Cody R

5:00 am: first alarm goes off. It’s so hit or miss whether I’m going to feel like getting up, out of bed, and ready for work in the morning or if I’m going to dread it and try and stay in bed as long as possible. I used to be such a morning person but now it’s 50/50 with no rhyme or reason. Bedtime the night before hardly plays a role. Today I decide to just get up and do it because it’s Friday and the earlier I get to work, the earlier I can leave.

6:07 am: dressed, teeth brushed, BUNDLED UP because it’s so cold out of nowhere. It felt like spring two weeks ago but now it’s 30 degrees and I can’t believe it, but I do enjoy it because I can wear layers. I gently rub my girlfriend Avery’s arm to wake her up so I can give her a kiss goodbye. If I don’t wake her up to say goodbye, she will be angry, but she also seems angry and grumpy when I do wake her up. This is a problem in which there is no solution, and all I can do is just keep it pushing.

I hear my roommate outside my door getting out of the bathroom and I grab her pills from a pill container on my desk. I open my door and hand them to her and she wordlessly takes them. I say “have a good day” and she says “you too” and I say “wait can I have a cigarette?” and she hands me one. I’ve been playing nurse lately and holding on to her medicine so she doesn’t forget to take her pills. I do this because she’s my best friend and I want her to have success in every aspect of her life, and also because it’s not good for either of us when she’s too depressed to do the dishes or ever hang out. I say goodbye to my cats and make sure they have food and water. I walk outside and lock the door.

6:15 - 6:30 am: the time it takes me to walk to the bus stop is exactly the length of time it takes to smoke a Pall Mall Red 100, which is perfect because that’s the kind of cigarette I have.

6:30 am: I work in a methadone clinic and our clients line up outside around this time to get in when the doors open at seven. I walk by and everyone in line greets me / tells me they have to talk to me / asks me for a cigarette, and I have to tell them I bummed this one and don’t have anymore. I went through a period of about a month or so where I was buying packs of cigarettes because my morning walk cigarette is so crucial to my day but my roommate wasn’t always home to steal one from, so I was buying packs solely for that morning walk cigarette but then I would have them all day so I’d just smoke them all day. Clients would see me smoking and ask “what happened to the vape?” and I’d pull it out of my pocket and say “I do both 😎” and then maybe they’d ask for a cig and if I had enough left I’d give them one. But now I don’t buy packs anymore and they ask me for one and I have to say I don’t have any, and I never know if they believe me. I’m scared that I’m losing the clients’ trust.

I walk into the side door and head straight for my office to take my jacket off. I walk into the kitchen and bring out the leftover food we gave away from our food handout that we do every Thursday, so whoever wants any can fill up a bag after they dose. It’s just brussels sprouts, chickpeas, and cucumbers left over. Cucumbers will be gone soon but getting rid of the giant box of brussels sprouts might be more of a hassle.

7:00 am - 2:00 pm: I set up my laptop in the lobby because it makes my job easier than just sitting in my office. My coworker sits beside me. We have a shit ton of papers on the table that I find online, filled with resources from all over Philly: job fairs, job trainings, housing for single mothers, LIHEAP, re-entry programs, food banks, numbers to call if you’re late on rent, etc, etc. I spend a lot of my days shooting the shit with clients, coworkers, the security guards. Clients come up to me and tell me they lost their bus passes, they need a new one, their electric is getting shut off, they lost their ID and need a new one, they’re trying to get their birth certificate, they need help with a resume, they need help finding housing, they want to take a training, etc, etc, and I do my best to help with each one.

One of my clients asks if they can speak to me in private and I say of course and they tell me they relapsed and I make sure to tell them in the most nonjudgemental way possible that it is okay, it is perfectly normal, recovery is not a completely linear process and its good they admitted it and it’s very possible to get back on track. I tell them sometimes I can imagine them fully off drugs on a spring day, fishing down at a river without a care in the world. Sometimes I tell people I imagine them taking their girlfriend out to eat at a fancy restaurant and they pay for the meal and their girlfriend is happy and it’s just a good feeling all around. Sometimes I tell them I imagine them at the park with their son. Other times I tell them they’re 25 and they should be at the club. They’re always like, “what.” But yeah, it is possible to get back on track after a relapse. I ask them what they wanna do.

Rehab, they say. Bet, I say. We begin the process.

The process sucks. The cool thing about working in any type of helping field is that you really want to help people but you are constantly, constantly being thwarted by a system that thinks “actually it’s okay if this dude stays on drugs / is homeless / is going to jail for a dumbass reason, actually that’s the way this shit was all designed 🙂” and you have to endlessly figure out ways to help regardless. The process involves me or one of my coworkers doing paperwork, asking questions (when did you last use? How much? Etc.), having a nurse get vitals, a urinalysis, calling insurance to get them pre-approved if the client needs detox (although now the rules have changed and basically everyone gets approved / it used to be we had to plead their case), calling rehabs and asking if they have beds available, waiting for a bed to be available if there is none, people leave all the time, all while the client chills there having to wait and gets about a million chances to change their minds about going, which they often do.

