Life or Death
“Beep, Beep, Beep!” The alarm sounded for me to wake up for work. The clock read
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“Good Morning, Patrice!”.
“Hey, Patrice!”
“Morinin’ Patrice!”
Do I look like I’m having a good morning?
“Good Morning all,” I quickly reply as I walk into my office.
I plopped down at my desk and let out a huge sigh. I look around my desk and
there was a huge stack of papers added from the work I had left the night
before. How would I ever make it through
the day; this is way to much work!! On the top of the stack there was a note
that said
“Come see me ASAP”
I knew who it was. Rick. I quickly reread the note. The writing seemed angry and
it seemed very important. I quickly rushed to my boss’s office at the end of the
hall and knocked on the door.
“Come in please and sit down. We need to talk.”
I sat quietly waiting on him to speak. He had been frustrated with me for the
past few weeks. I had been slipping a little on my drink so I was tired during
the day. I wouldn’t finish all my work and I would take long lunch breaks. It
was the end of the year and most important time.
“This is really hard for me to do because I know it puts you in a bad
situation,”
I knew what was coming next. He was sorry
he was going to have to let me go things just weren’t working out and all that
blah blah I knew I hadn’t doing my work up to par and I wasn’t on top of my
game. “Im sorry but things just aren’t working out. You are never here when
I need you to be and lately when you’re here you are distant and not able to
function I need someone who will be alert and able to do the job I’m sorry but I
have to let you go. Your last monthly report was horrible; there were no money
orders, dates and it was incomplete.”
As he continued to talk it began to sink
in more and more. I couldn’t take it anymore I need a drink and bad. I tried to
stay away; it had me horrible for the past few years.
I got up from the table politely said thank you for your time and left. I
got all the things that were in my office that meant anything to me which wasn’t
much and headed straight for the bar.
I arrived at a bar that was very familiar to me.
This was the “spot”, the place where I experienced all my past issues and
drowned them in the cranberry juice and vodka, or the rum and coke. Every Friday
I would come to the bar to have my weekly drink. I would sit and cry and drink
and cry and hope all my problems would go away. My weekly drinks soon became
more frequent. My friends and family began to notice I wasn’t the same. I was
became drained all the time, sleep, staying in not wanting to hang out, hung
over and depressed. I would be late for work, sleeping on the job and get no
work done. I had gotten past that stage, I now had the occasional drink and
never to get drunk.
This time was a little different. There was so much on my mind. I just
lost my job, my family disowned me,
I couldn’t stay in a relationship and now I was falling back into my old habits
and I couldn’t control myself. I wanted to drink all my problems away.
I quickly sat down in the dark corner in the back of the room, after all
it was
“What chu doin’ here so early in da morinin’”
“I need the usual, I’ve had a long morning.”
“Well what’s wrong withcha, you neva been here dis early, how come you not at
work like the resta the white folks?”
I really don’t need this. I wish she would just go get my drinks and leave me
alone, gosh I’m paying her!
“I don’t want to talk about it. My drinks please,” I answered in a stern tone
She just stood and looked at me trying to read me, and then turned to get my
drink. I sat in the corner drinking glass after glass, finally beginning to fill
the affects. Hours went by and I
stayed in the same spot never moving.
After around one my friends had been calling for hours and I decided to
call back.
“Hey trice, where you at, we been callin’ you all day”
“Hey I’m out, what’s up”
“I called your office and they said today is your last day, what’s going on!”
“It-It’s nnnuuuthin, It’s nuthin. I’m fine, eeevverrythinnngsss fine!”
“ARE YOU DRINKING,”
“No I’m at home jjjjjuuusstt fine. I gotta – I gotta go , I’ll talk to you
later.”
I quickly hung up the phone. All she was going to do was yell and scream and
tell me how I didn’t need to be drinking and she could help me through whatever
I been going through. She doesn’t understand . I stayed a few more hours and
left to head home, drunk.
On my way home I stopped at the local corner store to pick up a few
bottles of Hennessey and vodka. I planned to be in for the next few days.
I could barely walk, I quickly got what I needed and headed home. Once
home I changed my clothes and jumped into bed with my bottle of Hennessy. I
flipped through all the channels trying to find something to watch. There were
soap operas, football games, soap operas, and Maury. I decided to watch Maury.
