A. Elsworth Boss – February 20, 2018 – Word Press –

John Payne was a combat war veteran with six years of service. He went to college on the GI bill and fulfilled a lifelong dream of landing a job as a high school teacher. To celebrate he decided to have a couple of drinks at his favorite Saturday night watering hole.

The City was vibrant. Beautiful people walking everywhere, passing by and crossing streets. The sounds of car horns mixed with the conversations of diners sitting at the outside cafés. The music spilled out of the night clubs into the evening air generating a feeling of excitement and anticipation.

Smalls Jazz Club was situated at 10th Avenue on Manhattan’s East side not too far from Washington Square Park. The traffic was horrendous as usual with a never ending stream of yellow cabs flawlessly jockeying for position in thick traffic. He parked somewhere on 8th Ave and walked the rest of the way.

The club was packed and the music was loud but comfortable. Although John was solo he didn’t expect it to be that way for long. He was dressed in black wearing a beige sports jacket combo. He managed to get a seat at the bar close to the band stand and ordered a Jack Daniels on the rocks. Smalls Jazz Club was just that, small. A quick scan of the place produced a couple of good prospects.

Three pretty ladies sitting in a booth sipping drinks, listening to the music and paying no attention to him. When the band took a break he freshened his drink and managed to get up enough courage to approach their booth.  After a polite introduction and a few clumsy moments they invited him to take a seat and join them.

He found himself sitting across from the prettiest brown eyes he ever saw. Talking over the music Noemi said she was from Brooklyn and celebrating her birthday with friends. She had a smooth dark complexion like John’s and smiled a lot as she spoke through attractive cupids’ bow lips. Her face looked soft and oval with high cheekbones and a dimple in her chin that appeared to accentuate whenever she laughed. “This looks very promising,” he thought.

After the “Where you from and what do you do,” conversations it seemed like all of a sudden it was 2:00 am and the ladies said they had to leave. “Hey, listen can I have your phone number? I was thinking maybe I could give you a call sometime.” John inquired.

He left the club shortly after the three of them were gone still looking at the piece of paper she gave him, “Naomi (212) 555-5555.” He wondered if by any remote chance the phone number could actually be her real number. He laughed to himself as he walked toward his car.

As he crossed over to 8th the streets were unusually dark and empty for a city that never sleeps. Suddenly without warning he stopped in his tracks. He could see his car and three men in dark clothing standing around the outside of an adjacent apartment building.  As he walked closer he could see another man attempting to open his car door with a lock puller.

He walked to the middle of the street and shouted the clearly apparent question. “Hey, what are you doing?” Silence! While two of the thugs approached him slowly one said, “Alright give it up, wallet and car keys.” No thinking was required on John’s part. Without hesitation he reached into his wallet pocket with his left hand and quickly swept his right hand back to his 5 o’clock and produced a Glock 19.  Pointing the gun at their faces they both began to backup. Driving away fast John’s hands were still shaking as he turned a corner and put distance between him and a bad situation.

Having been raised in the church John found himself thanking God for delivering him from evil one more time. As he approached the overpass on highway 1&9 he saw red emergency lights flashing up ahead in the right lane.  He hit the brakes and slowed down as he changed lanes to avoid the emergency.  Closer now, he could see a silhouette in the darkness.  It was a young woman standing in the dim headlights of a disabled late model vehicle.

As he slowly passed she looked right at him.  He swerved back into the right lane and skidded to a complete stop as cars passed him on the left.  He backed up closer to her in the dark he thought out loud, “This is no place for anyone to be stranded at 3:05 in the morning.” As he walked toward her he could sense her fear. “Don’t be afraid I’m here to help you,” He reassured her.

She began to explain, “I’m coming home from work.  I’ve been driving for miles on a flat tire now my car won’t start and my cell phone battery is dead and I’ve been standing here for 45 minutes.” “You’re lucky,” He thought to himself.  She stood there holding onto her dead cell phone as if it were her last life line.  Traffic began to pick up speed and wiz by carelessly.

“Well it’s too dangerous to change a flat out here but I can use my phone to call a tow truck.” John said. “Oh thank you so much I appreciate that. I don’t want you to go through a lot of trouble for me.” She replied. “It’s no trouble at all.” Reassuring her again.  He used his own AAA membership card to call the tow truck.

