Max, Eleni, & Nat the Cat
“Three days? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Max looked on in horror as he listened to Eleni's side of the call.
“Sorry, right. Um, hmm, yes ma'am, yes I understand, but ma'am, we can't wait three days. They told us we could just continue treatment from the LA clinic. Nobody told us anything of the kind. Mmm-hmm. Right. Well be that as it may, we can't wait three days. Do you understand? Mmm-hmm, riiiight. So Burnside and what? Mmm-hmm.”
Max turned away and shook his head. She was trying. You always had to give Eleni points for trying. She didn't give up easy. But this had hopeless written all over it. This was one of those bureaucratic nightmare situations. One thing was sure though, they couldn't wait three days.
Daisy & Toby
Daisy was cold, as usual. The van sure was better than their old spot. It kept the rain off and made her feel a bit safer, but she knew it was only a matter of time before its owner came around and kicked them out. They'd noticed the van about a week ago and just sort of moved in the other day. So far so good. Actually, Toby was the one to notice it. She had instincts, street smarts, that Daisy just hadn't developed. But Daisy was learning—she found a better methadone clinic than Toby's. They were nicer and faster than COMA which is where Toby went. Of course, she'd had to find the Delphia clinic because she'd gotten kicked off the COMA program. Oh well, they were all a bunch of creeps there anyway. Of course this meant they had to go to two different clinics every day. But it wasn't like they didn't have extra time on their hands.
Whew, Toby thought, a new nurse today. The regular nurse would have noticed she had a group hold and that meant no dose 'til she made up the missing group. Toby hated the “therapy” groups at the clinic. They were all so stupid and the more “dirties” you got the more stupid groups you had to go to. She wanted to see if her counselor would let her do a few one-on-one sessions to make up for a couple of her missed groups. He wasn't in his office but the woman at the desk said he was in today. Well, she and Daisy could just kick it outside for a bit. It wasn't like they didn't have extra time…
Jolie
Jolie was pleased to see that although the neighborhood left something to be desired, the Broadmoor was an impressive building. The intercom system alone was clearly the latest in high tech digital display. As is generally the case with these things, it did not facilitate her entry to the building. Just as she was about to give up, someone walked out and she made it to the front desk. This, too, was fraught with all sorts of security measures and it took all her powers of persuasion to finally gain access. After signing in and waiting for Jackie to come and escort her upstairs, she was finally face to face with her old friend in the tiny apartment. Jackie looked good. She'd put on a couple pounds. The last time Jolie had seen her she'd been emaciated. It turned out the Broadmoor was a sober-living house. Jackie filled her in. Portland, it seemed, was awash in such places. Programs, detox, half-way houses, three-quarter houses, sober living. Even Jackie wasn't quite sure of the exact differences. Clearly, there was something for everyone, as Jackie assured her. They just had to find the right one for Jolie.
By now Jolie was becoming a little insecure. She nervously smoothed the Fentynal patch under her jeans.
“Find the right place?” she eyed Jackie nervously. “Can't I just stay here? I can pay some rent.”
Jackie looked up at her with sheep eyes. She licked her lips, unsure of how to begin.
“What?” said Jolie, “You told me last time we talked we could share a room. What's up? Jackie?”
“You can totally stay tonight. That’s no problem,” blurted Jackie, “it's just like, not every night.”
“Jackie?” Jolie was beyond tired, confused, disappointed.
Jackie spilled her tale. She'd been busted since last they spoke and the way to stay out of jail was to enter one of these programs. She'd pulled some strings with a friend whose boyfriend was a big-wig in the “recovery community.” Most people had to jump through hoops to get into the Broadmoor, but Jackie had managed to get straight in and she thought she could help Jolie do the same.
“But I don't want to go to re-hab!” she screamed.
“Shhhh” said Jackie.
Max, Eleni, & Nat the Cat
“The lady on the phone said maybe if we go see a counselor face-to-face we might get lucky,” Eleni said as they pulled up in front of COMA.
“The county office of medical addiction?” Max murmured in disbelief.
They didn't have to ask which building it was. COMA had the depressive look of Methadone clinics world wide. An old dumpy bunker-like building with a discreet plaque outside stating the clinic's name. You had to look twice. Inside was much the same story. Ancient linoleum, bare florescent bulbs, lines of people, and a couple of mismatched vinyl chairs. They approached the counter and were told to have a seat. For a while they just sat and checked out the scene around them. They could see the dosing window from where they sat. That was new. In LA you had to go through a locked door to even approach a dosing nurse. The patients, or clients as they were now called, as if anyone really gave a shit, looked exactly the same as the ones at home. Indeed, it was all so familiar that it took them a while before they even realized that no one had asked their names or told them who or what they were so patiently waiting for.
