What Was Left Unsaid: Policy of Truth Part 1
What Was Left Unsaid Chapter Index
Main characters and pairings featured in this chapter: Craig, Joey, Caitlin, social worker Robert. Craig, Ashley, Ellie & Sean friendship.
Brief summary of this chapter: Craig faces the consequences after throwing a party at Joey's and drinking himself into a stupor that lead to the ambulance arriving.
27: Policy of Truth Part 1
Joey first saw Ashley. She looked like the morning after with her eye make-up streaming down her face, dress rumpled, and her mother’s coat thrown over her. For a brief moment he saw what she probably looked at the start of the evening, elegant to Craig and at what they thought was a grown up party. Then quickly all he saw was a kid. Her words weren’t like they usually were, still a little bit drunk although he was sure whatever just happened sobered her up a great deal. She stopped in mid-sentence when she saw him and the hospital staff was quick to notice.
“Craig Manning…is he okay? I’m his father. Joey Jeremiah.,” Joey asked as he rushed forward.
“Craig is being monitored for alcohol poisoning,” a nurse explained, leading the distraught father down the hall.
“What?”
“This is Craig Manning’s father,” The nurse explained to a doctor. “The teen who was admitted for alcohol poisoning.”
Each time she said that it was a stun gun to Joey’s brain. Hours earlier he and Caitlin were in Niagara Falls, enjoying the time alone. It almost felt like they were back in high school; no kids, no work. But when they returned to the bed and breakfast there was a message waiting for him. He glanced behind him and saw his girlfriend with Craig’s, an arm around her and she looked like she was struggling for words. What did they do?
“Dr. Myers,“ he introduced, giving the man’s hand a firm shake. “Craig’s had a very close call. His blood alcohol level was 0.26 and he‘s tested positive for other substances. We’ve taken all precautions to prevent him from aspirating his vomit and have been closely monitoring his breathing and heart rate. You can see him if you like.”
“My mom is with him. I…don’t like hospitals,” Ashley murmured from behind him, feeling like she had to offer up an explanation. They had announced that they could see him after the tube was removed from his throat but she couldn’t do it.
“It’s okay,” Caitlin encouraged, rubbing the teen’s shoulder.
The doctor was still speaking to him but Joey felt like he had cotton stuffed in his ears. He saw him gesture to a room and Joey rushed in, Caitlin and Ashley behind him. Joey went for the hospital bed, Caitlin stopped somewhere in the middle of the room, and Ashley lingered by the door.
“What did you do? What did you do?” Joey repeated as he looked over Craig.
“Fine. I’m fine,” Craig mumbled, not even opening his eyes.
“Craig’s had a lot of alcohol and most likely some prescription pills,” Kate explained, stroking Craig’s hair in a motherly fashion. “They’ve given him some Narcan to wake him up some but he’s still pretty out of it.”
“Why would you do something like this?” Joey demanded of Craig, running a hand over the boy’s head and then taking his hand, which had an IV needle in it.
“We’ve been giving him plenty of fluids to keep him hydrated,” The doctor explained.
“Craig…” Joey searched for the right words.
“He just needs to sleep right now,” Kate reassured.
“Can I have a couple words with you, Mr. Jeremiah?” Dr. Myers interrupted.
“Sure. Of course,” Joey struggled to regain composure. “Thank you, Kate. For being there.” And then to Ashley “You did the right thing.”
“I’m sure your feeling a million different things right now, Mr. Jeremiah but I just have to ask you a few questions and see if we can see the larger picture of what’s going on here.”
Joey nodded rapidly, “I’m still shocked by all this.”
“Does Craig have substance abuse problems?”
“I…I didn’t think he did. I would have seen the signs, right? I’m around my kid.” Joey’s defenses came up in pinpricks.
“I’m not here to judge. I’m only here to treat Craig. He’s a very sick kid right now and I’m concerned about the circumstances that led up to this. About half the alcohol poisoning cases we see in adolescents are their first time drinking.”
“So this happened because he was inexperienced,” Joey rationalized. That would be easier to swallow.
“It may very well be. Mr. Jeremiah, your son had narcotics on him; Oxycontin. This is a substance often abused. We ran a toxicology test on him to determine the type and approximate amount of legal and illegal drugs he has taken. He tested positive for Alcohol, Narcotics, and Benzodiazepines.”
“I…I don’t understand.”
“Mr. Jeremiah is your son on any medications?”
“…No.”
“Has he been on any over the past month? Prescription medications sometimes lay around in the bloodstream and that could be why he is positive.”
Joey shook his head. He watched as the doctor flipped through several charts. “This isn’t the first time your stepson has been involved with prescription medication. He overdosed at age fourteen on painkillers and sedatives.”
Joey cleared his throat. “Um, yes. That was a difficult year for him. His father was abusive and he attempted suicide…it was a cry for help. He’s been in therapy for years and he had a social worker. I adopted him recently and I thought things were going well for him,” Joey paused after rambling nervously about Craig’s past. “His father killed himself. The suicide was over a year ago.”
Dr. Myers nodded soberly.
“Do you have to report this?” Joey finally asked after watching the doctor scribble away in a file.
“We handle that on a case to case basis. We are choosing not to. Craig sounds like he’s having enough troubles as it is.”
I want to go “home,” was the only part Craig actually said. It was like his brain wasn’t sending the message to his body. What did I do…what did I do, he wondered to himself.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Joey soothed, right by Craig’s side the moment he saw him shift in bed. He had one hand on Craig’s shoulder and the other went for the puke bucket. Every time Craig woke up, he’d thrown up. The first time he’d stirred out of sleep it was simply sitting up that had triggered a series of dry heaves.
Craig actually looked him in the eyes and it was almost a relief to Joey. His stepson hadn’t shown too many moments of being aware of his presence. It made his heart pound and he feared for the worst; how much damage had this kid finally done to himself?
“Hey. Craig. What are you doing?” Joey asked as he watched Craig move sloppily, pushing the hospital blankets away and exhale heavily once he was on his feet.
He wasn’t there again, Craig realized. He wasn’t sure what came first. He could feel Joey next to him, holding him. His sight came back next and sort of existed in fragments. There was the plastic tubing of the IV and the blood as it ripped out of his hand.
“Craig. Come on buddy, just get back into bed,” Joey tried to reason but Craig had his own plans. He managed to hit the button to notify a nurse as he guided Craig along.
“Sick,” Craig breathlessly whispered as an explanation as he moved towards a doorway, the bathroom he hoped.
That was how his stepson had been speaking to him lately. With one word and this was the best way he had explained himself so far. Usually it was things he mumbled as he slept or was laying there in bed with eyes half open still in an intoxicated fog. Joey heard him say names and hearing him ask (that was what he assumed) for his parents was the most perplexing. Did he want them there? What was he remembering?
Joey eased Craig down onto the floor by the toilet, his body limp like one of Angie’s dolls. He stayed by his stepson’s side waiting for the moment when the heaving stopped and Craig leaned against the wall, temporarily relieved by the passing nausea.
He slowly started to become more aware; there was Joey wiping his mouth and a nurse beside his side now, fussing with his hand. “Hurt…myself?” he managed to spit out.
“You ripped the IV out of your hand when you got out of bed,” Joey explained.
Craig glanced over at the nurse. It wasn’t anyone he recognized. She knew his name though, soothing “You’ll be okay, Craig.”
He was a little more aware in this moment; the hospital gown damped with sweat and how cold the tiles of the bathroom felt. What did he look like to them, Craig suddenly wondered. He involuntarily shuddered, suddenly cold, and felt Joey’s hand on his head. His step dad was acting like he was taking care of him like he had the flu. Moments from the night before flashed through his brain; the beat from a song blaring on the stereo (man how his head pounded) mixed with the crowd in the living room collided with the touch of Ashley as he pulled her closer to dance (everything was a mess now) and he couldn’t forget the shots of liquor. Didn’t Joey realize what he did? He felt the guilt rumble through him and his stomach churn.
“I don’t want you to see me like this,” Craig choked out, reaching for the toilet again.
He wasn’t aware of Joey again until the dry heaves stopped (he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t stop vomiting when it was obvious he’d puked up everything from his stomach, which was still sore from the drinking the night before). Joey’s hand was on his shoulder, gently massaging it like he wanted to comfort him. But all it did was make his stomach ache worse. “Please. Go,” Craig choked out and limply made an attempt to shove his stepfather’s hand off of him.
He didn’t mean it, Joey reasoned and watched as Craig crouched over the toilet again. That bout of dry heaves left his stepson weak and he and the nurse eased him into a seating position on the floor. Craig made an attempt to shift out of their hands, choking on a sob. It was louder in his head now and it seemed to fuck him as he sat there, drunk and pathetic on the hospital bathroom floor. The thoughts went in and out, memories that thrust into his head so fast that he couldn’t even really place them. His mother’s voice, Ashley, his seventh grade math teacher who scolded him for dozing off in class (not knowing that the night before his dad…), his father accusing him; what felt like voices of everyone he’d ever spoken to thumping into his brain. It was that violating, thoughts taking him someplace they weren’t supposed to go and his emotions felt foreign. What was this?
“Please. Go. Don‘t look,” Craig begged again, his voice still slurred. Then he managed to finish that thought, “At me.”
But Joey couldn’t help but stare. For a moment he could see the little boy still in Craig. He was helpless like that, rubbing at his legs, then his head, and rocking back and forth some. He heard a sniffle from Craig. It took several tries but he finally met his gaze, eyes full of tears. How did he let this kid become such a mess?
“Please. Leave,” Craig repeated and weakly slapped his hand against the bathroom floor.
The nurse nodded at Joey. “I can take care of him,” she encouraged.
Joey got to his feet, unsure if he was moving slowly in actuality or it was just the feeling of the moment. He stalled at the door but then left, noticing how Craig was becoming more agitated in his presence.
“I’m so cold,” Craig complained.
“Let’s get you back into bed then,” Joey heard the nurse encourage as he ducked out of the hospital room.
There was initially confusion, then hurt. He didn’t want him to see him that way and that was understandable, Joey reasoned to himself as he walked down the hospital corridor. But he wanted to be there. That was what he was there for, as the dad. It was what Julia would have wanted.
He wasn’t sure how long he had been wandering; traveling up elevators, looking out hallway windows at a cityscape he didn’t even really see, and sometimes even jogging down flights of stairs to lose some of this nervous energy. But his thoughts kept coming back to her. Maybe it was the hospital. There was a reason he was avoiding the third floor, he realized. So he took the elevator down, watching the digital numbers drop and he even took that same heavy sigh he used to take whenever he would stop by with hopeful flowers.
