Free The Big Fix by Tracey Helton Mitchell Page A

I was going to get into a program, and from that moment she had been my staunchest supporter. Unfortunately, this time my father answered the phone. This was the man who, when he was a teenager and the family horse died, was hooked up to the plow in its stead. This was the man who brought his prom date home to meet his parents, and she asked to use the bathroom, walked out, and never came back. I didn’t expect my father to talk about his feelings on the phone, but I braced myself for the disappointment that I knew he must have felt. We had become estranged since I left Ohio, and I had rarely spoken to him in the past few years. I am sure he received progress reports from my mother. I had spent all those years judging him for his drinking. Now here I was, a twenty-eight-year-old heroin addict who had achieved nothing in life.
    It wasn’t so long before then that I had been telling him I wanted to apply to Princeton. I’d had stellar grades and startedout my freshman year at the University of Cincinnati almost a year ahead of my peers. The admissions counselor had told me in my interview, “You’re a one-of-a-kind student.” Little did she know how true that would turn out to be.
    On the phone, my dad characteristically did not provide me with comfort. Nevertheless, he told me what I needed to hear. “All your friends are in the cemetery or penitentiary,” he said. I am sure he told me that because he loved me. He had some insight into my struggle.
    If I faltered from this path, I knew I was headed for the grave. After I completed my time at the treatment facility, I moved to a transitional house. I wasn’t ready to be released into the world completely raw. I didn’t know if I ever would be. Recovery was not a soft pillow to land on after a hard fall. All I knew was that I wanted to be able to look at myself in the mirror. I wanted my body to be my own. I wanted to be free.

Chapter 4
    WALK A DAY IN MY SHOES

    I have no luck with shoes. That’s what I was thinking as I stood in front of the ATM fiddling with the ankle strap of my left shoe. Between the permanent damage from shooting up in the soles of my feet and the extra weight I was now carrying, finding a decent pair was nearly impossible. I still had a mile left to walk home. Distracted by the expectation of my shoe turning into a slow torture device, I didn’t notice the man approaching the ATM until I caught his round face out of the corner of my eye. He was close to six feet tall, well dressed and well groomed. He looked like a professional man. His eyes were an unusual color of gray with cornersthat crinkled as he smiled widely at me; his smile was one of recognition. I saw the flicker of his gold bracelet as he placed his hand on the wall close to me—too close—as if to engage me in a conversation.
    Can’t he see I’m using this damn machine? I concentrated on pushing the right buttons to take out money. Forty dollars to be exact. It will need to get me through the weekend. I felt him staring at me, and I turned my body to block my PIN number. Some people are so rude, I thought. What kind of asshole invaded the sacred space between a woman and her money machine?
    He interrupted my irritation. “I see you really have changed,” he said.
    I quickly slipped the bills into my wallet and pretended I didn’t hear him.
    As I walked away, the images started to click: the man, the face, the voice, the bracelet. They were too familiar. My past, like the San Francisco fog I walked through on my way to work every morning, was murky yet inescapable. Where did this man fit? Was the memory a positive one or a deep regret I had buried inside myself to forget? I started on my mile-walk home, my irritation giving way to uneasiness and then shame with every step. I knew who this man was—how could I forget? He used to give me $40 if I would give him a blow job without using a condom. This was during the