Flying with Crows
by
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“I could say I’m not leaving you alone but I am. You make the choice, ok? I hope to God you make the right one and I’m here for you, no matter what, but I can’t stay in this car. Not this time.” “You’ve got gutters to clean,” Mike muttered as he started the car. “And you’ve got a stepson you need to look after.” Lamont stared at him for a few seconds that stretched out into guilt-ridden eons to Mike. Finally, shaking his head once more, he got out and shut the door gently. He walked into the house without a look back and Mike, watching him go, felt a moment of completely pure, raw fear. He felt himself shaking and gripped the wheel in white-knuckled fists and rammed his head hard into the steering wheel. The horn gave a startled honk and he jumped, feeling rattled and insane. With fury roaring through him, he drove his fist hard into the dashboard, smashing the radio and pulverizing his knuckles. Blood poured and addiction raged and Mike hit the radio again and again until there was nothing left, both inside and out. He slumped in his seat and felt the wetness of tears on his cheeks and the desolation in his soul. “Fuck this,” he whispered, closing his eyes. “Fuck…this.” He sat where he was for…a minute? An hour? Hell, a week? He didn’t know; didn’t care. Finally, on trembling legs and with shattered pride, he pushed open the door and half-fell out of the car. Staring at the ground, he stumbled around the house to the back, shuffling slowly, trying to breathe one long, slow breath at a time until his control came back. Or at least sanity. Unable to even groan in defeat now, Mike pulled himself up the deck steps and fell into Lamont’s arms. His friend held him easily, not talking, just being there, and after a moment Mike felt two other pairs of arms encircle him; holding him up, keeping him steady. Mike sat haggard at the kitchen table while Lamont bandaged up his hand. He still couldn’t look at the faces surrounding him, but he offered a muttered thanks when Betty put a glass of tea in front of him. “It’s not broken,” Lamont’s voice was quiet and even. “Torn up as hell, though. You won’t be doing surgeries for a while and I wish you’d let me take you to the hospital to stitch it up.” “No,” Mike’s voice was a croak. “Thanks, but no. I can’t let Willis see me like this.” Lamont took a slow, deep breath and methodically wrapped the gauze around his hand. He felt Betty’s hand briefly on the back of his neck and took immediate, brief strength from her touch. Max sat on the other side of Mike, silent and pale, but with a fierce resolve in his eyes. Lamont glanced at him and was met with his burning gaze. “So you pulled your B and E on him, huh?” He asked lightly. “Left the window cracked?” Max watched him in silence and then looked at Mike. “I pushed you and I’m sorry, but you gotta know how much you did for me today.” Mike took a small drink of his tea and the glass clattered against the table in his shaking hand. He didn’t respond; didn’t look up at all. All the fight was gone out of him and he was trapped between just utterly exhausted and borderline insane with need. “Max,” Betty said softly, “can I talk to you a minute?” Mike finally raised his weary, shell-shocked eyes to hers. “Don’t, Betty. It wasn’t his fault. None of this was his fault.” Betty regarded him as her son took a deep breath and stood up. He placed a light hand on Mike’s shoulder and Mike flinched as if expecting a blow. “My fault or not,” Max murmured. “Doesn’t matter anymore.” “That’s right,” Mike sighed and stared at the tabletop again. “We’re all here in essence because I messed up. I’m a wreck and I’ll admit it, but Christ, it’s…” he stopped and swallowed thickly, shuddering. Max walked with Betty out of the room while Lamont pulled him close and held him. “You’re here because you made the right choice,” he whispered. “You’re ok, Mike. You’re still with us.” Mike didn’t respond but when he pulled away he seemed steadier. He pressed the heels of his hands hard against his eyes and grimaced at the bolt of pain that shot across his mangled knuckles. “So what now?” He murmured softly. “Jesus, what now?” Lamont got up and got his own glass of tea and put a hot dog on a bun, dousing it with mustard, the way he knew Mike liked it. “Now,” he handed it to him, “you eat this and get a little food in you. Then a meeting. I’ll go with you. Then we’ll head back to your house and you can sleep.” He paused and regarded his friend, his doctor’s eyes assessing the haggard, worn, too-thin man across from him. “You need sleep, Mike.” Mike took a token bite of the dog before setting it next to his tea. “Ok,” he replied softly. “And I’ll stay with you again.” “No,” Mike stood up shakily. “No, I’ll be fine. You can’t disrupt your life for me,” his voice was exhausted. Lamont looked at his rimmed, bloodshot eyes and wondered if Mike would even make the full hour of the meeting before passing out from sheer exhaustion. “Mike,” Betty’s voice was quiet as she stood, just inside the kitchen with Max at her side. “Keith’s whole life is this…for helping others. His friends…his family. This is what he does and you know that.” Mike offered a pained grin. “He’s got your gutters to clean and a job he can’t call in sick for, especially not for me.” Lamont stared at him. “My job is just that: a job. Betty’s right: my life revolves around my family, and you, Mike, are part of my family. As are you,” his eyes cut to Max’s, “and you and I are going to talk about this, as well, ok?” Max nodded wordlessly. Betty watched Mike as he stood in her kitchen, looking as uncertain and beaten as her husband used to. Standing there as the demons gripped him and his sanity frayed at the edges. “I can use a meeting,” she said abruptly. “Max?” Again, her son nodded wordlessly, his eyes going from Lamont’s to Mike’s and back again. Wonderful, Mike’s