Broken Bones, Hearts, Promises

It's 8:30 am. and I'm waiting for my friend Cyril to come fetch me. Cy works downtown and he's agreed to drop me off at St. Joe's on his way. Today, I believe the doctor plans to remove my cast (again) and then take the stitches out. I have a lot of stitches, Ms J. The incision runs up my shin from my foot, nearly to my knee. And it's still pretty tender. I hope I get a more permanent cast this time. Jenn recommends fibreglass. It's lighter, she says. And I don't have to worry about getting it wet in the shower.

Dan has an appointment with a doctor at St. Joseph's as well today. But it's later. 3:15. Tomorrow, he has an appointment with his (our) social worker. We like Marsha. She's the one from NYC. Very nice. I'm looking forward to that meeting.

The tension has been quite palpable here lately. Dan and I have argued and quarelled nearly every day for three days. He says he feels trapped. He resents having to look after me. Every task is too much to bear for him. And he hates that I worry about him whenever he goes out.

"I can't have any fun, Dad."

Well here's a news flash for you, son. NEITHER CAN I.

I don't like this teenaged boy. I love him of course. I will always love him. But right now, I don't like him. I'm here, stuck in a chair, unable to fend for myself, in pain and worrying about Dan when he goes to visit a "friend" who has supplied him with drugs, and I'm "a fucking dick."

I feel trapped too, Dan. My leg is broken. My heart is broken. Meagan says she won't come to visit me unless I write a letter of apology to her and her mum and make "amense" for all the times I was mean to her mum. It's been seventeen days since I last spoke to Meagan. I ache to feel her arms around me. But I'm afraid it'll be a frosty Friday in Hell when I offer an apology to that disgusting excuse for a human being that is my ex-wife. I want a relationship with my kids. I want nothing from Kelly. Nothing. I have explained that to Dan. He can take it to his mother and sister this weekend.

I've had it with all of them. I'm going up to my parents place on Thursday morning. Dan is going back to Acton for a week. I'm looking forward to it. I'm REALLY looking forward to it.

Saturday Morning Update

Hello Ms J.

Sorry I haven't written lately. I've been busy doing nothing and doing without. There are two things I'd like to write about today, before my leg begins to throb and I'm forced to return to my recliner chair downstairs: Dan is the first on my mind.

Dan's assistance has been ... adequate this past week. I have not starved. But it is the very nature of a teen to be selfish. Dan is a teen. He is 18, but in many ways, younger. On Monday, I rose at 8:00 after a sleepless night, and descended the hardwood stairs. On my bum. One step at a time. Like a toddler. I hopped painfully to a chair and there I sat until nearly noon when The Boy finally crawled out of his bed of tangled sheets and cat hair.

I explained my predicament (disgusted that I should have to) and he promised to set his alarm and rise earlier. 10:00. For my part, I'll do my best to stay in bed a bit later. I am the kind of person who likes to have coffee and breakfast soon after waking. I will adjust to Dan's (now modified) schedule.

Dan does whatever I ask of him. He's really good that way. And he doesn't complain. Much. But he does things in his own way, in his own time. He does NOTHING without being asked.
Dan washes the dishes. He hates it, but he does it. Once a day. Upon rising in the morning. Sometimes, he lets things pile up a bit and tidies up every second day. I hate this. I like a clean kitchen. I like a clean house. Dan is perhaps the laziest man I have ever met. It wouldn't surprise me if one day he married a pregnant woman. OK. That's a bit extreme. But he IS lazy.

He leaves recyclables at the top of the cellar stairs until the mess spills out onto the kitchen floor. Why not carry a few items each time you go into the cellar, Dan? He prefers to warm food in the oven, because it's "too much bother" to transfer the food into a non-metal container and add a few drops of water before putting it in the microwave. I eat a lot of unnecessarily dry food. He makes me coffee in the morning. Not drip coffee from the coffee maker, the way I like it, no. "Too much bother." I get instant coffee. Yuck!!

"Damn, boy!" I tell him. "This coffee's wicked strong. Did you use just one teaspoon?"

"There's no more clean spoons, Dad," he hollers from the kitchen. "I just grab the jar and dump some into yer cup."

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh .......

