It was a media circus. I was on tv and in every major newspaper around the world. It was on every channel. I was being called the first mercy killer by a father of his child. Whenever I saw, or heard the words ‘killed his daughter’, it cut me deeply. Not sliced me, that’s too easy a description, but cut me, tore at me inside. Like a punch to your stomach, only deeper. It was horrible.

I was in Time magazine. Even The Enquirer and The Weekly World News. I know this because I would get bundles of mail from everywhere. Europe, Canada, even Japan. I read them and they were either hate mail or people praying for me. I actually read through the hate mail. Anything starting with ‘God forgives you’ or ‘I’m praying for you’, I threw away. There was no God. How could there be?

My trial lasted a month. I was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years. I remember Judge Cowart asking me if I had any last words before he passed sentence. I was crying as I asked him, begged him, to let me say good bye to Joy before I was sent to prison. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to visit her again.

He explained he didn’t know if the Dept of Corrections would pay for it. Then, a Sgt., the guard who was in charge of the detail that brought me to the courtroom and took me back to my cell each day for the last 6 months, said that he and fellow officers would do it. This was the same officer that had taken me to the funeral home to see Joy, and to her funeral. He said that they would do it on their own time! I wish I could remember his name. I’ve tried, it’s just not there. He was a red headed Sgt. at the Dade County Jail and his picture was in the Herald taking me back to jail from the funeral home. If you should ever read this, “Thank You. I’ve never forgotten you. You gave me my last moments with my daughter for over a decade.”

I said good bye to Joy on Christmas Eve. I prayed beside her grave in handcuffs. It was surreal.

I’m at my daughter’s grave.

I’m at Joy’s GRAVE.

In handcuffs.

Convicted of killing her.

It was surreal.

The next day (I think), a guard came and brought me my clothes and told me to get dressed, as he stood there and watched. I was brought to a courthouse, for a bail hearing. All I could do was ask ‘Please let me go and see my daughter, please, please, please. And the judge did! Judge Cowart (I will always remember that man) let me go to the funeral home to see Joy, to her funeral, and after I was convicted he had me taken to the cemetery so I could say good bye to her.

I wrote the following poem for Joy and put it in her casket at her funeral:

We were so lucky God gave you to us,

You gave us your love, you gave us your trust.

With your golden blonde hair and eyes shining bright,

God made you so beautiful, so perfect, so right.

Now you are gone and I’m so full of grief,

Only 3 years old, your time here so brief.

But now you can see, you can laugh and can play,

And I promise you honey, I’ll be with you some day.

What love is, Joy was.

A day or two later after I had met with a shrink and started on I don’t know what kind of meds (What I was given, I took gratefully), I was given my clothes, taken to an elevator, and transferred up stairs to a ‘high profile’ cell block. When I was taken to the funeral home and to her funeral, upon return I was always put back in that strip cell downstairs for a day or two, leaving me naked and shivering on that narrow bench, not understanding how the world had tilted so badly.

I went on trial six months later.

So many questions. All I wanted to do was sleep. I was so tired. I didn’t want to think about what had happened.
They left me alone in an interrogation room and I climbed onto the desk and fell asleep.

I was awakened I don’t know how much later and told I was being taken to the Dade County Jail where I was going to be booked for 1st degree murder. As we left the police station or when we were entering the jail ( These memories are like leaves falling off a tree, so many, yet so random. It’s hard to put them in order), all of a sudden there were lights turned on everywhere and flashbulbs started to go off. I didn’t understand. I had no idea who I was, where I was. or what was happening. I was lost. I think I was in shock.

I was brought into the jail and placed in a strip cell where my shoes and all my clothes were removed. It was so cold.

I remember the cold.

I wrapped myself in toilet paper. From my ankles up to my chest. It was so cold. People kept walking by and looking at me as I lay on a narrow wooden bench meant to be sat on, shivering. Guards, inmates, and people in regular clothes. Some said kind things (I don’t remember what – just the tone), some said nothing.

