What Happens When the Opioid Epidemic Hits Home... Literally

He was only 32 years old. It was a Sunday morning. I was working my second job, bartending at a local spot. If I hadn’t been working I’d have probably been there drinking regardless, enjoying a casual Sunday brunch with my friends. It was a slow day, most of the regulars probably out in the Hamptons or taking advantage of the perfect beach weather. I felt the buzz of my phone in my pocket, the all too familiar sensation. Just a couple short bursts, only a text message. I saw one of my roommate’s names pop up, Annie. A short, but athletic dancer in her late twenties. We had spent the last several days trying to solve a peculiar case of an odor that had infiltrated our cozy four-bedroom apartment. Our third roommate was in Spain with his boyfriend, and our fourth in Long Island with his family for the holiday weekend. Therefore it was up to us to discover the source of the invasive smell.

Well, it ended up being her alone who was to discover the smell. Upon inspection of my roommate’s room (Maybe he left some food out?), she was faced with the harsh reality that not many New Yorker’s have to think about let alone deal with firsthand. Behind his door was my roommate, Patrick. He hadn’t gone home for the holiday, we had only assumed that, since his mail had been sitting on the living room table for two days. The first thing she noticed was the awkward angle of his body, lying on his rug. The second thing she noticed was the needle laying next to his bed, and the belt wrapped around his arm.

Patrick had moved in almost a year prior. He was back in school studying media while working in catering. The nights he was home we spent drinking beer and catching up on our weeks. He worked out at a local gym and apart from the occasional mention of smoking pot with his friends back home gave no indication that he sometimes enjoyed indulging in harder drugs. He was a good guy. He was a good roommate. He sometimes talked too much during movies, a gripe I complained about with several friends. A gripe I now feel guilty about. A gripe that seems so small and insignificant when compared to all the amazing qualities he brought to that apartment.

Walking home from the restaurant I made it halfway before I realized I didn’t have my headphones in. I don’t walk anywhere without my headphones. I couldn’t put them in though, what song should I play? What song would turn on that I would forever associate with this moment? What is the appropriate song when you’re walking to a place you called home that is now the scene of a crime? I continued walking sans music, lost in my thoughts and curiosities as to what I would find one avenue and two streets ahead of me.

I could see one police officer standing in front of my driveway. He was calm, obviously immune to these types of situations. I walked past him and met eyes with Annie. I wrapped my arms around her as tight as I could. I was hoping the pressure would wake us both up from this terrible dream. It didn’t. She described what she had seen, her first dead body. A three-day-old one at that. It can go without saying that she was still in a bit of shock. We stood there, her arms wrapped tightly across her chest. My left arm was dug into my pocket while my right arm rapidly rose and lowered cigarette after cigarette from my lips. I texted my roommate in Spain, John, to see what time he was landing the next day. He responded noon, I told him safe travels and put the task of telling him what had happened aside.

We stood there for hours, days, years. We stood there while mothers and their strollers walked past. We stood there while happy couples holding hands made their way to the busy street just a few yards away for their happy Sunday brunch. We stood there with the solemn police officer. The passerby’s must have thought up their own scenario. Maybe we were the addicts, being busted for possession. Maybe we suspected a gas leak and evacuated our building. Nevertheless I doubt that any of these neighbors of ours, these strangers, could have dreamed up the truth of the situation. We were simply waiting there for the boys in blue to finish shuffling around my dead friends body until their superiors showed up to continue the process.

To be completely honest I didn’t know Patrick extremely well. I knew he was 32. I knew he was from Long Island. I knew he had a sister with whom he was close. I knew he had a mom who was a sweetheart, she had helped move him in. I knew he spent time in California for school before dropping out and getting a job, spending a few years out west working and traveling, living the quintessential twenty-something’s dream. An east-coaster at heart, he had a certain Cali vibe in the way he spoke and moved. He was laid back. He was never concerned about little things. He never let our crazy landlady get to him, even when she would accost him downstairs about some inane detail after a long day of school and work, when all he wanted to do was walk up his stairs and open a cold can of beer from the fridge. I knew he liked microwave pizzas and sandwiches. I knew he did his dishes as soon as he was done with them. He was always curious about my takeout selections, inquiring as to which restaurant I chose and why. What I ordered and how I liked it. Yet he seemed content to make his pizzas and sandwiches. He was a nice guy, content with the quiet and the simple.

