The following is a transcribed account of a telephone conversation I shared with my mother - May 18, 2015.
Phone rings.
Incoming call.... MUM
“Allo Mum...”
“Mmmm.”
“Mum, you OK?”
“Nah, not really.”
“Why, what's wrong?”
“I'm pissing blood all over the place.”
“What do ya mean you're pissing blood all over the place?”
“Well I am! I've cut all my arms open!”
“You're pissed!”
“Yeah, and you're on HEROIN!”
“What's that gotta do with anything?”
“Well it's the same innit?”
“It would be if I phoned you up saying I'm pissing blood all over the place.”
“Yeah well I am! It's everywhere.”
“And what can I do about it? Why phone and tell me that?”
“Cause I thought you cared!”
“Even if I cared what the fuck could I do? It's obviously just to worry me.”
“yeah alright Shane! HEROIN!!! HEROIN!!! HEROIN!!! HER....”
“Mum Shut the.....”
“HEROIN!!! HEROIN!!! HEROIN ABUSER!!! HEROIN!!! Don't fuckin' like that do ya!”
“Jesus.....”
“Yeah, Jesus Christ, Superstar, walks like a woman and he wears a bra! Heard it all before.You don't care if I'm dying do ya?”
“If you're dying phone somebody else... someone nearer. By the time I've got through to England and got an ambulance you'll be dead. You're wasting precious time even now.”
“Nice Shane, nice! Well at least I now know who fucking cares!”
“If it was that serious you'd have bled out already.”
“What? Bled out??? You're fucking evil you are!”
“Yeah, it only takes a few minutes. What did you cut your wrists with? A spoon?”
“Er, yeah... alright Shane.... alright.....”
She was about to close the phone. She loves closing the phone. I beat her to it and cut the line before her.
Text Message.
Outgoing → Dan (brother)
Shane: Dan I've just had Mum on the phone, drunk, saying she's cut her wrists open. I told her to fuck off and killed the phone. X
Dan: She's been drunk everyday lately. Not sure what's up with her. Have made an effort to go and see her more but she just tells me not to bother. Do you think I should call. X
Shane: Yeah she phoned me drunk yesterday saying how lonely she is.... turning other peoples tragedy into her own. Yeah, you should probably phone just to be sure. But knowing her she'll not answer now so as we think she's dead. Let me know. X
Dan: Tried calling but she doesn't answer. Maybe she's sleeping it off.
Shane: Sleeping it off? Drinking it on more likely. I'll try.
Phone call outgoing → MUM: no reply
Phone call outgoing → MUM: no reply
Phone call outgoing → MUM: no reply
1hr later...
Phone call incoming → MUM
“Mum?”
“Yeah, allo.”
“So you're still alive then?”
“Yeah. I'm sorry Shane. I'm just so lonely.”
“We're all lonely mum.... half the world is lonely.”
“Yeah, but I'm here all alone.”
“That's no reason to phone me up over here and say you've sliced your wrists open.”
“Well I have.”
“Even so, why phone and tell me?”
“Well, you do the same Shane!”
“When have I ever done anything like that?”
“Well ya phoned up when that fucking Anne left ya!”
“I was upset. But I didn't say I was pissing blood all over the place.”
“It's the same fucking thing Shane!”
“How is it?”
“Well it is... what the fuck can I do if ya girlfriend's left ya!”
“I didn't ask for help. Just a voice.”
“Yeah, same thing!”
“OK. I'm not gonna argue. You should phone Dan.. he's probably worried.”
“Why the fuck would he be worried?”
“Dunno, but he is.”
“Ya aint fucking phoned Daniel 'av ya?”
“I tex'd him.”
“Shaaane! What did ya fucking tell 'im for!”
“He's a right to know if you're pissing blood mum... and he is closest to you. It's him who'll have the horror of finding your body.”
“Shane you're never gonna come home are ya”
“I've told ya I'll be home soon.”
“Yeah, Puggy thought that!”
“Well I'm not Puggy. I'll be home this summer.”
“Promise me.”
“I just said didn't I.”
“Shane, I miss you.”
“Mum, phone Dan.”
“Why should I? It's not your fucking phone bill is it!”
“It'll only cost about 10p.”
