Mary

                         MARY

A tourniquet wrapped around her arm like a noose, a needle dangling from a vein as she sat slumped, naked, leaning against the cold tiles of the bathroom wall. The needle and syringe hung like a hanging man, weaving slowly, back and forth and then fell, neck broken, to rattle on the bathroom floor

Mary’s arm hung limply, attached to her jellylike body, as she coasted in a glorious, magical, unfeeling feeling, one that kept her coming back for more, to her a sacred space, with walls ever closing smaller. The periods of time she could get there becoming tinier, and ever shorter, requiring more and more drug. Soon no amount would get her into the swift, close, razer edge dance with death, awaiting her fall off the cliff.

           I watched her and knew I loved her, for how else could I stay. How could anyone watch this slow, gradual extinction of self. Yes, I loved her. In doing so I helped her die. Maybe not today, but someday loomed in front of us, a specter and shadow on the wall.

“Mary, Mary,” I thought to myself, “how does your garden grow. It grows in black roses and thistles and pain, watered by despair. Mary, Mary, how does your garden grow?”

I thought about opening the blinds letting the sunlight stream in, but I did not want to disturb her sleep. Sleep would end and then the bear would come, roaring and clawing its way out of another short hibernation, ravenous, and eating her from the inside out. She always called it that. Her bear, as if giving a name and a personality to her craving made it more tolerable.

Mary stirred, her every move lethargic, as in slow motion she opened her eyes. I could see her look around, trying to find me to focus upon. Finally, she pushed herself up off the floor, trembling with every effort of movement. She propped herself up against the wall and reached one shaky hand towards me.

“Jason, she said weakly, “come hold me, I'm hurting.”

I moved towards her, sat down, took her in my arms and let her rest her head against my shoulder.

“It's ok Mary, it will be alright”

She moved her head against my shoulder and neck like a wounded animal trying to find a moment of peace

“More,” she said meekly,” I need more”

“I know,” I said. I looked at her, saw the perspiration forming on her forehead, then dripping down the sides of her temples, then falling through the air, each drop splattering to the floor like slow motion raindrops forming a puddle. I could feel the rapid trembling of her muscles beneath my arms. Just a few hours more and the bear would be fully awake, and she would start the violent shaking. Then the waves of nausea and pain would hit, but I knew I wouldn't let that happen. I'd long ago given up trying to change her. Sometimes when you make the choice to help someone you lose all the other options, except diving into the deep end of the pool.

I looked down on her again and saw one solitary teardrop gradually rolling down her cheek. I knew she was sorry, but the being sorry would pass, then the bear would strike. That ravenous appetite held no sorrow, simply hunger. She would not be nice, she would not be sorry then, she would simply be hungry.

 I reached out and gently touched her face. “Mary, I'll get what you need.” She looked at me with pleading big eyes. Again, a tear rolled down her cheek. She said nothing but her look said it all. Quietly I slipped out the door, closing it behind me. I paused, took a deep breath, then proceeded down the dim lit hallway, dark even in the light of day outside. It was a ramshackle house, subdivided into several small apartments. Paint was peeling off the walls. Moisture strains crept along the floors and on the ceilings. One lone light bulb lived its lonely life at the end of the hallway. I went down the stairs, careful to avoid the piles of garbage littered there. Nobody ever cleaned this place. The neighbors were no better than me or Mary, subsisting on the lower rungs of life, their day by day, ever dwindling existence.

Outside, the seemed too bright, partially blinded me so he held my hand up against the sun, shielding my eyes. I've lived too long in the dark I thought, knowing that it was not just my eyes that were afraid of the light.