mind moaned. God, he was so tired. He managed to remain standing but lacked the strength to meet anyone’s eyes. Lamont’s heart clenched and he skated his hurt gaze over Betty’s and Max’s. “Ok. I’ll drive,” he murmured. “Max, move Mike’s car, will you? Mike, come on, we’re gonna do this and we’re doing it together, ok?” Mike finally looked at him. “You can’t keep doing this, Keith,” he whispered. “You can’t keep holding on.” Max stepped forward and scooped his car keys off the table. “You heard my mom,” he growled softly. “This is what he does. What we all do. Goddamn it, Mike, I went through this shit with my dad and then Kyler, then Josh and you. And thanks to you today, I’ve got this weight lifted off my shoulders that I didn’t even know I had. “Get in the car. Meeting first, then sleep. And here,” he grabbed the hot dog and placed it none too gently in Mike’s hand. “Eat. I sure as hell am not giving up on you and if that means force-feeding you and tying you to your bed, I’m all for it.” Mike stared at him for a moment, shaking and caught in a vise of indecision that stemmed from pride and addiction. “All right,” he finally conceded. “Ok. I’ll…” he swallowed heavily. “One step at a time, I guess.” “Yeah,” Max agreed. “Let’s go.” He walked out of the room without looking to see if anyone was following him. Betty stared at Lamont and he read the pride and astonishment on her face. He wondered what Max had told her and what Mike had done to Max to give him this newfound confidence and bold resolve.
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About the Book
Kyler is back with another heartbreaking story of addiction and love. She finds herself caught up in Josh's fidelity issues while trying to help Mike through a horrible time of addiction and borderline insanity. With the help of her closest friends and family, they bind together to give amazing amounts of strength and faith, and throughout everything, each of them finds his and her own ways to endure and sustain. Family is not always about blood, and never has this been made so clear to Kyler and Josh as they work through their own problems and find home and family and love all over again. Through terror, fear, pain, and distrust emerges beautiful peace and, once again, calm serenity in the form of support and unerring strength. Family is not always about blood.
About the Author
Alcoholism and drug-addiction are, unfortunately, common diseases that affect a vast majority of individuals around the world. Support and knowledge are superb weapons to use, but even those with long-term sobriety still experience those little sneaky thoughts that pop up when one least expects it. These thoughts offer solace and calm that are both deceiving and irrational, but are still unerringly insistent. For most alcoholics—myself included--I've learned to work and think my way around these thoughts. Having a few twenty-four hours in the program, I've derived the necessary tools to overlook these, but still...getting kicked in the proverbial balls by these intruding images is more than a little disconcerting. Thankfully, I've never gotten as bad as Mike gets in this book (knock on wood), and while the user dreams are still present, they're less frequent. Plus, things look far less dramatic in the light of day, so I just trudge through hour by hour until the two a.m. dream is in the past. I miss it sometimes—I’d be lying if I said I didn’t—but what I miss is that first cold beer at the end of a long, hot day, or the complete relaxation among family and friends at an event where alcohol is present. I still attend these functions, but my guard is never completely down, and I always leave myself a way out if those old, jagged-edged thoughts start talking too loud. Like many of my friends with whom I share this mutual disease, we can laugh now in the light of sobriety, despite the fact that the events we’re laughing about were once fraught with humiliation, anger, and pain and/or terror. It’s funny now…it really is, and we do have really obscure senses of humor. I guess we have to, if only to see how far we’ve come since those blacked-out, knee-crawling, messed-up days. Life is awesome now, and I enjoy my family and friends a lot more than I used to. The laughter and joy is now pure and truly heart-felt, and not enhanced by the effects of booze or any drug. I enjoy my times alone with a good book, chasing my kid around the yard, or having dinner with friends and coworkers respectively. Things are easier to process these days, and memories last longer without being eradicated by vast amounts of booze. I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, home of the Kentucky Derby and the mint julep. I have never had a mint julep, despite an entire lifetime of living here and drowning myself in booze for a large amount of those years, and I guess that’s something I can say I regret… But not enough to make it worthwhile to lose what I have now, each day, in the strong grip of my sobriety. Sometimes it really is breathing through second by second, trying to hold onto something that seems as elusive as air, but then there are those times when life moves too damn fast without any help from me. Those times, I’m extraordinarily grateful that I no longer feel the need to numb my senses and be content to let life pass me by while muddling through an alcoholic stupor. Life has always moved too damn fast and for too many years, I was too drunk to realize it. I’ve wasted incalculable seconds, hours, days, weeks, months, years letting this slide by me with barely a ripple from me in the passing of this time to account for my existence. I’ve wasted too much already—hindsight is 20/20, you know—and I refuse to let another second go by that I’m not wholly a part or completely aware of. There is hope. There is peace. Thank God, I’ve finally found my own…second by second; twenty-four hours at a time.