Reflections

He stood on the side of the highway, an officer standing beside him, his wrists shackled together in handcuffs, a police sergeant and the officer that pulled him over were going through his car. He was twenty-three, it was six days before his birthday. He was going to Atlantic City just the next weekend with his friends, a drug fueled night of crazy partying, maybe go to a club, but honestly, they’d probably never leave the house.

“Where the fuck did you get this?” the sergeant asked, snapping out the riot baton that he kept in his glovebox.

“Flee market, why, is it illegal?” he knew it was but playing dumb could probably get him farther, maybe not get charged for it.

“Fucking Christ, yes it’s illegal! Why do you have this?”

“Went to school by Camden, better safe than sorry.”

“Anything else we should know about?”

He paused, “Yea, there’s cocaine in the console.”

His love, the one thing that was making him happy these last couple months, the drug he was still high on, the drug he was putting away when he broke lane and the officer trailing him hit his lights, or was he changing the song? To this day he couldn’t remember.

“Doing alright?” the officer next to him asked.

He glanced over at the guy, a car rolling by. It was about twelve thirty, the moon high above. He glanced back as they pulled his black bag from the back seat, removing his jar and looking at him, they’d found his personal stash, all three oz’s that he had, making the total found a quarter pound of marijuana. Scale, baggies, .45 ammunition, an eight ball of coke in rock and powder form. He was fucked, and he knew it. Maybe it was the coke, maybe it was just him, but he felt no fear. He didn’t care. This was just life coming.

“What’s in this bag?”

“Cards.”

They didn’t even check it, just a glance before putting the bag back in the backseat. They pulled out the board games and the miniatures, going through the boxes, moving the pieces, searching for more. The officer next to him was trying to make small talk, he was obliging to an extent. He wasn’t in the mood to talk, let alone communicate with one of them.

“What’s in the lockbox?”

“It’s empty.”

“Where’s the key?”

“On my key ring.”

They had him come over, point the key out, the box was empty. He wasn’t putting up a fight, he knew he was busted, but the last thing he was going to do was give them the satisfaction of being a scared kid. He was going to man up and take whatever punishment he was going to have inflicted on him. Just an hour prior his brother had warned him that he should be careful driving with all that stuff in the car. He should have listened, should have been more careful, but he was reckless and wasn’t thinking.

“Where did you get all this stuff?” the sergeant asked.

“My friends.”

“Where are they?”

He moved his head in all four directions, simply saying they were in each direction, no addresses, no names. They were family to him, they weren’t the ones fucked, he was, they didn’t get busted, he did. They didn’t deserve any of this, but he did.

His arresting officer took his arm, leading him to the back of the squad car, opening the door then looking back to his sergeant, pulling at his arm and drawing the key, “We letting him go?”

“Fuck no! Get him in the fucking car!”

“Sorry bud,” he said as he helped him into the back seat, even he gave a look of surprise, the idea that they’d let him go after being their little treasure trove of the night.

When he got to the station, they had a garage around back that led right to the bench and holding cells. They took his hoodie, searched him again, and cuffed his right wrist to the bench. He asked to use the restroom, they asked if he could hold it, he asked for his phone call, they said he’d have to wait, he asked if he’d make his shift at his dead-end job, they said they didn’t know. It was the only things he was thinking about.

It was about one in the morning; he’d been in their custody for about an hour and a half. He’d try and uncomfortable rest his head on his shoulder, try and get some shut eye since there was nothing better to do, and every time they’d stick their head out from the door beside him and ask if he was okay. He’d say yes and ask again for the bathroom or the phone call and they’d say later and duck back in. Through the crack he could see them weighing everything, all his shit sprawled out across the table. One cop he’d see just the one time popped his head out, looked at him and simply said, “fucking Pablo Escobar” and then ducked back in.