“Yeah 10p YOU'LL NOT BE PAYING!”
“Just phone him!”
“I might.... I might not.”
“Grow up Mum, you're 65.”
“Yeah, I'll grow up when you grow up!”
“God, are you for real? You should get back on the gear... the methadone at least.”
“Yeah, you'd fucking love that wouldn't ya! Then I could start sending you stuff again. 8 brown every fucking week then having ya give me the silent treatment when it's fucking late!”
“Or when you spend the money on crack and say the letter mustve got lost.”
“I've NEVER done that... NEVER!!!”
“Well you have, you admitted it last year.”
“Did I???”
“Yeah.”
“Well, only once Shane! You've done the same!”
“When have I ever.... leave it. Phone Dan, mum.”
“I will after I've mopped this blood up.... it's everywhere.”
“Are you still bleeding?”
“.....yeah...”
“Where?”
“My face.”
“Your face??? Thought you'd cut your arms open?”
“Yeah, well I socked myself in the face as well.”
“Oh well.”
“Nah I didn't really. My arms are bleedin.”
“Put some alcohol on them.”
“Are you being funny?”
“No. Alcohol is good for cuts.”
“You're being funny int ya?”
“No, I'm not. “
“Shane, I love you. You don't know how much I love you.”
“I love you too mum”
“Yeah bet ya can't wait till I'm dead though!”
“Why? You haven't got any money? What benefit would your death have for me?”
“Yeah that's nice. If I had a few bob ya couldn't get rid of me quick enough.”
“What's wrong with that?”
“How do you know I've not taken out life insurance to leave you and Dan with a few quid once I'm DEAD!”
“Have you?”
“No.”
“Well in that case, I want you to live.”
“I need to somehow stop this bleeding. Think I've some elastic bands in the fridge.”
“Why would you have elastic bands in the fridge?”
“Er... not the fridge... the cupboard... the drawer.”
“Oh. That makes more sense. But hows an elastic band gonna stop the bleeding?”
“Well don't they say on all them TV programs to tie the limb off?”
“That's normally for amputations or severe shark bites. The minimum requirement is a severed main artery. Is your artery severed?”
“By the amount of blood it is.”
“You'd be dead if it was.”
“Yeah, as you keep saying.”
“Mum, clean yourself up and phone Dan.”
“OK. I love you Shane.”
“I love you too, Mum.”
“Bye Shane.”
“Night night, Mum.”
- - -
A new Memoires post coming soon...
Based on a fictional conversation
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22 comments :
Harrowing stuff....
There's six in my family
Four of us are addicts
Thankfully we are all sober and clean
Well
Most of the time.... X
Hey Ruby... yeah, it wasn't nice when it happened, but the day after, as I began transcribing it, i couldn't stop laughing at the nonsense she had come out with. I lived with such stuff all my childhood up until 18... as it shows, I've no sympathy for it anymore. We still must be careful though, as between hundreds of false attempts and cries for attention she has also made three very serious suicide attempts. Last time (apart from this year) that she drank was over 12 years ago. X
ps: Christmas and New Year must've been fun! X
Don't you know it
We were cleaning out our garage today
Found so many old photos of us in various states of inebriation
Some funny
Some not so much
But yes
Christmas and new year and St. Patrick's day were a wash out (I'm Irish) x
Dan: Tried calling but she doesn't answer. Maybe she's sleeping it off.
Shane: Sleeping it off? Drinking it on more likely. I'll try.
I feel guilty saying it - but I loved this!
I mean you don't have to change a word and it's a brilliant short story.
Like all the best stuff it's funny and sad at the same time and it's funniest when it's saddest.
Anyone reading this not knowing either of you or your writings will be shocked. But knowing the fictional characters of you both (because even autobiographical writing is fictional - Gore Vidal called his autobiography 'a tissue of lies') it all seems very in character!
It most reminds me of that video of you and your mother talking. You could tell from that you were being more polite than would have been the case had drink been added to the recipe.
It is of course sad that she is back on the drink again after so long.
It happened a month ago so I presume she survived.
Still drinking?