I am adjusting. I will adjust. And I am grateful for his help. I am, and I tell him so. My home and my Life will return to normal in 6 - 8 weeks.

I worry every time he goes out, but to the best of my knowledge, Dan's been drugfree all week.

There was something else I wanted to write about, Ms Journal: The generosity of friends and family. It's been awesome, I say. Awesome!

I'll write about it later, though. My foot is swollen and throbbing in rhythm with my shin. Oh, and I'll tell you about my visit last Tuesday to the fracture clinic. I have to return there again next Tuesday.

Arse down now. Foot up. Where the hell did I leave that remote control?

Leg raised. Mood lowered.

My sister brought me home from the hospital on Friday. Dan made me some lunch, then went out for two hours. He returned in a sorry shape. He was wasted off his head. Pot, I guess. I hope. I dunno. I didn't handle it very well. I freaked out on him, told him his timing couldn't possibly have been worse. I retreated upstairs to my bedroom and slammed the door, leaving him crying downstairs.

He called his mum. She got us to reconcile. The evening ended OK. But nothing was resolved. Nothing ever gets resolved.

Saturday was crazy. The phone never stopped ringing from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Friends. Relatives. Well-wishers, all. Many people dropped by with food, groceries, offers of help. Getting off the couch to answer the door seemed a great personal sacrifice for Dan. He moped around here all day. But he didn't get high.

My leg hurts like hell. I can't sit long at the computer because I need to keep my leg elevated to ease the throbbing. The doctor says the first week is the toughest. My foot and leg are swollen grotesquely inside the cast. So I won't be spending much time here posting updates. I wish I had a laptop computer with a cordless modem. But that's not gonna happen.

Time off work? Not a good thing at all. My sick pay, after I've filled out all the requisite paperwork and gotten the forms signed by a doctor (remember, I cannot walk. A trip to the doctor's office is an oddysey.), and after a two-week waiting period while the insurance company "processes" my claim, will amount to about 60% of my regular pay. So no, 6-8 weeks off work will not be a "good" thing. It'll be a stressful, unpleasant, painful, bloody hell of a thing, shut in this house with a boy who's 18, emotionally unwell, and a drug addict. Sorry for the pessimism, but right now, it seems accurate.

Maybe things will look better next week.

Hurts like the Dickins, sir. No, I don't expect to be back for six to eight weeks. I'll be sure to call in and keep you up to date. 

I Knew It. I Just Knew It!

"Life has become difficult and stressful and I fear something awful might happen at any moment."

Those were my words, Ms J. That's what I wrote in my last post. "I fear something awful might happen at any moment." When did I write that? Monday? Well, on Tuesday I went to the church. I needed help. I wanted to talk to Linda, our minister, to ask for some guidance. I was pretty sure I knew what needed to be done (separate myself from Kelly and hold onto a relationship with Dan and Scout) but I didn't know how to accomplish it. I felt so sad and so sorry. I knew I had re-crossed a boundary and re-broken a promise I'd made to the kids about speaking disrespectfully of their mother. I was hurting inside. I needed some help. So I walked over to the church.

I banged on the front door and Linda opened it.

"Hi Linda," I said. I'd like to speak with you a while. Do you have some free time right now?"

"Not right now," she smiled. "But can you give me half an hour, Dale? I've got someone in my office at the moment."

I told her that was fine. There were a few little tasks I wanted to complete around the church (I'm on the property committee) and I had lots of time before I had to return to work. When Linda went back inside, I turned my attention to the front lawn of the church yard.

We'd had an elaborate Christmas creche there and some of the items had been frozen so tightly in the ground, we'd had to leave them when we'd dismantled the creche. There were eight sheep, two or three white floodlights, and about twenty wooden stakes of various lengths. It was a mild day and I thought perhaps the ground might be soft enough now to allow removal of these items.I worked away happily until I had pulled up all the stakes and all the sheep and all the lights. I just had to carry it downstairs and store it in the boiler room. But how?

I went in the back door of the church and down the steep wooden steps that led to the boiler room. There, I found an empty metal trash bin and carried it back upstairs into the early afternoon sunshine.

"I'll put all the wood in here," I thought, "and carry it all downstairs at once."

