Saving You, Saving Me (10 page)

Derek laughed. “I’m good at untangling complicated. Look around you, Sam, this is what we do, and if we can’t help our own, then what good are we with helping others?”

I regarded him curiously. I could not talk about Collins McGregor to Derek. Even if I could, I signed a confidentiality agreement with Collins McGregor.  I opened my mouth to say something but shoved a cookie in instead.

“I’m glad you liked those cookies,” Derek said, noticing four were missing from the plate.

“Oh, they’re heavenly,” I declared.

Derek grinned. “I’ll be sure to bake some more next time you’re here. It’s my grandmother’s secret recipe.”

“No wonder why it’s so good,” I said, grabbing another.

“Sam,” Derek said still smiling, “did you eat dinner before coming here tonight?”

My eyes widened. “Oh, I forgot. I was so preoccupied I didn’t even stop to eat.”

“No wonder you’re tired and starving,” Derek said. “Alright, tell you what. I’m due for a break so I’ll run out and grab some burgers from In N’ Out down the street.  I would invite you, but someone has to be here until closing time, and there’s only the two of us here tonight.”

“I’ll stay while you go on a burger run,” I said.

“Technically, one of us is supposed to be on call, too, so we’re ready to answer any calls that come in. Are you alright with that?  Usually tonight around this time, there isn’t much activity.”

“I’m fine. I’ll move over to your desk right now, so you know I’m good to go.”

Derek grinned. “Glad your energy is back, Sam.”

“Me, too,” I said getting up and leading Derek to the call area and Derek’s desk. Sitting down, I gave him a thumbs up after putting on his headset.

“Looks like a pro already,” Derek said grinning. He touched my shoulders and said, “I’m heading out, but if you need anything, here’s my cell phone number.” He handed me a slip of paper with his number on it. “I’ll be back soon.”

I smiled. Being at Sawyer House tonight was the distraction I needed from Collins McGregor and his pledge as he called it. I checked my phone, and since his last text, I haven’t received more messages from Mr. Hot Bod and Mysterious. Serious Susan was in her prime, while Lola was still nibbling on a chocolate chip cookie.

The screen above displayed a green light flashing that corresponded with the phone. I brought out my scripts and placed them neatly in front of me before pressing the green button to let the caller through.

“Hi,” I said, “I’m ah Susan, what do you want to talk about today?”

A girl’s voice said, “My name’s Rachel. I’m having a tough time losing weight and it’s making me depressed. I feel ugly and fat and undesirable. It’s affecting my self-esteem. I haven’t been on a date for months, and (I’m babbling too much, aren’t I?) clothing looks too baggy on me. Where do I start? What should I do?”

I smiled. I got this one. It was one of my favorite topics to talk about when I was junior class president at school – Exercise and Healthier Food Choices. 

“Nice to meet you Rachel,” I said. “I’m happy you called because that’s the first step towards weight loss and better self-esteem.”

“What is your diet right now?” I asked.

“Mostly French fries and burgers, sodas…”

“Any fruits and vegetables?”

“I don’t like vegetables.”

“How about fruits?”

“Some…”

For an hour or two, we talked about the different fruits, vegetables, and exercise needed to lose weight, while staying in shape.

Finally I said, “Focus on losing weight by eating healthier foods – foods that have more nutrients per calories so you have more energy, rather than empty calories (I rolled my eyes upward thinking about how I just ate four cookies full of empty calories), eat smaller portions, and make sure you get physically active so you can burn calories off. There are many diet programs out there, but most of them have those underlying principles: eat right and exercise. Once you start to lose weight, you’ll feel better about yourself. This causes you to make more friends, be more confident, and date more.”

“Thank you, Susan,” Rachel said. “That was really helpful. I’ll start focusing on weight loss first.”

“Total makeover when you do,” I said. “It’ll change your life. Good luck. Please call back when you need encouragement, too. That’s what we’re here for.”

“Thanks, Susan. I will!” The line went off.

The green light on the screen flashed again, along with the one on the telephone. Having aced that last call, I picked up, feeling confident. “Hello, this is Susan at Sawyer House, what do you want to talk about?”

