November 14, 2023
6:13 am
I awoke this morning with lyrics in my head. Nothing strange there, it happens all the time. I’ve always thought of it as God’s way of preparing me for my day, waking me up with a song.
Today it was a passage from Zach Williams, ‘The Struggle’,
“She struggles with addiction, she struggles to fit in-“
I laid there, unwilling to wake up, cold and trying to warm myself by putting my head under the covers and breathing into the space beneath.
It used to work when I was a kid. I have found that sleeping alone has its benefits, like taking the entire bed, sleeping sideways and diagonal, if I choose. No one tells me to scoot over and there is no one to stop me throwing all the blankets to the floor when I wake soaked in sweat from nightmares that still plague me, and I guess always will.
In the summer there is always a cooler side of the bed to roll to but waking alone on a chilly November morning is a totally different thing, something else I need to get used to, I guess. This new life.
I pack the pillows around myself and readjust and try to sink deeper into the bed-
“She takes too much medication, to cover up her tears- “
Then the internal dialogue begins-
“No, I don’t. I don’t do that anymore. I’m ok. I’m not crying anymore. Most of the time. I’m getting better. I just want to sleep more than 4 hours a night, God, and I can’t even take anything for that anymore, so, please…please, I’m begging you, just help me fall back asleep.”
“One pill to make her happy,
Too many make her sad.”
“I am happy now. Well, happier? I’m trying so hard not to be sad. I’m going to be happy. I am happy. No pills required; I am fine. I just want to sleep.”
I roll the other way and make a hole around my face so I can get some fresh air, knowing that if I keep tossing and turning, Kelton is going to think I am awake, and he will want to go out.
“Then she notices the Bible, in the hotel by her bed.”
Irritation begins to get the better of me at this point.
“I know. I don’t even know where my Bible is, I am not proud that it has been so long since I went to church that I couldn’t find it Sunday morning. I mean, where could it go? It has no legs, it’s here somewhere, I will find it. It’s not like we don’t talk every day- please just let me fall back asleep until the sun comes up-please…”
“She says, ‘I am weary, I am worn,
And I can’t take it anymore.”
“No, I really can’t, God. I am weary. I am worn. And I can’t take it anymore!! What?! What is it?!”
“You see this bottle, it’s been my only friend-“
“It’s not. It’s not my friend anymore. None of the bottles, none of the bags, none of the pills, none of the ‘medication’, nothing. I don’t have drug friends or human friends; you know all I have is you right now. I drink my water; I try to eat food. I go to bed at night, even though I know I won’t sleep, and I get up in the morning and I do what you say, even if it makes me say things I don’t really want to say and do things I don’t really want to do and sometimes people think my healing process and the things that I do in the name of healing are odd, but I know it’s okay because you told me so and these are the things that make me feel better. Or they will eventually. Why can’t I sleep a full night? Is this ever going to happen? Because this is my struggle right now, God, this is where I need you.”
I pulled the covers tighter and my mind wandered into fuzzy places, my body cold but my mind not yet willing to be awake, Zach Williams voice and words looping around foggy corners, around the bend and gone, then coming at me from another direction.
“I don’t need to be at work until 4 this afternoon and I do not want to be awake at 5 am.
I am grateful that my body doesn’t hurt today and that is not what keeps me from sleep. I am grateful that I do not have to pee too badly and there is no need for my feet to touch the floor because, once again, I woke naked with all the clothes I went to bed in, gone. T-shirt, hoodie, sweatpants, socks-How I can sleep through taking my clothes off every night, all those layers-but not make it to daylight just once a week? Why God?
“Please—I beg of you, just 2 more hours…”
“But here I am,
My heart to you I give-
Oh, Father, can you take away these sins? “
“What? What God? What did I do now? What?? Fine, I’m awake. What is it? Please tell me and then let me take a nap. Please, just say it!”
So, he does. And again, like usual, I don’t understand. Or I understand one thing. Full circle. I see it like a traffic circle. It’s a roundabout.
