Carrie Fisher - Postcards from the Edge

Fuck it! Then Suzanne will think I’m a wimp and I can’t take it. Well, I can. I can take anything they can dish out. I’ll stay. But I’m not gonna like it. I have my own opinions, I have my own tastes, and they can’t take that away from me. They’re not gonna turn me out like something on a conveyor belt.

God, I want out of here…

DAY TWENTY-FOUR

Alex walked out of group today. Stan had been on my back about my “wonderful girl act.” He said I didn’t just want people to like me, but that I wanted to make an impact on their lives they’d never quite recover from. It wasn’t a startling revelation. I’ve been in therapy since I was nineteen, so Stan is not likely to be giving me stunning insights into my being that I’ve never considered before, but he was trying. He said something about how I probably hoped people would mistake my nervousness for vivacity. I was about to make some glib comeback when Alex suddenly leapt to my defense.

Stan slapped him down by saying, “Oh, and I guess you’re hoping people will confuse your nervousness with aloof cool.” Stan can really be a bastard. An addict made good—now he’s a marathon runner. The junkie of the seventies is the athlete of the eighties. Anyway, Alex bolted to his room and refused to come out for our excursion to the mall. Carol tried to persuade him, but Stan told us to leave him alone. I feel bad for him.

Shopping was hilarious. We went as a group of ten and crawled all over the mall like a giant junkie spider. We bought popcorn, cotton candy, cola, and chocolate. Stan said I eat just like a heroin addict (but I break just like a little girl). It was hard to keep the group together. Sam wanted sunglasses, Wanda needed styling gel, and Carl ate three hot dogs. I’m so glad I overdosed now. If I hadn’t, I never would have been in a rehab and shopped with junkies.

I wish Alex had come shopping instead of hiding in his room. I’ve never really talked to him, and he’s been here for over a week. He just seems so tense. He doesn’t seem to get that this is a serious thing. I do think I’m lucky in a way. I had a frightening thing happen: I had my stomach pumped. It was a fairly graphic illustration that my way wasn’t working. If I had to have my stomach pumped the last time I took drugs, why should I think the next time I could take a normal amount? And just what is a “normal amount” of Percodan? Alex probably still thinks he can take normal amounts of cocaine. There but for the grace of overdose go I.

“No, we don’t need to talk about what happened yesterday! I’ve talked about as much as I’m gonna talk in this place. Yeah, I know my parents are coming in. Oh, you would? You’d like the four of us to sit down? You’d like that? Good, the three of you sit down and talk, ’cause I’ve fuckin’ had it. I’ve had it! I’ve sat in rooms with my parents and I’ve sat in rooms with you, and I didn’t like either one and I don’t think I’d like both. I’m fucking out of here! I’m gone , so you can kiss my ass good-bye. I don’t need this clinic, and I certainly don’t need some asshole ex-junkie like you .

“Oh, really? I don’t get it? I get it, mister. From the day I came in here I got it. I got that you were an asshole and this place sucks. I don’t need this place to not do drugs. No, I don’t. What happened to me was purely accidental, and you can tell me from here to tomorrow all this shit about me being an addict—you, with your shooting up. Carl told me you even murdered somebody once to get drugs, and you’re gonna tell me? I grew up in this nice part of town and you, Mister Murderer Junkie, are gonna tell me how to stop doing drugs? I have nothing in common with you. Sayonara, you asshole, I’m outta here.”

Ha! I told that fuckin’ asshole, that murdering junkie son-of-a-bitch. I told him, I fuckin’ told him. Christ, I’m so sick of the sterilized smell of this place.

“Hold the elevator!”

I bet they think I’m just gonna walk out of here and do drugs. Well, they’ve got another think coming. I’m not the cliché everyone else in here is. I’m different. I know they told me everybody here thinks they’re different, but what about the poor son-of-a-bitch like me who really is different? Why do I have to pay for everyone who came through the door and thought they were different and weren’t?

Aaaahhh! I’m out. Aaaaaaahhhhh! What a relief to be outside and not in a fucking group going to the park to listen to Carl go on and on about that stupid wife of his. I don’t want to know about anyone else’s personal life. I don’t even want a personal life of my own. I’m so sick of personal lives.

Whew! I’m never gonna end up in one of those places again. It’s like I got out of jail. I could sing with relief. So, I guess I’ll go home. Maybe I’ll read. I’ll have an old-fashioned Norman Rockwell kind of Sunday. I think I can really appreciate this kind of normalcy I’m gonna go for now after that prison camp experience in the clinic. That’s behind me now. At least I got a little of that anger off my chest. How was that for dealing with my emotions, Stan?

Okay, how do I get home? How do I get home? I’ve got a little cash, I’ll take a cab. First I’ll stop in the Blum’s and have a little cake and celebrate. I’ll eat a little something, maybe have a couple of beers and go home…

Nah, I’m not gonna have any beers. Fuck it. Sure, and what if that asshead comes looking for me and finds me with some beers. “I told you so, Alex.” Well, fuck you, you know? Suck this, you know what I’m saying? I’m no alcoholic. I’ll have some cake, maybe a little chocolate ice cream and French fries, and I’ll get home. And no red meat. I don’t want to fuck up my arteries…

Aaahhh! My own apartment. Goddamn, it’s good to be back. My car is back in the garage… I wonder how they got it back. Who cares, it’s here. Let’s see, did I get any messages? Two? Only two messages in ten days? Okay, who called? Jesus Christ! Joan. My mother must have told her. “I’m so glad you went into a clinic.” God, that I-knew-it-all-along voice. Gloat, why don’t you? Who else called? Shit. My mom. So they know I left the clinic. Great, now I’m not safe in my own house. This is a nightmare.

Wait, what’s this? A lude. No. No. If I take this, they’ll say it proves their point. Well, I’m not one of their traditional druggies. Here’s the lude, I’m throwing it in the toilet, it’s gone. Good-bye lude, hello no drugs.

I guess I’d better go out in case my parents show up. I’ll go for a drive. I’ll just go out and drive around and enjoy life like I’ve never enjoyed it before. I’m straight, and I threw away a lude. That proves I’m the master over this. I’m not what they thought I was. Hey, here’s that Valium. Down the toilet with this, too. I’ll show them. I’ll throw all my drugs away. There goes the Valium, and there goes that little piece of hash. All right. All right. No real drug addict could throw away their drugs. They’d laugh out of the other side of their clinic if they could see me now. All right! No junkie I.

So it’s drive time. Maybe I’ll go to a movie by myself. That’s kind of a mature thing to do. I’ve seen people do that. It looks desperate, but it’s probably not desperate at all. I don’t want to see any of my friends yet. I don’t want to talk about this. I’m gonna have to reevaluate a couple of things. I think I’m really getting a sense of what my life is about now. I’m feeling real strong after throwing away all those drugs. I’ll show them…

Wait. Wait just one minute… My secret stash. My secret just-in-case-gram-hidden-in-the-holed-out-dictionary stash. I’ll just throw… No. No , I won’t throw away my coke. I’ll leave it there and never do it. That’ll show them. Yep, there it is. If I was really a junkie I wouldn’t be staring at it right now, I’d be snorting it.