Strings Attached (2 page)

He cranked down his window and sucked in the crisp night air heavy with the scents of pine and dust and sage, and just cold enough to numb the side of his face and make his eyes water.

At the Twin Peaks junction just outside Lake Estrella, he hit his brakes hard when a black Suburban with a tangle of CB antennas stupidly pulled out in front of him. The vehicle then lumbered along at an excruciating crawl. After a few minutes of tailing the car, he flashed his headlights to urge the driver into one of the scarce turnouts, but the idiot refused to yield, and even seemed to speed up whenever he tried to pass.

He was losing valuable time.

He honked his horn and flashed his high beams again.

The driver’s hand emerged from his window and flipped him off.

His heart thudded in his ears.

There was a long straightaway about two miles farther down where he was certain he could pass the big truck. He would hang back a bit before that section of road, then build up speed and fly past the Suburban as if it were standing still.

He eased off the accelerator and let his car coast casually around the series of hairpins, noting with satisfaction that his plan seemed to be working; he was beginning to build some distance now between the Suburban and himself.

A sign drew into view:

Passing Lane 1/4 mi.

He downshifted and stomped the gas, and the speedometer needle swung clockwise. As the final turn emptied into the straightaway, he jammed the gas pedal to the floor and his adrenaline surged with the scream of the engine, and the moonlit mountainside along the road blurred to fuzzy gray.

“Fucker! Fucker! Fucker!” he yelled as the Suburban’s engine roared like a dragster’s.

The two cars strained neck and neck for a moment until the superior horsepower-to-weight ratio of the Porsche allowed him to shoot in front and cut back out of the oncoming lane. He eased off the gas and pulled his knotted shoulders from his seatback. His rearview mirror told him that the big Chevy’s headlights were shrinking. He was free.

He glanced at the speedometer and saw that he was doing better than 70, while the flashing yellow
35 mph
sign ahead with the squiggle on it announced that another series of hairpins was approaching, fast. He hit the brakes hard, then downshifted, slowing the car as much as he could without locking up the wheels.

He cranked the wheel and leaned into the approaching blind curve.

Then he saw it: a snowplow-wielding dump truck…in his lane…its mammoth iron blade headed straight for his windshield.

But there’s no snow!

He twisted the wheel hard to the left and felt his back tires break free. His thoughts scrambled nonsense as he spun, Frisbee-like, over the dirt embankment, then became airborne as the motor wailed tractionless through space. And as he plummeted tailfirst toward the inevitable boulders, his headlights cut a swath toward heaven through the up-rushing clouds.

The mid-October sun broiled the town of Fresno as it had every day since early July, blasting through miniblinds, baking walls so that tap water ran hot, and painting mirrors on distant asphalt. Cars stalled. Pretty young mothers screamed at their kids. And throughout the blocks of slums where the lavish hum of an air conditioner was as rare as a green lawn, poor folks fanned themselves on their junked-up porches with the same thought: the relief of winter seemed a century away.

It was almost four in the afternoon, and a haze hovered over a row of peeling apartment buildings identified by laughable names like
The Capri
and
The Riviera
and
The Monte Carlo.
The scene could have been some gritty gallery photograph if not for the teenager zigzagging his way between the curbside trains of beaten cars and a mongrel that paused, panting, to appraise him.

Eventually the boy turned down the walkway of a pink apartment building clad with bars. He pushed his key into the security gate, twisted the knob, then shoved the door open with his shoulder.

He trudged up to the second floor, continued down the concrete walkway, then stopped in front of the unit he shared with his mother.

What would he find inside? This morning she had cracked a beer at sunrise.

He fished his key from his pocket, unlocked the door and stepped in. As usual the drapes had been tightly drawn. The stench of cigarettes pinched his nostrils.

“Mom? You home?”

He stepped over a pile of magazines that tilted next to the coffee table, then tiptoed his way toward the kitchenette. He saw an empty vodka bottle, poorly camouflaged by junk mail, sticking out of the trash can.

He turned and padded to her bedroom, not hesitating to knock before throwing open her door; as it swung wide, a ghost of boozy air rushed past him.

He approached her and bent down, then reached through her sweat-matted hair and pressed his fingers on her neck, the way he’d seen people do on TV.

It took him a couple of tries to find her pulse.

It was faint as a kitten’s.

Here we go again!

He trotted through the apartment to the outside, then loped down the stairs to Mrs. Jackson’s unit on the bottom floor near the laundry room at the back. She had a phone; his mother’s had been shut off months ago—or was it last year?

“Mrs. Jackson? Mrs. Jackson!”

Their eyes met through the screen door as she fanned herself with a newspaper. “Lord, don’t tell me…”

“Could you call 911 again? She’s almost dead, I think.”