An hour went by, an officer came out and he asked for his hoodie. The cop said it wasn’t cold, he in a t-shirt versus the entire uniform, vest, and undershirt. He searched it again, let him have it, put it on, then back in the shackles. He sat down at a desk, started asking questions. Height, weight, eye color, social security number. He asked if he was going home that night, they said he could get his car if he did, or else they’d have to tow it. The officer looked at him, and said he was going to county. He said fine.

Around three o’clock he finally had enough, he looked at the officer and threatened to piss on the floor. The officer said they’d charge him and he replied his lawyer would get them for cruel and unusual punishment. The officer, annoyed, uncuffed him, led from the back to the holding cell and told him not to flush. He took his piss, turned and walked past the officer to the bench, slapped down his wrist and waited to be cuffed again.

He listened to the two officers in the back room, trying to figure the charges out, he ended up with eight in total. They took his mugshot and prints, he joked, asking for a copy to give to his grandmother for the wall. He finally got his phone call, he called his mother, not for bail or a lawyer, he just didn’t want her to wonder why he never came home. She asked frantically how much they caught him with, the officer stepped in to shut her up, telling her they weren’t sure what would happen to him tonight as of now. He ended up going home that night, making work that morning.

Since he was almost twenty-two, his life had become a mess. The girl he was with for nearly three and a half years severed ties, replacing him within days and it broke him. He worked days and nights, numbed himself the best he could till he got back to school. The foreign roommates he didn’t know and the one he did was never around. His best friend had dropped out and she was around every so often. He had to get numb or else the depression would get him so he started hitting the bottle.

He’d buy a large orange juice container and dump a bottle of vodka in it and wander. It was his first night back, he sat outside the freshman dorm hoping to see the girlfriend of an old friend who was an RA there, instead he’d meet a few freshmen off an app on his phone, one of which would become his best friend and little brother in his eyes. They drank down the orange juice together and ended up at a frat party. He was so wasted he needed the wall to stay propped up. He remembers bits of stumbling home but most of the memory is blacked out. He was told that girls were coming up to him and he’d just stare, it would be the first of many nights of heavy drinking into oblivion that were to come.

He drank light for a few more days till the weekend came. He did the same vodka trick, and began his wondering. Going to what was a frat house only now was the volleyball house and continued his drunken march. He stumbled on some freshman and he followed, they joked with him but tried taking him home as he was too belligerent and needed to get off the street unless he spent the night in the drunk tank. He refused and sat down on a bench across from the Dominos. They left him there, and he slid down till he was on the sidewalk, puking beside him and leaning against the bench. Police drove by without a care. He tried calling for help but there was no one. He was too drunk to move, and was ready to pass out when two strangers helped carry him home, he was saved that night, his roommate would forever continue to share that story with everyone whoever came over like it was a crowning achievement.

He found out fairly early on that he didn’t have a meal plan, though the ladies responsible for cooking the food knew him for years prior and would give him meals for free. He didn’t want to abuse their kindness so he had to make money somehow. He was already developing a reputation around campus, but under the name “Irish”. So, he figured out a good way of doing things, he’d sell liquor to those who couldn’t get it for themselves. First it started small, he’d go twice, maybe three times a week, sell it off in the parking lot, take orders all day and head out after class. He was making enough money to eat and maintain his drinking habits that were getting more expensive as he was consuming more and more alcohol.

What started at simply ten clients expanded to a crazy, but manageable amount, where he was making nearly two thousand a week just from running alcohol, and would buy all his alcohol needs, two handles of Jameson Irish Whiskey a day and a twenty-four pack of Yuengling for dinner as it was ‘liquid bread and good for you’. The only times he ate were forced upon him by his roommates. He stank of whiskey all the time, sweating it from his pores, his scent was a twenty-foot aura around him, and no one seemed to care.

He was notorious for fishing drunk, for being drunk all the time. Sleeping in ditches or where ever he wished. He’d circle the campus for hours till he found a familiar face. He felt isolated and alone, would drink late into the night and spook his roommates who’d be coming out of the bathroom finding him drinking in the dark. Eventually they adapted to drinking games at night that he loved to do.

