2

I have a problem. You can't tell, hell I don't even know what it is.  But I have a problem.  This whole theory about me having a problem can all be traced back to Ms. Leighla Towner,  better known as "Ms. I’ll screw your husband if I want to".  Her office sits on the 32nd floor at Shultz Institute for the Mentally Ill.  This is where she'll say to me,  "You’re making good progress.  Now all you need to do is admit you have a problem and you'll almost be cured".  Problem?  Me?  Yeah I guess I have a problem.  My problems this, I don't even know what my problem is.  She'd often tell me that denial is the first sign of a problem and you should embrace the reality of the situation rather than push it away.  Most of the time I just want to push her.  Right out the window and watch her and all her answers hit rock bottom.  Let's get back to her office.  It's more like a loft than an office.  You walk in and straight to the back sits a huge brown pine wood desk with engravings of ivy around the edges.  There’s a computer; you know those flat screen color computers, and endless pills of paper and folders with all her clients’ most deepest, darkest secrets inside scattered randomly on her desk.  Her desk alone hides her whole body; the papers merely finish off her head and cover it.  You have to walk to the side just to get a peak at her.  To the right of the desk is one of those typical "sit back and tell me everything" chairs.  Black leather and pine wood legs to match her desk.  It always reeks of disinfectant from the repeated cleanings after being done with each client.  Randomly placed pillars stand throughout the entire office and they look like some kind of metal light pole you'd see on a street corner.  There are two sofas that can fit no more than two people on each against the back wall by the door.  One is black and the other is white but you'll stick to both if seated on them too long.  The wall behind her desk is not a wall at all but just one big window.  All that can be seen through this window is other skyscraper type buildings and a busy street below.  There is a table and chairs in the middle of the office, some more of that pine wood with ivy.  Snacks usually placed here taste like chemical downed paper and the water tastes like sweat.  I choose not to eat while here.  Now the oddest thing in here is a single wood chair to the left of her desk facing out the window.  Yup, you guessed it, brown pine wood again.  But instead of ivy it looks like Egyptian hieroglyphics.  All four legs of this chair are worn and the stain peels off like pencil shavings.  This is where I choose to sit during our one hour and forty-five minute sessions.  Today while sitting in my chair I watch the outside world with Ms. Towner's endless gobbling in the background.  "I have come up with another recovery step for you to try.  Maybe you should write down what you do and how it makes you feel".  While she continues to drone on my eyes catch a man floating a floor below us and slowly rises to my level.  It's and elderly man in tattered clothing, his white beard is tucked into one pocket while his bald head reflects the sun and blinds me.  After my eyes recover I see the man pointing to the window to open it.  I rise from my chair and walk over to the lever.  "What are you doing Mr. Stone"?  Ms. Towner rises over her mountain of papers and folders.  I pull the lever down and give the glass a hard push and the wind pushes me back a few inches.  The man floats in through the window and glances at Ms. Towner.  "Mr. Stone what do you think you are doing"?  I just continue to stare at the odd site of a floating man.  "Answer me or I’ll call security"!  She demanded.  The man turned to look at me smiling and he winked.  He reached down inside his pants and pulled out something metal.  A gun.  I was never good with guns.  It was a small pistol with a wood handle.  It looked like one of those guns you'd see in an old western.  He turns and points the gun at Ms. Towner who is now on the telephone.  I'm not paralyzed by fear but that's what I’ll tell the cops when they ask why I didn't do anything.  Overwhelmed with excitement I take a step forward.  The man whipped around to face me and pulled back on the trigger.  Darkness.  Warmth.  A sense of belonging overcame my entire body.  Life now just feels like another recovery step.  Where I am I do not know.  Am I dead?  This question arouses confusion and panic that fill my head as I start to feel around the darkness that has engulfed me.  Voices began to fill the darkness and a faint light was becoming brighter.  "He did it again",  Ms. Towner sighed.  I knew it was her because she has this squeaky mousy voice that can annoy you to death.  I think she might be my problem.  But like she always says, people are your problem when you make it a problem, and problems only come to people who are willing to accept them.  