Denise Downs

                As a little girl I would curl up like a ball in front of the television set. I would imagine my future life as a woman and what I wanted to become.  A tranquility would rush through me and with complete clarity the same answer always came.  A classic pill popping housewife. Of course I had the sense not to tell this to anyone. If an adult should ask, I would coyly say a “teacher” or “Miss America.”  In the meantime, I dreamed of fur coats, coifed dos, bottles of gin, and a purse full of every pill I could get my hands on. I daydreamed about this all the time. I would pretend with Tic-Tacs. Grasping at them with a shaky hand and shoving them recklessly into my mouth until I regained my senses. I would act out overdosing scenarios like an overweight Elizabeth Taylor being slapped silly in the face by some Ben Gazarra type man until I murmured back to consciousness. Looking around in a haze trying to make sense of it all.

                Long before age seven, I knew that I wasn’t supposed to be growing up in an unincorporated town in West Virginia. My parents knew I felt this way and were somehow insulted by this.  I was an ungrateful little bitch from the start. .

                 In the middle of nowhere, I had to entertain myself with my imagination, books and most prominently, TELEVISION. The big twenty-seven inch Formica console. The rapture of this glowing box spoke to me. It was the seventies, and movies and television were at their peaks. It was a play land that I truly felt I was meant to be in. It was the time of Gene Hackman, Steve McQueen and John Cassavettes. They all seduced me on the screen with their raw language and manhandling. The women were the train wrecks I adored and looked up to. Sprawled out on a king size bed seen through a Vaseline lens with a full bar on the night stand. In a daze of Quaaludes, married to a cheating wealthy man who gave them anything but attention. Always on the verge and always with a token slap across the face, priceless. The constant sound of ice cubes against glass echoed in my mind. I would sit so close to the bleary lipstick-smeared faces so groggy with alcohol I could almost smell it. I would watch for hours Made for Television movies in a hue of pure orange and yellow as if Hollywood itself had contracted hepatitis.

                My fascination went on for years. I would pretend to be sick in elementary school so I could stay home and watch reruns of cheesy sixties drug propaganda films like “Riot on the Sunset Strip.” I stared at the drug crazed hippies tripping out on acid and envisioned myself following in their footsteps. Like the cantor “Jazz Singer” abandoning Judaism to pursue his dreams, I abandoned Catholicism to exist in my own parallel universe. I am I said, I AM.     p;

                My father, a carpet layer, drove an hour away to install wall to wall lime green shag carpet in the homes of those privileged to such luxuries. My bedroom rug was made of leftover scraps sewn together and I only saw glimpses of the popular lime green shag. I would retreat to the television room at the sound of my father’s van pulling into the gravel driveway. I never knew if his alcohol intake would manifest itself into him bringing home a bag of Reese’s Pieces or throwing tables across the room.

                My German mother who spent her childhood in fallout shelters, surviving solely on potatoes for months on end was used to hardship. Being a Roman Catholic she had made her bed and would lie in it. On the days when she worked at a bucket factory to make ends meet, I was left in the care of my schizophrenic grandmother or my molesting uncle. I don’t know what gave me more wisdom, washing my hands 100 times while being lectured on how all children are dirty or playing my uncle’s special lollipop game. I would withdraw to the television room skipping around singing songs about picking your toes in Poughkeepsie.

                In an age of divorce I prayed every night that my mother would magically transform into “Ms.” Anne Romano. She would shout “this is it” and tow us to the city to start a life on our own. I would get to be McKenzie Phillips, zits and all. The rumors of her nodding out between takes made me crave this even more. The day Ronald Regan was inaugurated marked the end of an era for me. An era of pills, key parties and American cars that were made of ten tons of pure steel. Replaced by the onset of AIDS and fiberglass deathtraps marketed as automobiles. I trudged through a gooey muck of sticky sweet political correctness. I wanted to be looking for Mr. Goodbar while everyone else was looking for the perfect sweater or cruelty free cosmetics.

                Living in such insanity, I fantasized of being locked in a mental institution. The kind you see in movies with the sprawling green lawns and acres to roam about with pristine ivy covered buildings sprinkled here and there. I would get to lie leisurely on a chaise lounge being consoled by compassionate doctors freeing me of my inner demons.

                I don’t know how I ended up in the mood disorders unit of the state psychiatric facility. It’s not like I pulled a Natalie Wood dunking my head in a claw foot tub screaming, “I’m pure, I’m pure!” It was more like the projector broke, melted the film and let it flop over and over the bulb until a strobe light filled the room.

                It was a blow to the stomach. Where was my antique furniture? My room with a view? My hairbrush? There were so many people around and absolutely no privacy. Someone had to watch over me even when I took a piss. A bag of muffins my mother sent me sat on my bed. Inedible, torn to shreds after the friendly nurse Ratchet inspected them for razor blades and pills. I sat flabbergasted at the dank quarters I shared with a crack whore who thought I was a nurse and would make constant demands of me.

                It was here that I took my first pill, a tricyclic antidepressant. The side effects were anything but glamorous. Even though my hair was frosted Mrs. Robinson blonde and I wore a Patty Duke “Neely” dress to group therapy, I felt anything but euphoric. Only time and a degenerating spine would lead me to the pills that I dreamed about as a little girl. My spinal condition freed me of trips to the ER faking migraines or sciatica to get pain killers.  Back surgery was the mother ship; the no-questions-asked scrips the mother load. Although I never imagined Edie Sedgwick in crippling pain or her torso in a cast.  Nonetheless, I enthusiastically threw out all my Tic-Tacs to make room in my purse for all the new bottles.           

                I don’t know if God is playing a dirty trick on me for abandoning Catholicism. Or if he is giving me the gift I yearned for during so many of my childhood years. Whatever I do, pills are now given to me on the drop of a dime. Klonipin, Adivan, Valium, Xanax, Wellbutrin, Vicodin, Percodan, Percocet, Ambien, Fentanyl, Ritalin, Morphine, Methadone, Oxycontin. For some god given reason my prayers were answered and the life I dreamed of as a child was now here in my lap, in my purse in a “Valley of the Dolls” pillbox, in my kitchen cupboard next to the spice rack. I must have a knack for randomly picking the right doctors who happily hand over a script at the mere peep of it. Huge amounts. I told a psychiatrist that I was suicidal and he ended my session with a Valium script for 120 pills with 2 refills, even though I was seeing him on a monthly basis. I once went to my primary care doctor for a rash and she asked if I needed any painkillers.               

I’m a housewife now. We live an upper middle class suburban lifestyle. My husband works while I stay at home and take care of our house and our son. I’m high right now on a cocktail of Valium, Dexedrine, Percocet, and Dilauded with a side shot of Kahlua and cream. I’m high when I read books to my son, I’m  high when I take him to soccer practice, I’m high when we make glitter glue portraits together and I’m high when I drop him off at preschool. I vow everyday to cut back; keep lists and journal entries of my progress. The pills stay in the purse, of course -- we all have a right to a safety blanket. But my intentions are good; my progress apparent. I can see myself letting go of the nostalgia of Cassavettes, highball glasses with clinking ice-cubes, the fashion acumen of pillboxes and Valium, the dream of being a pill-popping housewife.  Until a crisis like the cat hacking up a fur ball reels me to the kitchen and the cupboard by the spice rack.

Tomorrow morning I think I’ll ask my son what he wants to be when he grows up.