My landlady is Greek, common for my neighborhood. She grew up in our house and when her parents passed turned it into a duplex and rented out the four bedrooms upstairs from her. To say she was a bit odd is an understatement. To say she had no soul is an even bigger one. While we stood there waiting for the detectives to show up she mentioned that we should probably start posting ads for new roommates, “We would need a replacement after all.” I didn’t know what to do with that. I could see the anger bubbling up in Annie. I suppressed my own rage and told her cooly that we would “…handle it when the time was right.”

I grew up watching Law & Order. In high school I had a Thursday night date every week with CSI. Nowadays Criminal Minds is a constant "Recently Watched" on my Netflix. My bookshelf is a plethora of true crime novels and the latest Jeffery Deaver thriller. It was all a world of fiction to me. These stories, these cops and scientists every week chasing after a different bad guy, spending an hour falling in love with characters only to find out they were the bad guy all along. The writers had fooled us! This Sunday I stood on my porch being questioned by my very own Lennie Briscoe and a slightly greyer Chris Noth. I told them I had had no idea that Patrick used drugs. I told them I had last seen him on Tuesday when he left to meet up with a friend. He was only gone for an hour and a half. Was he meeting a dealer? Was he having a tough morning and needed a score and didn’t want to interrupt my afternoon off with his problems? The questions didn’t stop there. My own private Briscoe asked if it was normal for me to go almost a week without seeing Patrick? I told him yes, I traveled a lot for work, it was abnormal if I spent more than four nights in a row in my own bed. But that’s New York City. That’s what it’s like when you have four late twenties/early thirties kids in grown bodies living together trying to make their own lives work. They finished up and waited for the medical examiner.

She finally came downstairs, having finished her examination of my friend's body, lying above us. He had been there for about three days she told us. She also told us that this wasn’t the first time he had done this. After finding hospital records in his room, she discovered that he had overdosed twice before, the last as recently as July, roughly a year ago. So this wasn’t an isolated incident? This wasn’t his attempt at trying something new? This was his problem, this was his problem that all of us were completely unaware of. Had there been signs? Had there been something we should have asked when he first moved in? Do we add a "check here if you have a pre or currently existing drug problem" box to the next rental application? Why couldn’t he talk to us about it? The people you live with should be the people you have the most intimate relationships with besides your family or significant others. If Joey had a drug problem surely he would have confided in Chandler! Instead I was living with a stranger. A stranger I called my roommate. But in New York City you can argue there is no difference between those two terms. One, a term you use to describe the person who always waits at the same spot on the subway platform at the same time you’re heading to work. The other, a term you use to describe someone you share a kitchen, bathroom, garbage bags, and late night talks with. I guess the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Not in New York.

The medical examiner gave us her card with the case number on it. Narcotics officers would be by later to investigate the crime scene. The van would be by to pick the body up, but not for a couple hours. There was only one van for Queens and apparently this was a particularly busy Sunday for them. In fact it was her sixth body that day and it was only one o’clock. She made the mistake of letting my landlady know that some of his bodily fluids had gotten on her hardwood floors. She recommended some industrial cleaners you can pick up at Home Depot and made her way to the next crime scene. My landlady decided this was the time to mention that if she had to buy special cleaning supplies Patrick’s parents should be responsible for that cost. Again, no soul. Annie and I decided neither of us would be staying in the apartment that night, what turned out to be many nights. A not so solemn cop, perhaps he was newer to the force, allowed us upstairs to pack a bag. Walking into that apartment, even though his door was closed, it smelled worse than ever. The smell of death and decay literally hanging in the air. My home was crumbling before my very eyes. Annie and I packed our bags, came back downstairs, hugged and said our goodbyes for the time being.