The streets were a supermarket for vices, if you knew where to go. You could get any variety of drug in practically any amount that you wanted, and I was a good shopper. I moved down the street, navigated through a couple of alleyways, nodding at the people that I knew. They knew where I was going, they had seen it all before. Along the sides of the city roads, homeless people huddled in their abodes, precious pieces of real estate. Some corners were better than others to get the scraps of money that passers by would carelessly drop in a hat or an old, crooked hand. These were not the corners of the buskers and street performers. For these people that station in life was but a dream, unobtainable for they had no skill, the refined hopelessness of despair, written large upon their faces. Any other talents, if they had possessed any, had long since dissipated, lost in the ravages of time, disease, mental illness and tragic circumstance, their vocation written on a cardboard sign

Still, these were the people that I knew, and I helped them as best I could, sharing with them what money I had not used for Mary, splitting my remnants of meals, chasing away some of the more aggressive people preying upon them. Pitiful rags of clothing were still a commodity to be stolen by anyone with a greater greed for the ravaged possessions they possessed. Theirs was a tremulous poverty, shaking its way towards ever deeper destruction, like a limb about to fail and stop, never to be of any use again.

I ducked down an alleyway, moved quickly and came out the other side and found the local candyman. Like a smoothly oiled machine, one hand exchanged cash and the other the product. With a short nod we separated. I pocketed the packet, looked around to make sure I was safe and then headed towards home once more. Along the way I stopped at a local burger joint and got a takeout order of small burgers and fries and soda. I cradled these as I made my way down the street, looking for someone that I helped sometimes when I could. I found the old woman, huddled and leaning up against the bricks of a building, a savings and loan business. I frowned, thinking that there was precocious little saving or loaning to this old gal. Making my way to her, I sat down. She took the offered burger with a frail, yellow, palsied shaking hand. She brought the food slowly to her mouth and took a bite, thanking me with her eyes. Today, at least she would have something to eat,

“I don't know how you manage to find such a wonderful picnic area,” I said to her, smiling mt best, trying to bring as much pleasure to the meal as I could. I was low on cash, and I did not know when I would be able to feed her again. Somehow, she always manages to survive. But I knew that one day I would look for her and she would be gone

I glanced up as I was finishing my burger and saw on the corner at the end of the next block a girl who looked just like Mary. She was watching me I thought. I blinked, thinking that can't be her, she would have to be still curled up in the room awaiting my return. Thinking that, I felt a bit guilty to be sitting here eating. Still, I knew that it was just a brief delay and that it was important to help the woman sitting next to me as well. I looked over at the corner again, but the girl was gone. I shook my head, confused as to what I had seen.

Looking to my left, as I got ready to rise and leave, I saw a pair of sandaled feet and heard his voice saying “ do you think that you can take care of everybody.” I was startled at the question but kept raising my eyes to get a full view of the questioner. I saw a loose-fitting gray shirt and a face that smiled at me in amusement but also looked at me with unlimited compassion. It was a face that made time stand still, his eyes on mine, looking deep into me. I felt as if everything about me, he already knew. He laughed and said “yes I do, and my question still stands “

I did not want to answer. Of course, I knew that I could not take care of everybody, no one could, but I could do what I can. Why would he ask and how does he know.

He just smiled and told me “Go now, Mary needs you and what you have in your pocket. Soon she won’t but go now anyway. I will be here tomorrow if you want to talk “with that he turned and walked away, stopping only to reach down and gently touch the forehead of the woman next to me, then moving on.

I stood, watching him walk away, confused and wondering. The old woman next to me stood up and placed her hand on my shoulder. “Thank you, I have all that I need” with that she too turned and walked away, leaving me even more perplexed. She looked much younger and invigorated as she walked quickly away and caught up with the stranger.

I walked quickly back to the apartment building, up the steps and opened the door to our apartment, half expecting to find Mary gone. But there she was, her bear fully upon her, eating her from her inside out. Slowly she rocked, back and forth, sitting on the floor, looking up at me with pleading eyes. Soon, after the drugs, she was calmer, floating in that all too real make-believe world. I held her as she drifted off to sleep, wondering how much longer her body would let her live. Why, I wondered, am I doing this? I should have known better. I know that it can't end well. I debated to myself whether I should just get up and leave, abandoning her to fate. I knew that I was rationalizing helping her, and that I was complicit in her tragedy. Still, I thought, I am all she has.