Luckily, my coworkers rule. I tell my supervisor that So-And-So wants to go inpatient. I bring So-And-So into my supervisor’s office, and they begin the paperwork. I grab some releases for the client to sign. I walk back to the lobby and tell my coworker. My coworker has been doing this for years and has some connections at the rehabs we send people too. Having zero connections at rehab intake departments is like trying to row a boat with spoons instead of oars. Having connections is like installing a motor. Whenever I meet someone who works at an intake department of a rehab I try getting their number with the same tenacity as a guy trying to get a girl’s number at a bar or something.

The coolest thing about my job is seeing my department come together like some sort of Behavioral Health and Human Services Voltron when we have to do something like this.

Meanwhile, I see another client come in and ask her “yo what’s up what are we doing today?” She’s been homeless for a week after a relapse, and I’ve been trying to get her to the Office of Homeless Services so she’ll have shelter and they can find her more long-term housing, but she hasn’t wanted to go so far. Maybe today’s the day? She says, “let me think about it, I didn’t sleep at all last night.” And I’m like “that’s cool just let me know, I’ll be here.” and then I don’t see her again for the rest of the day. I don’t know if I’d want to go to the shelter either to be honest.

Meanwhile, I see a client leave the dosing booth yelling and swearing and I run up to him and ask what happened, and he tells me, and he’s still kind of screaming and I see security looking at him and I say “okay okay I understand, let’s look into it, but bro you HAVE to be calm about it or it’s not going to help your situation, no no listen man you HAVE to just stay calm and let’s figure it out” and he lowers his voice a little. He goes in an office with a supervisor to see what they can do.

Meanwhile, I got this new vape juice and it tastes bad and I’m kinda mad about it.

Meanwhile, I see a client standing over the box of brussels sprouts and I say “take the whole box” and she’s like “no way” and I’m like “please” and she’s like “I’m in a Uber” and I’m like “any Uber driver would appreciate you getting in their car with a giant leaking box of brussels sprouts” and she looks at it silently like she may actually be considering it but then says “nah”.

Meanwhile, I see a client that constantly asks me if we have cat food for his cats, and we never do, but yesterday we actually got some and I put some aside for him so I bring him into my office and walk over to the cat food and he says “oh hell yeah” and I grab him five cans (I have to split it with the other people that always ask for cat food) and I tell him “don’t tell anyone where you got it from.”

Meanwhile, I come out of my office and the client who was screaming earlier is screaming again and this time being gently escorted out by security so I walk with them and talk to him. He tells me what happened. I tell him I’m sorry, dude, but there’s really nothing I can do. He says he understands and it is fine, but he’s still pissed. He walks away from the building mouthing off.

My coworker lets me know that he found So-And-So an inpatient bed, they just need his info faxed over, so I print out everything he needs and assemble it into a packet and send it to their fax number. Now we wait (more).

It chills out a little bit between 10 and 12:30, some stragglers but no big groups of people really, a lot of times it’s just my coworkers, security and I hanging out. I use this time to eat my leftover Saladworks from Wednesday, where they sent me the wrong dressing. It’s so crazy to send the wrong dressing with a salad, it completely changes the vibe of the salad they might as well have just cancelled the order. The difference between green goddess and whatever they sent me is night and day. I take the salad into my office and immediately get called out to Uber a client somewhere. I get the client on the Uber. I go back in my office and get called out again. I eat the Saladworks over a period of an hour in five minute increments because I keep having to take care of things outside of my office.

The box of brussels sprouts has completely disappeared.

A dude comes in who will be celebrating two years in recovery tomorrow and I high five him. When I first met him over two years ago, he was in a much different place. I’ve seen him go from homeless to shelter to transitional to his own apartment and asking me my advice on which color couch to get. I’m super happy for him and we talk about his plans for the weekend.

At 2 PM dosing closes and there isn’t a client in the building aside from one or two meeting with their counselors, and So-And-So sitting on the couch still waiting. I have probably said hi to, talked to, filled out forms with, or submitted papers for something close to 100 clients all day. I take my laptop back into my office and sit down. I usually tackle some odds and ends during this period before I clock out, today I fill out and fax a form to the people who handle our bus passes, and then I do a training. I talk to my supervisor who signs off on my practicum hours for school and fills out the final papers I need him to fill out for that class.

2:30 pm: it’s now around the time I’m supposed to leave but the rehab hasn’t called back yet for the client and I’m the only one here who can Uber him, so I wait a little longer.

