Chapter 8. Abscess & Abuse (Pt. 2)

She came-to, not knowing what hit her, or how long she'd been on the foyer floor. She stood before the hallway mirror. Half her face was black and blue. The keys to the car were gone, “Shit, what now? I can’t go anywhere with my face like this. Should I call the cops? What good would that do? He has too much pull with them. Call Billy? Make sure he doesn’t score? Oh, God, if only Alesandro or Max were here…”

Confusion… a doped and confused state of mind… that’s what heroin does. She counted the benefits… “Can still paint when stoned. Methadone would be a good idea…did that once and was okay with it but hated it when they start cutting back on the dose. They do that to wean you off it… doesn’t work. Who wants to quit enough to suffer that? I never really did. All that process did for me was… well, dope sick… call Billy for something better and sometimes waking with tubes and crap in the ICU.”

As she stood there, she felt her hip… the bruise was black, oozing puss from under what had started out as a small hypersensitive bruise at the injection site that had been there for a few… oh, maybe a week… she lost track… it had painfully grown. Everyone, all the tar-babies, knew about the bug… the flesh-eating virus that had been going around town.

“Damned tar,” she thought. “Face black and blue… jaw hurts to open mouth… Get to a doctor for some antibiotics... maybe my dentist. He can check on this jaw too and give me some coke. Forget Nick. Forget the house. Call Max… come over… a ride to the E.R.?” She saw her emptied wallet near her purse next to the phone. It had several C-notes and twenties before but there was nothing... not even a single bill.

It was at least an hour before Max showed up in his taxi, “What the hell happened to you?” he said, as she let him in.

“Thank God you are here, Max… I need help,” she fell against his chest out of weakness, her legs nearly gave-out, but she felt safe.

He held her back by the shoulders at arm’s length, “Was it fuckin’ Nick!”

“No… it isn’t what you think… it was my fault. I hit him first. I started it… his father just died... ouch,” she put a hand on her cheek.

“It hurts when I try to talk.”

“Don’t worry; I’ll get you to the damned ER.”

“Take care of the dogs for me?”

“Okay, don’t worry… they probably won’t keep you more than a day or two… even if your jaw's broken…”

She could've hit me with a sledge-hammer when she added, almost as an after-thought, “But I have an abscess too…”

“What? An abscess? Where?”

“On my butt,” she slipped her jeans down to expose the discolored bruise around a volcano of puss on her hip under a gauze pad.

“What, I thought you were clean.”

His expression of pity… deep hurt…moved her to, what? … guilt?… shame?… it’s all mixed up… mixed up with the warm comfort of his arms.

“Oh, Max, it hurts to talk.”

“No problem, I’ll get you to the hospital…”

Adrienne’s nose and cheek bone were broken. Her left eye was swollen shut by the time Max dropped her off at the E.R. He had to get back to his cab. She told him to go ahead and that she’d be okay.

Max insisted, “Be sure to report Nick. He should go to jail this time.”

“Oh, Max. His father just died. He doesn’t need...” s

Max knew in his heart that she probably wouldn’t add disgrâce on top of Nick's grief. People like Nick depend on the decency of other people...the people they harm and manipulate. He knew it and shrugged in sad recognition that there was nothing more that he could do but to be there for her when she called again.

The abscess had to be cleaned. She was knocked out to fix the broken jaw (mandibular fracture they called it). They had to do some fixing and put her up in a private room… quarantined at that. The abscess left a crater; a gash, down to the muscle at least an inch deep, four inches long and two inches wide. Oxygen tubes were taped down to her nostrils and an oxygen mask was taped over the gash. An oxygen mask on these kinds of wounds are commonly used… the oxygen speeds the healing. Her jaw was wired shut. She strained to talk through her teeth and the mask. One of the doctors was young, and, she thought, a handsome man, who must have been an addiction specialist. She relaxed as she intuitively knew he was kind.

“Just show me some fingers or nod yes or no. How long have you been using?” he asked.

She held up two fingers.

“Two years?”

“Uh, uh…nuh…” She knew he couldn’t understand her if she tried to speak through her teeth and the mask, but she tried.

“Two months?”

She nodded, yes.

“Well, anesthetics will stave off withdrawals while you are on it. Are you ready to detox after we get over the hump?”

She weighed the options… If she didn’t have something, she knew she would go back to drinking, and if she didn’t drink she’d go crazy. The last time in France was particularly bad because she did it cold-turkey. The dread of muscle aches, the stomach cramps, she couldn’t sleep, anxiety attacks… and more than anything the gnawing, the restlessness, vomiting, constipation then diarrhea… as the demonic mania of heroin calls… The fear of withdrawals won’t stop an addict from starting but the fear will keep an addict from quitting.

“Nu-uh!” She tossed her head back and forth and exclaimed through wired teeth.

“If you are afraid, we have some pretty good medications that help with the symptoms,” he tried to assure her. "There's a new one out there, Suboxone, it hasn’t been approved for withdrawals yet, but we've been using it with good results."

“Pleeeezh, nuh.” She knew she could withdraw on the medications but what about after that?

“You know, we could have lost you?” He hesitated but could apparently sense she wasn’t ready, “I’ll keep checking on you though, okay?”

The warmth in his tone left hope for an obscure future. There was no hint of medical superiority. His bedside manner was more like a visit from a concerned friend. She didn’t want him to leave. Then, she slept for a few hours.

She awoke to the face of the cop, Richards, leering over hers. He was cold and dead serious.

“I have to make a report on what happened. Can you help me with that? Just nod yes or no.”

He pulled up a chair next to her. She felt uneasy about this cop. What the hell was she going to be able to tell him through a wired jaw and oxygen mask? She didn’t want to rat out Nick. Then again, she knew he’d probably do the best he could to protect Nick. No one would believe anything his junkie wife said if ever it went to court for spousal abuse.

She tried to shout… “I fell down the stairs!” But it sounded more like a gauze muffled, “ahhh---fuuulll---me, duumut stairs!”

“Who hit you, Max?”

“Nuuh, Stairs, dumm-eet!”

“Yeh, Max?”

Shit, she thought… this is useless. I can’t talk, and this guy is obtuse. I want to sleep. She tried to say, go away, “Guuh-uhhhwuh!”

She closed her eyes and ignored him until a nurse showed up at the door. “Mrs. Baker needs to rest. You can try again in a few days.”

He got up to leave, saying, “I have enough now, thanks.”

Adrienne ripped the taped mask off her face, and yelled as best she could through her clamped teeth… “No, it was Nick… Nick! But it was my fault!”

Richards didn’t stop or acknowledge this plea at all.

She heard him talking with the nurse in the hall outside the door, “Yes, her husband says she was fine when he left to run some errands. That’s when he saw Mr. McGee coming up the street on his motorcycle.”

She feared for Max and that this Richards would use him to cover for Nick.