An (Unlikely) Affair To Remember

* The following is 100% true...

I say an “unlikely” affair because I’ve been doomed to serve a prison sentence of roughly thirty months for some ten months. I’ve filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, I have a merely dead-end job, and I’m a recovering painkiller addict. Actually the addiction issue may have been to my advantage, for it led me to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, where I met the other half of this story. Her name is Laine*. (Name changed to protect the not-so-innocent.)

Now I’d been warned, and intrinsically known, that women in AA are a little crazier than your average ladies. In my situation, however, I was in no position to be picky. Besides, I have a personal credo: “Everybody is crazy---the only questions are subject and severity.” Seems reasonable enough for the purposes of rationalizing an ill-advised dalliance for me. And nobody died here anyway, despite blood ending up all over a hotel room and three bottles of potent psychiatric meds, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I was in a halfway house for five months after I completed a month in an addiction rehab facility. During this time I was completely sober, and also more or less downtrodden by the prospects of my immediate future, given the prison sentence hanging over my head and my financial situation. As a single man there is always the prospect of a new lover on the horizon, regardless of how delusional the thought may be. It keeps a man going. The AA meetings up the road provided the main hope for me. Laine.

She was a sophisticated-looking girl---like a taller, slightly older version of Kirsten Dunst, I’d say. Great skin, hair, and incredible blue-green eyes. Some might say “crazy eyes”, but again, what did I care? I used to gaze at her during meetings with longing, imagining how great it would be to get with her. She was very intelligent, and while seemingly dismissive of me, I would later learn that this was merely her social anxiety getting the best of her.

After many weeks, I finally got her number and we eventually met for coffee one evening prior to an AA meeting. It was exciting to have this beauty in my midst “in real life”, and it seemed the feeling was mutual. I told her right away that I was an open book, and explained that I’m most likely going to do a prison term in the near future. Much to my surprise, she seemed cool with this---probably because she detailed detrimental issues of her own such as severe depression. For at least the time being, we were a match.

Ominous Beginnings

Besides our initial meet-up being shortened by horrific rain-hampered traffic, the launch of our romance was hampered by a tragedy. (The story of my past year: any good thing will most certainly include a caveat.) Laine had a “sidekick” named Elise who battled a heroin addiction that led her in and out of jails and general torment. My girl took her under her wing; advising her and carting her around to various AA meetings. They were grand pals, and Elise was an absolute delight. I had the privilege of talking to her one time after a meeting, and she was just a bright light. In the brief time we spoke she mentioned that she had seen three friends die from Heroin in the past year. “Well, thank god you’re in the right place now; surrounded by those who can help you.”, I counseled. Not two days later I get a call...

It’s Laine, in tears. “My psychic is dead.”

Laine didn’t always enunciate clearly, in addition to speaking somewhat rapidly.

“What? Your psychic is dead?”

I must admit that my ridiculous sense of humor got the best of me here, not that I spoke it aloud, mind you. It occurred to me to say: “It’s OK, baby---your psychic knew she was going to die today; she was prepared.”

“No, Elise---my sidekick!”, she wept.

I was stunned, not to mention alarmed at how real this addiction disease can be. Fuck. I comforted Laine all I could before she had to go, but no matter what, a somewhat awkward relationship just got weirder.

Oddly, we quickly found ourselves in enviable positions: I had a lady I really liked who needed a lot of comforting, and Laine had a nice guy to hold her hand and help her make sense of the tragedy. Certainly a way to bond very quickly, for sure. And we did. Nine days after Elise’s death I found myself at Laine’s side at a packed memorial service, and then at a gathering at the home of the parents of the deceased. I was happy to be there for her, and frankly the whole relationship was a welcome respite from a year of mostly gloom for me. You could say we propped each other up, which was nice.

Christmas was just eight days away, and our doomed relationship continued on fast-forward right on through that, (despite my allergies to her dog and two cats.) We texted many times a day and reveled in sharing so many intellectual interests. Two fucked-up psyches just careening ahead as if tomorrow was no issue at all. I tried to keep my emotions on an even keel, but those eyes and that mind made this very difficult, to say the least. As did a trip to meet her parents at Christmas dinner.

Next thing we knew it was New Year’s Eve. Sober. I had over six months without a drop by then, and Laine had over five. About this we were restless and discontent for a portion of the evening. Truth be told, we were conniving to break our sobriety at one point, but sober heads eventually prevailed. We ended up spending the night at my place, watching a Webcast of Phish’s concert live from Madison Square Garden, much to my delight, and she liked it too. I expected Laine to make it two nights sleeping over, (she had brought her dog over, after all), but she had other ideas. I later learned that this was the beginning of her inevitable withdrawal from us, which would quickly blast to the forefront.

