CHAPTER ONE #2
I scoffed. “They’ve already basically gone through withdrawal in prison, the hard part. Why wreck that and start from scratch? I’ll talk to the halfway house.”
That was when another parolee, as hollow as a chocolate bunny, came for Gunning’s help. And the folks gathered out front to cheer Alessio.
Despite my anxiety I sprinted sedately past the Easter treat guy.
You had to esteem these people for even having the balls to enter the Establishment Club.
It showed they were trying. And that was the start.
Most addicts, believe it or not, mature out of it after ten years.
It’s called “natural recovery.” Happened all around me.
Happened to me.
“What do I have to do to get attention around here?”
When Alessio—a stupendous orator—collapsed on the roof, I’m telling the truth when I say I was the first one up the stairwell.
Bouncing off the walls, taking steps two at a time, panting more with terror than exertion.
Of course we’d lost several people in The Establishment Club since opening.
That was to be expected. But I wanted to keep Alessio.
“You got Narcan?” I yelled at Dr. Stringfellow Hawk, two steps behind my ass. I always carried the stuff too.
“Course I do.”
A few other workers and addicts stomped up after us, but I was the first to reach him.
He’d collapsed on his back with arms splayed in an unnatural position, like a road sign depicting a kid racing across the street.
Crashing to my knees, I shook him, slapped his face.
Opening his eyes with my fingers, I checked for “pinpoint pupils.”
“Pinpoint,” I told Hawk. “Back, back!” I yelled at the junkies. “Let’s get him breathing again.”
Per our rules, a worker was already calling 911.
I kept spanking his fawn-tinted face. “Alessio. Alessio Messina. Come back, come back. You know you don’t want to go.
You have your whole life to enjoy, a giant journey.
” Leaning closer, soon I was breathing in his ear, pleading, stroking his face.
“Alessio, we need you.” Pause. “I need you.”
“Slight beat,” reported Hawk, on his knees with his stethoscope.
Hawk ripped off the Narcan packaging while I slid my fingers under Alessio’s long, beautiful neck. Hawk inserted the plastic bottle and sprayed, one in each nostril.
“Recovery position,” I told the doctor, as though he needed a reminder. This meant rolling him on his side with the top knee supporting him so he didn’t swivel onto his stomach.
“Here we go,” I said. With my cheek to his mouth, his sparse breath feathered me. “Alessio. Speak to me. Talk. How are you feeling?”
“He there?” asked Gunning. He kneeled in our little lifesaving group while assistants kept the others away with raised arms.
“Yeah. He’ll make it. He’ll make it.” I knew Gunning had never seen me so heavily invested in a patient. He could tell. Living in a hole for two years had endowed him with a sensitivity that went beyond the beyond.
And yes, I gasped when Alessio uttered some words. What did he say? I had my ear right up to his Zappaesque moustache, his warmth channeling through to my heart.
“I need out,” it sounded like he said.
“Hey,” said Gunning. “Let’s get him down to the recovery room. Fluids.”
Alessio panted now. “Get me home.”
“Sixty-four.” Hawk reported on the heartbeat.
That was good enough to help him to his feet. Like a couple of sailors, we slung a sinewy arm over each of our shoulders. Linear scars decorated the crook of his elbow. He walked, just barely, legs weak as a spiderweb. Dr. Hawk held the stairwell door for us.
“C’mon, buddy,” I urged. “Let’s get you to the emergency room.” That was our MO for ODs. We’d wait in our recovery room until 911 arrived to take them to hospital. Law required us to do that with anyone needing Naloxone.
Alessio’s glazed, blurry eyes seemed to be resisting something.
Maybe trying to stay awake, alive. He hadn’t been trying to kill himself on the roof.
He wanted to send people an urgent message about chronic pain.
As he limped on one leg, I flashed back to the discomfort he exhibited when getting his wallet from his back pocket. “No ER.”
Gunning asked kindly, “No ER? Why not, buddy?”
Alessio spoke more clearly now, more alert. He even had that vibrant, sermonizing delivery when halfway dead. “They’ll put me back in jail.”
What? “They’re not going to remand you just because you got high.”
Gunning was skeptical. “Already? On the bus?”
I gave my medical assistant a harsh look and squeezed Alessio’s forearm, reassuring. “No. We won’t let anything happen. We have a good rapport with the cops and UCSF.” That was the closest hospital that was forced to partner with us. They were pretty understanding of our position.
“No, not because I got high.”
On the main floor now, Erin and others gestured toward the recovery room.
“Cumon, guy.”
“You need to drink fluids.”
“We got some great Gatorade.”
“Some Pedialyte.”
As Gunning and I tried to steer Alessio down the hall, an ambulance siren pierced the murmur of outside district traffic. Alessio’s audience instead headed out the front door to watch and gossip.
Alessio’s entire frame stiffened under our hands. We stopped walking, watching his face.
Fully alert now, fear colored his inky eyes. It was like he held a microphone again, his voice seemed so loud, the rest of the building fading into the background.
“Because I killed a guy in jail.”
Our jaws dropped.