Have You Ever Been Played?

Sometimes doing the right thing is the wrong thing.

Yeah… try to wrap your head around that one.

—

“You look like shit,” she said.

I glanced up from the couch I was sitting on. This was my first day out of detox – I was 34 years old and broken. I hadn’t even hit a full week from being clean and my mind was foggier than a carpet of clouds while my body struggled with shock.

The drive had only taken my wife and I 20 minutes to get to rehab from the detox – when you’re being taken care of and watched over as an invalid in the hospital, there’s something comforting about being behind the wheel of a car again. Control. It’s all about that control – you decide where the car goes and take action. It’s such a luxury when you’ve given up that simple power in your life. You don’t realize how much you crave it until it has been taken away.

I smiled up at the young girl with my best happiest-place-on-Earth impression. “We all can’t be as pretty as you.”

She didn’t seem to know what to make of my comment, watching me for a while. Was I being sarcastic and fucking with her? But I didn’t budge. Then she seemed to come to some understanding in her mind, nodded at me and left the room.

After all the hours of paperwork and I was officially checked in to rehab, I made my way outside. The girl from earlier was sitting alone and smoking on a bench. I moseyed right up and plopped myself down next to her as if we were lifelong friends. I didn’t bother asking if I could join her.

We sat in silence for a while. Her ignoring me as if I didn’t exist, taking deep drags of the cigarette and billowing out clouds of smoke… brooding. Me just sitting and gazing – content to be at a new location and out of the hospital.

I was bent over, leaning forward with my forearms resting on my thighs, staring down at the ground when I finally asked her, “You still sing?”

She seemed taken aback by the question and gave me a double take. It took her a little while before she responded cautiously, like a cat slowly reaching out its paw, “how do you know that?”

“I could hear it in your voice earlier…” I paused and ran my fingers through my ragged beard. My mind was still so slow it took me longer than usual to form coherent thoughts. “There’s music there.”

I turned my head and looked up at her from the corners of my eyes. I didn’t smile. Just took her in and started assessing.

She was just a child, no older than 16. Beautiful. Blonde-streaked hair framed a pale complexion that I knew would break many hearts over the years if she could live long enough. But it was her eyes that struck me the most. Violet-blue gems that carried a weight that shouldn’t be there. I knew that look.

It takes one to know one.

It would only be a few hours before I heard most of her story. What happened to her… what they all did to her, over and over again… all those years of affliction and abuse. I wasn’t ready for that level of devastation just at the beginning in my first group. I was still so lost and raw myself. You forget how much pain a single soul can take before it breaks.

But those stories are hers, not mine. So there’s no place for them here.

“Do you play,” she asked. There seemed to be strings of curiosity tugging at her now. I had opened a door that she was willing to step through. We were speaking the same language… the language of the musician.

“I did,” I responded slowly.

“What?”

I shifted in my seat before I answered. “Drums. Drums mostly… with some guitar and a little bass. But mostly drums.”

I don’t know why I carried on, but I did. It was as if something was pulling me. “It’s so hard now, though. I used to experience the world in rhythms… and now it’s all gone. There used to be nothing that could make me happier than playing music, but I’ve lost it.”

I looked up at her and we locked eyes again. I could feel the loneliness trapped inside of her as if it were a living and breathing thing.

“Never lose it,” I said. “Because once you do… it’s so hard to get it back. Never lose that thing you love.”

Then she smiled for the first time. It was something to behold… like a beam of sunlight zig-zagging underneath those deep violet-sapphire melancholy pools for eyes she had. It was the smile of a survivor… and it could have lit the world on fire.

We’ll call her Jade.

We became friends after that, Jade and me. Sometimes for group breaks we’d play music together. Her singing and I’d tap away at whatever I could get my hands on to make noise and keep a rhythm (we definitely looked like odd balls, the middle-aged man and the kid jamming away). We had fun when we could, and I was rooting for her. But somewhere deep down I knew that there was just too much damage there. I couldn’t shed the nagging feeling of reality, that things wouldn’t end well for her in the long term.

We progressed through rehab at the same pace and soon were out on our own. I’d see her almost every night at meetings and it looked like she was doing well. Things were still fresh and new, but I had my reservations, staying clean would only get harder with each passing day.

Then a few nights later, I could tell that she was lit.

At the smoke break I followed her outside. I knew she was happy to see me but watching her on dope felt like something had died inside of me. We caught up for a while and bantered with small talk while she chain-smoked like a chimney.

After a natural pause came in the conversation, I took a chance. I didn’t want to ask her. But there was something inside me that just wouldn’t have felt right if I didn’t reach out.

“Chasing…” I finally asked her quietly, in almost a whisper. “Chasing the dragon again, Jade?”

She looked down and wouldn’t meet my eyes; pretending to draw circles on the concrete slabs with her worn out sneakers. Then finally she nodded submissively.

“You been singing?” I asked, hoping to lift her up.

“No.” She answered softly. It was a fragile voice, the voice of defeat. “Just been trying to find a place… and stop living off couches.”

A person from the meeting came outside and announced the smoke break was over. I tried to meet her eyes one last time, but she wouldn’t comply.

“I hope you make it…” I left her with, as I reached out and touched her shoulder gently. “Let me know if there is anything I can do.”

At the next meeting she took me up on that offer. She said she needed cash badly for gas money and asked if I could help her. She was slipping fast I could tell.

There’s a fine line between helping an addict and enabling. Clear boundaries need to be drawn so that this never gets confused.

I knew better and should have asked my sponsor first (a sponsor is someone who has already worked the 12-steps and acts as a guide and mentor to you in sobriety). But I didn’t tell him because deep down I knew he wouldn’t agree with what I was going to do. And that’s what we do as addicts, we act and deal with the consequences as they arise. Because there will come a time when you have to take the emotion out of it and draw a line in the sand. But I couldn’t do what needed to be done yet, I was still too attached.

I told her I wouldn’t’ give her cash, but I’d do her a one-time favor for old times’ sake. I’d meet her at the gas station and fill up her tank with my credit card. And I did. It felt good helping her. It felt like the right thing to do.

Later that night I told my sponsor what I did. He just laughed at me and said I got played. I was defensive and told him there was no way, Jade and I were tight and I had made it clear this was a one-time thing. He kept laughing and said I was a sucker and just wait until tomorrow. She’ll ask you again he promised. Once an addict, always an addict. And he scolded me that I should have known better.

I was pissed when I left.

Then the next day the text came.

Hey, Q-FI, can you fill up my gas tank one more time, this will be the last, I promise. I really need your help.

Her text broke my heart and I could hear my sponsor’s voice in my mind saying I told you so. I texted her back with a heavy hand and knew that I had been played.

Sorry Jade, that was a one-time deal. You know how it goes. Let me know if you need a ride anywhere and any other way I can help you out. But I can’t give you money.

There was one reply.

Thanks Q-FI, I understand.

And it was the truth, because she did understand. She knew what game she was playing and had decided to dance that lonely dance again.

That was the last time I ever heard from her. She stopped going to meetings and I don’t run in those circles anymore. I hope that she is still alive somewhere and doing what she does best – giving the gift of her voice to the world.

There’s a lot of stories like Jade’s out there. But like I said in the beginning, sometimes doing the right thing is actually the wrong thing.