“And if you happen to see my dignity...”

The next time we shared time was Tuesday, January 3, after I received a fateful text: “Hey. Interested in some hotel sex?” Um...yes. Yes I was.

She filled me in on which hotel, and I assumed she was using a room comp solely for the two of us to hook up near her place with no pet dander as an obstacle. What a sweetheart! I finished the workday with a pep in my step, and settled in for a nap, for it was going to be a long night. When I awoke I was greeted with a text message that made my heart sink...

“I need to be honest and tell you I’ve been drinking all day. I understand if you don’t want to see me this way, but I wanted to warn you.”

Enter that gut feeling. The one that’s telling you to not do something. I’ve learned that this is my higher power communicating with me, but of course I can rationalize it away at will, and this time was no exception.

“I understand if you don’t want to see me this way...” Oh, I want to see you that way. I want to see you bent over the bathroom counter. To see you laid out on the chaise lounge. To see the “happy drunk” that you were proud of being back when you drank. Besides, I have maybe three weeks before I go to prison anyway, whereupon I’ll have over two years to be sober. Fuck yes, I want to see you this way, and I’m going to be a real sport about it and get drunk with you!

It also occurred to me that if my ass wasn’t going to meet her in that fancy hotel bar, some other bastard would be---probably even some random salesman already there. (I said as much on the phone after I got her text, but she halfheartedly said: “I wouldn’t do that.” No, of course you’d simply lay in bed and surf the web to take your mind off the self-loathing that accompanies a relapse, right? But I digress.) So off I went, honestly with a knot in my stomach because I was damned proud of my sobriety, but in greater need of a “last hurrah.” Get my kicks while I still can.

So after stopping for a half-pint of Jack, (hello, low tolerance!), I entered the swank hotel bar. Predictably enough, Laine was next to an attractive middle-aged businessman, happily chatting away. She lit up when she saw me and rose to give me a big hug, much to that poor bastard’s chagrin. He figured it she was too good to be true, and most certainly heard the needle scratch across his evening’s record. Anyway, Laine looked tremendous, and was in fact a very happy drunk. We drank away and studiously avoided discussing the elephant in the room that was our blown sobriety. At least mine, anyway.

She admitted that she’d faltered numerous times lately, but had neglected to tell me. She planned on this being her final bender though, hence the fancy hotel room. (This intention would prove to hasten the end of “us”, but that comes a little later.) Soon enough we found ourselves in her posh room, and I insisted on sharing a shower right away because that’s great foreplay and things were about to get dirty. And did they ever...

Upon exiting the shower, Laine managed to knock over a champagne flute. It broke on the bathroom counter and the stem proceeded to land directly on top of her foot, square on a vein. Right after I said: “buzzkill”, and saw a quick pool of dark blood, I declared “Welp, we need to go to the hospital.” It was then that I met belligerent, stubborn drunk Laine.

She was convinced, or more like hoping against hope, that she had merely a surface would that would stop bleeding soon enough. She wrapped her foot with a towel and a belt from a bathrobe and dragged my out to the bed. After a half-hearted attempt to resume our conjugal visit, she finally rolled over to reveal blood pretty much everywhere. The towel was soaked through, the sheets were riddled, and blood was running up her leg. She then had the wisdom to wander around the room, leaving blood tracks all over the carpet. This gig was up, although it took still a while longer for her to admit it.

Eventually back into the bathroom she went, placing her butt in the bathtub with her foot elevated as I tried to reason with her. She wasn’t hearing logic yet, however, and even launched into some especially pathetic bravado: “I’m a Randall, goddammit! We are tough, and we don’t give up over some pussy shit like this!” As things deteriorated into resembling a Dexter kill scene, she thankfully relented and called for an ambulance. After she made the call, she asked for her bottle of champagne, which I gladly went to fetch. “And if you happen to see my dignity”, she called, “will you bring that in too please?”

“I Love You!”

Before the stretcher left we were still unable to locate her ID. This worked in my favor because I was still a bit peeved about having to put up with her ridiculousness for the past hour. Not to mention the Michigan - Va Tech Sugar Bowl was coming down to the wire. I told her I’d meet her at the emergency room in a few minutes and off she went. I settled in to watch the end of the game and enjoy a drink and cigarette since she’s blown the $200 fine for smoking already anyway.

