Fear and Loathing at the Cleanse Clinic
It was just after eight, early August, at a manufacturing plant, three blocks East of Dixie Highway. A call came through from a phone line, somewhere downtown. That’s when the fear took hold…
My phone rings. A startling ring. It’s all that I hear. Jeez, why is it so loud. Fuck! ear buds. I furiously tap my ears to silence the sound. First thought, bill collector. It’s the only calls I get. Take a number, asshole. I take my phone out, to swipe “Ignore,” but pause on the number. It a local number. 502 area code. Maybe I should take this.
I head from my work area towards the break room. Turn off Bluetooth to disconnect the earbuds and slide my finger across the touchscreen to “Accept” it. Here goes.
Maybe it’s a social quirk, maybe my generation. I used to talk on the phone for hours. Nowadays I’ll press ignore in a heartbeat to send you a text. I can think through what I am about to say. Consider what you said. On the rare occasion that I actually have to speak on the phone I am as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs;-) Dad used to say that. He had a hundred of them. “Sweating like a whore in church.” I never got that one. Is it because she feels guilty. These days that’s the least “unholy” job you could have.
“Hello?” I say, feeling a bit nervy.
“Yes, is this Jordan Canter?”
“Yes it is.” Hmm… Doesn’t sound foreign.
My voice is audibly shaking.
“Hi Jordan. This is Dana at the Cleanse Clinic.” Relief begins to rush until I think, wait. Why? What is this? Drug test? Bloodwork? Why are you calling? Who the hell is Dana.
I’m not left in suspense.
“Jordan, you’ve been selected at random for a pill count.”
“What?”
“Random pill count. Gather all your medicine together and get down here. We’ll get this done as quick and painless as possible and we can all move on with our day.”
I’m so shocked that I don’t ask any questions about the details.
It’s always been a rule since legislation was passed regulating the use of this drug.
The doctor had to undergo special courses to be allowed to prescribe it.
The patient has to attend at least two 30 minute one-on-one counseling sessions with a licensed therapist or two 60 minute group therapy sessions per month, or one of each, a monthly drug screening, and undergo at least one random pill count per calendar year. It has now been eight years, and this is my first time getting one.
They must be trying to get in compliance. I knew immediately that I was fucked from at least three angles:
One, I’m at work, broke, since I cleaned out my account last week to see the damn doctor, and would have to figure out how I could get from here, all the way home to get my medicine, to the doctor, then back to work.
Two, I will have to somehow explain this to my supervisors at work who will have to get someone to take my spot at this, very last minute, notice. It’s not like I have a habit of dipping out of work often. In fact, I’ve left one time in my entire career here, and that was followed by me being hospitalized for four days on IV antibiotics.
Three, and here’s the worst: My count is off. I am short by about 15. I’ve picked up a bad habit of taking an extra here or there on especially loooooong days. Then borrowing from friends who take the same medicine as me. After a year of doing that, I am about 15 behind. I don’t know how I will explain this without getting myself into trouble, possibly even legal trouble. It’s against the law, definitely, to borrow or transfer narcotics from one person to another.
Or what if they think I am a drug dealer. My record doesn’t exactly call me “clean as a whistle.”
I don’t know what the fuck is about to happen now, but I know this isn’t good.
Back in the office, watching the husks of human souls floating by. Up to the sign-up sheet at the window, to the seats to wait, into the office when they’re called upon. This is what's left of them after being ravaged by the streets. The goal here is to return them, us, back to whole.
The office waiting room is dim like a nightclub, yet sterile like a mortuary.
What is this place?
To some it's hell. To some it's heaven.
To some of us it's a tool to get well, save face, or possibly make your best friend or girlfriend answer your calls again. To me it was all of these things.
The souls floating in and out of this place had another destination in life, just like me, before they’d found themselves facing down rock bottom, familial turmoil, and shame unlike anything they’d felt before. The lucky ones found this place before they found their final resting place. The least lucky found it but, still didn’t survive.
Where Am I?
When this place opened under its current name it was listed online as a kidney doctor. Hence the name "Cleanse", but when the "Recovery Business" became a profitable enterprise, so come the investors from all around. The Cleanse Clinic was just the same.
Downstairs from a pain management clinic, where the problem tends to start, it just seems like poetic justice that you would go downstairs to get fixed.
I started attending this place in 2017, when Passport started paying for M.A.T. Medication-Assisted Treatment. That was my in, and my way out.
It was a fateful time. I was losing friends daily, any day, I felt, my number would be up.
