This is the Way: a memoir of poetry and heroin

*Intermission*

“Heroes” by David Bowie. Version by Mackenzie Johnson

2:15 Did you hear about Dominic?

Lieutenant Dominic voted in the election and no one has seen him since. All we know is that supposedly he’s been discharged but he didn’t leave any contact information and no one had a chance to see him off. I feel guilty for not making more of an effort to wish him well and get…

How to Eat a Sh*t Sandwich

2:13 You have a burning sensation?

At 3:23 AM—according to my alarm clock—I get up to pee, relishing the freedom of solitude now that Junkiemind Jerry has moved out. I stand in the bathroom’s inadequate yellow half-light feeling stronger than I ever have since I got here. I look at myself in the mirror and decide to shave as soon as…

2: 12 Our Father, who art in Rehab

2:11 Fill what is empty, empty what is full

2:10 Don’t Quit Before the Miracle Happens

At our nightly community meeting, Lt. Dominic congratulates everyone on the success of the barbecue and thanks Jonah for cooking, even though he was sick. He says he is going to apply for a group day pass and maybe take some of the guys to a movie off-campus as a treat. I’m grateful we have…

2:9 Visiting Day

At Group time, my check-in feeling is “concerned.” I’m worried that my liver is failing like the Yellow Man’s, that I am about to go over the waterfall of Suboxone withdrawal, that I will shit myself at any moment, and most of all worried about what will happen when my wife comes for family day…

2:8 Trinity…

I’m flying down, down through layer after layer of sleep on the wings of Jerry’s pill when the dream begins.

2:7 I’m Done

I wake up to one of Junkiemind Jerry’s alarm clocks going off. Daylight has begun creeping in from the window, making diffuse, ominous shadows from everything in the room. We have an early house meeting on the Sunday schedule and then we’re supposed to go down to the Day Hospital auditorium for something called “spirituality.”

2:6 Escape to New York

Isis-Aphrodite Metropolitan Museum of Art

Part 2 Episode 5: Magic Words

I go back to the big auditorium for the next event on my folder: DBT SKILLS. Class has already started. A very tall woman with a long mane of chestnut hair is standing at the front of the room. She has dark eyes and a flowery dress that ends just above her tasteful brown wedges.…

Part 2 Episode 4: Why She Was Saving Her Tears

When the lecture is over I check my folder again. I’m supposed to go to GROUP THERAPY in ROOM 112 with my CASE MANAGER, XXXX. I’m guessing this is the rehab version of Jessica from Detox. I remember Connor saying this woman was a bitch but patients are always shit-talking staff, just like the ladies…

Part 2. Episode 3: Allegedly

“What’s ‘aggravated perjury’?” I ask. He smiles his crazy smile. “That’s just like regular perjury, only the judge was real aggravated.”

Part 2 Episode 2: The Lieutenant

Before anyone can get up, there is a total eclipse. Emanuel’s hulking figure has emerged from his office and is now standing in the door like a blackhole sun. All the guys are silent. There’s no horseplay. The football is no longer being tossed in the air. Even crazy Baz looks as clear-eyed and respectful…

Part II: Up the Hill Ep. 1

The Day Hospital is not really a hospital. Not even a ‘hospital.’ It’s just a large one-floor building like you might see on any college campus. Having cleared the last step of the staircase, I’m standing on new ground, facing the entrance. The first thing I notice are the doors—normal glass doors like any office…

Episode 17: Bleeee-aaackkk! (This concludes Part 1: Detox)

I’m feeling completely hopeless and sorry for myself when I hear a noise  from the hall that sounds like someone choking a goat. Bleeeeee-aaaakkkk, goes the sound. BLEEEEEEEEEEEE-AKKK. I wonder if Angel has gotten loose from the quiet room and is trying to kill someone. It’s too calm out there though. No Dr. Hush on…

Episode 16: I’m In Pretty Deep Myself

“I have to go to a discharge meeting with my wife and the social worker so I may be leaving you this afternoon,” I say, with the certainty of all delusionals. I can tell Bo hasn’t processed anything I said after books. He’s high out of his mind and still living on junk-time, which is…

Episode 15: What Are the Chances?

“I talked to Jessica today–” says Jonah. “The ladies hate her,” I interrupt. “The ladies hate everyone,” he says in a mournful voice, “that’s why they’re ladies.” He looks up just as Lindsey the amateur porn star leans over our table, spilling a bubbling brook of blond curls over her shoulders. She gently sets down…

Episode 14: All I Can Say Is Goodbye

In the morning I’m up early, refreshed by Tranxene sleep and feeling only slightly the Suboxone-tamed opiate withdrawal. At morning medication I greet the med troll like an old friend, grateful to have her as my dealer. After giving me all the boring meds that sustain my life, and which I don’t care about, she…

Episode 13: The Professor Speaks

“Listen to this!” I kneel at the head of his bed, flip through my Rilke book and begin reading: Oh speak, poet, what do you do? –I praise. But the monstrosities and the murderous days, how do you endure them, how do you take them? –I praise. Mildly intoxicated and brimming with euphoria and motivation,…

Episode 12: The Sun Also Rises

Out at the nurse’s station, I see Gay Chuck Berry sitting back in his chair, his green Giorgio Brutini faux alligator dress shoes not dulled a bit by the harsh fluorescent lights. “Joe,” I say humbly, “I need to get a razor and some shaving cream or soap or something.” I am still trying to…

Episode 11: The Slideshow

Dinner is early in the evening and afterwards there is nothing to do. My roommate is gone, probably over to Cottage C to get some crazy pills. I try to read but I can’t focus on Rilke right now. My head is still swirling with anxiety and depression and the withdrawal that I can almost…

Episode 10: The Intruder

When I get back to where my room is, I decide to duck in and pee off some of the gallons of coffee I’ve had during the morning. This is MY place, my sanctuary. They’ve taken away my phone, my keys, my wallet. This room is the only thing I have left that is just…

Episode 9: The Body You Just Leave

When the bell dings for VITAL SIGNS I notice there is a new zombie in our line. She is a short middle-aged woman with sweatpants and a bulky gray sweatshirt. The left half of her face is wine-purple and her left eye is fiery red. It looks like she’s been split down the middle by…

Episode 8: A Desperate Running From Silence

I pull myself up to sit on the edge of the bed, my head hanging down in my hands like the tear-woman. The laughter, screams, and psycho music from the TV room abruptly go silent. I hear the phone slam down and footsteps in the hall. I haul my leaden body up to peer out…

Episode 7: The Origin of the Universe

Visiting the Tear Woman

This crush of bodies, the rush, the line, the techs with their black metal detector wands–I know I’m stuck in a mental hospital in Smyrna, but it feels like a cruel parody of going to the airport.

L-O-V-E

“There’s a girl with long straight black hair and black clothes and little red lines all up and down her arms that I think are cute little smiley sticker-tattoos. I look harder. They are razor cuts, and not just a few, but a dense, red rose-thicket of wounds.”

Precipitated Withdrawal

Odysseus encounters the witch of the enchanted medroom and sights the demon of precipitated withdrawal just off shore. He considers the possibility of synthesizing Dilaudid from shampoo and decides to pay a visit to the damned in the underworld known as Cottage C.

The Ivy Leaguers

In this episode, Chris J. gets his first dose of detox meds and dreams of the enchanted isle of Manhattan. He meets the quirky Dr. Laha and learns that looks can be deceiving.

The Walking Dead

Our hero is given a powerful sedative in the land of the Lotus Eaters and wakes up on a strange new island called Detox.

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