This is how he talks to me. This is when. Almost always. 4 am. Maybe it is morning in heaven. Maybe he never sleeps, and this is when he gets to me. The earth turns to a certain angle, and he sees me and says, “Oh, yeah, I have to tell her something, I’ll wake her gently with a song, or a whisper- and I do hate to shout but sometimes she needs that…”
So before the ringing in my head gets too loud, here it is-
I guess I am a slow learner. Well, Slow learner- no, stubborn as fuck-yes. To my own detriment, might I add. I have never been one to do what I have been told.
Into the past:
It is 1997- maybe 1998. I can’t say I recall exactly. My mind was so addled at that point, I don’t even know if I knew what day it was- they were all the same. Wake up, figure out where we were going to get some shit, how much did we need to sell, what could we keep, would it be enough, how soon would that be?
I remember it was sunny, we were living on Dusty Lane in a one room house built of cement block. When you walked in the door you walked into the room we slept in, there was a couch and a bed. I don’t remember a tv but I’m sure there was one. To the left of the front door was a small kitchen and in the center was a small bathroom, with a shower and a toilet. The entire house was maybe 15’ by 30’. You could see everything as soon as you opened the front door.
I was jittery when I woke, and I took 2 Valiums. The orange ones. I needed to relax. And maybe eat more than a pack of Nabs before I snorted my first line. Today, before we could get down to the real business of getting and staying fucked up, we had to go sell a pound of pot to some dude named ‘Boo’ and go get some food.
Doing him a favor, we thought, (or maybe we were out of gallon Ziplocs) we weighed it up and divided it into ounces and stuffed 16 baggies of pot into an empty Saltine’s box and put it under the seat of the truck. Under my seat, of course. And off we went, just a regular day. We would sell this, grab some food on our way to meet the ‘big guy’, and all would be good. Just another day in paradise, right?
They were waiting for us a mile or so down the road. Two sheriffs’ cars sitting in the parking lot of an empty building, right on Main Street. And waiting they were.
As soon as they saw us round the bend, one car pulled into the road and the blue lights came on. They waved us into the parking lot, and I knew we were fucked. I just, for some reason, didn’t realize that selling marijuana was as ‘bad’ of a crime as it was. And I was feeling fine, the Valiums doing their job.
They came at us guns drawn, ordered us out and onto the ground.
I can see an old lady across the road, standing behind her screen door, watching. She just stood there. Staring. She watched as the female cop patted me down, as she put her hands all over me, as she pulled up my shirt with traffic passing by and checked in my bra, as she put her hands between my legs- I watched that old lady, watching us. I watched her watching and I lost it.
I pulled away and told that woman sheriff to get her fucking hands off me and I tugged my t shirt down and I was twisted in my shirt and she still had hold of my arms and I began kicking at her and somehow, before I knew what was happening, I got the first shot of pepper spray straight in my left eye and they were both on me.
By this time, Chris was sitting calmly in the back seat of the police car in handcuffs- and I had a fleeting thought- something about him being so calm and giving up so easily, and that woman was still staring from her doorway- “What are you staring at! Go in your fucking house, is this making you feel good in some way? Shut the fucking door! This is none of your fucking business!”
I never carried ID back then, no one needed to know who I was, I was nobody. I was everybody.
They asked my name and I refused to tell them, although I am quite sure that they knew.
I refused over and over.
Shephard was the name on the tag on the male officer’s shirt.
Chris was telling me to just tell them what they wanted from the backseat where he sat because he had already given up- so quickly- and I told him to shut up and one of the officers grabbed me and spun me around and I was looking into the male’s face and we had eye contact when he said, “Stop! Do you want me to spray you again? I’m going to do it again!”
He still had the can in his hand and without breaking eye contact, I said “Yes.”, and I watched as, in slow motion, he lifted that can and took aim for my right eye. I watched as it blinded me. The stinging was so intense I felt like my entire face was on fire. But I kept fighting.
