Thursday, in reverse

I drive home from the open-mike.  There aren’t too many cars on the road, so I drive faster than I did on the way there.  The drive takes only 18 minutes.  I leave at 9:30 and arrive home at 9:48.  I tell Michelle that from our house to Manchester is a shorter drive than from our house to her grandmother’s in Hollis.

I walk to the car, smoking a cigarette.

I decide to leave.  The guy who nodded with approval after I read says to me: I really liked your poem, as I pass him, and he reaches out to bump my fist.

At the open-mike I read “With Love & Goodbye.”  It’s a letter to my addictive nature, and the small crowd is as enthusiastic as always.  They shout, they whistle, they say Yeeaah.  They clap their hands and stomp their feet and scream.  One guy nods at me with approval when I go to take my seat.

I sit at the long table and eat my food.  I had ordered a pulled pork quesadilla.  The food is delicious.  I keep inching my book The Years Were Unkind closer to the edge of the table, so as not to get any BBQ sauce on the cover.  I look to my right and say to the guy sitting there: Hey, I’m Jeremy.  He looks at me, slightly confused as to why I’m talking to a stranger that is him, and he tells me his own name.  I reach out my saucy hand and shake his hand, while he looks down at the sauce in between my fingers and cringes.  I feel very uncomfortable, and I wish I had never come here in the first place.

I come in from smoking a cigarette and pass the waitress and ask her if I can order some food.  She says sure.

I sit alone at a table in a dark shadow drinking my energy drink I had ordered earlier.  Then I leave it there, fold up my IPad, and carry it outside, as I go to smoke a cigarette.

I walk in to the venue and find a seat close to the front, but off to the side, and I vanish in the dark shadow.  There are only two people there, a blond woman and a bald man with a long beard.  They both work for the open-mike and are setting up the microphone, doing soundchecks, making sure the speaker is plugged in correctly and in the best position to maximize the experience while minimizing the distractions around us.

I arrive at the venue early and smoke a cigarette.  When I finish my cigarette I stub it out and go through the backdoor.  The open-mike is always in the backroom, but tonight there’s a standup comedy routine and I can see through the window a short-haired woman holding the microphone surrounded by a gawking and laughing audience.  I’m really confused.  A waitress comes out and says: Are you here for poetry?  I nod.  She says: Figured.  She tells me it’s in the middle room and directs me how to get there.  As I walk out the back door, a black man comes out, too.  I assume he is going to show me how to get to the other door.  Instead he says: This isn’t where I parked my car.  He goes back in the backdoor.  I follow the side of the building and make it to the side door and as I go in, the same black dude walks out.

I drive to the open-mike.  I’m excited, even though my day has been awful.

I drive home from Michelle’s grandmother’s house.  Michelle sits next to me.  I’m in a rush; I’m cutting it close.

I break down boxes in my grandmother in-law’s garage, stuff them in my trunk, and take them to the dump.  On my way back I stop at the store and buy a pack of smokes.  I stand outside the store and prop a cigarette in my mouth and light it, then take a long haul.  I text Michelle and tell her I’ll be back in five minutes.  Be ready when I get there.

We drive to my in-law’s house and I’m ruminating about what happened today.  I’m so pissed.

When I get home from the doctor’s I hurry into the bathroom and take a piss.  When I leave the bathroom, Michelle grabs me and we hug for a very long time.  I feel like crying.  She asks if I’m okay.  I tell her I am now.  She says I can’t believe they held you hostage like that.  I know, I tell her.  But let’s go to your grandmother’s, I say.  We don’t have a whole lot of time.  She suggests I skip the boxes we have, and just do her grandmother’s, so we can head over right away.  I tell her I was thinking the same.

I drive home from the doctor’s office, and I’m thinking about drinking.  Really contemplating it.  I haven’t felt like drinking in a long, long time.  I decide to call my sponsor as soon as I get home.  I realize if I go out tonight, I’m hugely at risk, but then remind myself that somehow, some way, I will have to drive home and drinking would make that a very difficult, and dangerous, task.  Not worth losing your license, I assure myself.  Just go, read, go home; whatever you do, don’t drink.  Still, I bet I’ll have a good time, anyway.