So what she's really trying to say is, problems began and end with you.  Bullshit.  This is coming from a woman who has probably never had a real problem in her life and has survived off mommy and daddy's money.  "I told you I can't work like this",  she starts to cry, "he was high on something again.  I am a professional, and in my professional opinion this man needs to be locked up.  As you can tell his AA and Narcotics meetings are not making the slightest impact what-so-ever"!  "I have faith in him that he will get through these problems",  a mans voice says calmly.  "Doctor where's the proof that he will?  Faith is the antithesis of proof.  I'm sorry but I am going to go home now.  I've had enough excitement for one day."  I could hear her pick up her things.  My eyes start to recover from the darkness but all I see are blurred images. . I hear Ms. Towners' expensive Gucci shoes click on the floor as she exited the room. My legs. My arms. My whole body useless. Paralyzed. Not by fear though, but by restraints. A voice comes close to my ear and I could tell it's Dr. Shapiro by the scent of his cheap drug-store cologne. "I have faith in you. No matter what Dr. Towner says. I know you will do some good with your life". My eyes fully working by now; I can see his sloppy greased back blonde hair. His powder blue eyes burning a hole into my skull, I had to look away. When you look at this man you get a godly feeling about him. A feeling like he is a perfectly normal person. Which in the real world can never be true. An impossibility. He reminds me more of a preacher than a doctor. The only words worth remembering from this man are simple and something no one has ever said to me before; "I will not give up on you". Later I escape from life. All my so-called "escapes" lock me in a dark room that I have no way out of. All that's in this room are I and my thoughts. Blurred memories. Holidays. Vacations. Friends. Family. All things that no longer exist in my life. I have gone so far away from it all; away from reality, that there is no where left to go. So here I sit in my dark room, my comfort zone, the place where years it seems has gone by. But in an instant I’m out of the room. On no particular day and with no particular reason I find myself starring into the eyes of a mirror.  Myself.  In those wide eyes full of curiosity and determine; I see the fire that once drove me to grab hold of my so-called dreams.  This was years before today.  Years before Ms. Towner and Dr. Shapiro.  Years before my problem.  This memory seems new to me, as if I am watching a movie for the first time.  I watch myself sitting there starring into oblivious.  The silence that now surrounds my life is all around.  There I sit like a deaf mute in my old bedroom.  A honk outside brings my memory to a standing position.  I walk over to the window to see that my brother has just pulled up.  I turn around but my blurred image has vanished from the room.  Slowly walking down the hallway; which seems a bit smaller than I remember, I hear whispering voices coming from a closed door. The hallway becomes filled with screams.  I try to run to the source but it feels as though I am in a pool of water and slow motion is my world.  The hallway echoes with anger and the screams become muffled gasps.  I reach for the over-sized door handle and fling the piece of wood open.  Like a black hole I am sucked up into the room and slammed against something.  Curious of what I am going to see I open my eyes; and there sits an old rusty cot.  I look around and notice that I am in the same hostel where my mind had left me.  I bag up my utensils and slip them into my pocket.  Walking through the endless bodies of drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes, and runaways that sit or lie on the floor and diseased mattresses, I light a cigarette and walk through the doors that separate these two worlds.  I sit outside; in what used to be a garden with a waterfall, and stare at the building that once was a five-star hotel.  Now a home to countless minds who've given up on our reality, this place looks like a nuclear test site.  This building; with it's broken down pillars and missing walls,  was suppose to be knocked down months ago.  But here it is and there I sit.  Looking down at the clock on my wrist I see that days have gone by.  5:43pm. Today is Wednesday and I have not eaten anything in three days.  My mind still fizzing like a shaken up can of pop from my higher dosage.  I remember that I have my N.A meetings at 6:00pm on Monday's and Wednesday’s at city hall,  in Press Room 3.  On Tuesday's I meet my fellow drunks at the YMCA for the Prozac injected A.A meetings.  I get into my car and find that Dr. Shapiro has left me twelve messages on my cell phone.  Probably because if I miss another meeting I'll have a warrant for my arrest hop-scotching in my direction.  