The memory of the man's question came to me then. Did I really think that I could take care of everybody? Was I driven by compassion? Or was I really driven by guilt and fear, trying to justify my own stagnation and inability to move on with my life. What was I looking for? These were questions I did my best to avoid, preferring to float in my own world of delusion. If I took care of those around me, I could avoid dealing with myself, doing something that I could tell myself was selfless, good, noble and worthwhile. I shook my head, thinking about how that man's simple question had unnerved me. Mary stirred in my arms, shifting position, and I held her more closely, knowing that whatever the answers, I could not leave her. Finally, though, I too drifted off to sleep, escaping my raging mind

Morning came again, bars of light stretched out on the floor from a crack in the window blinds, reaching from there to touch the sweating forehead of Mary as she lay across my lap. I smoothed her damp hair. I had been up awhile, thinking of the man I had met yesterday. I wanted to talk with him again and have him just gaze upon me with his accusing, forgiving eyes. I wanted to try and answer his question and hear his voice again.

“Mary, do you want to live?” I asked, not really expecting her to answer. She stirred and looked up at me, then said “I don't know. what do I have to live for? Can it mean anything to try? I don't know how to try anymore. I can't beat this thing. Just get me more, that's all I want, just a bit sweeter peace. I don't care if it kills me, I can't live without it. Just go, please and find some more, “she broke off, burying her head in my lap and sobbing, a pitiful sound that tore my heart. I held her a while and then left her to go and get her more drugs, thinking that if that's all I can do then so be it.

I made my buy and got back quickly, giving her the drugs and waiting until she drifted off into her temporary heaven and hell. Then I slipped out to go and find the stranger

I found him sitting on a bus bench, conveniently placed under what might have been the only tree in this part of the city. The woman that I had been feeding and two more and an old man were seated on the sidewalk at his feet as if they were lounging in a park. Their eyes were upon him as he spoke to them. They appeared enraptured. He looked up as I approached.

I said to him, nodding my head towards the small group,”do you think you can take care of everybody?”. My tone was harsh, surprising even me, but he just smiled an amused smile.

“Why yes I can actually, and I do” he smiled again. I have no words adequate to describe how I felt when he smiled at me. It was a combination of peace, safety, longing and feeling inadequate, but ok all at the same time. It was a sublime sense of acceptance. I knew then that I would do anything I could to keep that man smiling upon me.

“Well then,” he said, as if I had spoken out loud, “that will be a good place to begin. All I will ask of you is that you choose, not blindly, but with your full mind and heart, whenever choices are given you. And I will give you plenty.”

I caught, out of the corner of my eye, a woman standing on the other end of the block across the street. It looked like Mary, but standing tall, and with a smile upon her face. I had a sense of unreality sweep over me. She turned and walked away, out of my sight and around the corner of the building.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked around to see the stranger holding my shoulder. I felt the urge to bolt across the street.

“She is ok now, don't worry, be not afraid.”

I shook my head. I had to get back to the room and check on Mary. He nodded his head in acceptance of this as I tore off back to the apartment.

Breathless, I reached the building, tore up the stairs and down the hallway, flinging open the door. No one was inside. I searched vainly in all the rooms. Mary was nowhere to be found. I was stunned. How could she have left I thought. She was barely mobile. I sat down on the floor and felt the tears come. Rarely had I cried, and I let the tears have their way. I noticed threw their mist a glint of colored light reflect off an object on the floor beside a pillow she had lain upon.

I picked it up and saw that it was three intertwined circles, one white, one black and one red. Together they formed a triangle. I had never seen this before and had no idea where it came from. It had lain there on the floor like a parting talisman. I gripped it in my fist and cried some more.

“You were trapped in each other” came a low voice from the door, a voice full of compassion. I turned and saw the stranger standing there. “Now you can begin,” he said. He held out his hand and said simply,” come follow me.” I looked once more into his eyes.

Then I took his hand.