MY ROCK #5
Chapter One
Tristan
Damn it! Someone was banging on the damned door! I pulled the covers up over my head and ignored them, hoping they would go away. I snuggled down deep under the comforter and, just when I closed my eyes again, the persistent SOB knocked once more.
Fuck! “What?”
“Tristan, it’s nurse Carter.” She stuck her head in the door and said, “The doctor wants to see you in about fifteen minutes, okay?”
I pushed back the covers and looked around. I forgot where the fuck I was for a minute. Shit!
“I see him in the afternoon!” I told her, pulling the covers back up.
“He wants to see you this morning, Tristan. Fifteen minutes.” She had that tone, the one that told you she might look like a sweet little lady, but if you messed with her, she could kick your ass, easily. I didn’t have to see her face either to know she was giving me ‘the look.’ I seemed to garner it from her frequently. She left and closed the door behind her. Fucking nurses and doctors! I was ready to get out of that damned place. I was tired of people telling me when to get up and when to go to bed and when to see the fucking doctor. I threw the covers back again and pulled myself up.
I looked out the window. The L.A. sun was shining through the smog and I ached to get out there into it. I could go out on the smoker’s patio, but it wasn’t quite the same. I did the basics: face, teeth, hair, and then slipped on a clean t-shirt and the funky slippers they gave you when you’re admitted. I had pajama pants on, a thing I wasn’t used to. At home, I usually slept naked, or in my boxers, but there you never knew when nurse Ratchet was going to poke her head in the door.
Wondering what the hell the doctor wanted with me so early, I headed down the hall to his office. Hopefully he wanted to talk about discharge. I felt ready. The last time I went to rehab, and the time before that, when I went right back into a shitty environment around a bunch of losers with more than questionable habits. I was using within a week both times. I’d start with alcohol, telling myself it was okay because that wasn’t my drug of choice, but it had always led up from there. I promised myself I wasn’t going to do that this time—I would be homeless, but at least I’d be alone. I’d stay away from the bars and the dredges of society and just work on writing songs.
I found my doctor sitting behind his desk, as usual. I wondered if his ass ever got sore from sitting on it so much. “Hey, Doc.”
“Good morning, Tristan, have a seat.”
I sat down and he said, “I’m looking at your progress here and I think you’re about ready to go. How do you feel about that?”
“I think I’m ready to go, too,” I told him. Thank God!
“My only issue with letting you leave is where you’ll be going?”
“Home,” I said. I never told him I was getting evicted. He didn’t really need to know, I thought.
“Is someone going to be there with you?”
“No, but I’m a big boy, Doc. I wipe my own ass and everything.”
He had no sense of humor. He gave me a stern look and said, “I honestly don’t think you’re ready to be alone, Tristan. Alone seems to be when you mess up…am I right?”
I shrugged. The truth was that alone was when I did everything. I was always alone. “I live alone, Doc. I’m not sure what you want me to do. You’ve met my parents.”
“Okay, we can have you stay a bit longer until I feel more confident that you’ll be okay on your own…”
“No…no, I’m ready to be out of here.” I had a thought and before I really thought it through, I blurted it out… “I can stay with my friend Elly. Remember, she’s been coming by to see me a lot and sat in on that fiasco with my parents. She offered already….”
He raised an eyebrow like maybe he didn’t believe me. I’m sure he looked at Elly…so clean cut and soft-spoken and thought surely she’d never see anything in a guy like me. Finally he cleared his throat and said, “Fine, but I’ll need her to be at all of your outpatient appointments then. She’ll be a part of your recovery. Is that going to work for her?”
“Yeah, of course. She’ll be fine with it.” I had no fucking idea if she’d agree to that or not, but I suddenly felt like I needed out of there, immediately. I was pretty sure I could talk her into it.
“Okay then, I’ll have the nurse get together your discharge papers. You’ll start your outpatient treatment next week. You’ll get a call to come in later in the week to sit down and make a schedule that will work for you and Elly.”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” I told him. I would have agreed to suck his dick at that point. Not that I’d do it, but I just wanted to agree to whatever I had to so that I could go home. I’d even agree to do Nurse Ratchet out there.
I left his office and started packing. I could taste my freedom at last. I was packed up and ready to go and I still hadn’t seen the nurse. It figured, when I didn’t want her there, she was in my face. When I needed her, she was on her ass at the nurse’s station. I took my duffle bag and went out to the nurse’s station.
The nurse saw me coming and said, “Oh, now he’s up.” She could be a sarcastic bitch sometimes.
I rolled my eyes and told her, “Doc said you’d have my paperwork.”
“I have it right here,” she said, proud of herself for pulling out a few forms. She put it up on the counter and showed me where to sign, date and initial. I was ten years older when I got done.
“Is that it?”
“That’s it, Tristan. You be good.”
I winked at her and said, “I’m always good.” I think she actually blushed.
I stepped outside the doors and took a deep breath of the fresh air. I’d been out, back and forth to the studio since I’d been there, but it wasn’t the same knowing I had to go back. The air tasted different. I was never going back. I was never putting that shit back in my body, if for no other reason than how fucking hard it was to get out.
I got on the bike and headed home, feeling better than I had since I couldn’t remember when. This was my do-over and I wasn’t going to screw this one up. This was the first time since I was about twelve years old that being sober was a priority. I finally got that staying wasted all the time was no way to live and experience life. It was numbing the pain of what I’d been through, but until I sobered up and let that shit go, it would just keep dragging me back down.
I parked my bike in front of my apartment and headed upstairs. When I got there, I dug the key out of my big ass duffle bag and tried to put it in the keyhole. I say tried, because the fucking thing didn’t fit. The locks were changed. Shit! I fished out the phone they gave me back when they discharged me and turned it. I laughed, sardonically when I realized that after almost two weeks I didn’t have a single missed call. I looked up Buck’s number and pressed send.
“Hello!” he said, all pleasant and shit.
“Hey Buck! It’s Tristan. I guess you kicked me out, huh?”
“I’m sorry Tristan; I didn’t have any other choice….”
“Where are my things?”
“I’m sorry, Tristan,” he said again.
“My stuff, Buck. Where’s my stuff?” I wanted him to focus. I wasn’t in the mood for his apologies all of a sudden.
“Downstairs in your storage area, your key to that will still work. If you need some time to get them out, that’s fine.”
Fuck, I couldn’t believe I was fucking homeless. It was the one thing I had left…shit! I knew it was coming, but the reality of it was like getting punched in the gut. There went my do-over.
“Alright, yeah it’ll be a while.”
“Tristan…good luck,” he said. Suddenly something came over me and for a few seconds I felt empathy for someone else. Fucking sobriety, the poor guy sounded like he felt like shit for kicking me out and I actually cared.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said. I couldn’t believe I was thanking him for making me homeless. I was practically a choir boy sober. Hopefully Elly will believe that when I show up on her doorstep.
I took my duffel bag and left the rest of my shit in storage and headed over to see if Elly was going to take me in, or turn me away. I had a feeling that she was too nice to turn me out on the streets. If she wasn’t so nice, she’d have probably shut me down a long time ago.