Chapter 1
“Mountain at My Gate”
Foals
2013
The coffee pot brewed the notorious Folgers decaf. It was 6:00 a.m., and I had only an hour to enjoy the fresh aroma. Lord knows I wouldn’t be enjoying the caffeine—or lack thereof. I worked as a barista over the past fourteen years throughout my late teens and early twenties. From my third barista position, the owner of the Aztec Cafe explained one early winter morning that decaf still had caffeine, just a minuscule amount.
“I’ll stick with my four-shot Americano, thank you,” I’d joked with my boss.
Those were the days, I mused, thinking of my prior years of freedom and fun, what I wouldn’t give for an asiago bagel with fresh tomato, avocado, and cream cheese. My stomach grumbled as I looked down from my morning daze to see a fruit fly floating in my coffee.
How did you end up in the decaf? I asked silently, picking the dead gnat out of the mug that read, “Winner,” in big black letters above the New Mexico Lottery logo—an illustration of the iconic state bird, the roadrunner.
I sat on the couch in a dayroom of the women’s wing of a treatment program for addicts and alcoholics. I sipped my coffee, pretending it was not decaf, wishing I could magically produce natural cream for my morning brew. Sugar would have been asking too much. The closest thing to sugar here was in the SunnyD offered at breakfast each morning in place of real orange juice. Twenty-six grams of high-fructose corn syrup in a tiny six-ounce bottle of fake juice—like the phony coffee I sipped while watching VH1 music videos and mentally preparing for the day ahead.
Compared to the rest of the women in the wing, my demeanor was foreign. I was the only female resident there by choice. Everyone else had been “invited” by a judge and desperate court appeals to help the sick and suffering. All the residents carried with them a trunk of trauma and compulsive behaviors. I had waited patiently to get a bed at Joy, the state-funded program, on the outskirts of Espanola, in Velarde, New Mexico. With the help of my insistent and concerned mother, it had taken only a month. I was glad to be safe for the time being, knowing I needed the help, yet the whole time doing it for others and not for myself.
As a thirty-year-old inpatient, I made my way up the ranks as a senior resident. My duties included running the daily community group, filling in the weekly chore schedule, and leading by example. I had experience with managerial responsibilities and didn’t mind the task. These duties were an exercise in accountability and empowerment. I didn’t even mind my fast-approaching 7:00 a.m. shift on the farm five days a week.
I was never one to fancy drama, unlike the majority of my degenerate wing mates. Most of them came from a lack of opportunity, finding themselves in jail after graduating from the school of hard knocks. Born addicted, raised addicted, poor and uneducated. So the issue was in the lack of opportunity. But, on the other hand, my life was full of possibilities (Up until this point in time); none of that mattered without a vital component; belief in self. Maybe that’s what we all needed.
In a world I did not understand, I was an outsider. It was the awful decaf coffee I made a note of every morning—that and the dirty, calcified rectangular dayroom window, which allowed a small amount of light into the den. It bothered my obsessive-compulsive tendencies every single time I lounged on that couch for more than five minutes. If only I could find a bottle of CLR. That shit would work; make it good as new. But, unfortunately, that too was out of my control.
I’d taken part in enough illegal activity to land myself in jail on many occasions and yet had never been caught. A serious point of pride in my eyes, especially considering my roommates’ stories. Being only a quarter Native[CKR1] American and primarily Caucasian, I found myself in the minority at Joy. The majority were Latino, Native, or both.
It was 2013, and the Espanola Valley was known as the heroin capital of the world, at least in the world surrounding me. The culture was full of rage—the I’ll-slit-your-throat-in-your-sleep-bitch kind. One of the residents wore a forearm tattoo that read, Haters, Make Me Famous, reminding me of the company of my ever-present reality at Joy.
Based on my avoidance of drama, I took the most burdensome weekly chore: mopping the hallways, bathrooms, and dayroom on the women’s wing. A wise choice because it left the other women no place to gripe. It was one less thing to worry about while I made a sincere attempt to change my ways and, in turn, my life.
