Tell Your Story

Turns out she had heard a lot of those kinds of things in her short
life. Her "Daddy" drank, her mother drank and took loads of Valium.
She had three very-much older step brothers (one of them still living
at home) and one even older step-sister who was already married and
gone far, far, away. The older brother at home was either very kind to
her (usually when her mom was incapacitated by drugs and alcohol) or
very, very cruel to her. She told me once that when one of the other
brothers was visiting the two brothers put her down inside the drainage
ditch in the road and stood on the grate so she couldn't get out! But
that wasn't the worst of it. Years later when the brother she was
"closest" to, the one who had lived at home when she was very young,
was arrested and convicted of molesting his own children and
step-children, she remembered him molesting her too.

What I remembered most was that she always wanted to go to my house
after school. And never hers. I didn't know why. But as we got
older, and braver I suppose, we would go to her house sometimes. It
was always dark inside and her mother would yell at her father "If you
ever touch her again, I'll kill you!" and then pass out. I had no
idea who "her" was. It was only years later when Katie and I decided
to sneak a smoke from her father's pack of Camels that I understood.
When he caught us, he took his belt from his waist and bent Katie over
his knee. He didn't stop until she was bleeding. I cried all the way
home. Katie didn't come to school for the rest of the week and when I
saw her at school the following Monday I knew better than to bring up
the awful thing I had witnessed. He died that same year, and I
remember being very relieved, almost happy. Of couse, to Katie, I only
showed sadness and compassion. About that same time, Katie found
speed. And she shared! And it was fun! We'd tickle each other's
scalp during class and zip to our locker during lunch to re-dose
ourselves. On the weekends we found that speed and alcohol give a
great buzz and we'd spend our time chasing boys and going to illicit
parties and sneaking out of our houses, each telling our parent's we
were spending the night at the other's house.

One night Katie decided she wanted to sleep with a boy she had liked.
We were inseparable until she got this boyfriend and I was jealous and
hurt and a little bit freaked out that she was having sex. We stopped
talking for a year. The next year I had a boyfriend and I realized
that she had always been a bit more "advanced" than I was and we made
up. I thought everything was back to "normal".

After high school we moved into a ratty little apartment together. She
was working downtown, and I held on to the job I started during my
senior year. I also held on to the boyfriend I'd had since our Junior
year. Her bedroom seemed to have a revolving door and the boys she
picked always seemed like jerks to me. One particular afternoon I
arrived home to hear Steve (her latest jerk) beating her up; she was
crying and begging him to stop and he was beating the crap out of her!
I couldn't believe it and my gut took over. I should have called the
cops, but instead I burst into her bedroom and screamed as loud as I
could, "If you ever touch her again, I'll have you maimed! Now get out
of my house you asshole and don't come back!" A week later, she
invited him back into her life. He said he was sorry, he said he loved
her. I was furious. But she seemed happy and what I wanted more than
anything was for her to be happy. So I didn't say anything, but he was
not allowed in our apartment. She was somewhat irritated about that,
but she didn't fight it too much. And shortly after that she moved
out. I moved back home. Then when Steve dumped her she begged me to
move in together again, which I did, but on the condition that we have
more roommates. I didn't want to get stranded again.

Fast forward through a pregnancy (hers), coerced marriage (hers), big
white wedding (mine), a mother's funeral (hers), two divorces (ours),
two remarriages (ours). Ironically we both married Dougs. But our
Dougs were very different men. Hers was a mormon and when she married
him I was not allowed to come. Mine was a party-boy and when I married
him, she called crying and apologizing that she had not come to the
wedding, something had come up and she and Doug were moving from
Puyallup, Washington to Alabaster, Alabama. She told me she felt
trapped and controlled and Doug made all the decisions and he would not
let her come to California for her best friends wedding. I traveled a
lot for business and once I went out of my way to go visit her in
Alabaster, AL. Good lord, she was a mess. Her second pregnancy was
incredibly difficult, she missed her first son, whom she had left in
Oregon with his alcoholic, pot-head father, terribly. She had been
diagnosed with Crone's disease, and her step-daughter had an incurable
degenerative disease and was losing her hearing at age 6. Her Doug was
seemingly oblivious to all this tragedy, he just went to work for 10 -
12 hours a day and came home to a hot meal. Katie was trying to be a
good mormon wife and had learned to grind wheat into flour and churn
milk into butter. She showed me their stockpile of supplies and their
shelter should nuclear war break-out.

It was pitiful to me. I had tried to save her so many times. I had
given her my heart. I had given her my family. I would have given her
my life, if that were possible. She was so beautiful inside and out,
and she deserved to be so happy. And yet she was anything but happy.
I felt like I had failed her.

They kept moving, supposedly because of Doug's ladder-climbing
egocentric selfishness. From Alabama to Arizona, from Arizona to
Wisconsin and back to Arizona because the winters in Wisconsin wreaked
havoc on Katie's frail body. She had by now been diagnosed with Lupus.
From Arizona they moved to Southern California and I was ecstatic
because I live in Northern California. After 15 years we would finally
be in the same time zone again! We were about to turn 40 and to be
together to celebrate that milestone was heart-warming and exciting and
a little bit dangerous. She came to visit me in May and we got drunk,
got high, and went to a concert! We were acting like we were kids
again, and it was a blast. We stayed up all night talking and looking
at old yearbooks, scrapbooks, and pictures. In August I went to visit
her and we repeated the activities of May. It was like old times and
she seemed to be healthy and somewhat happy. A year later, all of that
changed. A year later, our other close friend (a roommate from so long
ago) also turned 40 and we attempted to re-create the celebrations of
the year prior. Only this time something went horribly wrong.

