The Final Roll
Goose bumps passed in a wave over her spine. Her green eyes resembled an oil spill; the dark ink oozed. The urge to be apart of anything slightly amusing took over her mind. She and her friends began to dance on top of bubble wrap in her small dorm room. She felt bursts and explosions of elation with each large pocket of air popping below her feet. Their movements and ideas were imaginative like a child in a field of candy and smiles. All beauty that she got her hands on was devoured by lust and love. She morphed into a sly manipulator: she blinded them with sensual compliments. They soon realized that the ecstasy contained in small capsules was the only reason that she loved them. She went from being a fiery sex symbol to an unsure little girl. Small and shy, she hid from the looks of disappointment in her small cement dorm room. Crumbles of the decaying tiles began to close in on her, leaving her feeling like a sea turtle abandoned on the barren shore.
***
She woke up confused. She was trapped. Her mother was dragged along for the ride, no matter how far in the hole she tried to hide. She was out of money, and she still had enough self-respect not to sleep with someone for a good time. She knew exactly what she had to do.
She peered through the window of the small town house that two sorority sisters rented, to see if anyone is home.
“No one is here! Come on!” She screamed in desperation.
An intrusive cracking sound filled their ears. They walked through the busted door into the kitchen. They found the leftover booze from the night before. They chugged the vodka. They crept up the cracked wooden stairs. Then they each picked a room and begin to rummage through everything like a starving dog in a dumpster. Her body was feigning for any type of drug, and she began ransack with more desperation. After hours of rummaging they walked down the stairs. They would do anything to get their next fix.
The next morning the sunshine illuminated the bags she left on her floor. Her eyes were wide with disbelief. She jumped out of bed and pulled on an old Grateful Dead t-shirt on over her body. She ran around her dorm preparing for her exciting day. With bags in hand, she went to the local pawnshop, Snookies. She pulled out a zip-locked bad full of jewelry and handed it to the large sweaty desk clerk wearing leather pants and a black bandana. He eyed her for a moment and took the jewelry to the back room. She leaned on the dusty glass countertop tapping her finger with anticipation. After ten minutes, he returned with a receipt and a stack of twenty-dollar bills.
***
After a weekend of devouring the dangerous combination of cocaine and ecstasy, she decided to take a day reclaim her mind, because she had plans to go to a family dinner. They could see the sadness in her eyes. Her mom thought, something is wrong. I just know it. She shoveled the baked chicken into her mouth as if never seeing food before. Then her phone rang.
“Jo! There are three men that look like detectives outside of your dorm! I’m not sure what to do! I have stuff in my room too! What should I do, what should I do? Fuck! Fuck! ”
The sound of a falling stone hitting the marble floor filled the room. She picked up her cracked phone and tried to compose herself. She told her family that one of her friends got alcohol poisoning and she had to go be with her in the hospital. They were frozen in shock. After a moment, they hugged her with teary eyes.
She got in her car. She sat for a while with her hands on the wheel staring into space. She couldn’t move. After her thoughts began to slow down she drove to Wal-Mart and sat in the parking lot to call her friend back.
“Thank god! Where the fuck have you been? The guys left but they hung your picture in the lobby. I don’t know why it’s just you, but I think that underage girl who was with us snitched on you!” Jenny told her in between sobs.
“You’re shitting me right. I knew that little bitch would fuck it up,” she said.
“Well… I wouldn’t come around here for a while. They are looking for you. I can meet you and get your key so that I can get your stuff if you want to hide out,” Jenny offered.
“Yeah I guess that’s my only option,” she paused and there was a gap of silence. “ Fuck… my mom is calling,” she whispered and pressed ignore. “ I’ll call you back in a sec I need to chill and have a cig.”
The guilt of not appreciating her mother began to move through her body. Not being on any drugs at the moment all of her emotions rose to the surface. She was shaking from the force of her sobs. She knew something had to change. After about thirty minutes of feeling long lost sadness and guilt she picked up her phone and dialed her mother’s number.
“Mom. I need to tell you something. This will scare you, but I want you to know that I am asking for help,” she said to her mother as tears streamed down her cheeks.
“I knew something was wrong. I just didn’t want to see it,” Her mother told her while trying to hold back her tears.
After a couple minutes she began to explain what happened. The truth came poring out uncontrollably. She told her mother her plan to turn herself in. The love she had for her mother was the only sliver of hope she had. She was adopted from a rough area in Atlanta, Georgia and bounced from shelter to foster-home for years. She endured beatings from the older children, which many times sent her to the hospital. Her mother now was the only person who had stuck by her through hopeless times.