The sugar substitute offered at Joy was Sweet’n Low—those classic pink packets of artificial sweetener, which were kept in a large box in the cabinet above the coffee maker in the dayroom. The package would reasonably last a month or longer but only in a scenario where the residents could control their compulsive behaviors. Unfortunately, most of the clients at Joy were accustomed to a life of lack, forcing their self-seeking tendencies to shine brighter than the hot New Mexican sun.
I had never liked anything fake. Fake people, fake ingredients, fake flowers, and fake sugar, to name just a few of the distasteful creations of inauthenticity. I couldn’t fathom the idea that a human being could create something “fake,” including a personality. In my eyes, it all fell into the category of denial; there’s nothing natural about fake anything.
Lola, a broken, disgruntled, heroin-addicted lesbian, was slamming every cabinet on the wall of the small dayroom kitchen, hunting for the rations of tiny pink packets. “Where the fuck is the Sweet’n Low?”
I silently observed Lola’s behavior as she unraveled emotionally into a childish tantrum, the only other person in the room.
“Asedio, this is fucking bullshit! Gringa, seen the sugar?” Lola asked aggressively.
“I don’t know, girl, but there are a few open packets in that Styrofoam cup next to the sink,” I said, pointing toward the kitchen wall, eyes fixated on Bruno Mars’s dance moves playing on the screen in front of me. I wasn’t about to correct Lola on the facts of fake sugar.
Seven a.m. was fast approaching. Roger, the Rooster, sang cock-a-doodles outside, sternly crowing orders at everyone in the facility for the third time in an hour. Groggy and unaware, I hadn’t noticed the upward trajectory of the Sweet’n Low issue, and Lola’s demands suddenly became an issue of arbitrary consequence.
“Use what’s there. We’ll figure it out later; I gotta mop and get ready to cultivate,” I explained, getting up from the couch to locate the mop and bucket from the male residents’ dorm.
Most of the clients would bitch about their chores and other things asked of them. Expressing vulnerability was a close second to picking weeds on the farm, which was at the top of the list. They complained they were being exploited as free labor as if they had an acute case of amnesia, having forgotten what jail entailed. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the work; it kept me busy and not thinking about everything wrong in my life.
My pet peeve grew to be everyone’s constant bickering and the enormous energy they put into being negative. So I kept my head low and focused on my work. In my forty-seven days on the property, I also was responsible for helping the only senior client, Kipp, with the well-maintained rose garden.
“It’s Kipp, with a double P, for people-pleaser,” he would declare with sarcasm.
Kipp didn’t enjoy anything about people-pleasing, or people for that matter. So he kept his human contact minimal. He preferred the company of plants, speaking sweet nothings to his roses, constantly—maybe for personal protection or perhaps because he didn’t care for the ignorant populace, especially at a treatment facility like Joy.
Kipp’s character was a mix between rugged and leather. An old cowboy and a rare breed, he’d had a hard run ever since his mother fed him whiskey in the baby bottle. Kipp had been a well-known drunk around Taos, New Mexico, at least for the last thirty or so years from the sounds of it. He’d once gotten pulled over on his horse by law enforcement because he was taking a drunken siesta sideways on his saddle, while good ol’ Betsy was leading him home along the main road in Taos, near the Pueblo.
The hoodlums in the rehab center treated him poorly because he was from a different time and generations older than the rest. I found comfort in the outcast of outcasts, helping him maintain the rose garden, chainsmoking American Spirit cigarettes, and listening to the tall tales from the old man’s history book. We didn’t have much in common, yet it was enough to ally, and I enjoyed his company.
The twenty-nine rosebush beauties ranged from pink-and-white Grandiflora to [CKR2] pink-and-yellow Floribunda (“Easy Does It”) and more. They spread along the front walls of the ranch-style (once-a-Boy-Scout-camp) treatment facility.
