Authors: Michael Pond,Maureen Palmer
“I can’t,” he mumbles. He slumps back defeated, his hands braced behind his back.
“Let me take over.” Monk shoves him aside. His big cheeks trumpet air into Harold’s pale mouth. Harold suddenly regurgitates a large amount of stomach contents. Monk gags and spews the puke onto the ground. He swipes remnants from his own mouth with his sleeve, yells “Shit!” and takes three rapid
recovery breaths. I smell feces. The body has defecated. Monk speaks haltingly. “I just did this a couple of months ago with Leon. Hanged himself in the shower.”
We both look down at what I’m now sure is a lifeless body.
“Sometimes I hate this fucking place.” Monk resumes breathing for Harold. Doesn’t give up. Continues, in what I know is futile effort, until the paramedics arrive.
By then most of the guys from the house have gathered quietly, watching from a safe distance. Like suicide is contagious. Maybe it is, in a place like this.
A neighbour peers over his fence. Many of us have seen this before, most on the streets, me in my work. This kind of death is part of life for those who fight addiction and mental illness.
In November it was Leon. Leon’s girlfriend
had broken up with him, and his wife and small children were no longer a part of his life. He tried to be upbeat. The guys say he was charismatic and funny. He kept the house entertained. Leon was an alcoholic and, like so many men here, also mentally ill. Most likely many of the black-circled faces “no longer with us,” on Eli’s photo collage, were mentally ill. Suffice to say after Leon
died, there was no critical incident debriefing. No grief counselling. Men who struggle to put one foot in front of the other most days, who are still processing Leon’s death, now must grieve for Harold too. One suicide is bad enough. Two—brutal. A pall descends over We Surrender.
Later that day, we learn it is the tenth anniversary of the day Harold’s older sister killed herself. Harold
was just thirteen at the time. She also had an alcohol and drug problem.
Men are dying here because there is no one with sufficient medical and mental health expertise to get them well.
AA
may help many of us get sober, but it can’t cure a mental illness. Nor was it ever designed to do so. As a therapist, I knew places like this existed. I thought of them as an unfortunate, but necessary
option for intransigent addiction.
I was so wrong.
The house feels subdued. The level of sarcasm and abusive name-calling diminishes considerably. I suppose we should be thankful for that.
IN THE HEAVY
quiet of an early March morning, I get ready for work, my first day back on a hospital ward in twenty years. I feel the anxiety rise as I contemplate the enormity of my skill
deficit. Things have likely changed a lot on a ward in two decades. As I wipe the remnants of shaving cream off my face, I hear a scratching noise above me. I look up and recoil in disgust. A Norway rat the size of a black lab blinks at me from a hole in the ceiling. It slips, clinging frantically, swinging by its front claws, and drops, hitting the edge of the toilet seat before scurrying into
the hallway.
Hearing my yells, several guys step out of their rooms. The rat runs up and down the hallway, eyes darting in desperate search of an escape route. One of the men grabs a broom, takes a swat and misses. The rat does a U-turn, comes careening back toward me.
“Kill it! Kill it!” the chorus shrieks.
In a reflex-like movement, I stomp with full furious force right
on the rat’s head. I surprise myself with my quickness, timing and accuracy. This aging alcoholic still retains some athleticism. The rat is fatally injured and thrashing around. I stomp on its head again and again in an initial act of mercy that turns into a deranged expression of repressed rage.
So much for my high-minded Buddhist leanings and the sacredness of all living things philosophy.
Silence descends as several of the men stand watching me, reassessing me.
Sick waves of shock and remorse course through me. Who am I? What have I become? I look down at my tightly clenched fists still trembling from the outburst of violence. I will them to uncurl.
“Man! You’re quick. That was a hell of a shot.”
Monk blinks at me. “I think you have some unresolved anger
issues.”
More guilt, more shame, more regret and, damn it, yet one more amend to make, this time to God’s helpless creatures.
After Harold’s death, after Dana’s betrayal, after my murderous rampage on the rat, I’m desperate to get out of this place. I will never get better here. I’m convinced of that. But at least I have my job.
I finish shaving and slip into the most professional-looking
clothes I could borrow. But after months on the streets and in down-and-out recovery homes, can I pull off professional?
