Playing Fair and Being Kind

GOODBYE NOTES PART EIGHT

I just woke up from a nap. I was sitting on the edge of the sofa. Images from the past melding into the present in the course of this relaxed mental state. How did I begin thinking about my friends from my days as a counselor at a methadone clinic I can’t say. I remember now. I was thinking that I want to have breakfast tomorrow in Santa Fe with a group of vegan friends and I was trying to remember some of their names. That’s how I got onto the name of an outrageous client whose last name is Tucker.

It was routine for one of the counselors to stand by the entrance door and write down the name of each person entering, in order, so there would be no bickering as to who was next to be dosed. Ms. Tucker (can’t remember her first name) always sidled in, stated her name and then would add, ala Sophie Tucker, “that’s ‘Tucker’… with a ‘T’”.

The majority of the women on the clinic were or had been hookers. Of the women on my caseload were several who came to mind while I was shaking the fog out of my after-nap mind. A few became favorites because the dynamics between us were so rich with differences in life experiences. After a while these women would openly reveal their methods of getting money to support themselves. I was never comfortable during those periods of story-telling but it was important for them to express their secrets, it seemed.  It was the early days of the Aids epidemic. Not much was known about the disease. The things they related to me were never based on pure facts; mostly these women were operating on whatever they learned on the streets around Boston. Some on my caseload were infected but still worked. One, Ruth Smith, became infected after I left to move to Maine to start a new life. She sent me a postcard with no return address. On it she was happy to announce that she had been accepted at a clinic in Truckee, California for methadone dosing. Her postcard simply stated, “I’m moving to Truckee to live with my mom! I got accepted for the big “M”. I just found out I got the big “A”. That sucks.”

Valerie was a cool lady with an even attitude from Newton. I always noticed how swollen her hands were from injecting drugs. We always had mature conversations in the counseling sessions. She seemed to be handling all parts of her life. Her husband was on the clinic too. I can’t remember his name but I recall he drove a tow truck in the city. When the opportunity presented itself, he would hook onto a very expensive car and tow it away and sell it to a black-market dealer. Often, I found my hair was on end with stories like that. Valerie and I exchanged a few letters after my move north. She always mentioned this one woman who missed me terribly.

This other woman had written me a few times but I couldn’t bring myself to write her back. I think her name was Jamie. She was very pretty and reminded me of my daughter. Jamie was a high-end hooker. She came to one counseling session dressed to kill. She was on her way to a ‘date’. I was amazed. I was not used to seeing women dressed as she was. After about a few years in Maine I’d heard that Jamie was suffering with MS. I don’t know what happened after that.

I remember another sad story. One young woman came to the clinic a few times with her young daughter, about eight years old. It was near Christmas and she was trying to find cabbage-patch dolls. I don’t know if she ever found them; they were hard to find because they were so in-demand. I wish I could remember her name because she seemed so kind and concerned for everyone. She stopped coming to the clinic. We got word that she was attacked in her apartment and was stabbed in her thigh. The blade found her femoral artery. She bled out in the bathtub, according to reports from the other clients.

I remember another woman, on my caseload who was doing very, very well. She had been going to AA for a few years and was successfully staying sober along with her daily doses on the clinic for her heroin addiction. She was making and selling fine jewelry. We had a conversation about the need to be careful when she left town to travel to craft shows. She had AA meetings lined up and she had permission to be dosed at clinics in those places she travelled to. She seemed professional and able to keep her head on straight. She got involved with an older man who was also on the clinic. He traveled with her to a craft show and she and he had a few drinks. She drank too much and died from aspirating her own vomit.

The most-odd person I can remember was a woman who was a long-time hooker. I mentioned to her the dangers of her profession, health-wise. Her response was that she never had sex with her clients she only provided oral sex. I couldn’t convince her otherwise of her methods. Of course, in the period we were living, no one knew anything.

One of my clients was an older black man who had been a long-time heroin user. He made his living running numbers in Boston’s South-end. He and I had the gentlest sessions. I found out from my supervisor that he was on a dose that was so low that sometimes he got no dose at all. It was random. Some days he’d get a tiny amount of methadone in his drink (dose) and some days he got no methadone in the cup. Just juice. My supervisor asked me to suggest that he get off the methadone clinic all together in order for him to be free to travel outside of Boston with his wife and enjoy life. I broached the subject to him one day soon after. His demeanor changed immediately. He became agitated and restless. He shifted about in his seat. He ceased eye contact and couldn’t look in my direction. I quickly told him I was not going to raise the issue again; that I was not in any need of my own for him to get off the clinic. The assurances brought him back to some semblance of his former self. Still the brief period of time we spent on the subject obviously caused him great distress. We never spoke of it again. I never heard any more about him and I suspect he remained on that small, occasional dose for the remainder of his life.

Then there was Billy. He was on the clinic a long time. He lived in East Boston and was always in the company of a bunch of guys who were also on the clinic. They would show up together in one car, four or five of them. Billy would walk in first with the others in tow. It was obvious who was the boss. They would remain quiet or talk softly to each other behind cupped hands covering their lips. It was quite a show. Billy was on my caseload. We would talk about everything but him. He remained an enigma. He taught me a lot about crime and the life of crime in his neighborhood. Some of his boys came from the North End of Boston. These neighborhoods were all Italian enclaves. Billy’s mother was Italian, his father Irish.

Billy got wind somehow of the circumstances of my mother’s death. It happened to be a gruesome homicide. He wanted to know more. Since the perpetrator was behind bars it was no secret to anyone so I let him in on some of the particulars. He listened quietly and told me he would take care of it. I was instantly afraid. I didn’t want anything done. I was unimaginably regretful I had shared such a private piece of information with Billy. I was beside myself. I’m sure Billy was enjoying the situation. He never changed his expression and he never made any suggestion that I perform an illegal act. It didn’t matter, I was frightened to death.

One day Billy came into my office for our normal do-nothing counseling session. He was out of character. He was giggling a little and appeared ecstatic. He had information that he had trouble containing. He informed me that he had made a phone call. Someone he knew who knew another person had passed information to another one who had put into motion a manner of dire inconvenience to the perpetrator of my mother’s death. Billy described the scene to me. It was gross and I won’t pass it along here. That was the last we spoke of my situation. I let it slide into the past and he never brought it up again. I’m not sure it was a true story he related. I don’t care.

There are others with whom I spent precious moments in my office at the methadone clinic. Of all the places and modalities I worked in my counseling years I never had as much drama and excitement. Well, maybe at the therapeutic community, Daytop. Daytop could match this easily. That’s a story for another time.

I hold these clients in the light and I suspect most of them have found heaven’s door. It’s a tough way to live and as the saying goes, there are no old addicts. Goodbye, to you all, my sweet friends who are trying to survive any way they can. You are always in my heart and precious to me. Goodbye, sweet girls and boys. I miss you.

Gentle George
January 11, 2020