A towering oak tree stood on one side of the ranch house, and a weeping willow stood on the other. Kipp was solely responsible for bringing both trees back to life during his time in treatment. The farm also housed two llamas, a flock of black sheep, a gang of goats with four kids, bunny rabbits, snakes, and, of course, Roger the Rooster. In addition, there was a traditional adobe sweat lodge on the five acres next to the Rio Grande.
Out of all the farm had to offer, the roses took precedence for both Kipp and me. Trimming and watering was an everyday task, with extra care on the weekends during free time. The roses could have made the front page of any gardening magazine. But, instead, their vibrance was a constant source of authentic beauty and blissful fragrance among the sad community of people plagued with mental and addictive disorders.
One of the flowers would find its way to a female resident from time to time. (The perfect gift for the classic rehab relationship.) Anytime someone snipped off a bloom, it drove Kipp mad. On the other hand, his gardening partner (me) had a history of picking flowers from neighbors’ yards on her late-night drunken escapades. I figured the flower’s death was inevitable, so it didn’t bother me. I philosophized that another bloom would come along, and the circle of life would continue.
By the time I returned from retrieving the shared mop and bucket from the men’s wing, the “small” issue of the missing Sweet’n Low box had turned into an all-out crisis. Lola must’ve woken up on the wrong side of the twin mattress and decided to take out her frustrations on one of the older, susceptible female residents, Elena.
Elena may have seemed shy, but her demeanor transformed when threatened, ready, and more than willing to fight anyone who stepped at her wrong. I opened the heavy metal door to the women’s wing, gliding the mop and bucket through. I brought a handful of the male residents Sweet’n Low packets to keep the peace and calm Lola down. I was too late.
The catfight echoed down the hall from the dayroom. I dropped the mop and dashed toward the high-pitched shouts. My not-so-favorite staff member, Miranda, was already at the scene, standing between Lola and Elena, yelling at them to calm down. I stood in the doorway surveying the aftermath of punches thrown—a bloody nose on Lola and puddles of spilled coffee all over the floor.
Miranda took one look at the wide-eyed senior resident and told me to get the mop, and then continued to discipline the unruly pair. Then, all at once, the other ladies came out of their rooms, half of them ready for a brawl. By the time I reached the mop and bucket, the program director, Dr. Devargus, came shuffling through the door, almost running me over.
He stopped, his Nikes squeaking as if playing defense on the basketball court. Calmly, the clinical director said good morning to me and asked what had happened in a low voice. Then, with commotion in the air, I explained the issue of the missing Sweet’n Low. Dr. Devargus looked at me, brown eyes magnified through his black, skinny-framed spectacles, smiled, and said, “Some days, I think we should just get rid of the ‘no sugar’ policy altogether. Here, let me help you with that.” He took the mop from my hands.
“Well, what do we have here?” he asked me. Dr. Devargus fixed his gaze on the cup of pink packets I’d placed in the upper portion of the yellow industrial mop bucket.
“Oh, yeah, that,” I mumbled, leaning forward to get the cup. “I asked the guys for some Sweet’n Low. You know, to try and keep the peace around here.” I realized then that it might have looked as if I were the culprit behind the box’s disappearance.
“Well, no good deed goes unpunished!” the doctor exclaimed as he walked toward the situation room, rolling the mop and bucket by his side. I followed right behind him. He then stopped right before the doorway and turned around to face me once more. “Here, why don’t I hold on to this.” He seized the Styrofoam cup of Sweet’n Low packets from my shaking hand.
The morning’s events left me feeling anxious, and when I got worried, my hands would shake. Dr. Devargus took notice of the nervous twitch. It was his job to discern one’s disposition and body language.