***
She parked her car in the busy collage parking lot. She sat there and chain-smoked to prepare for what she was about to do. She searched her car to make sure that the drugs were gone, but she felt a familiar oval shape while reaching underneath the seat. She picked up the small white pill and sat there staring at it. She usually did not like downers, but she thought what the hell… I’m about to go to jail anyways. I might as well be faded. She swallowed the dry lump and lit a cigarette. After about an hour went by she stumbled to the dorm lobby. Before entering the unnecessarily bright green lobby she paused and lit another menthol cigarette. She inhaled deeply and opened the door.
“Hey! You can’t smoke in here!” They desk assistant yelled before realizing who she was.
She slumped down against a wall onto the lobby floor. She heard voices all around her but could not connect them to the floating faces. While nodding into a deep sleep she took another drag of her cigarette. After about fifteen minutes the campus police entered the room and she mumbled to them, “Just take me. I’m fucked up.”
They picked her up and tried to keep her conscious. By the time the medics got there she sobered up a little. Yet still, they forced her onto a stretcher.
She felt the warm and familiar touch brush her hair from her forehead. She heard a faint whisper, “I will always love you no matter what happens.” She began to cry after opening her eyes to the warm image of her mother. She sat in the hospital room clutching each other as if the other was going to disappear at any moment.
The next morning she woke to an empty and sterile room. She lied on her side staring blankly like a zombie at the blinding white walls. She heard a squeaky shuffle of someone entering the room. A man in a freshly ironed blue suit walked into the room. She knew he was some sort of authoritative figure by his cliché detective look. She waited for him to speak.
“You know why I’m here,” he told her in a calm and deep voice.
She remained silent not knowing what she should tell him, and what she should keep a secret. “Let’s not play games here. Johanna, I know who you are, and I know what you do. I already talked to Quentin Eubanks, Felicia Johnson, and Dennis Payne about you. I can help you if you give me something to work with,” he told her as if reading lines off of a cheesy detective screenplay.
“What did...” she paused with a confused look stuck on her face. “ What did they say about me?”
“Well, I cannot disclose specifics, but I can tell you that two of them said that the robbery was your idea. This is serious, Johanna. What you say now will affect what happens to you,” he told her with a serious tone. She could tell that this man was some girl’s father. He had a kindness in his eyes that only comes from protecting his young like the strong and masculine leader of a pack of coyotes.
“Well…would knowing the reason for the robbery help?” She asked.
“At this point anything will help your situation. I am going to write down everything you say, so make sure you are telling the truth. This information is being used in an on-going investigation. You realize that you have the right to a lawyer right?” He asked her.
“Yes, I understand. I’m not hiding anything, so I don’t need one,” she told him not believing that she would have the strength to admit that the whole robbery was in fact her idea. She continued, “Well… I’m just going to say it,” She paused and inhaled a deep breath. “I have a drug problem. We all do…me, Quentin, Denny, and Felicia. We needed to get a hold of something before we started to have withdraws. So we took the stuff from that house,” she said while slowly spilling the truth.
“What kind of drugs were you all taking?” He asked.
“Well mostly pure ecstasy in capsules, but sometimes we would do coke too,” As those words came out of her mouth, images of using filled her mind. She wanted more than ever.
“You can continue,” he said interrupting her thoughts.
She looked at him with the blank stare that takes over her face when she daydreams about using drugs. She sat in her bed silently and began to question what she was getting her self into by cooperating. She heard the door open and saw her mother’s raised eyebrows and wide eyes.
“Excuse me, what in the hell do you think you’re doing questioning my daughter without a lawyer or my presence?” her mother said, in a belting low voice.
“Mam, please try to calm down. I asked her if she wanted a lawyer and she said no. Also, she is over 18 years-old and does not need a parent present for questioning,” he told her as if he has said that line a million times.
“Hunny, do not say another word. I am calling our lawyer and Sir you need to leave and come back another time to finish this with our lawyer present,” She said. “Sorry mam, I was instructed not to leave empty handed. However, I will sit right outside this door to give y’all privacy” he replied exposing a glimpse of his fatherly side.
“I guess that will do,” she said as he collected his belongings and left.
They waited in silence for their family lawyer, Laurence. Then her mother told her in a voice sounding as if being controlled by mood altering anti-anxieties, “I don’t want to know everything that you have done. I will not be in the room when Laurence gets here. Tell him the truth and he will tell you what you need to say. Trust him,” that was the last thing she told Johanna that day before leaving the room and waiting in the hospital lobby with the smell of stale coffee and the sounds of squeaky hospital-bed wheels.
