In a Flash*

*from my hybrid memoir, Turning of the Spiral.

            I was 21, she was a 19-year-old guitar prodigy with a sponsorship and a secret.

            Roxy didn’t own a bed.

            “They’re all bullshit, ya know?” she’d say.

            “What is?”

            “Mattress,” she continued. “They’re just a scam invented by furniture stores to sell you the illusion of comfort. Why do you think there are as many mattress stores as there are banks?”

             Roxanne—everyone called her Roxy—had a constant smile on her face, making it hard to tell when she was joking around.

             “Can’t we hold onto that illusion? I have a firm grounding in it?” I smiled.

             Her smile grew bigger. “You dork!” Her tiny fist hitting my arm.

            Roxy slept on the floor like it was sacred. Blanket over carpet, no pillow. She’d grown up that way, riding tour buses with her dad, who drove bands from one crumbling city to the next—Paul McCartney, Madonna, the Warped Tour circuit. She’d been on those buses her whole childhood, watching musicians live and collapse and keep moving. There was something proud in her lack of comfort, like she was allergic to stability.

            We met through a Facebook message.

            She and her bassist Tim were putting together a band and needed a drummer. Her profile picture showed a girl in all black holding a white custom guitar, red bangs cutting across her face. Her message said they were building an international touring band—Misfits, Pennywise, Danzig, Rancid. Those were some of my favorite bands. She asked if I played drums. I wondered how she even knew.

            I messaged back that I was interested. They told me: Guitar Center, Friday, 4 PM. Don’t be late.

            I went straight to my drum kit in the garage and practiced for hours. I thought about Scarlett, which made me play harder. Angrier. Faster. By the time I stopped, my shirt was soaked through and there were red drops on the snare from where I’d caught a cymbal with my bare hand one too many times. My knuckles were bleeding. I didn’t notice until I was already in the shower.

            I was ready.

            The day of, I almost talked myself out of it. Standing at a gas station with a Monster energy drink sweating in my hand, second and third and fourth thoughts piling up. They could have anybody. Why would they pick me? I almost turned around. But something kept me driving.

            Inside the store I scanned every aisle. Didn’t see them. Waited in the drum section until 4:15, then figured they’d forgotten. I was heading for the exit when two people walked in—a guy in a Sex Pistols shirt and a girl in all black with red bangs and custom sunglasses that looked made for her face.

            She was shorter than her pictures. Drop-dead gorgeous. In the pictures she looked mid-twenties. In person she couldn’t have been a day over eighteen.

            They were tired. They’d been at this all day. I could tell by the way they looked at me half-interested, going through the motions.

            I sat down behind the kit and played. Hard. Showed off a little. Opened with something close to YYZ, faster and harder, then threw in the drum break from Maxwell Murder. Tim lit up at that. Being a bassist, he recognized it immediately. I played through everything I had. When I finished I was dripping sweat and had nearly lost a stick mid-song.

           “Alright. That was good. Very nice,” Tim said.

          Roxy stood there with glasses still on and a cute smile on her face.

           “Will you give us a sec?” Tim asked as they both walked a few feet away.

           I knew I had failed. There was no way they were going to pick me. I was an okay drummer, but for being in a band with her, a guitar-goddess, I was nothing.

            I watched as they whispered to each other. I prepared my exit line.

            They both turned around at the same time.

            “Do you want to be our drummer?”

      

            The three of us started drinking together at the house I was staying at. Tim was a few years younger and had other friends, which left Roxy and me alone most nights, talking about music. She idolized Randy Rhoads. Not casually. More like religion. More like possession.

            She never once picked up the guitar while we hung out together. I didn’t know if that meant anything but I really wanted to watch her play. And one night, I got that wish. I drove her to practice with another group she played. I watched her rip through Ozzy covers like it was nothing. The same runs, the same dive bombs—cleaner than they had any right to be. It felt like she’d picked up where he left off. 

            I liked her. But I assumed she was out of my league.