I carried the sheep downstairs first and then went back for the floodlights. The stairs were painted a glossy grey colour and my rubber-soled workboots were slippery and wet. As I began my final descent, this time carrying a heavy garbage can full of 2" x 2" wooden stakes, I slipped. I could not arrest my fall. I heard a loud snap like the breaking of a broom handle and as I tumbled and slid helplessly down a dozen more stairs, I thought, "Oh God. That can't be a good sound. I hope I haven't broken my ankle." I held tight to the trash bin, though, as though it might somehow be my salvation.

I lay crumpled at the bottom of the stairs and slowly took stock of my situation. My head was fine. No pain there. I was very worried about my neck and back, but I could move my head and arms and legs. I pushed the bin off my chest and examined my legs. I was shocked by what I discovered.

My right foot was turned out more than 90 degrees and there was an ominous-looking ridge across my shin from east to west. It looked bad, Ms J. Real bad.

The minister and her secretary were upstairs in their offices at the furthest possible point from me. I yelled for help.


"HELP ME! SOMEONE HELP ME, PLEASE!"

I knew they'd never hear me. I screamed at the top of my lungs.

"HELP!! PLEASE HELP ME!! MY LEG IS BROKEN!! I NEED HELLLLLLLLLLLLP!!!!!!!!!!!

I listened carefully for voices or movement of any kind upstairs, but the only sound I heard was the intermittant drip, drip, drip of ice water as it melted and trickled down from the eves outside the door through which I'd just entered. Somewhere, faraway, I heard a Blue Jay's shrill call.

I knew I was in shock. That's why my leg wasn't really hurting. Yet. I knew it soon would and I'd be in agony. I was all alone. And I tell you truly, Ms Journal, never have I ever felt so afraid. I desperately longed for someone to be with me. Anyone. Anyone. I thought of Dan and Scout at their mum's house in Acton. I thought of Kelly. I wished so much that they weren't all angry with me. I wished so much that I hadn't said what I'd said. I screamed again for help but echoes and silence were the only response I received from the cavernous gymnasium in the church basement.

It seemed hopeless, Ms J. Hopeless. I wondered how long I might lay there before some curious soul investigated the open door outside. It was behind the church. Rarely did anyone venture there. I decided it would be a long time before I was discovered. I began to cry then, deep, wracking sobs of helplessness and despair.

I was in church! The house of God. Where was He? Why had He done this to me? And why didn't He send someone to save me?

I felt my anger rising and so I screamed again. I screamed until my leg began to throb. It hurt like hell, but I didn't care. I just kept screaming.

"GOD!! HELP ME GOD!! WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU NOW, EH? HELP ME LORD!! SOMEONE HELP ME!! PLEASE!! I'VE FALLEN DOWN THE STAIRS!! MY LEG IS BROKEN AND I'M SCARED!! I'M REALLY, REALLY SCARED! HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!!!!!!!!!!!!"

When the last echo had died away, I heard a voice, a woman's voice, muted, as though behind a wall or a door.

"Hello! Where are you? Keep talking so I can find you."

So I kept hollering. And at last, she found me. It was Patricia Orr.

"What's the matter?" she asked as she crossed the gym floor and hurried toward me.

"I've fallen. I broke my leg. Please get help."

Help had arrived. I had lain there perhaps ten minutes. It felt like much more. I thought suddenly of the victims of an explosion - 9/11 victims in New York perhaps, or tsunami victims in Asia, or even car bombing victims in London or in the Middle East. I thought how horrible it must be to lie there amidst the rubble of a fallen building, injured and frightened, waiting for help that might never arrive.

Susan, the secretary, sat beside me on the stairs and held my hand while we waited for the ambulance. Linda, the minister was there too, smiling benignly but looking so distraught and helpless. Soon the ambulance arrived and whisked me off to the St Joseph's emergency where I waited 22 hours on a stretcher in the hallway. It wasn't too bad, actually. Nurses there offered hourly injections of morphine through an intravenous drip, which I happily accepted again and again.

The doctor applied a plaster cast, but the x-ray afterward showed that the bones had shifted. Both tibia and fibula were fractured at a sharp angle.

"We'll have to operate," the doctor said.

So they wheeled me down to surgery. The wheels on the stretcher were unusually loud and it wasn't until the nurse mentioned it, that I realised it was my stomach. I hadn't eaten for more than twenty-four hours!