Hey Joe... Yes, I absolutely agree about fiction never being truthful. I always say that it's 'emotionally honest', that it really represents how I feel and what I remember feeling, but the moment as a writer you begin creating atmosphere, writing it up in a certain way, then you are dictating what you want readers to get from that. Any text, no matter what one, I could write, with the same facts, in at least five different ways: tragi-comedy, existential, nostalgic, outright tragedy, kitchen-sink, etc etc... I choose what to emphasize and what to highlight, what to fade away into the background or leave out altogether. And even if I were to write up just the bare facts (I wouldn't as that is not writing, but if I did) it still would be a very subjective truth. You put five people, all in the same room, all on the same sofa for an evening, and have them write up what went on; they will all record different accounts, with different heroes and villains, and even the facts will vary considerably. But you're a writer and so you understand that stuff. So, for me, honesty comes through purely in what I want to express as a writer, my own morality and thoughts on this life I lead and the world I lead it in. For me those things are so much more important than the actual story. And where non-fictional writing isn't honest, not in the way people imagine it is, it's also true that often fictional writing is the most truthful. That's where many writers can reveal great secrets and maybe shameful thoughts and practices via an independent character. And many writers have written great autobiographical stuff in that way: Bukowski using Henry Chinaski; John Fante using Arturo Bandini... Burroughs wrote through William Lee, and absolutely irrelevant to all of that, in the words of the Great Abigail Winthrope, "Babs used to recline on a chaise lounge dictating her masterpieces (producing one every 2 weeks), a poodle in her lap and a monocled lesbian secretary on a hard seat by her side taking it all down by hand."
I think mum is back on the drink for very specific reasons. You may remember that I wrote in a comment a good while back that she has been having a tremendous feud with her downstairs neighbour (he's had her arrested (she's never been charged); has reported her multiple times to the housing trust; is menacing towards her, etc. I think she has had enough and wants a move and they put her on a band D, which means she'll be lucky to get a move in her lifetime. After cutting all her arms open she went to the doctors and social services and said it was due to the neighbour and all the problems and stress. She also ended in hospital on Christmas day (that was awful. when we had no word from her, anyone, on christmas day, we were sure my brother would find her dead in the flat. He thought she was. She was on the floor, unconscious and pale, but then his girlfriend saw the empty alcohol bottles upended in the bin and it made a little more sense. That was the first time we found out she was drinking again.) Anyway, this month she has suddenly been moved to a band A and she had news of an empty flat just yesterday and so it seems she'll get a move within the next months. So I think maybe the drinking was in part to do with that... and in part because she really is quite lonely there. It's still nothing like it was before, as in the meantime she has phoned me sober five times and only the once did I detect the slur of alcohol in her voice. So fingers crossed she doesn't go back there again, as I wouldn't see her surviving long in that state after all she's already put her body through. X
Hi shane,
As always, I feel slightly bad for finding it funny while it is so heartbreaking at the same time.
So good to find some new posts from you, I hope you are well
Vee xxx
I remember about the bad neighbour. It's great news that she's probably getting a new place to stay. I know from experience that there's nothing worse than having a bad home environment – if you hate your job you can go home and get away from it but if home is the hated thing then there's no escape.
There are jokey TV programs over here about Neighbours From Hell. But it's no joke. Though like everything else (e.g arm-slashing) you could make a comedy musical about it - which doesn't negate the seriousness of course - see Mel Brooks' Springtime for Hitler, the spoof musical in The Producers.
Sad that she had to go to such extremes to get the authorities to see sense. I think the fact that she's given up drink before for 12 years proves she can do it so probably will again.
Re: MS Winthrope – I keep trying to block her from my internet outlets but her minions (sacked paedo priests mostly who became computer experts in jail) keep unblocking. She is furious at your 'disgraceful literary matricide! If a mother can't use attempted suicides (real or fake) as a weapon against her son (or nephew) what can she use? And what would all you writers do without fucked up mothers! You'd be leading happy boring normal lives that's what. YOU OWE US!'
She ends with the usual Biblical crap:
"Matthew 15:4 - For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death”.
'Take Heed!'
PS - I've taken to calling Abigail Winthrope (Mrs) 'MS' because it Really Annoys Her!
She especially hates getting 'Cease and Dessist' letters from lawyers addressed to MS. A Winthrope.
'The postman will think I'm some sort of fucking lefty Dyke!'
