#54: "How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?"

What Are the Odds #7: Vicky & Chuck cont’d.

How can I miss you when you won't go away?
Keep telling you day after day
But you won't listen, you always stay and stay
How can I miss you when you won't go away?
— Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks, 1969

We now continue with the strange sagas of 4 people who seemed on the verge of a major life change—in this case Vicky and Chuck. I use pseudonyms and change a few details as usual but that was easy in this case since I couldn’t have kept track of all the cognitively dissonant details if I wanted to.

First, Let’s Recap: Oh, forget it…I’m not going to even try. Their twisted tale is replete with pregnancies, false pregnancies, premature babies, overdoses from bad methadone, possible cancers, stomach pumps, stays in medical centers due to coughing up blood, bike accidents, stolen cash boxes, broken down trucks, mysterious Medicaid co-pays, bad checks, and occasional desperate pleas for chocolate-chip ice cream. Not necessarily in that order. Thank God.

All you really need to know is that their newborn had been placed with Vicky’s family; she was still on her way to a residential facility for moms with addiction issues; and Chuck was still on his way to work at his family’s farm where he could live rent-free and make money until they were reunited.

The key word is “still”. It had been three weeks since they said they had a borrowed truck and were leaving that evening. I was pretty optimistic. I mean we’re not talking about a cross-country trip in a covered wagon. It’s less than 100 miles to Vicky’s residential facility and maybe another 30 to Chuck’s family farm.

But they kept reappearing for one reason or another. One time, Chuck made it to the farm and told me in great detail what he was learning to do, but he’d had to come back because Vicky was frantic and threatening suicide if he didn’t either stay or take her with him. (In her case, the openings at the residential facility came and went depending on what worked best in Vicky’s current story [strike that!] because their population of mothers and babies was always in flux.)

Another time, I didn’t even know they were back again until Chuck called me from jail at 10 pm one night because he’d been arrested on a bench warrant (i.e., not showing up for a court hearing). He just needed a little help with bail.

Finally, I didn’t see them for almost a week and was in the middle of a big sigh of relief when I learned through my increasingly tangled grapevine that they were not only back in town, but Chuck, who had been on Suboxone for opioid withdrawal for months, was using again and supporting his habit by selling the Suboxone he’d been prescribed.

I took that rumor with a grain of salt because I’ve learned that there’s always someone on the street who will claim that someone else is using. If the Virgin Mary lived on the street someone would tell me she’s using.

Through this all, they insisted they really wanted to move to where they said they wanted to move. I finally said I wasn’t giving them any more money but that I’d give Vicky a ride to the residential place. I warned her, however, that I wouldn’t just drop her off. I’d go in and see whether they had any idea who she was and what she was doing there. Chuck could come along if he wanted. I’d drop him off with her and he could find his way to the family farm from there.

In response, Chuck said, “Well, that’s what I want to talk to you about.” I said I didn’t want to talk to him. It was too expensive.

It didn’t matter because before we could make firm arrangements, Chuck got his own ride back up because he needed to get there fast to visit his mother who was terminally ill. Unfortunately, he got into a bad car accident on the way and a few days later he returned, having survived his own near-death experience at a medical center. (One of those “if the car had hit us at that angle, I’d be dead.”) He was leaning against a building, wincing in pain. I asked if he’d ever gotten up to see his mother. He said no and now she had only hours to live and he was intent on getting enough money to get a ride north. I wished him luck.

You got to understand, Chuck really is kind of a friend. Still. I’ve known him for five or six years. He’s virtually the only person on the street who seems the least bit interested in what I’m working on these days and follows up occasionally to see how it’s going. When I had my bike accident he was truly concerned, as was Vicky, and I’m convinced it wasn’t just because they were afraid of losing a source of income. They’ve both been very helpful when I’ve had trouble understanding the fine points of medication-assisted treatment, Medicaid reimbursements, housing subsidies, and other nuts and bolts of life on the street. I even, only partly in jest, sent him a small 1099 last year, considering some of the money as payment to a consultant. Overall, he seems extremely sincere—there’s nothing the least bit disingenuous about his affect.

Of course, I’m well aware, that all the above signs of his honesty could well be signs of the opposite. And I know full well that, of all my friends on the street, Chuck and Vicky have transformed good old everyday reality-bending into an art form. Along with enough co-dependence to spin their distortions into a jaw-dropping whirlwind of deception.

A lot of what they say is true, of course. As I’ve said before, in order to stand up to scrutiny, all tall tales—like, say, morning glories—need a reliable, if tenuous structure to cling to.

