Jessica Willis – on going into detox.

Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Easter, 2000

Dear Bill:

So this is the night that Jesus (a) got a last name and (b) performed the miracle that every boozer and drugger can relate to, or strive for:

He got up.

March has been a wonderful month. I know that the last time you saw me I was in a blackout and my face was all cut up. I assume I was screaming blue murder and, well, I’m sure you know that it got worse very quickly, especially after I started doing dope again. February ended with me and Mink on a death drive – an argument all over the Back Bay that had us stopped going the wrong way and then arrested for possession of heroin and needles; Mink and I made up in the back of the cruiser, we kissed our last while handcuffed; I wonder if I was the only one to know how bittersweet it tasted, since Mink was way more fucked up than me…after sitting it out in a cage for a few hours and finding nary a cute vignette to sum it up, I surrendered and the night moved on to me sobbing in my father’s arms in the police station (cue strings) and concluded with me sobbing into my step-brother-in-law Jackie’s sweatshirt (my gap-toothed goomba restaurateur-of-Revere savior) after being arraigned in Roxbury and ordered to reappear in late March. Jackie was flanked by another little goomba with struggling hair plugs, gold rings, and a whiffy White Owl clamped in his fingers, and he was saying “Whatsamatter Jessie? You ain’t feelin’ too good? Let’s go to detox, hah?” And then a ride in a new black SUV to a Westboro tox – no I.D., no $, just the clothes I was arrested in, Cate’s suede coat, and three packs of Marlboros to my name.

In I went, Guinevere in dirty braids, defamed, deluded, devirgined, into the nunnery.

It’s okay, Bill. I was sick of everyone saying “you don’t need to be drunk and high for us to enjoy hanging out with you.” What they – the rockers, the publicists, the dominatrices, the grade-C fashion models, the ersatz hangers on – didn’t know was that I needed to be loaded in order to find THEM interesting.

In that freebie detox, it was wake up every morn at 5:45 for a little cup of methadone, humpin’ around with a floor full of equally dirty women – wild-eyed with blown-out pupils, scuffy slippers, chipped polish, crunchberry cereal, movie nites – twin mattresses wrapped in plastic for people who pee their beds at nite, so they sounded and felt like Dorito bags when you rolled over in them. And smoking bummed Newports – borrowing clothes from whores cuz they were pregnant and they didn’t fit into them no more.

From the detox I came here to Pittsfield to visit my Mum, and I ended up getting Section 35-ed to a psych ward, Jones II Psychiatric, where I learned how to sneak smokes in the bathroom and keep my bed in the upright position while I slept, courtesy of the fruitily-named Ambien, some queer opiate. I spent the days reading Emerson (“For I am weary of the surfaces and die of inanition”), working with the sonorously voiced Dr. White who insisted on doing T’ai Chi moves with me as part of my therapy, and crushing the other patients in games of ping-pong, me in cut-off sweats and Laura Ashley scarf worn Big Chief/Let’s Get Physical-style, my boobs flying under a soiled Hanes tee. (There was a gift cart on the ward that had a mound of teddy bears. When you punched them or kicked at them they would start playing “Livin’ La Vida Loca.” If you think about it, that’s pretty tempting, and stupid.)

Twelve days later I came here, to Keenan House, to a wild crew of friends I always had – other losers – Nazi Kirk with a sexy scar and glassy baby blues, a sweet dumpling of a man. There’s Brian, with unfortunate port wine stains on his neck, and a dolorous expression. Kecia, beautiful, gap-toothed, swingy cheerleader hair, a heart thinned to near-collapse by cocaine; Johnny Perez, a shrugging gorgeous beast who drives an oil truck w/ a Marlboro between his good teeth. Mi gente. My people.

All the clothes on my back are borrowed, or donated to us thru Christian organizations.

I died with Mink that nite, 2/28, choking on those hideous heroin sobs (don’t ever try to cry on junk, it doesn’t work), both of us sniveling over our poor lost families. “We were just little kids!” I wailed and waited for what would certainly come next – and moments later, handcuffed behind the grille in the cruiser, I started to breathe again. I was alive, angry, and in terrible pain.

I love Mink. I’ll not see him again. To watch him play the guitar, to bury his face in his hand as the Les Paul begged for more, Bill – I can’t be with him. He doesn’t get it. He’ll try to beat the system, and pretend, for as long as he can, that it’s possible to shoot dope and piss clean for our P.O. Still, I am glad to be a felon. Kissing my love goodbye in the back of the cruiser while we were both handcuffed was so beautiful. I recommend the experience. It is to know true freedom.

Except he wasn’t really my boyfriend. He was on loan.

So this is what I have been for the past few weeks: a resident at a halfway house, a very clean, cool, tightly run outfit, with a super kitchen – I cook all the time, getting zaftig again. Without the waif powder I can’t be anything but a big old girl. Which is probably a good thing, considering what I looked like when I was hauled in; all scabbed up, a hundred pounds soaking wet, falling out of leather chaps and a sweaty silk shirt unbuttoned to reveal an old-lady chest.

Now I’m jumping with excitement about being clean again, writing again, not breakin’ my fuckin’ face. There’s so much inside. I mean, I’ve got another chance. I’m bursting full with stories – all the delicious things I’ve seen, said; and Pittsfield, so sweet, sad, cheap – we walk it every day – gutted Florsheim shoe stores, dying incense and beanie baby marts where smart sporting goods stores used to be on the now-empty North St., toothless retards waiting for a bus, rat-faced inbred fellas with wiry bodies, polar-bear-sized lesbians in fleecy pullovers giving big hugs that make me giddy.

It has been a glorious year, one of the best. Everything is changing, Bill – everything, and in that there is joy. For me.

Once more, with feeling,

Jessica