“I took him in to keep him safe,” Joey silently told his dead wife. “And I can’t even keep him safe from himself.”
He kept circling the floor and going over signs he must’ve missed and options he should take. Deep down, right now he just wanted the Craig he interacted with each day. The Craig he knew. This wasn’t right. Something was off. This wasn’t something he would do. He sighed heavily as he recalled the doctor telling him of Craig’s staggering blood alcohol level and the tox screen results.
“What is happening to my son?” Joey actually said out loud alone in the elevator down to the first floor. He made his way towards the door marked “social work” and listened a number of the staff members, including Robert Schaffer. He had no idea what he was going to say, ashamed that he couldn’t do better for Craig. He remembered the home visits with Craig's social worker and how he felt like he was being graded on his abilities as a parent. He’d failed this kid and he had to do something to make it right.
He finally woke up, really woke up this time. It was like someone shot a jolt of electricity through him and after the stun he felt hollow inside. Maybe he wasn’t really here at all. Craig rolled over slowly, weary of movement. His head throbbed violently but then the pulsating ache went away. He exhaled heavily, his body strangely numb. He felt like he had any bodily fluids sucked out of him and he lay here bone dry and stuffed with cotton. It took him awhile to even process that he was still here, much less in a hospital room.
Hospital room. Now came the moment he knew too well. It was the moment where he grasped at what clues he had of what happened the night before and evaluated who needed to be called and what needed to be fixed. He threw a party at Joey’s, Craig recalled as he struggled to sit up. He began running the list of friends through his head, trying to recall the last time he saw them and what he did or said. He wasn’t sure he could ever fix this mess. Craig sighed and looked over himself, feeling grungy. How long had he been here?
“Good morning Craig,” A nurse greeted as she entered the room. Craig flinched a little at the sound, slowly starting to feel like he actually was alive. Then she said, “I’m going to take your vitals.”
He had forgotten how much he hated hospitals. The lingo they used as they exchanged prognosis and diagnosis and things that concerned the patient but were said like they didn’t.
“How long have I been here?” Craig said and began to cough. He struggled to swallow, his throat dry and scratchy. He graciously accepted a glass of water from the nurse.
“You’ve been here for just over a day.”
Craig watched as the nurse took the empty glass from him then reached for his wrist to take his pulse. His hand was bandaged. His eyes moved over to his left; an IV needle and tube stuck in that one.
“We’ve been giving you plenty of fluids intravenously. You were a pretty sick guy.”
He simply studied her for a moment as she took his pulse, then his temperature. Weren’t they going to mention why? He had been through this before he realized. When he overdosed on pills in a…his brain stuck on this and then spit it out…suicide attempt. The hospital staff and Joey had tiptoed around that and why he’d done it. Was it like this?
“Now that you are feeling better we can get you solid food again. Do you feel like some breakfast?”
Craig shrugged in response, not sure he could trust his stomach. “We’ll keep it light,” the nurse encouraged as she exited the hospital room.
He gazed around the hospital room, taking in the familiar fixtures and the smell that was distinctly hospital. He wondered if he was in the one his mother died in or the one his father worked in, not that it mattered they all seemed the same. Nothing has changed since that one night when he refused to leave his sick mother’s bedside and the staff finally brought a cot in so he could stay. His father’s doctor office, watching him speak softly to a patient and even gave out the occasional reassuring touch to their shoulder or knee. He never was like that to him. Sometimes he was even jealous of the patients and nurses who praised his father. They didn’t see what he saw at home.
“Oatmeal, toast, and orange juice” the nurse interrupted his thoughts as she set down a tray and uncovered it. Craig decided the toast was the safest bet, reached for it, and was stunned by the amount his hand was shaking. “That’s normal. Your blood sugar is just a little wacky. You’ll feel better after you eat,” she reassured him.
“I don’t remember your name,” Craig said after eating some. “I don’t remember anything.”
“Carol,” she said with a smile.
“Joey. Is he here?” Craig wanted to ask for him but the fear of his reaction stopped him.
“Yup. Your dad and step mom have been camping out in the waiting room.”
Hearing this woman call them that threw him for a loop. It almost made him shiver, how surreal all this was.
“Do you want to see him?” Carol watched as the teenager took a few small bites of food, a sip of juice, and then shrugged. “He’s not angry with you. He’s been very worried about you.”
“Um. Yeah. Yeah, I do.” He stared down at his oatmeal, stirring it with his spoon. Maybe he should have thought this over first. Craig had no idea how he was going to explain the party or how he got so completely wasted he had to be hospitalized. He could hear Joey talking with the nurse now; how was he doing, keep the visit short, his son still needed to rest. There was his footsteps approaching the bed now and the mattress shifted as his step dad sat at the foot of the bed.
“How are you feeling?” Joey questioned. He wanted to hug Craig the moment he entered the room but the teenager’s lack of eye contact pushed him away.
“Um, I’m okay actually,” Craig replied after he finished the last of his breakfast. “I wasn’t sure I could eat but this helped a lot.”
“I bet you are coming off of the worst hang over ever.”
Craig smiled nervously. “Joey, I’m sorry. Things got so crazy.”
“Craig, your blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit, “ Joey watched as Craig shrugged. This kid didn’t get it. He stood up, moved the table with the empty tray of food away, and pulled a chair up to Craig’s bed. Joey rubbed Craig’s upper arm, then his shoulder. “Craig. Look at me.”
Craig managed to raise his eyes for a few seconds, then let his gaze drop back down into his lap. He wished he could sink into the floor. “I’m sorry. I’m so embarrassed about all this. I don‘t even want to think about what I did at the party, what I looked like.”
“I don’t think you get it,” Joey sighed. “Anymore alcohol in you and you could have slipped into a coma…or died. You were so lucky you had friends there to take care of you and keep you from choking on your vomit. You were so lucky. Unbelievably lucky.”
“Um, what happened?”
“You passed out and Ashley couldn’t wake you up. She called up 911 and her mom who…”
“She called her mom?” Craig sighed.
“She was scared. You gave us all quite a scare. They couldn’t wake you up and your breathing was so slow, they said. There is no cure for alcohol poisoning, Craig. By the time you were brought here to the hospital it was already in your system. They just had to keep monitoring your breathing and heart rate and help you breathe if you couldn’t on your own. You had a very close call.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so stupid. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“This isn’t the first time you’ve been intoxicated,” Joey had to say, remembering that night when his stepson had first moved in and returned home after skipping school drunk…and high. “And this isn’t the first time you’ve taken those pills. The…Oxy.”
Joey felt like he’d been schooled in casual drug use over the past 24 hours but that didn’t make it any less awkward using slang to try to relate to his kid. What was he doing here? Joey felt out of his league trying to raise a teenager.
“When you first came to live with me, you were mixed up with those. Besides for your suicide attempt there was a night you came home drunk and you said you took them then,” Joey thought out loud, trying to make sense of this.
“Didn’t I use Valium or something? All that was before I even knew what any of it was or what it did. I just knew that if I took enough, I‘d die. And that‘s not what I was doing last night,” Craig tried.
Joey wasn’t sure which was worse.
“And I haven’t done any of that since then. But it’s just I knew what it would do now and I took things too far. It won’t happen again. I’m sorry,” Craig continued. He knew it was a lie. He wasn’t sure where the words were coming from but it was from a place where it didn’t feel like lying. After all, the truth was complicated. Craig was biting a fingernail now, trying to sort it out in his head. How could he explain it to Joey when he didn’t even get it?
“Craig…do you have a problem with drugs and alcohol?”
That question didn’t even make sense to him. He knew he couldn’t answer that. It made his skin crawl and his insides hop around. His heart was pounding and he looked at Joey and hoped his eyes didn’t look as frantic as he felt. He shook his head. “I just took things too far the other night. Things have been so crazy lately since the school shooting. My dad…he…just over a year ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were having such a hard time?”
Craig shrugged, fidgeting with the hospital blankets. “You are busy with the car lot. I didn’t want to be a burden. I thought I had it under control.”
“Buddy, you can always come and talk to me. No matter what my day has been like.”
“Oh I know. I know. I didn’t mean to make it sound that way.”
Joey nodded in agreement, feeling another wave of guilt sock him in the gut. Maybe he had been too busy lately. He hadn’t seen any of the signs. Nothing out of the ordinary. “I’m sorry you are having a hard time but you can’t get wasted and expect things to get better. Things are going to be there when you wake up in the morning.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m going to try not to do that anymore. Because it doesn’t work. I know I screwed up, Joey,“ Craig took a deep breath. “Sometimes I just really miss my mom. And…my dad. In this weird way. I went to the cemetery the day before the party. It was the first time I saw…my…dad.”
Joey reached for Craig at that moment and gave him a quick hug.
“And I guess I just got into a headspace or something. I don’t know. I’m so sorry.”
“That’s so scary,” the words fell out of Joey’s mouth and he still felt like he was letting this kid down. “We’re going to get you help.”
Joey and Caitlin sat with Robert in his office. He first presented them with coffee, then launched into what felt like a school guidance counselor suggesting universities only this was clinics, psychiatric wards, and substance abuse counselors. Some clinics came with brochures, others a list of guidelines of how to encourage your loved one to enter treatment. Joey wasn’t ready for any of it.
“He threw a party and took it too far. He just needs boundaries at home. I’ll get him back into counseling,” Joey reasoned and ran a hand over his bald head.
“Craig might need more than that. Most kids don’t nearly drink themselves to death and pair alcohol with narcotics,” Caitlin reminded.
“He said that he just took things too far. It’s my fault. I should have noticed he was getting into that and hanging with the wrong crowd.”
“We’re just going over options right now,” Robert reminded, familiar with the deep denial a parent could have when it came to issues like this.
“We talked earlier. Really talked. He hasn’t opened up to me like that in awhile,” Joey thought out loud.
“He needs a dad, Joey. Not a friend,” Caitlin remarked after a moment of uncomfortable silence.
“What are you saying? If I had started cracking down on him about curfew and beer this wouldn’t have happened?”
“I know you wanted to be the fun dad or let him know that it was different here than at Albert’s…”
“You haven’t been around. I had no clue it was this bad,” Joey replied and felt the guilt set in again. “I don’t know how I didn’t know. But I know now and I‘ll make sure Craig knows there‘s consequences. Grounding. I‘ll make sure I know where he is every hour of the day and the names of all his friends. He took things too far.”
“Kids sometimes have bigger problems. Sometimes they need more help than grounding. But we can’t take a closer look at what’s going on until he detoxes. The best place to have that happen is in a clinic setting.”
