Postcards From the Edge Read online

  Sometimes I wonder if I really am Jesus, but I just haven’t grown into it yet.

  I wonder what color Jesus’s eyes were. And if he needed glasses.

  He had the sweetest face . . .

  SUZANNE AND ALEX

  DAY SIXTEEN

  They brought a new guy in today, Alex. He’s very good-looking, in a Heathcliff sort of way. He had a seizure an hour ago. I didn’t see it, but Sam said it was pretty amazing.

  Carl told me Sam was in jail for rape. My reply was, “Oh.” I casually asked Sam about it, and he said he was framed—that his friend had done it. I asked him what he did when he wasn’t in jail, and he said he was a scalper. He told me he’d sold tickets to the concert of an ex-boyfriend of mine, as if to say, “What a coincidence that we should finally meet.” Sam is homophobic and hates Bart. He calls him “Barf.”

  Wanda told me she likes to be tied up and have her clothes torn off before sex. She said it really makes her happy. I don’t know what makes me happy, but that doesn’t ring a bell.

  . . . That fucker Steve! How did he find my parents’ number? How could they have put me in a drug clinic? This is humiliating.

  So I overdosed. Well, of course I did. I’d never shot heroin before. I told them I’ll never do it again. I was on Ecstasy and I thought it would be okay. I was more open to the heroin because of the Ecstasy and the Percodan. So I won’t take Ecstasy again. I only took it in the first place because he didn’t have ludes. I’ve gotta get out of here.

  How did this happen to me? How did this happen to me? I’m in here with drug addicts. It’s so degrading. I keep telling them I’m not an addict, but they laugh at me. My problem isn’t drugs, it was just those two drugs that made the other one possible. I hope they didn’t tell Joan.

  Detox! I took heroin once, what am I detoxing from? My mother—God, she was upset—said something about alcohol withdrawal, but I didn’t drink . . . Well, I drank every day, but I didn’t drink like they imply I drank. I can’t be an alcoholic. That’s insane. I’m twenty-nine years old.

  And they expect me to go to these meetings, these Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I don’t like groups. I like to be alone. I’m kind of a lone animal by nature. I can just imagine the kind of scum you’d meet there. Greg Friedman used to go all the time, and he had to stop. He said, “I never would have taken drugs with half those people. How am I supposed to get straight with them?” He died of cocaine poisoning, but I really trusted him.

  It’s so wimpy to have to lean on groups of people. Do it alone! It’s a private matter. I think it’s bullshit to go to a public place to handle a private matter. I don’t want someone getting in my face and talking about drugs all the time. It’s just mindless. And then what happens? You give up drugs, and then you do something else to death. I want to do this to death. If I’m going to do something to death, I mean, which I don’t think I am. You learn from your mistakes, I think. You’re human, you have to fall down a little bit, and you learn from that. Pain is growth.

  I wish I had some blow . . .

  DAY SEVENTEEN

  It struck me today that the people that have had an impact on me are the people who didn’t make it. Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, Lenny Bruce, Janis Joplin, John Belushi. It’s not Making It to be Marilyn Monroe, but it is to me.

  In our culture these people are heroes. There’s something inside of that—a message that killing yourself like that isn’t so bad. All the interesting people do it, the extraordinary ones. A weird, weird message. Most of the people I’ve admired in show business—comedians, writers, actors—are alcoholics or drug addicts or suicides. It’s bizarre. And I get to be in that club now. It’s the one thing I cling to in here: Wow, I’m hip now, like the dead people.

  Romancing the stoned.

  . . . I can’t believe Suzanne Vale is here. I never knew she was an addict. She looks a little puffy, but she’s definitely cute.

  This is so Not Hip. I don’t mean everything has to be hip. This is probably good for some people, but . . . Look at these people. I have nothing in common with any of them, except Suzanne. She’s been here a couple of weeks now. She seems like she’s really into this, but she’s an actress. Actresses can seem like they fit in anywhere. I’m mainly gonna talk just to her. It would be great if we fell in love. That would show them, if I came back from the drug clinic with Suzanne Vale as my girlfriend.

