There was a table in the middle with chairs. When I came in, only two people were sitting in them. They were two ladies in their forties or fifties. I wasn’t sure how old they were. They were both wearing too much makeup and clothes that were too tight for them. They smiled at me when I came in. One of them was missing teeth.
Okay. Wow.
So, when I moved to West Virginia, I have to admit I was a little worried because I’d heard stories about what this place was like. I thought it might be like Deliverance or whatever. But then I got settled in and everyone was normal. They were just regular people like me. They didn’t even have really strong accents. I figured it was bad press.
I was about to find out that, um, for stereotypes to exist, there has to be some truth to them.
There weren’t very many people at the meeting. Maybe five of us, not counting Griffin who stood at the back of the room and didn’t talk to anyone. The two women dominated the meeting, chatting in thick redneck drawls about how they were tempted to do crystal meth (of all things) while chewing tobacco.
I’m not kidding. Those two women both had little spittoon cups, and they shot thick streams of brown saliva out of their mouths every few minutes.
I’d never seen a real person chewing tobacco before.
I knew I shouldn’t judge. They seemed like very nice ladies, and I was glad that they had made a decision to clean up their lives and stop doing drugs. It was great. But... I had to admit, I didn’t feel like I had much in common with them. I wasn’t in such dire straits that the only way we could pay for food for my kids was for my husband to cook up meth and sell it. My teeth weren’t rotting out of my head.
I was fine. Okay, maybe I had a little problem with blow. But it wasn’t ruining my life or anything.
When they asked me if I wanted to say anything, I shook my head.
There were two other people there, both around my age, a girl and a guy. They were holding hands. The girl had dyed her hair bright cherry red. Both she and the guy had a lot of piercings in their faces. Nose, lips, eyebrows. When she spoke up, I saw the glint of something metal on her tongue.
“I’m Stacey,” she said, and she had a voice like bubblegum. It clashed with her appearance. “And I’m an addict. I’ve got six months sober.” She beamed, looking like a punk Cabbage Patch Doll.
The guy next to her shook his head.
“He does too,” she said. “He’s just shy.”
After the meeting, I wandered out of the church, feeling a little dazed. Stacey and her boyfriend were right in front of me. The minute they hit fresh air, they both lit up cigarettes.
Griffin and I had to walk through a cloud of their smoke to get to our car.
“Hey,” said Stacey, “I’ve seen you before on campus.”
“Me?” I said. Like there was anyone else around.
“You go to school with me, don’t you?” she said. “You live in Thomas, like we do.” She pointed at her boyfriend.
I felt Griffin go rigid behind me. They recognized me? What did that mean? I backed up so that I was almost touching him. “Maybe.”
“I thought so,” she said. “I remembered your boyfriend. I see you guys walking all over campus together. He’s so sweet. He only has eyes for you.”
“Oh,” I said, laughing. “Griffin’s not my—”
“I’m her bodyguard,” said Griffin.
Stacey raised her eyebrows. “Really?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Well, cool,” she said. “You know, Jack was going to be a bodyguard.” She slung an arm around her boyfriend. “But he found out you have to work with the police sometimes.”
“Yeah, not cool,” said Jack.
They seemed harmless. But were they?
“I’m trying to start a chapter of NA on campus,” said Stacey. “But no one except me and Jack ever show up. If you come, it would save us all a drive.” She grinned.
* * *
“Mmm,” said Stacey, her head thrown back in ecstasy. We were sitting inside The Purple Fiddle. Her, me, Jack, and Griffin. We’d just had our second NA meeting all together on campus. It had gone pretty well. Better than talking with the meth heads in Grafton. “I love tofu.”