“Oh man,” said Eleni, “we are so fucked. Nobody's gonna do a goddamn thing today.”
Max just looked like someone shot Nat the Cat.
“I'm going out for a smoke,” said Eleni, “wanna come?”
“What and lose our place?”
Eleni sighed as she walked outside. Thank God for Max, she thought. Even in this, he hasn't lost his sense of humor. She looked around for anyone who looked as if they might be able to help. With anything. There was a couple of runaway looking girls outside sitting with their backs against the building, a couple of large backpacks between them. One of them looked up.
“Any chance we could bum a smoke?” Daisy said.
“Sure.”
Eleni fished out an extra Marlboro as she lit one for herself. She eyed the two girls. Up close they were a bit older than she'd originally thought. Early twenties probably, they might just do. She launched into her tale of woe and need.
“Sounds like you could use some brown,” Daisy said.
“Oh yeah.”
Eleni grabbed Max, and five minutes later the four of them were in the Volvo headed for 'felony flats.’
Bubbles
Bubbles wiped her eyes. They had really started burning something fierce. She'd logged on to her laptop about 7 hours ago. First her FaceBook page, then a couple hours of on-line Diablo, then hopping around onto various goth sites. Now she was on her MySpace page. Thank God for that. She'd met a lot of really cool people on the net this year! Much cooler than any of the assholes in this town. The only person she could talk to in Longview anymore was Brian, and Brian was really getting kind of pathetic. Of course, who could blame him. Looking back she realized that encouraging him to come out of the closet at school was not the best advice after all. She'd been so sure they'd all get over it in a week or two. Man, what a bunch of homophobic freaks. She'd tried to cheer Brian up by assuring him that all those stupid jocks were probably all deep in the closet themselves considering their extreme reactions. It totally made sense.
But now Brian didn't seem to trust anything she said anymore. Well, one thing was sure, she was getting out of this town, and she really didn't think she could wait to graduate anymore. Besides, what the fuck was a stupid degree from Louis and Clark High School going to do for her anyway? Hmmm... it looked like one of the new guys she'd met on-line last week wanted her to go to a show at the Fez in Portland this weekend. Well, tonight she was going to tell him yes. Who knows? If he was cool enough maybe she just wouldn't come back. If he really looked anything like his picture she could almost guarantee it.
Jolie
“Oh my God, Jackie. I just got off the phone with this bitch at the COMA clinic. She says I have to wait three weeks before I could get on the program with my Medi-cal. And three fuckin' days even if I pay cash. Are they fuckin' nuts? I can't wait three days. I'm sick NOW.”
Jolie clutched her cell phone to her chest as she paced back and forth in the tiny apartment. It only took about three steps before she had to turn around each time.
“SHHHH.... Jolene! The walls have ears here.” Jackie's eyes darted around nervously as if authority personified was going to materialize right there in the middle of the room.
“I don't give a fuck. You gotta help me Jackie. This is your fault. And don't call me fucking Jolene anymore. My name is Jolie. Jolie. Got it? How many times do I have to tell you that?”
Barkin' Jack
Barkin' Jack made his way over the pedestrian bridge that spanned the train tracks into a condo complex that sprawled from the train yard to the river's edge. There was a long public pedestrian path where he could wander along the Willamette for a few blocks. There were a few little rock paths here and there that led right to the waters edge. Today the water boasted several serene duck couples floating in pairs. Side by side, they all seemed to be enjoying an agreed-upon promenade, proceeding at a stately pace. Their very presence made Jack's blood pressure and tension level drop a notch.
Meeting and greeting could be stressful work. Somehow the longer he stood there greeting newcomers the less he seemed to care. Ducks were simple, lacking the troubling complexity that his fellow humans all seemed to carry with them. Barkin' Jack wished he had some bread or something to share with them even if there were signs along the path asking people not to feed the animals. What did they know? If the damn ducks were full they wouldn't eat. If they weren't, well then, why not?
There were the geese, too, comical and dignified at the same time. He enjoyed the honks and quacks that broke the silence over by the boat slip. The ducks seemed to choose one area and the geese the other. Opinions occasionally got bandied back and forth. Still, he was willing to bet they got along better than different kinds of people would.
Thinking about bread for the ducks started Jack thinking about his own belly. By the sun overhead he'd be willing to bet it was getting on to lunch time at the Salvation Army. Or the “Salivation Army” as his friend Frank called it.
“See Jack, we're all just like a buncha hounds in a lab. They ring that bell and we smell that food and we all know to go and listen to some god awful know-nothing sermon to get ourselves fed,” Frank had told him.