I’m in the bathroom at the doctor’s office, trying to pee.  I have to go real bad, but I can’t squeeze out a single drop.  I’m so mad at myself.  I feel like beating my head against the wall till I pass out.  I really hate this.  I can’t pee under pressure.  I’m so stressed out.  They make me keep the door cracked.  Why?  What for?  It’s not like anyone’s watching me, anyway.  But what if someone is watching?  Or wanders in?  I can’t pee even though I have to go so badly.  I toss the cup in the trash, swing the door open, and storm past the nurse.  She says: Did you pee?  I tell her I don’t care anymore.  I’ve been here for close to three hours.  She says: You gotta stay longer, then.  I say: No fuckin way!  She says: The doctor might not call in your script.  I know very well that she already called in two months two days ago, when I met with her.  She lets me do a saliva swab when I meet with her, instead of peeing in a cup because I struggle with that.  I storm past the nurse and say: I just got tested two days ago, then I leave.

I sit in the office.  It’s been almost three hours.  A 20-minute appointment turned into three hours.  And I have things to do today.  Important things.  People are counting on me.  I text Michelle.  Tell her I fuckin hate myself for not being able to pee under pressure.  She assures me it’s not my fault.  It is my fault.  I’m a fuckin fuckup, I tell myself, but not her.  What I tell her is: I know.

I drink 15 cups of nasty tap water that tastes like blood.  I’ve been told the water in Nashua has iron in it.  I can taste the iron; it’s gross.  After 10 cups I want to puke, and after 15 I almost do.

I try to pee four separate times, and for all four, I am unsuccessful.  Each time, after just a couple minutes, someone knocks on the door and says: People are waiting to use the bathroom.  Are you almost done?  I say: I’m so close.  I’m not close at all.  I pull up my pants, leave the bathroom, and head back to the room where I’ve been stationed.  I’ve been here for so long.

I meet with my doctor so I can get a referral to the dermatologist.  I tell her I’ve had really bad dry skin as of lately, and maybe I should see a dermatologist.  She says she’ll send in the referral.  Then she says I’m okay to go.  I ask her if I still need to pee in a cup, because when I met with the other doctor two days ago, I already was tested and she already called in my script.  The doctor I’m seeing today says she doesn’t think so.  Why?  Because before my appointment, I told her, they wanted me to pee in a cup.  Last time I met with you, they told me I didn’t need to do a UA when I meet with you, just with the other doctor, which happened two days ago, and I was clean.  She asks the nurse.  The nurse says I have to pee.  I tell the doctor to look at my file.  It will show that I was tested two days earlier and I was clean.  She looks at my file and tells me I’m right.  She says she’ll contact my other doctor and see what she wants to do.  Apparently they couldn’t reach her.

The nurse hands me a cup and I tell her I just did a UA two days ago.  I thought I didn’t need to do a UA when I met with the doctor I’m meeting today.  She tells me I gotta do a UA every time I come in.  I remember last time I met with this doctor, I was told something entirely different.  I go to pee but I can’t.  I ask her if I can do a saliva swab.  She says it’s gotta be a UA.  But I can try again after the appointment.

The nurse comes and gets me in the waiting room.  She brings me to the scale and then weighs me.  I’m eight pounds heavier than I was two days ago, so I ask if I should take my shoes off and take everything out of my pockets.  She says okay.  I take them off and I weigh the same amount as I did two days ago.  As I’m putting on my shoes, she tells me she likes how my laces match my sweater.  Another nurse overhears her and tells her I’m a very good dresser; I’m always very stylish.  The nurse I’m with whispers to me: You should show our other patients how to dress, then adds: I’m just kidding.

I sit in the waiting room and listen to my music via headphones.

I drive to the doctor’s office, really looking forward to tonight—just five hours to go.