Recovered Read online

  As a functioning addict, I’m able to hang out with my parents, and they never suspect a thing. I’m in full control. But in the clubs, there’s nothing to hide. I can give in to my impulses, and nobody’s going to judge me. Most are joining in with me.

  “Robby!”

  It’s Ron, one of my acquaintances who buys drugs from me. His eyes gesture toward a door to a back room, and I follow him there. I yell into his ear, though with the music pounding, it sounds like a whisper.

  “How many tonight?” I ask, reaching for my pocket.

  He wants ten Oxys, twenty Ecstasy pills, and a few Somas. He’ll turn it around in the club for a profit, which will support his habit for a few days. Unless he gives in and uses his stash before he can sell it. Which happens to him—and sadly, to me, if I don’t sell it quick. Then the money’s gone, and I owe more than I can sell.

  I can tell something’s on Ron’s mind. He looks me in the eye and says, “Did you hear about G?” I shake my head, but I know what’s coming. It occurs to me I haven’t seen G around for a week or so.

  “Gone. Overdose. His roommate found him.”

  I take a deep breath and close my eyes for a moment. I don’t have to be told the cause of death. I can’t think of anything to say. What could be said? No words are right.

  Ron breaks the silence. “We’ve got to get out of this, man. This whole thing.”

  “Yeah, I know. We’ll do it. Been thinking about that myself. There has to be more to life than this.”

  “Yeah. Let’s get together and talk soon.”

  “For real. This week.”

  We fist-bump and part ways, both knowing we’re not “getting out of this.” There is no escape hatch. Well, actually, there is one—G found it.

  The next few hours are a blur. I know we end up in the French Quarter; I remember walking by Galatoire’s, where the other Robby was a few hours ago. Sunday is kind of fuzzy, too, and then it’s Monday and the phone is ringing. I pick it up. It’s Mom. She sounds incredibly tense.

  “Hi, Mom! What’s going on?”

  Her voice is ice cold. Mom has her own brand of ice cold. “Robby, we know. We know what you did.”

  “What I did? What are you—”

  Suddenly it hits home, like a knife slicing into my heart. The absolute worst possible thing I can imagine. Of course they know. I dreaded this day would come. I wait, speechless for once.

  “Fifteen thousand dollars, Robby. Fifteen thousand. How could you do this to us? We would have given you anything in the world, and you stole from us? Your father is so furious he—”

  “Look, Mom, calm down. You don’t understand. It’s just . . .”

  And that’s all I’ve got. All out of words. How am I supposed to explain why I’ve run up thousands of dollars on their credit card—why I need money so desperately?

  Back when I was working for him, Dad trusted me with his business credit card. I memorized the number. One day, a few months back, I needed something and was flat broke, and thought about that card. Just this once. Dad wouldn’t mind. I’d pay him back.

  But of course, I didn’t. It was just a little too easy to give in to temptation and snort my own stash instead of selling it, knowing I could quickly convert that card to cash on the buy-and-pawn plan. Dad wouldn’t notice, or so I told myself. He spent thousands of dollars each month, purchasing auto body parts for his business. He’ll never notice the periodic charges on his statement. He never checks his statements closely.

  I got so used to abusing that card that one night, when I saw a Fender Stratocaster online, I decided it was meant for me. All the great guitarists—Hendrix, Clapton, all of ’em—played Strats. I placed an order, throwing in a single stack Peavey amp. Then, a while later, the phone rang at Bob’s Collision Center, my dad’s shop. Somebody from the online store wanted Robert to know that his $600 guitar was on back order.

  Was there some mistake? My dad was more than certain he hadn’t ordered some expensive guitar.

  Well, they said, your card was used for the transaction.

  Mom and Dad began to study the last few credit card bills, and I was busted. It was like waking up from a bad dream into a full-fledged nightmare, because I realized the stupidity of thinking I could ever get away with something so dumb. I also realized, in the pit of my stomach, the terrible toll this would take on my parents’ trust.

  Mom says, quietly but firmly, “Don’t ever come to our house again. We don’t want to see you.”

  I spit out my reply in anger. “Well, I don’t need either of you.”

  And we both hang up. I sit for an hour, trembling, thinking, What have I done?

  For some time, my life has been spiraling wildly out of control, plunging downward. Now I’ve hit absolute bottom.

  How did I get here?

  Chapter 2

  Playing Parts

  Chalmette lies just east of downtown New Orleans, in St. Bernard Parish. Chalmette means “pasture land” or “fallow land.” When soil is fallow, that means it lies unsown, fertile, waiting for planting. Which is a picture of my life in those early years.

  The town I remember from childhood was twice the size it is now. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina pushed the Gulf waters over and across our town, devastating it and changing it forever. Along with all the other residents, we lost everything in that storm. The Chalmette of those years exists only in our memories.

  We were a typical working class family. Dad owned and operated his collision center, his life revolving around fixing up mangled cars. Mom worked for an oil and gas company. My sister and I went to school, played with neighborhood friends, and tried to stay out of trouble.

  We were a religious family, or to be more exact, a church-based family—not particularly spiritual. As good Catholics of our parish, we attended Mass on Sundays and went to confession the following Saturday if we missed it. We weren’t Christmas-and-Easter-only attenders, but still, churchgoing was a duty, and God was merely someone you visited for an hour once a week. He didn’t involve himself in family life too much, at least not in ours. I never saw him as a God of love, but as an authority figure who was out to chastise me whenever I stepped out of line.

  Speaking of me, well, you know that kid beloved by all adults, the teacher’s pet, well-behaved and perfect in every way? Have you got a good mental picture of that child? Well, that’s not me.

