October 27, 2002

• The Final Blow

  Lead-in to this episode is HERE.

  By the time I got to Anchorage, I’d had a lot of jobs.  I had done just about every job there is in a restaurant.  I had danced, operated a drill press and a pleating machine, delivered handbills, sold clothing and OTC drugs, nuts, cookies, greeting cards…  but I never had a job that interested me, excited me, more than counseling at Open Door Klinic.  It was important to me that I be the one they hired.  It was MY job.

  The entire staff interviewed me, including Joe, the man I would replace; and Craig, the young attorney/CPA who was the clinic’s counsel and accountant, and the legal representative of the clinic’s parent corporation, a private non-profit drug treatment organization, ACODA.  Besides Kevin, the “new” clinical director, there was Jamie the former director and current ACODA board member, Bonnie the social worker, Lynn the nurse, and three peer counselors:  one each for evening and midnight shifts monday through friday, and a forty-eight hour shift on weekends.  If I got the job, I’d go to work at 8AM saturday and get off at 8AM monday.  And it paid $500.00 a month–less than I could expect to make with tips on a good waitress job, but more than any of the other salaried jobs I’d had before then. 

  After they had explained the job and I’d said that I did, indeed, want it, they started quizzing me.  What would I do if….  The hypothetical situations included natural disasters, violent crimes, suicide threats, various household emergencies, drug overdoses, domestic disputes and crank/prank calls.  Everyone had been firing questions at me, then there was a lull, and Jamie, the founder of the agency, asked, “Why do you want to do this kind of work?”

  There was another lull while I thought about it, then I did my best to say what was in my heart.  I said that most of those of my generation wanted to save the world, and so did I.  “I haven’t found any big ways to save the whole world, but I think I can do some good here, one person at a time.”  Somebody smiled and someone else laughed and Jamie or Kevin thanked me and said they would call.  When Kevin did call the next morning, I already knew that I was the one they decided to hire, because a friend of Mary’s boyfriend worked at the clinic and had been one of my interviewers.  Mary got the word and passed it on to me the night of the interview.

  The house we found was tiny, two little rooms in a building that had once been the garage of the house where my landlord lived.  His backyard was our yard, and the entry was off an alley entered from a busy street just three blocks from the clinic.  The neighborhood was a deteriorated once-upscale residential area that was being engulfed by the business district.  On the block were a travel agency and some professional offices in old houses, and every garage on that alley had been converted to a residence.

  We had plumbing problems from the day we moved in, which, after a lot of ineffectual treatment with plungers and Drano, turned out to be a frozen septic system.  It was June, and not full summer yet, although it never got dark.  In that area, permafrost averaged about eight feet down.  That meant that in summer the ground only thawed that far down, and that early in summer I needed to dig only a foot or so in the sunny part of the yard, or just scratch away some of the brown grass on the shady north side of the house, to find frozen ground.  The landlord gave us some buckets.  I started looking for another place to live.

  Stony had a bunch of rowdy buddies already, some he had caroused with in Colorado, and some new ones he had just met.  When I complained that he was never home with me, he said it was too boring around there, and suggested if we had a TV set he would stay home more.  I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he might have been sincere, but I suspect that he was just hoping it would keep me entertained and off his case.

  He wasn’t working.  He had gotten a job and lost it very quickly afterwards.  He could deal enough dope by hanging out in bars to keep himself in drinks and drugs and buy some gas for a buddy’s car now and then.  Most nights he would get in around 2 AM when the bars closed.  We fought.  Then several things came together to get me out of that situation.  I got my monthly paycheck, I found an apartment to move into, and he stayed out all night and well into the following day, long enough for me to get my stuff packed and into a cab and moved to my new place.  I just didn’t tell him where it was.  I suppose I left a note.  I wrote one, remember sitting there writing it, but don’t remember if I left it there.  I wrote him a lot of letters he never saw.

  At the wednesday staff meeting at the clinic, someone said he had called trying to find me, but since they didn’t know my address, and I didn’t work until the weekend, they hadn’t been able to help him.  I gave my workplace my new address, and asked them to keep it confidential.  My new apartment was farther away from work, but since I only needed to travel there twice a week, I figured I could afford to take a cab.  It was in a noisy and rowdy neighborhood, so I kept looking at the ads, trying to find something nicer and/or closer to work.

  I had been away from Stony about two weeks when he showed up at the clinic.  He wanted to talk to me.  I offered him a seat in my office, but he wasn’t comfortable with all the people coming and going, the phone ringing and having to share my attention.  He asked me if I got any breaks, and I said that a volunteer was there to let me take meal breaks twice a day.  He offered to bring me a take-out dinner if I’d sit in his car and spend my dinner break with him. 

  He parked behind the clinic and I sat there and ate my burger and fries while he apologized for neglecting and abusing me, and begged me to come back to him.  I shook my head and repeated for the umpteenth time that I was not taking him back again… we were through.  He grabbed me by the front of my shirt and drew back his fist and said, “You are coming back to me!”

  I said, “no, I’m not,” and reached for the door handle.  He punched me in the nose.  I saw lights exploding behind my eyes, my nose and lips felt as if they were on fire, and I could feel the warm blood start dripping off my chin.  I shoved him back hard against the side window, heard his head go *thwock* against the glass, got the door open and got out.  Inside the clinic, my volunteer helper started working on my nosebleed and helped me clean up.  Some of the itinterants camping in the clinic’s yard went to confront Stony, but he was driving away.  They asked if I wanted to call the cops, but I declined.

  In a very short time, in addition to swollen lips and nose, I had two black eyes.  Everyone had a hard time believing that he’d done all that with a single blow.  I was a phenomenon, a subject of endless curiosity and entertainment.  I could barely believe it myself, when I looked in the mirror.  I didn’t feel the same way about those facial marks as I had the earlier bruises.  There was no shame attached, only indignation, and some relief, because I was certain it was not going to happen again.

  Continued….

  

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  • 9:12 am
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