Security arrived and took photos of the scene while I enjoyed the game and one of them was curious:

“What relationship are you to the guest?”, he asked.

“We’re dating”, I replied.

“You’re dating, but you’re sitting here watching the game while she’s going to the hospital?”, he mused.

“Brother”, I began, “if you had spent the last hour trying to corral this cat and listening to her run her mouth in the face of logic, you’d be doing the exact same thing.”

I think he saw things my way, not that I gave two shits what he thought at that point. All I knew was that my bright idea of coming up here for a night of huge rewards had been cut comically, pathetically short. Deep down I knew I deserved it, but that only made me feel worse.

I scooted over to the nearby emergency room to find my girl in a wheelchair, sporting a silly grin. She really was a happy drunk after all---or a complete lunatic. A minute or two later I was leaning towards the latter, when she looked at me all earnest-like and blurted: “I love you!”, followed by a trailing, “did I just say that?”

Before I could respond, she reiterated: “No---yeah. I love you!”

I paused and allowed: “Honey, I really like hanging out with you too, but that’s not a word I throw around lightly. I’ve only told two girls that in my whole life.”

“Yeah, I don’t tell people that much, either.”, she responded.

“Tell you what: we’ll see if you still say that in the morning, and then we’ll talk about it, OK?’

“OK!”, she said, happily. Then of course we kissed or something. She really was hopelessly cute, even in this condition. Tough for a man to resist. Knowing better at the time, I was sucked just that much further into this doomed relationship. Then things got weird.

We finally ended in a treatment room, where Laine intermittently fought with her IV input, and had other bursts of being a pain in the ass. Happily, however, she was polite to the help and reasonable most of the time. At one point as we were waiting she casually said: “I should’ve just gone ahead and killed myself.”

“Um, what?”, I asked, not entirely surprised.

“I brought a knife and a bunch of psyche meds with me to the room today, and I was really thinking about doing it until I texted you.” (That’s me: saver of lives!)

I tried to be casual. “I don’t think you should do that. You have an a ton going for you, and besides, I’d miss you horribly.”

She showed me a stern look and threatened: “If you tell anyone I said this, I’ll kill you! They’ll put me back in the psche ward, and I do not want to go back there!”

I promised her I wouldn’t tell, but at the same time began thinking back to determine how nuts she might be. She had mentioned a bout with depression that included being institutionalized in the past, but she had assured me that was yesterday’s news. She had made passing references to her pain not being worth it recently, but nothing beyond what a normal grieving person might say.

Beyond her ill-advised “GONZO” tattoo, complete with a goth cross she had applied six years back there was nothing to indicate she was suicidal. I knew she wasn’t bluffing about the pills, however, because I saw three bottles worth as I was looking for her ID in the room, but I didn’t think anything of them at the time. Ultimately I decided to pay close attention to what she said from here on out on the matter, but let the current incident slide. (No other warning signs would surface.)

“I won’t tell anyone,” I assured her. “And please, for gods sakes, don’t kill yourself.”

“I won’t. At least until you’re gone, anyway.”

I greeted that with a sideways frown, which drew a grin from her. I couldn’t tell if she was serious or not.

A frumpy nurse eventually came in, aiming to put a stitch and a pressure pack on Laine’s puncture wound. The three of us waited five minutes for the doctor talking on his cell in the hallway to finally come in to assess and instruct, but it seemed like an hour. The procedure was finally done, and the patient took it like a champ. She even relished watching it happen, which I’ll never quite understand. Soon enough we were heading back to the hotel.

Picking Up The Pieces

Seriously, the room looked like a murder scene. There were piles of bloody tiles, and thick dried blood, now brownish, here and there all over the bathroom. And the hotel staff didn’t exactly have the sheets changed while we gone, either. This didn’t exactly deter us, however, as we made a halfhearted attempt to rekindle our lost romantic evening. The fact was we were drained both mentally physically and mentally at this point, not to mention on the back end of a good alcohol buzz. Somehow Laine never complained about her foot hurting though, much to my amazement.

Sleep didn’t come easily for me, and I wish I had fallen off the wagon for xanax as well as alcohol by the time dawn rolled around. I had come prepared to start my courier job in the morning, but the first order of business was to go get some crutches. I found some at a nearby drug store, but only discovered one can rent them instead later. Good to know for future reference anyway.