Laurence arrived and they deliberated a plan. She told the detective everything Laurence told her to disclose. After the detective left, Laurence instructed her mother what she needed to do. He told her to commit Johanna to a rehabilitation facility before they could officially arrester her. Next thing she knew she was whisked into a new life of shitty coffee and nightly talks of sobriety.
This world forced thoughts of accountability and reconciliation into her mind. She thought all of this was bullshit. She asked herself, what in the hell do these licensed therapist really know? They haven’t experienced shit!
“Excuse me, are you Johanna Feildmen?” asked a lady in khakis.
“Yes. What?” She replied.
“Hunny-child you need to come with me it’s time for group therapy with our local Narcotics Anonymous chapter,” she told her.
The woman escorted her down the long green carpeted and white-walled hallways with small black cameras in every corner. They stopped in front of a tall wooden door with a banner that said, Open-mindedness Equals Happiness. She stepped into the room and thought, oh shit what have I gotten myself into?
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference,” she mumbled this prayer with the other addicts in a melodic harmony.
“Hi, my name is Suzanne and I am an addict,” a young girl wearing thick eyeliner and black lipstick said while breaking the silence.
“Hi Suzanne,” everyone replied.
“Today was a hard day for me. On this date last year something horrible happened. I was getting loaded with my best friend, Frankie. We were sad from the week before because one of the guys who squatted in this house with us overdosed and died, so we got really fucking loaded. We ended up passing out in one of those tube slides in the park. I woke up and I was cold. I didn’t open my eyes because she knew that his body should have been keeping me warm, but it wasn’t. With my eyes still closed, I put my hand on his chest. There was no movement or warmth. I knew that the worst had happened. I eventually opened my eyes. His lips and face were blue and his eyes were glazed over. A year-ago today my best friend died in my arms. That is why I am thankful for being sober today. Thank you for listening.”
After months of listening to horrifying stories Johanna began to believe that leaving her old way of life behind was for the best. She began telling her stories in group therapy and engaging in the program. She convinced herself that sobriety was an important aspect in order to succeed. She earned more and more privileges and began to move through rehab quickly. After eight months her mother informed her that the police knew where she was. She also told her that they agreed to let Johanna complete rehab before her formal arrest, because she had cooperated. She knew she could not return into the free world until she graduated from this facility. It only took another month at the rehabilitation center for Johanna to graduate from the program. Her mother picked her up and that day she went to court. The judge served Johanna with a court date and told her that she can no longer leave the state.
All she had to do now was stay out of trouble. She went to two Narcotics Anonymous meetings a day, because she knew that being in the same environment would make her want to use drugs again. Yet somehow, she remained sober until her court date. She walked into the courtroom wearing a modest light-pink collared shirt, expensive black dress-pants, pearls from her mother, and her hair slicked back into a tight bun. She appeared to the judge as rehabilitated. She was served with two years of unsupervised probation. She had her sentence of ninety days in jail deferred for two years, which meant that she could not get arrested within the two-year time span or she would spend ninety days in jail.
Her freedom was restored. The first thing she did was walk into Christian’s Pizzeria. She walked passed the classic red booths and right up to the handsome young cashier behind the smudged glass counter. “Hi, I was wondering if you all were hiring,” she asked. He smiled.
“Actually, yes we are hiring for a waitress position.”
“Great!” They stared at each other as if waiting for something to happen.
“Don’t I need an application or something?”
“Oh yeah. I’ll go grab one from the back.”
“So I just talked to my manager and one of our waitresses just quit so if you can, we need you to start tonight. I can train you in everything you need to know. It’s not a really demanding job unless it’s during March Madness,” he told her and chuckled.
“Okay, awesome! And my name is Johanna by the way.”
“Oh sorry I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Jordan and I’ve been working here for a while now. It’s not a bad place to work. I can still manage to pass my classes at Piedmont Community College,” he smiled.
“That’s good because I’m actually taking classes there too! I’m starting off just taking French to get back into school-mode. What are you taking?” She asked with enthusiasm.
“You’re shitting me right? I’m taking French and it starts next Monday,” he said in disbelief.
After months of working and studying together they became inseparable. They spent almost every hour in the day together.
***
“Hey Jo!” He said with a contagious energy as he grabbed her around her waist outside of the French classroom.