“My kid isn’t a drug addict,” Joey couldn’t help state. “I would know if he was bringing drugs into my house. I’m around him. It’s not like I’m not home.”
“Craig isn’t a bad person because he has some substance abuse issues,” Robert tried to soothe the defensive father. “It’s hard to know the signs unless you know what you are looking for. Prescription drug abuse is becoming more and more common with teenagers because they easy to get. Kids don’t understand that it’s dangerous because it’s legal.”
Joey looked over the information on a residential treatment program. Craig would be allowed home on the weekends for that. His brain was frantic with reasoning; he would be home on weekends , he would only be home for weekends, no visitors for the first 48 hours, evening visits during the week and weekend afternoons. Joey shook his head. “He’s just having some tough times. It was a mistake to stop with the counseling with his school psychologist.”
“Joey, you said after the adoption it was extremely difficult to get him to attend sessions,” Caitlin reminded.
“So he needs a push from us. Before it was easier to convince him to go because he had a social worker and it was a requirement that he attend. I can get the school involved and we’ll give him an ultimatum. Counseling or he’s out of Degrassi,” Joey looked over at Robert, who was looking unconvinced but seemed to be chewing the idea over.
“Joey,” Craig greeted with a smile, even though it wasn’t his first visit. He was just surprised the guy kept coming back. His face fell and he could practically feel the color draining from it as he watched who walked in after him. “What?”
“It’s been awhile since I’ve seen you, Craig. How are you doing?” his former social worker greeted.
He lowered his head and nodded, feeling completely defeated. For a moment it was like when he first met the guy. He had the same suspicions. This guy liked to dig around in his head and his home life, looking for what was wrong.
“What’s going on?” Craig finally spoke up. “Why are you here?”
“I stopped in to see him after you had been admitted here to the hospital,” Joey slowly explained. “I just need to know how to help…I had no idea you were going through such a rough patch.”
“Okay, no. Wait. Just wait.”
Robert noticed that the teen’s breathing was becoming more rapid, his chest pumping up and down. “I’m not here to take you away from Joey’s. I’m here to help. We want to help you, Craig.”
“I’m sorry I ruined your weekend with Caitlin, Joey. Does she hate me?”
“No. No one hates you. But we’re all very worried about you. Snake found these being passed around,” Joey said and handed Craig flyer.
Craig swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Sixteen is suicide?” Robert questioned.
“It’s a metaphor!”
“Your father has been dead for about a year right? Still having trouble coming to terms with that?”
“I don’t know. I’m never really used to any of…that.”
“That’s fine. No one is saying you have to get over it. But you need to talk to people about it.”
Craig decided to nod, bopping his head up and down twice. Easier said than done. “But I wasn’t thinking about it when I planned the party. I wasn’t thinking period. Do I ever think? No. I’m a jerk, Joey.”
“There’s going to consequences for all that,” Joey decided to say. Then he reminded, “The theme of the party, Craig. Sixteen is suicide?”
“It was a metaphor! How this is a time when things end and others begin. Life and death but live life to the fullest.”
The social worker looked cynical. “That’s the message behind the theme and then you drink yourself to a point where your friends can’t wake you and you need to be admitted to the hospital?”
“Oh come on like I’d invite the whole school over to watch me kill myself. Yeah, that sounds like a sure fire way to get the job done.”
“So you’ve thought about the most effective way?”
“No. No! I’m just saying if I wanted to kill myself I wouldn’t throw a party and try to drink myself to death.”
“What would you do?”
“Well, my dad sure…I mean…what? Nothing.”
“Two years ago you overdosed on the same kind of drugs you were taking tonight,” Joey stated and tried to wrap his mind around this. Maybe it was a suicide attempt. Either way, this kid was just asking for help.
“I honestly don’t remember taking anything, Joey.”
“You had pills on you. They were turned over to the paramedics. When someone is brought to the ER your condition they run a toxicology screen to see what drugs you had in your system and you tested positive for Alcohol, Narcotics, and Benzodiazepines “ Robert stated flatly.
“Okay. Okay. I know I probably took something but I honestly don’t remember. I might have been saving them. I don‘t know. I can‘t remember.”
“What do you remember? What happened at the party? Was someone daring you to drink that much?” Joey prompted, imaging the crowd of high school boys with their beer bongs.
“Um, we were doing shots. And then after awhile I just forgot how much I had to drink, I guess. I don’t drink that often, Joey. And it’s usually just a couple beers. I didn’t know what I was doing.” He was so scared that the words just fell out of him. Craig glanced over at Joey, who was nodding rapidly and had a sort of far away look in his eyes. Then he shifted his gaze over to the social worker who looked much more cynical. He looked down again, ashamed. He worked so hard to convince myself that what he was doing was normal and he was certain it would take even more effort to convince anyone else. He had been dreading a moment like this.
“Craig, you need to be honest with us about what you are using and how much of it. Going cold turkey off meds like Oxycontin or Benzodiazepines like Xanax can be dangerous. The symptoms of withdrawing off of Oxy has been compared to heroin withdrawal and seizures are a very scary symptom some Xanax abusers experience,” Robert said.
“This is like the third time I’ve done Oxy, I swear. I didn’t know what I was doing that night. I wasn’t thinking straight. And the benzos…I’m sure I just tested positive for that because of the Xanax or whatever it was I used to take when my Dad died.”
Joey shook his head. “That was over a year ago.”
“I know but…okay I know it was wrong but this one dude; I can’t even remember his name now, he was in my history class. Well he hooked me up with a bottle. I guess his mom has panic attacks or something and always a script laying around. So I thought it’d mellow me out when I freak out about my dad. I can’t sleep sometimes and I just feel all anxious you know?“ Craig rambled and found that the words came easy to him. It actually felt like the truth. That was what he did sometimes. “And I didn’t want you to worry about me or think I was crazy or anything so I didn’t tell you about them. I thought I could just take care of it with the meds myself. Because they were prescribed to me once before.”
“That’s illegal Craig. To take prescription medication that wasn’t prescribed to you,” Robert clarified.
“It didn’t seem like it was wrong at the time. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Believe me after what happened last night, I’m scared to touch anything.”
“How often are you having anxiety attacks?”
“Um, I don’t know. Not that often. It’s just been hard like around this time of year.”
“Craig, I can’t help but take what you did very seriously. If you are struggling, we can get you help. It’s anything to feel ashamed of if you are having a hard time coming to terms with things that have happened in the past,” the social worker hesitated. “Maybe you should consider taking some time to really focus dealing with the issues. It might be hard at first but it might be just what you need. There’s a residential program here at the hospital.”
Craig couldn’t even process all that. “No.”
“You stay there during the week and return home on the weekends. During the day you attend individual therapy sessions as well as group. They work with the school and you’ll be tutored several hours a day.”
“Joey, I’m not crazy. I don‘t need anything like that.”
“We’re just talking about options right now.”
“I haven’t seen you in over six months how do you know what I need anyway?” Craig demanded of Robert.
“Craig you don’t have to get so defensive,” Joey couldn’t help but say.
“But you don’t understand. Like nothing has ever been certain in my life. Being at your house is like the one stable thing. And if I’m not there…”
“The hospitalization wouldn’t be a long term thing. I’m not here to take you away from Joey’s,” Robert tried to reason with the teen.
“Please don’t just give up on me Joey. You are like the one person who doesn’t…leave. Joey, I just want to go home. With you,” Craig said, feeling tears threaten. “I ruin everything. I lose everything.”
Joey embraced Craig at the sound of that. “You haven’t lost anybody. I’m still here.”
“I just really want to go home. With you. I hate being here. It‘s just reminding me of that one time when I took all those pills and I had no idea if I was going to be sent back to my dad‘s or where I would go because I could not go back there.”
Joey could feel the social worker’s gaze on them and noted how he seemed to be observing them rather intensely. He was never going to get used to this guy evaluating his relationship with Craig. But he was the dad now, officially. He was in charge and he knew that he could help this kid. Craig wasn’t a lost cause. “Okay, buddy. Your coming home with me. We’ll get through this together like we have everything else.”
“You mean that?” Craig asked with a small smile as he broke free of Joey’s embrace so he could meet his eyes.
“Of course. Your home is with me.”
“I feel very strongly that we need to get you some kind of support, Craig,” Robert encouraged.
“Not anything where you take me away from Joey’s.”
“Okay. Inpatient therapy is not on the table right now. But outpatient is. I’m going to give your step dad a list of therapists that might work well with your issues. And some recommendations of psychologists who do substance abuse evaluations.”
Joey nodded rapidly to that. It took Craig a few moments to cave and give a small nod in return.
“There’s a lot of bereavement camps that operate in the summer. I can give you a list of websites, some brochures. It might be good for you to reach out and interact with other teens who’ve lost someone like you have.”
“That might be good for you, actually,” Joey agreed. “You know we all care about you very much but we can’t relate to you like one of your peers who’s lost a parent.”
“Oh no. No. Like going to a camp and doing arts and crafts about my dead parents is going to help.”
“Okay…well, I think you know that we are going to want you to start meeting with Ms. Sauvé again,” Joey paused and then delivered the news. “I think the school is going to require it. Or else recommend suspension.”
“Okay. I guess. I guess that’d be okay. I mean, I know her. I don’t want to talk to strangers I don’t even know. Or be someplace strange. Joey, I can’t do that right now. I just want everything to be how it was before.”
Over the past few days all that Joey cared about was knowing that Craig would be alright. He still felt that and like Craig, just wanted him at home. But something else was seeping in; things wouldn’t be how they used to be. How could they?
Joey returned home over his lunch break, no intention of throwing together a sandwich or heating up some soup. He could barely focus at work; details he had no trouble reciting about cars before had been erased from his brain and he struggled with potential sales. It didn’t even bother him when he blew one. That just meant he could retreat to his office, pace the small space, and think.
He went for the answering machine first and was hit with dread. 2 new messages. He was certain one of them would be the school, informing them of Craig's disappearance from the rest of his classes or worse yet, he was completely blitzed in math class. His heart pounded. First message, from his mother, played. He had no idea what was said. Update on Angie, he assumed. More guilt; he always sent her to his mother’s when he had to deal with these situations with Craig. Second message was from a telemarketer and Joey sighed in relief. He had enough humiliation with Craig at school this morning.