The third and fourth shots came after he had me bent over the hood of the car and I was catching my breath, and I heard the cuffs. I began to kick my legs backward and I got a few shots in but none that helped me, and he lifted me and spun me back around and I got another shot in each eye for that.
All this time, Chris sat there. Peacefully, hands cuffed behind his back, in the back seat of the car. Fucker. Why didn’t he do anything?
I screamed for some water- for them to fix this, that I was on fucking fire and was told they had no water until we got to Dobson. If I wanted to feel better, I would just let them put me in the car and we could go.
That, somehow, did not reassure me so I rolled and kicked from the ground and took another shot to each eye before they managed to get the cuffs on me and get me seated beside Chris in the backseat. Officer Shephard ‘found’ a bottle of water and splashed some from it onto my face and slammed the car door.
I don’t remember the ride to Dobson. Probably because I was on fire and couldn’t see shit.
When we arrived, they put us in two separate rooms. Mine had a table with a chair on either side and a camera in the corner. They gave me a cup of water, asked me my name, which I again refused to tell them, and they left me alone.
So I raged. I flipped off the camera, I screamed at them to go fuck themselves, I paced, I screamed some more and every once in a while, an officer would poke his head in and ask if I was ready to talk. I would say, “Are you going to let me out of here? And they would say, “No.” So I would refuse. I somehow did not realize that it was not a game I was going to win.
Like I said, Stubborn as fuck.
Eventually, they came in and told me Chris had told them what they needed to know and naturally I assumed that meant he had told them that the pot wasn’t mine and they were now going to let me go.
I let them lead me out of the room and from there they led me to a cell.
Where they proceeded to take my clothes and some nice lady talked to me in a quiet voice and told me that I was lucky. I was in this cell because I was on suicide watch, that is why they had to take my clothes and shoelaces and they needed to make sure I wasn’t going to hurt myself.
She was sorry but she had to do more ‘searching’ and I didn’t understand what she meant, I was naked, where was she going to search? I found out.
She said I was lucky because they didn’t put me in gen pop and my boyfriend was calling around trying to get bail for us. She said hopefully I wouldn’t have to stay long.
I was desperate for a cigarette, and they had taken mine from me, but she found me a menthol and one match. One match because that was all I was allowed, and she was going to watch me smoke but it was the best menthol I’ve ever had and magically her voice and kindness and the nicotine began to calm me. Or maybe I was just done fighting.
She asked why I wouldn’t just tell them my name and I told her of the undignified things they had done to me, while everyone in the neighborhood watched and then she left me alone and went back to her desk and I laid on the steel cot, waiting.
Around 3 am, she came to me and handed me my clothes. Chris had made bail. It had taken him a minute because his family wanted to leave me in there and bail him out. Like I turned him bad.
I was charged with four felonies that day, Possession, Manufacturing, Intent to Distribute, and one misdemeanor, Failure to Comply.
I tried to break with him then, but the hold was still too strong, and he said he would pay for my lawyer, and he said he would get me out of it and getting arrested only stopped the steady flow of coke and meth for a minute.
So back and forth I went, going to moms for a week or so cleaning up, then he would call, and I would meet him, and it would get too heavy and back to mom’s I would go. I had no contact with my kids, I couldn’t keep a job, I couldn’t get a job, but my mom always had a bed and food and clean clothes.
Court dragged on and on and Chris kept telling me he was taking care of it, and I couldn’t see progress but in the end he did. We went to court and I listened as they repeated the charges against me and said that they were dropped and I pled guilty to failure to comply, because the lawyer said to and the judge told me again that I was lucky and they took Chris to jail and everyone told me how lucky I was that he took the fall for me and I kept using, even when he was in jail. I waited for him and cheated on him for drugs and told him I was ‘being good’ and wrote letters and visited him in county and drove to Goldsboro for visits when they moved him, and I kept business going. Because without it, what would I do? I did my almost 100 hours of community service and paid my price by cleaning toilets at a day care and picking up trash on the roadside and while he was away. I gave myself away to whoever had what I needed. And the using covered up how dirty I felt. Until it didn’t.
