By Thomas Elson
PROMPT — If only ...
Even more than the photograph of the dilapidated and largely forgotten building, I remember how they came -
AT THE DOOR:
They came with hesitant knocks. Then stepped back. Soon both palm and forehead against the door peering inside half-hoping no one would answer.
They came wading through wet torrents or blizzards, treading gently over sleet or crawling in desert-like heat - wind blistering or suffocating, cool or accepting.
They came with painful spirits - bent and ragged. They came – Unknowing. Angry. Dismissive. To maintain peace. After making one promise too many. Keeping too few. Neglecting most. All came with promises no longer believed. After years of resistance. After their con games failed. Fights. Avoidance. After depleting all resources - families, employers, churches.
They came alone or with -
a wife, or
parole officer, or
priest
No matter who was with them, they came alone.
AT ADMISSIONS:
Each waited near the reception counter and twitched, squinted, swatted at imagined insects, at real and imagined memories; they scratched their faces and their past. Calculating the odds that this was merely another obstacle they could overcome – or con their way out of -
by charm
by barter
with their well-sharpened skills of anger, helplessness or suffering.
They came from days without anyone speaking to them, without making eye contact, without nodding good morning. From weeks of walking sidewalks, climbing stairs, turning away, losing jobs, sleeping in alleys. They came utterly alone but softening their days with what they thought was their last remaining support system.
Some came with -
Brains fried
Brains baked
Clothes filthy
Hair greasy
They came from –
Nights of theft
Back street beatings
Main street walking
Supporting their disease –
with guns
with bravado
on their knees
bent over a sink
They came from various social levels –
Wearing –
Jeans and torn t-shirts and tattered running shoes, or
700-count wool suits and mirror-bright shoes
Inheritances blown away
Doors slamming them outside the family home
Spouses saying “never again”
Children frightened
Parents saying “no”
They came off streets and out of alleys, in various stages of –
Disrepair
Dissipation
Disuse
Disruption
Disease
Desire
They came with rotting teeth, sores oozing yellow puss as if squeezed from a tube. They came with festering arms and legs from dirty needles. They came with anything they could obtain – the cheapest, the stolen, anything sold or bartered with money or their ass or their mouth.
They came secreting moldy bottles filled and refilled with – MD-20/20, cheap bourbon, low-grade Canadian, Old Crow. Stories told and retold, enhanced and embellished - always with themselves as both victim and hero.
AT ASSESSMENT:
They came because of –
Judges – exhausted by frequent appearances before their court
Wives – depleted from years of forgiving and disappointment
Employers – tired of their being absent
Parole Officers – as a last resort
Most came because they were facing a dead-end with their paths narrowing -
realizing this was their final chance:
their money short,
their debts high,
others patience razor-thin.
They came ready to wager their only remaining chip – centuries-old games of –
Avoidance
Anger
Denial
Disappearance
Repeated behaviors
Irrespective of how they came, they all came -
Overburdened by guilt
Suffocated with shame
Without a functioning memory of yesterday
All came with ghosts –
surrounding them with a reality they felt forced to erase –
invading them, and against whom they developed lines of defense –
Repression
Suppression
Depression
Strategic anger to repel reality
Strategic helplessness to lure, then destroy, reality
Strategic suffering to convert and subdue reality
They came with a dread of what would happen on the other side of that door they had knocked on so tenuously; they came with a swagger that both masked and announced their fears.
They came angry at the place that would - Rob them of their default behavior. Rob them of their best friend, their crutch, their hiding places. And leave them exposed.
They came to negotiate –
It’s different with me.
Not knowing –
We’re all the same
They came declaring they could quit anytime.
Anyone can quit, the trick is not to start again.
They came to get better without changing –
Impossible
IN DETOX:
They came with euphoric recall. They came trying to flirt, charm, promise, or trade their way to health.
They all came embedded within four rules –
Don’t talk
Don’t think
Don’t feel
There is nothing wrong with me and I will not tell anyone about it
They came holding a secret they knew no one else had. A secret not from alleys or streets, but from an earliest recollection of a negative event.
They all came wanting a safe place to sleep, a private shower, something warm to eat, so they could figure out how to work around this new obstacle.
They came with imaginations, with remorse and obligations, with good or manipulative intentions, with no map to plot a better life.
They all came with so much excruciating pain, disappointment and emptiness, they feared it would require a large truck to haul it away.
TOMORROW:
Their first day in group. Most will come bargaining, pleading, “Make me better, but let me keep doing what I’ve been doing.” Still hustling – not yet equipped to surrender.
Thomas Elson is a Pushcart Prize nominee. His stories have appeared in multiple journals and anthologies, including, New Writing Scotland, Short Édition, Selkie, New Ulster, Lampeter, Moria, Mad Swirl, Blink-Ink, Scapegoat, Flash Frontier, Bending Genres, and Adelaide. He divides his time between Northern California and Western Kansas.
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