But I remember one – this memory isn’t like a strobe light – it’s embedded in my soul. He came up to the bars and said “You killed your child. You’se a child killer.” and walked away

THAT set off the train

The train is what I call THOSE thoughts. Those thoughts that can only come from hell itself, because I know of no worse torture. “Were her last thoughts why did Daddy do this?” And “Did you do it to end her suffering, or yours, Charles?” They flew around my head, like a child’s train on a small oval track. Over and over again.

It doesn’t pull into the station as much anymore, but when it does.

That night, sitting in that strip cell, all illusions were gone. I had killed my baby. My beautiful little girl. To end her suffering? Yes. To end mine? I’m so afraid of that answer I can’t face it, even today. That night was long and painful and lonely and so cold.

‘Joy was at peace.’ ‘Joy was at peace.’ ‘Joy was at peace.’ I told myself that over and over and over throughout the night.

We spend all of our lives on a ledge. As life thrusts things at us, sometimes we’re pushed off.

I got the bottle of valium the mental health center had prescribed me and poured them out onto the kitchen table. Then I started crushing them. When I was finished, I put the bottle of valium, and a gun, into my jacket pocket.

It was raining as I got on my motorcycle. The rain mixed with my tears as I drove.

When I got to the pediatric intensive care unit, I sat with Joy, holding her and singing softly to her for 2 hours, and then I opened her feeding tube, poured the bottle of crushed valium into it, and recapped the tube. I walked up to the first nurse I saw, I pulled out my gun and I told her ‘You are going to help me end Joy’s suffering or I will kill you.

And at that moment I would have.

She went and stood with me at Joy’s bedside as I waited for my daughter to die. I asked her if there was a God. She told me she didn’t know. I told the nurse to go and call the police.

As she walked away I told my little girl, “I love you so much. It won’t hurt any more, it’s over.”

I killed my daughter.

I remember it.

I remember a guy running over with a crash cart and I was up. “Don’t touch her, leave her alone! Your not going to cut on her anymore. LEAVE HER ALONE!” I screamed. I might have been crazy. I was hysterical.

A nurse, The nurse from Joy’s bed? was there and told him to leave us alone.

I remember it, the way he looked at her.

She told him “There are other children here, leave them alone.’ And he did.

A security guard came running up. I knew him, I’d have coffee and talked with him through many nights. He put his arms out and I fell into them. My legs gave out again, and we both started crying. A policeman came and I was put in a police car.

I’m at the homicide office. I remember all this in flashes. Like a strobe light going off in my mind.

I wish I could turn it off.

As the guitar wailed like electric wolves in the night, we made our way towards the stage and into the pit. We were small and out numbered, so we chose to stay on the fringes; something we’d do for the next several years of our lives as we entered deeper and deeper into the underworld of drug abuse and crime.

Standing on the edge of the pit with the slews of onlookers, Santos noticed a guy with a Mexico soccer jersey on, and they struck up a convo: “chingalo buey!,” “no mames, buey,” “Oye! Que estas fumando…” They’d struck a common chord, much like Billy Corrigan and the other band members that broken into, “Who want’s candy? Long as there’s some money…” And so the deal went down.

Next thing I knew, we were dashing through the crowd, bumping people over as we made our way to were my brother and his friends were. Santos had his hand cupped, but I knew by his wide-eyed gestures that we had just capped some weed and were headed to get our first taste. Although we had lied about it to other people a 100 times, we were actually about to enter into a new class of cool…In our minds. We were about to be initiated into the drug sub-culture of the hippies in the 60’s, the disco fever attics of the 70’s, the hip-hop underground of the 80’s and now the “too cool” grunge kids of the 90’s.

We finally caught up to that same friend of my brother’s, only this time we were garnishing a hand full of REAL weed. As we asked him to roll a joint for us, he just started again: “Dude, don’t waist my time with your little kid bullshit weed, man.” We assured him, showing him what we possessed and there was automatic respect: “Dude, let me see that…man, where’d you get this from? Bro, you think you can get me some…”

Funny enough, we were initiated into the world of crime before we entered into the world of drugs because we ended up selling him half for roughly a little more than what we paid for it. The trend of selling drugs to feed our addiction would be a common practice in years to come. Anyway, he rolled it up for us and we went and sat far from the crowd, on a hill with all the other shady characters below some giant Banyan trees.