“We're the Salivation Army and they need us jus' as much as we need them.”
A lot of the fellows thought old Frank was nuts, but as far as Jack was concerned the man always spoke truthfully even if he didn't always speak comfortably. Frank lived in Forest Park these days. He'd gotten in with some of that crowd up there. Some of those guys hardly ever came into town anymore. You could get lost if you went in deep enough. Jack liked the park, liked to spend time in nature, but going in that deep frightened him. Jack needed to see the world around him, needed to see other people. A man got pretty isolated living the way he did. Any more isolation and he didn't think he'd be able to maintain even the tenuous hold he had. Speaking of which, maybe it was time to get out and see what was what.
Daisy & Toby
“They were pretty cool,” Daisy remarked as they left the bathroom at Fred Mayer where Max and Eleni dropped them. They hadn't wanted to wait until they drove all the way back downtown.
“Yeah,” Toby agreed, “lucky they ran into us. They could have got majorly ripped off.”
“Poor things, stuck in a new town, sick.”
“Yeah, I hope I don't have to deal with that shit at their age,” Toby shuddered.
“Do you have anything left over on your food stamp card? I'm hungry. We could get those little mini cheese cakes. I'll get strawberry, you get chocolate?”
“Doncha think we oughta wait a while? Not use 'em all up at once?”
“Aren't you hungry? You love the chocolate ones.”
“I guess,” Toby said, and fished out her card.
Max, Eleni, & Nat the Cat
“Thank God we ran into those two,” Eleni said as she flipped off her shoes.
“Yeah. We could’ve got majorly ripped off.”
“You got their number, right?”
“Yeah, they said to call them when we wake up tomorrow.”
“Cool, that’s a big time relief. Poor things,” Eleni murmured, “living on the street like that. Stuck in a freezing cold van.”
“I know, they're just kids.”
Bubbles
Bubbles looked for Alison in the crowd that headed into Maggie's for Goth night. A respectable gay bar most other nights, Wednesday night was special. Wednesdays, the back room at Maggie's was Goth heaven (if that wasn't an oxymoron). So far everything was going smooth as silk. She'd successfully snowed her parents into thinking she was safe at a sleep-over and her sister’s ID had gotten her in the door with nary a second glance. Even the buses actually arrived just when she wanted them to. Not too early—not too late.
Alison and Raven were new friends she'd met at a show last month and kept up with online. They were exactly the kind of friends she needed. Nothing like the stupid know-nothing hicks she went to school with. Raven didn't even go to school. She was an emancipated minor and Alison was home schooled by her extremely cool mom.
Alison was almost positive that Nicholas would be here tonight. Nicholas with whom Bubbles had already had some pretty hot little chats online and had texted. Raven said she was pretty sure her friend Ash had slept with him. So he was straight. Just thinking about the whole thing made her crave booze.
Max, Eleni, & Nat the Cat
“I just got off the phone with Marilyn. She says she hasn't seen Micky in two days.
You haven't talked to him have you?”
Eleni stood in the doorway watching Max dress for his job interview.
“Not since, like, the day before we got here. It's crazy, those guys were calling every day when we were in LA. 'When you coming up? We got to get the band started. We got a gig already. Blah blah blah.' Now I'm here, I don't know where Micky is, I can't find Bobby. I even left a message with Bobby's mom. She called back and can't find him either..”
Max rummaged around in the closet and found his one good blazer.
“How does this look?” He put it on and gave a comic twirl.
“Fabulous,” Eleni laughed, “now if we can just find Beaverton I think you got yourself a job.”
Jolie
“I'm afraid you're on your own tonight, Jolene—uh, Jolie. I'm only allowed to have visitors two times a week and they're going to get suspicious.”
Jackie looked down at her feet, too embarrassed to meet Jolie's eyes.
“I wish I could get you in tonight but they'll notice.”
“Where the hell am I supposed to go? You told me we'd be roommates, that you had a place, that it was so great here. I never would have come all the way from San Francisco just to be sick and homeless.”
“I know, I know, I'm sorry it’s just—everything changed after I got busted. You know it's here or jail for me, I got to play by their rules.”
Jolie did not want to hear this, although she'd already figured it out. Hearing it straight out made it real. Made it unequivocal. Made her life—hell. Again.
“So where am I supposed to go tonight? You got any suggestions?”
“Well maybe you'll meet someone tonight, when we're out,” Jackie offered, “you know how it is—right? You never know? Right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh God Jolie—I’m so sorry.” Jackie was crying now. “I didn't mean for you to get stuck like this.”
“Oh shut the fuck up.”
BB