All the young little girls with the children and no fathers seemed
appealing to me. I laugh at their stupidity while they search for the fathers
constantly being let down one after another. “You are not the father” is Maury’s
famous phrase. Many girls hear this everyday only to be crushed because their
situation hasn’t changed.
Today’s topic was a little different. He was discussing Alcoholics and
their relapses. As soon as I saw this I turned. I couldn’t bare watch the one
thing that was talking about my situation. Just as I turned the television off
the phone rang. I read the caller
I.D. and it was my mom. I couldn’t let her know I was drunk and lost my job she
would be disappointed. I let it ring and go to the answering machine.
“Patrice, I know you are there, pick up the phone honey. We need to talk.
While knocking,
“What, what, what. Why with all the noise, and my head hurts and I can’t take
all that yelling.”
“What have you been doing girl, you look bad, your eyes are red, your hair is a
mess and you smell like alcohol. You have been drinking and getting back into
your bad habits.”
Can you just leave please? Get out! I don’t need you bothering me! I’m doing
just fine so all that bad habits and yelling and screaming is not necessary.
“Look I’m fine, my head hurts, I don’t feel good and I just want to get some
sleep. I don’t need you telling me what I can and can’t do so it you would
please see yourself out.”
“Well before I go I want you to know what you are doing to yourself. You almost
made a close call last time and I don’t want to lose you.
If you keep drinking like this you will kill yourself and the next time I
see you, you will be in a casket. I can’t have that, I love you to much. It
hurts me to see you like this, you are better than that.”
As
As I picked it up it was more of the same drama that she was talking about when
she was there. There was also a note from my mom saying the same thing. She
stopped by while I was sleeping. These were the only two people who seemed to
actually care about what was going on in my life, but sometimes it hurt and was
hard to listen to the truth. I wanted so badly to be gone. To run away, away
from all the hurt, away from all the problems, away from it all just to be alone
with me and myself. After partially reading both notes I went in the kitchen to
get another bottle and curl up under the covers in the bed. I drank and drank
and drank until there was nothing left. I felt sick. I couldn’t see straight, my
head was spinning and I felt like I was about to vomit. I quickly went into the
bathroom to take aspirin. The pain was so bad, I couldn’t take it I grabbed the
bottle as quickly as I could. I poured them in my hand not checking to see how
many and threw them in my mouth. I was hoping for immediate reaction but there
was none. I couldn’t take it I wanted to cry, the room was spinning, my stomach
was turning, but the loss of my job was the least of my worries. I was drunk,
the drunkest I had ever been and on an empty stomach.
I needed help, and I needed it right away. I tried to hurry back to the bedroom
to call 911 but I couldn’t make it. I felt the vomit traveling through my body
and up and out my mouth. It was red and smelled of decay. I collapsed to the
ground. I couldn’t move. The room began to spin faster and faster until it went
black. I couldn’t feel my body. I was numb. I wanted to cry out for help but had
no strength.
Days went by and no one came to see about me. I guess I had been so mean to
everyone, that no one wanted to deal with me. I could hear my mom and Tracy call
to check on me but they never showed up. After about five days I could hear my
mom leave a message and she started to panic.
“Patrice, where are you. No one has talked to you in days. I tried to
give you your space, but this is it. I’m coming to check on you. I hope you are
all right. I’m on my way.”
I could feel myself fading fast. Her words seemed to become faint and distant. I
hope she would make it in time. I barley could hear the doorbell ring. I was
screaming inside for help. She used her key to come in. As soon as she opened
the door, the smell of human waste and decay hit her. She coughed as she
continued to look through the house and calling my name. She mad her way to my
room where the heart of the smell was. As she cracked the door she could see my
helpless body lying on the floor between the bathroom and bedroom. She screamed
and fell to the floor to see if I was alive. She ran to the phone to call 911.
“911, what’s your emergency,” the operator said.
“I need an ambulance, it’s and emergency, my daughter, she might be dead HELP ME
PLEASE! Hurry, hurry!”
“Ma’am calm down, what happened?”
“I don’t know I found her lying on the floor. She looks dead. Please HURRY!”
“There is a team on the way stay on the phone and stay calm. Help is on the way”
My mom hung up. The paramedics came and pronounced me dead. I was heavily
intoxicated and overdosed on medication. My organs began to shut down and I
blanked out. In a way I got my wish; all my problems were gone but I was dead.
Although I had been clean and sober for eighteen months I never knew I was so
fragile. Anything could have tipped me over the edge and back into my old ways.
It was for Life or Death.