A muffled but deep voice inhaled a breath at the other end of the line before continuing. Since the calls were anonymous, callers also could call in using a voice scrambler device.  It was something Gail believed in because she’d rather the caller get help rather than be concerned about the stigmas attached to whatever problem they’re calling in for. “I’m calling because I have to talk to someone there, at Sawyer House. I mean, I feel uncomfortable talking on this line, but it’s the only line listed.”

“Were you in need of talking to someone in administration?” I asked, trying to sound professional. “They’ve left for the day. The only line open is this one.”

“No, that’s alright. I have to talk to someone or I’ll go crazy. And your voice, it’s so soothing, calming, and sweet. You’ve got a beautiful voice, one I can listen to for hours.”

“Thank you,” I smiled. “No one in admin is here right now, but you can talk to me. Maybe I can help.”

“Susan, this is going to be hard for me to admit, but I think I have a problem with women.”

“How so?” I asked, intrigued. Lola leaned in closer.

“Well, Susan, when I was a baby, I lived with my mother. She was seventeen when she had me. Gave birth right in the homeless shelter she stayed in after running away from home. When I was born, the first thing she called me was, ‘Shit baby’. I was born to shit all over her plans in life. She called me other names, too, which I won’t repeat.  And she never held me, only enough to beat me. Other than feed me when she remembered, the only contact I had with my mother was when she called me names or beat me. ‘There you go again, dumb ass kid, shitting all over my life. I should have flushed you down the toilet when I could.’”

I closed my eyes, feeling horrified with what I was hearing. This poor man, this boy. I wanted to reach out to him, to hug him. No human should come into life to such hate, especially from their own mother. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I let out.

“Don’t be,” the caller said. “I ran away from home when I was 13 years old. After being abused physically and verbally. I couldn’t take it any longer. My mom, she thought it was amusing too when she would bring home women who would play with me, um, you know, have sex with me. I was popular with them because I was a pretty boy, and these sick women would pay my mother for me to do all kinds of things with them. Don’t get me wrong, I learned a lot about pleasuring a woman, but I felt used and cheap. It’s been several years, and I can’t get over the shame. All my mom has shown me was hate, so I reciprocated hate back at her.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said again, then clapped my hand over my mouth.

“I wasn’t,” he said. “I hated myself and wanted to kill myself a few times growing up because of it. She made me feel like a worthless piece of trash.”

I had to ask. “How are you now?”

The caller laughed, a beautiful hearty laugh that sent shivers up my spine. Even with a voice scrambler, he had a voice that could have passed for Erik from the musical Phantom of the Opera. “I got over myself, if that’s what you’re wondering. It took years, and I’m  still trying to find a way to accept who I am. I was pretty messed up.”

I wanted to ask where he went to school, had he graduated, and where did he find the courage to overcome a childhood like that, but I couldn’t.

“That’s not why I’m calling, Susan. Here’s the deal:  my first girlfriend was the first person to make me feel like a human being.”

“How?” I asked.

“She made love to me, made me feel valued, put up with me, and then she would talk dirty to me, call me things just to get me mad, and then we would make hot passionate love all over  again. It drove me wild. The more she verbally abused me, the more I wanted her.

“For some reason it turned me on. I know it isn’t healthy, but that’s how I am. She would call me to talk dirty, and from then on, I was addicted. It was a routine she had with me before we made love, and that’s how I associate lovemaking with dirty talk.” He paused, then said in wonder. “That’s all that I know about being in a relationship with a woman.”

I waited for him to continue, but he paused all of a sudden so I asked, “Have you tried forming loving relationships without having to hear your lover talk to you that way?”

There was a pause before the muffled deep voice answered, “I have, but it didn’t work out.”

I was not equipped to handle this call properly, but I kept on. “It’ll take time to change something that you’re used to, and I’m glad to hear you’re trying. That’s a start.”

“But Susan, trying may not be enough…”

The despair in his voice made me want to reach out to him more.

“One step at a time,” I said.

“One step at a time,” the Caller echoed.