As a final insult to our best-laid plans for a fancy hotel night, there was an enormous crane blocking the front driveway, so we had to walk a decent distance to get to our cars, even with the valet service. We went to Laine’s apartment, where I set her up with an ice pack and all that jazz. We sat around having a smoke, (she smokes inside, of course), and had hungover conversation. Then it happened again...

“I still love you.”, she said, grinning.

“Aww, that’s sweeet!”, I replied, invoking a redneck accent.

I then reiterated that I don’t use that term lightly, but if she played her cards right...
The way this our relationship turned out, I would hate to ever learn how she’d act if she merely liked me! In any event, I headed off to start a work day of exhaustion.

Our phone contact continued as normal over the next couple of days, and she managed to get around well enough on her crutches as her foot felt better pretty quickly. I ended up back at her place Friday night, whereupon I informed her that my next court date was going to be as early as two weeks, maybe three. She knew “court date” in fact meant the day when I get taken away for as long as three years. I had been operating on the assumption that I would be taking off sometime in February, but as I put it now “shit’s got real.”

She was obviously taken aback, but showed no real emotion otherwise. I could see things had changed for her right then and there, though, and I certainly couldn’t blame her. The fact that a cool girl fifteen years my junior hung out with me as long as she did under the circumstances was a goddamn miracle, not to mention a blessing. Chick had to be, well...crazy! Anyway, Laine didn’t make any declarations on the spot, and I didn’t ask. She would need to process the info in her own way, and that was fine. For the moment, anyway.

Shattering Different Pieces

We were back on the AA wagon at this point, so we hit up a good speaker meeting and then ended up back at her place again. Now Laine isn’t the most affectionate girl I’ve ever met. This is actually kind of refreshing---she’s a lot like a dude in this respect. She certainly has her moments, but she’s really not needy in that way at all. This time was clearly different though---to the point that I came right out and asked her if she even wanted me to be there. She said that she did, but showed nothing to back this up. There was no real tension though---we hang out quite well together---and a killer Gorillaz show was on Palladia, so I stuck around. She’s the type that would tell me to beat it if that’s what she wanted anyway.

Eventually took my leave, but not before I snagged Season 1 of Arrested Development, a Kevin Smith monologue DVD, and the movie Digby Goes Down. (It honestly didn’t occur to me at the time that these would end up being parting gifts, but that’s how it turned out.) We had a long, sad, affectionate hug as I left, and honestly I could’ve broken down right then and there. Maybe I even should have. Although intellectually I didn’t think this was really the end, my heart knew otherwise.

My drive home found my iPod shuffle bringing up most appropriate songs, most notably Yo La Tengo’s Daphnia, which might as well have been written for my feelings that exact moment. Laine and I exchanged texts regarding appropriate songs during the whole ride, and as she pointed out we could’ve done that forever. After I mention that The Stones’ When The Whip Comes Down came on, she responded with simply: “Fuck.” Fuck, indeed.

The morning found me compelled to write her a long Facebook message making a case why we should hang out until the end. My view was we could either celebrate the time we have left, or we can treat it like a funeral. Turns out Laine, being newly dedicated to her sobriety, was interested in cutting her losses, but couldn’t manage to say as much. I can’t really blame her, but communication would’ve been nice. Maybe she was afraid I’d talk her out of it, who knows? IN any event, chalk up yet another nasty unforeseen consequence of my being busted for dealing drugs.

A suggestion that Laine come spend the night was shot down, and after an attempt to rendezvous for a Buddhist meditation ceremony in the morning didn’t work out for various reasons, responses from her ceased entirely. Mid-afternoon the next day I finally sent her a text: “Are you OK?” After all, a girl who told me she was both suicidal and loved me days earlier had seemingly disappeared. This was met with a cold, dismissive response to which I responded with words I regret, but were probably accurate just the same. Suffice it to say, that was that, and I haven’t heard from her since.

I guess being treated rudely is the quickest way to get over someone, so I’ve got that going for me. On the other hand, I do feel bad for Laine. She had mentioned how foreign actually dealing with her feelings was now that she wasn’t simply medicating with alcohol and whatever else, bless her heart. “Feelings!”, she exclaimed. “What am I supposed to do with these?” A damned good question, dear. A damned good question. Something tells me where I’m spending the next couple of years or so no one gives a rat’s ass.

What I do know is Laine brought me affirmation when I needed it desperately. She gave my mind a respite from a most trying circumstance, if only for a little while. For this I will always be grateful, no matter how it ended up. Not to mention the story fodder. And wait until I write the song---heaven knows I’m going to have the time!