He’d drink till dawn, sleep an hour or two and begin a new, a fresh handle to start the day. He had a goal through it all, and he was achieving it. He was numb to his pain, and then finally, he had to face the music. A stint of withdrawal, a panic attack when there was no alcohol to consume. They bought him a twenty-four pack but refused to get him whiskey, but he had money the next day and bought some then. His little brother watched him deteriorating and turned him to weed, and so he began down a new path, cutting back the drinking to smoke more.

His life became being drunk or high, he felt wonderful, not a care in the world, but he started going to therapy. His biggest excitement was getting anti-depressants. Not for the help, but he could get drunk faster. He would stink of weed or booze, carrying a one liter of ginger ale bottle with him that was filled of whiskey. He started dealing weed along with the booze, his little brother his partner in crime and his friend working for him. He made as much as he could smoke and drink away, therapy he’d go too but he couldn’t help himself, to feel was to be in pain and he couldn’t take that.

Graduation came and he got high before going and got drunk waiting in line, he walked across the stage high and drunk and happy. He moved into the house with his roommates, got a new job and stopped drinking, only on rare occasions, now it was weed and he was high all the time he could. He met the girl next door, and life was going well. Then came his first arrest, robbery charges from his old job. He’d lose his job a few months later because of a manager, and then his drunkenness cost him the girl. He tried to drink again but couldn’t stomach it. He turned to uppers, Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse. Anything that kept him numb and awake. And finally, after scoring a gram for his landlord one night, he turned to cocaine, and he fell in love.

He was paying his rent and spending little on food but the rest of his money was on coke. He was accruing credit card debt but so long as he had something to snort, he didn’t care. Life became late night shifts, coke and weed all day and staying awake with little to no sleep. His brain would shut down from time to time and that’s what he called sleep but he didn’t care, his heart would beat hard in his chest so he’d snort more because to him that was the cure.

He was a spiral of self-destruction, and he hid it well. He moved back home to get a certificate, and he kept snorting, even leaving classes multiple times to snort in the do coke in the bathroom. He once had a day where he drove hundreds of miles all over the state to score, and those supplying him thought it was for his grand birthday party, but little did they know he was doing grams a day, when he drove, when he was bored, when he felt he needed more. He was a force of nature that could not be stopped… until he was.

These were the Irish days as they’ve come to be known. Guns out of Irvington, late nights in the hood to go to work only hours later. Driving all around with large amounts of weed and snorting coke none stop. He was wild and couldn’t be tamed and anyone who could have seen and tried to stop him weren’t around to do so. He was losing himself in all of it and he cared little for the outcome.

He wanted to be loved and to feel loved, but he felt pain and suffering so he numbed it and kept it numb. To this day he hates feelings because it only brings him pain, but he’s learned to somewhat manage it. His existence is longing to feel like he has self-worth, giving all, he can to someone else so he has a chance to feel the slightest bit happy. He still deals with the hungers of addiction, he longs for the Irish days where he felt only joy and happiness, a fake sense of it brought on by the nonstop drug intake and partying. It was the only time in his life he felt alive.

Now he works a good job, paying off debts that he caused while being a junkie. His record is clean, he did his time doing community service and rehab. He still “fakes it to make it”, putting on the fake smile and pretending life is okay. But deep down, deep inside of him, he just wants to feel loved and happy. Not the parental love, but someone who wants him around, who he can end the night beside and who takes him for who he really is.

He stares into the mirror and sees a destructive monster, one who longs to be strung out and to be numb. He sees the deep, sunken eyes of hatred toward himself of hurting those around him. Sometimes he wants to disappear so everyone could be better off. Sees himself as a failure and nothing more than a junkie. He’s a man who has given up on being happy, on being himself. Who doesn’t believe he’s deserving of love or forgiveness, who thinks salvation would be a waste upon his wretched soul.

They say you are the master of your own fate. He believes he’s sealed his in damnation.