They both sat in the office, familiar with the wait of seeing the principal. Joey felt like he was fifteen again and about to be yelled at. He almost thought he should be, still feeling the blame of letting Craig descend into a lifestyle of partying that lead to a hit and miss with alcohol poisoning. Mr. Raditch greeted them and encouraged them into his office. He saw a flicker of sympathy in the principals eyes; Craig did not, his eyes on the floor. Joey put a firm band on Craig’s shoulder and ushered him. They both sat stiffly down and waited for it.
“I’m going to ask you this once. Do you have a drug or alcohol problem?” Mr. Raditch questioned.
“Nah. No. Um,” Craig paused. The tension was thick and heavy.
“We want to help you but we can’t do that if you don’t want it. The school is willing to allow you back in if you agree to regular counseling sessions with Ms. Sauvé. If you refuse help, I think some time out of school would give you time to reflect on what direction you want your life to go in.”
Joey nodded at the principal, still feeling a little rattled from the phone call he’d made the day before informing him that Craig probably needed an extra push to get him back into any form of therapy. He stared at Craig, waiting. His heart pounded. He didn‘t think they would actually have to go through the ultimatum. “Craig. It’s see Ms. Sauvé or you are out of DCS.”
“Do you have a substance abuse problem?” the principal prompted again.
“Yeah, I guess maybe I do. Sort of.”
“And do you want help for it?”
“Yeah.”
Joey watched as his stepson sunk lower into his seat as they went over the schedule for seeing Ms. Sauvé, some days after school, another during his study hall.
“There’s one more thing. I think it’d be a good idea for us to go through your locker. Just to get rid of anything that should NOT be there. Consider this your second chance.”
Craig wasn’t even speaking by that point and communicated through gestures. This got a shrug out of him and he followed them to his locker like he was awaiting an execution. Joey still thought that it was simply that it was humiliating to have them going through his personal belongings. His stepson had been compliant, entering the combination and opening the locker. Then he moved off to the side, hands in his pockets and didn’t raise his eyes as the principal went through his things.
Joey saw as his eyes widened when Mr. Raditch pulled out a half empty bottle of Gatorade. He opened it, smelled it, and then passed it to him. Joey smelled at the beverage; it was strong with the smell of alcohol.
“You were drinking in school?” he questioned. Craig’s eyes were on the floor again.
It dragged on and on, his locker was a mess. Craig hoped that Raditch would grow tired and quit paying attention to the details; his art supplies came out and he searched through each box of charcoal pencils and other materials. Joey noticed when Craig nervously shifted his feet when his camera bag came out. Craig held his breath as the principal removed each canister; the third to the last rattling with what was certainly not a roll of film. He watched as Raditch emptied pills into his palm.
“Oh my God Craig,” Joey gasped. Craig could only shrug in response, weak with defeat.
And then Joey knew what he had to do. He paused outside of Craig’s room, his hand on the doorknob. A part of him didn’t want to know. A part of him wanted to look away. He knew that was what Caitlin thought he was doing, her eyes fresh to their currently troubled household. Joey took a deep breath and opened the door. This whole experience had been like waking up to morning fog, the traffic slow to work and slightly surreal as all the landmarks and exit signs lost in the haze. But the sun came out and you could see exactly what had been there the whole time. This was like the shock of a Monday morning back at work.
Joey started with the closet. Craig’s wreck of a closet. He pushed the clothes on hangers as close to the wall as he could get them and started to dig. He found several empty liquor bottles underneath a pile of dirty laundry, a half full bottle of vodka on the top shelf behind a stack of photography and music magazines. There was more half-empty bottles stashed everywhere he looked. Joey overturned the dresser and desk drawers and sifted through the mess of socks and art supplies. He recalled how Craig stored pills in that film canister in his locker and was sure to shake each one, his heart growing heavier each time he discovered another one of Craig’s secret stashes.
“What is going on with you, Craig?” Joey mumbled to himself as he looked at the pile of bottles on the floor. His son wasn’t okay. It had all been lies at the hospital.
His mouth dropped and for a moment he felt that feeling like what he’d felt when his father trashed his darkroom. There wasn’t broken glass and the posters weren’t torn from the walls but it was obvious someone had been in here. Drawers were open, the contents rummaged through. His clothes were pushed around in the closet.
“What happened to my room?” Craig questioned, stalking into the kitchen. He froze when he saw the liquor bottles lined up on the kitchen table. Some were half full, others bone dry. It actually took him a moment to even see the rest of the display; pill bottles, a pile of stray capsules, and his fake ID.
Joey and Caitlin watched for his reaction, both with different expressions on their faces. Caitlin couldn’t help but feel disconnected from the situation; she’d only been around Craig for about a week since returning home. Joey didn’t blink and wasn’t sure how to deal with what felt like a betrayal.
Craig couldn’t speak. He stared for a moment and tried to process what felt like a nightmare. He’d always felt that fear of being discovered and they could take away the only thing that made him able to function. How would he sleep now? What would he do when something random reminded him of his father and in a sick twisted way he just wanted to be hit again? Or when he’d recall how powerless it felt to be in that situation and wanted to punch walls? He couldn’t do any of that. So he’d drink. Or take the pills that softened the blows all that gave to him. The safety net was gone and he felt like he was hitting bottom. Craig grabbed the wall to steady himself.
“You lied to me,” Joey accused.
Craig just shook his head. It didn’t feel like a lie. Joey just didn’t get it. If things hurt this bad and it felt so wrong to be sober, what other option was there?
“From the party,” Craig managed to say.
Joey laughed bitterly at that and had to turn away. He couldn’t stand the sight of his stepson as horrible as that sounded.
“I was going to throw it all out after I got out of the hospital. I just didn’t…”
“Stop lying to me,” Joey yelled and whirled around. He watched as Craig opened his mouth but all that happened was two quick gasps for air. “Just stop the lying!”
This wasn’t real. It wasn’t happening. “Sorry.”
“What was it you said in the hospital? Come on, tell it to me again. Look me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t drink that often and have only done Oxycontin a few times.”
Craig stared down at the floor.
“I don’t even know what half these are,” Joey angrily remarked as he picked up the pill bottle and watched the assortment of colored pills tumbled in the bottle. He turned it over in his hand. The label was from a nearby pharmacy and read Joseph Jeremiah, his home address, Flexeril, take one every four to six hours as needed for pain. He recognized a few of the tablets from when used to take the drug for when he threw out his back. “I forgot all about this. You took what was left of my medication, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“You keep your stash of drugs in a bottle that has my name on it. And that didn’t bother you at all?”
“Joey, it’s complicated. I don’t know how to explain how it happened.”
“Well, you sure as hell better try,” Joey shouted. He took a deep breath. He’d had to yell at Craig before when the teen missed curfew or blew off a homework assignment. Sometimes he felt like it took force to, like he was expected to be angry. Now he could barely control it. “When did all this start?”
Craig closed his eyes for a moment, sure he was about to pass out. He’d forgotten how to handle anything. A part of him wanted to lunge forward and grab that bottle of vodka or whisky and down gulp after gulp like his conscious wasn’t there. Just make it all go away for the time being. Where was he going to be after this was over with?
“Craig. How long has this been going on?”
“Awhile. Summer before Grade 10.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“But I wasn’t the only one drinking!”
“And here I thought it was just beer at Sean’s.” Joey felt the blame again; he should have kept a tighter rein on this kid.
“It is. It was.”
“I have no idea who you are anymore. I don’t know what to believe,” Joey said after a moment of silence, his tone full of sadness and disappointment. He gestured to the bottles of alcohol and pills on the kitchen table. “I guess I just have to believe what’s in front of me.”
“It just got this bad recently.”
“I bet you think I’m an idiot,” Joey remarked and reflected on all the times this had flown under the radar.
“No, Joey. I don’t. Don’t think that.”
“How can I not think that when you have a mini bar stashed in your bedroom? That little act you pulled in the hospital…lying through your teeth and crying about how you just wanted to come home? That was so you could keep doing what you’ve always been doing; lying, drinking, and popping pills.”
Craig shook his head. He could hear Joey pacing around. He had never seen him this angry before. “Things just got out of control,” Craig mumbled, fidgeting.
“Shut your mouth,” Joey finally snapped, sick of hearing everything that came out of it. He watched as Craig’s face shifted from shock, to embarrassment, and then settled submission. “I am so sick of you using every single excuse.”
“Okay. Okay, Joey calm down,” Caitlin finally spoke up and took a few steps in between the father and son. “We all just need a little breathing room. Craig go upstairs to your room.”
Craig nodded rapidly. He moved towards the stairs, his hand still on the wall to steady himself. At moments he was sure he was going to pass out; this can’t be happening. He nearly went out the front door, feeling trapped and panicked. He couldn’t breathe in here. Instead he went upstairs, feeling like he was floating into the bathroom. There was dry heaves at the toilet, the opening of the medicine cabinet and frantic digging. There had to be something he could take. If you take enough of anything you get some sort of buzz right?
He went for the bottle of cough syrup, taking a few gulps. It was thick like honey and the taste bitter and artificial. But he got himself to swallow. The bottle of over the counter pain medication. He just wanted to swallow anything. It just had to fill him up. He took a couple with frantic handfuls of water from the sink and nearly choked. Back to the toilet, the cough syrup coming up tinted like raspberries.
“Just make it go away,” he pleaded on the floor, realizing he was so low but no idea how to make anything better. It took him awhile to actually regain any strength to return to his feet. Craig returned to his room, feeling foggy. This all couldn’t be happening. His brain listed a checklist of all the places he stashed pints of booze and bottles of pills. He went through each one, checking it off. It was all gone.
“Fuck. Fuck,” Craig whispered to himself.
His hands wouldn’t stop shaking and he couldn’t breathe. He told himself to inhale and took a sharp breath. Joey just didn’t get it. If he had to feel this way he’d drink and take whatever he could get his hands on too. He didn’t understand how things could be so low and then so high and at the end of the day Craig often felt like he’d been through a war.
It wasn’t safe here anymore, he decided and went for his backpack. He dumped the school books, pencils, and random litter of papers onto the floor. It was safe before, when he first came here. But things started to creep in. His father finally died and he was still here, wandering around in his head and telling him that he deserved to be hit. He still gave him the beatings in nightmares.
Craig stuffed clothes into his bag, not really noticing what he was grabbing. Cash. He needed cash. Focus, focus, he urged himself. But he couldn’t do it. Moments of red hot panic and terror before were put out with sips of liquor. Having all that in his room felt safe before. It gave him someplace else to go. It was safe. He sat there on the bed, clutching his bag of clothes as he debated running away. Somehow he managed to wait until the storm of thoughts cleared and he tucked the bag under his bed. He had a back-up plan now.
It's finally happened. My chapter is too big for livejournal.
