Mary, meet Jesus

It’s 8pm at my survival job and 5 of the 7 bus boys get “cut.” This is a rare event. The five who leave are all Mexicans. Of the two that stay, one is Chilean and the other is new. It turns out that Mexico is playing “football” for a spot in the World Cup. It’s the most important game of the year.
At 10pm, KJ, the upstairs bartender, gets a call from downstairs. Jesus, one of the bus boys, has called the restaurant and wants to speak to KJ. (Yes, Jesus. The poor guy was born on Christmas, so his parents named him Jesus. It has to suck to be born on Christmas. Given the choice between celebrating Christmas and someone’s birthday, what would you choose?) KJ takes the call. I ask him what that was all about? He says the conversation went something like this.
“KJ….what you do when the Mets lose, man? What you do?”
“What are you talking about.”
“Joo love de Mets. Whatchyou do man? When they lose?”
“Why?”
“Mexico is going to lose dis game, man. I donno what to do.”
“Well, just keep drinking til you feel better.”
At 10:30pm, five drunk Mexicans show up at the restaurant. Jesus is the most drunk of any of them, hanging on the waitresses and being loud and aggressive. Three of the Mexicans feel awkward and leave. Jesus and his buddy, Juanito, stay on and move from the first floor bar to the third floor bar progressively getting more and more plastered. They tell me more than once how much they love me.
At 11:45pm, I get a call from my roommate, Mary. I don’t get calls from her this late at night unless she is locked out of the house or there is an emergency.
I leave the floor and hide in the dish room.
“Hey, Mary. What’s up?”
“Lucas,” she says, almost crying, “I need help.”
“Okay, okay. What’s wrong?”
“I just ate a lot of pot brownies and I don’t know what’s happening.”
“So you’re really high?”
“I can’t feel my body.”
“Okay…”
“I’m scared Lucas, I need help.”
The wheels in my head are turning. I know it sucks to be paranoid when you’re high—
“I’m shivering, Lucas, I’m shivering. Is that normal?”--but I also know she’ll make it through this.
“Mary,” I say, “I can’t get out of work, yet, but I’ll call my girlfriend. I think she’s on her way home, and she can stop by and take care of you til you feel better.”
“Oh, I would give her so many coodies, goodies, kudos if she did. Anything. That would be great.”
So I hang up and call the girlfriend. No girlfriend. I call Mary back.”
“Mary, I can’t get hold of girlfriend, do you have any other friends in Astoria who can help you?”
“I’m not in Astoria.”
“Where are you?”
“Times Square.”
Oh shit. “Where in Times Square are you?”
“49th between 10th and 11th.”
Oh fuck. “Okay, do you think you can make it to Angus?”
“I don’t know, I’m with my friend and she’s asleep.”
Fuck me. Her friend is sleeping on the street in a sketchy area, and Mary is wigging out. “All right, listen. I could probably get out of work to come get you.”
“That would be great! Oh, would you? I’m at Holly’s apartment.”
What the…”You’re at Holly’s apartment? You’re inside?”
“Yes!”
“What’s Holly doing?”
“She’s sleeping! Lucas, I think you need to call 911.”
“Umm…”
“Can you please call 911? I’m really not well. I’m shivering and I don’t have control of my limbs.”
“Your limbs?”
“They’re heavy. I can’t move them on my own.”
“Okay, Mary? I’m going to put you on the line with KJ. I think you’re going to be fine, but you don’t trust me. KJ has done a ton of drugs and been through all this shit, he can probably walk you through this.”
I go back on the floor and explain the situation to KJ who immediately starts cracking up. He says, “What am I supposed to tell her?” I say, “I don’t know, but she doesn’t trust me because I haven’t done that much, but she’ll trust you.” I get back on the phone with Mary.
“Mary, I’m gonna hand you over to KJ now.”
“I just heard you say I don’t trust you!”
“Yeah, I was talking about you not trusting me.”
“Wait, who am I talking to?”
“This is Lucas.” I turn to KJ, “Okay, forget that. What should I tell her?”
KJ says, “Tell her to take a shower.”
“Mary, take a shower.”
“I don’t want to. Can you please call 911?”
“Mary I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
KJ starts cracking up. I’m also busting a gut but trying not to let Mary hear me laughing.
“Mary, I’m telling you. You cannot OD on marijuana. You’re not going to trust me because you’re paranoid, and that’s part of it, but I’m telling you, you cannot OD on marijuana. So just start breathing.”