Adam, an alumnus of We Surrender, works in Surrey and offers to drive me to my new job each day. I am on my orientation week so I have no real duties, which is a relief. After the last week at the recovery home, I wouldn’t trust me to administer medication.
I am assigned to shadow one of the nurses each shift. After so many years of working as a sole practitioner, I love being around people, especially people who at least outwardly appear to have their shit together. I receive a warm welcome.
“What are you doing working here? I hear you were a psychotherapist for fifteen years,” Kate, one of the young nurses, asks me. And so the obfuscation
begins.
I play cool. “Oh, I shut down my practice in the Okanagan,” I say. “I relocated to Vancouver. A tough divorce.”
“Well, with your credentials, I guess we won’t expect to see you here very long,” Kate says. “I hear you used to be a head nurse on a unit like this years ago.”
I smile self-consciously. I’m a long way from being in charge of anyone.
I try to concentrate
on the job at hand, but my thoughts turn obsessively to Dana. She calls every day on the house phone and even today on the unit—she now knows where I work. She is back home after three weeks of drunken insanity with Blaine. I refuse her calls. Worried about her safety and her sobriety, I called her daily for three weeks. She never picked up. She knew how bad my anxiety had become, but she
was too lost in her own addiction to care. I picture her with Blaine and I’m crushed by the weight of her indifference. She was my lifeline, my only friend, my lover, my last hope for a normal life.
Finally, after her second call to the unit today, I relent.
“Hello, Dana.” My hand shakes.
A rush of apology tumbles from her.
“I am so sorry, Mr. Pond. I just couldn’t
stay in that house any longer. My sister drove me insane,” Dana babbles. “I was so drunk I didn’t know what I was doing. It’s a total blackout. I have found us a beautiful place. We will beat this thing together.”
I’m still really hurt. But she’s detoxing. Trying hard to hide the tremulous, shaky sound in her voice. Working hard to sound sober.
“I don’t think I can ever forget
what you’ve done, Dana,” I say.
She fast-forwards through her new plan for us.
“We can move into the place at the beginning of the month. It’s fully furnished. We don’t need to get a thing for it. I have found you a little rooming house close to the hospital. You can stay there for the five days until we get in.”
Living with Dana is not a good idea. When it comes to falling
off the wagon, I’ve met my match. Neither of us can remain sober long alone, and together it’s even worse. But I do think I’ll go insane if I have to spend one more day at We Surrender.
“Okay, Dana. Let’s do it.”
“Thank you, Mr. Pond. I’ll pick you up in the morning.” I can hear the smile in her voice.
• 12 •
MY LAST NIGHT
at We Surrender. I’m restless and sleep seems impossible.
My roommate is home on a pass. I hear my door creak open.
I’m alert now, senses hyper-aware.
Two men tiptoe into my room.
Brett looms at the foot of my bed. Just inside the door, Kevin snickers behind him. Brett is a twenty-nine-year-old gangster from
Surrey. His head is shaved, his body covered with tattoos. He came to the house several weeks before me. He is court-ordered for residential treatment. He makes it clear to everyone he did not need to be in this “shithole.” Brett is a bully who seeks out the weak and the vulnerable. Brett’s buddy, Kevin, is a nineteen-year-old hyperactive boy with gel-spiked hair. He is frequently caught jerking
off to porn on his smartphone. The other men torment Kevin for his sexual obsession and compulsive masturbation. Kevin doesn’t care. He likes the attention. Common knowledge in the house is that Kevin is Brett’s “little bitch.”
“Hey, Professor. How’s it going?” Brett asks odiously.
“What are you guys doing in here?” My heart slams in my chest.
“Just came down this end of
the hall for a visit,” Brett whispers.
“I got a nice surprise for you, old man.” Kevin has his hand stuffed down his black Nike track pants.
“Both of you—get outta here. I’m not interested in any of your sick shit.” My gut flutters. My breath pumps quick and shallow through my flared nostrils. My jaw clamps down. Both hands curl into tight fists. I sit up, ready to bolt.
Brett pulls a camo-handled Buck tactical knife out of his black hoodie pocket and flips the shiny blade open. I’ve seen him show it off.
“You’ll do what we tell you, mister psycho professional.” The blade glints in the low light. “I’ve had smart-ass fuckers like you try to shrink my head before. All they did was send me back to the joint. Called me a psychopath.”