Chapter 27: Policy of Truth Part 2
Main characters and pairings featured in this chapter: Craig, Joey, Caitlin, social worker Robert. Craig, Ashley, Ellie & Sean friendship.
Brief summary of this chapter: Craig faces the consequences after throwing a party at Joey's and drinking himself into a stupor that lead to the ambulance arriving.
27: Policy of Truth Part 1
Joey first saw Ashley. She looked like the morning after with her eye make-up streaming down her face, dress rumpled, and her mother’s coat thrown over her. For a brief moment he saw what she probably looked at the start of the evening, elegant to Craig and at what they thought was a grown up party. Then quickly all he saw was a kid. Her words weren’t like they usually were, still a little bit drunk although he was sure whatever just happened sobered her up a great deal. She stopped in mid-sentence when she saw him and the hospital staff was quick to notice.
“Craig Manning…is he okay? I’m his father. Joey Jeremiah.,” Joey asked as he rushed forward.
“Craig is being monitored for alcohol poisoning,” a nurse explained, leading the distraught father down the hall.
“What?”
“This is Craig Manning’s father,” The nurse explained to a doctor. “The teen who was admitted for alcohol poisoning.”
Each time she said that it was a stun gun to Joey’s brain. Hours earlier he and Caitlin were in Niagara Falls, enjoying the time alone. It almost felt like they were back in high school; no kids, no work. But when they returned to the bed and breakfast there was a message waiting for him. He glanced behind him and saw his girlfriend with Craig’s, an arm around her and she looked like she was struggling for words. What did they do?
“Dr. Myers,“ he introduced, giving the man’s hand a firm shake. “Craig’s had a very close call. His blood alcohol level was 0.26 and he‘s tested positive for other substances. We’ve taken all precautions to prevent him from aspirating his vomit and have been closely monitoring his breathing and heart rate. You can see him if you like.”
“My mom is with him. I…don’t like hospitals,” Ashley murmured from behind him, feeling like she had to offer up an explanation. They had announced that they could see him after the tube was removed from his throat but she couldn’t do it.
“It’s okay,” Caitlin encouraged, rubbing the teen’s shoulder.
The doctor was still speaking to him but Joey felt like he had cotton stuffed in his ears. He saw him gesture to a room and Joey rushed in, Caitlin and Ashley behind him. Joey went for the hospital bed, Caitlin stopped somewhere in the middle of the room, and Ashley lingered by the door.
“What did you do? What did you do?” Joey repeated as he looked over Craig.
“Fine. I’m fine,” Craig mumbled, not even opening his eyes.
“Craig’s had a lot of alcohol and most likely some prescription pills,” Kate explained, stroking Craig’s hair in a motherly fashion. “They’ve given him some Narcan to wake him up some but he’s still pretty out of it.”
“Why would you do something like this?” Joey demanded of Craig, running a hand over the boy’s head and then taking his hand, which had an IV needle in it.
“We’ve been giving him plenty of fluids to keep him hydrated,” The doctor explained.
“Craig…” Joey searched for the right words.
“He just needs to sleep right now,” Kate reassured.
“Can I have a couple words with you, Mr. Jeremiah?” Dr. Myers interrupted.
“Sure. Of course,” Joey struggled to regain composure. “Thank you, Kate. For being there.” And then to Ashley “You did the right thing.”
“I’m sure your feeling a million different things right now, Mr. Jeremiah but I just have to ask you a few questions and see if we can see the larger picture of what’s going on here.”
Joey nodded rapidly, “I’m still shocked by all this.”
“Does Craig have substance abuse problems?”
“I…I didn’t think he did. I would have seen the signs, right? I’m around my kid.” Joey’s defenses came up in pinpricks.
“I’m not here to judge. I’m only here to treat Craig. He’s a very sick kid right now and I’m concerned about the circumstances that led up to this. About half the alcohol poisoning cases we see in adolescents are their first time drinking.”
“So this happened because he was inexperienced,” Joey rationalized. That would be easier to swallow.
“It may very well be. Mr. Jeremiah, your son had narcotics on him; Oxycontin. This is a substance often abused. We ran a toxicology test on him to determine the type and approximate amount of legal and illegal drugs he has taken. He tested positive for Alcohol, Narcotics, and Benzodiazepines.”
“I…I don’t understand.”
“Mr. Jeremiah is your son on any medications?”
“…No.”
“Has he been on any over the past month? Prescription medications sometimes lay around in the bloodstream and that could be why he is positive.”
Joey shook his head. He watched as the doctor flipped through several charts. “This isn’t the first time your stepson has been involved with prescription medication. He overdosed at age fourteen on painkillers and sedatives.”
Joey cleared his throat. “Um, yes. That was a difficult year for him. His father was abusive and he attempted suicide…it was a cry for help. He’s been in therapy for years and he had a social worker. I adopted him recently and I thought things were going well for him,” Joey paused after rambling nervously about Craig’s past. “His father killed himself. The suicide was over a year ago.”
Dr. Myers nodded soberly.
“Do you have to report this?” Joey finally asked after watching the doctor scribble away in a file.
“We handle that on a case to case basis. We are choosing not to. Craig sounds like he’s having enough troubles as it is.”
I want to go “home,” was the only part Craig actually said. It was like his brain wasn’t sending the message to his body. What did I do…what did I do, he wondered to himself.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Joey soothed, right by Craig’s side the moment he saw him shift in bed. He had one hand on Craig’s shoulder and the other went for the puke bucket. Every time Craig woke up, he’d thrown up. The first time he’d stirred out of sleep it was simply sitting up that had triggered a series of dry heaves.
Craig actually looked him in the eyes and it was almost a relief to Joey. His stepson hadn’t shown too many moments of being aware of his presence. It made his heart pound and he feared for the worst; how much damage had this kid finally done to himself?
“Hey. Craig. What are you doing?” Joey asked as he watched Craig move sloppily, pushing the hospital blankets away and exhale heavily once he was on his feet.
He wasn’t there again, Craig realized. He wasn’t sure what came first. He could feel Joey next to him, holding him. His sight came back next and sort of existed in fragments. There was the plastic tubing of the IV and the blood as it ripped out of his hand.
“Craig. Come on buddy, just get back into bed,” Joey tried to reason but Craig had his own plans. He managed to hit the button to notify a nurse as he guided Craig along.
“Sick,” Craig breathlessly whispered as an explanation as he moved towards a doorway, the bathroom he hoped.
That was how his stepson had been speaking to him lately. With one word and this was the best way he had explained himself so far. Usually it was things he mumbled as he slept or was laying there in bed with eyes half open still in an intoxicated fog. Joey heard him say names and hearing him ask (that was what he assumed) for his parents was the most perplexing. Did he want them there? What was he remembering?
Joey eased Craig down onto the floor by the toilet, his body limp like one of Angie’s dolls. He stayed by his stepson’s side waiting for the moment when the heaving stopped and Craig leaned against the wall, temporarily relieved by the passing nausea.
He slowly started to become more aware; there was Joey wiping his mouth and a nurse beside his side now, fussing with his hand. “Hurt…myself?” he managed to spit out.
“You ripped the IV out of your hand when you got out of bed,” Joey explained.
Craig glanced over at the nurse. It wasn’t anyone he recognized. She knew his name though, soothing “You’ll be okay, Craig.”
He was a little more aware in this moment; the hospital gown damped with sweat and how cold the tiles of the bathroom felt. What did he look like to them, Craig suddenly wondered. He involuntarily shuddered, suddenly cold, and felt Joey’s hand on his head. His step dad was acting like he was taking care of him like he had the flu. Moments from the night before flashed through his brain; the beat from a song blaring on the stereo (man how his head pounded) mixed with the crowd in the living room collided with the touch of Ashley as he pulled her closer to dance (everything was a mess now) and he couldn’t forget the shots of liquor. Didn’t Joey realize what he did? He felt the guilt rumble through him and his stomach churn.
“I don’t want you to see me like this,” Craig choked out, reaching for the toilet again.
He wasn’t aware of Joey again until the dry heaves stopped (he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t stop vomiting when it was obvious he’d puked up everything from his stomach, which was still sore from the drinking the night before). Joey’s hand was on his shoulder, gently massaging it like he wanted to comfort him. But all it did was make his stomach ache worse. “Please. Go,” Craig choked out and limply made an attempt to shove his stepfather’s hand off of him.
He didn’t mean it, Joey reasoned and watched as Craig crouched over the toilet again. That bout of dry heaves left his stepson weak and he and the nurse eased him into a seating position on the floor. Craig made an attempt to shift out of their hands, choking on a sob. It was louder in his head now and it seemed to fuck him as he sat there, drunk and pathetic on the hospital bathroom floor. The thoughts went in and out, memories that thrust into his head so fast that he couldn’t even really place them. His mother’s voice, Ashley, his seventh grade math teacher who scolded him for dozing off in class (not knowing that the night before his dad…), his father accusing him; what felt like voices of everyone he’d ever spoken to thumping into his brain. It was that violating, thoughts taking him someplace they weren’t supposed to go and his emotions felt foreign. What was this?
“Please. Go. Don‘t look,” Craig begged again, his voice still slurred. Then he managed to finish that thought, “At me.”
But Joey couldn’t help but stare. For a moment he could see the little boy still in Craig. He was helpless like that, rubbing at his legs, then his head, and rocking back and forth some. He heard a sniffle from Craig. It took several tries but he finally met his gaze, eyes full of tears. How did he let this kid become such a mess?
“Please. Leave,” Craig repeated and weakly slapped his hand against the bathroom floor.
The nurse nodded at Joey. “I can take care of him,” she encouraged.
Joey got to his feet, unsure if he was moving slowly in actuality or it was just the feeling of the moment. He stalled at the door but then left, noticing how Craig was becoming more agitated in his presence.
“I’m so cold,” Craig complained.
“Let’s get you back into bed then,” Joey heard the nurse encourage as he ducked out of the hospital room.
There was initially confusion, then hurt. He didn’t want him to see him that way and that was understandable, Joey reasoned to himself as he walked down the hospital corridor. But he wanted to be there. That was what he was there for, as the dad. It was what Julia would have wanted.
He wasn’t sure how long he had been wandering; traveling up elevators, looking out hallway windows at a cityscape he didn’t even really see, and sometimes even jogging down flights of stairs to lose some of this nervous energy. But his thoughts kept coming back to her. Maybe it was the hospital. There was a reason he was avoiding the third floor, he realized. So he took the elevator down, watching the digital numbers drop and he even took that same heavy sigh he used to take whenever he would stop by with hopeful flowers.
