The first time I was in El Elohim I was seven. My father had just died and I went into a state of shock I wouldn’t speak and I wouldn’t eat. They fed me through an intravenous tube and psychiatrists came in with little hand puppets and tried to make me talk. Finally I came to see that all I had to do was open my mouth, open just a little, let them push food in and pull words out and I could leave.
The second time I was twenty-seven. I had been back from Miami for two months I had left Florida with that one-way ticket and a rush of righteous indignation, back in the city I wasn’t quite so strong and sure. I didn’t have a job, because I didn’t know what I wanted to do I didn’t have an apartment, because I wasn’t sure where I wanted to live. What I was doing was sleeping on Veronica’s couch in Brooklyn Heights and going out almost every night
The night that ended in El Elohim started off at a bar on Third Street with an old friend from Tompkin’s Square Park, Jessie, and a few other girls I knew, drinking gin and tonics and taking trips to the bathroom in twos and threes to do a little coke It was close to Christmas, December 23, and everyone was happy For the first time in a long time I was almost enjoying myself. Everyone knew I had been down and the girls rallied around me, telling me silly little stories about work and dates and nights on the town to cheer me up
Then one of Jessie’s friends, Jenny, mentioned Quaaludes. Officially the tranquihzers had gone out of production in 1976, but every once in a while a dealer claimed to have a cache They were made in a basement, the rumors went, or they were European imports, or they were still sold over the counter in Mexico. Now Jenny was saying she had a source, a reliable source in the form of a dealer named Electric Dave who everyone knew and everyone trusted, and Jenny swore they were real
I wanted them I knew of Electric Dave but I had never met him, so I offered Jenny two if she would take me to his place. Ten dollars a pop It was a deal.
Electric Dave answered the door of his ritzy lower Fifth Avenue apartment in ripped jeans and no shirt. His skin was inked with heavy metal fantasy tattoos, goblins, princesses, warriors. A girl was sitting on the couch in boxer shorts and a T-shirt Introductions were made all around. I told Dave what I wanted—ten pills—and the girl fixed us drinks while Dave disappeared. Someone put Metallica on the stereo. Dave came back out, the exchange was made, and we had a few more drinks and small talk before we split. In a cab back to the East Village I gave Jenny three pills instead of two, feeling generous. We each popped one and by the time we got back to the bar we felt relaxed and velvety and soft. The other girls were gone but a few guys we knew were hanging out at the bar so we joined them One of them, Julio, I hadn’t seen for a few years and he wanted to know where I had been. I told him about Miami and asked where he had been. Prison, he said, for dealing dope A few hours passed and Jenny and I each took another pill The guys offered us a little coke and we each took a taste When four o’clock came around we debated an after-hours club and decided, yes. Why not after-hours?
Frankie’s was a mob-run little hole-in-the-wall a few blocks away, on Stanton and Ludlow The best thing about Frankie’s was that you never knew who you would see there Businessmen, call girls, rockers, club kids—give anyone enough coke and they’d end up at Frankie’s at four-thirty. I saw a girl I knew from Livingston Books and we got into a deep conversation at the bar. Her boyfriend had just left her and she felt like crap
“I just got dumped too,” I said, and as I said it I felt sick to my stomach. It was so mundane, a woman dumped by a man. Pathetic. My spirits couldn’t go back up after that. I left without saying good-bye to anyone. A gray dawn was breaking, and I got a cab and tried not to cry on the way to Brooklyn. Back at the apartment I was alone. Veronica was spending the night at a boyfriend’s and wouldn’t be back probably until early afternoon. I took another Quaalude, but the coke kept me up I lay on the couch and drifted in and out of consciousness I liked the unconscious better than the conscious so I took another pill, and then maybe a few more.
The next thing I knew Veronica was screaming and slapping my face Then I was in the emergency room of El Elo-him. The lights were bright and a crowd of people in scrubs and lab coats were around me. I tasted vomit in my mouth. Someone was saying my name I felt like I had been run over by a truck.
I had failed
After they pumped my stomach they kept me in El Elohim for a forty-eight-hour psych evaluation and medical observation. Like Dr. Tracy said, nice people. On Saturday I told the social worker who came to interview me that I had never taken Quaaludes before and didn’t know they were dangerous She believed me On Sunday I passed my neurological exam with aces No permanent damage On Monday morning I was given my clothes and released, with a five-thousand-dollar bill for treatment, room, and board that I would never pay, since Veronica had been clever enough to check me in under her third cousin’s name.
Before I checked out I found the E.R. doctor who had pumped my stomach. He was about my age, a myopic WASPy guy in khakis and a plaid shirt and those funny doctor’s clogs who, I imagined, had seen more of the world during his time at El Elohim than he had in the prior twenty-seven years combined.
I asked him if the Quaaludes were real. He took off his glasses and laughed, but he wouldn’t tell me.
“Just be more careful next time,” he said. “You’re young No one wants to lose you yet ”
I promised that I would, and I checked out and left.
Now I’m back to get my tooth pulled, for free, from a last-year dental student Dr. Tracy was right—it is a separate entrance from the psych ward, although of course I don’t remember the entrance, only the exit Dr. Tracy was also right about the doctors—they’re young, they’re nice, they’re unflappable What he did not tell me is that the El Elohim dental clinic is where guests of the New York City prison system are taken for dental work. So for an hour in the waiting room I’m kept company by three handcuffed prisoners and six correctional officers. One of the inmates has tears in his eyes When my name is called I whisper to the doctor that the crying man can go ahead of me. No one says anything, we all just nod, and I wait another half hour.
Shanaishwaraya.
Finally my name is called again and then I’m in the chair. Like the E R doctor who so dramatically saved my life, the dentists in the clinic are world-weary. One young man gives me a skillfully quick shot of novocaine. Another takes a small horrific chrome tool, puts it in my mouth, wiggles a little, and that’s it It’s gone. I can’t resist a jab with my tongue and there’s nothing, a hole with a small wad of gauze plugged in. I jab again. The hole seems wrong.
And I miss that tooth I am flooded with regret. Why didn’t I Save The Tooth? Why do I have to lose everything? When the dentists have their backs turned I reach into my mouth and feel the hole with my finger, it’s bloody and pulpy and empty. It’s wrong. Something is missing. A lot is missing Everything is missing It’s like the dream that you’ve gone to school and forgotten your clothes; a moment of irrevocable shame. How did I end up in El Elohim again? I’m choking on blood and tears and they’re calling my emergency contact. I am terrified that they will put me into psych again; I explain to the doctors that I am not crazy, I just miss my tooth. Maybe they can put it back? The young doctors are nonplussed. This happens a lot, they say, with extractions.
My emergency contact is Veronica. She bundles me up and gets me in a cab and takes me back to her apartment. On her couch I feel better, if utterly pathetic. Veronica is kind enough to act as though this is normal.
“I’m not surprised,” she says “This had to happen some time. We were just talking about it the other day.”
“Who?”
“Me and Jessie And some other people. About how you were going to flip out sometime soon It’s too much: the life you’ve had, now with your mother, and Austin coming back, and this woman stalking you at work It’s too much ”
For the first time I think, Goddamn, I have had a hard life No wonder I’m so fucked up. “So this is it? I’m losing my mind?”
“Nah. You’re just losing your shit a little bit It’s totally natural In the long run you’ll be fine.”
“How do you know?” I’m thinking, maybe I won’t be Maybe I’ll give up the struggle and spend the rest of my life in a refrigerator box on the Bowery
“That’s the other thing we were talking about You’ll make it You could make it through anything ”