We lit it up. And as the smoke seeped from our noses, we would cough and laugh, and pass the joint. I just remember lying down in the grass with my hands tucked behind my head…looking up at the stars…listening to Smashing Pumpkins playing a melody: “Today is, today is, the greatest…day I’ve ever known…” Some how in my mind I felt the same, lost in the illusion of euphoria. I’d caught my first glimpse of a drug induced escape and it was love at first sight…

Ernesto Here — Read all the Addiction Testimonials from our categories section:
http://recoveryarts.com/category/addiction-testimonials/

We spent the next few weeks searching relentlessly like a man, lost in a dessert, does for water. We looked between the grains of sand, under rocks, behind the clouds and came up short just the same.

Finally, something happened in our favor. An eighth grader, to whom I will only refer to as Jay, told us he could get us some. We were ecstatic. We scraped up $20.00 (we had no idea how much it cost) and we met Jay in a parking lot at the Falls shopping mall. It was dim and the only sound was the buzz of the fluorescent lights.

Jay handed us a small plastic bag, and we gave him several wadded-up bills. However, upon examining what we’d bought, even without having ever previously possessed weed, we were almost positive that we were duped and sold something else.

The contents of the bag were mostly red, gold, and brown and smelled like some half empty jar from my mother’s spice cabinet. Of course, we confronted Jay about this. He told us, “no worries,” that it probably wasn’t the highest quality stuff but that it would get us high. We, somehow, were satisfied by his response.

We spent the next few days examining the contents as forensic scientist do a hair from a crime scene. We smelled it, tasted it, conservatively stuffed a little into the end of a cigarette and smoked it. NOTHING.

We knew what we had purchased wasn’t weed but the final confirmation came when we asked one of my brother’s friends to roll us a joint with the stuff and he laughed at us, saying, “Sorry dudes, but you guys got gypped…” We had failed our mission, but Smashing Pumpkins was about to come on stage, and we were still on the prowl at the concert…

Hey all, Ernesto here with the weekly “Addiction Testimonials” column. Sorry I didn’t post it last week. Anyway, for anyone interested in reading the previous few week’s installments, just click on any of the following links: Addiction Testimonials 1, Addiction Testimonials 2, and Addiction Testimonials 3, Addiction Testimonials 4. Until next week…Enjoy…E

Pt. 5 Addiction Testimonials: The Hell of Christian School

To say I didn’t fit in was an understatement; a lion would have seemed to fit better in Alaska.  Still, I had no choice.  I was at that perfectly awful age were you’re old enough to have opinions but not yet in possession of enough power to do anything about it.  I loathed uniforms.  At every chance, I untucked my maroon polo from my perma-creased navy pants.  I made sure to pimp out my shoes as they were my only means of expression.  I went with a Halloween theme—black Chuck Allstars with thick orange laces, strung in the unconventional straight-across pattern, rather than crossed.

To this day, one incident still stands out very clearly in my mind.  I was in my 7th grade physical science class, and my teacher was knocking archeologist and their life-long endeavors of cataloging dinosaurs’ bones for the sake of academia, as trickery.  I pressed him to explain further.  Immediately, he became agitated.  Nonetheless, he replied: “You see, its not that they don’t find bones.  The bones are there.  It’s just that they’re not real.  You see, the Devil plants those bones in the ground to create doubt in men’s hearts.  They read the findings and believe that the bones are millions of years old.  And if the bones are millions of years old, than the Earth is millions of years old.  And if the Earth is millions of years old…Well, that just doesn’t fit into God’s design according to the Bible.”

I was profoundly confused at his logic and replied: “Well how old is the Earth then, according to the Bible?”  He answered without a pause, “Six thousand years-old, of course, silly.”  I just smirked at his answer and told him that that was impossible.  I asked him if he had ever heard of carbon dating—the measure by which archeologist could use advanced technology to analyze the carbon found in all living matter to determine its age, exactly.  His face flushed instantly until it was indiscernible from a stop sign, had one been placed next to his perfectly parted hair combed head.  He then screamed at the top of his lungs: “I will have none of this in my class room” and proceed to kick me out.  This was just one of a long stream of events that occurred in that Christian school.

