When the bullet hit I didn’t think it was that bad. Where it entered the skin was thin and the bones close to the surface. A second later came a small fountain of blood which looked strangely like the bubbling crude that sprung up from the ground when Jed Clampett missed whatever he was shooting at for food.
I expected to feel something but I didn’t.
All I can figure is by that point the multitude of drugs coursing through my veins had gang raped my pain receptors completely numb.
Bending, I wiped the blood away but couldn’t see a hole. Lifting, the ball of my foot felt suction-cupped to the bathroom floor. Pulling from my ankle it came lose with a slurping-pop to reveal streaming, tattered flesh hanging from a crater of an exit wound. Those fucking hollow points.
My instincts told me to be angry with Ricky for shooting me. I underestimated how everyone else would react. Some said my only choice was to do the same to him. Because the injury required more hospitals, more doctors and more pain meds many pointed the finger at him for what happened next. It was a perfect example of how blame allowed others to live with my inexcusable decisions.
This happens all too often, someone ruining it for everybody else. Terrorist acts that institute searches and scans without cause; activists whose extremism erodes free expression; Ricky blasts me in the foot and my guns get taken away; and then there’s this scumbag in small group. Last week he knocked over his coffee while embellishing on his addiction. This led our counselor to ban all beverages, tossing any chance of my staying awake for that hour of the week out the window.
That’s exactly how Corrlinks got started. It used to be inmates could send messages directly to the e-mail accounts of their loved ones back home. Then a death threat to a baby momma suspected of cheating, or a supremacist’s plot to cleans the human race, and the feds go and subject us all to this buffer wed site to screen even the most benign communications.
I was at Lewisburg when I got the message from my Sister Lora about her gold party. I responded immediately (what else did I have to do). She would have to log on to Corrlinks to get my response. As much of a pain as this was it beat writing the old fashion way.
The seven institutions I visited before Lewisburg had no e-mail so I was ecstatic to be able to get in touch with everyone. Yet, when most of my invitations to Corrlinks went unanswered I feared the worst: That little bastard had finally done it. Kim Jong-il over in North Korea must have perfected those long-range nuclear missals and wiped out every last one of my friends. Then slowly, messages came from my mother, sisters and the kids and the realization set in; those despicable vermin who called themselves friends did not perish, it is I who was dead to them.
Lora’s gold party was a great Idea. Over the years I has build up a miniature Fort Knox of bracelets, necklaces and nipple rings. Now that the homes, cars, cash and toys were gone I had to contribute what little I could from here. Besides, I didn’t see myself at ManRay geared out like Xerxes anytime soon.
It was the e-mail about selling my Rolex that hit a nerve. Perhaps because it was a piece I could never replace… or I knew they’d never get what it was worth. My narrow mind was being selfish but it was about more than money. Once I'd said no the most malevolent vice of all took over; pride. Then during a phone call my Sister Tricia said something that struck me: “We need to get rid of all the things which have negative energy. Remember where that came from.” And this is what got me thinking.
When Ricky called wanting to go out I thought he had the best of intentions. It had been exactly one month since Michelle’s burial and I yet to leave he house. The only time I was at peace is when I was asleep. The only way I could sleep was GHB and Ambien. When I woke it was straight to the Oxys but I tried not to wake much. It may sound unhealthy but it kept my mind off thoughts of taking a permanent nap.
“Listen man you have got to get out of that house. Get ready we’re coming to get you and ‘no’ is not an acceptable answer.” At first no was my answer. Do you want to know why I changed my mind? It’s the same reason I couldn’t be mad at him. He was the only one that asked.
Ricky had developed into one of my top clients. Through him and his referrals cash was pouring in and the drugs flowed just as freely. Due to my own use I paid little attention to what Ricky was doing. Like the rest of his crew I figured he did a little of everything, and too much Xanax. Alprazolam is an interesting drug designed to treat anxiety, panic disorders and anxiety caused by depression. I once had I client popping them at counsel table during a motion to suppress in Chelsea District Court. We won the motion despite the fact when it was over I had to shake him to stand and address the court. I can attest to the fact the stuff works, he looked neither anxious or depressed. One more thing: throw some alcohol down behind your Zannys and - Bam! You will create a delete button hard wired directly to your memory.
