“Joe!” I called over and over, half expecting a neighbor to come crashing through the door at any moment, thinking I was in some sort of peril. “JOE!” He was showering.
It took seven screams to be heard. “Come!” I couldn’t manage more than one syllable at a time. I was getting tired of clawing the kitchen counter for stability, and had decided to attempt the five steps from there to the couch. It may as well have been the run from Marathon to Athens.
“I’m coming, mom!” I threw myself down on the couch to wait for him, staring at the screen saver cityscape that my AppleTV had thrown up, listening to what I’m pretty sure was the White Buffalo, and wishing I could remove the 10-gallon water cooler in my head that someone had just knocked into. What the fuck was taking this kid so long? Did he not understand the gravity—or lack thereof—of the situation? Waiting those 45 seconds for him felt like an hour.
Turning 50 was a cake walk. The number had no affect on me. I was feeling great, was completely at peace with my life, and didn’t want for anything. I was living in the tropics, I was off all my fibromyalgia medications, and was fixing to make an appointment for my next bit of ink. The birthday fell on a Thursday so I wasn’t about to make any grand plans, but my brother had invited me out for dinner at a new rooftop eatery that opened nearby. I was all in. “Be here by 5:30. Dinner is at 6.”
I had just finished putting on a pretty, new blouse, throwing some actual makeup on, and feeling pleased that for once my hair was on point, when the kid got home from work. He was looking to take a couple of hits off his bong before showering and getting ready for dinner, and asked if I wanted a birthday hit. At this point in my life—and given what weed has become in the last couple of decades—I only smoke once in a very blue moon, and usually only one hit. And so I had a “fuck it” moment as I am wont to have, and took a rip off the bong, listening to the gurgle, gurgle, gurgle of the water as the smoke disappeared into my lungs. A few minutes later I decided to head inside because I didn’t want the humidity to ruin my hair.
I remember looking at the clock on my DVR and thinking, cool, I’ve got about an hour before we need to head out…I think I’ll get some writing done. I threw myself down on the couch, cracked open the laptop and murmured under my breath, “Fuck me, I forgot how to write!” And that’s where the carnival ride began. A carnival ride that would leave me celebrating 50 with a Whopper, fries, and some sort of sweet crap in a triangular box they were trying to convince me was a slice of chocolate cream pie.
I didn’t want the kid to see me losing my shit, so I went into my bedroom and locked the door behind me, figuring I’d just go lay down and ride this thing out so my head would be clear by dinnertime. There was a tiny hole in my ceiling and it was trying to suck me into its vortex. Marcus King was blaring on my TV, being challenged by the hip-hop coming out of the kid’s room, and all the while I couldn’t find my fingers. He knocks on my door. I’m fucked. “Come hear a new beat I’m working on, Mom.” Gimme five minutes, kid. Five minutes. Just gotta find my fingers and I’ll be right with you.
I opened my eyes and the light blaze that is the Miami sun seared my corneas. Find your fingers, woman! I pulled my hands up toward my face and started counting them over and over and over, making sure that the count was 10 each time. This kid’s gonna wonder what’s taking me so long. It’s gotta be 15 minutes since he knocked. But it had barely been five. And just as I thought I was beginning to pull myself together, the desire to puke surges up from my toes, propelling me toward the only thing within reach—the garbage can by my desk, which happened to be in the corner of very white walls. Well, that’ll be fun to clean tomorrow.
I head for the bathroom to wash my face, imagining that my perfect hair is now covered in vomit, but it’s actually holding up OK. I tap the face gently so as not to wreck the makeup and that’s when I make my move towards the kitchen to call for Joe. There was no way I was doing dinner on a rooftop when I could barely find my extremities. He came out of the bathroom to find me sitting in one corner of the couch. “Yo, you OK, Mom?” No, no, fruit of my loins. I am in no way OK. “Call…” I paused. Use your words, Katie. “Uncle.” That’s it. No more. You can’t get blood from a stone or words from the stoned.
“Are you OK, mom? Mom, look at me.” That fucker was making me open my eyes. Again with the sun. His face scares me and I pull my head back a bit. “You don’t think you’ll be OK in 30 minutes?” I shook my head, closed my eyes again, and managed to lay my head back on the couch despite the complete lack of sensation or sense of place. “What are you feeling?” I could only manage the word hot. “You want me to put an ice cube on your forehead? Or a wet towel?” I grimace. “Will ruin makeup.” Three words strung together—a clear indicator that I could do it when it really mattered.