Nonetheless, what happened in that school was that for the first time in my life, I was interacting with the sons of rich, disillusioned, miserable drunks that coped with their mundane lives by getting wasted.  Of course that meant for me that alcohol and cigarettes were readily available for sneaking and using.  By 13-years-old, I was drinking at least once a week and smoking cigarettes 2 or 3 times.  However, that was just the beginning and soon wouldn’t be enough.

It was around that time that I made friends with the only other middle-class outcast of the school.  He would eventually become life long using buddy.  I will only refer to him as Santos.  Anyway, we had just bought the Dr. DRE album, “The Chronic,” which was all about pimping hoes and smoking out and decided it was time for the next level.  We had to find some way to use marijuana—it was on par with losing virginity to us—and sure enough one of our classmates was about to help us with our conquest…

Hey all, Ernesto here with the weekly installment of my Addiction Testimonials. If you’re interested in reading the previous few parts click on the following links: Addiction Testimonials 1, Addiction Testimonials 2, and Addiction Testimonials 3 . Otherwise, without further ado, I present the fourth segment. Until next week…Enjoy…E

Pt.4 Addiction Testimonials: The Culmination

After that event in the ball park, there were many more like it throughout my elementary school years. For example, I remember that by 11 years-old, I could make a “Cuba Libre” (Rum & Coke), because my father had taught me, so when we went to gatherings, like New Year’s Eve parties with family and friends, he could sit on the couch wasted and have his own personal butler prepare him his drinks, ME. Around that time, booze seemed the trend that dominated the family’s consummation history. Coke had lost its allure, other drugs were much too risky to dabble with for young professionals like my parents that were climbing the limbs of the ever-shrinking, middle-class tree; so, naturally, booze seemed the most suitable, as it was still socially acceptable, due to its legality, up to a certain point.

Nonetheless, the reckless style of parenting continued. I recall that before Florida passed laws requiring kids to be constrained by seatbelts in the backseat (ONLY), my dad used to sit me on his lap during a Sunday afternoon stroll in the Honda station wagon and have me change the gears of the shift stick while he steered, or sometimes just applied the gas and brake. I also remember the lack of parental presence as me and my brother shot compound drawn arrows at each other from our bow and arrow sets, or played on the rusted ruins of our ten-year-old swing set that surely threatened to contaminate us with tetanus every time we gashed ourselves on it. Oh, the reckless memories…my college-aged uncle throwing us into the shallow pool from the overhang of the roof, or the way we would wrestle by the pools edge, our heads missing the sharp concrete edge by centimeters every time we’d fall in. Yeah, our parents were too busy, working steady on 12-packs of Coors light and watching the ceremonial weekly sporting event; in those days, the young studly Dan Marino.

Well, the culmination of my reckless youth exploded one summer afternoon when me and my friends were brought home by the police, when we were only 12-years-old, for burning down the nearby woods. To this day, I don’t know why we did it. Perhaps it was a form of some chest-beating rites of passage that boys felt when empowered by the control of fire’s the mythical power, or maybe we were just bored and had way too many illegal firecrackers in our possession. I can still remember how quickly the flames spread, the columns of thick grey smoke covering the sun—the abysmal feeling as control melted away somewhere in that chaos and heat. I had crossed a threshold I wouldn’t be able to come back from, and I knew it.

Well, my parents freaked out and subsequently took a 180 degree approach to their lackadaisical parenting, deciding to lock me in the tower I would come to know as private school. Mind you, the first six years of my school experience were spent in public school. This was a tragedy for me and probably the single event that would fill my sails and direct me on the course towards my future addiction…

Folk singer and songwriter, Mary Gauthier, admittedly struggled with addiction for years, and in a recent interview with canoe.ca, said thanks to her recovery process, she was able to pursue her real love in life, “Folk Music.” Mary Gauthier was born an orphan in New Orleans, went through adoption homes, and by 15 had spent most of her time between rehab centers, friend’s homes and brief stays in jail, including the night of her 18th birthday.

