The Waking (7 page)

Withdrawal is like dying only you don’t want to.

Withdrawal is pain that ends only when you pass out to wake up to pain again, it’s hot flashes followed by cold flashes, sweat and tears and diarrhea and vomiting at the same time, goose bumps as big as your knuckles, and fire in the center of your bones.

And though every moment feels like your last, it isn’t, though your mind tells you it is, your mind begs for it to be your last. And no matter how hard I try, after soiling myself for the tenth time in an hour on my bunk or spewing another gallon of water, I cannot sleep, which is kind of good since my dreams have been nightmares, but it’s also bad because I’m seeing people in this little cabin, people I don’t hardly recognize. They’re staring at me, mouthing words I can’t hear, and making me feel claustrophobic. I feel so restless, like I have to go out to get away from them, like maybe I can get off this boat and score a bundle somewhere, but the first time I tried to leave, I found that Slade had locked me in and no amount of pounding on the door and cursing was going to open it.

And the view outside hasn’t gotten much better. It’s still raining, and it seems as if the barge is flying down the river. Brownish water courses around the trees flowing halfway or more up the trunks. I’m floating on a flood, living in a cramped room having cramps, slipping and falling into my own vomit, cursing at the top of my lungs at the engines roaring so loud that I can’t hear myself curse—

And I’m happy because I’m getting clean.

Though the next time Slade comes through that door, I’m going to kill him and get out of here if it kills me.

No, I won’t kill him. I probably couldn’t throw but one punch at him before puking anyway. I just wish he’d come around more often. “We’re past Martins Ferry and Wheeling,” he tells me on one of his visits, which means nothing to me since I have never been out of Pittsburgh in my life.

“
Two smoky towns, and we’re shooting right between them,” he says. “They say that back in the day, you could see fresh red-hot ingots of steel spilling down the hills on both sides of the Ohio, all of it lighting up the night sky, like something out of hell itself. Not much on those hills but clay now, not even any trees.” He tells me about so many locks and dams to come that I run out of numbers. “You ought to watch us go through a lock,” he tells me. “It’s really something.”

“
Can’t see much from the toilet,” I tell him.

Then he laughs. “Oh, yeah. Not much of a view from back there.” Then he makes some comment about “needing to hose out this place again” and “maybe we can get you some soup soon.”

I quickly lose track of time, and not because time is going so fast. Time’s going slow, like it’s stopped, like the sun is standing just out of reach on the other side of the clouds, broken, unable to move. And those clouds are like hands pressing down on me, pressing down like a paramedic stopping the flow of blood, stopping the flow of everything except the river.

On the fourth day, according to Slade since I don’t know which end is up anymore, he brings in some chicken broth in a Styrofoam cup. “Sip it slowly,” he tells me.

I don’t, and I can’t, the salty broth tastes so good, and I start crying because it tastes like golden heaven, like sunlight, like warmth and love and hope. “It’s good,” I say, watching my tears drop into the broth. “It’s real good.”

“
It’s okay, Manny, it’s okay. I’ll get you some more once you keep that in you a while, okay?”

“
Yeah.”

He rolls in a bucket and a mop, and I feel so bad. “Not as much to clean up today,” he says.

“
I can do it,” I say.

“
Nah, you just rest and try to keep that soup in you.”

I feel so helpless. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“
Yeah.”

“
I need a shower and a shave or something.”

“
Soon,” he tells me, and the room fills with the smells of bleach and Pine-Sol as he cleans up. “Getting better aim back here,” he says, wiping the toilet down with a sponge.

“
I’ve had lots of practice.”

“
Getting any sleep?”

“
No.”

“
That has to hurt, huh?”

“
Yeah.” My eyes feel all dried out and crusty.

He finishes in the head and sits beside me on the bunk. “Seeing anything?”

“
Just these walls. And the bottom of the toilet.”

“
I meant are you seeing things you don’t normally see?”

“
No.”

“
No visions, no ghosts?”

“
No.”