            One night my roommates wanted to go barhopping downtown, so I invited my new band. We ended up at Speakeasy—a rooftop bar on Sixth Street with Christmas lights strung everywhere and the whole Austin skyline laid out below. The atmosphere was surreal. Roxy and Tim had never had the full bar experience, being under twenty-one, so they were taking advantage of it. Knowing people has its advantages, as my housemates knew the right ones. 

            I was talking to a girl I hadn’t seen in a while, an old crush. I was close to flirting with her when Roxy appeared and called a band meeting. Which turned out to be just the two of us, alone by the railing, city lights below, the air smelling like cigarettes and summer.

            I could see her eyes without the sunglasses. Blue. They were beautiful. She was beautiful.

            “I like you,” she said.

            She just went for it. And I’m glad she did.

            We kissed. And that was that.

            After that we were together every day. The band was mostly an idea we talked about instead of practiced. We drank every night. When we finally did hold auditions for a rhythm guitarist at my house, we went through each one by one. Most were decent, none were right. I couldn’t watch Roxy play without losing my train of thought. The way her hands moved up the neck, fast and precise. We all knew we hadn’t found the one yet.

            Then one of the guys who showed up was someone I’d gone to school with. Punk rock Buddy Holly, is what I called him. Messy clothes, thick glasses, and sloppy in exactly the right way. We ran through a Rancid song and it clicked. 

            We told him we’d be in touch and he left his backpack behind.

            When we opened it we found pamphlets. Heroin Anonymous. NA meeting schedules. A small bottle of methadone tucked in the side pocket.

            Roxy and I looked at each other. Tim shook his head.

            “Yeah, we’re not calling him back,” he said.

            Around that same time I got a phone call from an unknown number. A doctor. He was trying to reach Roxy and had gotten my number somehow. I told him I was her boyfriend and asked what was wrong. He said legally he couldn’t tell me much, only that she was manic depressive and should not be drinking. I already knew drinking was a problem for her. 

            But then he asked, “How is she with her drug problem?”

            I walked into the other room.

            “What drug problem?”

            He seemed genuinely shocked. Asked how I could be her boyfriend and not know. I looked at Roxy through the doorway, who was silently mouthing the word no. I told him there was no drug problem. That I was a recovered addict myself and I knew what to look for and I’d been with her every day and there was nothing.

            His tone shifted. He told me to keep an eye on her.

            I hung up and looked at Roxy again. She was watching TV with Tim like nothing had happened. 

           I didn’t say anything. I told myself that being with me, someone who’d been through it, meant she was safe. I knew what to look for. I knew what situations to avoid.

            I hadn’t considered that the situation might come find us.

            The decision about the guitarist didn’t last and we had him back over to play again. He seemed less focused this time which was disappointing. We called for a break. I went out back with Tim to smoke. When we came back inside the room was empty. No Roxy. No guitarist. Just his backpack still on the floor.

            She didn’t come back until after midnight. When I asked where she’d been she said it wasn’t my business anymore.

            I didn’t want her to disappear again so I didn’t push it. 

            

            After a while things started to unravel.

She’d call at two or three in the morning begging me to come over. Even when I had class early. Even when I’d already said no. When I stopped coming she started threatening to kill herself if I didn’t.

            Every time I showed up she’d forget why she’d called and fall asleep.

            I talked to her about taking a break. For the band. She played it cool on the outside. I could tell she was devastated.

            Then came the fight.

            I don’t even remember what it was about. Something stupid. Something that felt huge in the moment and meaningless now.

            I told her I was done. That I couldn’t keep doing this. The drinking, the chaos, the way she’d disappear for hours and come back wrecked.

            She didn’t fight back. Just stared at me with that look. The one that said she’d heard it all before.

            “Fine,” she said. “Go.”

            So I did.

            That night my phone lit up. Her name on the screen, over and over.