Where to go now? What do you do now in this situation? I took my bag with my t-shirt, underwear, and socks for the next day, deodorant — fuck, I forgot pajamas and my charger! I would make do, I wasn’t going back upstairs. I threw my bag over my shoulder and I made my way to the only place I could think to go. A bar. My friend Lou had texted me saying he was close by with some friends so I showed up with my baggage, both physical and emotional. I was still in shock and all I could do was talk about it. All I could do to process this situation was to hear it out loud. The absurdity of it all made it seem so implausible, but hearing the words come out of my mouth, to tell the story of my day, somehow made it real. Made it easier to process. I wasn’t able yet to talk about my feelings, or what it was doing to me. Talking about the logistics, reliving the phone call and the smell and the cops and the landlady and Patrick’s mail on the living room table made it a reality. I had lived it, and now others were experiencing it through me and somehow this made the realization of what was happening all the more clear. As I reached out to friends the reaction of disbelief was the same across the board. Support and several places to stay were immediately offered. As were drinks.

I think that’s when the guilt set in. After about four beers and the second bar, the tears were harder to hold back. The sympathy and shock from my friends was overwhelming in the best way. But who was I to be receiving this type of support? As far as I knew, Patrick’s body was still laying on his rug, twisted and contorted, waiting in the ninety degree heat for a van backed up by other bodies, other sons, other brothers, other roommates. I kept picturing his mom. Where was she when she received the phone call? Was she shopping? Was she enjoying her own brunch? Was she with his sister? Did she know he had this problem or was that going to be a bigger shock than the fact that he was now gone?

It’s likely that by the time we’re in our late twenties and early thirties we’ve dealt with death. I lost three grandparents in my lifetime. My dad’s mother lived with us when I was in grade school. She suffered from emphysema amongst other ailments. I was as close with her as any twelve-year-old could be with their grandmother. One April I was off from school for Easter break. We had the same morning ritual, I would wake up, she would already be awake, have breakfast then play rummy. Except one morning that vacation she wasn’t awake when I got up. I went into her room and she was still sleeping. I shook her shoulder and nothing. I yelled "Grandma!" and nothing. I shook her shoulder harder and nothing. I slapped her and nothing. Terrified I’d gone too far I called my dad at work. He immediately came home and called the rescue squad. Later he explained as best he could to me that she had suffered from a stroke in her sleep. She was gone just a couple days later. That was the closest I had ever been to death. Later on in my adulthood I lost my two maternal grandparents, I was an adult and had been able to have intelligent conversations and remember more vivid memories of them. Even though they were my family and I loved them, with each of their passing’s it was regarded as a blessing in disguise. They were sick, or they were getting sicker. They had lived full lives, had families, seen their grandchildren grow. What are you supposed to do when death takes someone close to you who had so much more to live for?

The rest of my day was a blur of drinks, tears, and shots. I stayed with two good friends that night that also happened to be married. They had a couch with pillows, blankets, and even a pair of shorts I could sleep in. I woke up the next day hungover and for a second wondered why I had stayed at their place. Why hadn’t I just gone home? I live a ten minute walk from their apartment. And then I remembered. The cops had assured us they’d be gone by morning and we could return but there was still something terrifying about returning home. My home, the crime scene. However I did need to go back there, John landed at noon and he still didn’t know.

Sitting on the couch I couldn’t help but stare at the unopened piece of mail on the table. The cable bill that had been sitting there for three days now. The cable bill that was in Patrick’s name. He paid every month on time and every month we would Venmo him our $17.99 share. I supposed one of us would have to call and switch it over somehow. It wasn’t a call I even wanted to think about. To my left was a bookshelf. Your standard Ikea cubicle bookshelf. Twenty cubes laid four across and five high. Patrick’s cube was next to my head. Full of books on film production, textbooks. He was going to make movies one day. Was.