It's the little moments of revenge that make life worth while...
Hey again Shane- your Mum's neighbour is still at it? That's been going on a long time hasn't it- I remember back when I was homeless in the b&(not)b her having problems with him. Is she on homeswapper? There must be a way to get her rehoused, surely? The recovery partnership have a housing person who can help people move if it will help them stop drinking etc...maybe she could try there if there's one locally?
I hope she finds somewhere soon. Or he's evicted. X
Look at me not reading the whole comment. Really glad she's in band A. I hope the move happens soon for her.
Hey Vee.... it's been going on almost ten years and there's so much history now that it's way too long to even type up. Half the problem is that it's just each of their words against the others and with no proof the Housing Trust aren't even so sure that it's my mum who is the victim. He has put in complaints about racism towards her, and knowing her as I do, she is not racist but often says stuff that could be construed as racist... or what one could think refers to ethnicity. Often she doesn't even realise it. For example, the housing officer would be around and she'd say: "Yeah, and he's down there in the summer with that big fucking hairy back of his and I have to fucking watch it all day!" If he was white caucasian it'd not be a problem, but he is Iranian. That he's racist himself means nothing. This has been going on even since I was there. He never pulled any crap then as I'd not have put up with it, but just after I left, he called a certain dealer who used to come around a 'black cunt' Unfortunately he picked the wrong dealer, a real wild cat called Ace (same dealer who slapped my hat off one day when I followed). Anyway, Ace attacked him and threatened to kill him. That he never phoned the police (as he has done multiple times since) probably just showed how scared he was. He's had my mother arrested three times, held overnight, but released without charge. The police have warned him that next time, if he phones with no proof or independent witnesses, it'll be him they arrest. He hasn't phoned since. But I think over the last 18 months the Housing Trust have realised it is more him than my mother and it has also come to light that he has a history of mental illness and violence (towards women). When men choose victims like that I never believe it is a mental illness. Mental illness is indiscriminate in who it directs violence towards. When violence is weighed up and only directed towards someone smaller, weaker, who one knows will be intimidated.... that isn't mental illness. That's the opposite: that's sanity... a bully at his most calculating worst. I think she'll get a move pretty soon now. XxX
Hey Joe... not sure if it's intentional, but the MS. A Winthrope is a great choice as if you've not noticed it reads as Misa... so our mutual friend gets a little reference too. It reminds me of Jab'm... John Aaron Baptiste Mcm'anus. We came up with that together if you remember. X
Well Winthrope will always be (Mrs) but I never noticed the MS A /Misa thing. I'm sure I was the one who came up with that nickname for him - but I don't really like it now!
I remember the John Aaron Baptiste Mcm'anus thing - but I can't remember who came up with what. I know that Aaron is to do with Elvis (Presley) and McManus is for Declan McManus (ie Elvis Costello, he of the famous glasses). But I can't remember where Baptiste came from.
Ah, melodramatic drunkenness. All the stories about me is a big factor in what made me stop drinking large amounts, for the most part - only a handful of occasions since moving to Las Vegas. Used to drink to get really drunk on almost every drinking occasion.
shane, i think because you told me a bit about your relationship with your mum (truly, only a bit), when i read this piece although there was certainly caring and concern for your mum, i ended up cackling all the way through it. the statements made by someone drunk and the responses made by someone, in a very logical way. you saying that you did love her and care about her but so far away, physically, that if mum was bleeding out, no, you wouldn't be the one to call first. it was also hilarious how someone who had previously been addicted to heroin (if i understand correctly) kept throwing that at you, in her drunken state. i don't know if that was meant to hurt you, but if it was, i hope it didn't. the type of conversation you could only have with someone who was drunk, if you were as well. i've had a couple of alcoholics in my life who were given to flights of fancy, but, as with your mum's tale about bleeding out, having them phone me and tell me about horrid things that may or may not have been happening, perhaps because it wasn't my mum, i chose not to deal with that type of drama. great sadness in that i can feel your mum's loneliness and i also don't care for her living situation and am ever so pleased that that will be changing soon.
~
what i found interesting is that in your interview in honeysuckle, you worry not about your own health and how your heroin usage has affected your health in a number of small ways that do add up, but, you would like your mum to stop drinking again because of the damage she's done to herself through the years and you don't want to see her die relatively young. i have to say, do you not think that your mum, dan, and so many others might care the same way about you and would like to see you stop using so that you don't die young?