“
My cousin Trey swore he saw things, like my Uncle Louis, his daddy, chopping wood right there in the room. It was messed up, watching Trey’s eyes go up and down, like he was watching the ax, and Uncle Louis had been dead for going on fifteen years. You sure you ain’t seen nothing like that?”

I’ve been too scared to tell Slade what I’ve been seeing until now. I didn’t want to scare him away. “I see … people mostly.”

“
Yeah?”

“
Mainly I see a woman.”

Slade smiles. “Yeah. Is she beautiful?”

“
In a way.” I swallow some more broth. “Yeah. She’s beautiful.”

“
You recognize her?”

“
No. I mean, yeah. I’m not sure, but I think her name is Abassa.”

“
Abassa?”

“
Yeah. Abassa.” The name means something to me now. “She’s, um, she’s covered in dust and is being led away across the desert. She has these heavy chains on her wrists, and she has big eyes. I think she’s on her way to Ethiopia.”

“
Yeah? Ethiopia?”

Slade thinks I’m crazy. “Yeah. She’s always looking back, you know, like she’s searching for someone, hoping to see someone.” Looking for Kazula. Trying to see her brother.

“
See anyone else?”

“
Yeah, but I don’t know who they are.” Some of them in overalls, some in suits, all of them dark with kinky hair and flat noses.

“
You feel up to talking for a while? I got a few hours to spare. Not much doing until we hit Marietta. We just passed Moundsville, where the Ohio state pen is.”

“
Have we crossed the Mason-Dixon Line yet?” I ask.

“
Think so, but I’m not sure,” Slade says. “I know the towns, not the lines on the map.”

I’m in the South. “I’ve never been in the South.”

“
Not much different from the North on this river. Folks are generally the same whether you look right or left.” He stands and stretches his hands flat on the ceiling. “Cap’n thinks you got a vicious case of the runs from drinking the river, so if he asks, ‘How’s the dysentery?’ just say you’re getting better. As long as we’re ahead of schedule, he don’t care that you’re here.” He drops his hands. “Sorry I haven’t been around more. The river’s mighty angry because of all the rain. The Ohio’s usually pretty calm, like there ain’t even a wrinkle on the water. This rain, though. Never seen nothing like it, and we’re supposed to have more tomorrow. Makes loading and unloading a terror, and the captain seems to think we’re having some engine trouble.”

“
Sounds fine to me.”

“
To everybody else on this boat, too, but Cap’n been around more than any us of. Besides, Cap’n has him a girlfriend in Marietta. That’s where we’ll be stopping to get the engine checked out, so …” He leans against the wall. “You up to telling me your story?”

Where to begin. “You don’t want to hear it. I’d rather hear yours.” To hear a happier story, to hear about a happier life that would make a man as big as Slade.

“
My gram used to say that the very telling of tale is good for the soul, the heart, and the mind.”

“
What if the tale’s all bad?”

“
No tale is ever
that
bad, least none I ever heard.”

Just you wait. “You haven’t heard mine yet.”

He laughs. “I can take it, if you can take the telling.”

I take a deep breath. “Okay … My daddy’s a Cajun down in New Orleans, and my mama was a heroin addict who got murdered by someone when I was four, and I found her body, but I didn’t tell anyone she was dead for almost two whole days because I was scared of the monster in her room.” I take another breath.

Slade’s eyes pop some, but he doesn’t say a word.

“
The cops came, and the last glimpse I got of my mama was her bare feet pointing toward heaven.”

“
Hmm,” Slade says.

“
I’ve lived with Auntie June ever since.” Twenty-five years. I never grew up a bit after that. I’ve been under the covers afraid of the dark for twenty-five years.

“
You, uh, get a diploma?”

“
Yeah, but not from any high school.”

“
Been locked up a lot then?”

“
Yeah. A few times for dealing.” The soup does a flip in my stomach, and I run to the head. It seems like a lot more comes out of me each time, like I’m puking out years instead of only what’s in my stomach. I return to and flop onto the bunk. “Sorry. It was good soup.”