“It’s okay. You’re not in trouble. Take a deep breath. Here’s an idea, why don’t you let me worry about the mop, and you get ready for the farm? It’s already seven. Kipp will need your help. That old man’s tougher than a titan, but I’ve noticed his arthritis is affecting his hands lately. I’ll handle this,” he concluded before spinning around to enter a room full of tension.
Without a word, I did as he instructed. Once outside and walking toward the fields, I looked around for the old drunk. Instead, all I found was the rest of the group, scattered in small huddles around the crops, pretending to work.
I got down on my hands and knees by the row of radishes and put on my gloves. The air smelled of gasoline and moisture. I started pulling weeds, the voices trailing in the dawn air growing louder with approach. Word of the incident had already spread, and with the word came the rumors. I kept my head in the weeds. It was useless; the gangly group of male residents had inched their way over to my side of the crop. They wanted to hear all about the drama; they sought a fix, the excitement of instant gratification.
I stood up to face the guys, explaining that the box of Sweet N’ Low had disappeared. They egged me on for more details. They wanted to know about the fight, who won, who had a bloody nose. I tried to keep the comments brief and straightforward and was happily interrupted midsentence.
Kipp magically appeared out of no-man’s-land. “Hey, little lady, I need your help over here,” he said.
After being suffocated for information, I’d grown even more nervous, so I was grateful for the rescue. I grabbed my gardening tools, said, “Well, there you have it,” and followed Kipp toward the roses.
“That rat-pack chain gang can’t get anything done without a stitch and bitch involved,” the old man muttered.
I found Kipp’s language amusing, even in the stillness of the early morning. I’d never heard anyone use the phrase chain gang before, except maybe from a movie once upon a time. I concluded the terminology came from Kipp’s stint in prison, a story I had yet to hear in full from the old-timer. I knew Kipp kept a watchful eye on me and poked fun at him about having my back. Kipp would permanently deny such a possibility.
“Listen, you take care of yourself just fine. You’re the only one that can do the job right anyway.”
“Yeah, tell that to my mom.”
“Please, Crystal, there will be no negative comments around the ladies. They don’t need any more negative Nancies wasting their precious energy,” he said.
I couldn’t agree more. A galaxy of dark energy surrounded the rehabilitation center. I worked with Kipp long enough to know he was speaking to himself and of himself just as much as the community at large. The roses were unique and beautiful, and they never talked back, only blossomed again and again.
After breakfast, the commotion over the missing box subsided. I led the women’s group, and everyone took part. I requested that any discussion regarding the Sweet’n Low drama be directed to staff. The ladies read their morning meditation aloud and talked about making friendship bracelets before heading to the first co-ed group of the day.
Feeling unmotivated, I went to my dorm room for a notebook and pen. I sat on my bed and sighed, pretending for a moment it was naptime. No such thing existed in rehab. When I opened my bedside table drawer to grab my supplies, a hefty thud startled me. My old cell phone had fallen from its’ duct-taped position on the underside of the top drawer. Without thinking, I closed the drawer and headed to class.
Seventeen days earlier, I went out on my first off-campus pass. Since I completed thirty days, I had permission to leave for one weekend afternoon. In a state-funded facility, they take your cell phone, so my actual Android cell phone had lived in the safe behind the tech’s desk until that point.
Going on a pass for the day meant I could have my cell phone. I signed it out, excited for some freedom. When I returned that evening, I took the required drug test to reenter the facility. Fortunately, the behavioral health technician forgot to ask me to hand in my cell phone. I did not say a word. The phone contained my music library and a connection to the outside world. I wasn’t using it for anything harmful and therefore wasn’t about to turn it in, not if I didn’t have to.
During the off-campus pass, I’d spent the afternoon with my ex-boyfriend, Gate. He picked me up for a trip back into Santa Fe. He had held on to my belongings for the five weeks between when I went to detox and then on to Joy. He also assumed the responsibility of cleaning out my drug den of a house—a home we had shared before he broke off our four-year relationship and moved out. Following that, my methamphetamine and heroin abuse spiraled out of control. (Although my drug abuse started at age fourteen, this was my first experience in treatment.)