She nodded. “I’ll call. You go up and see to her.”

He turned, then took the stairs two at a time.

Halfway through their living room, a waft of pukesmell put its hands around his throat. He moved through the bedroom door in time to see her vomit again, softly, a gurgle really, her body looking as though she were dozing peacefully instead of inching toward eternal rest. He grabbed a corner of the bedsheet and wiped her mouth, then dragged her to the side of the bed so her head dangled over the edge. His hand snatched the wastebasket that sat next to her night table, he threw the contents onto the floor, then stuck the receptacle under her mouth. Her back heaved like an alley cat’s, and her stomach contents roared out, mostly missing their target.

“Mom! Mom!” He shook her shoulders. She hadn’t been this bad since going into rehab the last time, nearly two years ago.

Mrs. Jackson’s footsteps shook the floor. “Child, I’ll see to her. You stay outside and show the men where to go.”

He pulled himself upright and ran out of the apartment, then flailed down the stairs to the curbside. “Don’t let her die too,” he muttered reflexively, to balance out the part of himself that wished she would. But he didn’t expect anyone to hear his plea, and he couldn’t even allow himself to think for a moment that his life might improve even if she pulled through. He knew better. He shifted his weight from his right foot to his left and back again, then stood on his tiptoes, hands in pockets, eyes and ears straining for any sign of an ambulance or fire truck.

And he imagined what was to come. The last time this happened he’d stayed at Mrs. Jackson’s, where he’d devoured hearty breakfasts, neatly packed school lunches, and hot meat loaf and mashed potato dinners with ice cream for dessert, served on a flimsy TV tray in front of her big old RCA console. But after a week he began feeling like an intruder, even though he cleaned up after himself and minded his manners and listened attentively to her recount the same stories he’d heard many, many times before. The only thing that helped his guilt was his dead father’s rich relatives in Ballena Beach who had sent Mrs. Jackson a thousand dollars to help with the food and utilities, and had paid a couple of months’ rent on his mother’s place besides.

Both women, in the long run, had been delighted.

Would the same thing happen this time?

Something told him “no.”

Finally, the wail of a siren kissed his ears. He turned and watched with relief as the spinning scarlet of the ambulance’s emergency lights sliced the rising afternoon shadows.

Jeremy stepped into the street and began hopping up and down, waving his hands back and forth in a panicked jumping jack. He heard the acceleration of the vehicle as it passed the last stopped cars before veering to the curb in front of him. Both driver and passenger doors were thrown open, and two strongly built men stepped out, heavy red cases in hand.

“She’s upstairs in number ‘F.’”

The boy followed the paramedics inside, then up the stairs, accidentally clipping one of their boots with his toe.

“In the bedroom. She’s in there.” He pointed through the doorway at the prone figure on the bed, and saw that Mrs. Jackson knelt in prayer at her side.

Oh, now that’s gonna help.

“How long she been like this?” the shorter one asked. He wiped his dripping brow before popping a stethoscope into his ears.

Should he answer now or wait until he was done listening to her heart? He decided to wait, then changed his mind. “I don’t know. She was OK when I left for school. I just got home and found her like this…it’s not the first time.”

“You got a father?” the other asked.

“He’s dead.”

“You stay outside now, we’ll do everything we can.” He threw open the big red case, then dug out a syringe and a teeny glass bottle.

Mrs. Jackson sidled around the paramedics and their equipment and came out of the bedroom next to where Jeremy was standing. She reached out and grasped his hands, smiling bravely.

“Is she gonna be OK?” he asked.

“Let’s wait outside and let those men do their job. She’s in good hands.”

She wrapped her arms around him, and he put his head in the crook of her neck and breathed the familiar scent of her moist, spicy skin. He thought about crying, and realized that he should somehow be more upset under the circumstances, but strangely he wasn’t. Truth be told, he was more pissed off at her than anything.

So he made a sniffling sound and hid his face.

“It’s OK now, baby. Jesus will heal her,” she whispered in his ear. “He brought you home just in time to save her today. Lord be praised.” She rocked him slowly back and forth in her arms. “Lord be praised.”

Good—she bought it.

They were waiting together outside on the walkway when the tall paramedic emerged from the living room. He looked from Jeremy and back to Mrs. Jackson. “We’re trying to stabilize her so we can take her to the hospital. Her vital signs are improving, but it looks like she aspirated her vomit. We can hear a rattle in her lungs. We should be ready to go in about ten minutes.” He nodded and then descended the stairs.

“Sure.” Jeremy knew the drill.

She might get stabilized, but he suspected now that she was in the worst shape of her life; in the past couple of months he thought she’d aged another ten years. He could hardly believe she had ever been that teenage girl with the perfect smile and supermodel body who once matched the physical perfection of his dear, doomed father.