“
I’ll get you some more.”

“
Thanks.” I wrap the blanket around me because here come the goose bumps and the shivering.

“
You warm enough?”

“
Yeah.” Even though I’ll be burning up in a few minutes.

“
You got any kids?”

I laugh in spite of my chills. “One. On the way. A son.”

“
Yeah? Got a boy and a girl myself.” He digs in his back pocket and pulls out his wallet, flipping it to a series of pictures of smiling people. “This here’s Tony, my oldest. He’s gonna play college football or join the Marines. He ain’t decided yet, but he’s only fourteen and don’t know gold dust from diarrhea.” Tony is as massive as his daddy, with puffy dimpled cheeks. “And this here’s Tiana, my baby. Cute, huh?”

“
Yeah.” Her corn-rowed hair is full of little white beads.

“
Only nine, can you believe it? She gonna be trouble in a couple years.” He flips to a family portrait. “That there’s my wife, Tonya. We’ve been together since I was thirteen and she was ten. Never had another girl but her, never wanted another girl but her, and besides my mama, she is only woman who won’t take no mess from me.”

I pull the portrait to me and look into Tonya’s eyes. What is it about her eyes?

“
She’s a proud lady, let me tell you,” Slade says. “Proud of her house, her yard, her garden, her children, and her man.”

Pride. There’s pride in her eyes. That’s what pride looks like, like determination and grit with both shoulders thrown back and chin up, eyes focused and fierce. Focus, the lady’s got focus.

“
You got a nice family, man,” I say, and I hand the wallet back. I don’t even have a single picture of my family.

“
Tell me about your girl.”

I fall back against the pillows. “I don’t have a girl anymore. She told me to get out.” I rub my knuckles before I know I’m rubbing them. I see Slade staring at my hands. “I, uh, I …” I sigh. “I never hit her or nothing like that. I just haven’t always done right by her, you know? I got to make it all up to her.”

“
You will.” He smiles. “You gonna tell me about her or not?”

“
What you want to know?”

“
What’s she like? What’s her favorite color? Is she a good cook? That sort of thing.”

“
Mary … that’s her name. Um, she’s, um, twenty.”

“
A young one, huh? What’s she see in an old man like you?”

I look away. “I ain’t that old. I’m twenty-nine.”

Slade whistles. “You’re kidding.”

“
No.”

“
Whoa.”

“
Yeah.”

“
Manny, when I pulled you out that car I swore you were someone’s grandpa.”

“
I ain’t even a daddy yet.”

He smiles. “But you want to be, right?”

Under any other circumstances, I might, like if I could be born all over again. “I guess.”

“
Is that why you’re getting clean, so you can be there for your son?”

“
Yeah.”

“
But you ain’t sure Mary will want you back.”

“
I don’t know. I hope so.”

“
Is she a good girl?”

“
Yeah. She’s Catholic and sings in the choir and everything.”

He blinks. “Yeah? And she hooked up with you?”

It doesn’t make sense. “Yeah.”

“
Miracles can happen, man. Bet she’s been trying to reform you.”

I nod. “Yeah. She wants to save me.” From myself.

“
I didn’t know Catholics did that, but I’m liking her more and more already.” He shifts his weight toward me. “But she’s a sister singing in a Catholic choir?”

“
Sort of. At St. Benedict’s they have a Gospel choir, too. She sings in that one.”

“
A Catholic
Gospel
choir?”

“
Yeah. I’ve only heard them once or twice, but they can sing their guts out. It messed me up, too, the first time I heard them. Walking in, seeing folks kneeling and crossing themselves all over the place, expecting organ music, all the while the choir’s singing ‘King Jesus’ or something like that and shaking the rafters and knocking dust off the stained glass, even people swaying and shouting like at Ebenezer. That’s Auntie June’s church, but their choir only has twelve people in it, and none of them can sing a lick. They got red and white robes there, and—” I stop. I ain’t talked this much in years. “Sorry.”