Happy One Year-Section 2-UPDATED

03/17/07 NOTE: I was re-reading the post (and the wonderful comments) and I realized I forgot the brief paragraph introducing BP's roommate AK (it might have been lost when I was pasting it). Thanks for reading!
BTW, if you have HBO, I would encourage you to watch their insightful series on addiction.


Days before I met BP, I was walking along 5th Avenue, heading to Union Square to hear Jhumpa Lahiri read from, at the time, her latest paperback novel The Namesake. I walked slowly along the street, my legs and brain heavy from working two shifts. As I approached 14th Street, I noticed a small cardboard sign with the words “Tarot Readings by Psychic Joe-$3” propped up against a concrete wall of a store and a deck of tarot cards being shuffled by the man himself. I laughed to myself when I saw the sign. After weeks of therapy, I thought maybe some astrological direction could help me out of the abyss of emptiness that surrounded me.

I sat down on the sidewalk, forgetting about the dirt on the ground, intensely focused on the reading before me. While I realized that sometimes these readings aren’t logical, I was searching for something illogically magical, at a bargain price, by an amusing character trying to make a buck.

“You’re going to meet someone within a month. He’s not ‘Mr. Right’, he’s not ‘Mr. Right Now’, but he’ll be good for you. He’ll be in your life for six months.”

I remember scoffing at his prediction as I handed him his fee. Since when have the “love predictions” come true for me? I asked him for some metaphysical direction, and instead he was pointing me to a man to solve everything. I remember writing down his words in my journal, more as something to pull up to amuse myself when the month was over and there was no “Mr. Right”. Little did I know that almost a week later I would find myself in a cab with my friend from Philadelphia, on our way to a bar in the West Village to meet up with her college friends.

*****

Psychic Joe’s prediction didn’t come to mind after the confession that night over calamari. In days, BP and I became that inseparable. We spent many evening sharing whispers and kisses in the cab on our way to various restaurants in NYC. Usually our evenings ended with us walking hand in hand along the East River Promenade, with Randall Island blinking at us at a distance, before he dropped me off to my apartment. It was autumn and the crisp air invigorated me, the changing leaves capturing my emotions. BP never spent the night; I wasn't ready to share myself with him and he gave me my space. Later that Halloween, we were invited to a couples party where we had to dress up like our favorite lovers. BP and I appropriately picked Annie Hall and Alvy Singer, characters who we would later muse reflected the essence of our short relationship.




I continued my therapy and BP was there to provide the support when therapy could not. For one of my classes, we would convene once a week to discuss our cases at our respective internships with our professor. As my fellow classmates would share their cases, we would all discuss ways in approaching the case. One evening, a student shared a case where her client confided that she had been sexually assaulted and sought therapy to cope. My eyes started to get moist as my classmate shared the case, sounding very familiar to my own story. Impulsively, I got up and left, unable to hear the case or the approaches recommended. When BP came to pick me up from school after my frantic phone call, I ran out and wrapped my arms around him, releasing my tears on his waiting shoulder. BP held me tight as we got into a cab and headed to his apartment, where he spent the evening wiping my eyes and feeding me dinner. Later that night, I fell asleep in his arms, feeling the warmth of safety around me after a long time. I felt alive.

I made BP the light of my dark world. A month into the relationship, I introduced him to my best friend JR and RJ in NYC after work in Chelsea. I remember sitting across from JR as he eyed BP over his matzo ball soup, trying to read his face. When BP got up to have a quick after dinner smoke, JR looked up at me and asked: "Is he treating you right? Does he make you happy?" When I answered with a nod, JR shrugged his hesitant shoulders. "I don't know sugar, he just doesn't fit right with you. But as long as he's treating you well, I'm happy." Although I was confused by his statement, it was much more important for me to get his blessing, after all he was the only "family" I had in NYC. Other friends from out of town, coming to visit NYC, also met him and had the same reaction: "there's something up with him" and "I don't know b, I never pictured you with guy like him". I ignored their comments, thinking that I know him better than anyone. His friends, on the other hand, appeared to like me and would joke around and call us the original "Beauty and the Geek", a comment we would, in private, laugh at since BP was the real beauty taking forever to get ready while I would be the geeky one reading as I waited for him.

