Blowin' Smoke Read online

  Blowin’

  Smoke

  Blowin’

  Smoke

  S. M. Boren

  Copyright * 2019 by Stacie Boren

  Cover designed by Beetiful Book Covers

  All Rights Reserved in all media. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations used in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, incidents, and places are used fictitiously and are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to events, locales, businesses, or persons is entirely coincidental.

  Published in The United States 2019

  To Jason

  Thank you for supporting me even when it was harder than we wanted it to be.

  I will always love you.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Anastasia Chewlewsky

  Officer Tanya Bradshaw

  Brandon Jones

  Anastasia Chewlewsky

  Gayle and Jacob Werner

  Brandon Jones

  Anastasia Chewlewsky

  Brandi Schmidt

  Gayle Werner

  Anastasia Chewlewsky

  Brandon Jones

  Tanya Bradshaw

  Gayle Werner

  Brandi Schmidt

  Brandon Jones

  Tanya Bradshaw

  Brandon Jones

  Anastasia Chewlewsky

  Dr. Tom Jeffers, MD

  Josie Evans

  Brandon Jones

  Addiction Never Sleeps

  Billy Joe Wright

  Prologue

  Small-town values and big city dreams is how I grew up. All across America people believe that in a small-town people go to church, work hard, and help one another in ways that are unknown in big cities. People believe that in a small-town the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and the children are above average. Truth is people get divorced in small towns, they commit crimes, they become addicted to drugs, there is no reason to think small towns are immune to such things. Children in small towns are just as exposed to the Internet, the same games and pop music, the same television shows, as kids in big cities. Where you are from doesn’t necessarily give you the qualities and morals of a good person. The values that built America still exist in small towns everywhere, but that doesn’t mean that small towns don’t suffer from the same plagues as big cities. There are just as many good people in the city as there are as many bad people in a small-town. The difference is people in a small-town cover the problem up better or shade the truth from others. Some of the best-kept secrets come from those small towns that aren’t even on a map.

  Some will say this isn’t my story to tell, and they are probably right. This story was meant to be told by every addict, every family member of an addict, or every child raised by an addict. Since I have been one of each of those people in my life, I earned the right to tell this story my way. Besides, many of them aren’t brave enough or sober enough to tell it. After you’ve watched your grandmother gamble away your inheritance, your uncle marry time and time again, your parents drink away their finances, your sisters struggle with relationships and drugs, your brother throw his life away, when you are part of the aftermath of a suicide, and five of the seven kids you raised struggle with man-made drugs while you battle your own demons in a bottle you are entitled to tell any story. I’ve been to the meetings. I earned the coin. I held hands with other addicts, and I stood by others that earned their coins. That is my right to tell this story, the surprise is that I even remember the details to tell you this story. We all say we will grow up and move out of this town, but truth is, we are all just blowin’ smoke.

  Anastasia Chewlewsky

  “Mom! Lacey is eating cheerios out of the floor!”

  “Hold on a second, let me see what these kids are hollering about.” Anastasia pulls the phone away from her ear, “Lacey, put those cheerios back in the bowl. Ryan, if you were a little nicer when you tell your sister what to do, she might listen to you a little better.”

  “She doesn’t listen to me. Not ever,” says Ryan.

  “I am on the phone. Can you please just hold the peace until I am done?” Anastasia puts the phone back up to her ear. “Sorry, these two children fight like they are only a few years apart not ten. What were we talking about?” Anastasia steps out the screen door to the outside to get better reception on the phone.

  “The new psychiatrist.” Josie on the other end of the phone, navigates her way through traffic. Lunch hours in a small town are hectic. Limited places to eat means a crowd no matter where you go.

  “Yes, I went to see him. He’s a nice guy. He moved his practice here with an agreement with the Sherriff Department, but he sees regular people too.”

  “Cops with their shiny badges and big egos probably do need to go see a shrink.” Says Josie.

  “Ha! I think with the police it is something like after a traumatic event they must complete so many hours of therapy. It makes sense really, how many times do cops deal with the scum of the town? It only makes sense they include therapy. Besides, it’s probably easier to be a shrink in a small-town rather than in the hustle and bustle of a big city.” Anastasia stares down the dead-end street where she lives and relishes in the silence of being outside of the house.

  “Is he one of those doctors that just writes you a prescription and sends you out the door?”

  “No, Josie. He isn’t just a script writer. You have to go in and talk to him.” Anastasia shakes her head. She really can’t understand why everyone is so judgmental of one doctor.

  “I have no idea what you spend an hour talking to a doctor about. It seems to me like it is just a waste of money.” Josie can’t understand why someone voluntarily tells other people personal things.

  “Girl, have you met my family? Oh, wait you are part of it. You know that every person in our family tree has more issues than Carter had liver pills.”

  “I just think that even if you aren’t having problems, they will take your money and spend an hour questioning you until you do have problems, Anastasia.”

  “I think you should just give him a try, Josie. I know you are feeling stressed since Ferguson went to prison. We both know the path he took to get where he is wasn’t an easy one especially not for you.”