Then he got out. And he had to work, so somewhere he found some dude named George who had a crew of Mexicans who painted commercially, and he agreed to give us both a job. So, we painted. I sucked at it. Couldn’t cut a line for shit. Well, not paint lines anyway. I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying so at work I painted in silence. All day every day, Mostly, sober.
Then he found a new job installing drop ceilings in new schools that were going up everywhere. That guy also offered to take me on- as a laborer, so I labored. They hired me as a joke, not thinking I would last but I worked like a man and eventually I proved myself. I would lift that grid and put it on my shoulders and haul it wherever they needed it. I cut tiles and I cleaned up and I became faster and better at installing tiles than their regular guy, so I got a raise and a new position. I climbed into the back of that van at the end of the day, tired and worn and we would pass around a joint or two, and the red lights on the highway would hypnotize me and I would relax, and I began to feel like I could do something. And without drugs, I slept at night.
One day I was leaving his mother’s house, to go to town and I came to the stop sign at the end of Prison Camp Road. As I was making a right hand turn onto 89, a sheriff was turning onto the road I was leaving. I caught a glimpse of his face, and we made eye contact, and I knew that fucker was coming after me, but I pretended he wasn’t, and I kept going. He made a U-turn and as I knew I had no inspection sticker, tags or insurance, I pulled into Oak Grove and pulled in front of the garage, like I was planning to go get my sticker and he pulled in behind me. I got out of the car and he rolled down his window. He said, ‘Hey Jackie,’ like we were friends and I looked at him and said, ‘Hey,’ back to the man who had aimed his pepper spray directly into my eyes, six times. He called me over to his car and motioned for me to get in the front seat, so I groaned and did as he asked.
“How are you doing?” He asked, like he cared.
“Fine.” I answered grudgingly.
“You know I can take you in, right? I know you weren’t heading here.”
“Well, I tried.” I smiled at him.
“I just want to talk to you for a minute, is that ok?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I was done. Give out. Resigned. I had to get out of here. Everyone knew me here and in a bad, bad way.
“Why did you do that? Why did you act that way that day?”
“I don’t know, Officer Shephard”, I said caustically. “I should have been really calm that day, as I wasn’t on anything but Valium. I should have been really relaxed.” I smirked at him.
“I’m sorry I had to do that to you,” he said in a different tone of voice than the one he had used on me the last time we met.
“Yeah, right.”
“I am. You can be ok. I want to see you make it. I want to see you get out.”
“I’m trying. I’m working. I’m doing what I’m supposed to.”
“You may need to leave him.”
“I know. But I can’t right now. I’m trying. I’m working. I don’t even have an illegal car without him. I don’t really know how.”
“I’ll tell you what, I’m going to give you a warning, and if you come back and show proof of insurance and registration, I can let you go.” He handed me the warning.
“I will,” I sighed in resignation, “Thank you.”
“I want you to be ok,” he said as I was opening the door, “I don’t want to see you anymore.” I got out of the car and leaned in before I shut the door and said, “Not to be an asshole, but I really don’t want to see you anymore, either”, and I grinned at him as I closed the door, and I walked back to my illegal car that I was pretty sure Chris got in trade for drugs.
Shortly after that the kids father agreed to let me see them and a month or so later, I told Chris I was going to Alabama for 2 weeks to see them before summer vacation was over.
I got in that car and drove it to Alabama and long story short, put my kids in it and drove it to Maine. With no insurance, no registration, no title and on a donut tire. Definitely planning on never seeing Officer Shephard again. Escape.
I got out and twenty years went by. Exactly 20.