At which point I hear another voice in the background.
“Who’s that?” I ask.
Mary says, “That’s Holly.”
“Holly’s awake?”
“Yes, Lucas I’m so scared. I’m really not well. I’m shaking.”
“Put Holly on the line………Holly?”
“Yes?”
“This is Lucas, you remember me. Are you high?”
“What?”
“I mean, I know you’re high, but are you as high as Mary is?”
“I don’t know. What are you talking about?”
“You seem pretty calm and clear to me.”
“Yeah, I feel fine. What’s going on?”
“What’s going on is that Mary is wigging out and just called me to help her, but if you’re rational and calm, then you can just take care of her. Can you take care of her for me?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Okay, thanks. Put Mary back on……….Mary?”
“Yeah,”
“Holly’s going to take care of you.”
“NO! She’s had as much as me!”
“Mary, I just talked to her. I’m sober, and I can tell that she’s sober, calm and rational. She can take care of you, okay?”
It took me a while to convince her of this, but she finally gave in and seemed to calm down.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m in the alley of the restaurant, standing next to Jesus to make sure he doesn’t get into any more trouble. So far he’s knocked over a glass of water and spat on the floor. He keeps trying to make me listen to the techno-Mexican music he is playing on his Ipod. He can barely stand up and tries to kick the porter every time he walks by taking out the trash. Jesus sits down on a bench. I get him a glass of water, and after giving him the glass (hoping he won’t drop it), I look up to find Mary standing in front of me like a puppy dog, shivering. “Mary!”
“Hi,” she says, somewhat defeated, paranoid and smiling all at once. “I had trouble with the cab driver. I don’t know what happened. He said it was six dollars and I said I’d give him five because I didn’t believe him. He said I was being cheap, so I asked him to let me out early. I don’t know what happened.”
“Where’s Holly. Wasn’t she taking care of you?”
“She fell asleep.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here.” At which point Jesus falls off the bench behind me and sends the bench sliding across the floor. Mary watches this as if she’s in a bizarre movie. “What just happened,” she asks.
“Oh, that’s just Jesus. He’s drunk. You can’t worry about him right now.”
“Okay.”
I huddle Mary up the stairs and get her a glass of water. The waiters downstairs clean up the mess of Juanito and Jesus and huddle them out the door.
Upstairs, Mary is sitting at the bar and absolutely enthralled with the basketball game on the TV. All the waiters are getting changed and having their own conversations while Mary is having a conversation with herself about how wonderful basketball is. She loves that the score is so “big.” I say, “Yup, they’re winning by a lot.”
“I love basketball…”
I take Mary home in a cab with my friend, Alexis. Mary is sure that everything is her fault and that we will be in this cab forever. I have an idea of how to get her out of the paranoid state she’s in before she goes to bed. We’re in my apartment, and I say, “Mary, everything going on in your head is very real to you right now, so you can either make that really bad or really good. Do you want to do the sense memory exercise?” I had done this with her the last time she got paranoid when she was high and it worked quite well. She says, “Oh, yes! Let’s do that. I can’t wait to go to Maui!”
I say, “Sure, okay, well, close your eyes. Forget Maui for a little while. If that’s what comes up, great, but for now, your favorite memory, go. Whatever comes up first.”
She shakes her head.
I ask her if she’d rather just go to Maui again. She says, no, she can’t explain, but she’ll go with her first choice. I say, “Okay, what is it?”
“My grandma.”
“Great,” and I start taking her through the sense memory exercise, telling her, “Don’t answer me, just see it: what color is her hair? How far from you is she?” etc. I then move on to the sounds and the smells. Knowing that she’s high and really sensitive I say, “You can really smell it. What is that smell? Okay, and she’s telling you she loves you. What’s the sound of her voice. And how do you feel?”
I look up and Mary is bawling. A light bulb that should have gone on a while ago finally flickers to life.
“Mary. Is your grandma gone?”
She nods her head, yes.
I say, “That’s a pretty important detail. You might have given me that before we started.” I ask her if she would rather shake that one off and go to Maui. She says, “No. What if I just run to bed with this one?" I say, “Do you like this one?” She nods, yes, even though she’s crying, and I say, “Okay. Are you still paranoid?” She says she’s not, and that’s good enough for me.
“Good night, Mary.”
“Good night, Jesus.”