Needle Too (18 page)

“Because it hurts just to look at,” I told her and the moment I did I knew I shouldn’t have.

“What do you mean?!”

“I don’t know. For some reason I find pregnant women…” I said before pausing and deciding whether or not to run with this, “—difficult to be around.”

And alas, having been widely praised for a brutal brand of honesty—this is probably not my most popular sentiment.

“AND WHY’S THAT, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE?!”
Andrea asked in a way that made me think she was taking it personally.

“I’m not exactly sure…but I have some issues,” I said as it suddenly occurred to me that I might be a little more fucked-up than I originally thought.

“Well I know
that
!”

“Sorry. Let’s just forget I said it. I’m a fuck-up. Always have been…right from the very beginning.”

“Alright, but tell me something,” Andrea said with a coy smile. “What if the baby was…I mean, what if you and I were…what if the two of us were in a different situation?”

“You mean like in a
scientific
situation?”

“WHAT?”

“Like if we were in biology class or something? Like if you were some sort of a—.”

“I mean
what if the baby was yours?!
” she interrupted me...
thankfully
.

“But it’s
not
mine.”

“But what if it
was
,” she said as if that would make it better.

“That would make it worse…By the way, it isn’t—
is it
?
”

“No, asshole—it
isn’t
,” she said as she fired laser beam bullets at me with her eyes.

And then she started to cry.

“I’m sorry, Andrea,” I told her and I really was. “Every now and then I think I’m funny or something and I just get carried away. I’m here for you,
honestly
. Anything you need is yours. Amy’s not letting me see Savannah so I’ve got plenty of time to spare, and I’d like nothing better than to help with the boys. You know, be a stand-in father-figure or something.”

“What’s Amy’s problem now?”

“She’s pissed-off and trying to make me pay for it, and now she’s talking about supervised visitation and I’m not gonna go for it. I simply refuse.”

“What’s her reasoning?”

“She hasn’t any. But I think she’ll use about a decade of doing dope if she needs to.”

The sad irony of the fact was that Savannah’s arrival required me to settle in the Sunshine State indefinitely, which, at least while I remained there almost
guaranteed
my continued abstention from heroin. Since I’d been entirely clean for the last eight months and for most of the past two years, had no history of doing dope in Florida and consequently, no potential exposure to what would be the typical triggers—there was nothing to be tempted by. And the birth of my daughter and the awesome responsibility connected to it only ensured I’d keep it that way and not commence with any new, self-destructive routines. Of course, this seemed to matter little to Amy, who was more than willing to stand by and let her stepmother dictate the terms under which I would be permitted to exercise my fatherhood.

In some respects I wish I could have sucked it up and given in to being “supervised,” but I just couldn’t do it. I’d already lost so much of my own dignity and self-respect that for my own sanity—I had to draw the line and hope Amy would eventually come to her senses. Savannah was six months old and if her mother felt she was too young to visit me in Cape Coral without her being present, I would have to accept that. But if I couldn’t be treated with enough respect to take my daughter to the park without being watched by a grown-up, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. For the time being I simply had to suck it up and suffer on without her. Then, in July Amy called and when I answered I was certain she’d finally realized she was being unreasonable.

“Did you and your family put a hit on my boyfriend?!” she
demanded.

26

One evening in November the phone rang and it was Amy. I immediately assumed that during a moment of clarity, combined with Savannah’s rapidly approaching first birthday, she’d finally woken up and decided to include me in my daughter’s life.

“Craig, I’m so sorry,” she said in a scared, nervous voice.

“What are you sorry about,
Amy
?! What the fuck happened?!”

“Uhhh…I ummm—“

“Well, since
you’re
apparently incapable of telling me what the problem is, why don’t you just go ahead and put that other bitch on the phone.”

“Who?”

“God, Amy—YOUR FUCKING STEPMOTHER!”

“Oh…they got divorced.”

“Well congratulate your father for me and then tell him to fuck off.”

“Okay, fine, but listen: I’m at the hospital. Savannah accidentally swallowed some pills.”