At the beginning I was able to kick the heroin habit but, continued to show up dirty for meth.
The doctor back then, Dr. Haq, once said to me in his thick Indian accent, "You have to stop taking the meth or it will kill you. If you won't than why quit any of it? If you die from heroin at least it will be peaceful. Meth, however, is painful no matter how it gets you. You could bleed out from your brain, that sound fun?"
It didn’t.
Bedside manners were never his strong suit.
I fought tooth ‘n nail to hold on to that little bit of ice I'd been doing but eventually I gave that up too. (A story I told here and here.).
This is a suboxone clinic. Where helpless souls, hopelessly addicted to drugs, mainly opiates, go for help when AA/NA isn't enough.
To understand the following plot, you must understand my state of mind.
For instance:
On the bus. In such a panic. Today might be the day that they refuse my medicine. I think back to Susan's words, after me attempting non-chalance when I say, "hopefully there's no problems at the doctor or the pharmacy." Because there has been problems at both, I think.
Sensing the impending doom I must be experiencing, she attempts to reel me in. "Jordan, is there anything more that you could of done?" I think this through, and shake my head.
"Then what do you have to worry about?"
Nothing. She was always so good at keeping me grounded, now that we're apart I'm like a lost ship floating out of orbit. But even then, it didn't last long. What she didn't know is I've been dreaming nightly for months about a place, it's kind of like a trailer park but there's people just kind of everywhere. And lots of people from throughout my life are here too. My father is there.
My father is in every dream, every night. I think it's how I cope with losing him. In the dream I'm trying to find a doctor that will take me. There's a countdown to how long before withdrawal. There are always different scenarios keeping me from the medicine and I always wake up right before I get it, at first in a complete panic and then, relieved, it was only a dream.
Back on the bus.
I'm getting closer to my stop at which point I'll make a dash across Broadway from the TARC Station, across the parking lot of Platinum Food Mart, up the alley around back along the edge of the hood, Village West, cross Roy Wilkins Parkway and I am there.
But these moments, excruciating moments, feel like an eternity.
I just know something bad will become of this. I can feel it deep down inside of me.
I hop off the bus and make my dash. The sun is heating up, it’s a late Spring morning, there are homeless people at the corner of the hood, like normal, I get to Roy Wilkins and stop on the median to finish my cigarette, when the fear returns. It's 10AM on a Thursday. The office closes for the day at 12PM. I light another cigarette, paralyzed by fear. I couldn't shake it, no matter how hard I tried. I finally made it into the office to sign-in at 11:45AM.
The receptionist met my eyes with a smile, I thought here it comes. They can't see me. WHY DID I WAIT SO DAMN LONG. I self-sabotaged, that's what happened!
"Good to see you Mr. Canter. We were wondering when you were gonna show up. Here, let's hurry up and get you in front of the doctor before she leaves."
..... Go figure.
Thirty-eight Days Ago
At the Cleanse Clinic: I walk in to sign-in for my appointment.
Since I started getting my insurance through work, I have been paying a $40 co-pay to be seen. Which was how much the Cleanse Clinic said I had to pay. This insurance cost $300 a month. Almost a quarter of what I take home.
I'm met, not by the normal, sweet receptionist, but by the small, putrid, skunk of a man, known here as the "money man" and by all means should never be interacting with people attempting to better their lives.
His eyes see indifference and his energy stinks of the greed of the robber baron. The contemporary version of the company men who came to appalachia in their fancy suits to rape the settlers who settled on that land with sneaky tricks because they didn't know how to read. He takes advantage of our addiction.
He says, "Hold on, we're gonna need a payment from you."
I think, oh my co-pay. And reach for my wallet. As I get it out he continues to talk, flipping through papers in front of him, "it looks like you are behind $780 before this visit." My heart drops, to somewhere near the groin level. I hear him say, like he's a million miles away that I will "have to make a substantial payment before I can be seen today."
I feel every ounce of anxiety that I've stuffed down start to boil up.
"But I'm paying my co-pay every month."
"Yea, but you have a $2,000 deductible."
"Dude, I wouldn't have signed up for the insurance if I had to pay $2,000 up front, not a chance."
I think for another moment, I do have a $2,000 deductible but my job pays that for me. I step out of line and call the office of BJK Plastics. The secretary answers. She's new, I still don't know her. The old secretary, Amber, got a better job, more money, closer to home, good for her, but she was so great. Hated to see her leave, she'd know what to do here. I ask for Miss Mary, who handles, I'd guess, everything.