What happened?

The
clung
of the paramedic ascending the metal stairs startled him.

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen…and a half.”

“You got any relatives to stay with while she’s in the hospital?” he asked, popping the gurney upright.

“He’s staying with me,” Mrs. Jackson announced. “His mother and me arranged it, long time ago.”

“You got that in writing?”

“Not exactly,” she said. “But I practically raised this boy. He’s like my own baby, though he don’t look like one no more. I’ll see he gets what he needs.”

“Sure. I’ll just need to get your name and telephone before we go. And I’ll tell Social Services they can find him here tomorrow. Can you find him a ride to County?”

“I’ll drive him,” said Mrs. Jackson. “And his name’s Jeremy.”

“Jeremy Tyler,” added the boy.

Mrs. Jackson dropped him off at the entrance to County General, then sped off to visit her sister who lived nearby, with instructions to be out front in exactly an hour. He sidled past the bums panhandling on the front steps and made his way up to the security station, where a walking skeleton of a man argued with a security guard about smoking inside the building. Jeremy emptied his pockets and stepped through the metal detector, afraid it would go off even though he was smuggling nothing, the same way he was always reluctant to pass through those shoplifter detectors in stores. He received the obligatory little pink wristband with his mother’s room number on it from the information lady, who, he couldn’t help noticing, had one eye swollen shut.
This place is a human junkyard,
he thought, shoving his hands deep into his pockets while shuffling down the corridor past the banks of doors, each one a gateway to someone’s Brush With Death, toward the sign at the end with the room numbers on it.

He followed the arrows until he found it.

Room 260.

He paused, sucking in the first half of a sigh before crossing the doorway. The doctor, a petite and efficient-looking woman, was standing at the foot of his mother’s bed jotting notes in a large blue binder. She took a few moments to finish, snapped the folder shut, and turned to peer at him through rimless glasses that revealed soft brown eyes—intense but friendly. Safe.

“Are you Jeremy?” She appraised him with her head cocked to the side, looking through him really, and then smiled as if to say,
You poor kid. I’ll bet nobody knows what hell you’ve been through all these years.

“Yes, ma’am. Doctor.”

“Call me Dr. Kathy,” she said. “Your mom’s still asleep, but I think she’ll be waking up soon.”

“Then she’s gonna be OK?”

“Let’s talk outside.” She put a birdlike hand on his elbow and escorted him into the hallway.

Their eyes held. “Jeremy, your mom’s really…sick. She’ll be somewhat recovered from this episode in a few days, but there are some long-term effects of her disease that need to be treated.
Aggressively.
”

“Yeah?”

“Her blood alcohol was very high. She’s lucky she didn’t die. She’s very dehydrated, and her chest X-rays tell us she aspirated, which means she’s at risk for pneumonia.”

He’d heard all this before. “So what else?” he asked, spying a piece of the floor’s molding that was peeling away from the wall.

“She’ll be here for about two weeks, between the detoxification process and the pneumonia. After that, if she’s willing to go, I’m recommending she check into a rehab program that treats people like her.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured. But you know it probably won’t work.”

“This one might. It’s different.”

“How?” He blinked.

“It’s six months long. Six months of therapy and hard work. It’s kind of like one of those boot camps for teens, only this one’s for substance abusers.”

“Six months. Six months.” He nodded dumbly, wondering if he could stand hearing Mrs. Jackson’s stories for that long. “But I don’t know if my neighbor can take care of me for six months.” He shook his head. “And please, I don’t want to go to a foster home again or one of those group homes.”

“I thought there might be a problem, so I referred you to one of the social workers here. She’ll be talking to your mother here tomorrow, then will meet with you at your neighbor’s house, if that’s where you’ll be, after school. She’ll be able to outline your options better than I can.”

“But maybe after she gets better this time she can just come home. I could take care of her. I’ve done it before,” he said. “Anyway, maybe she won’t
want
to go into the six-month program.”

“That’s where she’s going to need your help. No one can make her go, so it’ll be up to you to encourage her. She has to be the one to want to change…for her sake as well as yours.”

“So what’ll happen if I can’t convince her, if she won’t go?”

“We both know what’ll happen, Jeremy. And I’m going to be honest with you because you’re old enough and you should know: your mother’s tests show she’s been diabetic for some time. And her liver has what’s called portal hypertension, which means it’s failing due to the alcohol abuse. Her kidneys have nearly shut down from dehydration, and she’s developed high blood pressure from diabetes and smoking. The bad news is these diseases are usually progressive.” She raised her eyebrows. “But with long-term treatment, the prognosis isn’t all bad. How much time she has left
depends
on her never drinking again. She almost didn’t make it this time—I understand that you got home just in time to save her life.” She smiled, then glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to go see another patient. You can stay here as long as you like. Think about what I’ve said; I know you’ll help her make the right decision.”

