Coholic—Episode 1: Born Into Fire
I washed the cancer off me.
I normally rush through a shower, but I’m on the back side of a 48-hour shift, and I’ll be content to hear the structure fire tones if they come.
They do not.
I watch the dirt and soot spiral down the drain and disappear, but the smell of smoke still clings to my skin, seeping deeper into the parts of me no one else can see.
I lean my head against the wall, closing my eyes and letting the water run hot, hotter, until I can’t tell what’s burning anymore.
The steam from my shower still fogs the mirror, just enough to blur the person staring back at me. I step closer, reaching out, setting my hand gently against the glass, allowing my fingertips to meet their own distorted image.
The water slowly drips down the mirror from where they meet, carving clear paths through the steam, removing pieces of what separates the two, and for a moment, I'm no longer here.
I disappear.
I never felt the transition, never noticed the exact moment I went under. Like counting backward with anesthesia, remembering nothing beyond the numbers, just the part where I wake up.
I can hear the rain peacefully falling against the window, feel the room spinning, my mind slipping; falling within memories and dreams.
The world shifts once more, and I'm standing in a forest that stretches endlessly in every direction. I can barely see the sky, only shadows moving between the trees, chasing behind a voice that says “follow me.” I can hear the crunching of leaves and I turn to see her walking away, her white dress blowing in the wind.
“Wait,” I call out, but she doesn't stop.
My body follows her laughter as it echoes off trees that close in around me. I'm running now, branches catching at my arms, but she stays the same distance ahead. Always just out of reach.
“Please.”
The light is fading. I can hear something else now, not her voice, but my own breathing.
And then I'm falling.
My fingers scratch gently at my throat, breath slowly returning to my lungs.
Her gentle laughter fades, and I try to turn my head, but I can't. Soft footsteps move past the closet door and pause just outside, before continuing down the hall.
The leaves fade away, replaced by the cold press of linoleum against my back. The branches above me blur into clothing scattered around the closet floor. The rope burns where it cuts into my neck. If it wasn't still there, tight against my skin, I'd question if it ever happened at all.
That was the first time I tried to kill myself. I was 12.
The school was clearing out the lost and found, so I waited until it was fair game and grabbed a black Nike sweater I liked. We didn't have the money for anything Nike, so when I walked through the front door wearing it, I was accused of stealing it before I could even set my pack down.
“Where'd you get that?” His voice rips through the house.
I never had a chance to explain. His fist catches my shoulder, spinning me around. I stumble, trying to catch myself on the wall.
“I found it in…”
My vision explodes in white sparks as the second hit catches my temple, dropping me to my knees. The slap that follows puts me to the floor. I curl into a ball, wrapping my arms around my head, but then I hear his belt come loose.
The belt cracks across my back and stings across my hands as I try to protect my face. I keep waiting for it to end, before my skin breaks free and bleeds, but the beating just keeps going.
I pray I’ll pass out, that there has to be a limit, a point where my body just shuts down. But it never does. He keeps screaming at me to admit I stole it, his voice growing hoarse.
“Just say it! Just fucking say you stole it!”
Maybe I should have. Maybe it would've ended. But I didn't.
Because I couldn't. Because I didn't.
He asks again, but not because he wants to hear me.
He’s just too exhausted to interrupt.
“I got it from the lost and found at school.
They said we could take anything.”
The look on his face shifts, perhaps realizing he's gone too far.
I’m grounded anyway. It’s the principle of things.
Maybe it was the beating, maybe it was the rope, maybe it was just everything piling up until I couldn't hold it all together. But after that, I stopped pretending. I stopped trying to be what they wanted me to be. Controlled.
So I robbed a couple of stores at the mall the next week. Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Tupac Shakur, Misfits, Sex Pistols, and a pair of Nike basketball shorts.
In a house where you might catch an ass-beating for watching The Simpsons, punk rock is freedom.
It changes everything.
Smack!
“Why else hide it unless you knew it was wrong?”
“I hid it because you, not me, think it's wrong.”
My ears ring as my head bounces off the wall. My shirt twists in his fist, knuckles digging into my chest as he slams me back again. The picture frame of Jesus next to my head rattles.
At fourteen, I don't even flinch anymore. I've learned to zone out, to let my mind drift somewhere else. The sharp pain fades fast, replaced by the music that never leaves my mind.
It screams back at a world I can't control. It drowns out his fists, his voice, the fear trying to claw its way up my throat. It's loud. Defiant.
Perfect.
“Stop looking at me like that!” he yells, spit hitting my face.
And in my eyes, I know he can still see the fear I'm trying to hide, the child I'm trying to protect.
A nearby shower stops, and I pull away from the mirror, recoiling with fingers clasping behind my head.
I tear them free, and swipe steam away from the mirror, just enough to meet my own eyes.
I stare into them, like I might see something different this time. Something better.
But I don't.
They narrow as the tones hit.
Vehicle fire.
The cue siren of Engine 3 blares, echoing off the walls of the overpass as we tear through traffic, heading towards Turner Blvd.
Empty lots stretch between buildings, windows boarded up with plywood that's been tagged and retagged until the wood is hidden under layers. I can see a younger version of myself in those shadows, drinking stolen beer behind abandoned factories, lighting fires on the tracks, tagging bridges and running from cops. But in the window's reflection, the leather jacket fades into turnouts that smell like smoke.
Behind the death, people ripped apart, burned beyond recognition, dead children, screams of a mother, and tears of a father are ghosts. I remember them all. I can hear those cries today. I worked through this at the firehouse, journaling about what emergency work does to a person over time and what it uncovers about everything that came before it. Which was something louder.
Coholic is an attempt to make sense of trauma, identity, and what remains when everything else burns away.
This miniseries pulls excerpts from the full-length novel.
All art by Chad Kimes
