No More No More

Sick.

By the time Aerosmith played Birmingham, Alabama (which was July second; I'd been on tour since June twelfth), I was done.  I was beat tired, with deep purple circles under my eyes, I was still sick, I was ghostly pale, and (according to everyone but Joe and––directly––Steven) I looked like shit.

        I took the next flight out of Alabama and went home.  Joe flew back with me.  Their next date was the fourth, in North Carolina.  I had waited for them to finish their show, and left the next morning.

        "So Steven and I were talking..." Joe begins.  I was nearly asleep, with my head on his shoulder, trying to make it through the flight.

        "Oh, God," I mutter.

        "Still good enough to be a smartass," he utters.  "Anyway, he... Brought up an, oh––interesting, maybe?––point."

        "About?" I ask, half asleep, when he doesn't continue

        "You."

        I peek an eye open, looking at him.  "Would you like to tell me this... Point?"

       "Well, it's about you being sick," Joe began.  I close my eyes, telling myself I'm sick.  Nothing more.  "He thinks you might... That you could maybe be... Um, maybe––"

        I cut him off with my hand.  Then I say stubbornly, "I'm not.  You know how I get when I'm sick."

        He puts his hands up in mock surrender.  "Okay."

        I nuzzle back into his neck and fall asleep for the rest of the ride.  I wake up in bed, alone.  It's dark out.  I turn over and try to fall back asleep.  I didn't hear from Joe until a few days later.

They were in Chicago, it was July tenth.  Every show was killer, except from when Steven and Joe would fight over tempo and volume and eventually... Me.  I learned this from Tom one night, when he called to see how I was.  It makes me feel good inside that they care.  I told him I was better, kinda, though it was an obvious lie.

        Joe snatched the phone from him.  "Annie!"

        "Joe!" I said with as much enthusiasm as I could.

        "July thirtieth!"

        "What?" I ask, confused.  He's probably just finished a show.

    "That's when we're coming home for a little," he explains.  Only twenty short days.  I've been sleeping a lot, which seems to make me feel better.  Then he groans.  "I'm not gonna ask that..." he says to someone.

        "Why not?" whoever he was talking to asked.

        "Because you're an ass," Joe said.  "Not let me talk to my gir–– Fiancée."  I could hear the little smirk in his voice.  The other guy he was talking to shut up real quick after that.  I bet it was Steven.  "How are you?"

        "Lonely," I say.  It's really lonely down here with no one to make me soup.  I'm not hungry anyway.  I've been in bed ever since I woke up after flying home.

        "What do you think it is?" Joe asks, meaning, why are you so sick?

        "I dunno," I say thoughtfully.  I'd like to know why I'm sick, so I can get rid of it.

        "Here's a thought," Steven says angrily on the other end, speaking to Joe, "why doesn't she go to the doctor?"

        "Would you go away?" Joe asked.  He sighed, speaking to me again: "Why don't you go to the doctor?"

        I chuckle, regretting it when it makes my stomach hurt.  "Yeah, right," I say sarcastically.  I act like a doctor: "Now, let's see what's wrong with you, Annie... Oh!  You've got half the world up your nose, your lungs are filled with Mary Jane, you're still a bit fucked up from the LSD, you're taking pills you don't need... Oh, what else?"

        "Okay, sorry," he says irritably, feeding off my irritated tone.  "It was only a suggestion.  I gotta go."

        "Okay, bye..." I say softly, feeling sorry already.

        "Bye."

        "I love yo––" I began, but the line was already dead.  He didn't even say it.

        I fell back to an uneasy sleep, and chose to actually get out of bed the next morning.  I took a shower, which felt kind of good, and then I started to make my way to the car.  An obvious thought had struck me while going down the stairs: it was about the conversation last night.  When I was acting like the doctor.  Maybe I'm dope sick.

        So, I trudged back up the steps and unlocked the door to the apartment, then I rummaged around in the drawers and found a little bit of the white powder.  Not nearly an amount I'd normally do, but I decided it'd have to work.  Just to try something.

        Okay, the dope didn't help, if anything, it made things worse.  The buzz?  Yeah, not so great when you're sick.  I thought my head was going to split in two, the headache that followed was so bad.  I swallowed my pride and went to the doctor's.

        I told the nurse exactly how I was feeling in absolute detail (as she'd asked).  She seemed very uninterested.  She hardly looked up from the clipboard where she was apparently jotting notes down.  She performs some experiments on me (just a creepy way to say I took some 'tests'), and begins to leave, adding, "Someone'll be back with results... Maybe it'll be me," in a very bored tone.

        I wait, trying to ignore the splitting headache and the fact that the room is spinning.  The door opened back up shortly afterwards.  A much, much kinder looking nurse stepped through the door.  She had short brown hair, straight, parted down the middle.  She didn't wear those weird Winnie the Pooh scrubs; they were simply lavender colored.  She greeted me with a smile:

        "Hello, Annie."  I smiled back in response.  "I understand you're sick?"

        "More or less," I say.  "I don't get sick a lot, but when I do it's bad," I add, feeling the need to explain myself.

        The nurse smiles sympathetically, like: Poor sap.  She reviews the papers she's holding.  "You're gonna be fine..."  Well, no shit.  "But––"  Ah, yes.  Always a 'but.'  "––in order to be fine, you're going to have to stop with the alcohol abuse."

        I sigh in relief.  Steven was wrong.  Joe was wrong.  I was right.  Believe it or not, I grin.  But, I haven't had a real drink in awhile... Since the night Joe proposed, at least.  I haven't really been drinking because, as mentioned, I'm sick.

        She takes my sigh as disappointment.  "That, and it seems you need to lay off the drugs as well, honey."

        I'm afraid I can't do that; not when the boys come back, I definitely won't.  I mean, I'm all out now so it shouldn't be a problem, but when they come to visit on the thirtieth... "For how long?"

        The woman frowns, looking worried.  "Is it just you?"

        "I'm sorry?"  Just me?  Like, am I the only one with drug abuse?  Am I all alone?  What?

        "Do you have a... A... Are you married?  Do you have a boyfriend?  Significant other?  Is what I'm trying to ask," she says, still concerned.

        "Engaged," I mutter, looking down at my left hand and feeling my cheeks burn.

     "Congratulations," she murmurs, taking some more notes on top of the other notes.  Why do doctors feel the need to take notes?

        "Um, you never answered my question," I say shyly.  She peers up at me.  "How long do I have to not... Not do anything?"

        "I'd recommend never doing it again and joining our rehab program," she says, "but you seem like a smart girl; able to make good decisions on most things... I'm assuming?"  I stare her down like answer the damn question.  She sighs again, giving me a once-over.  "Honey, I'd say... At least nine months."