~
although it's actually quite sad how this conversation came about (to me), you wrote about it so hilariously, that, as i said above, while reading it, i couldn't stop cackling.
Hey Cindy... I wouldn't like my mother to stop drinking because of the physical damage it may cause her but because it turns her into a monster and someone very unpleasant to be around. If drink made her an even better person and made her really happy with herself then it'd not be my place to wish anything for her or be selfish because I wanted more of her. Her happiness and mental state is all that concerns me and she is even more miserable when drunk, dangerous, depressed and a liability to everyone around her. But even with all of that, I have said before, I would still prefer my other drunk and young and alive rather sober and old and dying. Everything affects our health in some way. Breathing city air shortens our lives and encourages certain diseases... working in dusty building sites too... cleaning products, etc... eating fatty foods and sugar. But many of these things, although they take away, they also give a lot and people want to do them to have some self worth or just for pleasure. If alcohol was the same (and it is for many drinkers who do not go completely off the rails) then I'd not want them to stop even if it meant having a few more years of them. So anyone who would have wanted me to stagger on wounded and hurting and not enjoying life rather than medicate myself and be relatively at ease, I think that would have been a very selfish desire. Because the truth is, if i'd have given them what they wanted they'd not have gotten more but less life outta me. For as long as i struggled on i would have been depressed and no sort of person to be around.. would have been reclusive and no fun at all. So they would have lost so much more trying to preserve my future years. X
Hey Eyelick... God, alcohol is without doubt the most socially harmful substance there is. Not for everyone, but for the vast majority (whether they reckon so or not). It's very insightful how the only substance that prisons go out there way to control is alcohol! Heroin, oxys..; coke, crack... marijuana.. are all rife in every prison, and yet, the only legal poison is the one they have a no tolerance policy over. Why? because it causes severe social problems and violence within the jail... and has even been associated with a high percentage of suicides. X
thank-you, shane. i do now understand where you're coming from about your mum and you, as well. if you'll be kind enough to bear with me, shane. i love your writing and i will catch up on all of it eventually. but i do have some difficulty reading about certain things. in one way, your writing has me understanding my husband better (nine years after he died). in another way, it has me examining my wants/needs/expectations of him and whether they were fair for me to have. for me, there is "good" ron and then there is "bad" ron. the "bad" ron does include his alcoholism and drug use. it was "bad" ron, drunk or using, that was the abusive, controlling person in my life and the who didn't care if we, including our two children, even had a place to live or food to eat. he preferred to spend money on alcohol and drugs. then, add into it that i've looked at it over the nine years since he's been dead and realized i had a "saviour complex" (not that that means i thought very highly of myself, because his verbal abuse made sure i didn't feel good about anything i was doing in life) and of course, i also realized that i couldn't save him from his alcoholism or drug usage, only he could, and he very clearly didn't want to. would it be fair for me to say that we should never have been in a long term relationship when i couldn't deal with his drinking and drug usage and the price the children and i paid because he wouldn't stop? if he had been a happy drunk and happy drug addict who could well afford his habits, while all of us still had a roof over our heads and food to eat, i may have been able to deal with it better. i wanted solely "good" ron. unfair of me, yes, but would you not say it was unfair of him too? that out of our 11 year relationship, he got what he wanted, but i got nothing that i wanted and actually lost a lot because of it?
shane, i do totally agree with you and your response to eyelick. even though i don't smoke pot myself, i told both of the teens that if they were going to choose between alcohol and pot, to choose pot. i have seen more individual lives and families destroyed by legal alcohol use than i have by pot, for sure, and i'd have to say any other drug as well.
Cindy... try 2...
”he preferred to spend money on alcohol and drugs.”