Still, she some how managed to make it out of the negative environment and move to Boston, where she studied at a cooking school and eventually opened her own successful Cajun restaurant. Unfortunately, her addiction had also followed her and was choking her dream of music over the entire 11 years she was in Boston.

However, Mary Gauthier was able to begin her recovery from her addiction and finally begin to seriously pursue her art. Gauthier said the canoe.ca interview that although some people think drugs aid in the artistic process, for her it was only after she was able to “get my head on straight first” that she was able to shine.

Since, she has recorded several albums including her 1997 debut album, Dixie Kitchen, inspired by those many hard years she left behind. Her latest album, Between Daylight and Dark explores the concept of home and is about being homesick. Mary Gauthier’s accomplishments as a musician have awarded her the praise of critics who compare her to Bob Dylan. Aside from playing music, Gauthier’s style of storytelling through her folk lyrics have led her to the literary venture of publishing short-fiction stories in an anthology called Amplified, which comes out in May.

Hey all, Ernesto here with the third installment of Addiction Testimonials. If you’re interested in reading the previous two parts click on the following links: Addiction Testimonials 1, Addiction Testimonials 2. Otherwise, without further ado, I present the third segment.  Until next week…Enjoy…E

Pt.3 Addiction Testimonial:
The Functions of Dysfunctionality: Confusion, Violence, Laughter?

I remember when I was about ten, an incident that occurred in the parking lot of the ballpark where me and my brother played little league.  I was in the Bantam league, and my brother in Juvenile.  I’d waited after my 1:00 game for my brother’s 4:00 game to end.  After drinking a soda with my concession ticket that the coach handed out after games, and playing wall ball for a couple hours, I eventually tired and waited there on the aluminum bleachers for my brother’s game to end.

My Dad had dropped us off, and stuck around through part of my game, but was lost then somewhere in cocaine induced, booze stupor with fellow teammate’s dads.  I new this now, because he’d disappear for several hours then show up and act out of the ordinary.  I suppose the ballpark served as a cover/excuse to get out of the house on a weekend afternoon and sneak in some consumption under the distant radar of my mother’s vigil.

Nonetheless, on this particular day, after the game ended, me and my brother still had no ride, so we waited for him to show up, waiving away offers from surrounding baseball moms that thoughtfully asked a second time before loading the “gang” into the minivan and heading for some pitchers of cold coca-cola and pizza, served on plastic finished, red-and-white, checkered-patterned table clothes.  Yeah I’d participated on an occasion, but this wasn’t going to be one of them.

So anyway, the park all but cleared out when my dad shows up.  He pulls up in the rusted out 1979 Chevy Nova that was an off-white kind of color, like a an old tired seagull on the beach who had only one leg from many years of a hard fought life, but still endured.  I remember the car because the door handle on the passenger side didn’t work for some reason, unless it was opened from the outside with the key.  So there we are, in an empty and dark parking lot waiting for my dad to rummage through his pockets and fumble around the keys until he opened the door for us.  Then, all of sudden, as we were getting into the car, my dad suddenly slapped me opened handed on the left side of my face.

I sniffled and as a tear begin to trickle from the left corner of my eye and carouse down my cheek; my brother asked him, “Why did you do that?”  There was a long pause, and my father answered, “Because he was pissing on the door handle.”  My brother rebutted, “No he wasn’t.”  Then, my father began to laugh hysterically, his booming laughter echoing across the empty parking lot.  Naturally, I began to chuckle and so did my brother and next thing we knew, we’re bracing against one another for support as our guts ached from the frenzy of laughter that left our eyes tearing.

Eventually, the out burst settled, we all got into the car, and my dad took us to Mc Donald’s for happy meals.  He is good father though, and always bought us Happy Meal toys even when he knew the family couldn’t afford it.  Not to mention the painstaking hours in front of the house playing baseball, practicing our swings, perfecting our groundball and pop-fly catching.  Despite these moments of utter intoxicated lunacy, there were many good memories of a caring father who contributed a lot to his children’s lives, when he wasn’t high.  We never spoke of that moment in the parking lot again, until nearly fifteen years later when my brother brought it up one night over the Christmas break.