We ended up going out but before the night got started Ricky spilt a pitcher of beer across the table into my lap. All the paper towels in Hooters couldn't save my jeans. Back at my house I jumped in the shower leaving Ricky and the two friends he’d brought to watch TV in the master bedroom. Not once did I consider the arsenal of firearms boxed at the foot of my bed. Earlier when I took Ricky up on his offer to get out of the house I decided they had to go too. We’d had enough tragedy here.
While rinsing off I heard the sound of semi-automatic recoil coming from a hauntingly close distance. In a haze of OxyContin, the few beers I’d downed before getting splattered, and I may have had a few Xanax (I can't remember), I wasn’t sure it was real. “Pop-pop-pop!” It was.
Taking little time to dry I pulled on fresh boxers and dashed down the hallway into my bedroom to find the TV still on and the box wide open. One friend sat on the bed admiring my Beretta 9mm while the other stood with the 12gauge pistol grip Mossberg. The “pop-pop-popping!” continued in the master bathroom on my right. The door was ajar. Pushing it open I found Rick leaning out the window: “pop-pop-pop!” shooting up into the trees. “What the fuck are you doing bro?” “Shhhh – dude I got a gigantic squirrel cornered.” Shhhh? Apparently logic would play no part in this so I stepped closer taking hold of his shoulder: “Come on I’ve got neighbors, you can’t be shooting …” With a tug Rick turned back in towards me with his gun hand a little to high. Slapping his forearm to a “safe” trajectory: “Pop!” The discharge was louder at this range. My sincere thanks went out that his unlikely choice for sport hunting was my meek Beretta .25.
Seconds later the other two stood in the doorway with wide–eyes and lingering gunpowder vapor. Rick grabbed a towel off the rack and began wrapping the mozzarella strings of skin back up to my foot. “Bro - we’ve go to get you to the hospital.” His words were the day’s greatest understatement.
With no precious time wasted we rushed off to Lowell General Hospital where I was certain the staff had not recovered from my visit there last month. Remember the whole: “gang raped my pain receptors completely numb” business? Well that was over. By the time we arrived a searing pain screamed passed the opiates out the funnel shaped hole in my foot like it was a bullhorn.
Because the entire posse had criminal records I insisted they leave me at the entrance. Hobbling in through the electronic doors my self consciousness was highlighted by scarlet globules seeping thought the makeshift tourniquet and splattering a path along waxed tiles behind me.
“I think I’ve been shot!” These words, while urgent, sounded ridiculous to me hopping on the pogo stick of my good foot. Noticing bloody fingerprints being transposed all over the edge of her clean desk the horrified admissions nurse expedited my processing. Within ten minutes a burly gay medical assistant was hitting me in the shoulder with a much-needed shot of Demerol. His chest hairs curled up from under the collar of his nurse’s gown like a turtle neck sweater. I would have been sick had I not been so wasted. While he droned on with small talk my mind drifted back to our house. Mandatory reporting laws required the hospital to call the cops. They however, would not find the career boosting scene they hoped would put them on the six o’clock news. No slaughtered kids; no suicide note penned by a grief deranged suicidal maniac too cowardly to finish the job. What the police would discover was a lot of blood, guns and enough empty pill bottles to get them thinking.
When I finally got in touch with Ricky he claimed no memory of the shooting. Worse, he couldn't recall coming to my house. It took confirmation I was still in the hospital before I got an apology and he swore off Xanax for good.
The next day I was discharged with no new pain medication due to computer cross-referencing. The injury pushed my date to return to work from the back burner off the stove entirely. I began to stress that the growing backlog of cases and absence of cash would cause financial insolvency and more threatening, a narcotics drought. It turned out I worried for nothing. Things were about to rise to a whole new level.
The next day I was discharged with no new pain medication due to computer cross-referencing. The injury pushed my date to return to work from the back burner off the stove entirely. I began to stress that the growing backlog of cases and absence of cash would cause financial insolvency and more threatening, a narcotics drought. It turned out I worried for nothing. Things were about to rise to a whole new level.
