Coholic #4: I Wanted To Go Back
Featuring the art of Ryan Kacsandy and Chad Kimes
The Coholics have become the one constant thing I can rely on in my life. I go home after practice and straight to my room, settling back onto my bed with the headphones clamped over my ears, scribbling bass tabs on scraps of paper, notebook margins, anything I can find.
My hand cramps, but I can't stop. The music drives everything else away. I can't wait to show the guys what I've written the next day.
We have a raw, unique sound that feels like it’s breaking through all the noise. The music is the force driving me, pulling me toward whatever I’m trying to be. That’s it. I live my music and play my life. High school is getting more difficult, but not because of grades. I can bullshit my way through most classes. Home isn’t good. My stepfather used to take his anger out on me, but now I’m old enough to fight back, so most of his anger translates into restrictions of freedom. But it's hard to restrict what isn’t around.
Rage follows me everywhere. Into fights, into music, into the way I refuse to back down.
Tommy’s parents eventually kick the band out of the basement, so we end up in a converted factory on 97th and Madison, a maze of practice rooms with stained carpet and soundproofing that smells like cigarettes and stale beer. The building houses all kinds of bands, and with them come all kinds of new temptations. We’re pushing the boundaries, unable to resist the allure, and I'm taking whatever I can get my hands on from my stepfather.
My house is quiet except for the TV downstairs. I slip into their bedroom, avoiding the floorboard that creaks near the door. I learned that one when I was eleven, sneaking cigarettes from them.
The dresser drawers stick, old wood swollen from years of moisture, but I know exactly how to lift and pull to keep them quiet. I ease the drawer open, muscle memory guiding me to the prescription bottles lined up in back like amber soldiers. I palm what I don't recognize alongside what I do. Take enough to matter, not enough to notice.
Footsteps on the stairs. I freeze, pills clutched in my fist, drawer still open. The footsteps continue past the bedroom. My mother, heading to the bathroom. I close the drawer, pocket the pills in my hand, and slip down the stairs and out the front door.
“Hey yo, X, you want some of this?”
I look back to see Tommy waving a couple bottles of Mad Dog 20/20 at me from his backpack. It’s 8 o’clock. Homeroom.
“Hell yeah! Let me get that red one.” I turn to Jenny next to me. “Jenny, let me borrow your drink.”
She hands me her pink plastic cup with a black lid and a big green straw. I dump whatever is in it out the window and pour in the Mad Dog.
“You guys are crazy,” she says, shaking her head but smiling.
I shrug my shoulders, raising the cup slightly as if to say “Oh well.” The pills I dry-swallowed in the bathroom earlier sit heavy in my stomach, and I pause for a moment before deciding fuck it, and downing the Mad Dog.
The alcohol mixes with the pills, and after no time at all, everything begins to slow down. The edges of my vision soften like someone's adjusting the focus on a camera. My legs feel disconnected from my body, but I make my way to second period study hall. I collapse into a desk and let my head drop onto my arms. Something's wrong. My heart is beating too slow, then too fast, then I can't tell if it's beating at all, and then I’m asleep.
The bell rings, distant and warped like it's coming through water.
I'm in the hallway, the fluorescent lights too bright, sounds echoing strangely, conversations blending into a meaningless hum. My shoulder bounces off a locker as I try to walk straight, fighting against gravity that seems to pull sideways. I stumble into a classroom, my hand slapping against the doorframe for balance. The teacher's voice sounds like it's coming from the bottom of a well. Faces blur, concerned voices becoming distant and abstract.
I swing my arm across the teacher's desk, papers and pens scattering to the floor with a muffled crash. Students gasp, chairs scrape against tile, but it all feels like it's happening to someone else and…
I fall.
I fall hard, the floor rushing up to meet me, through concrete and earth, into darkness. It's cold, and I'm alone. My lungs won't work. The darkness is everything, pulling me deeper, and I can't fight it anymore.
The rhythmic sound of crashing waves against the shore wakes me. I can feel the warmth of the sun on me. She’s behind me, one arm wrapped around me, the other braced on the rock, my head in her lap, and I can feel the rise and fall of her breathing. She runs her fingers through my hair and kisses the top of my head and for the first time in years, I feel completely safe.
I reach up and take her hand, feeling each finger, the softness of her palm and I can feel her as if there's only her in the world, and I want nothing more than to stay here forever. A sense of peace settles over me like I've never known, and suddenly, all the chaos and turmoil of my life melts away and all I know is this beautiful place, only her.
“Not yet,” she whispers, her voice like the wind through leaves, like water over stones.
I gasp for air and shoot upright, my chest heaving. The world comes back in flashes of light, hands pushing a mask down on my face, mumbled voices around me that sound urgent and far away.
Someone's finger brushes against my hand, and I grab it instinctively, squeezing with all the strength I have left.
Snap.
The sound of bone breaking cuts through the haze, followed by a sharp cry of pain, and then I'm falling back into darkness.
Broken paramedic finger, shocks to the dysrhythmia of my heart. I’m never the same from the stomach pump.
When I wake up, I'm in a hospital bed, my wrist handcuffed to the metal rail with cold steel that bites into my skin. My mother sits in a chair beside the bed, her face puffy from crying, her eyes red and exhausted.
I don't know what happened between us, what was said or not said, but irrational rage boils within me like poison. I can't control it, can't stop it from taking over everything.
I spit on her.
She flinches like I've hit her. She looks at me like I'm breaking her heart, her hand coming up slowly to wipe her face, and I can see the exact moment something dies in her eyes.
But I just don't care anymore. I don't give a fuck about anyone.
I lay here for hours, the handcuff chafing my wrist raw, staring at the acoustic tiles on the ceiling and counting the holes in each square. Wishing I had never come back. Wishing I could have turned around and stayed in that place by the water.
I've never felt the sun like that before, never been somewhere so beautiful and peaceful. I want to go back to her, even if it was only a dream, even if it means never waking up again.
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.
EPISODE 1: Born Into Fire | EPISODE 2: We Are All Broken | EPISODE 3: Bonded By Fire
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