Suspension

“Can you close the window? I want to talk to you,” my mom said.

Oh god, here it comes, now I’m really going to get it. “What about?” I challenged, hoping my thirteen-year-old rage bit her. “I don’t feel like talking. I’m gonna puke!” I stuck my head further out the window just to piss her off. The wind snapped my frizzy hair, twisting and twirling the mess into an unmanageable mat; I lapped up the fresh air as if I were a caged dog. 

I hadn’t been the one to barf in math class, but the combination of cigarettes and booze left my stomach churning. I just wanted to sit in the backseat, to be left alone, but my motion sickness had me leaning hard against the passenger door. I had a sudden urge to pull on the door handle and fling my body onto the freeway. I pictured rolling down the freeway as if I were a bale of hay tumbling faster and faster until every strand of straw had scattered - disappeared from sight.

Her voice startled me. “You know I drank a lot too when I was your age, maybe a little older,” she stated, as if getting suspended in 8th grade for boozing it up was in our blood, our rite of misery.

“I don’t care what you did.”  The last thing I wanted was to hear stories about her childhood. We were nothing alike.

“You’re not in trouble. Tomorrow, we can go out to lunch or shop.”

 I squeezed my eyes tight. Shut up, just shut up. Shut the fuck up! I wished I had powers: to silence people, to transport myself, to not be unhappy, but my only magic trick was invisibility. 

We drove the rest of the way back to San Francisco in silence. I fumed along the Golden Gate Bridge, pouted as she handed the toll collector three quarters, hiccupped when she took the Lombard street off-ramp, and bit the inside of my lip all the way up Lyon street. By the time she took a left onto Green Street, I was livid. I had my door open before she completely stopped the car. 

“Anne, wait,” she called, “I’m going to the market. Do you want anything?”

“No.” I slammed the door and headed into the house. I ran up the stairs into my big third-floor bedroom, having been freed the previous year from the tiniest room in the house—the washroom with a sink deep enough to take a bath. I dropped down onto my bed and sobbed. We had lamb chops for dinner; my dad and brother loved them. The topic of school was not on the menu.

The house was too quiet the next morning. I sat alone at the kitchen table swirling milk into my oat flakes making a gloopy mess. I had to get the hell out of the house before my mother dragged me shopping. I couldn’t face yet another chubby section of a department store. I’d hold my breath zippering the pants around my ever-expanding middle, refusing to look at myself in the mirror, so glad to be safe from nosy eyes on the other side of the dressing room. I felt ugly and humiliated. Just as I’d try and wriggle out of the pants, my underwear caught in the tangle of material, some perky size-two saleswoman would unfurl the curtain without any announcement. She’d look me up and down, and with her sing-song disgust she’d ask, “how can I help you dear.” No, I wasn’t going anywhere with my mother. 

I grabbed the receiver off the hook and dragged it back to the table; the long curly cord whipped around the kitchen floor like an angry snake. I started dialing everyone from my class who’d been suspended. Somebody had to be home. “Hi, is Lisa home?” I asked in my sweetest tone. I heard a woman call out, “Lisa, telephono.” I tapped my foot nervously waiting then began kicking the underside of the table until I knocked over my glop of oat flake mush.

“Hi. Who is this?” Lisa asked.

“It’s Anne, what’s up? I called everybody else; they were all grounded. They weren’t even allowed to talk on the phone. I didn’t get into trouble at all. Did you?” I knew I sounded nervous.

“My parents are away; I’m home alone. Come over. I have something fun we can do.” 

I was relieved Lisa was talking to me. She was so cool and pretty. Already in the 9th grade, she was the “It Girl.”  I wished I was tall and thin like Lisa with straight hair and had cute smatterings of light brown freckles on my face. 

I had no idea where my mom was, but out I went, walking through the Presidio Heights and over to Lisa’s. I rang the bell, a woman in a smock opened the door and stared at me. “Where’s Lisa?” I asked. She pointed towards a big staircase and said, “she’s upstairs.” I rushed past her taking the steps three at a time. Lisa stood in her bedroom doorway looking like a model out of Seventeen Magazine; she yanked me inside and shut the door.

 “Wanna drop mescaline?” she asked. In her palm, two pale-orange barrel shaped pills.

“I thought it was a cactus?” 

