The Dark Time

Chapter 12

A few days after Patsy’s visit I started having dizzy spells. When they came on, the ground under my feet would open-up and I felt as if I was falling into a bottomless pit. The spells eventually passed, but the abyss I felt was waiting for me to trip over the edge.

Depressed and anxious I hid in my room. Angie and Patsy came to visit me often. They’d team up and to drag me out my apartment for walks, to play handball or to just hang out with them. They knew something was very wrong and were trying their best to help me. My ever-increasing resistance to their efforts to help finally caused them to give up and they distanced themselves from me.

Now the streets I loved to walk, explore, and play on without a care had become my Mean Streets. The color was gone from them, my eyes now saw everything in black, gray and white. I felt danger and fear on the street my eyes constantly moving on the lookout for trouble, my body and mind spring tight ready for flight. Laughter and fun were gone from my life, as was as the untroubled sleep of childhood. Falling asleep for me now was extremely difficult. When sleep finally did come, from the darkest corner of my mind Tony’s gang would charge out to attack me, my only escape was to wake up. Awake, frightened, and soaked through in sweat, I’d sit upright in bed till exhaustion finally toppled me back down into a coma like sleep.

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Life for me was now stressful I knew I needed something to mitigate the stress: whiskey was the answer and it became my medication. I was able to buy it from an old woman running an illegal liquor store from her run-down basement apartment. Kids playing hooky from school hung out there to drink and smoke. She let kids sleep on the couch and floor if they and had no other place to stay. I never stayed there longer than the time it took to buy the whiskey, I didn’t like the smells of cigarette smoke, mold and body Oder.

My bad experiences with alcohol and self-discipline may have kept me from becoming a drunk. I was in a very bad place but only drank whiskey on an as needed basis, just enough to smooth over the jagged edges when they started tearing me up inside.

I worried that when I went back to school my grades would go downhill because of the terrible mental and physical state I was in. I had been an “A” student since 1st Grade getting low or failing grades would alert my teachers that something was wrong.

The possibility of my being busted in school for drinking was high as well: the school had been checking book and gym bags the previous school year and snitches were everywhere.

I was sure my parents would have to come to my school at some point for a conference. I’d been able to deceive them so far, I didn’t know for how long I could keep it up. I was too ashamed to tell them how I felt, what I was doing to myself and what was happening to me. Even worse was my thought of how disappointed they would be if-or-when they found out how fucked up, I was. I did think about killing myself but couldn’t do it, perhaps it was cowardice I don’t know.