He was at her side when she regained consciousness.

“Where the hell am I?” she slurred, while drifting her bloodshot eyes toward him.

“The hospital. Again.”

“What…” She looked away from him toward the windows with their twinkling brown streetlights beyond. Would she remember anything? He pictured the wheels in her head wobbling like a clown car’s tires as she tried to remember the day’s remarkable events.

“Oh, shit,” she said.

Bingo!

She turned to face him. “Baby, I’m sorry.”

Jeremy looked down. “Yeah, sure you are.” He slumped over in his hospital chair, his limbs wooden, his breath shallow. He wanted to run over and slap her across the face, then jump up and down on her bed, chimpanzee-style, howling at her crazily.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

“For your information, I have a disease.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You’re lucky. You weren’t old enough to realize how hard it was when your father died…not that I’m going over all that again, because I know you don’t care…I’ve just been through too much today…I’m just sorry you don’t understand.” She turned from him and faced the window and tried to cross her arms across her chest, but the tug of the IV tube stopped her. She winced. “Can’t you see I’ve been through enough?” she sniffled.

“Yeah, Mom. I understand. Sorry.”

She faced him again and affected a brave smile. “Honey, get me some water, will you? And turn on the TV. And go ask where I can smoke. I’m dying for a smoke. Did you bring my smokes?” She delivered these demands in baby talk, a device she used, he figured, because her voice sounded like sandpaper on a chalkboard from the decades of chain-smoking and booze chugging. It was actually funny to hear her go between the two voices; he figured anyone standing outside the door would think he was watching an old movie starring Shirley Temple and the old fat-guy neighbor from
I Love Lucy.

But the situation wasn’t funny to him. Not at all. His mother hadn’t been awake for two minutes and she was already issuing orders like a sergeant. She had, of course, no concept of what the past few hours had been like for him. She hadn’t witnessed the group of neighbors who huddled in front of their apartment, smirking as the paramedics hauled her blathering self into their rig. And over the coming days, while she lounged in her hospital bed ordering the nurses around, he would have the revolting task of cleaning and dismantling their apartment before being shipped off to Foster Care Hell. And finally, as her dutiful son, he would do whatever he must with the knowledge that she was an alcoholic time bomb with an unpredictable hair trigger. Who knew but God what would set her off? And when would it be—next month, next year, tomorrow? He should have come home later…He vowed never to cut swim practice again.

What could he say to get even?

“No, Mom, I didn’t bring your cigarettes.”

“Oh. Well, you’ve got some money, don’t you? They’ve probably still got a machine in the cafeteria; you know most of the doctors smoke here. It’s really not as bad for you as—”

He held up his hand to cut her off. “They’re taking me away again, Mom, for a long time I think. I don’t know where I’m going, but they’re coming tomorrow.”

“What?” Her jaundiced cheeks flushed orange. She searched his face for any sign that he was lying. She expected him to be angry; she could count on that. And it wasn’t unlike him to make up a story; after all, he was her son. “What do you mean they’re taking you away? They can’t do that. You’re nearly grown! You can stay with Mrs. Jackson for a couple days ’til I get out of here.”

Her smug expression said
and that’s that.

He pushed down a grin. “The doctor said a social worker will be at Mrs. Jackson’s tomorrow to tell me what’s gonna happen. They say I can stay with her for a couple days, maybe even a week or two.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“You’ve got to face the fact that you’re an alcoholic, Mom,
big time.
”

“I’m aware of my disease, thank you.”

“Just listen to me.
Please.
”

“Fine.” She rolled her eyes.

“The problem, Mom, is that the doctor says you have diabetes now, and liver and kidney failure too. Besides, you choked on your puke and you’ll probably get pneumonia. Dr. Kathy says you almost died.”

“What else did that woman tell you?”

“She says another binge like this’ll kill you. And she thinks this six-month program she knows about is your only chance now.”

“That’s bullshit. I’ve survived a lot worse than this.”

“But that was before the diabetes. The doctor said your life depends on your never drinking again, forever.”

“Well, doctors make me sick,” she said. But she assumed that what her son had relayed from the doctor was correct; she had, in fact, felt her body deteriorating. She had no energy, her pee was now a brownish-yellow, she wobbled from a loss of balance, and had bloat that never drained. She had even thought about moving downstairs because the climb to the second floor was becoming too difficult. In fact, her latest binge was fueled partly by the desire to know if she could still pull one off, or if the party was indeed over. She had been sleeping more and more lately, forcing herself to rise and brush her scant remaining teeth barely ten minutes before her son was expected home each day.