Pronoun Problems: A Novel About Friendship, Transgender and (eventually) Ninjas

52 - What About The Fish?

Dr. Zadra was very pleased with my progress. "This is coming along beautifully!" he said as he gently moved my arm around while I sat shirtless on the exam table. Having not exercised for a while I had put on some weight and was a little self-conscious of my abdominal fat rolls.

"I don't mean to brag," he continued, "but I am God's gift to arthroscopic shoulder repair."

"You should put that on your business card," I said dryly.

"I just might." He made some notations in my file. "You can put your shirt back on." I was usually a T-Shirt guy, but now I wore button-downs because they didn't require me to reach over my head, which was still difficult.

"So, are you still experiencing acute pain?"

He asked the question offhandedly, without even looking up from the file, but unbeknownst to him I had spent an inordinate amount of time mentally preparing for this exact moment. Once a week, and sometimes twice, I had availed myself of Vicodin's delights. Each time, I increased the number of pills I was taking. The last time I had taken nine of them and consumed the better part of two bottles of wine.

Now, however, I was out of pills. But I didn't have to be. It all depended on my answer. A definitive yes would surely be rewarded with a refill of Vic while a no would be rewarded with not being saddled with a crippling chemical dependency.

It was a tough call.

Truly. It was.

After what must have seemed a bizarrely long pause I said, "Um, not really." This was the truth and I was proud of myself for having the fortitude to tell it. A part of me was still scheming to find a way to get more, but that was now impossible. It was a fait accompli.

"That's good," he said. I assumed that we had dispensed with that topic, but then he asked, "Is there any pain?"

I found myself hedging. "I mean... yeah... there's some, but..."

"I'll write you a prescription for more painkillers," he said, reaching for his pad.

"It's really not that bad," I protested half-heartedly.

"Well," he said, as he scribbled illegibly in blue ink, "it's better to have them and not need them, than to need them and not have them, right?"

I wanted to disagree, but his logic was flawless. "Uh, sure."

He tore off the top sheet and handed it to me. "Worse comes to worse, you can throw a hell of a party." He laughed.

One of the classic symptoms of someone with a substance abuse problem is that they hide what they're doing. Vodka bottles stashed in the back of a toilet tank, needles between the toes to conceal the puncture marks. Me? I was the exact opposite. I was completely open about what I was doing. Weirdly so. And everyone seemed to be cool with it. Weirdly so.

Samantha had suspected nothing before I come straight out and told her that I was mixing painkillers with alcohol. She registered disappointment, but not alarm. "Well, if that's what you feel you need..." And that mild rebuke was the the most negative reaction I got.

When I told Tammy about my Lost Weekend, she actually thought it was funny. Granted, I told the story in a funny way, but the details were objectively horrifying. And Tammy knew full well that this had become a regular thing. Yet it was all played off like it was completely normal.

What are you up to tonight, Aaron?

Hanging out with Vic.

Well, have fun you two!