  Jesus, that black guy! If he doesn’t shut up I’m gonna put a pillow over his face at night. How can they let people like him in with people like me? There should be different clinics—one for the assholes and one for the people who just have drug problems but aren’t assholes. Not that I have a drug problem, but I’m gonna be here for a month so I’d better do what they want me to do. I’ll just tell them I think I’m a drug addict, ’cause it’s the only way I’ll ever get out of here. Hey, if it’s good enough for Suzanne Vale, it’s good enough for me.

  She’s got a great sense of humor, which you need in a place like this. I’m really stunned that people like her are addicts. When you hear that somebody famous overdosed, it always sounds like fun when they do it. It’s just part of the big myth. It’s like it happened in the movies when it happens to someone who makes movies. Like, maybe I had an overdose, but it wasn’t the same kind she had. I’d like to think it was, though. I’d like to think I had an epic overdose. I wouldn’t have minded ODing if I was Suzanne Vale.

  Maybe I’ll go sit in the park with her. But she’s always talking to that black guy, or listening to him. God, I just want to run out of the room when he starts . . . That voice of his is like he swallowed weird helium, the kind that makes your voice deep and hollow. He just goes on and on and on. “Let me say this about that.” “Let me say this about that.” Jesus!

  How can she go to those AA meetings? I can understand poor people going. They have nowhere to go and nothing to do, but . . . I don’t know how anybody can stand each other here. I won’t go to an AA meeting unless they let me sit next to Suzanne. I haven’t really talked to her yet. I don’t want to wreck it. I want to seem cool, I want this to build naturally. It’s not like I’m gonna play hard to get, I don’t want to play a lot of games with this, but celebrities don’t like it when you run up and get in their face and come on to them. It’s a turn-off.

  I think she’d like me, though. She seems very friendly, and she wants everyone to like her, which could get to be a drag. If we got together, she’d have to stop all that, because it would be too hard on me. Not that I’m the jealous type, but it would be annoying. I’d have to tell her I would rather be the priority.

  Maybe I was a little deluded about my drug intake. Okay, I accept it. I took too many drugs. But certainly they don’t expect me to give up alcohol. I’ll give up cocaine. That’s not so difficult. I’ve given up cocaine before. I’ve done it a lot. I’ll just do it again, I don’t care. But what happens if I go to a party and they’re toasting somebody with champagne? What if my brother gets married? Do they expect me to toast my brother with Perrier? No way! I mean, he’s only fourteen, but still, they can’t expect me to give up everything.

  That woman who keeps tilting her head, Julie, said I was stuck looking at the differences between me and everybody else here, and that I should look for the similarities. Look at her, she’s overeating. I don’t want to do that. God, when will this be over? Do they expect me to give up wine? It’s absurd. This group is absurd. That fat asshole Sid told me if there were no drugs, I would have been an alcoholic. That’s absurd, and anyway, there are drugs. Shit, I’m next.

  “Me? Yeah, I’m Alex. I don’t really know what to say. Uh . . . I’m in here . . . Why am I in here? I’m in here because . . . Well, I took a lot of drugs one night in Brentwood and I had a problem . . . I had a bad reaction to some drugs. I was allergic . . . I never . . . I took some heroin and I had never taken heroin . . .”

  God, Suzanne’s gonna think I’m such a putz. She comes right out and says she’s an addict. Maybe I
should just say it. Maybe there’s something manly in that.

  “. . . So I think, yes, you could say I have a drug problem. And alcohol. I drink alcohol, too, but I have to get more information to be really convinced that alcohol is a problem for me.”

  That sounded good. That sounded real good.

  “I’m aware I can tend to overdo drugs. Have overdone drugs. And I certainly would like to learn as much as I can about how to curb that appetite. I’m glad to be here—well, I’m not glad to be here, but I’m here, and I’m gonna take advantage of the situation.”

  That sounded so cool. She was looking right at me. I think she likes me. I think she sees that I’m open, that I’m a man and yet I’m sensitive and aware of my own feelings. She has to respect the process I’m going through. I seemed a little scattered at first, maybe, but overall I was succinct and I seemed to have a grasp of . . . Let’s face it, there’s something romantic about a fucked-up guy. Not that I’m fucked up, but I’m in a fucked-up place.