"This is Mary."
"Miss Mary, this is Jordan Canter. An employee in production—"
"Yes, I know. Whad-ya need Jordan?"
"I am at my doctor's office right now and they said that I owe over a thousand dollars, but I have been paying my co-pay every month on my visit—"
"No, Jordan, you do not have a co-pay. You don't have to pay anything at all. Most doctors bill you in advance.” Yeah, I think, they do. “You bring the bill down here and we pay it. You do have a $2,000 deductible, but with it is an expense account for $2,000 which covers that. So that you don’t have to pay anything out of pocket."
She was right. This office, however, who has been spoiled by Passport, and people who need help for they might die today, is hearing none of that.
Yea, but. This guy isn’t a doctor; he isn't even a CNA. He's a little dweeb who wants to shake up lives. Hurt people. Maybe an inferiority complex, maybe he gets paid in commission and his wife (?) is busting his balls because he is 32, already impotent from porn addiction and not bringing home the type of money he swore to her father he would. Well, he's a junkie just like me. Except with more incestual clickbait.
I begin to empathize with him. He's just a boy, trying his best to make it in the world. Maybe: He is an Arab but loves Israel, so he calls himself a Frenchman, but deep down he knows that they would kill him if in an out of bounds zone in Gaza. He can't help how things look. It looks like I am trying to be seen for free. Unless he took into consideration that I have never pulled anything like that in nearly 10 years coming here, and I was on heroine and meth when I got here for Christ sakes. I am practically one of their success stories, and this idiot is ready to throw that away. I wonder if the owner of this place knows that. What if he stopped me from being seen today, after coming here for a damn decade, started to go into withdrawal by tomorrow, acquired a bag of heroin, shot it into my arm and it was carphentanyl, or worst xylazine. I could be dead in 24 hours over this. Nope. Still hate him.
"--Jordan. You still there?"
"Oh, yes Miss Mary, sorry."
"Jordan, we can get the money you paid reimbursed. Just get a receipt showing you paid it, and we'll get you paid back. Just maybe do it next week when I am less busy."
I put it on speakerphone and step up to the glass receptionists window.
"Hi, Dick, I mean, excuse me what's your name?" Not amused, neither am I.
"I've got my boss here on speakerphone. Miss Mary can you tell him about that?"
"Yes. So, if you or someone at that office, can get him a printout of all of the bills that he owes for this year, he will bring them here and they will be paid-in-full. Other doctor's offices would send a bill and he could bring the bill down and we pay it—"
He chimes in, "—yea, that's against our policy here."
"Uh-huh. Okay, so is that all you need from me Jordan?"
"Yes Ma'am. Thank you so much for your help straightening this out."
"Yep, Bye."
The phone hangs up and to my back pocket it goes.
I turn back to him feeling triumphant. But this talking PEZ dispenser was completely unphased that he had talked to anyone.
After an uncomfortably long silence I ask, "So, are you going to print out these bills so I can get them paid?"
"Yea, I'll make a note and put it in your file and next time you come in I'll try to have them ready. But I still need a substantial payment before you can be seen today."
Indifference. That's what his eyes say to me. I see in them that he is not going to budge. I better do whatever I can to get past the troll under the bridge.
Feeling utter defeat, I say, "what's the minimum that you'll take? I came ready to pay the $40 co-pay that I was being charged although I didn't owe it. But I was mostly broke outside that."
He says, "that won't work. How much do you have?"
I look in the app in my phone. I have $208 even.
But $175 of that is supposed to go to rent. In fact, I am supposed to pick it up while I am out.
I tell him truthfully, "Man, I got $208. That's it—"
"Same card as last time?"
"Yes, but—" He already had it pulled up.
"—Alright, it went through." He handed me a urine sample cup and says, "come on back." And that quickly I was broke. Damn.
I could've argued maybe and gotten him to put the money back, that was after all illegal as hell, but I felt defeated. I was just happy to be getting to see the doctor. Ten minutes earlier I was in pure shock from the thought of it. This place, and this medicine has been like a security blanket for so long. If I lose it, I'm afraid I might lose myself. But now I have another issue. I don't get paid for two more weeks, I don't have my share of the rent, I have a ride to and from work, but what if something unexpected occurs. What will I do then.
AUGUST 7TH, 2025
I hang up the phone, not quite grasping what has just happened. A pill count? Really?!
