Naptown 21 - Summer Internship - 17. Not This Again - Will

Summer Internship

A Naptown Tales Novel by Altimexis & David of Hope

Not This Again - Will
by Altimexis

What a summer this has been! I’ve spent it as an intern at the White House, met four, cool gay teens who actually survived a major political scandal, and I managed to come out to my own parents. Still, I don’t think I’m ready to come out of the closet in general and there’s still the matter of my girlfriend . . . her drug habit, her political connections and what was going to happen when we return to Chicago.

I knew her parents would be counting on me to keep her clean, but she had refused to go into rehab and I often came home to our Watergate apartment to find her using, in spite of my attempts to get her to stop.

Soon, the summer would be coming to an end and we would be returning home. I would be returning to my high-rise condo on Lake Shore Drive and we would both resume our studies pre-Law at the University of Chicago.

Sherrie had her own place and by all rights should return there, but I had the distinct impression she intended to move in with me, and I had a feeling both her and my parents would approve of the arrangement, as it would allow me better control in helping her to kick her drug habit. The reality, however, was that I had absolutely no control. The only way she would ever get off drugs was if she wanted to. I was no substitute for actual rehab.

In the end, it was Sherrie herself who made the matter irrelevant. I came home one day to the all-too-familiar smell of vomit in my apartment at the Watergate. Inside, I found Sherrie laying face-up, passed out on our bed. Her eyes were open and at first I thought she might be dead, but I checked her neck and found a very weak pulse.

In contrast to what we had found the last time, when I arrived with my four charges in tow, this time Sherrie’s pupils weren’t the tiny little pinpoints common to someone on drugs. This time they were big round saucers, and they remained so when I turned on the lights. Having read enough books and seen enough medical shows on TV, I knew that fixed and dilated pupils more than likely meant she was already brain dead and there was therefore nothing I could do for her.

My political career was probably already ruined - her parents would see to that - but the one thing I could do was avoid a felony drug conviction. There was still a chance I could salvage something of my life. Much as I wanted to search for her stash of coke and get rid of it right away, however, Security had already logged the time I’d entered the building, and any delay in calling 911 would look suspicious, so I dialed as I searched. Fortunately, it didn’t take me long to find the stash and flush it and the bag down the toilet.

When the 911 operator came on the line, I explained the situation, and when he tried to explain about clearing the airway, I said it looked like she might have hit her head, so he told me not to do anything and just hold on until the paramedics arrived. In reality, I sure as hell didn’t know how to do what Jeremy had done the last time.

I needed to buy a little time, so I dropped the bedroom phone and stomped on it. It wasn’t long before the 911 operator was calling back and I could hear the kitchen phone ringing, but that was all the time I needed to flush the toilet a second time, adding some chlorine bleach to remove any residual cocaine traces from the toilet bowl.

I ran to the kitchen and answered the phone, apologizing that in my panic, I’d accidentally dropped and stepped on the bedroom phone, breaking it. It was only a few minutes later that the paramedics arrived. Those might have been critical minutes that could have made all the difference to Sherrie’s survival, but Sherrie brought this all on herself. It was a shock to admit to myself that I didn’t even care if she lived or not - it was probably better for her if she didn’t.

In truth, I should have never let my parents talk me into taking her back the first time. This is my life, after all - not theirs. They may think they know what’s best for me, but look where that thinking had gotten me. The contrast between my life and Jeremy Kimball’s couldn’t have been starker. We might have grown up with very similar backgrounds, but his parents never resorted to using political bribes. They’d kept their business in the family and ended up making just about as much money in the end.

The Kimballs raised Jeremy to be a great kid. They accepted his being gay, right from the start. They encouraged him to come out, or more correctly, embraced his coming out when it happened. They’ve been supportive of his relationship with his boyfriend, stood behind him all the way, and in the end, it looks like he’s found a way to enter the political world, even though he’s openly gay . . . and in the Midwest, no less!

And when the shit hit the fan and a scandal ensued for Jeremy and his friends, it was like they were all coated with Teflon - the shit just slid right off them and stuck to the very people who tried to smear them. Through it all, his parents stuck right by him, as I suppose mine would, too, to be fair, but the honesty of having a loving boyfriend and best friends seemed to have made all the difference in the world.

In doing it my parents’ way, the only ones I could count on were my parents - not that that was a bad thing, but I was learning all too clearly that the political connections I was building through my parents were like a house of cards, the foundation of which had just been pulled out from under me.

I was lucky indeed to have met David, Jeremy, Trevor and Kurt. It was clear they were going places. I didn’t have to be in the political limelight . . . in fact, that was no longer a possibility . . . but they would always be there for me as my link to the political world. As David suggested, I would become a legal scholar - well known in political circles, but safe from political vendettas. And who knows, maybe someday . . .

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