Wednesday afternoon, they cut my leg and spliced the tibia with a piece of titanium and fastened it with a couple of small screws. I rested in hospital all day Thursday and this morning, they set me free. I have an appointment at the fracture clinic next Tuesday to have this soft cast removed, the sutures removed and a hard cast applied.

Many friends and family have rallied around to offer help and support. I'm grateful. My friends from church have been tremendous. My sisters. My parents. My preacher called Kelly to tell her what had happened. She called me later in the hospital.

"Dan says he wants to go back to stay with you, Dale. He says he wants to help his dad."

The Boy was here this morning when I arrived. He's been a great help. A long journey lies ahead for both of us. But somehow, we'll be alright. I don't know how, Ms Journal. But somehow, we'll all be alright.

Sunday Morning. Un-quiet.

Meagan was here this weekend. She was here. But she's gone now. Kelly arrived here with Gary yesterday afternoon and now my daughter is gone. We had an argument on the phone, Kelly and I. Another argument. It's always the same. She stirs me to anger, then continuously interrupts me so I can't speak a word in self-defense. It's VERY frustrating.

"If you don't stop interrupting me, Kelly, I'm going to hang up. Please stop interr ---"

"I'm not interrupting you. I'm just trying to make my point." She called to her men. "Tim. Gary. Don't you think Dale's ----?"

I am not interested in hearing the opinions of Kelly's lovers - Past or present. I hung up the phone.

I was seething inside over what had been said. I won't offer the details here, Ms J. To be honest, I can't remember half of it. It seems like a blur, as though waking from a dream. I do remember this much: Apparently, Dan couldn't wait to get back to Acton to tell his mother about every disrespectful thing I'd said about her lately. He also shared intimate details of our recent conversation with Dr. Cirone.

• I don't like my ex-wife. I think I've been pretty clear about that here lately.
  

• I can't trust my son. He's been using drugs here under my nose and lying about it. He also tells his mother everything I say and do. I am puzzled by this. What does he hope to gain by fighting this fire with gasoline? I am angry - VERY ANGRY - with my son.

• Meagan is upset with me because I fought with her mother. Kelly called again while I was out for a walk to try to calm down and I guess she asked Meagan if she wanted to come home. I didn't know anything about it until I saw Kelly and her new boyfriend on my front porch. Gary had called and left a message telling me of the plan but I didn't listen to it. I deleted it. I didn't want to hear from Gary. I wish he would mind his own business. Meagan didn't speak to me all afternoon. She could have mentioned that her mum and Gary were coming. She could have warned me. Prepared me. But she sat there with her legs curled to her chest, clutching her shins and staring at the television. When she left, she didn't even say good-bye. That's what hurts the most.

• "The next time you have something to say to me," I hissed at Kelly, "you tell me yourself. I don't want to hear from this asshole." I sliced the air with my finger and pointed directly at Gary without looking at him. Those were the last words I spoke to Kelly before I SLAMMED the door in their faces. Those are the last words I will ever speak directly to Kelly. That's it. I've had it. I'm driving myself completely mad with this ... this woman. I hereby declare an end to any semblance of a relationship with Kelly Patricia Gallagher Pringle Bradford Mitchell Whatever-the-fuck-Gary's-name-is.

Gary reacted to my name-calling and of course, wanted to fight. My heart was racing. My breath came in ragged gasps. I was trembling with fear and anger and a profound sense of helplessness.

"Get off my porch. Now," I yelled to him.

He was full of swaggering confidence. And he was at least six inches taller than me.

"Who you calling an asshole?" he said.

I stayed inside and threatened to call the police if they didn't leave my property at once. (As if the cops would even care.)

"C'mon Gary," I heard Kelly say. "Let's go. He's a wimp."

Nice. While my daughter looked on from the seat in the car.

"Yeah, go to church," she hollered as a parting blow. "You need it. Wimp."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've had some challenges in my Life, Ms Journal. I married a woman I didn't love and had two kids with her. I stayed seven years in that miserable place. I was unhappy and at times, violent. I suffered when it ended because I was separated from Dan and Meagan. And that hurt. Within months, I had met and moved in with Donna. She married me and introduced me to cocaine and crystal meth. We were together six years. Addicted five years. Our marriage lasted twenty-three months. When that marriage ended, I REALLY hurt. I considered suicide. It would have been so easy to have thrown myself under a speeding train. But I couldn't bear the thought of hurting my children or my family that way.