“I took him in to keep him safe,” Joey silently told his dead wife. “And I can’t even keep him safe from himself.”
He kept circling the floor and going over signs he must’ve missed and options he should take. Deep down, right now he just wanted the Craig he interacted with each day. The Craig he knew. This wasn’t right. Something was off. This wasn’t something he would do. He sighed heavily as he recalled the doctor telling him of Craig’s staggering blood alcohol level and the tox screen results.
“What is happening to my son?” Joey actually said out loud alone in the elevator down to the first floor. He made his way towards the door marked “social work” and listened a number of the staff members, including Robert Schaffer. He had no idea what he was going to say, ashamed that he couldn’t do better for Craig. He remembered the home visits with Craig's social worker and how he felt like he was being graded on his abilities as a parent. He’d failed this kid and he had to do something to make it right.
He finally woke up, really woke up this time. It was like someone shot a jolt of electricity through him and after the stun he felt hollow inside. Maybe he wasn’t really here at all. Craig rolled over slowly, weary of movement. His head throbbed violently but then the pulsating ache went away. He exhaled heavily, his body strangely numb. He felt like he had any bodily fluids sucked out of him and he lay here bone dry and stuffed with cotton. It took him awhile to even process that he was still here, much less in a hospital room.
Hospital room. Now came the moment he knew too well. It was the moment where he grasped at what clues he had of what happened the night before and evaluated who needed to be called and what needed to be fixed. He threw a party at Joey’s, Craig recalled as he struggled to sit up. He began running the list of friends through his head, trying to recall the last time he saw them and what he did or said. He wasn’t sure he could ever fix this mess. Craig sighed and looked over himself, feeling grungy. How long had he been here?
“Good morning Craig,” A nurse greeted as she entered the room. Craig flinched a little at the sound, slowly starting to feel like he actually was alive. Then she said, “I’m going to take your vitals.”
He had forgotten how much he hated hospitals. The lingo they used as they exchanged prognosis and diagnosis and things that concerned the patient but were said like they didn’t.
“How long have I been here?” Craig said and began to cough. He struggled to swallow, his throat dry and scratchy. He graciously accepted a glass of water from the nurse.
“You’ve been here for just over a day.”
Craig watched as the nurse took the empty glass from him then reached for his wrist to take his pulse. His hand was bandaged. His eyes moved over to his left; an IV needle and tube stuck in that one.
“We’ve been giving you plenty of fluids intravenously. You were a pretty sick guy.”
He simply studied her for a moment as she took his pulse, then his temperature. Weren’t they going to mention why? He had been through this before he realized. When he overdosed on pills in a…his brain stuck on this and then spit it out…suicide attempt. The hospital staff and Joey had tiptoed around that and why he’d done it. Was it like this?
“Now that you are feeling better we can get you solid food again. Do you feel like some breakfast?”
Craig shrugged in response, not sure he could trust his stomach. “We’ll keep it light,” the nurse encouraged as she exited the hospital room.
He gazed around the hospital room, taking in the familiar fixtures and the smell that was distinctly hospital. He wondered if he was in the one his mother died in or the one his father worked in, not that it mattered they all seemed the same. Nothing has changed since that one night when he refused to leave his sick mother’s bedside and the staff finally brought a cot in so he could stay. His father’s doctor office, watching him speak softly to a patient and even gave out the occasional reassuring touch to their shoulder or knee. He never was like that to him. Sometimes he was even jealous of the patients and nurses who praised his father. They didn’t see what he saw at home.
“Oatmeal, toast, and orange juice” the nurse interrupted his thoughts as she set down a tray and uncovered it. Craig decided the toast was the safest bet, reached for it, and was stunned by the amount his hand was shaking. “That’s normal. Your blood sugar is just a little wacky. You’ll feel better after you eat,” she reassured him.
“I don’t remember your name,” Craig said after eating some. “I don’t remember anything.”
“Carol,” she said with a smile.
“Joey. Is he here?” Craig wanted to ask for him but the fear of his reaction stopped him.
“Yup. Your dad and step mom have been camping out in the waiting room.”
Hearing this woman call them that threw him for a loop. It almost made him shiver, how surreal all this was.
“Do you want to see him?” Carol watched as the teenager took a few small bites of food, a sip of juice, and then shrugged. “He’s not angry with you. He’s been very worried about you.”
“Um. Yeah. Yeah, I do.” He stared down at his oatmeal, stirring it with his spoon. Maybe he should have thought this over first. Craig had no idea how he was going to explain the party or how he got so completely wasted he had to be hospitalized. He could hear Joey talking with the nurse now; how was he doing, keep the visit short, his son still needed to rest. There was his footsteps approaching the bed now and the mattress shifted as his step dad sat at the foot of the bed.
“How are you feeling?” Joey questioned. He wanted to hug Craig the moment he entered the room but the teenager’s lack of eye contact pushed him away.
“Um, I’m okay actually,” Craig replied after he finished the last of his breakfast. “I wasn’t sure I could eat but this helped a lot.”
“I bet you are coming off of the worst hang over ever.”
Craig smiled nervously. “Joey, I’m sorry. Things got so crazy.”
“Craig, your blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit, “ Joey watched as Craig shrugged. This kid didn’t get it. He stood up, moved the table with the empty tray of food away, and pulled a chair up to Craig’s bed. Joey rubbed Craig’s upper arm, then his shoulder. “Craig. Look at me.”
Craig managed to raise his eyes for a few seconds, then let his gaze drop back down into his lap. He wished he could sink into the floor. “I’m sorry. I’m so embarrassed about all this. I don‘t even want to think about what I did at the party, what I looked like.”
“I don’t think you get it,” Joey sighed. “Anymore alcohol in you and you could have slipped into a coma…or died. You were so lucky you had friends there to take care of you and keep you from choking on your vomit. You were so lucky. Unbelievably lucky.”
“Um, what happened?”
“You passed out and Ashley couldn’t wake you up. She called up 911 and her mom who…”
“She called her mom?” Craig sighed.
“She was scared. You gave us all quite a scare. They couldn’t wake you up and your breathing was so slow, they said. There is no cure for alcohol poisoning, Craig. By the time you were brought here to the hospital it was already in your system. They just had to keep monitoring your breathing and heart rate and help you breathe if you couldn’t on your own. You had a very close call.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so stupid. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“This isn’t the first time you’ve been intoxicated,” Joey had to say, remembering that night when his stepson had first moved in and returned home after skipping school drunk…and high. “And this isn’t the first time you’ve taken those pills. The…Oxy.”
Joey felt like he’d been schooled in casual drug use over the past 24 hours but that didn’t make it any less awkward using slang to try to relate to his kid. What was he doing here? Joey felt out of his league trying to raise a teenager.
“When you first came to live with me, you were mixed up with those. Besides for your suicide attempt there was a night you came home drunk and you said you took them then,” Joey thought out loud, trying to make sense of this.
“Didn’t I use Valium or something? All that was before I even knew what any of it was or what it did. I just knew that if I took enough, I‘d die. And that‘s not what I was doing last night,” Craig tried.
Joey wasn’t sure which was worse.
“And I haven’t done any of that since then. But it’s just I knew what it would do now and I took things too far. It won’t happen again. I’m sorry,” Craig continued. He knew it was a lie. He wasn’t sure where the words were coming from but it was from a place where it didn’t feel like lying. After all, the truth was complicated. Craig was biting a fingernail now, trying to sort it out in his head. How could he explain it to Joey when he didn’t even get it?
“Craig…do you have a problem with drugs and alcohol?”
That question didn’t even make sense to him. He knew he couldn’t answer that. It made his skin crawl and his insides hop around. His heart was pounding and he looked at Joey and hoped his eyes didn’t look as frantic as he felt. He shook his head. “I just took things too far the other night. Things have been so crazy lately since the school shooting. My dad…he…just over a year ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were having such a hard time?”
Craig shrugged, fidgeting with the hospital blankets. “You are busy with the car lot. I didn’t want to be a burden. I thought I had it under control.”
“Buddy, you can always come and talk to me. No matter what my day has been like.”
“Oh I know. I know. I didn’t mean to make it sound that way.”
Joey nodded in agreement, feeling another wave of guilt sock him in the gut. Maybe he had been too busy lately. He hadn’t seen any of the signs. Nothing out of the ordinary. “I’m sorry you are having a hard time but you can’t get wasted and expect things to get better. Things are going to be there when you wake up in the morning.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m going to try not to do that anymore. Because it doesn’t work. I know I screwed up, Joey,“ Craig took a deep breath. “Sometimes I just really miss my mom. And…my dad. In this weird way. I went to the cemetery the day before the party. It was the first time I saw…my…dad.”
Joey reached for Craig at that moment and gave him a quick hug.
“And I guess I just got into a headspace or something. I don’t know. I’m so sorry.”
“That’s so scary,” the words fell out of Joey’s mouth and he still felt like he was letting this kid down. “We’re going to get you help.”
Joey and Caitlin sat with Robert in his office. He first presented them with coffee, then launched into what felt like a school guidance counselor suggesting universities only this was clinics, psychiatric wards, and substance abuse counselors. Some clinics came with brochures, others a list of guidelines of how to encourage your loved one to enter treatment. Joey wasn’t ready for any of it.
“He threw a party and took it too far. He just needs boundaries at home. I’ll get him back into counseling,” Joey reasoned and ran a hand over his bald head.
“Craig might need more than that. Most kids don’t nearly drink themselves to death and pair alcohol with narcotics,” Caitlin reminded.
“He said that he just took things too far. It’s my fault. I should have noticed he was getting into that and hanging with the wrong crowd.”
“We’re just going over options right now,” Robert reminded, familiar with the deep denial a parent could have when it came to issues like this.
“We talked earlier. Really talked. He hasn’t opened up to me like that in awhile,” Joey thought out loud.
“He needs a dad, Joey. Not a friend,” Caitlin remarked after a moment of uncomfortable silence.
“What are you saying? If I had started cracking down on him about curfew and beer this wouldn’t have happened?”
“I know you wanted to be the fun dad or let him know that it was different here than at Albert’s…”
“You haven’t been around. I had no clue it was this bad,” Joey replied and felt the guilt set in again. “I don’t know how I didn’t know. But I know now and I‘ll make sure Craig knows there‘s consequences. Grounding. I‘ll make sure I know where he is every hour of the day and the names of all his friends. He took things too far.”
“Kids sometimes have bigger problems. Sometimes they need more help than grounding. But we can’t take a closer look at what’s going on until he detoxes. The best place to have that happen is in a clinic setting.”