2:43 pm: rehab calls, “you can send him over”, Uber is called, I chill outside with So-And-So waiting for it to arrive, talk to him while he smokes a cigarette, ask him what might he do differently this time, he mentions he’s going to stay as long as they let him, the Uber pulls up and I say “alright bro I’ll see you” and he hops in the back and it drives off. I clock out and leave the building.

3:05 pm: The second half of my day is decidedly different from the fast paced, stressful first half of my day. I have some homework that’s due for school, but I also have all weekend to do it so I’m not super worried. I get home and there’s a package for me. It’s a purse I ordered for myself that can hold my camera, one book, and one other small thing, which is exactly the size I needed and what I’ve been looking for these last few months. I’m very excited.

I light some incense and lay in my bed next to my cat Nirvana / Nevada (either works), who chills in my room constantly and has followed me around since he was a baby. I decide to read a little bit.

4:51 pm: whoops actually I fell asleep. Woken up by a guy screaming on my street outside the window. Not like screaming at anyone in particular but the short loud grunts and swears of a dude going through something.

Texting Avery about our plans tonight. Nothing crazy, maybe put an outfit on and get a glass of wine somewhere to kick off Christmas season. Don’t want to drive far. Don’t feel like taking the bus. Don’t feel like dealing with hard parking (so no Christmas Village).

I look at oversized black knit sweaters online. Taking notes on different ones, comparing and contrasting. The fit, the crop, the gauge. Rodin’s The Thinker when it comes to oversized black knit sweaters.

Going back and forth between reading a chapter of my book and looking at my phone as if one is the reward for the other but I can’t tell which is which.

I open my laptop and send my friend Josh the latest version of my manuscript which I now think I have a title for.

Ten minutes of French lessons on Duolingo to advance my long day streak, because at this point if I lose that streak go ahead and 302 me.

6:20 pm: Avery is done getting ready but the event we talked about going to is now basically over. Iconic. She picks me up and instead we head to Chestnut Hill to walk around in some Christmas lights. It turns out it’s like some Art and Eat event, both of those things we fuck with heavily, so we walk down Germantown Ave and go into some stores. There are carolers and people playing instruments and people having small cups of wine in little galleries. We go into one store we love that Avery accurately describes as a “high end beige shoppy-shop”. You know what I mean? Fishtown has one too. Not a millennial squiggle shoppy-shop, this one doesn’t sell Graza olive oil - it sells Flamingo Estate.

At one point we’re chugging tiny free cups of wine and Santa Clause BURSTS through the door like a cop serving a no-knock warrant SCREAMING about Merry Christmas and ho ho ho and scaring the hell out of me, for a split second I thought I was gonna have to be a hero. I have a long running bit where I act like I don’t know who Santa is, like I’ve never heard of him and don’t recognize the bearded guy in pictures, so I was able to rattle that off a few times (even though Ave is tired of it by this point - but when she gets tired of a bit is when the bit truly begins) and then I got a picture with him.

8:30 pm: We went and grabbed dinner and a few more glasses of wine and Avery talked to me about how she thought it would be funny if we went and got some poppers because I’ve never tried them before, so she looks up a place that she knows sells them. We were deciding whether or not to go get them, but then I realized she was possibly being serious so I had to be like “no lmao I’m not doing poppers.” But I do agree it would have been an interesting way to end this.

9:20 pm: We get back to my house and put on Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, which absolutely fucking rips and I’ve been in love with it since Ave showed it to me for the first time last year. After she showed it to me, I made her watch it like five more times in a row. It’s so charming and there are so many sweet moments, the entire cast is perfect (Laura Dern!) (except the dad being Bob Odenkirk threw me for a loop but I’m not mad at it) (is that a spoiler?) and it just makes me feel so good. Also its Christmas-ish.

During the movie I, no fucking joke, do a TEN STEP skincare routine, which is the record for most steps in a skincare routine by a straight man, probably. They should make an American Psycho about me called American Normal Guy. I get dry skin on my face occasionally and then I just went off the rails and the routine morphed into this, but it works and I hardly get dry skin anymore. I can send it to you if you’re interested.

A while into Little Women, I look at Avery and calculate the position of her eyelids (slightly lowered) versus the amount of movie we have left (a little less than half), and I pause it and say “bedtime?” and she says “yes.” and I blow out the candle we have lit, put away the laptop, and turn off the light.

11:xx pm - ?: I wake up from a dream where I or someone with my POV is twirling Tony Soprano around, you know how when you hold both a kid’s arms and spin around and swing them through the air?, well it’s Tony Soprano and he’s laughing so hard and breathing heavily and smiling and he’s screaming “I’M A CANDIDATE FOR LOVE! …I’M A GOOD CANDIDATE FOR LOVE!!” over and over again. I have no idea what this means. I’ve been having real weird dreams lately.

Cody lives in Philadelphia and reads and writes sometimes. His Instagram is @somethrills.