Yes, I know they do them, but now? After all these years of worrying , and making damn sure that when this does occur my count will be right, but for some time now I've been taking an extra one here, there, and when I'm too far behind to make it until my appointment I can borrow from a friend that knows I would give them back. Now, they want a count and I am fifteen short. I. AM. FUCKED!
I reach out to a couple friends that might loan me what I am short until after the pill count and I can give them right back, but they don't have them either.
I'm thinking I will just have to go in short. Tell them the truth and if they kick me out, they kick me out. I'm at work, which means I will have to explain this to my immediate Supervisor, go home, get the medicine, and get to the doctor's office. What if they take them away from me for being irresponsible. I don't know how this works. What if they think I am dealing drugs, bring the authorities into the mix. This is crazy! Wait! I don't have the money to go down there even if I was good. That fucking Frenchman robbed me blind. At this point I see there is nothing I can do. I’ll have to change my doctor at the last minute. The way I used to change my bank account before payroll went through after I’d overdrawn my account so badly my whole paycheck would be gone.
I know of at least one other doctor I could transfer to. A coworker who used to go to my doctor has been telling me every time I talk to her that I need to transfer.
Fear can destroy things that have taken years to create in a matter of moments. It can render you completely useless, paralyzed in its wake. But it can also create bonds that never existed and strengthen bonds that were already there. The fear of the unknown is always the strongest fear, right? I spent the next three weeks completely paralyzed by this unknown fear, and made misstep after misstep.
But realized things that maybe I would've never known and met at least one person who I'm sure I wouldn't of known.
I lived my entire life in some kind of crippling fear. Fear of dogs. Fear of the dark. Fear of my mom. Fear of hospitals. Needles. Woman. Fear of the law. Fear of death. Fear of God. Could never be so lucky to have so much commitment that I could fear it but, fear of never being committed to, that’s real.
I fell down in a huge way, but came just short of irreparable damage, and landed just safe of sustainable growth. I couldn't ask for a better fall from grace.
Three weeks since the call. Had an appointment for a different doctor but didn't go. It was such a long trip I would've been on the bus for six hours, there and back, I was not ready for it.
I called the Cleanse Clinic office line just to feel out the situation. I am confident that exile from the program is inevitable, but I keep holding onto a microscopic piece of hope that they will show a little bit of humanity when I get there. I call to "update my contact information" and the receptionist, Krystal, who I am very positive is lowkey on crystal, answers the phone.
She says, "Jordan, I am real busy right now. Can you call back tomorrow morning, and we'll get your information updated in the system."
“Yes, no problem. So, there’s nothing else right now?”
“What d’ya mean? Oh, Jordan. Have you and the kids made it to Kentucky Kingdom this year?”
She asks me this every time she recognizes me. As if to let me know that she remembers me from three years ago when she seen Susan, the kids, and I there.
“No, Krystal. She and I split up.”
“Oh, that’s right. Sorry Jordan. Just gimme a call back earlier tomorrow and I’ll get your contact info updated.”
“Alright, thank you Krystal.”
I hang up the phone, my bit of hope growing in size. She didn't mention it, and she's known for carrying all the gossip in the office, exaggerating it to epic proportions. If she hasn't heard it maybe I am okay.
As if by self-sabotage I stayed up all night, the night before, digging my grave deeper and deeper and not even mentioning to my housemates that my appointment which they know I need to be at was taking place at 10 o' clock, the following morning. I set no alarms and crashed around 7 o'clock. I woke up at 11:50 in a rageful panic. They leave the office for the day at 12 o'clock. Amber got me an Uber down there at the last minute. I walked in at 12:05 to meet the Frenchman at the window, disappointment on his face.
He says, smugly, or I consider smugly, from him, yep I'm getting kicked out, I'm sure of it, "alright, so here's the deal. You're super late."
"Yes, yes I am." I say as he scribbles on a Cleanse Clinic appointment card, "We need you to be here on Tuesday at 8 AM. You will get to see the dr then."
I don't want to be left in suspense for another weekend, so I throw the feelers out, "Alright, so will I see a regular doctor?"
"You'll see whoever is available."
"Ok. I am out of medicine. What do I do about that?"
He says, as he hands me the card, "take that to U of L hospital and show it to them so they know you have a scheduled appointment. They will give you medicine to hold you over until your appointment. Bye."
He's beaten me again. I've been late to my appointment before. A few times. They've never told me to go to the hospital. The other times they called the doctor, and he/she had called me in medicine until I could be seen again. I was absolutely positive they were tossing me to the trash. I turn to walk out, I can feel my emotions welling up, I try to fight back the tears, but they won't stop. Ah, fuck, should’ve taken my Paxil.