“My kid isn’t a drug addict,” Joey couldn’t help state. “I would know if he was bringing drugs into my house. I’m around him. It’s not like I’m not home.”
“Craig isn’t a bad person because he has some substance abuse issues,” Robert tried to soothe the defensive father. “It’s hard to know the signs unless you know what you are looking for. Prescription drug abuse is becoming more and more common with teenagers because they easy to get. Kids don’t understand that it’s dangerous because it’s legal.”
Joey looked over the information on a residential treatment program. Craig would be allowed home on the weekends for that. His brain was frantic with reasoning; he would be home on weekends , he would only be home for weekends, no visitors for the first 48 hours, evening visits during the week and weekend afternoons. Joey shook his head. “He’s just having some tough times. It was a mistake to stop with the counseling with his school psychologist.”
“Joey, you said after the adoption it was extremely difficult to get him to attend sessions,” Caitlin reminded.
“So he needs a push from us. Before it was easier to convince him to go because he had a social worker and it was a requirement that he attend. I can get the school involved and we’ll give him an ultimatum. Counseling or he’s out of Degrassi,” Joey looked over at Robert, who was looking unconvinced but seemed to be chewing the idea over.
“Joey,” Craig greeted with a smile, even though it wasn’t his first visit. He was just surprised the guy kept coming back. His face fell and he could practically feel the color draining from it as he watched who walked in after him. “What?”
“It’s been awhile since I’ve seen you, Craig. How are you doing?” his former social worker greeted.
He lowered his head and nodded, feeling completely defeated. For a moment it was like when he first met the guy. He had the same suspicions. This guy liked to dig around in his head and his home life, looking for what was wrong.
“What’s going on?” Craig finally spoke up. “Why are you here?”
“I stopped in to see him after you had been admitted here to the hospital,” Joey slowly explained. “I just need to know how to help…I had no idea you were going through such a rough patch.”
“Okay, no. Wait. Just wait.”
Robert noticed that the teen’s breathing was becoming more rapid, his chest pumping up and down. “I’m not here to take you away from Joey’s. I’m here to help. We want to help you, Craig.”
“I’m sorry I ruined your weekend with Caitlin, Joey. Does she hate me?”
“No. No one hates you. But we’re all very worried about you. Snake found these being passed around,” Joey said and handed Craig flyer.
Craig swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Sixteen is suicide?” Robert questioned.
“It’s a metaphor!”
“Your father has been dead for about a year right? Still having trouble coming to terms with that?”
“I don’t know. I’m never really used to any of…that.”
“That’s fine. No one is saying you have to get over it. But you need to talk to people about it.”
Craig decided to nod, bopping his head up and down twice. Easier said than done. “But I wasn’t thinking about it when I planned the party. I wasn’t thinking period. Do I ever think? No. I’m a jerk, Joey.”
“There’s going to consequences for all that,” Joey decided to say. Then he reminded, “The theme of the party, Craig. Sixteen is suicide?”
“It was a metaphor! How this is a time when things end and others begin. Life and death but live life to the fullest.”
The social worker looked cynical. “That’s the message behind the theme and then you drink yourself to a point where your friends can’t wake you and you need to be admitted to the hospital?”
“Oh come on like I’d invite the whole school over to watch me kill myself. Yeah, that sounds like a sure fire way to get the job done.”
“So you’ve thought about the most effective way?”
“No. No! I’m just saying if I wanted to kill myself I wouldn’t throw a party and try to drink myself to death.”
“What would you do?”
“Well, my dad sure…I mean…what? Nothing.”
“Two years ago you overdosed on the same kind of drugs you were taking tonight,” Joey stated and tried to wrap his mind around this. Maybe it was a suicide attempt. Either way, this kid was just asking for help.
“I honestly don’t remember taking anything, Joey.”
“You had pills on you. They were turned over to the paramedics. When someone is brought to the ER your condition they run a toxicology screen to see what drugs you had in your system and you tested positive for Alcohol, Narcotics, and Benzodiazepines “ Robert stated flatly.
“Okay. Okay. I know I probably took something but I honestly don’t remember. I might have been saving them. I don‘t know. I can‘t remember.”
“What do you remember? What happened at the party? Was someone daring you to drink that much?” Joey prompted, imaging the crowd of high school boys with their beer bongs.
“Um, we were doing shots. And then after awhile I just forgot how much I had to drink, I guess. I don’t drink that often, Joey. And it’s usually just a couple beers. I didn’t know what I was doing.” He was so scared that the words just fell out of him. Craig glanced over at Joey, who was nodding rapidly and had a sort of far away look in his eyes. Then he shifted his gaze over to the social worker who looked much more cynical. He looked down again, ashamed. He worked so hard to convince myself that what he was doing was normal and he was certain it would take even more effort to convince anyone else. He had been dreading a moment like this.
“Craig, you need to be honest with us about what you are using and how much of it. Going cold turkey off meds like Oxycontin or Benzodiazepines like Xanax can be dangerous. The symptoms of withdrawing off of Oxy has been compared to heroin withdrawal and seizures are a very scary symptom some Xanax abusers experience,” Robert said.
“This is like the third time I’ve done Oxy, I swear. I didn’t know what I was doing that night. I wasn’t thinking straight. And the benzos…I’m sure I just tested positive for that because of the Xanax or whatever it was I used to take when my Dad died.”
Joey shook his head. “That was over a year ago.”
“I know but…okay I know it was wrong but this one dude; I can’t even remember his name now, he was in my history class. Well he hooked me up with a bottle. I guess his mom has panic attacks or something and always a script laying around. So I thought it’d mellow me out when I freak out about my dad. I can’t sleep sometimes and I just feel all anxious you know?“ Craig rambled and found that the words came easy to him. It actually felt like the truth. That was what he did sometimes. “And I didn’t want you to worry about me or think I was crazy or anything so I didn’t tell you about them. I thought I could just take care of it with the meds myself. Because they were prescribed to me once before.”
“That’s illegal Craig. To take prescription medication that wasn’t prescribed to you,” Robert clarified.
“It didn’t seem like it was wrong at the time. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Believe me after what happened last night, I’m scared to touch anything.”
“How often are you having anxiety attacks?”
“Um, I don’t know. Not that often. It’s just been hard like around this time of year.”
“Craig, I can’t help but take what you did very seriously. If you are struggling, we can get you help. It’s anything to feel ashamed of if you are having a hard time coming to terms with things that have happened in the past,” the social worker hesitated. “Maybe you should consider taking some time to really focus dealing with the issues. It might be hard at first but it might be just what you need. There’s a residential program here at the hospital.”
Craig couldn’t even process all that. “No.”
“You stay there during the week and return home on the weekends. During the day you attend individual therapy sessions as well as group. They work with the school and you’ll be tutored several hours a day.”
“Joey, I’m not crazy. I don‘t need anything like that.”
“We’re just talking about options right now.”
“I haven’t seen you in over six months how do you know what I need anyway?” Craig demanded of Robert.
“Craig you don’t have to get so defensive,” Joey couldn’t help but say.
“But you don’t understand. Like nothing has ever been certain in my life. Being at your house is like the one stable thing. And if I’m not there…”
“The hospitalization wouldn’t be a long term thing. I’m not here to take you away from Joey’s,” Robert tried to reason with the teen.
“Please don’t just give up on me Joey. You are like the one person who doesn’t…leave. Joey, I just want to go home. With you,” Craig said, feeling tears threaten. “I ruin everything. I lose everything.”
Joey embraced Craig at the sound of that. “You haven’t lost anybody. I’m still here.”
“I just really want to go home. With you. I hate being here. It‘s just reminding me of that one time when I took all those pills and I had no idea if I was going to be sent back to my dad‘s or where I would go because I could not go back there.”
Joey could feel the social worker’s gaze on them and noted how he seemed to be observing them rather intensely. He was never going to get used to this guy evaluating his relationship with Craig. But he was the dad now, officially. He was in charge and he knew that he could help this kid. Craig wasn’t a lost cause. “Okay, buddy. Your coming home with me. We’ll get through this together like we have everything else.”
“You mean that?” Craig asked with a small smile as he broke free of Joey’s embrace so he could meet his eyes.
“Of course. Your home is with me.”
“I feel very strongly that we need to get you some kind of support, Craig,” Robert encouraged.
“Not anything where you take me away from Joey’s.”
“Okay. Inpatient therapy is not on the table right now. But outpatient is. I’m going to give your step dad a list of therapists that might work well with your issues. And some recommendations of psychologists who do substance abuse evaluations.”
Joey nodded rapidly to that. It took Craig a few moments to cave and give a small nod in return.
“There’s a lot of bereavement camps that operate in the summer. I can give you a list of websites, some brochures. It might be good for you to reach out and interact with other teens who’ve lost someone like you have.”
“That might be good for you, actually,” Joey agreed. “You know we all care about you very much but we can’t relate to you like one of your peers who’s lost a parent.”
“Oh no. No. Like going to a camp and doing arts and crafts about my dead parents is going to help.”
“Okay…well, I think you know that we are going to want you to start meeting with Ms. Sauvé again,” Joey paused and then delivered the news. “I think the school is going to require it. Or else recommend suspension.”
“Okay. I guess. I guess that’d be okay. I mean, I know her. I don’t want to talk to strangers I don’t even know. Or be someplace strange. Joey, I can’t do that right now. I just want everything to be how it was before.”
Over the past few days all that Joey cared about was knowing that Craig would be alright. He still felt that and like Craig, just wanted him at home. But something else was seeping in; things wouldn’t be how they used to be. How could they?
Joey returned home over his lunch break, no intention of throwing together a sandwich or heating up some soup. He could barely focus at work; details he had no trouble reciting about cars before had been erased from his brain and he struggled with potential sales. It didn’t even bother him when he blew one. That just meant he could retreat to his office, pace the small space, and think.
He went for the answering machine first and was hit with dread. 2 new messages. He was certain one of them would be the school, informing them of Craig's disappearance from the rest of his classes or worse yet, he was completely blitzed in math class. His heart pounded. First message, from his mother, played. He had no idea what was said. Update on Angie, he assumed. More guilt; he always sent her to his mother’s when he had to deal with these situations with Craig. Second message was from a telemarketer and Joey sighed in relief. He had enough humiliation with Craig at school this morning.
They both sat in the office, familiar with the wait of seeing the principal. Joey felt like he was fifteen again and about to be yelled at. He almost thought he should be, still feeling the blame of letting Craig descend into a lifestyle of partying that lead to a hit and miss with alcohol poisoning. Mr. Raditch greeted them and encouraged them into his office. He saw a flicker of sympathy in the principals eyes; Craig did not, his eyes on the floor. Joey put a firm band on Craig’s shoulder and ushered him. They both sat stiffly down and waited for it.
