A Week off Meth, a Wedding, and an Uninvited Abscess

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 5 Part 3

Warning: Graphic descriptions of medical trauma.

In early November 2003, I sat smoking at my 5th floor bedroom window. I watched two young Black girls dance on the fire escape across the alley. They giggled in outfits of pink and green, colorful beads in their hair, as they twirled and cartwheeled along a narrow railing five stories high.

I knew the girls weren’t really there, but if my exhausted brain wanted to give me hallucinations of lighthearted whimsy, I was perfectly fine with that.

I was coming down from a couple days of slamming, savoring the slowly receding high. Dexter and Laura’s wedding was in a few days and I wanted to give myself enough time to come all the way down. No need for another hell like the minivan road trip.

The lingering euphoria from the Tina, as well as a fist full of ibuprofen, had me indifferent to the now Frankenstein zit on the side of my knee. A pus-filled abscess was surrounded by bruising of deep purple and burgundy fading to an outer rim of inflamed pink.

As I watched the little girls play — now walking their way across a clothing line — I felt a sensation like someone had just lightly snapped a rubber band against the side of my knee. I looked down at the abscess to see the skin had broken in the center. Out of this break came a slow flow of translucent liquid.

Forgetting about the girls, I spent the next hour transfixed, my foot up on the desk, the lamp shining down on my knee, as I observed this biological wonder. I watched as it slowly began to drain, wiping up any fluid before it could drop to the floor. A thin trail of smoke seemed to be emanating from the wound, though I was fairly certain that was a hallucination.

Any well rested, level headed, clean and sober person would want to have it looked at. But by whom? And who would pay for it? I didn’t have a job or health insurance and it seemed silly to have to go to someone and pay out of pocket for them to basically pop a zit. I was sure it was going to be fine. Whatever it was, it just had to run its course and then heal on its own.

After the abscess drained a bit I had a clear view of the core of pus. I hopped down to the bathroom, balanced my leg on the sink, doused the area with hydrogen peroxide. As the white froth subsided, I began to perform surgery with a pair of tweezers.

I had thought the pus would be a thick liquid. So when I poked at it, I was surprised to find a soft but coagulated glob. I grabbed a hold of it with the tweezers and pulled. The entire core of yellowy-white pus came out like a huge wad of snot. It left behind a dark purple crater that was still bleeding slightly.

It was disgusting but also really fucking cool at the same time. I was transfixed by this hole on the side of my knee, like an alien had just burst out, which wasn’t too far off. That my body could pull off something this gnarly was so fucking metal!

I poured more hydrogen peroxide over the open wound, dabbed it dry with some toilet paper, and bandaged it up.

The next morning the area felt loads better. I wasn’t nearly as painful or achy and felt like it was starting to heal.

This was such a relief. I didn’t need to have it looked at after all. I hoped the other abscess forming in the center of my right thigh — which was really starting to hurt — would rupture and drain before Dexter and Laura’s wedding, and that the two new ones on my right calf would have the decency to wait till after to start pestering me.

The day before the wedding, a group of us took the Long Island Railroad out to Roslyn for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.

Having grown up in a part of the country where there were no passenger trains, not even Amtrak, I’ve always enjoyed riding above-ground trains. I find them quaint and relaxing. I never had to rely on trains during rush hour so for me, it was always a leisurely ride.

This was not one of those trips.

We sat on the top deck of a double decker car. The light in the cabin was harsh. Everything seemed to be made of plastic, the off white walls, the blue cushioned seats. It felt sterile and dirty at the same time.

Jason was telling yet another audition success story. “So I finish the song and the casting director is wiping away tears and says, ‘Well, I’m sold.’ Right there. In the room! So now I’m just waiting for the call.”

Jason is tremendously good at marketing himself as an actor. He’s able to walk into an audition room with confidence, deliver a solid performance, and be a genuinely pleasant human being. He regards those behind the table as potential coworkers and not as greedy gatekeepers, lords and masters bestowing employment to the lowly riff raff. And he does it with an ease and honesty that I’ve never really known myself.

My audition experiences always felt more like high octane pleas to be told that I was good enough to even be in the room.

While Jason told his version of “I caught a fish this big,” I sat a couple seats away with my green eyed monster, annoyed at yet another braggadocio “see how talented I am” story.

However, jealous as I was, I was perfectly happy to let attention remain on him. The abscess in the middle of my right thigh had grown significantly but had not ruptured. It was much more painful than the abscess on my knee had been. The pressure of it was like someone had shoved a golf ball into the muscle. I could pretend I wasn’t in pain thanks to a fist full of ibuprofen, but I wasn’t capable of much past that.