Like dominoes in a tsunami, everything is falling to pieces. I take out my phone to see if Amber can get me an Uber home, 1% battery. Oh, fuck. I'm about to be stuck downtown. She had told me to find a link to metro free Wi-Fi since I, of course, haven't paid my phone bill, and she'd get me a ride home. I am now walking up the sidewalk on Broadway at 10 Street. Searching for Wi-Fi.
Searching...
Searching...
Searching... I am able to hold my emotions together, but just barely. I know my reaction to this is ridiculous, but regardless this is reality.
Searching... I've got to keep my composure.
Searching... Keep it together Jordan.
Searching... Oh! There it is. Come on man, connect, PLEASE....
Oh, shit. It's connected. I open my free texting app, TextNow. Click on Amber. Start typing.
"Please. Send for a ride to the same spot. Will explain when I get home. Thank"-----DEAD
"FUCK----"
I sit behind a large tree facing away from any passersby and sob quietly to myself. Trying to assess every decision that brought me to where I sit.
There is obviously nothing sadder and sorrier than a middle-aged white guy crying about his doctor not seeing him. My last article was about the systematic genocide of an entire nation of people. I'm crying because I might have to find another job, maybe go to rehab at the worst.
I get my composure after about 15 minutes.
Consider staying here. As I see the homeless people gathered across the street, I wonder what this moment was to them. Did they have a crying behind a tree moment? Or did they take this in stride. Decide this was their homes? Would they rather be in the streets on drugs than in a home as a productive member of society, as some conservatives like to suggest, or did life systemically break their spirit. The American dream crush their dreams and the world break their, all to large, hearts. I've often envied them. Dreamed of having no worries. Acuna Matata, right?
At one point I considered spending a year in the tent city of Skid Row, Los Angeles, document it and write a book. Like David Simon did for The Corner, the book that would go on to be the award-winning HBO TV show The Wire.
I thought maybe it would be the moment that jumpstarted my career in journalism, but thought better of it. Imagine it, I go there, get strung out on California drugs, already living in a tent, I might never leave.
Through these thoughts I gain my composure. I am about 40 blocks from home. On about five hours of sleep in several days. All I want to do is lay down.
Okay, Jordan, you are still in the spot where you found the Metro connection. The phone died while I am sure 20 other apps were running. I just need it to stay charged up long enough to connect to the wifi, open the free texting app, and shoot a message to Amber. Okay, here goes…
I turn on the phone. Wait for it to startup, it takes so. damn. long. to start up. I stare at it for what must be the most excruciating 3 minutes of my life. And it is up.
Wifi, connected.
TextFree, Amber, I type, “Same place. Phone dead. Please help.” Send.
Sent, YES! And it died. Oh fucking well. I got the message out.
One Hour Later I was back at home planning the rest of my life, because after today, I was sure, that nothing would be the same, so I took some of the same with me and continued my reacquaintance with King opioid and Queen amphetamine.
No worries reader, it’s short-lived.
“What’s your plan, Jordy? You’ve gotta have a plan.”
Her words could wake me up out of a dead sleep. So, I believe in every one of our lives that people are placed in our lives and taken away for reasons unknown to any of us. Maybe this is God, maybe forces of nature, maybe it’s energy that can move mountains. I don’t know. I tend to follow the Jordan Peterson belief, only on this, that if we are unsure about God or have problems keeping faith than if we at least follow the principles of the bible for the most part that our lives will be better. Not sure how well I do this, but so far I haven’t killed anyone, and that’s a plus.
Tuesday morning. Judgement day. I’m scheduled at the Cleanse Clinic at 8 AM. My roommates know about it this time. Amber offers to get me an Uber down there, “but you’ll have to catch the bus back home.” She tells me.
“If I go, all I need is bus money. I can use the same bus pass to get home.”
“Why wouldn’t you go?” She says.
I very grimly tell her, “It feels like I am attending my own funeral.” Dramatic? I don’t think so.
I get dressed to go. It’s 7 AM, if I wanna get there on time I should leave now. But I lay back down in bed. The fear of what lies around the corner exhausting everything. How far down am I? Not that far Jordan, but this appointment will tell it all.
I went to work on Saturday after staying up much too late. They sent me home and told me “before I could come back I needed a doctors note saying that I am in treatment and stable.”
I needed this appointment to go okay but I know it will not.