“WHAT?!”

Consistent with the flawed judgment she’d been exercising in recent months, Amy left Savannah in the care of a family member with a long history of mental illness. Consequently, Savannah, only about a year old and perhaps already tapping into an inherited ability to sniff out the drugs, stumbled upon some psychoactive medication that was left out in the open and intended to put a 250-pound manic depressive at ease. And, thankfully, perhaps in some way also attributable to the same genetic legacy, an unexpected tolerance to the powerful medication prevented Savannah from ever losing consciousness, and while the doctors frantically attempted to counteract the effects of the drugs, she slapped their hands away and roared in protest like a junky defending her nod.

“You owe me BIG TIME, Amy,” I said though I don’t think she made the same connection.

“Oh, wait a second—somebody here wants to talk to you,” she said.

With bated breath I waited and wondered what particular asshole in Amy’s inner circle felt the need to have a chat with me at a time like this.

“Mr. Goodman?”

“Yeah,”

“Mr. Goodman, this is Martin Merriman with DCF, and I have to say that I’m totally shocked by—”

“Wait a second,” I said to the individual whose tone was already pissing me the fuck off. “What’s DCF?”

“Florida Department of Children and Families,” he clarified with an attitude that was deliberately palpable.

“Oh,
great
—listen, I’ll be there in a few hours.”

“A few hours?”

“Yeah, my plane’s in the shop.”

“Well, you know the mother says you’re not in the child’s life, anyway.”

“Oh, well how convenient for the mother to say that,” I said. “Listen, I’m leaving right now.”

“Yeah, I know but you’re not
here
now, and the damage is already done,” Mr. Merriman said to me in the same dispassionate and judgmental tone I’d heard from just about every other city or state employee I’d ever dealt with. “I’m not sure your daughter is enough of a priority to you.”

“Listen to me you pathetic waste of desk space. I couldn’t give two shits about what
you’re
sure of.
YOU
are nothing but an insignificant little cog in an anemic agency known more for colossal failure than anything else. So why don’t you just watch your fucking mouth and lose the attitude and the tone or you’re gonna be reading about what an asshole you are.”

I’d recently learned that a well-worded but passionate attack with a few naughty words could sometimes move mountains,
especially if I implied I was a writer
. Sometimes, it even generated an apology, but all I heard in this instance was complete silence.

“Hello???”

“Hi—it’s me,” Amy said as she suddenly had the phone. “Can you come and get Savannah tomorrow morning?”

“Fuck that—I’m coming right now,” I said yet again.

“She’s been through a lot tonight and I think it’s better if she wakes up here. But I’ve got about a week to baby-proof the house or they’re threatening to remove Savannah, and I think it would be good for her to get away from here for a bit.”

“Yeah, not to mention spend some time with her father,” I said before hanging up on her.

The following morning I rose and drove across the state to pick-up my daughter—though I was concerned she might be terrified at the thought of leaving her mother behind. But that was hardly the case, and the moment Amy strapped Savannah in she began clapping her hands, laughing hysterically and dancing in her car seat as I was certain she was totally excited at the prospect of hanging out with her daddy. It was either that, or she was still a little wasted. Regardless, she talked her baby talk for most of the trip until she finally lost interest and consciousness by the time we got to Lehigh, which I suppose was appropriate enough.

I still had a week of vacation time remaining from the previous year at Whitman, and since I’d just started my second year at the company I was able to parlay
two
weeks off from work to spend a total of 16 consecutive days with Savannah. And each day, though initially Kristen was up bright and early to tend to ALL the kiddies, I decided to assume control of the domestic routine while my roommate was more than willing to sleep in. As a result, on most mornings I was up at 6 a.m. to feed the kids, bring the boys to school and spend the rest of the day exclusively with Savannah. And though I didn’t toke when I awoke—I took two at night to make it right.