            I knew the pattern. She’d threaten. I’d come over. She’d forget why she called and fall asleep and I’d lie there watching the ceiling until morning. I had class though and was exhausted. I told myself she’d be fine.

             I shut my phone off.

             The next morning was silent. Even throughout the afternoon. It felt wrong.

             Roxy didn’t go quiet. Even when we fought she’d call. She’d text. She’d show up at my door drunk and apologizing or drunk and yelling, depending on her mood.

              But this time nothing.

              I told myself she was just pissed. That she’d reach out when she was ready.

             Then Tim called.

             His voice cut through the bright sunrays, dragging me into something darker.

             “You need to come over.”

             I sat in my car, squinting at the light coming through the window. 

             “Why?”

             “Just come.”

             Flat. Empty. Like he’d already run out of words.

             “What happened?”

             “You tell me. What were you two doing last night?” His tone went dark.

             I told him about the fight. That I’d stormed off.

             Silence.

             Then, “Well, she’s… just come over. Please.”

             He hung up.

             I sat there with the phone still pressed to my ear, listening to dead air.

             I’ve been here before.

             The thought arrived unbidden, like an echo from a place I hadn’t visited yet.

             I stopped at a gas station. My hands were shaking as I topped off my tank but I didn’t know why yet.

            The drive took twenty minutes. The radio played something upbeat, some pop song about summer and freedom. It felt obscene.

            I parked on the street. Her apartment building looked the same as always—painted wood, rusted railings, a sad little complex that had probably been nice in the seventies.

            Tim was waiting outside on the curb. Smoking.

            He looked up when I approached. His eyes were red.

            “She’s inside,” he said.

            “Is she okay?”

            He didn’t answer. Just took a long drag and stared at the ground.

            “Dude. Is she okay?”

            He shook his head. Slow. Deliberate.

            “No.”

            The word hung in the air between us.

            I started toward the door.

            “Wait,” he said. “You don’t… you don’t have to go in there.”

            “Where is she?” I snapped. 

            “My room.”

            I opened the door.

            The apartment smelled wrong. It wasn’t rotten or decayed. Just stale. Like all the air had been sitting there too long, waiting for something to happen.

            The living room was dim. Curtains drawn. A pizza box on the coffee table. Empty beer bottles lined up on the counter.

            Everything looked normal. Too normal.

            “Roxy?”

            My voice cracked. I cleared my throat.

            “Yo, Roxy. You here?”

            Nothing.

            I moved down the hallway. Tim’s door was halfway open. Just enough to see the edge of her blanket on the floor.

            She’s probably just passed out. Hungover. She’ll wake up and call me a dork for worrying. Or perhaps surprise me saying it was all a joke, not to take things so seriously. 

            I pushed the door open.

            The room was darker than the rest of the apartment. One window covered by a sheet tacked to the wall. The light that filtered through was gray, sickly. The TV buzzed with the title menu of some eighties horror movie, replaying endlessly.

            I saw the blanket first. The one she always used. Faded black, worn thin from years of sleeping on floors.

            Then I saw her.

            Slumped against the side of the bed. Legs sprawled out, head tilted, jaw dropped. Her hair covered most of her face. One arm hung limp at her side.

            The other had a needle still in it.

            The tip caught the dim light, glinting like a shard of broken glass.

             I stepped closer.

             “Roxy?”

             She didn’t move.

             I said her name again. Louder.

             Nothing.

             I knelt down. My hands hovered over her shoulder.

             Don’t touch her. If you don’t touch her, this isn’t real yet.

             But I did.

             Her skin was cold. The kind of cold that has weight to it. The kind that sinks into your bones.

             I pulled my hand back like I’d been burned.

            “Roxy. Come on. Wake up.”

            I shook her shoulder. Gently at first. Then harder.

            Her head lolled to the side. Her hair fell away from her face.

            Her eyes were half-open. Staring at nothing.

            Her lips were blue.

            I stood up too fast. The room tilted.

            I backed away, stumbling over a shoe, an empty bottle. My back hit the wall.