  I think it would be great publicity for this clinic if it got out that Suzanne Vale met this great television writer here. It would be good for her reputation to be known as somebody who’s going out with a writer. It would give her more credibility.

  She’s so funny, and she has great eyes. Who is this asshole therapist Stan busting her for using her humor as a weapon? An “affably hostile weapon.” We’re here for drugs, not to have our personalities dismantled. They better not try it with me, or I’m gonna punch that guy out. They’re just jealous because they have to be in this clinic all the time, and she’ll probably leave and make a TV movie about it. Maybe I’ll write it. Oooh, this whole thing could really pay off.

  I wonder if they let you fuck in the clinic . . .

  DAY EIGHTEEN

  Sid graduated today. There was a little ceremony to see him off and launch him back into the now, like a little detoxed boat. It was actually sort of moving, with all the junkies sitting in a circle of chairs in the television room. A coin was passed around, and everybody held the coin and said something encouraging and wise (or at least tried to) for Sid to carry with him. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I sang “I’ve Gotta Be Me.” Carol cried.

  I rarely cry. I save my feelings up inside me like I have something more specific in mind for them. I’m waiting for the exact perfect situation and then Boom! I’ll explode in a light show of feeling and emotion—a piñata stuffed with tender nuances and pent-up passions. Until then, though, no sobbing for Sid.

  I’ll miss him holding my feet, though. I don’t miss whole people usually. I mainly miss the things they do:

  The way they wear their hats,

  The way they squeeze my feet,

  The memory of all that,

  No, no . . .

  I wonder if I’ll ever be able to cry, and what it could possibly be that would set me off. The image of Heathcliff looking over the moors, holding Cathy’s newly dead body? The memory of my father forgetting my twelfth birthday? The sweetness of Sid holding my feet, recalled one day in traffic?

  The new guy Alex may be good-looking, but he also seems like kind of an asshole.

  . . . “I’m an alcoholic.” “I’m an alcoholic.” Why does everybody have to humiliate themselves by talking about it? I’m also a Leo, why don’t they talk about that? They should have us stress the good parts about ourselves instead of dragging up all this bile. Why not a positive, uplifting approach?

  I’m gonna go over and talk to Suzanne. Maybe we could even have dinner together. I want to talk to her . . .

  So who are all these people? That Wanda, she’s pretty, but that guy Sam told me she tried to kill herself. I don’t like suicides. I think it shows a real weakness, to asphyxiate yourself and then overdose in a hospital. How do they know all this stuff about each other? Is your chart just available for scrutiny at any hour of the night? We might as well put out newsletters. God, there’s no privacy here . . .

  There’s one thing I didn’t try that I bet works: hypnosis. I think that might be the key. And I could join a gym. I mean, I could go to the gym I already belong to. But I don’t like to go ’cause it’s all gay people. But maybe I’ll get a friend and start going to the gym. And do hypnosis. There’s lots of things you can do before you end up in meetings. I’m not gonna become one of those AA Moonies for the rest of my life.

  Unless Suzanne goes. She seems open to this meeting thing. I’d go to meetings with her. Then it wouldn’t be so bad if my friends found out. I could say, “Hey, I went with my girlfriend, Suzanne Vale.”

  I hope nobody tells Joan I’m here. She’d just say, “I knew it. I knew it all along.” That bitch! I was never loaded as many times as she thought I was. I’m just naturally very hyper.

  Her other boyfriend before me was a druggie, too. I don’t mean . . . He was a druggie. I liked drugs, but he was a druggie. It’s like she just goes out with people who take drugs so she can pick on them. Joan of Narc, patron saint of the addict. And every time I would do something good for myself, she’d make fun of me. Like when I bought the exercise bike and she called me “Mr. Health” and said I’d never use it.

  I couldn’t tell her anything. I remember when I read that they found out aluminum cans could be a cause of Alzheimer’s, and when I tried to warn her she said, “Oh, please. You dump poisons into your system and you’re gonna get on me about my diet soda?”