When we arrived in Roslyn, our ride to the venue was running late. I had mistakenly dressed for a cool autumn evening, but the temperature plummeted to below freezing and the first snow of the season had started to fall. Shivering, I shoved my hands deep into my pockets to keep them warm.

Roger wasn’t dressed warmly enough either but was much more lighthearted about it. “Bit cold there are ya, Johnny?”

“Yes, I’m cold. Where’s the fucking car?” It came out a lot more biting than I had intended it, but Roger didn’t seem to notice.

At last a van pulled up. I may have rushed — maybe even shoved — past everyone to be the first inside.

After the rehearsal, which was pretty short and sweet, we gathered at a local Italian restaurant for the rehearsal dinner. The walls were painted with bucolic scenes of Italian countryside asymmetrically framed with faux red brick.

The ibuprofen wore off as the evening trudged on. I sat quietly in front of a half eaten veal parmesan. I don’t even know why I ordered it. I never really cared for veal. I tried to participate in the conversations around me, but the pain and pressure from the golf ball in my thigh was screaming like a fire alarm. When Laura and Dexter made their toasts to the maids and grooms, everything they said devolved into the “wah wah” of a Charlie Brown cartoon.

I hadn’t used for nearly a week and everything was sandpaper against my skin: the sudden cold weather, Jason’s boasting, even the veal was annoying the shit out of me.

I didn’t want to be there.

I wanted to be anywhere but there.

I felt like I was failing at the role everyone had cast me in, trapped me in: the human Muppet, the light hearted sidekick, naïve, innocent, the character formally known as “me.”

I wasn’t that person, not any more, and I didn’t want to be that person.

This life, this prelude celebration, the people around me with their happy faces and boisterous frivolity, all appeared as fake and empty as the painted vineyards on the wall.

It was a waiting room where I sat, teeth clenched, body tense, bracing against a slow crescendo of pain, all while trying to wear the mask of pleasantries, but feeling it beginning to slip.

I had changed, evolved, mutated into something else. Something that didn’t belong, a character on the wrong stage speaking the wrong lines in the wrong play.

Through the haze, I realized gifts were being exchanged.

I’d never been a groomsman before so I didn’t know about the tradition of giving members of the wedding party gifts at the rehearsal dinner. I perked up a little bit, pulling my attention away from my leg.

Jason received his first. A beautiful silver pocket watch with numbers on the face done in elegant calligraphy. On the inside lid was engraved the image of a sailboat, a wonderful call back to a conversation we had on tour about sailboats versus speed boats as a metaphor for life.

Jason teared up as he registered the meaning and drew Dexter into a big bearhug.

“Here, John, this one’s for you.” Dexter handed me a gift wrapped box about the size of a salad plate and as tall as a cup of espresso. Seeing the beautiful moment that had just happened between Dexter and Jason, I forgot about my leg for a moment and tore into the wrapping paper, excited to have a meaningful moment of my own with my friend and soon to be married man.

Beneath the wrapping was a royal blue box of velveteen. I opened its hinged lid to reveal my gift. It was a silver plated computer mouse engraved with the next day’s date, the date of their wedding, laying on a bed of what looked like white satin.

This was a gift for a friend who loved playing video games. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dexter had tried to find a silver plated PS2 controller before deciding on the mouse.

This was the perfect gift… for a person who no longer existed.

I hadn’t played a video game in months, since before that first night in Danny’s room when I discovered meth. As I stared down at my gift, the curved metal acted like a funhouse mirror reflecting my skewed image back. As I saw it, this was a gift for someone chained to their computer, who chose a virtual world over the real world, electronic stories over reality, the ding of leveling a character over human contact. This was a gift for someone who was dead. Fitting that it should lay on a bed of satin in its tiny coffin.

“Wow,” I feigned, “This is really cool. Thank you so much!” I showed the whole table my gift before giving Dexter my own hug, doing my best to act as touched as Jason had been.

When the attention thankfully moved away from me, I closed the lid on my metaphor and set it down on the table.

My leg really fucking hurt.

The next day we gathered at the George Washington Manor, a colonial style inn where the man himself once dined. Legend has it the original proprietor was a rebel spy during the Revolutionary War. Today it was an event space for weddings and such.

As the clock ticked down to the event, the groomsmen in our penguin suits waited up on the second floor of the converted carriage house-turned-chapel, while the bridesmaids buzzed behind closed doors around their queen.

