Having somewhere to go on Wednesday nights had been good while it lasted.
The next day, May drove all the way to Colebury to pick me up for Thursday Dinner. I didn’t want her to go to the trouble, but if I skipped it they’d worry. I brought a big, beautiful cheesecake and did my best to look cheerful and healthy. I let little Maeve Abraham draw on my cast with her crayons.
Friday afternoon I had a doctor’s appointment a few miles from home. So I got into the Avenger for the first time in weeks and drove it very carefully to the medical center. Shifting gears with my broken arm was a little clunky, but I got better at it by the time I reached the parking lot.
This clinic was new to me. It was a drug treatment center where they’d prescribe my Suboxone on an ongoing basis. Every two weeks I’d have to submit to a urine test and show up for a counseling session, or they wouldn’t give me the next installment of my prescription.
I was happy to pee into a cup if it meant that I could keep feeling mostly normal.
The low-slung building was nothing special. It didn’t scream BEWARE OF JUNKIES.
The receptionist handed me a clipboard and directed me toward an empty plastic chair. There were six or eight people in the waiting room. Except for one woman who held a sleeping baby, all the patients were men, most younger than thirty.
People think they know what an addict looks like—they think he’s shaking in a gutter somewhere and missing all his teeth. It’s possible to end up that way. But the addicts I’ve met look like the guys in this waiting room—ordinary. You can’t tell from their T-shirt choices or their shoes that they have a problem. (Maybe the per-capita tattoo and piercing ratio is a little higher than the general population, because addicts aren’t afraid to do shit to their bodies. But that’s just a theory I have.)
You can’t detect anyone’s addiction by looking at the outside. The guy sitting next to me might have done crank or ket or vikes, but it didn’t show on his face. Maybe if I got up close and looked into each pair of eyes I’d recognize something familiar. A flicker of shame. The shadow of mistrust. The memory of a loss or a heartbreak that was numbed with chemicals instead of human interaction.
I took the pen and began filling out my details. Name. Address. Depressingly, the form actually had to ask, “Do you have a permanent address?”
Why yes I do, but maybe not for long.
What followed was an ordinary medical history, including a laundry list of conditions I might have. The only boxes I checked were for drug addiction and family history of alcoholism.
“Nickel?”
Looking up, I found a square-jawed woman with a blue buzz cut scanning the room. When I stood, she beckoned to me. I followed her down a long hallway and into a small room with a table and two chairs.
“Good morning,” she said. “I’m your counselor, Delilah. Can we just get one thing out of the way—can I see some ID?”
“Sure.” I pulled out my wallet. They’d need to know for sure who they were handing drugs to.
She squinted at my driver’s license, writing the number down on a form. “Thank you, Jude. Have a seat.”
When she sat down, she explained that Denny had filled her in on my unwitting return to opiates at the hospital. “And I understand that you were prescribed Suboxone, too. Had you ever taken it before?”
I shook my head.
“Are you on any other medication at all?”
“I’m taking Advil while my arm heals, but only when it starts to throb.”
“All right.” Her brow furrowed. “Please be very accurate when you answer this question, because your health depends on it. Before the hospital gave you opiates during surgery, when was the last time that you used any narcotic?”
“Um…” I paused to get the math just right. “I went to detox when I was released from prison and that was seven months ago.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “And…” She cleared her throat. “What substances did you use after your stay in detox?”
“Nothing. Well, caffeine and sugar. I have a Pepsi problem.”
She drummed her fingernails on the clipboard, and I noticed that they were navy blue. “But you still had cravings?”
“Every day. The Suboxone I started taking on Christmas Eve really nipped that in the bud, though.”
“Okay. And before Suboxone, what did you do about those cravings?” She squinted at me.
Was this a trick question? “I didn’t know there was anything to do about them. That’s why I’m here.” Actually, I was no longer sure why I was here.
“You’re an interesting patient,” she said. “At the initial consultation when I ask how long ago people have used, I usually hear seven hours, not seven months.”
“Well, it wasn’t a walk in the park.” Am I taking home a trophy or something? This whole experience was giving me the itch, to be honest. I wanted out from under her stare.