He disappears to call his aunt first. “Hey, we have a bit of a situation…” was all I heard before my mind trailed off. Blah, blah, blah, “…I swear, it was only ONE toke…” Then he calls the uncle. “Mom, can you talk to Tio Alex a sec?” Are you out of your goddamned mind? Head shakes aggressively from side to side and I swat my hand at my poor child who is trying to respectfully bail on dinner plans and manage his mother’s fade, all while resisting the urge to laugh his face off. I need to puke again. He helps me get to the bathroom because I can barely walk. I slam the door behind me so he doesn’t watch his mom at the feet of the porcelain god and somehow pull together the wherewithal to take off my new blouse so I don’t fuck it up.
I purge everything but my spleen, hyper-aware of the tears that are streaming down my cheeks and the complete mess I have likely made of myself. But when I go to the sink to clean myself up for the second time, still somehow trying to keep from fucking up the makeup—for whose benefit I have no idea at this point—I look at myself in the mirror and am shocked that I still look really damn good. So let this be a lesson, ladies (or dudes who wear makeup)—primer and setting spray are worth every penny. I will never again look at the price tags on those things with doubt. I head back out toward the living room but not before grabbing a towel to throw over myself because I am now in my bra and have already done enough damage to my kid’s psyche for one day.
I lay myself down on the couch by first sitting and then slowly sliding sideways, and pull a blanket over me. I’m trying desperately to fall asleep but that weed paranoia that often creeps through the cracks? Yeah that’s now in high gear, giving me supersonic hearing that can detect every conversation that child is having in his bedroom. He’s got the girlfriend on speaker but she is either speaking a combination of three languages or speaking backwards. I can’t make out which, but I know they are fucking with me so that I don’t know it’s me they’re laughing about. Someone please shoot me. They shoot horses, don’t they?
I give up on trying to decipher the coded conversation and focus on sleeping, when I get peeled out of my skin by the sound of Rage Against the Machine being blasted only a few inches from my swimming head. You ever listen to Bombtrack? The beginning, just after the intro, where it kicks in? That’s my damn ringtone because I like to make sure I can always hear it. And of course it’s the ex-husband calling to wish me a happy 50th birthday. Of course it is. Yup. And instead of just letting it go to voicemail, the kid, in his infinite lack of discretion, answers the call and walks off with my phone to tell his dad all about how mom can’t take his call right now because she’s completely ripped and immobile on the couch.
At some point, I finally get near sleep. Just let me ride this out oh mother of Zeus, and I am done with the maryjane forever and ever. The kid emerges from the bedroom again, kneels besides me, and whispers in my ear, “Ma, can you hear me?” I nod. “I’m going to go get Alaniz now, will you be alright without me?” I nod. “You sure? Because it’s gonna take me a while before I get back.” I nod…do you not see me nodding for the love of all things? Go away so I can sleep. Go, go, go. You have seen enough for one day, child.
An hour later, I manage to pull my eyes open. The sun has graciously disappeared behind a wall of rain clouds and the kid had been kind enough to turn off my music before leaving. I grab my phone to call him and see a missed text from my brother. It’s a photo of my glorious niece sitting at the rooftop restaurant, wearing the Addidas sneakers I had bought her, with the caption, “Where’s Tia Katie?” Fucking guilt trip of all guilt trips. “Joe are you on your way back yet?” He was. And I was now starving. “I need you to grab me some food as you get near home.”
Being an April Fool baby never made for a joke more apropos than spending my 50th birthday dinner scarfing down a Whopper (no pickle, just like I taught him) and washing it down with a bottle of Champagne that the kid had bought me (and had remembered to chill), all from a plastic Starbuck’s cup. The “sundae pie” was shoveled to my mouth with my fingers—faux whipped cream repeatedly wiped from my still near-flawless makeup between bites—while I fumbled for the remote control to hunt for a movie. Getting old is not for pussies, and the thing is that I can’t decide whether what went down was pure gonzo for having bailed on a rooftop dinner because I was passed out on my couch after hitting a bong with my kid, or if it’s the saddest, most “welcome to the other side of the hill you fucking relic” sort of pathetic awakening ever. I settled on The Birdcage, and as the sounds of salsa music filled my darkened living room, I grabbed the phone to text Mike about what had gone down over the last four hours. “OK, are you ready for this?”
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
It happens to all of us sooner or later. Learned the hard way in Denver, smoked a pre-roll before going to a Rockies game, came to in the third inning with no idea of how I got there but a beer and half a hotdog in my hand (mustard and kraut, no ketchup). Has to do with altitude.
If it has to do with altitude, I’d like to believe that being in Miami, at near sea level, I’d have avoided this entire disaster LOL. But yeah, I’m done at this point!