            I couldn’t stop staring at the needle.

            Still in her arm. Like she’d just done it. Like any second she’d wake up and pull it out and laugh at me for being so dramatic.

            She didn’t move.

            The room was so quiet.

            I couldn’t hear breathing. No heart beating. Nothing.

            Just me and her and the needle and the cold.

            And then I thought about the guitarist. The backpack. The methadone. The night he and Roxy disappeared together and she came back after midnight and told me it wasn’t my business.

             She must have called him. That’s what I told myself. After our fight, after I left, after I shut off my phone—she called him and he told her where to get it.

             I needed that to be true.

             Because if it wasn’t him, it was me.

             I was the one who left. The one who shut his phone off. The one who lay in bed while her name lit up the screen over and over and told himself she’d be fine.

             I don’t remember leaving the room.

             I don’t remember walking back down the hallway or stepping outside.

             But suddenly I was on the curb next to Tim and my hands were shaking so hard I couldn’t hold my phone. Tim had to dial 911.

             I asked, “Why didn’t you call before?”

             He took a long drag before answering. Like the question had been sitting on him since before I arrived.

             “I kept thinking she’d wake up,” he said. “I went in there twice. Just stood there watching her like she was going to move.”

             He flicked the cigarette.

             “Then I called you.”

             I looked at him. Really looked. The red eyes I’d written off as shock. The way he’d been sitting on that curb like he had nowhere else to be. Like this was where he lived now.

             He’d known her for years. Got the apartment with her. And every time I came over he’d disappear, either to his room or some other friends, and I’d thought he was just giving us space.

             He’d called me instead of 911.

             I didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t make it worse for both of us.

             We sat there in silence.

             The sun was too bright. The sky was too blue. The world was still turning and it felt like an insult. The sirens came before either of us said another word.

             Two cop cars. An ambulance. Lights Roxying, radios crackling.

             The EMTs went inside first. Then the cops.

             One came out and walked over to us.

             “You the one who found her?”

             Tim nodded.

             “And you?” He looked at me.

             “I’m her boyfriend.”

             The word felt wrong. Like I didn’t have the right to claim it anymore.

             “When’s the last time you saw her?”

             “Last night.”

             “She say anything? Seem upset?”

             I hesitated.

             “We got into a fight. I left. I thought she just needed space.”

             The cop nodded, writing in his notebook.

            “She have any history of drug use?”

            Tim spoke up. “She was clean for a while. I didn’t know she was using again.”

            “You know where she got it?”

            “Maybe,” I said. “There was this guy. Auditioned for our band. Left his backpack at my place. Had heroin anonymous pamphlets in it. Methadone.”

            “You got a name?”

            I gave them what I remembered. They wrote it down.

            “We’ll look into it. Sit tight.”

            He walked back inside.

            I stared at the ambulance. They didn’t rush. No urgency. Because there was no saving her.

           She was already gone.

           I watched them load her in. Watched them close the doors. Watched them drive away without the sirens on.

           Tim lit another cigarette.

          “I should’ve stayed home that night,” he said. “When you two were fighting. I thought you wanted to be alone.”

          “This isn’t your fault,” I said.

          But I didn’t believe it.

          And I don’t think he did either.

          The cops asked more questions. Autopilot answers. No. I don’t know. Maybe.

          I learned through Tim’s answers that she was also a recovering heroin addict. While touring Warped Tour some years back, her all-girl band had all been strung out. She’d gotten out of it, somehow. 

          Not all the way though. 

            They let us go. I told Tim he could crash at my place.

            We drove in silence. Radio off.

            Back at the house I sat on the couch and stared at the wall.

            I didn’t cry.

            I didn’t call anyone.

            I just sat there with my phone in my hand, the screen dark, replaying it. The fight. The calls I didn’t answer. The phone I shut off. Her doctor telling me to keep an eye on her while I told him and myself she was safe with me.

            I couldn’t shake the thought: I should have never auditioned for the band.