Dirty Blood, Clean Urine, Cold Tears

Choices

Photo by Ian Keefe on Unsplash

Author’s Note: From August 4th through Aug 11, Detroit History Tours is sponsoring Jimmy Doom’s Roulette Weal so everyone receives the content free. I love my friends at DHT and they would never tell me what to write. This one is really dark. It just is. I’ll probably extend the free content one more day if you’re not in the mood for dark and just want to skip this one.

Thanks.

Jimmy

The nurses said “Hi Carol” now, kinda like the receptionists at the Kennewa County Probation Department.

She met with the family of the kid she hit, wanted to tell Andrew but didn’t want to cry in front of him.

One point over the limit. Kid sprinting from the school bus, not that she could blame him.

One damn tick over the limit and no license for ten years, minimum. 

6 months in prison while Andrew went through chemo.

A mess. It would drive anyone to drink, but Carol couldn’t.

The mom was nice, the dad was a dick.

She sobbed. The little boy was okay, broken leg, broken hip.

Colin.

The dad showed her a picture of Colin running the bases in Little League and the mediator gave him a dirty look.

She wanted to scream “Yeah, well he’s gonna play baseball again and my boyfriend is dying.”

If Colin’s mom hadn’t held her hand she would have run.

“How’d you get here?” Andrew asked, smiling, obviously happy to see her.

“Mickey again.”

Carol thought about lying, but couldn’t.

She was learning about honesty at AA meetings.

“Mickey’s a good dude,” Andrew said.

“Umm, well, it’s on his way to work, his shift starts at four.”

A deflection, not a lie.

“He loves working afternoons,” Andrew said. We talked about it before. He can close The Checker, have a night cap at home , still make it to work.”

“Yeah,” Carol said. There was a drifty absence in her voice. Andrew caught it.

“You okay? I know all this shit is rough on you.”

The dam collapsed.

Carol talked about Colin, and being involuntarily sober–dry, they called it, though girls at Gideon’s Light tried to help her with that–and Colin’s dad being mean, and not being able to drive and she sobbed like she was the one who was dying and Andrew stretched the IVs to the yanking out point to hug her, to tell her she was wonderful and it would get better.

Then Carol said the words she was never going to say, the promise she could keep to herself and to Andrew as long as she had vodka there to steel her spine and seal her lips, the opposite of the normal effect.

She didn’t just say the words, she let them loose like a war cry because vodka wasn’t there anymore.

“You’re gonna die on me!”

It wasn’t an accusation. It was a lament. A regret. Carol had a gallon of them.

A nurse stopped in the hallway and shivered.

Andrew nodded and started to cry too.

They sobbed, almost one being with four tear ducts, trembling, the bags of chemicals swinging on cold metal stands.

And when Andrew’s snot ran down Carol’s shirt she thought:  

None of this is his fault. None of his problems are his fault. Genetics. A sick twist inside the DNA spiral.  And all my problems are my fault. All of them. I gotta tell Mickey we can’t fuck. Certainly not while Andrew is alive. And not when Andrew is dead, either. I think. I hope. 

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