Her car was safely towed to a local repair shop but wouldn’t be ready until later on in the day.  They ended up at a White Castle restaurant. Together they ate at least five cheese burgers, fries and onion rings. They laughed about how hungry they both were and shared their life stories. When John finally got a good look at her he realized how gorgeous she was.  She was totally real and had a great sense of humor. It seemed as though they had known each other in another life.  They felt very comfortable together.  She stayed at his apartment that night. It was fantastic.

The next few months were beautiful. They wined and dined and spent a lot of time together.  She was a kind, intelligent, compassionate soul.  John said he was a vegan. She said he was a health nut.  He thought of her as a free spirit and a good soul.  Eventually they moved in together and within a year they married.  Life was good.

He was a high school teacher and she was an emergency room nurse. They both loved their professions.  He was always involved with school projects and his kids. Teaching classes during the day, studying, writing lesson plans and grading test papers at night.  At this point John and Sonia only had the weekends to spend quality time together.

Then things got a little weird.  She began to show signs of anxiety and discontent. Argumentative. When she was on the day shift at the hospital she usually got home by 5:30 pm. Suddenly her schedule changed and it was 7, 8, or 9:00 pm when she finally got home.  He noticed she began staying up later at night watching TV until 12:30 or 1:00 am and leaving late for work in the morning.

One day he asked her what was going on.  “Nothing,”  She said.  That’s when he learned that every time her mouth was moving she was lying. That was the beginning of the nightmare.  He began going through her stuff when she was gone. He didn’t know what he was looking for.  Anything that would explain her erratic behavior.

They say, “Seek and you shall fine.” One day as he conducted a routine search of her night stand draws he found a leather pouch containing a vial of duramorph and a morphine sulfate syringe.  When he confronted her she was furious. “You have no right to search my things. That is my private stuff,” she screamed. That night things escalated out of control and nothing would ever be the same.

Eventually she lost her job.  Soon after that he noticed things turn up missing from the house.  Things like cash, jewelry, electronics and other valuables.  Whenever he confronted her she would lie, “act out” and threaten to kill herself.

When he returned home from work at 3:30 pm she was never there. That was the beginning of his crash course in “addiction 101.”  He read and studied the subject of drug abuse and learned much than he ever wanted to know. He would go out and search for her at night.  After a while it wasn’t difficult to track her down because there were only a couple of drug houses in town.  He read books and articles about addiction culture. No matter what he said she would not agree to go to rehabilitation.

After losing her job at the hospital the morphine was not available so she switched to heroin.  One day he discovered first hand that indeed heroin addicts also use crack and alcohol.  It’s a matter of preference.  Nothing made sense anymore. The logic he learned to love in college was meaningless in this situation.  Addicts don’t let a little thing like “making sense when they talk” get in the way of their pursuit to win an argument.  She continued to reject the idea of rehab and he didn’t have time to continuously argue about it.

When he didn’t give her money she would begin to “act out,” screaming and cursing. She would actually smack herself in the face or use objects to hit herself.  One night she was suffering so badly he broke down and took her to buy drugs to ease the pain.   It made his heart so sad she woke him up that night and told him he was crying in his sleep.  She would show up at his job just to get money.  It was embarrassing and he lost good friends.

He would risk his life going to crack houses to bring her home at night.  And through all of it he still managed to stay focused enough to show up at the high school and teach. Finally he had enough of her sick behavior.  He found a one bedroom apartment nearby and moved out.  One week later he returned to the house to find all of the furniture gone.  She sold the pictures off the wall.  She even sold the bed and slept in the living room underneath a pile of clothes with her cat melody.  Thinking this was rock bottom he leased out the apartment and moved back home after she agreed to go to detox / rehabilitation in upstate New York for a full year.  That’s how bad the addiction was. But on the other hand that’s how much he loved her.

John believed addiction was a illness and just because your spouse gets sick that’s no reason to leave her.  “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. But against principalities, powers and the spiritual host of wickedness.” Yes, drugs do have a spirit but the nature of man is Strength, Love, Logic and Protection.