Along with my marriage, I quit using drugs. I have been clean now since May 28, 2000. I was smoking more than fifty cigarettes a day at the time and so I quit that too. It was time to get myself cleaned up. I began attending church, a United church, as I did with my family when I was a child. I discovered the theatre and made new, drug-free friends. My Life improved greatly. I saved my money and put a down payment on a house.

I've kept a journal - a private journal - faithfully since January 1, 2002. There's a recurring phrase that I use.

"I love my Life."

If you read my journals, you'd find I wrote those words more frequently as I recovered from Donna and drugs, and began to heal my heart and soul. "I love my Life."

I have not yet written that phrase this year. I am not enjoying my Life lately. Life has become difficult and stressful and I fear something awful might happen at any moment. I don't feel depressed, necessarily. Not in the classic sense. I don't cry a lot, or stay indoors, or avoid other people. But I just feel tense all the time. Scared for Daniel. Scared for Meagan. I worry about my dad. And I worry about going on strike, or getting suspended or fired by those cruel bastards who run our once-proud railway.

I've been through hard times before, Ms J. I know things come to pass. Good things as well as bad. It all comes to pass. This will too, I know. But I'm not loving my Life these days. I don't find as much joy in things as I once did. I'm short-tempered and impatient. I monopolize conversations as though I'm the only one with problems. God bless my friends and family for their compassion and understanding.

Sorry, Ms Journal. I hate to write it, but it's the Truth right now:
I feel sad. And I don't like my Life.

I Feel Like Such a Fool

"Hi. My name's Dale. My son is addicted to marijuana."

He's at it again. Or still. I went out to the shed this morning to gather up the trash bags and carry them to the curb. The air in there stank of stale cigarette smoke. Dan has a lawn chair and a little table set up out there so he can sit and smoke. The shed is without windows or electric lights and he has a candle on his tobacco shrine. It stands next to an ashtray which holds a great disgusting mound of filthy cigarette butts.

As I looked around the shed in search of plastic trash bags, I spied a small plastic bottle on a wide board above the rafters. It was still half full of water, however the water was now brown from nicotine and frozen hard. I climbed up on Dan's chair to retrieve it.

On the board, hidden from sight, were three other plastic bottles. Each one had been jury-rigged in some way to make it suitable for use as an aid to smoking marijuana or hashish. Each one was punctured to allow the smoke in. I'm assuming he'd then put his lips around the neck of the bottle and inhale the toxic cloud. I put all four bottles in the trash and moments later, watched the garbage men toss the bag in the truck.

I feel so stupid, Ms. J. I've been duped. Lied to. Tricked. Dan has told me he hasn't used any drugs since the butane incident and I've believed him. I've trusted him. I believed him because I want to believe him. I need to believe that my son is not hopelessly addicted to drugs. Even though I've been warned by both Dr. Cirone and Marsha Elman, the social worker, I still persisted in trusting him. He's been helpful around the house, doing housework every day for me. I know now that the only reason he does anything here is so I'll pay him his weekly allowance. $20. He has no other source of income so I must therefore assume that he uses that money to buy drugs. But where? And from whom?

I can't watch him every minute. I go to work in the afternoon for four hours. Dan's alone here from 3:00 til 7:15 every day. Yesterday, he told me he'd found a guitarist for his band. There is no band, Ms J. The boy hasn't the slightest clue how to play his guitar. But he fantasizes about having a rock band. I don't discourage him, but neither do I encourage him. I just try to listen and let him talk. It's harmless, I think. Besides, I think it's good to have dreams. I had dreams too, when I was his age.

So he told me he'd met someone at the used CD store around the corner. Dan visits there almost daily. He told me he's going to get a job there at Dave's Discs. "Soon."

"Yeah, Dad. The guy's name's Trevor. He's a bit older than me. Twenty-one or two. Something like that. And he's an awesome guitarist."

"How do you know that, Dan?" I asked. "Did you hear him play?"

"Yeah. We went over to his place after and I had a couple of beers. Just a couple, Dad. And he played for me. So he's in my band. Yup. We have a guitarist now."