When Gate dropped me back at the rehab that Saturday evening, I returned with a hamper full of clothes, art supplies, my journal, and a few coloring books. The staff searched through my belongings but not thoroughly enough. As I was going through my art supply box searching for a black Sharpie, I discovered my old Blackberry, which I used for drug deals. The service had been disabled, and the phone was obsolete. I considered throwing it away, knowing it would get me into trouble. Instead, I had the bright idea to turn it in the next time I left on a weekend pass. Then, I could keep my working phone without question.
I thought it was a bright idea. I thought all my ideas were brilliant. I used the duct tape from my art box to tape the old phone to the underbelly of my bedside table drawer for safekeeping. I kept my working phone tucked inside my jeans, against my hip. These two items of contraband were reason enough for them to eject me from the program. Reckless by nature, I was never much for following the rules because I was used to getting away with everything.
As I opened my bedroom door to head to class, Elena opened her door directly across the hall. She smirked. We saw Lola with another female resident looking down the corridor, whispering probable nonsense directed at Lola’s newest enemy.
Meanwhile, Miranda was on the hunt, looking for stragglers. “Ladies, did you forget your schedule. It’s group time. That means now!”
Elena and I walked side by side, the other girls already out of sight. Generally, I kept to myself, although I knew who I was cool with. Elena took first place on the list.
The bold Latina woman was ten years older than me, and she had a couple of kids and a husband who would smack her up for everything she did and didn’t do. He was a mean drunk. Elena preferred her pills, hooked on Xanax and Percocet after getting a monthly script for anxiety and back pain from the beatings. That was five years ago.
“Wonder what we’re gonna learn today?” Elena said.
“Maybe some life skills,” I replied, and we both laughed.
“Are you good?”
“Yeah, I’m good, that girl ain’t shit compared to what I’m used to. I can handle myself. The bitch had it coming, always prancing around like she owns the joint. Girls got real problems; it was bound to happen eventually.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“Yeah. They don’t like fighting in rehab. I don’t know what Devargus is gonna do. Guess I’ll find out though. Soon enough.” Elena sighed. “Either way, it was worth it. Who gets that worked up over stupid shit anyway?”
As we entered the co-ed group room, Dr. Devargus wrote something blue on the large dry-erase board. Twelve-step slogans and artwork hung all over the walls. We took our seats at the back of the room.
Out of the thirty-two clients in the facility, twenty-eight were acting loud and rowdy, which was a typical scenario for the bunch. Only Kipp and Lola sat in silence. The clinical director tried to get the room to quiet down, but the rumble of laughter and rants continued a short while more before the rebellious crew finally granted his request.
Dr. Devargus called upon me to read what he had written on the board.
“Yes, sir,” I said, clearing my throat. I had difficulty deciphering the words written about as legibly as a doctor’s scribble on a prescription pad.
There are thirty-two souls in this room. Statistically, twenty-eight of you will die from the complications of addiction; overdose, cancer, car crash, sitting in prison on a life sentence, gunshot, cirrhosis of the liver, to name a few. Thus, this disease will claim twenty-eight of your precious lives. Do you consider yourself one of the lucky four? How will you survive your disease?
“Thank you, Crystal. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to hear from every one of you, but first, I want to tell you a story, as real and present as this beautiful morning,” the doctor said, making eye contact with as many of us as possible.
“I received a phone call from the hospital yesterday,” he went on. “They asked me to identify two bodies in the morgue. There’d been a car crash in the middle of the night, and a man and a woman died. It happened right up there on that highway.” He pointed toward the main road away from the facility. “Unfortunately, I see this type of incident all too often. The man was beheaded, and the woman badly burned. Alcohol, cocaine, and heroin were found in both of their systems.