One of those friends was AK, a friend of BP’s from Penn State, who had fallen on hard times. He was in debt and had recently got kicked out of his apartment in Jersey City. AK was trying to get his life back on track after losing his job and had began a job working at a car dealership in Manhattan. Three months into our relationship, BP offered his couch to AK until he found a place of his own either on the island or New Jersey. It was supposed to be two weeks. BP also wanted to cap his stay since AK was a “pothead” and he didn’t want to get wrapped up in that again. BP smoked out heavily during college and it died down when he attended graduate school. And considering his past abuse with alcohol, he did not want to be a part of that addiction again. Or so I thought.

It was two weeks that turned into three months.

*****

As winter gave way to spring, I noticed BP's behavior change gradually and he became more distant. BP was always someone that was particular about his appearance, ironed shirt and pants, hair combed. Before AK moved in, we would spend our mornings getting ready together, including me picking out his shirt for the day from his closet. Eventually, BP would wear whatever was on the floor, whether it was washed or not, and take a hit before work. He would begin his day with a hit and end it with a blunt, ignoring that I was by his side. One evening we found ourselves in Murry Hill to meet some of his friends and during the party, he called his "guy" to drop off his stash at the corner of 35th and Park Avenue for him to get high. Even on the morning of my birthday, he didn't want to celebrate with me instead choosing to spend the day in New Jersey smoking out. I ended up celebrating my 26th birthday with my best friend and his partner watching "Hotel Rwanda", wanting to also share the day with him, too. While he was my world, the weed was the top priority in his life. I kept quiet, not letting BP know how this was affecting me. I was afraid to lose him and be alone again.

*****

AK had also started to pick up on how his marijuana use was affecting our relationship. On the evening that "Melinda and Melinda" came out, BP, being a huge Woody Allen fan, bought tickets the first evening show. I was excited to have an evening out with BP since most of our evenings were spent in, eating take out while AK rolled the blunts and I just sat there. When I got to the apartment, BP was dressed, ready to go, standing by his television.

"You know what would be fun? Watching this movie stoned. AK, roll me a blunt."

"BP," I pleaded, "please just for one evening can you not smoke out? Please?"

I was sitting on the couch, and the coffee table between BP and myself contained their stash. AK walked in from the kitchen, obviously listening in to our conversation.

"Sorry BP, I smoked the last bit."

I looked up at AK, knowing full well that they had a full stash in their coffee table drawer which I could see and BP could not.

"Fine then! Sugar, let's go!"

As I put my jacket on, I nodded towards AK, silently thanking him for letting me have this one evening.

*****

When BP and I began dating, I had started becoming more involved with the desi community in Queens through my clinic. Nevertheless, I decided to spend my free time with BP, cutting myself off from a potential community of support and activism. I made BP my world. As he was smoking out, I was hoping for him to look over at me. I was searching for the BP from the beginning of our relationship, looking for that light. Instead I found BP sucking the life out of the relationship with every hit he took.

I was worried about him. While I still had the support of my therapist and my work to prevent me from regressing back into my living corpse state, BP had no support, aside from me. I brought up my concern to my clinical supervisor, a substance abuse counselor herself. Usually personal matters are only discussed in relation to the client that you are treating, however, in this case, I needed a professional perspective. According to research, while marijuana is not considered an addictive substance, but for some, depending on how they treat the drug, he or she can become dependent on the state that being high causes. I discussed BP in supervision as a case study, sharing with my supervisor the client's history, behavior pattern, and his relationships with others, mainly myself. In the end, she encouraged me to help BP seek treatment, and possibly a psychiatric evaluation, so that we could get to the bottom of his addiction.

I remember after the meeting walking to the subway station, reflecting on the time that BP and I had spent together. Those three months before AK moved in, when BP was taking care of me, were the best months I ever spent. It startled me to think that this whole time he may have been suffering from something else and me, being a therapist-in-training could not pick up on it. The three months since AK moved in were tough, with BP falling deeper into his addiction and I knew I had to do something, not so much for the relationship, but to help BP.

*****

BP and I met up for Thai food on the Upper East Side. On the way to restaurant, I rehearsed what I was going to say to him. When I sat across from him, I noticed that he needed a hit, considering I made him meet me right after work. I saw before me a man that had transformed from the night on the other side of town all those months ago. The attentive caring man had turned irritable and antsy with his hands tapping out the moments until he could get into a cab back to his apartment. I took another breath, preparing myself to make a promise to be there for him, much like he promised me.

"You're wrong Sugar, wrong! I don't have an addiction. I'm stressed, work is intense and smoking calms me down. You go to therapy and make stupid necklaces as a stress reliever and this is my stress reliever. If you don't like it, then we can stop this right now!"

BP got up and left. No one was there to wipe the tears from my eyes.

It had been six months and two weeks since Psychic Joe's prediction.