I smiled and nodded, Ms Journal. But I didn't like the sound of it. Trevor. Older. Gives Dan alcohol. Musicians are notorious pot-smokers, aren't they? I looked at Dan's eyes and they didn't look quite right. I can't explain it, exactly. But they just didn't look right somehow. I didn't want to accuse him of using drugs unless I was certain. And I wasn't certain. He seemed OK. But as I think about it now, I don't trust that he didn't smoke up with Trevor.

Today's plan was for me to give Dan his $20. ("and a pack of smokes") and to drive him to Acton and collect Meagan after work this evening. Meagan will spend the weekend here with me, and Dan will stay a few days with his mum. Come to think of it, he was VERY anxious to get to Acton. He asked if I could take him there around noon today. "Meagan has been sick. She might still be home from school. You can drop me off early and get Meagan early."

He also asked if he could take a couple of bottles of water with him. Now I understand why he wants the bottles. And why he wants his allowance. And why he can't wait to get back to Acton.

The bottles are on their way to the dump. And he will NOT be getting his allowance this week. He lied to me. I don't like being lied to. I've been more than fair, I think. I've worked really hard to get him into various treatment programmes. I've had to take time off work to do it. I bought him a set of weights. A guitar. I honour his privacy. But he lies to me.

I'm very disappointed. And I'm pissed right off. Dan's still in bed. I'm going to confront him when he gets up. I'll do my best to remain calm. I'll tell him I do not allow drugs or drug appliances in my home or on my property. I am intractable on this issue.

I'm afraid of Dan's reaction. And I'm afraid of my reaction to Dan's reaction.

On our way to Toronto this morning, just as dawn begins to tint the eastern horizon. 

Ten Thousand Times

Wednesday, Ms J. Two more days til the weekend. I didn't work this afternoon. I took Dan to see a counsellor at Breakaway today at 3:30. He spent more than an hour in consultation with a woman named Gayla. I sat in the waiting room and read pamphlets.

"Are you concerned about your teen using drugs and/or alcohol?"

"Hallucinagens. LSD. C-2B. PCP. Psilocybins."

"Inhalants - Learning to Recognize the Signs of Abuse."

I have had a good feeling about Breakaway. Their programmes come highly recommended. I've really been looking forward to this appointment. (I said this appointment, Ms Journal. Not dis-appointment.) Gayla told me she planned to contact Dr. Cirone to determine if perhaps Dan's treatment is involving too many specialists and therefore, duplication of therapies. She suggested that maybe he doesn't really need to attend a Breakaway programme. They do offer group and individual counselling for parents and I really think I'd benefit from that. So even if Dan doesn't end up going to Breakaway, I'll go by myself.

Just as we were about to leave for our appointment this afternoon, the phone rang. It was Kelly. I really didn't want to talk to her. I really didn't want to listen to her, either. But I didn't have much choice. She was there, on the other end of the line, ostensibly uncomfortable at having to talk to me.

"Oh hi, Dale. How are you?"

"Fine. You?" I said, and immediately regretted asking.

"Oh well, I'm much better now. I've been really sick, eh?"

I could not possibly have felt more apathetic. I know this is true, because I tried.

"We're just on our way out the door, Kelly. I don't have time to chat. Did you have a message for Dan?"

"Yeah," she said and I closed my eyes tightly in anticipation of her message.

Would it be something stupid, I wondered? Something that might get his hopes up only to later have them dashed? Would it be something that would show Kelly as an exemplary mother, while at the same time bringing some kind of harm or hurt to Dan?

"Just tell him that I got him a date for the weekend. We've been discussing it. Her name's Maxine. She seventeen. My friend Crystal is friends with Maxine's mum. She told her all about Dan, and Maxine really wants to meet him."

Crystal is another of Kelly's emotionally crippled friends. Crystal is recently separated from her husband. Crystal has about six kids, all of them emotionally or mentally disturbed. I remember Kelly rushing off to help Crystal on Dan's eighteenth birthday last summer. I was there. Dan was just about to cut his cake, when Crystal called and Kelly left Dan's birthday celebration to go and help her friend. Crystal's daughter had been scalded and Kelly was needed to take the girl to hospital. Poor Dan looked so disappointed! He wanted his mum home with him.

