Don't Interrupt My Overdose; I'm Almost Dead

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In "A Poison Tree", the poet William Blake once wrote that "I was angry with my friend I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe I told it not, my wrath did grow."

I was driven to rescue and fix people, never intending to actually save a life. I was just 17 or 18 years old. "Fixing" people often meant helping them see the best in themselves. It was, for the most part, a self-serving avocation. But at the time, when I "saved" Jerry, I had no idea.

That August night, I just happened to be around. It was my night off from waitressing at an all-night diner.  It was a hot night and air conditioning was best at the local supermarket.
But when the doors swung open to the market, I saw Jerry slumped over in the phone booth - an antiquated contraption with telephone gadgetry in a glass closet. For some stupid reason, probably because actual suicide-in-progress was too remote for me to instantly grasp, I thought he was, well, tired.

Jerry was mumbling almost incoherently, saying goodbye to Cathy, his girlfriend, and was nearly unconscious from a deliberate overdose of valium. It was a prescription to treat his anxiety. He was already a regular drug user and probably a small street dealer. He had access to plenty of drugs but the drugs he took that night  were intended to have impact, to do the job - to kill himself.

I was still on a mission to save the world and here was one human being, struggling to stand upright.

"C'mon, Jerry, get up, you have to get up!", I ordered him. I didn't want to attract a lot of attention, hauling a half-conscious guy out of a phone booth but I couldn't leave him lying there, either. 

I lived about a block from that market in a walk-up apartment - three floors up. His small frame made up - more or less - for the nearly dead weight as I lugged him up the stairs. He was still awake and I was slapping him, telling him stories about how great it is to be alive.

 "You can't do this, what about Cathy?" I called our friends, I called his girlfriend's brother, but nobody answered or nobody came. I don't remember much. I was alone, that I remember.  

I called a hospital, but Jerry didn't want to go. The emergency room attendant said, "Keep him awake, don't let him go to sleep, whatever you do.” 

So I gave him water, yelled at him some more, called his girlfriend again. I listened to him berate me for getting him out of that phone booth, closer to help and further from death.

"You're going to die if you go to sleep!," I screamed. He wanted to die. I was interfering. 

I was missing the point of suicide. 

I kept trying to help him "walk it off", like he had a few beers too many. A couple of hours later - probably longer than I should have waited - I finally called a cab (I don't know why I never called the ambulance). I had him taken to the local medical center. Rescued if not fixed. 

At the hospital, I stood in the emergency room and watched for the one and only time when someone's stomach was pumped. It was hideous to see the tube go into his mouth and it must have been painful.  I can still hear his screams and smell the stench of vomit if I close my eyes too long. 

The next day, I stopped by the hospital with a cake to celebrate his upcoming birthday. Jerry was visiting with Cathy, his girlfriend. I stood in the hall and Cathy smiled, but Jerry didn't want to see me. Wouldn’t let me in the room. 

I sobbed because I'd saved his life, done the right thing, hadn't I?

About a month went by. Jerry had been admitted into the psychiatric ward at the hospital. He was was wrung out of drugs and alcohol -  and some of the pain that drove him into the phone booth with a bottle of valium.

But Jerry still wasn't speaking to me. He was eventually released at the end of the summer. No sooner was Jerry on the street than rumors started circulating  among friends and acquaintances. 

Jerry was telling everyone that I was really an undercover narcotics agent. I’d picked him up that night to get him arrested, the story went. 

Nasty, dangerous rumors continued to escalate until I realized how I'd wronged Jerry.

I had done the unforgivable, interrupted something he might never have the guts to try again.

I had saved his life. His wrath did not end.