  She could never stand to see me have a good time. She always looked like she smelled something funny when she was with me, with her head back and her shoulders as close to her neck as they could get, like I’d done something really sick. I took drugs, that’s all. She should look after her own stuff. God, I’m relieved that’s over. I can finally breathe. Aaaaahhh! I hope she doesn’t find out I’m in here. That’s all I need. I can hear her now: “I told you so. I knew it. Nyah nyah nyah.”

  That’s why it would be good with Suzanne. She could never point the finger at me because she ended up in a place like this, too. Joan will feel so bad when she hears I’m going out with Suzanne. But I want this thing to start very slow. I don’t want it to be really obvious. I don’t think she has any idea at all that I’m watching her. I don’t sit near her in group and I don’t sit at her table for lunch. I’m keeping my distance, playing it cool. I think that’s a very good tactic. She’s probably used to people flinging themselves at her. I’ll just keep off to myself and look a little sad and sensitive, and eventually she’ll come to me.

  Maybe this was all for the best. I have a better idea of my life now. I’m gonna have a relationship with Suzanne, and I’ll get my career back on track and pay my parents back all the money I’ve borrowed over the past couple of years. That’ll be good. Then my dad won’t look at me with that disdain he thinks is so funny, and my mom will stop picking on me. Maybe I’ll get a bigger apartment and . . .

  I feel good! This is a good time to sit back and reflect, and get a grip on my life. I think I’m taking a really realistic view of it all—probably for the first time, to be brutally honest about it. Maybe I’ll even get involved in politics, who knows? . . .

  DAY NINETEEN

  Another new guy checked in tonight. He actually checked himself in, but not before he stopped at the bar in the building next door for a couple of drinks. He was in excellent spirits when he got here, and he was wearing a very festive Hawaiian shirt. His name is Ted.

  When he leaned down to sign the admission contract, a cocaine bottle fell out of his pocket. “Oops,” he said, and giggled sheepishly as he retrieved the vial. “My lucky cocaine bottle. Look, the spoon was handmade. It’s bronze.” Lucille, my favorite nurse, took it out of his hand and said, “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen one like it.” He started explaining the history of this coke spoon, and Lucille listened to him as if it was the most fascinating story about a coke spoon she’d ever heard. He was still describing the workmanship as she steered him into his room.

  Carl watched all this with me. When they were out of earshot,
he said, “Shoot, any coke spoon was my lucky coke spoon, as long as there was coke on it.” I love Carl. He’s like a disc jockey from hell, and you can never change the station. His impact on people is undeniable. Alex literally perspires when Carl is around.

  I could swear Alex is deliberately not looking at me. He still hasn’t said a word to me. Somehow I don’t think I’m missing anything.

  . . . Look at Suzanne. She acts like she’s really getting into this shit, but it’s obvious she’s just as bored as I am. She’ll go through this whole thing, and then she and I’ll be in a bar in about two months. I can tell.

  No one could be seriously cooperating with this situation. At least nobody smart, nobody decent. There’s no way I could seriously feel like this was a good thing. And I’ve gone to these meetings now, so it’s not just what they call “contempt prior to investigation.” I’ve been. Greg was right. They’re boring and you can barely breathe in there because everyone is smoking. Smoking and drinking coffee. Aren’t those drugs, tobacco and caffeine? And they’re really not good for you.

  If Julie says that thing about looking for the difference instead of the similarities one more time I’m going to scream. I’m not looking for the differences. I don’t have to look. They’re obvious. I’m very different from these people. My situation is completely different.

  I mean, Carl! That story he told in the park about how he wound up in prison—what a moron. Even Suzanne seemed repelled by him. God, and this fucking Manson guy, he never talks to anybody. He’s always mooning around. He looks like he’s got glue in his eyes. Jesus, he knows Manson. What am I doing in here? It’s safer out there taking drugs than being in here not taking drugs with these people.

  If that guy Sam comes up to me and puts his arm around me and calls me “Buddy” one more time, I’m gonna have to complain. But to who? Julie? She wears so much perfume it makes me sneeze. My nose is still irritated from all the pollen and everything, I have an allergy condition. I can’t be around people who use too much perfume. What a nightmare!