  “I will think about it, but I’m not flattered by a doctor messing around in my head there is barely enough room for me in there.” Josie laughs at her own joke.

  “Dr. Jeffers isn’t like that. You control the conversation. He only asks questions and makes suggestions. He hasn’t ever once offered to write me a prescription or anything.”

  “Small-towns are full of gossips. I don’t like everyone knowing my business. Are you positive he doesn’t go blabbing your problems all over this town?”

  “Girl, no. I was once in the grocery store with the kids and he never even acknowledged my presence. He has rules or some ethical code that says he can’t go blabbing information. I’ve also seen police officers coming and going out of his office from time to time. If he was going to gossip, I am sure he has better stories to tell about them than me. I think you should consider making the time to go see him.” As Anastasia walks back towards the house, she can hear the kids inside. Looking through the screen door, she sees Lacey draw back with a hand full of cheerios and launch them at her brother. He picks up one and throws it right back at her.

  “I will think about it.”

  “You do that. Let me get off this phone. These two kids are about to claw one another’s eyes out.”

  Anastasia hangs up the phone and thinks, even if she is my sister-in-law, people in small towns have such small minds and all of them think the world is one
huge conspiracy theory. “Ryan, put that down. DO NOT THROW FOOD AT YOUR SISTER!”

  “She threw it at me first, Mama!”

  “I don’t care, Ryan, she’s five and you are fifteen. You know better!” Ryan walks out of the living room to his bedroom shaking his head.

  There are certain rules about living in a small-town that no one really thinks about, but everyone knows. Rule number one: Your family business is your family business. Basically, what happens inside your house stays in your house. This means when you move from your parent’s house you develop your own code and what happens at their home you are no longer part of unless directly asked to be. Rule number two: If you have an opinion about a family member, keep it to yourself. That is your information and your information alone. Do not go running your mouth to someone outside of the family about a member of the family. Rule number three and probably the most important rule: Family loyalty. You are loyal to your family members no matter how badly they screw up. You don’t defend them when they are wrong, but you don’t confront them in front of others until you are at home. Bite your lip to save a little face. There are things that happen in your house that no one outside of your house will ever know existed or happened. That’s just the way things are in a small-town and it’s the way things will always be. Especially here in Wood, Texas, everyone has secrets and most of them are well kept.

  . . . .

  “Psychiatry takes a special kind of passion and a whole magnitude of patience but helping people find the root of the problem, overcome, and rebuild to be a stronger, better person than the one that walked into my office that first day has its own reward.” Dr. Jeffers tells himself as he walks up the long sidewalk in front of his office. Once inside of his office he pulls his notes from one of the most recent cases to prep for his next patient. One of the hardest cases here in Wood, Texas, was a female court ordered into therapy for losing a child. Incarcerated at the county jail officers escorted Muriel to the office once a week for therapy. Coping with the loss of a child is never easy for anyone, it just isn’t the natural order of things for a child to precede its parent in death, but Muriel’s issues were deeper than just the loss of the child. The judge and the jury held Muriel responsible for the infant’s death.

  Ethan was playing on the floor while his mother napped on a nearby sofa. The nine-month-old is crawling and pulling up on things. When Ethan pulled up on the coffee table between him and his mother, he found a colorful bag of what he thought was food. Hungrily, Ethan ingested the entire contents of the bag. An hour later, his mother woke up from her nap and Ethan wasn’t breathing. The colorful bag that had cartoon-like characters on it, read DO NOT CONSUME. It was empty. The substance in the bag, KUSH.

  In his own handwriting, Tom sees the notes he wrote on his research of this drug. “Kush is a popular brand of synthetic marijuana. It is sold as incense or potpourri. Other brand names include K2, Spice, or Klimax. The substance is a mixture of various herbs, sprayed with an assortment of chemicals whose effects mimic the high of marijuana when smoked. It is a highly addictive substance frequently used by addicts because it was legal to use in Texas until 2012.”

  Once Ethan had ingested the entire bag, the chemicals would have reacted inside of his body, eventually causing his death. What Muriel thought would be a temporary break from reality resulted in her child’s death. There was no amount of medication or therapy that could help Muriel deal with the guilt. After only two sessions and one prescription, Muriel hung herself in her cell leaving behind a note that said only, “I’m sorry.”

  It was Officer Tanya Bradshaw and Officer Brandon Jones that got called to the scene of Muriel’s apartment when Ethan died. Both officers remain patients at his office because of this crime. “Police officers deal with crime and worst-case scenarios daily in their careers; it makes sense that it should involve therapy.” When Tom pitched that line to the local police Chief, he expected an argument, but Chief Tandy quickly jumped on board with officer involved therapy after a traumatic event that could potentially affect his police officers. After they made an agreement, Tom had no idea how involved he would be in these officer’s lives.