As I walk into City Hall I see all the groupies that infest my life from 6:00pm to 7:15pm.  All gripping there little white cups full of there caffeine high for the time-being.  I go and take my usually seat in the third row from the front;  fifth seat in.  The room still smells of urine from last Wednesday’s meeting when a man who called himself Superman had to rescue a burning house in the middle of the room.  People rarely come sober to these meetings.  It's more of a hook-up place.  People selling and people looking to buy come here to find new means of how to get their desired goods. Once in a while you'll find a true patron so-to-say. The ones who want their measly little life back. So here I sit encaged in my round bubble waiting for the lessons of life to come. We always start off by going around the room and stating our name, our problem, and what ever else we wish to say. Most people take the freedom of speech a little too far and spill out there whole life story. Pointless. Watching the familiar faces stand up and reiterate themselves I watch "The Man" in his usual corner. "The Man" has never surrendered his name to us and chooses not to talk. I don't know why in the hell he is even here. He just sits and stares at us like animals in an exhibit. But tonight he's doing something.   I stare at him hard not noticing that the intricate look on my face has made the story of the person who is up come to a halt.  "The Man"  not noticing either continues his work in a yellow notebook.  "Mr. Stone"?  These three simple syllables shattered my well focused concentration and brought my eyes back to the person standing and the counselor with her over-sized glasses.  "We have not heard from you in quite a while,  would you like to say a few things"? The counselor says with such sweet compassion that it makes me sick to my stomach.  I can see what is really hidden behind those glasses though.  What she really wants to blurt out to the whole entire room.  "Listen here you poor excuses for human beings you should all be shot for being so melodramatic and wasting my time with this horse s**t of how you are the way you are because of everyone but yourself.  Your always complaining about how life isn't fair;  well f**k when your on smack,  uppers,  and opium I can see how being deprived of things would be unfair.  I don't want to listen to another piece of s**t story,  just stand up say your name and sit the f**k down".  "Mr. Stone"?  She says.  "Do you really mean that"?  I ask with a grin on my face and laughter hiding behind my teeth.  "Mean what Mr. Stone"?  Confusion flooded over her face.  Was that her thinking and I could hear her think,  or was that me thinking of what she was thinking but it really was what I thought?  Wait.  Am I thinking this now?  Did I say it aloud?  Why is everyone staring at me?  "Mr. Stone",  her voice intensifies.  I need to get out of this place.  My mind is flashing like a camera that has gone berserk.  "Ummmmm........yup, yup"  is all I managed to get out before I jumped out of my chair and ran for the door. Pushing open those greasy finger painted doors I felt free of my cage that I was shoved in.  I go and sit on the curb that used to be red for emergency vehicles but is now worn off to a soft pink.  I pull out the pack of slightly smooched Red's in my pocket and throw back the top.  One left.  Pulling it out as if it was a fragile antique,  the box drops to the ground.  Staring at it now it looks so beautiful.  The sleek slender cylinder shape reminds me of the women that used to be in my life.  Putting it in my mouth my lips get the sensational taste and I close my eyes and lie on the cold hard cement.  It seems as though I can hear every little movement around me.  People.  Cars.  Bugs.  Life.  I open my eyes and shield my little happiness and light it.  Everything is right at this moment.  Everything is calm and surreal.  I stare up at the sky which has already turned to night and look at the clouds that cover the stars.  I wonder if anyone else is doing this at this exact moment.  I wish I could take all my thoughts and feelings and just give them to someone and start over fresh without any "problems" or urges that cloud my way of living.  Seeing clear makes me want to look through a kaleidoscope.  Down to the last bit of happiness I take it out of my wonderfully taste filled mouth and put it out.  I grab the box and shove the butt inside.  Sitting up I can see that the narcotic abusers are being released;  I stand up and get into my car.  I feel like I am being watched.  You know that feeling of eyes on you that is rather uncomfortable?  I look to the left and there sits "Father" Shapiro with a nice grin on his face.  "I knew I was right"  were the muffled words that spoke to me through the glass.  I put my car into reverse and drive off.