I don't mean to sound insensitive here, but why couldn't Crystal have called an ambulance? Why couldn't she have asked a neighbour for help? Because she's stupid, just like all of Kelly's low-life, pot-smoking friends. And Kelly needs to feel needed. She loves to play the rescuer/saviour/healer. Maybe I'm being a prick, Ms Journal, but I don't care. It was Dan's birthday. His 18th birthday. That's an important day. He "needed" his mum.

Anyway, where the hell was I? Hang on. I've gotta scroll up and re-read what I've written. I can't remember what I was on about.

Oh yes. I remember. Maxine, the soon-to-be girlfriend. My word! I do get sidetracked, don't I?

OK. So let's refresh our memories then, shall we? Dan is obsessive/compulsive. He falls immediately in Love with every girl he meets. Madly. Deeply. Desperately. Remember Carly in Wisconsin? He got high when she rejected him and threatened to rape her with a butcher knife. Then there was Miss Autumn Jones in Defiance, Ohio. 250 pounds of teenage girl. That, of course, didn't work out. He was shattered, but not for long. He found Tawnya next, on the internet. He was determined to meet with her on the night of the worst winter storm of the season. He later got high on butane and told her he had a gun to his head. That episode put him in hospital just before Christmas.

Now, his mother wants him to meet Maxine, a girl who lives in Guelph. Guelph is a university town about an hours drive from my home here in Mimico. I mean, it's ridiculous. If he meets her, and if they like each other, how on earth will he see her? I will not drive him to Guelph to see her and I will not pay the long distance phone charges that he'll incur as a result of his neediness. I am - or was, totally pissed off with this whole deal.

But I'm not now. Do you know why? I'm alright with it now because I've come to realise that I cannot protect Dan forever. If he wants to pursue a long-distance love affair, that's fine with me. His heart will break. He'll get angry with me because I won't drive him to Guelph every weekend. Maybe he'll turn to drugs again. Maybe he'll want to move back to Acton to be closer to her. I don't know. But it's his Life. I've got to start letting him live it.

Besides, Ms J, I'm probably getting all wound up and worried for nothing. It's happened before. About ten thousand times before.

At Breakaway this afternoon, there was a big bowl on the table in the waiting room. It was full of condoms. Dan grabbed as many as he could with one hand, stuffed them in his pocket, and then returned to the table for more.

"That's enough, I think, Dan," I said. "Leave some for others."

"I'll be needing these, Dad. I'm a sex machine."

I'm probably getting all wound up and worried for nothing. It's happened before. About ten thousand times before. Ten thousand and one.

Mother Earth awakens. She's comin' alive.

60 mph sunrise. Watch where you're going, Dale. 

A Day of Doctor Appointments

Busy day today, Ms J.

At 11:00 this morning, we have an appointment with Marsha, our pleasant social worker at LAMP. (Lakeshore Area Multi-service Project) Marsha has seen us twice already. She listens to Dan's issues and helps me understand Dan's condition and helps with tips on parenting. She's from New York City and speaks with a noticeable accent. She charges $69. per one hour session. Our government health insurance does not cover this cost.

This afternoon, we're meeting with Dr. Cirone at St. Joseph's hospital. Sharon Cirone is young and rather attractive. She specializes in adolescent mental health and drug addiction. She wants to meet with both Dan and me today. This will be our third visit. In the past, she's spoken with Dan alone.

"I think Sharon was checking me out, Dad," he said after their last visit.

"What do you mean 'checking you out', son?" I asked.

"You know, checking out my parts. My package. My twig and berries. She was looking at me, Dad."

I told him that's what doctors do. They observe people. They look at them. That's their job. Is this Dan, Ms J? Or is this typical teenage behaviour? I can't remember.

"And she has quite large breasts, too you know. I couldn't help noticing them."

Hell, I noticed them too, Ms J. They're lovely!

"Looking at a woman's breasts is just like looking at the sun, eh Dad?"

I must surely have looked completely lost, for he followed that statement with an explanation.

"Yeah. You take a quick peek," he told me, "and then immediately look away."

The Boy's right, for goodness sake! That's exactly how it is. Could be he's a lot more savvy than I once thought.