All the while I was praying that Murphy’s Law would not shit all over me by having my abscess rupture while I was wearing a rented tux. As it would turn out, Murphy decided to go old school on me.

With my leg hurting even more than the day before, I sat down to take the pressure off. Looking down I saw a glint of white where there absolutely shouldn’t be white: on my feet. I forgot to wear dress socks.

Shit.

In truth, this had nothing to do with drugs. This was simply classic John being a flake.

I tapped Jason on the shoulder and told him to look at my feet and he suppressed a laugh. We asked Roger and the other guys around us if they by chance had an extra pair to no avail.

I began to ask Jason “do you think anyone downstairs…” When the door to Laura’s dressing room flew open. She ran out, dress half zipped, and whisper-screamed “Mother!” A short blond haired, middle aged woman in a pastel pants suit pinned with a floral corsage ran up the stairs and into the dressing room with her daughter to fix whatever last minute problem had popped up.

Jason and I looked at each other.

“Well,” I said, “my pant leg is long enough to cover them, right?”

“Sure, sure,” Jason thankfully lied.

A short time later, it was go time. The music began to play and the wedding party made its processional to their designated spots passing through a gathering of about 50 or so guests. Then the iconic music played and there appeared Laura, a vision in white, a princess gliding down the aisle to her prince, her joy and the joy of everyone around her belying whatever problem that had clearly been solved only moments before.

“Dearly beloved…”

The pain in my leg was tremendous. Words again devolved into Charlie Brown “Wah wahs.” Because I was standing behind Dexter’s best man and father who happened to be about 6 foot 4, I couldn’t see anything without leaning, and leaning was too painful.

I briefly emerged from my fog to realize that Dexter’s father was crying. Then I heard Jason sniffing behind me. On cue, the entire line of bridesmaids across from me started sniffling and wiping at leaking eyes, joined by subtle laughter from the entire gathering over how such a wonderful moment could come also with tears.

All I could think about was pain, wondering if this was a cut to the chase ceremony or if it would be drawn out with pontification. My mask remained on but it was slipping.

“Man and Wife.” Applause.

After a second, I started applauding with everyone else. Thank god, I thought. It was a cut to the chase ceremony.

After suffering a bit longer standing for wedding party photos, I grabbed a couple beers from the bar, found a chair, and planted. With no intention of getting up, I was content to sit at a table and nurse my beer for the remainder of the evening.

Unfortunately, exhausted from dealing with the pain on top of having not used for so long, I realized halfway through my third beer that it was having a very NyQuil-like effect. Not only was I trying to keep the mask on, now I was fighting to just stay awake.

The reception took on a dark, hazy quality, like everything from the sound to the lights were increasingly out of tune. A friend of Dexter and Laura’s drunkenly confided in me. “I mean they’re such good people.” He started to blubber through tears. “They are so good together and they are going to be so happy,” his subtext adding, “and I’m always going to be alone.”

“Yeah, yeah they are,” I said, being short, taking another swig of my sleeping potion.

Other moments burst through the haze, like when the DJ, who was under strict orders not to play any show tunes, played a song from Phantom of the Opera. He was lucky that it was more important for Laura to not get blood on her dress (though only a little more important).

Then there was the bouquet toss, followed by the garter toss.

I had told Jason about my leg hurting and he had periodically been checking on me throughout the night. But now he approached with the clear intention of retrieving me.

“Come on man, at least come and try to catch the garter.”

“No, I’m good, I’m just gonna…”

“Get up. And get over here.”

I’m not sure where Jason got the commanding “Dad voice” but he was really good at it. Over my leg’s objections, I got up and walked over to the crowd of bachelors vying for a chance to grab the prize. After removing her garter with a fair amount of silly pomp, Dexter snapped it behind him like a rubber band. The group of guys (except for me) jumped en-masse. As they landed, the victor twirled his prize around in the air.

I beelined back to my seat.

The golf ball didn’t rupture and ruin my rented tux, but it sure as hell ruined my memory of that day.

I don’t remember what their wedding colors were or how the reception tables were dressed. I don’t remember Dexter and Laura’s first dance. I don’t remember others dancing at all really. Who else was there, what the food was like, or how many beers I had I honestly couldn’t tell you.

All I remember is the pain.

The wedding day of two beautiful people, two beautiful friends, and this is the story I have to tell about it.

I had wanted to come back that night, but by the time I got someone to give me a ride to the station, I had missed the last train. It wasn’t until noon the next day that I hobbled back through my apartment door.

I collapsed on my bed and stayed there for the next two trying to wish the pain away.

My wish was denied.

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