I Daydreamed of Meth While He Handled the Divorce

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 2 Part 5

Warning: Graphic descriptions of drug use.

“Clearly you have a problem with alcohol … If drinking that much … you may have a serious drinking…”

When I finally worked up the courage to read Henry’s letter, I was taken aback.

Henry was never a chatterbox, never one to tell long stories or drone on endlessly about anything. He never used 20 words when two would do. He never yelled or even raised his voice when he was mad or irritated. Instead, he would harumph and go play on his computer, stewing and pouting all the while.

That’s why his letter blew my hair back. It was one huge block of text, a blanket of words full of anger, full of hurt. He was finally raising his voice, finally yelling — in his own way — desperately trying to understand my actions.

“It wasn’t the alcohol,” I replied to him. “It was crystal meth.”

It went off like a dirty bomb in my life and I didn’t even know what “it” was. It wasn’t until I had settled on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina to do 42nd Street that I called my roommate Danny to ask, “Hey, so, yeah, what the fuck were we smoking?”

When it came to drugs, I was pretty sheltered and naïve.

The first time my parents trusted me enough to leave me at home by myself overnight, the first thing I did was bust into the booze. I put away four Zimas, a few shots of rum, and a couple shots of some brown liquor. Giggling at my loss of balance as I stumbled and weaved my way through the house, the drunk was pretty fun…

Until it wasn’t.

After praising the porcelain god for the first time in my life, my party for one was over. The next day, feeling like warmed over shit, I threw out all the evidence of my adolescent debauchery, making sure to bury the Zima bottles under at least two days of trash, before my trusting parents returned home.

When I turned 18, my parents got me a job as a bartender at their watering hole, the Knights of Columbus. Watching aging Catholics drink themselves under the table, or slowly to death, every weekend, if not every weeknight, was quite an effective deterrent. I honestly didn’t drink again until I was 21, preferring to be the designated driver for my friends.

I was a huffer for a hot minute. I swiped a can of condensed air from my dad’s home office and huffed myself into a short lived oblivion, but then came away with a pounding headache. So that didn’t take.

I smoked a little pot during college and at AMDA, but only on the occasion it was offered by other people.

I did arguably drink too much while on the road, but those habits didn’t follow me back to New York save for the 32 oz beers with Danny that we’d never finish, and I wasn’t going to pay $12 for a fucking Bud Light on the rare occasion I was at a club, regardless of how yummy the shirtless bartender was.

On Hilton Head, my drinking had become less casual and more intentional. Every night I would troll around to see who was going to the bar and if I could join them. The few nights I did end up at the bar, I wouldn’t hang out with those I came with, but sit at the bar and throw back enough drinks to get me nice and lubed, relaxing underneath the numbing blanket of the booze.

I wasn’t a lightweight by any means. On tour, the Fab Four would often throw back a few after a show.

However, this drinking was different. This drinking had a purpose: I was trying to distract myself from the memory of that glorious white smoke. I could not stop daydreaming about Jerry feeding me from his pipe, over and over, hit after hit. It was like an earworm that also made me horny. When I would get myself off in private, it wasn’t men I would think of. It wasn’t muscles or ass or cock. It wasn’t the memory of the weight of another body on top of me. It wasn’t the memory of penetration.

It was Tina. It was that white smoke. Seeing it flare and roll thick in the bulb. Pulling that delicious smoke though the pipe, into me, its chemical taste hitting my senses with a kind of electric sweetness. That was it. That was all I needed to get off. To be lost in my mind in a cyclone of dense white smoke.

That scared me.

Crystal meth simply hadn’t been a thing in my world. Neither had heroin or cocaine or crack. These were all fictional boogeymen learned about in Just Say No campaigns and D.A.R.E school programs.

But now crystal meth was very much a thing. It was a powerful thing. It was a glorious thing. It was the only thing I could think about every waking minute of the day.

What was no longer a thing was my relationship with Henry. Meth had turned my world upside down, and I was ready and willing to start rearranging the furniture.

Soon after the meth revelation, Henry’s overtures of forgiveness began. “We could start over.”

“No.”

I wrote out a long response by hand, filling page after page, mixing apologies with rationalizations and — astoundingly enough — blame.

I apologized profusely for hurting him…but then pivoted to how our relationship was on shaky ground long before that night. “Our communication broke down because we stopped listening to each other.”

Because, sure, I did this awful thing, but let’s talk about something where we’re both at fault.

I would go on to blame him for supporting me and “allowing” me to be lazy. “It was like a drug to me. I knew it was damaging, but I had no idea how to get out of it.”

I ripped out this man’s heart and then blamed him for me being lazy. I was desperate to rationalize how this situation was not entirely my fault. I was incapable of seeing myself as the bad guy. If I was the bad guy, well then, so was he. Because, reasons.

“The idea that I have to start over with no support scares the hell out of me. But it also has me very eager and excited to finally be a participant in my own life.”

I have to imagine, after sidestepping responsibility and accountability for how things ended, this declaration of me “taking responsibility for my life” must have rang pretty hollow to Henry. Aside from the claim of “no support” being a lie — I fully expected my parents to support me through this transition without question — it was also the easiest claim to make. I didn’t need to start “taking responsibility” for weeks. While I spent my evenings tap dancing, Henry was back in the city handling what was very much our divorce by himself.

“You are a beautiful person. You are one of the most loving, caring, and thoughtful people I know. You will find someone who can give you the kind of relationship you deserve.”

It was over. There was no fixing it, even if I had wanted to.

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men.

Regret is not something I try to invest into when looking back on my story. Yet, honestly, I regret so very much what I did to Henry. Sure, we weren’t in a good place, and we most likely would have broken up eventually.

But no one, especially Henry, deserves the kind of heartbreak and trauma I put him through.

He deserved better, so much better. Better than me. Better than this.

Today, I have a tremendous amount of regret for the pain that I caused Henry.

But back then, when 42nd Street closed and I flew back home, I had no room for regret.

I only had room for that rolling white smoke.

When I arrived home, panting from the stairs, suitcases in tow, my nerves had me shaking so hard I had trouble getting my key in the door. I walked slowly down the hallway, like I wasn’t sure if I was in the right apartment. I put my bags down and stood in the living room. I was alone. The only sounds were the traffic and music coming through the living windows from Nagle Avenue down below.

From where I stood I could see into both bedrooms. Looking into our…my bedroom, I was surprised. For some reason I had expected it to be more bare, that he would have taken more things, which was absolutely his right. A big piece of my life was gone. Naturally I thought the bedroom would reflect that.

He had taken all his clothes, books, and loose belongings, but he had left behind his large desk, his desk chair, and other items and furniture that he had bought.

It was less like the aftermath of a divorce and more like a sublet had moved out.

Danny’s room was a different story.

When he finally worked up the courage to return to the apartment for some fresh clothes, he found a note Henry had taped to his door.

It said, “I think you’ve overstayed your welcome.”

Danny left New York shortly thereafter. Gone was the dizzying collage of colors and queerness. The walls were stripped bare save for a few small remnants of ripped paper and pieces of tape. The only thing left was the futon, which wasn’t even his but left behind by the previous roommate.

I was alone; it was just me.

So, I unpacked my things and rearranged the furniture.

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