The next time I saw Chuck, he told me he had just made it to the hospital in time to see his mom. But he’d had to come back ‘cause Vicky was still stuck here. Besides, he and his doctor were trying to manage his pain from the car accident without opioids—which don’t mix well, to put it mildly, with Suboxone. Besides he didn’t want to miss another visit with his baby boy (remember the baby boy?) who had been placed by DCF in the custody of Vicky’s parents.

So, where was Vicky at the moment? He didn’t know. He didn’t care. They often don’t know/don’t care where the other is. But even money says you’ll see them together in the next ten minutes. Usually screaming at each other. When I ask either of them about this, they just shrug and say, “It’s love.”

I offered Chuck my condolences for his mom, which he sadly accepted and said he now had a little vial of her ashes that he wore around his neck. Since I’m not skilled in DNA testing, I didn’t even bother asking to see it.

We’re now a full 6 weeks out from the evening they expected to make a major life change in the next 24 hours. And what I’ve told you is literally not the half of it. Barely even close. I mean throughout all this Vicky continued cycling through her two-hour visits with the baby, telling me how much she hated Chuck, promising to meet me so I could take her to the residential place, giving me classic proud-parent reports on what the little boy was doing, explaining how her parents weren’t helping her because they were jerks, and so on.

Around then, I began looking, innocently at first, for an obituary for Chuck’s mom. I figured there’d be some kind of poetic irony or idiocy for me to send $25 or $50 to the in-lieu-of-flowers place. After looking regularly in regional and statewide newspapers and government websites, I was beginning to have my doubts. But, c’mon, would Chuck really fake his mother’s death for a few bucks? Don’t answer that.

I like to think Chuck was beginning to feel the thin ice crackling under his feet because I got a text from him one day:

Chuck: “Hey Dave it's Chuck. Are you busy at the moment?”
Me: “Yes.”
Chuck: “Ok well I was going to stop and see u In like half hour or so it's def important.”

I didn’t text back, but he caught up with me later while I was on a walk and, before he could start his spiel, I told him I couldn’t find a death announcement for his mom. He casually said I just needed to use her maiden name like it was no big deal, and went on to give me the latest updates on his and Vicky’s trials and tribulations before he “caught a ride back up to the family farm.” I kept walking. He kept talking. So I walked faster—a little passive aggressive I know—until I finally stopped and waited for the ask. But, to my surprise, he didn’t oblige…until a half an hour later when he called me and told me there was a glitch in his ride. I said no before he was even done explaining and kept saying it with increasing vehemence until he gave up, sounding really disappointed at my lack of sensitivity to his horrific predicament.

A week after that, I decided it was time to figure out what the hell was going on once and for all. I still hadn’t found a death notice for his mom after searching registries and newspapers in the state in every variation on the name I could think of. I also, by the way, couldn’t find a birth announcement for the baby boy. Close but no cigar.

In the meantime, however, my research confirmed that—unless he’d taken on an entirely new identity—his brother and mother were his brother and mother and that there was a farm and that his brother’s specialty was what Chuck said it was.

Plus, one time months back Chuck had given me a number that I called and talked to his brother who said yeah Chuck was kind of a help on the farm and could probably have a job there, but he wasn’t as skilled as he claimed.

Also, his brother had called me to confirm that it really was urgent that Chuck get up there because their mother really was close to dying, and he’d pay me back if I gave it to him. As I listened, I wondered how much Chuck paid some guy to call me and pretend to be his brother.

A few times I thought I’d write to his brother but, I don’t know, his mom had just died…maybe I felt like it was an invasion of privacy. Well, something stopped me. And whatever it was, it wasn’t common sense. But finally I wrote. Our text stream was short but very much to the point.
[Names are crossed out. The blue message blocks are from me. Gray are him. Also, it’s hard to read an iPhone, so I’ve transcribed in a footnote below.¹

I printed the brief text stream and kept it in my pocket. The next time Chuck came towards me with that “I gotta tell you something” look on his face, I handed it to him, smiled and said. “Great news, Chuck! Your mother’s still alive!”

As I walked away, he called after me, presumably to tell me how much of a practical joker his brother is. But I just kept walking.

1. Me: Sorry to trouble you. I'm your brother Chuck's "friend" in Brattleboro who's helped him and Vicky out A LOT. Could you just verify that your mom recently passed? My condolences if she did...if not pls. let me know. Also whether Chuck is actually up there working with you at all. Thanks so much. I owe you a beer. David

Chuck's Brother: No she hadn’t passed. And I haven’t seen Chuck in years.

Me: Thank you so so much. He should write novels, his stories are so good...I guess. If you're ever in Brat I'll buy you that beer.

Chuck's Brother: Or I’ll buy you a beer just to hear these story’s [sic].