure--he'd be in the hospital for a while, maybe, and after that we were in some deep-ass shit because NOW everyone knew we were junkies--it was out in the open--and we'd probably get kicked out of his mom's house and then we'd have nowhere to go and nothing to do except to get clean...for a while, anyway...but that was the worst that could happen. It hadn't even crossed my mind that he might not make it, until the cop told me that he was dead.



And then I remember thinking No, wait--this is all a big mistake. Somebody needs to do something about this, because this is not possible and so if it's not possible it's not actually TRUE, right? he's not actually DEAD because then...well, then, everything that's happened since. No guitars, no band, no JP. No more sleeping two to a twin bed and getting up at 6 AM for a wakeup shot; no more skipping work because we couldn't bear to be apart. No music, no fame, no glamorous suicide when the fickle world turned against us. No kids, no long life together, no growing old finishing each others' sentences. Nothing...just the rest of my life without him.



But of course it was true. They asked me if I wanted to see him; I remember going in, of course, but the details are what I've blotted out. And his mother was there; I remember her crying on the phone to JPs grandmother; and I remember calling my mom, on autopilot because who else would I call? And I--the rebel, the junkie, the independent woman, the one who had chosen her life and was willing to live or die by the consequences...I remember the first word out of my mouth: "Mommy?" I haven't called my mother that since probably first or second grade, and here I was at 25, just...giving up, I guess. Or maybe that's just how it seems in hindsight. I know now that going home was at once the stupidest and the healthiest thing I could have done under the circumstances; healthiest because if I'd stayed out there I could have very well died, either by my own hand or by accident; stupidest, because it was a knee-jerk reaction, done without thought, and because it made my mother feel she had somehow validated herself; that what she'd done by taking me in somehow made up for all the years of not caring what was important to me, only caring what other people would think, and pounding into me that need for other people's approval that has raised so much hell with my life before and since. In a way, she made me believe she'd done it too; I've felt beholden to her ever since, and when it's come to the arguments since, over CR and LJ especially, she's not let me forget about my prior "mistakes". She sees JP as a "mistake", and that to me is the LEAST forgivable part. I loved him with everything I had; he was the one person in my life who has EVER accepted me exactly as I was....including, particularly, my mother.



They told me he died at 11:10 PM. I don't know if he heard any of the things I said to him in the time before the paramedics arrived; or if he heard anything they said. I don't know when, exactly, death occurs; but I remember telling him that I loved him. He was the one who changed my life, the one who let me be who I was and stayed with me anyway--and so far, he's the only one who has.



I lit his candle tonight. No matter how good things are now, or how bad things have been in the past, I've never forgotten him for a moment, and if there's any justice in the universe, there will be an afterlife where no matter what eternity might have in store for me, I will at least be allowed to see him again, just once, just even for a little while....because I never had the chance to say goodbye, or tell him I was sorry, that I would undo it if I could.