Lisa laughed at me, making me feel like an idiot. Before I said anything else stupid, “Yes!” flew out of my mouth. I didn’t worry that I’d never taken psychedelics, or that I wasn’t sure that’s what they even were. I plucked the pill out of her hand, popped it in my mouth, and  swallowed it down without any water.

“Great, let’s go,” Lisa sang out after downing hers. She held my hand as we scrambled outside. “This way into the Presidio. It’s the best place to trip.” We headed down the hill, jumping over the stone wall that led into Julius Kahn playground. After walking for twenty minutes, I said, “I don’t feel any different.”  My voice sounded weird and echoey, a blurry spectrum of colors flowed from my hands. I could make a trail of rainbows with my fingers. I burst into laughter, dropped down on my knees, then flopped flat on my back and stared up at clouds. I heard Lisa buzzing around and around. 

We skittered all over the woods, doubling over in hysterics when we saw anyone. Their bodies appeared wavy and distorted, weird sounds escaped from their too big mouths. We’d run from them screaming in glee. We must’ve looked nuts. I don’t know how long we walked, but we ended up at Baker Beach. It was getting cold; we huddled together on a log. I couldn’t stop scooping up handfuls of sand, mesmerized by the sound the grains made slipping between my fingers. Neither of us had thought to bring food or water, and we had maybe a few bucks between us. 

“I’m still so fucked up, but maybe we should head back.” Lisa’s voice sounded like tinkling glass.

“Let’s go smell the ocean. Come on, home? I don’t want to go back there,” I pleaded, wanting to hang out with Lisa forever, but she stood up and started walking away, so I followed.

Once we were out of the Presidio and back on the streets, I felt weird, so vulnerable. I wanted the tripping to stop. Houses breathed like accordions. My body was one big nerve. How could I go home? I’d get so busted, and I was already suspended, maybe this time I’d really get in trouble. Lisa and I hugged goodbye at the Presidio Gate, we held on to each other like we were best friends, but we really weren’t. We’d only spent this one day together, and I knew when we went back to school she’d be with her pack. And go back to ignoring me. We parted ways with a quick hug, and I trudged home alone, dreading who I might encounter there. 

I tiptoed in the front door, quietly closing it behind me, and grabbed one of my schoolbooks from the table in the hall. I held it open and pretended I was reading, covering my face and eyes. I knew I looked stoned.

“Where are you going?” my mom asked, catching me trying to sneak past her and up the stairs to my bedroom. I hadn’t seen her. My vision was whacky, letters danced and slipped off the page of the book fronting my face. 

“Turn around and look at me.” I steadied myself on the banister, twirling around. I almost fell over. She walked up the stairs past me, turned and stared into me and pushed the book down.  “You don’t seem right; your eyes are glassy and red.” I turned and sidestepped up the stairs past her. There was no way I was going to talk to her, I had to keep going.

 “I don’t feel good. Maybe I’m getting a cold.” I rubbed my eyes and nose vigorously on my sleeve, then hid my face back behind the book. “I’m just going up to bed, to study. I don’t need anything.” I added, hoping she’d get off my ass.                

“By the way, you’re reading the book upside down.” 

Shit. I hurried up the stairs and shut myself in my room, covering my snickering behind the door. I thought I’d pop; I was the coolest. I’d kept it together. Then my mood switched, I started freaking out. What if my parents came in?  They’d have to see how fucked up I was. Then I’d really get it.  But I didn’t need to worry - no one checked in on me. 

I had enough of tripping, but I’d heard from a friend, who knew some guy, that The Raven on Polk Street was the place to buy Quaaludes. I had a few days left before I went back to school, maybe I’d go there tomorrow.  I flung myself on to my big bed, in my big room, on the third floor of my big house. Maybe, I really was invisible.

Anne Fedoroff’s journey towards adulthood was derailed by drugs as a teenager. Somehow, she managed to juggle addiction, high school classes, living at times on the streets of San Francisco, and acceptance into college. She managed to beat the odds by kicking drugs and had a long successful career as a registered nurse working in the field of neuroscience at a large teaching hospital. Anne is a skilled storyteller with a unique voice, who writes with unflinching candor and a wicked sense of humor; her writing is at once gritty, compelling, and, ultimately, inspiring.