Honest Addict, Chapter Seventeen

17

And so the following afternoon he went to the Day’s Inn, checked out, and moved his scant possessions into the home of his new girlfriend. It is hard to describe their lifestyle and initial joy in any other way than to call it “playing house.” Each of them had long been a stranger to the world of cohabitation, and had grown accustomed to their privacy and the many quirks of solitude. But at first they were both so happy to be involved in what was, on the surface anyway, a “typical” relationship, that they fell headlong into a bliss that lasted a good three weeks.

Monday through Friday Caroline would go to work and, instead of going straight to the bar afterwards, would come home, where Peter would be cooking a meal to the best of his limited ability: spaghetti, salad, French bread, for instance. They would open a bottle of wine and talk about her day. For each of them it was an activity, a way of life that reflected their vision of what healthy people did with their evenings. She even talked about hosting a dinner party and inviting some of her coworkers.

On the weekends – and yes, also some of the weekdays – they would of course get trashed at the bar, at restaurants or the Turf club, which she had taken a liking to for its white tablecloths and food which she described as “hotel quality.” But from their shared perspective these outings were only simple indulgence. Everybody was entitled to have a good time now and again. And, because they had curtailed their habitual drinking by at least a third, it felt as if they were living the clean life. For Peter particularly this was so, since he had not touched a drug since his late-night excursion with Pepper. This marked a remarkably long stretch of abstinence for him. Once, he even referred to his new way of life as “going sober.”

To add to this sense of normalcy they went one Sunday to the Getty Museum, which they both admired for its architecture and stunning view of the city, though they agreed that the collection itself was a disappointment. On another evening, they took in a film at the local strip mall cinema multiplex: a Bruckheimeresque action offering with a handsome protagonist fighting the forces of evil in a daring attempt to rescue his beautiful woman. It was horrible drivel, the definition of mediocrity, the kind of movie Peter had always stood firmly against. But for some reason he enjoyed it to no end. Later he realized it was because he knew she had really liked it.

Toward the end of the third week they were at home finishing a dinner of crab cakes, mashed potatoes and broccoli when Caroline fell silent for a long spell. Peter was concerned.

“What is it, babe?”
“There’s something I need to tell you. It’s kind of awkward.”
“There’s nothing you can’t tell me,” he replied with a thoughtless confidence.
“Promise me you won’t find this strange.”
“Okay, I promise.”
“I have a dead guy in my closet.”

A sense of dread came over him as he pondered what she had just said. Then he began laughing as the absurdity of his fears settled in. “What the hell are you talking about?”

She walked out of the kitchen and into the bedroom. When she returned she was holding a large cardboard box. She opened it and began placing the contents on the table one by one: a pair of men’s boxers, a large hunting knife, a comb, a policeman’s billy club and several framed photographs of a determined, rugged looking guy in various poses and locations.

“This is what you’re worried about?” Peter asked. “You keep a box of memories from some old boyfriend. So what?”

Caroline then removed the last object inside the box: a silver urn. She unlatched the top of the vessel and removed the top, exposing the grey dust inside, the last remnants of the poor sap’s life.

“He was the last person – maybe the only person – I ever loved,” she said, her voice distant and detached. “He fell off a fifteenth storey deck on New Years Eve four years ago. The way it happened was so fucking stupid I can’t even explain it. One minute he was dancing, twirling around, and then… I watched him as he tumbled head over heels toward the traffic below. Maybe I was just high, but the fall seemed to last for several minutes. There’s not a day that has gone by when I don’t think of that moment.”

“Jesus,” Peter replied, dumbstruck. “I really don’t know what to say.”
“Tell me to get rid of him.”
“Excuse me?”
“Demand that I throw all these things away. Make me. I have to let go…” she said, her voice trailing off.
Peter had never seen Caroline behave in this manner, and in a way he didn’t like it. “I don’t know that I can do that,” he replied, not totally sure why he was responding this way.
“Take these things away from me and throw them in some dumpster where I’ll never see them again.” Her words were desperate but her voice did not waver.
“If you are asking me to do this, I will. Say it one more time.”
“No.” Her cold countenance betrayed no inner emotion.
He was visibly frustrated. “What the hell do you want me to do?”
“Fuck it,” she said as she packed the objects back into the box. “It’s not that important anyway.”
But Peter knew that the opposite was true.

***

That marked the beginning of the end of it, even though it took a little while for the reality to become apparent to him. For the first few days she was simply distant and different, though he could not quite put his finger on it. After this introductory period, however, she became openly hostile and mocking of him, doing everything conceivable to sabotage his capacity to love her. Sometimes it was just little things: displays of discomfort by his presence in what was, after all, her home, little naggings he knew were directed solely to harass him, the periodic shrug or exasperated sigh that said more than words.

But she used words as well. One night driving to dinner she pointed out an apartment building in the distance and remarked, “I fucked a guy there not three months ago. He was fantastic.”

Peter tried to let it slide, knowing innately that she was testing him. But it seemed the more patience he displayed the more she disdained him and would ramp up her attempts at driving him out of her life. She boldly and cruelly mocked his sexual technique, once during the act. She ripped into him for his clothes, his gambling, even his lack of immediate family. She openly accused him of stealing money from her purse, even though he had explained in some detail his relative financial comfort.

Finally, a week after Caroline had revealed the presence of her dead guy, she never came home after work. The next day Peter awoke in her bed and surmised what had happened, though he refused to take the final step to corroborate his suspicions. That day he went to the track and dropped three thousand dollars blindly, playing only long shots and hundred dollar trifectas. And he knew all the time that he was punishing himself. He just didn’t know for what.

The next morning she had still not returned. Peter stayed in bed for half an hour after awaking, staring at the dresser next to the bed. Finally he reached over and pulled out the top drawer. He felt guilty doing so, like a snoop. Inside was the ornate wood box she had shown him a month earlier. He opened it up. There was nothing inside; the small glass pipe was gone. He felt no anger, no resentment. But if anybody was going to be the functioning drug addict in this relationship, he thought, it was going to be him. And so he knew that his time in Los Angeles had expired.