“I’m going to ask you this once. Do you have a drug or alcohol problem?” Mr. Raditch questioned.
“Nah. No. Um,” Craig paused. The tension was thick and heavy.
“We want to help you but we can’t do that if you don’t want it. The school is willing to allow you back in if you agree to regular counseling sessions with Ms. Sauvé. If you refuse help, I think some time out of school would give you time to reflect on what direction you want your life to go in.”
Joey nodded at the principal, still feeling a little rattled from the phone call he’d made the day before informing him that Craig probably needed an extra push to get him back into any form of therapy. He stared at Craig, waiting. His heart pounded. He didn‘t think they would actually have to go through the ultimatum. “Craig. It’s see Ms. Sauvé or you are out of DCS.”
“Do you have a substance abuse problem?” the principal prompted again.
“Yeah, I guess maybe I do. Sort of.”
“And do you want help for it?”
“Yeah.”
Joey watched as his stepson sunk lower into his seat as they went over the schedule for seeing Ms. Sauvé, some days after school, another during his study hall.
“There’s one more thing. I think it’d be a good idea for us to go through your locker. Just to get rid of anything that should NOT be there. Consider this your second chance.”
Craig wasn’t even speaking by that point and communicated through gestures. This got a shrug out of him and he followed them to his locker like he was awaiting an execution. Joey still thought that it was simply that it was humiliating to have them going through his personal belongings. His stepson had been compliant, entering the combination and opening the locker. Then he moved off to the side, hands in his pockets and didn’t raise his eyes as the principal went through his things.
Joey saw as his eyes widened when Mr. Raditch pulled out a half empty bottle of Gatorade. He opened it, smelled it, and then passed it to him. Joey smelled at the beverage; it was strong with the smell of alcohol.
“You were drinking in school?” he questioned. Craig’s eyes were on the floor again.
It dragged on and on, his locker was a mess. Craig hoped that Raditch would grow tired and quit paying attention to the details; his art supplies came out and he searched through each box of charcoal pencils and other materials. Joey noticed when Craig nervously shifted his feet when his camera bag came out. Craig held his breath as the principal removed each canister; the third to the last rattling with what was certainly not a roll of film. He watched as Raditch emptied pills into his palm.
“Oh my God Craig,” Joey gasped. Craig could only shrug in response, weak with defeat.
And then Joey knew what he had to do. He paused outside of Craig’s room, his hand on the doorknob. A part of him didn’t want to know. A part of him wanted to look away. He knew that was what Caitlin thought he was doing, her eyes fresh to their currently troubled household. Joey took a deep breath and opened the door. This whole experience had been like waking up to morning fog, the traffic slow to work and slightly surreal as all the landmarks and exit signs lost in the haze. But the sun came out and you could see exactly what had been there the whole time. This was like the shock of a Monday morning back at work.
Joey started with the closet. Craig’s wreck of a closet. He pushed the clothes on hangers as close to the wall as he could get them and started to dig. He found several empty liquor bottles underneath a pile of dirty laundry, a half full bottle of vodka on the top shelf behind a stack of photography and music magazines. There was more half-empty bottles stashed everywhere he looked. Joey overturned the dresser and desk drawers and sifted through the mess of socks and art supplies. He recalled how Craig stored pills in that film canister in his locker and was sure to shake each one, his heart growing heavier each time he discovered another one of Craig’s secret stashes.
“What is going on with you, Craig?” Joey mumbled to himself as he looked at the pile of bottles on the floor. His son wasn’t okay. It had all been lies at the hospital.
His mouth dropped and for a moment he felt that feeling like what he’d felt when his father trashed his darkroom. There wasn’t broken glass and the posters weren’t torn from the walls but it was obvious someone had been in here. Drawers were open, the contents rummaged through. His clothes were pushed around in the closet.
“What happened to my room?” Craig questioned, stalking into the kitchen. He froze when he saw the liquor bottles lined up on the kitchen table. Some were half full, others bone dry. It actually took him a moment to even see the rest of the display; pill bottles, a pile of stray capsules, and his fake ID.
Joey and Caitlin watched for his reaction, both with different expressions on their faces. Caitlin couldn’t help but feel disconnected from the situation; she’d only been around Craig for about a week since returning home. Joey didn’t blink and wasn’t sure how to deal with what felt like a betrayal.
Craig couldn’t speak. He stared for a moment and tried to process what felt like a nightmare. He’d always felt that fear of being discovered and they could take away the only thing that made him able to function. How would he sleep now? What would he do when something random reminded him of his father and in a sick twisted way he just wanted to be hit again? Or when he’d recall how powerless it felt to be in that situation and wanted to punch walls? He couldn’t do any of that. So he’d drink. Or take the pills that softened the blows all that gave to him. The safety net was gone and he felt like he was hitting bottom. Craig grabbed the wall to steady himself.
“You lied to me,” Joey accused.
Craig just shook his head. It didn’t feel like a lie. Joey just didn’t get it. If things hurt this bad and it felt so wrong to be sober, what other option was there?
“From the party,” Craig managed to say.
Joey laughed bitterly at that and had to turn away. He couldn’t stand the sight of his stepson as horrible as that sounded.
“I was going to throw it all out after I got out of the hospital. I just didn’t…”
“Stop lying to me,” Joey yelled and whirled around. He watched as Craig opened his mouth but all that happened was two quick gasps for air. “Just stop the lying!”
This wasn’t real. It wasn’t happening. “Sorry.”
“What was it you said in the hospital? Come on, tell it to me again. Look me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t drink that often and have only done Oxycontin a few times.”
Craig stared down at the floor.
“I don’t even know what half these are,” Joey angrily remarked as he picked up the pill bottle and watched the assortment of colored pills tumbled in the bottle. He turned it over in his hand. The label was from a nearby pharmacy and read Joseph Jeremiah, his home address, Flexeril, take one every four to six hours as needed for pain. He recognized a few of the tablets from when used to take the drug for when he threw out his back. “I forgot all about this. You took what was left of my medication, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“You keep your stash of drugs in a bottle that has my name on it. And that didn’t bother you at all?”
“Joey, it’s complicated. I don’t know how to explain how it happened.”
“Well, you sure as hell better try,” Joey shouted. He took a deep breath. He’d had to yell at Craig before when the teen missed curfew or blew off a homework assignment. Sometimes he felt like it took force to, like he was expected to be angry. Now he could barely control it. “When did all this start?”
Craig closed his eyes for a moment, sure he was about to pass out. He’d forgotten how to handle anything. A part of him wanted to lunge forward and grab that bottle of vodka or whisky and down gulp after gulp like his conscious wasn’t there. Just make it all go away for the time being. Where was he going to be after this was over with?
“Craig. How long has this been going on?”
“Awhile. Summer before Grade 10.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“But I wasn’t the only one drinking!”
“And here I thought it was just beer at Sean’s.” Joey felt the blame again; he should have kept a tighter rein on this kid.
“It is. It was.”
“I have no idea who you are anymore. I don’t know what to believe,” Joey said after a moment of silence, his tone full of sadness and disappointment. He gestured to the bottles of alcohol and pills on the kitchen table. “I guess I just have to believe what’s in front of me.”
“It just got this bad recently.”
“I bet you think I’m an idiot,” Joey remarked and reflected on all the times this had flown under the radar.
“No, Joey. I don’t. Don’t think that.”
“How can I not think that when you have a mini bar stashed in your bedroom? That little act you pulled in the hospital…lying through your teeth and crying about how you just wanted to come home? That was so you could keep doing what you’ve always been doing; lying, drinking, and popping pills.”
Craig shook his head. He could hear Joey pacing around. He had never seen him this angry before. “Things just got out of control,” Craig mumbled, fidgeting.
“Shut your mouth,” Joey finally snapped, sick of hearing everything that came out of it. He watched as Craig’s face shifted from shock, to embarrassment, and then settled submission. “I am so sick of you using every single excuse.”
“Okay. Okay, Joey calm down,” Caitlin finally spoke up and took a few steps in between the father and son. “We all just need a little breathing room. Craig go upstairs to your room.”
Craig nodded rapidly. He moved towards the stairs, his hand still on the wall to steady himself. At moments he was sure he was going to pass out; this can’t be happening. He nearly went out the front door, feeling trapped and panicked. He couldn’t breathe in here. Instead he went upstairs, feeling like he was floating into the bathroom. There was dry heaves at the toilet, the opening of the medicine cabinet and frantic digging. There had to be something he could take. If you take enough of anything you get some sort of buzz right?
He went for the bottle of cough syrup, taking a few gulps. It was thick like honey and the taste bitter and artificial. But he got himself to swallow. The bottle of over the counter pain medication. He just wanted to swallow anything. It just had to fill him up. He took a couple with frantic handfuls of water from the sink and nearly choked. Back to the toilet, the cough syrup coming up tinted like raspberries.
“Just make it go away,” he pleaded on the floor, realizing he was so low but no idea how to make anything better. It took him awhile to actually regain any strength to return to his feet. Craig returned to his room, feeling foggy. This all couldn’t be happening. His brain listed a checklist of all the places he stashed pints of booze and bottles of pills. He went through each one, checking it off. It was all gone.
“Fuck. Fuck,” Craig whispered to himself.
His hands wouldn’t stop shaking and he couldn’t breathe. He told himself to inhale and took a sharp breath. Joey just didn’t get it. If he had to feel this way he’d drink and take whatever he could get his hands on too. He didn’t understand how things could be so low and then so high and at the end of the day Craig often felt like he’d been through a war.
It wasn’t safe here anymore, he decided and went for his backpack. He dumped the school books, pencils, and random litter of papers onto the floor. It was safe before, when he first came here. But things started to creep in. His father finally died and he was still here, wandering around in his head and telling him that he deserved to be hit. He still gave him the beatings in nightmares.
Craig stuffed clothes into his bag, not really noticing what he was grabbing. Cash. He needed cash. Focus, focus, he urged himself. But he couldn’t do it. Moments of red hot panic and terror before were put out with sips of liquor. Having all that in his room felt safe before. It gave him someplace else to go. It was safe. He sat there on the bed, clutching his bag of clothes as he debated running away. Somehow he managed to wait until the storm of thoughts cleared and he tucked the bag under his bed. He had a back-up plan now.
It's finally happened. My chapter is too big for livejournal.
Chapter 27: Policy of Truth Part 2