John had called me from the airport, he knew something was up. I told him about the phone call, and Annie finding Patrick. I told him about the needle and the cops. He said he would be home in 45 minutes and I said I would wait for him, so he wouldn’t have to come home to an empty apartment. It’s not rare that the apartment would be empty on a Monday afternoon, but it seemed a little more empty than normal on this particular Monday. The landlady was wiping down the stairs with wet Swiffer cloth’s. “So many cops, so many germs...,” she muttered when I inquired. The minutes were hours, waiting there for John, my bag already packed and waiting in the chair, ready for whatever couch or apartment I’d be calling a bed and home that night. Sitting there trying to think of anything but the obvious. I realized I hadn’t eaten in about 24 hours. I went to the fridge to see if I had maybe left some takeout, or at least to get a glass of water. The pungent smell of Lysol and deodorizer had overwhelmed my senses the moment I stepped through the door. However I guess it was better than the alternative. I opened the fridge and staring back at me was Patrick’s six-pack of IPA. His lunch meats. His sliced cheeses. His orange juice. I closed the door, suddenly void of any appetite.

John and I sat on the couch, his suitcase next to the door where he dropped it. Both still in shock I replayed the previous days events for him. Once the facts were on the table we began remembering the moments we’d shared with Patrick. John spoke about how Patrick had met his mom and brother, how he hadn’t been able to call them yet and let them know. A phone call he was nervous about making. We remembered the nights spent with Patrick, watching Master of None together. We spoke about how responsible he was, always the one to take out the garbage, always on top of the cleaning and the chores. We spoke about his problem, his secret. We asked ourselves if there was anything we possibly could have done different. After an hour and a short pause I got up and grabbed my bag. I let John know I’d be staying with friends for the next few nights before work took me out of town again. He said he would be spending the night with his boyfriend. I gave John a hug and we said our goodbyes. Closing the door behind me I walked down my steps unsure if I ever wanted to go back there. Back to the crime scene. I’m not naïve. I’ve lived in New York almost nine years. I’m aware that people have probably died in any of my previous apartments. However, never while I still lived there. Never one of my friends.

I walked down my block, heading back to my friends house, still in silence. Walking I noticed tears forming in the corners of my eyes. I looked up and breathed, attempting to keep them from flowing but there was nothing I could do. The realization that Patrick was gone hitting me in the gut, a sucker punch from death himself. He was gone. He wasn’t on vacation, he wasn’t on a work trip. He was laying on a metal slab in some coroner’s office, with a Y incision on his chest and a toxicology report nearby. I would never see his face again. I would never come home and see his smiling face in the kitchen holding out a can of beer for me. He was gone and for the stupidest of reasons. He was gone and I couldn’t help but feel that it was such a waste. I kept wondering if he was aware of what was happening while it was happening? If he was still conscious while he lay there on his floor, hoping one of us would find him before it was too late? He was gone. He had died alone, scared and alone.

The next couple days I stayed on my friends couch, filling my day with mindless entertainment that I wasn’t able to truly focus on. In conversations with friends my thoughts were always partly thinking of Patrick and my home. I was looking forward to my work trip, four days in Ohio. I’ve been to Ohio a lot for work and have never once enjoyed myself. But I found myself counting down the hours until I escaped the city. Counting down the hours until I was at work and could focus on something else, take my brain and take it out of the gloomy cloud it’d been lost in since that Sunday morning.

There’s no manual for death. There’s no manual to teach you how to grieve or what you’re supposed to be feeling. No one is invincible. No one is safe from death or the pain it causes the living. We all have an expiration date we're not privy to, and unfortunately for some that date comes too soon. Death doesn't call, it doesn't knock on your door. It shows up like the coworker you tried so hard to keep from finding out about your party, but you turn around and there they are in your kitchen drinking your beer. Death doesn't care who you are or how good of a person you may be. It doesn’t care that you do your dishes on time. It doesn’t care that you pay your bills on time. It doesn’t care about the people left behind. My good friend told me that everyone is on this earth to serve a purpose, to impact the people around them. At first I didn’t want to hear it. What had Patrick’s purpose been? He had so much to live for, his purpose can’t have been fulfilled yet. Thinking about it though, I began to wonder if Patrick’s purpose in my life was to teach me about death, to teach me about the loss of a friend. In my 31 years I hadn’t learned what this is, how we do this. I know that as I grow older I’ll be faced with this again, and maybe next time I’ll grieve a little better. Patrick’s body is gone. But Patrick will live with me for the rest of my days. In time he’ll just be a memory, and in time I’ll be okay.