My Name Is Rebecca

This is an excerpt from a memoir I'm writing. This particular piece is about life on heroin in Philadelphia. All material is copyrighted.

The neon red numbers on my clock radio read four thirty p.m. I rolled over on the floral print mattress to face the wall. A half an hour more until Jamal came over with my heroin. As soon as he got off from work, Jamal would take the subway down from Center City and walk the few blocks to my row house on Opal street. He didn't bother knocking. He had explained more than once that it was bad business for a white woman to be letting an older black man into her house. Instead, he just barged in. All two hundred and fifty pounds of him sauntered through the door as he hollered out 'Becky!' I hated being called Becky.

I stared at the wall. There was a crack right above my mattress. It split into four corners, branching out like a tree hungry for light. The only window in the room was short and stout, sitting just below the low hanging ceiling. Lying on the floor the ceiling looked tall. It looked as impossibly optimistic as one could feel living on Opal street. From this position I day dreamed about possibilities that weren't likely. Dreams that were so tall that I thought one of the branches from that crack would brush them aside before they ever reached the window. From here, I thought mostly about my family.

I missed Mom. I thought about the things we might do on a hot summer day in June if I were home and not dope sick. We might go to the James river and have a picnic or we might go swimming at the enormous lake fed pool that spanned the entire length of a football field. She'd make sandwiches with loads of mayonaise gooped onto the sides and leave them out in the sun. This way the mayo would melt all over the turkey and cheese until the sandwiches were 'just right.' Then she'd tell me about her priorities.

“Well, Beck,” she'd say, leaning back into whatever chair was available. “I think it's time for us to start thinking about the garden.” I never helped her with her garden. Instead I sat with her in the grass while she did all the hard work. When I was in elementary school I would tell her imaginary stories about little mice who made their way through the jungle of forsythia and lantana that lined our lawn. When I was in middle school I would pick individual blades of grass from the outer perimeters and talk about the popular kids. They all had names like Emily, Stacy, or Ashley.

“First what we need to do is put on the mulch. Now, I know what you're thinking, Beck,” She'd look at me expecting an answer. “We could just go down to the Ivy Nursery and get our mulch there, but no. That's just way too over priced. Instead, what we're going to do, is drive all the way up to that place by Gram's house. They're much better. Don't you think that's a good idea, Beck?” I'd nod, hearing my name, but not entirely listening to the conversation. As long as the tone was the same and the words were familiar I could drift along like the river for hours on end.

Mom would grab the tanning oil, the nasty, slippery stuff that came out of the orange tube, and lather it all over her body. Together we would bask in the sun waiting for my aunt and cousins.

I imagined my cousins, Gavin and Sandra, running over to us so that they too could sit by the water. Our feet would dangle into the water as we lay backwards, our heads almost touching. As always, Sandra would wear her long blonde hair down around her shoulders. Already six feet tall she looked like a goddess. Gavin would look at me and smirk, as if this was all too boring to even stand. He would wait anxiously for the moment when we could go off on one of our walks. The walks were where he told me all about his friends and school and what life was like in the next town over. My aunt would sit down next to Mom and smile. “You got the orange stuff,” she'd say, grabbing the sun tan lotion.

“Oh yes,” Mom would nod her head. “How could I not?”

These fantasies would go on and on, but they didn't start at four thirty. They started the minute I woke up with the cold sweats and the leg aches. The heroin withdrawal stage would kick in around late morning. After six hours since the last hit I would sift through intense feelings for hours. If I didn't save enough heroin for the morning there was no getting out of bed until five. On and off for the rest of the day I'd think about my family. Sometimes we'd go to the river together, or sometimes we'd have dinner at Mom's old house on Cobblestone lane. Occasionally I would day dream that I was back at my mother's house, always exceptionally dressed and drug free, and we would go for a walk around her new neighborhood. She would never say how good I looked because in my dreams, I always looked healthy. It was as if the past seven years had never happened.

When the red neon numbers on my clock read four forty, I started to fantasize about my friends back home in Virgina. Although my friends were always important, my fantasies of them were never as long or elaborate as those I had of my family. Only a solid ten or fifteen minutes was dedicated to them. My life with my friends was different. They called me 'Becca' and went on 'adventures' with me. Adventures spanned from going to night clubs to walking around downtown to just going to the store. Any place had possibility for excitement.

“I'm at Becca's,” My friends would explain to their parents over the phone. “Becca's,” I'd hear their Mom's voices from the other end. The name was tainted.

One time I walked out of my friend's mother's car in a black nylon skirt that was too tight and too short. My friend Rachel told her mother she wanted to buy a skirt just like it and her mother had said “the one Becca has?” When Rachel said yes, her mother told her that I was going places in that skirt. Not the kind of places Rachel wanted to go.

At the time Rachel thought this was funny. She told me all about it later on that night. When I said nothing, she started to back track. “I don't think she meant it like that. She just doesn't know the real Becca.” But I wasn't so sure I did either.

Finally at four fifty five, I threw on an old shirt and a tight, short skirt and ran my fingers through my hair. I went to the bathroom, splashed some cold water on my face and patted my cheeks with white powder to hide the yellow tint my skin was glowing.

The front door banged open and I could hear Jamal pushing his way inside. “Becky!” He shouted from the kitchen.

I motioned for him to come inside my room, hoping that he would hurry before any of my roommates saw him. I was sure they knew why a fifty year old black man from the neighborhood stopped by every evening for ten minutes, but I didn't want to do any deals in the kitchen.

“What's all this s**t going on in here?” Jamal said, stepping into my room. My room was filled with dirty clothing spilling out of white and black milk crates. The floral mattress was messy and the sheets were covered with sweat stains. Empty pizza boxes and diet coke bottles littered the carpet as ash trays were over flowing.

“Becky, what the hell you got going on in here?” I cringed at the name. “This place is a mess. It's nasty. I shouldn't be selling you this s**t anymore until you get your place clean like a real woman.” I didn't correct him.  

Reviews

[Unravelling Yarns]

This is a really powerful piece. What I love is that you have paid close attention to showing the reader emotion and atmosphere through physical detail; for instance the cracks in the wall; rather than on expository pieces. This technique works beautifully in your writing - well done.

I would be interested to know how long your memoir is? You have mentioned that this is an excerpt, but it seems in itself to be an independent piece. Have you considered submitting it on a website such as the Real Story?