I arrived in So. Cal to find Katie agitated, driving erratically, and
bitchy. I called our other friend to warn her. When Katie saw me on
the phone she questioned me. Who was I talking to? What did I tell
her? Why did I need to call her when we were supposed to be spending
this time together? That night at a concert, Katie went completely
nuts. Nobody could hear a thing because the music was so loud, but she
was convinced we were talking about her. She spent a lot of time in
the bathroom. We went in to find her crying uncontrollably. She said
she wanted to go home and we decided we had to convince her to stay.
We watched the concert together, but no one was having any fun. My
other friend and I were convinced that things would be better in the
morning. We were driving down to San Diego. Katie said she needed to
stop and pick up a prescription. So we stopped. She took her meds in
the car. We had rented a convertible for the weekend and couldn't
think of anything more fun to do than to drive down the Pacific Coast
Highway with the top down. Katie sat in the back seat. About an hour
into the trip I realized she had stopped talking to us. I turned
around to find her passed out. At one point we stopped to eat, and had
to shake her and yell at her to get her awake. By the time we arrived
at the hotel, we realized she was nearly overdosed. But she managed to
pull herself together enough to get checked in to the hotel. That
night we were supposed to go out, but Katie was asleep by 9pm. By 10am
the next day, we were in crisis mode. Her Doug had called to tell her
he wanted a divorce and she had to get back to L.A. Crap! That meant
we had to drive her there, a 6 hour round-trip even in good traffic.
Why would he do that? Why couldn't he have waited until she got home
the next day! What a jerk! What an idiot! She's a wreck! What are
we going to do, just leave her? We were pissed off. They were ruining
my friend's birthday. What a nightmare.

Some days later, I get a call at home. Katie says, "I'm on my way to
be with my son in Oregon. Can I crash at your place?" Sure, Sure. I
say. Knowing what I know and knowing what I must do.

You see, I called her Doug to bitch him out and tell him what a
self-centered bastard he was and we ended up having a very, very long,
very revealing discussion about my best friend Katie. Turns out that
all these years she has been playing us against each other. Apparently
the "party-girl" I once knew and loved has turned into a junkie. And
junkies will do anything, ANYTHING, to get their fix, cover their lies,
and stay high. Katie has been addicted to crack since High School,
pain-killers since Alabama, and Oxycontin since it first appeared on
the market in 1995. She has told Doug that I'm the one who gets her
into the drugs when we party together, and she told me that Doug is the
one who is responsible for her misery and all those radical moves. In
fact, the reason for the moves is because Doug has been rescuing her
from crack houses, near arrests, and financial ruin for the past 17
years. Every time they moved, and he switched jobs it was because of
her. And when we did drugs together, she supplied them. (I always
wondered, how did she know where to find the stuff? That is one of the
awful things that goes through my mind when I think, "I should have
known, I should have seen it".) Her aches and pains are real but
exaggerated and she has found multiple Doctors to prescribe her the
meds she needs to manage her pain and get her really, really wasted.
She has stolen Oxy from church members. She actually tried to get a
job in a nursing home, so she could steal the patient's medications.
(They didn't hire her.) Her Crone's Disease may actually be her
internal organs shutting down - a side-affect of addiction. Her teeth
are falling out, and her beautiful blonde hair is kept very short to
hide that it too is falling out.

So on the day that she calls me crying that Doug has thrown her out of
the house and she has no where to go except to Oregon, I have already
spoken with an interventionist, a drug-treatment program in Newport
Beach, a Doctor, and Doug. All agree that if we are to help her we
must intervene, except for Doug who is so tired of trying to help her
that he can't be a part of an intervention, but he will find out if his
company will pay for rehab, "...and by the way", he says, "I didn't
throw her out, I was staying at a hotel so she could have the condo..."
So obvious now, so painfully obvious that she's crying out for
something. When she comes to my house, my job will be to convince her
that she's dehydrated and get her into an emergency room. There I will
tell the staff that she has threatened to kill herself. (Which she has
actually done. She told Doug that if he left her she had nothing to
live for and might as well just end it all.) We will be able to get
her committed and then, hopefully, into rehab.

She must have heard something in my voice, because I wait a long time
for her arrival. She should have been here by now. I call her cell
phone, no answer. I try to get some sleep, but where could she be?
Has she already killed herself? Did she crash her car and she's lying
in a ditch somewhere? In the morning, the phone rings, it is her. She
decided to just drive straight on through. Dammit! She must have
known I was going to try to help her. And she doesn't want help. Not
yet anyway.

Oh there is so much more drama that I could go into, the phone calls,
the guilt, the accusing, the name-calling, the apologizing. But the
unchangeable end of this story is that she just doesn't want help. She
wants to be miserable. She believes that's what she deserves because
that's all anybody (besides myself and my mom) ever told her.

I have had a lot of conflicting emotions about this friend. Mostly
grief. I miss her so. And then I stop and think, how can I miss
someone who wasn't even really the person they pretended to be. For
the past 18 years, she has not been a friend to me. She has lied to
me. She has lied about me. So I grieve for 18 years of lost time,
lost reality, lost words, lost little girls who grew up together, but
were never the same.