“Exactly,” I said. Then I took the plunge. He needed someone to keep him accountable. From what he was saying, I was the only one who knew about his dark secret. “Have you  tried going to a support group for this?” I recalled reading through my notes on sexual addiction a couple of nights before.

There was big sigh, and he said, “I can’t. I can’t let anyone know. I’ve worked too damn hard to get to where I am today to have it aired out publicly like that. I don’t do group therapy.”

I was right about my lost boy caller. I was his only bet to becoming whole, to kick his addiction. I was in way over my head, but deep down inside, I felt I needed to be there for him, to save him. Something about him made me feel as though I knew him, that it could be me in that situation, that we both had a sense of loss in us, the sense that we weren’t good enough to be here, and we had to keep proving our worth. “Promise me you’ll try, in your newest relationship.”

“I promise, Susan,” the voice said. “If I can get over this, maybe she would have me.”

I took a deep breath and said softly, leaning forward, “I need you to succeed…ah…”

 “Daggers,” the voice said gently.

“Daggers,” I repeated, feeling the sharp sounds of the word cut into my tongue. I swallowed. “For my sake, as well as yours, I need you to succeed, I want you to. If you fail, Daggers, it means I fail…so succeed for me.”

There was silence at the other end of the line for a short moment, and I thought he may have hung up. Then I heard a soft sob come from the other end of the phone line. “I’m sorry,” he said in a strangled voice. “I just didn’t expect that. No one’s ever shown me that much care before. You don’t even know me.”

“I don’t have to in order to know you’re hurting,” I said. “Something about you made me want to help you very much. I wished at this very moment that I could at least give you a hug.”

“Ah, Susan,” Daggers said. “You’re an angel, you know. I don’t care how you look or how old you are or if you are hunchbacked and hideous, you have the soul of an angel, and that’s all I see when I hear your voice.”

“Promise if you need support and encouragement, you’ll call us here again.”

“I will,” Daggers said, “as long as it’s from you, Susan.”

“Anytime,” I said. I felt as though I had been there for Daggers tonight. He seemed desperate to talk to someone, anyone. And I was in the mood to get lost in someone else’s problems. Daggers’ personal story had helped me forget about my own for a while.

Little did I realize, every day when I showed up at Sawyer House, Daggers would call, and we would talk for hours about everything – movies, politics, news, books, how he was doing with his addiction. Without revealing who I was, I would tell him about school, my sister’s projects from school, what I was learning at Sawyer House, how I wanted to be a counselor, how I wanted to get a scholarship to Stanford, my dreams, my beliefs, how I wanted to someday soon move out of my parents’ place and live with Nydia and raise her myself if my mother did not stop drinking.

I knew I kept Daggers occupied and distracted from thoughts of his deeply troubled past. But in so many ways, I was beginning to feel more relaxed about my own problems, having Daggers listen attentively while I talked. While trying to help Daggers over a period of a week, I realized he was the one helping me.

Wednesday – 1 Week Later

           
D
erek had brought in another plate of freshly made chocolate chip cookies tonight, which he placed in front of me as I sat down at one of the call desks when I walked through the door, arriving there right after school. It had become a habit of his to feed me chocolate chip cookies when I showed up, and eat them together with a glass of milk in the break room whenever we needed a pick me up after an especially tough call. “Some of these calls will get to you,” Derek said. “We have to remember to be nice to ourselves and to support each other.”

            “You sound like a Renaissance man,” I said.

            “I am,” Derek said. “I don’t care about how I’m supposed to act because I’m a guy. I do what I do because it’s the right thing to do as a human, not by gender.”

Gail came by to greet me and to grab one cookie before heading back to her office. “You must be making a great impression on Derek here. He wouldn’t let anyone touch the cookies except you, saying you needed it.”

A slow flush went up Derek’s neck and to his chiseled cheeks. “Gail’s just jealous I didn’t bake her a plate, but that’s because she  told me she’s on a diet.”

“And I’m not?” I asked, acting offended.

He looked me up and down in a way that made it obvious he appreciated what he saw. “Sam, you should be on a diet, a feed me diet. If you don’t mind me saying it, you need some fattening up. I don’t know if it’s possible, but it looks as though you’ve lost some weight since starting here.”