Now You See Me

In my last story, I wrote a haiku for the Time Capsule Challenge titled, “Sight and Understanding.” Here, I’d like to add to that haiku for the purpose of further explaining the meaning of it, creating a new poem.

-

Hidden mementos

A closet of shadows, bare

Breathe me in again

Inhale, exhale

Taste my memory

-

So what does this mean exactly? Well… here’s the story…

In 2013, I was living on my own in a bachelor apartment. I routinely met up at my colleagues’ house after work to relax and smoke marijuana. One late November night, when we were outside smoking a joint, my friend noticed her friend cross the street. With a shout, she caught his attention and he walked toward us with excitement. His face lit up with a wide grin. His name was Justin. He was dapper, he had the most attractive blue eyes, and had a hint of a British accent.

After a short conversation and before a parting of ways, we all agreed to go out to the bar sometime for drinks and dancing. When the time came to follow up on this, we drank way too much, and Justin and I found ourselves outside of the bar, lip-locked and looking for more.

I was embarrassed. My apartment was messy. I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t want to take him home, but I wanted to go home with him.

We went to the next best place, which was apparently his friend Charles’ house. Charles is an older man, well known in the community, and fairly accomplished. Justin and I were both in our 20’s, and Charles in his 40’s. The introduction to Charles was awkward. We went into his bedroom, and it felt like, by the way the conversation was going, that the two of them were a little more than just friends. They subtly hinted at a threesome. I was confused, and didn’t want anything to do with that, so we said goodnight to Charles and migrated to the living room, where we turned off the lights and laid on the couch together.

We were alone…and having sex. There was a loud bang, which I later found out was us knocking over some of Charles’ expensive stereo equipment…and breaking it. A feeling of no longer being alone soon followed. I saw, standing there on the other side of the room, a figure in the dark…watching us. It could only be Charles. It made me so uncomfortable that I put a pin in our action, and the embarrassment I felt over my messy bachelor, faded away.

So we went there, and started dating after that.

We dated for 3 months. Justin was insatiably charming. Full of laughter, well mannered, intelligent and enrolled in University courses, studying calculus and science. He had dreams of becoming a helicopter pilot. His own father inspired him, having been a mechanic who worked on them. We bonded over TV shows like “Dr. Who,” and “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia.” Some of my favourite shows to date.

For Valentine’s Day, he gave me a golden box decorated with hand-cut red heart snowflakes and a red and gold ribbon — filled with chocolates he hand-made with his Mom, and a letter professing his love to me with many hearts drawn on the envelope. It was the sweetest thing. He had officially reeled me in. I was his.

After about a month in, it was clear to me he had an alcohol addiction, but he revealed to me that he had a drug addiction. He said he smoked crack from time to time. Over the course of our relationship, he slowly fed me lies in order to keep me. Once a month became once a week. Once a week became almost daily. Soon, I was aware of just how much his addiction had consumed him, and there was little I could do to help.

On February 26th, 2014, we were at his parents’ house, where he still lived. We were watching the house while his parents vacationed in Jamaica. He invited a friend over, who brought a friend, and together we had some drinks. Everything felt calm and lively. After some time, his friends decided to pack it in for the night.

Soon after they left, he got on the phone with his drug dealer. I started bawling my eyes out, begging him not to go, down on my knees in the middle of the kitchen floor…sobbing and pleading uncontrollably. He stopped for a minute and looked at me, laughing. Then the door slammed shut. I had never felt such hurt and turmoil before, and that was saying something…having come out the other side of my own very complicated battle with mental health.

When he came back, he rushed downstairs to the basement bathroom to get his fix.

When he returned upstairs, it was so clear to me how invisible he made his addiction and how he was able to function with his high going unnoticed.

As uncomfortable as the circumstances made me, I laid beside him and we cuddled on the couch together, with the company of the TV in the background. He confessed, “I think I use alcohol as a cover for my drug addiction.”

“No shit,” I thought. It was nice to hear that he was finally coming to this realization.

I don’t remember how it escalated, I just remember feeling unsafe. But, we argued to the point of me locking myself in one of the spare bedrooms. I was scared shitless that he was going to come through on his threats and beat the door down. I should have called the cops the moment he laughed at me and slammed that door shut. I was afraid to call them because he had just served weekends in jail for bad behaviour. I didn’t want to feel remorse for putting him there for a more permanent amount of time.

From inside the room, I called a cab. Once I knew the cab was outside, I burst through the bedroom door and exited the front one, not even looking back. Tears streamed down my face as I piled inside and told the cab driver, “Just go.”

When I got home, I called Justin on the phone. I continued to cry and we continued to argue. We hung up on each other and called each other back several times…but eventually, he wouldn’t pick up. Just dead silence.

After crying myself to sleep and waking up with a crunchy face and tired eyes, I decided to give him some time to let the dust settle. I gave him a couple days to think, but when I called him back, still no answer. I checked in with Charles, and his friend that joined us for drinks — nothing from them either. That was weird…if he wasn’t talking to me, he was most certainly talking to Charles.

I went back to his house. All of the curtains were drawn. The only window I could remotely see through was the front door window, so I rolled the organics cart over to the door and climbed on top to peer through the glass. I could see beer bottles scattered all over the place, nothing was touched at all, which was odd considering he usually disposed of the evidence right away. Maybe it was because he knew his parents were out of town for a guaranteed amount of time, he was in no rush to hide signs of his addiction.

I went to his friend’s house and we chatted about our concerns. We agreed to meet at Charles’ to call the cops together.

It was late at night when we all gathered in Charles’ bedroom. The three of us sat on the bed and agreed, that before we called the cops, it was poignant to call his brother first, the only other person we knew of that had keys to the house. So we called, and caught shit from the other end.

“Why are you bugging me at this hour of the night, asking me to go check on him?”

We didn’t understand how cruel this person could be, dismissing our collective concern. So we did call the cops, and they sent someone over to take a look.

About half an hour to forty minutes later, the anxiety reached an all-time high as we heard a loud knock at the door. It was two police officers, letting us know that Justin’s brother had found him, dead and lying in a pile of his own vomit.

Our entire world shattered. I screamed and fell to the floor, with Charles to break my fall. I shouted, “No!” on repeat and began to rock myself like I had gone crazy, as if the motion would actually soothe me in the moment. My reaction felt like an Oscar worthy performance. It felt so cinematic and surreal. I couldn’t think, I could only feel completely gutted.

I moved myself to the bathroom and sat on the toilet seat in the dark. I just needed to be alone with my feelings so I could gather my thoughts. I was grateful that I wasn’t alone, that someone else was able to give the cops a statement. I could hear Charles talking to one of the officers, and could see him scribbling on his notepad through the crack of the doorway. After the cops left, Charles had the audacity to pull me aside and confess to me that he indeed had a close(er) relationship with Justin. A 6 month relationship, where all the while he enabled Justin’s addiction. He told me that he forked over a total amount of over $75,00 over the course of their courtship and that they tried to have sex and didn’t because it was, “too big.” At this point, I was both gutted and infuriated.

In the days leading up to his death, he gave me a CD of a movie he ripped called, “Now You See Me,” with the title of the movie written in his handwriting. It was simply a film with a plot that suited him, but to me, it was like a cryptic message telling me, “Now you fully understand who I am and how hard it was to be me.”

It has taken me years to wrap my head around what happened. I am continuously trying to understand what it’s like to have such an intense physical addiction, and I continue to try to understand why Justin was taken from this world and not given the chance to recover.

So there’s one thing I do whenever I think of him. I bring his handwriting to light, re-read his love note, re-visit all of the things he left behind for me…and breathe him in again.