  Officer Tanya Bradshaw

  Hawkins County Police Department

  The overwhelming smell of cedar takes Tanya by surprise when she walks into the therapist’s office. The building is a large log cabin decorated with barbed wire and belt buckles covering every wall. Many of the buckles are rodeo championship buckles from the years 1980 to 1984. Behind the huge oak desk sits a receptionist typing on the computer with the phone glued to her ear. She smiles politely at Tanya and her pearly white teeth clash with her bottle red hair that looks almost orange and she says, “How can I help you today?”

  “Hi. My name is Tanya Bradshaw. I have an appointment with Dr. Jeffers today at 10:30.”

  The receptionist checks the computer, hits a few keys on her keyboard, looks up and says, “I will let him know you are here.”

  Walking back to the reception area, Tanya notices a few diplomas hanging on the wall. It might be easy to miss them framed in cedar and hung on one of the huge logs that are the walls of the building. American Psychiatric Association, Be it known to all me by these presents that on the recommendation of the Boards of Examiners and the approval of the Council this Association has elected Thomas R. Jeffers, MD to be a fellow in recognition of meritorious contributions to Psychiatry. Witness the hand of the President and the Secretary and the seal of the Association this nineteenth day of May 1987. “Mrs. Bradshaw, come on back,” states the Dr. as he walks into the reception area.

  Tanya follows him down a series of log-lined hallways to a room at the end of the hall. The room almost looks like a circle but in a building made of straight logs that seems out of place. On the left is a red velour sofa and on the right a recliner with a small round table stacked with magazines between the two. The doctor’s glasses rest on top of a notebook that sits on the arm of the recliner. Tanya assumes that it must be the doctor’s chair. Her thoughts interrupted when Dr. Jeffers says, “You can sit anywhere I can move my things if you prefer the recliner.”

  “No thanks, if I sit in that chair, it looks like I might fall asleep. I believe I will sit on the couch.”

  Dr. Jeffers smiles as he sees that Officer Bradshaw wears her blond hair pulled tightly in a bun that sits at the base of her neck. Her too long lashes sit against her round brown eyes. Her police issued pants tug almost too tightly against her hips and show off her well-accented backside. He catches himself admiring her and quickly shifts his focus back to her face. She looks as though she has just graduated high school, but her life experience shows when she returns his smile because it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

  “Ok Mrs. Bradshaw. The reason I asked Chief Tandy to send you back for another session is considering the new details in the Muriel Jackson case, I wanted to check in and see how you were doing emotionally.”

  “New details? Oh, you mean her suicide. I was unsure why you called me back. I thought there may have been some personal business we needed to discuss. I had no idea this was work-related.” Tanya smiles and winks at the doctor and quickly he shifts his focus back to the folder in his lap.

  “Yes.” he says, not looking up from the papers.

  “I mean well, I think she chose the chicken way out. There is no justice in suicide.” Tanya rolls her eyes knowing he means only business.

  “You don’t think one life in exchange for another life is justice?”

  “No, I mean that woman should have had to sit in that 8 x 10 white stone cell and wake up every morning knowing that her actions lead to her son’s death. That would be justice.”

  “Mrs. Bradshaw, is it your job to see justice served?”

  “Well, no. That’s the district attorney, the judge and the jury’s job.”

  “Right believing in the system and all that.”

  “Not just believing in the system, because believe me when I say I know the system is flawed,
I just mean as an officer it is my job to see the crime and apprehend the criminal. Dealing out justice, well that’s someone else’s job.”

  “Well, you seem to be holding up well and I will let Chief Tandy know so. Thank you for stopping back in.”

  “Oh, well, thanks for following up, Doc.” She stands waiting on the Dr. to say something else and when he doesn’t Tanya leaves the office and her thoughts drift to what’s happened in just the last few weeks. That night was muggy and hot, Texas summers are excruciating in all that gear, upon entering the Pecan Grove apartments it was very clear something was amiss. Muriel sat on the couch holding that colorful bag and crying while EMTs worked to bring back the baby. It was too late. The baby had been deceased for over an hour. If Muriel hadn’t been high, then she wouldn’t have passed out. The baby wouldn’t have crawled up to the coffee table and eaten drugs. If Muriel had just said no all those years ago the first time, she wouldn’t have gotten so far off track in her life. She would have been able to assist the EMTs with the baby instead of sitting there crying, wondering why her child was dead. Now not only Muriel, but her parents, the child’s father, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, and cousins will all bury a baby because Muriel worried more about being high than the welfare of her own child.

  Seems to Tanya that you could wrap this package up with a nice neat bow if Muriel had just learned to say no. The choice was hers and hers alone and the answer seems obvious to a mother. Your child’s safety should come before your need to party like a rock star. Muriel did this to herself and no matter how badly Tanya tried to shake it from her mind, all she had to do was say no. Say no the first time given the choice to use. Say no when her body thought she needed a fix. Stay awake and say no when your child reached for that package. You should have said no in the first place Muriel. Then none of us would be in this mess. Muriel wasn’t in any mess now. She took the cowardly way out; Instead of dealing with the consequences of the choices she made, she took her own life. Tanya didn’t see any reason for being upset by the suicide, if anything it upset her that Muriel took her own justice rather than see it through, but one less criminal on the street. One less mom that neglects her children. One less addict.