Kevin sneaks closer
to the bed.
“Suck on this, Doctor Mike.” He pulls his erect penis out of his track pants.
I leap out of my bed. My brain throbs, ready to explode. The veins in my neck pulsate.
I swallow dryness in the back of my throat and snarl, “Both of you—get the hell out of here.”
Brett thrusts the knife up, the razor edge feathers my neck.
“Just do what we want.”
“Get out of here now,” I growl. “Get the hell out of my room.”
In an instant, all fear evaporates, replaced by rage.
Remember what happened to the rat?
My body stands taut, ready. My glare focuses tight on Brett’s s grey, soulless eyes. I visualize my fist smashing his nose with full driving force.
Kevin inches even closer.
You know, this might be worth it. Not a
bad way to go out. Some honour to it.
Closer now, Kevin’s excitement is clearly visible.
I clench my teeth in anger and disgust that my life has shrunk to this. I cannot even call it a life anymore.
Brett and I continue to lock eyes.
“Make him do it,” Kevin begs.
Long pause. I don’t blink.
In slow motion, Brett’s knife hand returns to his pocket.
He drops his eyes.
“Let’s go,” he grunts. “Not tonight. This isn’t over, old man.”
Brett pushes a sulking Kevin out the door, his penis still exposed. They will have to take care of each other tonight.
My fists uncurl. The splenius muscles running down the back of my neck and between my shoulder blades let go. My jaw slackens. Waves of nausea break over me.
I’m
wide awake now. The adrenalin rush courses through me. Several days ago, a local doctor prescribed zopiclone for sleep. I never took it, trying my damnedest to adhere to the program. Eli decrees that drugs are “only an escape, a supplement to the alcoholic addiction, a precursor to relapse.” I’m not sure whether a sleeping pill qualifies as mood-altering, and thus prohibited here, but I didn’t want
to risk it. I hid the zopiclone in a roll of socks at the back of my top drawer.
I might get sober here. But I also might get killed, having managed to get on the bad side of some very bad people. I am out of here first thing in the morning.
I pop a little blue pill and slip quickly into deep, dreamless sleep.
MY EYES OPEN.
My mouth feels dry with a tinny aftertaste, a
well-known side effect of zopiclone. Still in a stupor, I retrieve my hidden contraband from under my stained pillow. The fluorescent blue digits on my cellphone flash 7:18. The phone was given to me by Louie, a crackhead who’d bought a hot BlackBerry Curve with some new-found cash. He just arrived at We Surrender last week.
I pull on my clean donated American Eagle jeans and grey Gap
zip-up hoodie. Shove my feet into a pair of hand-me-down size eight Adidas and head for the kitchen, on my way out to safety and freedom and God knows what else.
Tom “Guns” bumps into me.
“I’m leaving today, Tom.” I grin.
“What the hell? You just got that job at the hospital. Two months sober, man. Things are starting to come back. It’s too soon to leave. You’ll fuck everything
up.”
“My girlfriend got a place in Burnaby right by the SkyTrain. We can take possession first of the month. But I’m leaving today. I got a small room in Surrey a few blocks from the hospital. I’ll crash there for a few days. Twenty bucks a night.”
“Holy shit, man. I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Tom shakes his head.
“I’m not staying another night in this place, Tom. I
phoned Dana. She’ll be here in an hour to get me.”
I packed everything into my duffle bag. I don’t have much. A guy doesn’t need much, I’ve discovered. I carry my stuff out to the foyer, where I sit and wait, duffle bag by my side, precious briefcase on my lap.
The briefcase was a present from Rhonda when I first opened my private practice after graduate school in 1995. I’d buried
it deep in my duffle bag to protect it. Now it’s a repository of all the evidence of my downfall: collection agency notices, letters from the bankruptcy trustee, correspondence from my professional bodies, doctors’ reports, police reports, papers from the Canada Revenue Agency and the Office of the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles, lab reports and anything else that reminds me that my life has
turned to shit.
I wait in the foyer by the office, close to the back door, which faces the abandoned corner store across the street. Josh, the house manager, sits in the office doing paperwork. We can just see each other, out of the corners of our eyes. We don’t speak. Maybe he’s written me off. After an hour and a half, Dana’s Miata pulls into the corner-store parking lot. I jump up.