When I got home Saturday a friend of my roommates (and now a friend of mine) was there. I’d met her a few times and we talked and talked and talked and talked. We touched everything from racism to life stories. But something she said cut razor deep into my psyche. I can feel it as I lay here in bed, basking in my own self-pity.
“Jordy, what’s your plan? You’ve got to have a plan.”
She’s right. I always have a plan. As if channeling reality directly into my frontal lobe, that’s where decisions are made, see, she says to me. “Get to the suboxone doctor, get the paperwork you need and try to save your job. You have to have a job Jordy. No matter what you have to do. Get a ride, ride the bus if you have to but, you’ve got to have a plan to get your job back.”
She’s right, “You’re right. I can’t lose this job.”
Fear. There is rational fear, and irrational fear. I don’t know what fears are more rational than others. Fearing a drone strike is irrational if you live in the Midwest, but not if you live in Yemen or Syria. At least, today that is true.
Drive-by shootings are not a worry if you live in the suburbs but in South Central LA, any kind of shooting is a possibility.
I spent most of my life fearing the irrational. When I first got clean I started having panic attacks when I thought about dying. It was like my mind making up for the years that I didn’t care about myself, and that fear that, it turns out is not uncommon at all was showing itself by making me believe I was dying right then. It got so bad at one point I was taken out of work by an ambulance because I was positive I was having a heart attack.
I thought, at one point that I would not go anywhere that I couldn’t take a bus to since buses were much safer than cars and car wrecks claim more deaths than heart disease per year. If I am to close to heart disease to turn back, I could at least steer clear of cars. This fear was irrational. As was the fear that had me still lying in bed at 10 AM when Tricia’s voice again invaded my psyche, “Jordy, you’ve got to do everything you can—”
I looked at the time, 10:15, I’ve got to go. How will I explain that I didn’t even try.
“Amber!” I holler out to the room next to mine. No answer. I get up and walk to their door and knock, they must’ve went back to sleep. A couple more knocks and she answers, “What Jordy?”
“Will you still order me that Uber?”
“Yea, as long as it is under $9.44. That’s what I have left.”
“Thank you. I can’t skip this, I’ve got to at least try.”
30 Minutes Later…
I’m getting out of the Uber in front of the doctor. With not a second to spare I head on in. I called them ahead of time to tell them, “I am late, but on my way.”
The sign reading “Cleanse Clinic” beaming down at me, I wonder if it’s the last time I’ll see this sign. Stop being so dramatic Jordan. You pass this place every time you go downtown. You’re getting discharged. Not dying. Maybe not.
I enter through the first set of automatic doors. Take the oh so familiar left through the next set into the waiting room, dim enough to be a nightclub, yet sterile like a mortuary. I see the first good sign in days as I walk up to the receptionists window. Priscilla. She’s the best, so nice, she remembered for a whole month one time to bring me her husband’s old backpack, which I still use everyday.
I look around, no sign of Frenchy. I thought for sure he’d be here to hound me about the bill. I say nothing, but take a pen to sign in on the sign up sheet.
Priscilla looks up and smiles, “hey Jordan, how are you?” Then eyes back to the computer. Searching for whatever it is that she does on that side of the window.
I tell her in the most apologetic tone I can muster, "So sorry. I am so damn late.” She looks from the computer and locks eyes with me. Not in a look of passion, but stern, serious. Haha, it turns out more like Howard Stern on Sirius (Get it. Howard Stern is the star of Sirius Satellite Radio. Literally the only draw to Sirius, if that). She holds that stare and right when my nervous are about to give and I must look away it turns to a menacing smirk followed by, “you think we’re sweating what time you show up?”
I think, damn, I wish that was how everyone felt about me here, but I keep it to myself. After all, I can’t blame everyone here for one Arabic-Frenchy going through some kind of identity crisis because he has such a high tolerance to Cialis he’s about to file Chapter Eleven (it’s bankruptcy, see).
Instead I laugh through it like I always do when I don’t know what to say.
She giggles a bit. Grabs a new urine sample cup and a sharpie. Writes my name in J. Canter, looks up at me over her glasses like my aunt does, except when she does I am normally in trouble. But not with Priscilla, “Birthdate, 3, 1, 90, right?”
Good memory on this one, “Yes, that’s it.”
She passes me the cup through the window, says, “come on back,” like always and I remember, for the first time in days the realization sets in, holy shit, I jumped off the deep end, risked everything including my life, panicked over something that was never happening! Fear.
Irrational fear.
But now I’m back…
Stay Tuned… Thank you for reading.
Jordan Lee Canter Editor-in-Chief