Now you may be wondering why I’m telling you all of this. Well, these two individuals sat in this very same room just a few short months ago. It wasn’t their first time here, but sadly, it will be their last. Not everyone gets another chance,” Dr. Devargus said calmly. “And one more thing. Staff will be conducting random room searches this morning. So if you are called to leave the group, please go quietly and respect this time for everyone else.”
I looked over at Elena, who looked as worried as I felt. The only good lie I could ever tell was to myself. I knew the dead phone in my nightstand would be my demise.
It took fewer than twenty minutes before I heard my name called. This time, Miranda stood at the doorway, ever so proud with accomplishment. The staff member had found the phone. I froze; I could feel the redness of humiliation on my face. The whole room turned around thirty-three sets of eyes, including the doctor and the female technician. I’d been caught, busted. I would soon be kicked out of Joy and told to pack my belongings and call for a ride.
Ashamed, I dialed the only human who would hopefully help me out of the situation, Gate. I used the front desk phone, claiming over and over again the Blackberry didn’t have service. To solidify my point further, I asked Miranda to throw away the broken phone. I felt unjustly accused, but the truth was, I had my phone on me since my day out. I was an addict with an addict mentality—all my defiance, still doing it my way.
Now, I found myself in a predicament of my own making, asking for Gate to save me. Gate knew better. He didn’t trust me, but he did love me. I was his addiction. So like any good codependent ex-boyfriend, he picked me up—after he was off work, which meant I had to wait in the lobby until 3 p.m., right at shift change.
Miranda wished me good luck with a smile that made me want to pull an “Elena” on her face. I envisioned punching the smug employee square in the grill, then adding insult to injury with a left uppercut, just like I had learned in boxing class years earlier. Instead, I gave her the world’s most reluctant hug and said thanks.
There was a goldfish tank in the lobby. Three fish swam in and out of the fake foliage that sat on the rocky bottom of the landscape. They were going nowhere in life, except back and forth, over and over again. I stared blankly at the fish, thinking of the monotony of their lives, trapped in a three-foot-by-five-foot glass prison. I remembered counting five fish when I sat in the same waiting room forty-seven days earlier. Two fish were missing; two fish had died.
I was not allowed to speak or say goodbye to any of the other clients, not even Kipp. Dr. Devargas had appointments all afternoon, and I never saw him again. But his message imprinted in the forefront of my brain. The entire day had.
I mused over the Sweet’n Low culprit. I wondered if I would be one of the lucky four or one of the twenty-eight souls who would die from their addiction. Considering I’d just gotten kicked out of rehab, my chances looked bleak.
I debated calling my mother, concluding it could wait. Gate had probably already contacted her anyway, just like he did in April when he thought I would kill myself from the drugs. The stress was too much for him. That’s when we broke up the first time. I knew how out of control I’d been, yet I failed to see it as anything more than something to be blamed on everything else.
Well, it had just been a champion-of-stress kind of day, and yet I found comfort in the fact that I was forty-seven days sober. Tomorrow it would be a whopping forty-eight days, and I would make sure to get to an NA meeting as soon as possible. I had no genuine understanding of how ill-prepared I indeed was. My actions only supported dishonesty, ego, and dangerous pride, alongside too much confidence. At the moment, none of that mattered because I would be enjoying the aroma of a four-shot Americano with extra cream by morning.
Waiting for Gate took enough time for me to contemplate the day’s events. From Sweet’n Low to the real world again, all in a matter of hours. Ignorant me, I decided at once that things would be different. I would get a tattoo of a Sweet’n Low packet to remind me of where I never wanted to be again: in rehab. It would be in honor of the lessons I had learned in a matter of six hours.
I would miss the roses and my outlaw friend Kipp; other than that, I was free and ready to commit to a different life—a life away from heroin and drug abuse. It was a new chapter, and I swore to do it right this time. But it turns out, I was a master of denial. I did not know it yet, but five years later, I would be recognized for my success in addiction, my story plastered all over CNN pushing me toward a chance.