Chapter 18 ~ Oblivion
April 26, 2010
The first time I used heroin was about three weeks before my eighteenth birthday. That conscious decision, aping Cobain – a single, self-destructive streak that threatened to pull me down whenever I get too sober; too aware of reality. I scored from an old high-school friend I knew was into that sort of shit, history of truancy, hanging with a gang, all of it. Ten bucks. My first taste. Ten bucks.
I melted.
My eighteenth was a blur, with me floating through the whole thing.
Eighteen.
And feeling like I was five again.
* * *
I’d been lying there for over half an hour.
“Kenny… Ken… Kenneth?”
My father’s voice.
“Is he breathing?” she asked from behind him.
“Oh shut up,” his voice exasperated but holding a note of panic that was unusual, normally so calm, so collected, so not worried about his son, “of course he’s breathing.”
“Have you checked?” She was persistent, demanding.
My mother, born with a silver spoon in her mouth and a demand on her lips.
“No, I haven’t bloody well checked, you stupid cow! I don’t need to, I can see he’s…”
“Have you checked?” She was firm.
There was something about her voice. Something.
“All right!” his voice faded as he crossed the room, away from me. “I’ll check he’s breathing, all right? Will that make you happy?”
His voice getting louder as he came back, stomping noise of his feet on the wood flooring of the apartment.
“Go on son, breathe,” he ordered but I didn’t do anything different, just lay there listening to them.
Which was difficult because they chose to be silent for a moment or two.
If I could have remembered how to open my eyelids, I would have. I honestly would.
“Well?” she started to ask.
“Nothing,” he said quietly, finally.
“Nothing?” That something in her question.
“Nothing.”
There was a moment of calm, of complete and utter certainty.
Then she screamed.
And screamed.
And screamed.
But didn’t come any nearer to me.
Never near to me, never.
I caught the odd word, the odd phrase, what they should do, where they should go, who they should call, how did this happen, all the shit that came flying from her mouth.
Her externalized thought careened around the room; at the calm centre, I remained, untouched by the hurricane.
“Shut up,” he said, quietly.
She didn’t comply with his order.
“Shut up,” his voice more forceful this time, slightly louder.
No response.
I opened my eyelids a fraction, viewing them through blurred lashes.
He slapped her straight across the face, her head rocking back with the force of the blow. I lay still, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
She fell silent, shocked, staring at him. Her hand lifted to the red mark developing on her cheek.
He raised his other hand; a mirror.
“I was joking,” he said, waving the reflective surface at her. It caught the sunlight falling through the window and caused it to dance around her eyes.
“You were…”
He nodded in response.
“You are so bloody stupid,” he chided, “that sort of thing only works in the movies. Don’t you know anything?”
She didn’t say anything, just stared at him.
And stared at him.
I watched this, not daring to move.
He threw the mirror onto the chest-of-drawers and turned to walk out of the room.
She let him get through the door before shouting after him.
“Wait! Where do you think you’re going?”
“I need a drink,” he replied without altering his stride.
“A drink?” she yelled, “how can you think about drinking when…”
She glanced in my direction, not long enough to notice I was watching.
Now he stopped, turned around, came back into the bedroom, coming towards the bed.
I closed my eyes.
And he was scooping me up onto his shoulders, his broad shoulders, turning back toward the door.
“Right,” he replied through closed teeth, “I’ll just get him to the hospital, shall I? Tell them that our little boy has gone to sleep and we really don’t have an idea what to do because we’re so bloody stuck-up that we would never be expected to look after our own children, would we? It’s up to the bloody nanny to know what to do if ever there’s an emergency… Are you coming with me?”
She didn’t reply and he decided to twist the dagger a little.
“Oh come on, not against going to the hospital are you? Not afraid that you might catch some infection from the dreadfully poor people who frequent that nasty, dirty place, are you?”
His voice dripped sarcasm. He had spoken the something; her voice filled not with anxiety but instead the risk of embarrassment at being uncovered as an uncaring paren. The fear of being found out, seething within her.
“There’s…” her voice was tiny, as if mumbling to herself, “there’s no need to be like that. I… I didn’t know what to…”
“No, you bloody well didn’t, did you?”
“I…”
“Should have thought.”
“No, I…”
“Should have thought before screaming blue murder and getting me to race halfway across London just to check whether my six-year old son was dead or not?”
“No, I’m…”
“A waste of space? Better at doing Harvey-Nicholls than being a parent?”
“That’s not fair,” she said, voice hardening back to its more usual steel in chiffon, “not at all.”
“True though, isn’t it?”
“I was about to apologise,” her voice hardening, “but you’re too much of a prick to deserve it.”
She pushed past him as she left the room, hitting him hard enough to set him off balance. He span, tumbling backwards onto the bed. I bounced from his shoulder, landing on the pillows. Though I tried to fight it back, there was nothing I could do; I started to laugh.
“Huh?”
I couldn’t keep the giggles back.
“Kenny?”
I laughed.
“Oh, you little bastard!”
Though his words spoke of anger, his voice was mellowing; relief coming through.
“I was…” I spoke through gasps for air, “just… pretending… I…”
He slapped me so hard I fell off the bed.
Walked out the room.
Slammed the door behind him.
I sat there, beginning to cry.
I cried until I fell asleep on the floor.
Where I woke up the next day.