For those 20 years I was in survival mode. I thought I had healed from things and that I had put the past behind me, and I was good. I got my kids back and I got married and my husband and I raised them and sent them off into this big, scary world. I drank like a fish for those twenty years. I endured 2 stays in the psych ward and two more suicide watches.
We began fighting more and more and I quit drinking, and his drinking became heavier, and I became more and more weary of it. And then he told me to go.
Where was I to go? Back to Mom and a warm bed and a hot meal, I guess. Starting over. Fuck.
So I came back, angry as fuck. I came back hurt and broken and alone, and when I came back, it all hit me straight in the face. Everything. I hadn’t healed anything. I just ran. And now I was running back. WTF.
I ran from Maine at 16 in shame, and then back to it at 29, in shame. Now, I had to go back to North Carolina. In shame. To a place where I had been on my worst behavior. To a place where I had lost everything.
Fucking starting over. It was demoralizing and depressing. I was so angry. I raged. I cried. Covid came and locked me in the house by myself and I realized I didn’t like myself that much.
Here I was, in a strange place, with strange customs and friendly to your face people. Neighbors who wanted to hang out and feed me, what was wrong with these people in the South? Where I come from strangers don’t talk to each other. Why couldn’t they just leave me alone? Aren’t they supposed to stay home too? I was mean to so many people, just because they wouldn’t leave me alone to hurt.
My brother in law told me about a guy who needed someone to work a few hours a week, and I thought about it for a second, but as my husband and I were only separated and I still had access to our bank accounts, I didn’t need the money, so when I found out where the job was I declined to go talk to the guy.
A year and a half later, it came up again and I brushed that off. ‘My husband and I were going to try to reconcile. I didn’t want to be tied down, I had other things to do, I’m not going there’, I said to myself.
Reconciliation was not for us and at the beginning of this summer we divorced, so last week when my brother-in-law again mentioned this guy maybe needing help, and me wondering how I’m going to pay my bills, I thought to myself, “This is the third time he has mentioned this. You can at least just go home and comb your hair and go talk to the guy. Man up!” I prayed a quick prayer, just, “If this is your plan, God, let him be there, because I don’t know if I can be brave enough to go in there more than once. But I’ll do it because it keeps coming at me, fine, I’ll do it.”
Yesterday morning, I got up sick to my stomach. I washed and combed my hair. I got dressed. I made myself choke down a cinnamon roll. I took care of the dogs and the chickens, and I got in the car and drove to Oak Grove for my first day of work.
I walked in and found out that the owner had decided to find a reference for me from someone who wasn’t family and found out that the guy he had called for a reference was someone I didn’t really like and had recently told to go fuck himself. Quite loudly. In front of other people, including his wife. (I went home that day feeling like an asshole and said a prayer for him because I didn’t know how his wife could stand him and maybe if he felt better, he would be nicer.)
I worked my full shift yesterday with my head held high. I smiled. I hoped that no one would recognize me from who I was. I wondered if I had slept with any of these old men who hang out here now. I hope not. But the sad fact is, I don’t know. I don’t remember their names. And I wouldn’t remember their faces because I never really looked. But that is who I was. That is not who I am today.
But chances are someday somebody will recognize me.
I stood smoking a cigarette on break, looking at that spot in the parking lot, and remembering the sheriff’s words. How he just wanted me to make it and he was sorry.
This morning I woke up to that song. And the image of that roundabout.
I am going to be ok. I am going to make it. Whatever that is.
But I had to come full circle. The roundabout. I kept trying to get off and go in other directions, but you can’t heal until you face the things that broke you.
I’ve battled myself, demons, dragons, everyone around me, even God. I have not listened and been stubborn. I have been broken, stomped on, eyes blacked and teeth knocked out.
I will go in tonight, knowing I haven’t slept and I will do my best.
Every day I learn and remember more of who I am.
I’m a fucking warrior. That’s who I am. A fucking warrior. And I will keep fighting.
I just want to be on the right side these days.
Written in Ink 