Maybe he didn't prefer spending his money on drugs and alcohol? Maybe even with the greatest of intentions he just couldn't stop drinking. That's often what addiction is: a habit one continues with against ones desire – against logic, promises, etc... You do it even when it's making you unhappy, when it's killing you and destroying your family... It's not often that the addict prefers it... 'Its that he/she cannot not do it ,even against his own desire. I don't know your ex old man's case, but I bet he never drank because he wanted to hurt you and destroy the family. If there was a Good Ron then I know he didn't because every drunk starts of sober. So his drinking was to drown out some personal demons and an undesired consequence of that was it affected everyone else around. The problem is that substances are not guided smart missiles; they take out not only the intended target (emotion) but other similar targets (emotions) as well. Alcohol is one of the most indiscriminate substance missiles, and while it takes out that part of someone which allows them to forget or be less anxious and more bold, it also takes out many similar parts of the brain which can also make the person reckless, wild, abusive, etc. With my mother it went even further than me thinking of her as Good Mum and Bad Mum. Alcohol affected her to such an extent that I never (and still don't) see the drunk and sober person as the same. My mother wasn't the same person when she was drunk. Everything from her physical appearance to the way she spoke and walked changed. The two had nothing whatsoever to do with each other.
and of course, i also realized that i couldn't save him from his alcoholism or drug usage, only he could, and he very clearly didn't want to.
This is another thing, maybe he did want to... Maybe his greatest internal struggle was to stop but he couldn't? It's where conventional rehab does so much damage, telling the loved one's that the addict always has that power over his addiction and that if he doesn't get clean then it means he doesn't care or want it enough. That's bullshit. As I said above: that's what addiction often is – keeping up a habit that you don't want and is damaging , even killing you because you can't stop. Its true only the user can stop, but its not true that they have any power over when that will be. They are as much a slave to the addiction as those around them. When an addict finally does stop... After years of promising it and wanting it and trying, they will be just as perplexed as to why that time they managed where they never could before.
I don't know the details. I don't know if he was like that when you met or if it began some time into the relationship. I'm sure even if he was a drinker when it started you had no idea how that would eventually effect you or you'd not have gone on with it. The future is a mysterious place and we cannot not go on with things for fear of the worst. If you did know how he was and willing bore children into that then it is a joint responsibility. But as I'm sure he never willingly wanted to cause you harm, if you did bear children into that it wasn't to cause them any damage. And it's easy to tell someone that they should be more responsible and have put the children first and have got out of there, but unfortunately life doesn't work like that. Adulthood is not this place of great responsibility and neither does parenthood make us greatly responsible. We still have our own lives and our own happiness and loves and lusts and even if they are far from perfect we hold out for hope, that things will change and all the dreams we've whispered and had whispered to us will come true. They don't come true, but we all need something to hang onto.
(contd --->)
(Cindy cont'd)
As for dealing with his drinking: that isn't your job. Don't try to put the fault of his problems onto yourself. Why the hell should you have to sacrifice everything to deal with his drinking? If it were occasional, OK, we can move a little and support that, but no-one can be expected to deal with and accept such daily out of control behaviour. If anything I'd say it was his responsibility if he couldn't stop to make it try and at least make his problem tolerable. But it's not for the family of out-of-control addicts to accept everything and try
Its not unfair of you to want only the Good Ron...That's just normal. Who would want anything else? Especially if the bad Ron was so far from the person you loved as to be unrecognisable. I'm not sure he got what he wanted from the relationship either. It sounds like it was a pretty miserable place for everyone and no-one was really fulfilled. He's also dead, and so he paid a heavy toll for his sadness and oblivion. Not only did he not find happiness and not only did he not provide happiness but he died without it and that doesn't sound like he really got anything great out of what he was doing. I think the tragedy is that you both lost. I don't know the details but I know a little of life and I know that sometimes we kinda stick with what we've got, stick with abusive and unloving loving people because it's better than being alone, that kids and mortgages often make it even more difficult to part... and people kinda stay together out of a mixture of fear of lonliness, debt and laws designed to keep families together even if they are terribly unhappy.
A life's gone and times moved on, and in the impossible timespan of infinity Ron will never be again and the years will never be again and life will never be again. Death drew a line under all of that and though it may have left cars and may have affected the children, all you have to play with is the future and the future is a thing you can effect whereas the past is not. Maybe in that light of passed time and extinct lives try to somehow take the special moment from that and the moments that were not too special try to find an angle that still gives them some great worth. These are our lives and before we know it they'll be over and in that moment, knowing our time is spent, even the very worst of life will seem not so bad at all. X
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