27

Although while Savannah was under my care I got out of the habit of smoking weed in the morning, it certainly wasn’t because I couldn’t function or care for the kids after indulging. Once again, pot didn’t affect me like it did when I was in college. I’m not sure if it’s typical for a drug to affect an individual so differently over the course of time, but that’s what happened to me. Now, in many ways, weed was really just a creature comfort. It was a soothing security blanket. It was a warm, waterlogged sponge sitting on the top of my head. It made me calm—almost like a Xanax, but without the sleepiness or the heavy subduedness it can shroud the user with. Whether or not the subtle, helpful and productive aspects of smoking pot were unique to me and my own fucked-up physiology and situation—I wasn’t sure and I didn’t care. And incidentally, I only did away with the A.M. toke because, with Savannah around, my routine was immediately altered and for some reason the same compulsion seemed to be missing. But it returned with a vengeance after she returned to Jupiter and I reassumed the position for Willie Whitman.

In December of 1999 I convinced Amy to let me have Savannah for what would be her first
real
Christmas. I remembered Kristen went all-out for the kids with Santa Claus the year before, and I was convinced that Savannah would be awed by the colors, candy and decorations and she was. She was also awed by Tiva, Kristen’s 70-pound Pit Bull, who was smitten with Savannah and absurdly protective of her, as she would gently herd Kristen’s unruly little boys out of the immediate area whenever she felt the roughhousing in the room was getting a little too rough.

Before returning Savannah to Jupiter on the final evening of her holiday visit, we packed the Trooper with her new toys and clothes as I was struck by the winter chill, the likes of which I hadn’t experienced while living in Florida. After I fastened her into the
car seat while my ancient Isuzu warmed itself in the cold night air, I rolled up the driver side window and noticed a stray gray kitten rising up along with it and staring at me as she clung to the top edge of the glass, almost as if she was doing chin-ups against it. I gently opened the door, stepped out of the truck, carefully unhooked kitty’s claws from the edge of the window and gently placed her in the grass beside the apartment before transporting my daughter across the state—oblivious to the first monumental failure of my own humanity.

28

As the new millennium began to unfurl itself, I began a string of relatively short-lived intimate relationships, and though in retrospect I realize they were mostly shallow and born from a mutual kind of convenience, they occasionally compelled Amy to use her daughter as a bargaining chip of sorts—or even
ransom
for what she wanted. Consequently, whether it was a matter of increased support or simply seething resentment, she wouldn’t hesitate to suspend my relationship with Savannah if she felt the ends justified the means. And though at first I was livid with her tactics I’d eventually realize the best course of action was to sit tight, ignore her, stay away from the phone and wait for her to come to her senses.

As far as the aforementioned, personal relationships were concerned, I believe they were largely a side-effect of living in Southwest Florida among so many turnkey families with pretty, young, women at the helm—most of whom had relatively low expectations but a desperate desire to play house with someone in something resembling a conventional domestic setting. And as a “recovering” junky with a dysfunctional family background and a
revived libido but no conception of what it really meant to be a husband or even a serious, sober, boyfriend—I was so ripe for the picking I fell the fuck out of the tree. But most importantly, however—though I’ve never admitted this to myself or in any other forum—I think the primary motivation behind assuming the surrogate daddy/hubby roles was the real daddy role I’d been playing alone, a role that I had no prototype for. So, lacking the character to admit it back then—though I suppose given the circumstances there must have been a shortage of that to begin with—I believe I was largely exploiting those sad, patriarchally-challenged living arrangements in order to furnish Savannah’s visits with real homes and real moms who would go out of their way to be extra good to my little girl. And indeed, Savannah’s visits were always filled with lots of love, lots of kids, trips to amusement parks and
incredible
Christmases—so much so that each year she would almost always be in Cape Coral to greet Santa. But certainly, I too would extend similar gestures as drunk, ornery and abusive ex-husbands or former boyfriends would occasionally drop by to kick-in doors and issue threats while terrorizing their own children and looking for a fight. And of course, each time they got exactly what they came looking for. In fact, one of them hit me so hard I actually shit my pants, but
believe
me—there are times in a frightened woman’s life when nothing means more than a big pair of balls and a little bit of poop.