Sanctimoniously kitty cornered behind the desk of my home office; cast foot resting on an ottoman; door open to show passers by how extraordinarily busy I was: “Do you want me to shut this?” Tricia asked. “ No, it’s fine. Hearing the kids playing in the background is music to my ears.” Returning her warm smile I went back to plucking at my keyboard in search of online pharmacies peddling prescription pain meds.
Not far into my quest the doorbell rang: “Jimmy, Ricky and his girlfriend are here!” “Send them up!” Impromptu visits were Ricky’s modus operandi. This would usually irritate me. Not tonight. “Holy shit bro. Look at you. I still can’t believe I did that.” “I made him quit taking those stupid pills.” Ricky’s girlfriend Krista threw in. “You mean those pills that make you stupid” (I couldn’t resist). “Funny. But for real those shits make me black out.” “Come in, sit down, you guys want anything? I can have my sister bring you something to drink?” “No man, we’re good. Just wanted to see how you were doing and I brought you a little something.” The second he said it my heart skipped a beat in the hopes that something was pills. Instead of a bottle or baggie he placed a small black velvet box on my desk. Lifting the lid my mouth widened on reflex. “Always knew you liked it.” He said. I had one of our jewelers put on the diamond bezel.”
Not far into my quest the doorbell rang: “Jimmy, Ricky and his girlfriend are here!” “Send them up!” Impromptu visits were Ricky’s modus operandi. This would usually irritate me. Not tonight. “Holy shit bro. Look at you. I still can’t believe I did that.” “I made him quit taking those stupid pills.” Ricky’s girlfriend Krista threw in. “You mean those pills that make you stupid” (I couldn’t resist). “Funny. But for real those shits make me black out.” “Come in, sit down, you guys want anything? I can have my sister bring you something to drink?” “No man, we’re good. Just wanted to see how you were doing and I brought you a little something.” The second he said it my heart skipped a beat in the hopes that something was pills. Instead of a bottle or baggie he placed a small black velvet box on my desk. Lifting the lid my mouth widened on reflex. “Always knew you liked it.” He said. I had one of our jewelers put on the diamond bezel.”
Krista handed him his wallet from which he slid a black Amex card. Carving at the pile: “Smoking it's cool too, but not with the kids in the house.” Next he withdrew a hundred so crisp I feared it wouldn’t bend. He forced it into a tight cylinder and whisked up the first line with the familiar grace of dashing his endorsement across a check. Meanwhile Krista pulled her curls back into a scrunchy. Taking the bill she leaned in daintily, nose first, whiffing up the next as I imagined a little doe might do.
Reading rhapsody in my expression, head tilted back into my leather chair after taking my turn, Ricky dropped the package on my desk: “Enjoy my man. Who knows, you might feel good enough to go back to work tomorrow.”
Reading rhapsody in my expression, head tilted back into my leather chair after taking my turn, Ricky dropped the package on my desk: “Enjoy my man. Who knows, you might feel good enough to go back to work tomorrow.”
So that’s how it began, the escalation of my drug use and the story of the watch. Why did I give a shit about this watch? It meant nothing, right? Forget about the fucking watch! I can't.
Lying on my bunk at the ½ way house waiting for Tricia to pick me up for my first twenty-four hour pass. It’ll be my first time back in that house since the raid…. It was eerie. I wanted to forget being handcuffed in my underwear on the floor, forget them ripping the kids rooms apart, forget the State Troopers who waked out of my closet in hysterics carrying a dark-skinned Whizzinator (definitely another story)(Note: they didn't have a picture of the dark skin model) Still trying to forget that watch....
The time came and I met Tricia out front. It was great to see her. “Traffic was horrible, I knew it would be so I left the kids at home. They are dying to see you.” (No mention of the watch). I couldn’t wait to see them either. Just being out and about was a thrill. “So much has changed since you left. They built a Long Horn across from The Imax. And were you here when the Stop & Shop went up right in front of Market Basket? And the new Bertucis…” (blah, blah, blah... everything except my fucking watch).