“Hey babe!” She said sounding like an infatuated middle school girl.
“So after work today do you wanna’ come over to my place and meet my buddies?” His voice cracked a little. She giggled.
“Yeah, but they might think I’m gross because I’ll smell like old pizza grease.”
They laughed and went inside the classroom, and sat down next to each other. After a long class of conjugating the verb faire a hundred times, they ate lunch and went to work together. They began to spend so much time together that they were hardly apart.
That night was the most stressful work night ever. The restaurant was buzzing with conversation from dozens of firefighters celebrating their slow-pitch softball game. The night moved by at the slow pace of an obese walrus. She heard yelling from the red leather booth in the corner. When she looked up she realized that the drunken firefighters were screaming at Jordan for spilling a pitcher of Bud Light on them. Next thing she knew, a large drunken firefighter threw a punch at Jordan. The large and sweaty manager busted into the room and yelled out, “Jordan you are fired! Get out of my site!”
She spent hours cleaning up the mess from the drunken brawl. Finally, after closing the restaurant, she drove to Jordan’s apartment. She knocked on the door but there was no answer. Dead Mau5 was blasting through the thin apartment door. She knocked again, this time harder, and the door creaked open. The strange lighting in the room resembled that of a rave. Her chest felt heavy and then she saw him. He came running to her dressed in neon metallic spandex shorts and glow-in-the-dark body paint. “You are so beautiful Jo! I’m so glad you came! I knew you would come! Dance with me!” He screamed like a little boy.
He dragged her into the living room. She remained silent with that same blank stare that used to control her. Her mind began to flood with memories of feeling like a goddess from ingesting ecstasy. She slumped onto the stained brown couch staring into space. She couldn’t take it anymore. She grabbed the two pills left on the table and swallowed them dry.
***
She was convinced that she has her drug use under control. She would only use with Jordan and his buddies on the weekends. She kept her job, which made it easier to justify using.
They decided to go all out before taking a break from using ecstasy. His apartment was filled with people along for the roll. After taking one pill, she convinced the group that they were all soul mates. After a couple hours of sweaty dancing and body painting, they decided to venture outside. She lit up a menthol cigarette and let the cooling minty smoke fill her lungs. She turned to look at these people who were the most beautiful and loving people she had ever seen before. She felt as if she possessed a power to look into people’s soul. As she turned her head warm and soft lips press against hers. Not only did she become physically aroused, but she also felt as if each kiss made her fall in love. Every embrace created a love so deep it was unnatural.
“I have an epic idea!” she belted out for all to hear. She asks, “Who wants to make a sauna out of the shower?”
After chain-smoking, they rushed upstairs like a bunch of schoolgirls chasing The Backstreet Boys. Darkness filled the bathroom, but with their senses stimulated they felt as if they could see vividly. The hot water began to pierce their skin with orgasms. Heavy breathing and the sounds of waterfalls filled their ears. Being creatures of lust, they pressed their lips to the next available pair not concerned with the gender. Their hot and wet flesh rubbed against each other. Every interaction between them was orgasmic. They felt truly connect to each other both physically and emotionally. Suddenly a sliding jolt sound filled the room, then silence. She called out to him but no reply. The small shower became illuminated with light unleashing the horrifying visions. Blue lips, a pulsating body, and white eyes filled her mind forcing adrenalin through her body. The others looked at her wide-eyed with terror. She turned off the water that once seemed so wonderful, but now it was boiling with evil. She morphed into a medic; saving his life was all that mattered. After retrieving cold and damp washcloths she placed them all over his seizing body. She proceeded, without much thought, to instruct the others. Each minute passed as if trying to sprint through a pool of molasses. They continued to pour cold water on his gray and withered feet. She tilted his head back and gently poured water between his bluish grey lips. Finally, after the pulsating stopped he opened his mouth and muttered, “Who…are… all of you?”
She raised her eyes to see if anyone could reconstruct what had happened in a way that made sense: no one could. The weight of his limp and lifeless body almost crushed hers while she heaved him onto his bed. They sat and waited. The only sounds being said were to keep him conscious. The sun protruded through the blinds reminding them that the night before was not a dream. After returning his battered body to his room they retreated to their safe haven: the smokers’ bench outside the apartment. Chain-smoking was the only activity they could handle after witnessing a friend’s life almost fade away. Not one of them spoke. She replayed each event of the night through her mind. She was sitting there wide-eyed and motionless. The harsh aftermath will always survive, but late night junkies may or may not die.