We were into November and the one thing I noticed that hadn’t changed was the bi – annual mystery of how to set the car’s clock to daylight savings time. Popping open the glove box I went in looking for the manual to help solve this riddle and came out awestruck with my watch! Before any words were exchanged I removed the rubber band and glanced over the attached appraisal.
In the months since that phone call I’d thought long and hard about what Trish said: “where it came from…” and the “negative energy…” and believe it or not I had come to agree with her a hundred percent. Until: “What! Two thousand! Are you fucking kidding me, the bezel alone is worth five grand!” “Well I just took it to have them check it out! At least you know the parts are authentic, but they say after its altered it’s not worth as much!” “I don’t disagree but the thing is worth $7,500.00 all day long, shit a couple of the diamonds are worth more than two grand!” To an outsider it may have appeared that our scream fest was volatile. We knew better. This was the way my sisters and I liked to communicate.
Traffic was still terrible. We’d only gotten as far as the Tobin Bridge and it was stop and go as far as I could see. When we weren’t moving we shouted so loud and flailed so ferociously those in the cars around us looked panicked.
“What right do you have?” “I have every right!” “No you don’t” “Yes I do!”
I’d been straight so long my mind was clear like the old days, allowing me to do more than one thing at a time with efficiency. While yelling and enjoying the petrified faces I decided to confront the real issue on my mind: “If you plan to get rid of the negative karma by hawking the watch to buy supplies for Anthony’s schooling and fix the Lexus for Kyera then when he pokes his eye out tripping with a new pen or she wraps the car around a pole the blood which flows from that tainted cash is on your hands, not mine goddamnit!” Then in a move surprising even to me I hit the automatic window button and hurled that sucker out and over the edge like Charles-fucking-Stewart.
Tricia pumped the breaks, slammed the car into park and swung open the door so quickly I had no time to prevent her exit. “What the fuck – come back – what are you doing?” It was no use she was gone. The moment was at the same time surreal and urgent as a heart attack. Immediately giving chase I found the highway a madhouse of beeping horns. Worse was the fact Patricia was nowhere in sight. “Tricia!” Shit, Shit, “Tricia!” I might be ten years her elder but I had nowhere near the balls of this one. “Trish, it’s not worth it - I’m sorry – come back!” Vehicles were now using the breakdown lane for travel and I became torn between continuing my pursuit and abandoning our car in traffic. When a bread truck rolled past I spotted her up on a platform scaling the scaffolding. “Tricia! Wait!” Rushing forward with my focus on her I was struck in the leg by a passing Pontiac. Even while thrown back my eyes remained glued – “Trish, I’m Sorry! Tricia! No! Don’t!” Shit. “Tricia! Tricia!”
“What right do you have?” “I have every right!” “No you don’t” “Yes I do!”
I’d been straight so long my mind was clear like the old days, allowing me to do more than one thing at a time with efficiency. While yelling and enjoying the petrified faces I decided to confront the real issue on my mind: “If you plan to get rid of the negative karma by hawking the watch to buy supplies for Anthony’s schooling and fix the Lexus for Kyera then when he pokes his eye out tripping with a new pen or she wraps the car around a pole the blood which flows from that tainted cash is on your hands, not mine goddamnit!” Then in a move surprising even to me I hit the automatic window button and hurled that sucker out and over the edge like Charles-fucking-Stewart.
“Jimmy – come on man, it’s ten past nine. Ain’t yer sister comin to git you for a visit?” The hand shaking my shoulder belonged to my inbred, red neck, meth-addicted roommate from Arizona. His reason for choosing the Boston ½ way house was to use his girlfriend’s address for home confinement. He met her in the visiting room at Allenwood Low. She was a friend of his cellmate’s sister who relocated here. I couldn't help but wonder if she was missing all of her teeth.
As for Tricia she's fine. She was running a little late because of the traffic. When I reached the front entrance she was waiting with the kids. I ended up having a wonderful time on my first pass. As for the watch, I still haven’t had the balls to ask.
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