  Look over to the other side of your mental picture. See that other kid, the one with the sneaky grin? The kid being glared at by the teachers? The class clown, who had to be talking and getting out of his desk no matter how often he was warned, no matter how many times he got into trouble? The class champion of time-outs?

  Yeah, that one. That’s me.

  During the eighties, attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were first emerging as real issues of children’s health. Although I wasn’t formally diagnosed, everyone knew there was a problem. The doctor explained to my mom there were reasons I was out of control, reasons that could be managed through various options.

  She suggested Ritalin, which inhibits those impulses, but my parents weren’t comfortable with that strategy. Instead, they opted for the Feingold diet, a way of controlling behavior through meal choices. For years I couldn’t eat anything with artificial flavors, preservatives, or colors. It’s fair to say the diet had mixed results. I definitely wasn’t an enthusiastic Feingold kid.

  A plan was needed to avoid eating bland food. How do you convince your peers to trade you their lunch for the uninspiring Feingold diet choices that lay in my lunch box? Well, you learn the art of salesmanship at an early age. These skills would come into play years later.

  The broader lunch selections were great for enjoyment, but horrible for my behavior. My issues came to a head when I was in seventh grade. Miss Franklin stepped out of the classroom one day. Cr
awling under her desk, I seized an opportunity for entertaining my classmates. They were already starting to laugh, eager to see the next episode of the Robby clown show, when the teacher walked in. I froze under her desk. She sat in her chair about to roll into the desk. Busted.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Gallaty, it’s time to do something about Robby’s behavior,” declared the principal.

  That was the end of my time at St. Mark’s. My parents moved me to Holy Cross, a Catholic school for boys, where the Catholic brothers were armed with paddles and ready to strike at any time. They would chew up and spit out class clowns far worse than me, and I knew I’d fallen into desperate circumstances. I was utterly stifled.

  Worse, I found myself in the middle of an academic enigma. I excelled on my entrance examinations, qualifying me for honors work. My parents were thrilled by this, of course, and so was I—until I realized it meant more studying. I hadn’t read the fine print on this one. A trap!

  So here I found myself in a highly regimented Catholic school with twice as much schoolwork and an unlimited supply of bottled up energy. It took me a full semester to get downgraded from Honors. By that time, I was entering eighth grade, a tough year for most kids to begin with. It was going to be even worse for me because I had no friends. The gifted crowd thought I must be a dunce because I hadn’t made it in their group. The “regular” class thought I was a nerd, because I’d at first been lumped in with the smart kids.

  The ultimate punishment for a class clown is to be an outcast, and of course, I was an outcast with deadly paddles threatening me at every moment with schoolyard work awaiting those who broke the rules. In short, I was in the midst of adolescence and not loving life.

  By ninth grade I had managed to accumulate a grand total of two friends at Holy Cross, so I clung to them tightly. One of them was named Keith. I remember him passing on at recess what he felt to be one of the great secrets of the universe. “Robby,” he said, “there are two types of people in this world: those who listen to Jimi Hendrix, and those who hear Jimi Hendrix.”

  “Wow,” I said, “that’s deep.” It sounded like he was really onto something. He gave me further instructions to intensify the experience: “Turn up the volume, burn some incense, and lie on your back to take in the music.”

  I convinced Mom and Dad to drive me to the French Market downtown to purchase incense to accompany my musical endeavor of “hearing” Jimi Hendrix. For obvious reasons, they weren’t as eager as I was, but they complied.

  Even with patchouli incense sticks burning in my bedroom as Are You Experienced? by Hendrix blared from my stereo, I didn’t exactly take in the effects that were promised. Keith, I’d later discover, had forgotten to mention one crucial ingredient: smoking marijuana apparently aided his kind of “hearing.”

  The whole Jimi Hendrix experience didn’t seem to work out, but I had discovered my own kind of secret of the universe: There were those who listened to schoolteachers, and those who heard them. I listened, not so much to learn what they were teaching, but to pick up their speech patterns and pet phrases. I developed a knack for impersonating most of the faculty. I’d take close notes of not Mr. Frederick’s physics lectures, but of Mr. Frederick himself, picking up on all his little affectations. Then, in the lunchroom, I’d do a spot-on impersonation.

  The students loved it. Once again, the class clown was back performing, and I’d found an identity. No longer a nobody, I was “that guy who does impressions of all the teachers.”

  If Mr. Frederick wasn’t getting laughs, then just like that I could become Mr. Pineda from the religion department or Mr. Rung, my history teacher. I could be anyone. It didn’t matter, as long as heads were turning my way. As long as the laughter kept flowing. As long as the attention was coming toward me, demanding more and more stimulation.

  The time would come years later, in therapy, when a counselor would point out to me that this was a highly significant moment. I was playing parts, trying to be someone I wasn’t. I’d continue performing for a number of years and in a number of ways. There was an emptiness at my core—I had no idea who I was—so I could only feel comfortable when I was “being” someone else.

  Maybe Keith would have put it this way: The world was made up of those who played real people . . . and those who were real people.

  Chapter 3

  Just Like Magic

  You’ve probably heard about New Orleans during Mardi Gras. Yes, it’s a wild way to bring in the springtime. Mardi Gras is a festival held for a couple of weeks leading up to “Fat Tuesday,” the beginning of Lent. With parades every day, it’s basically one long, citywide party.

  If you’re a sixteen-year-old New Orleans male, addicted to activity and stimulation, then you’re right in the middle of the action. There’s color, noise, music, and, of course, more than a little alcohol.

  I began drinking moderately the year I turned sixteen, something absolutely normal in Louisiana culture. It’s a bit like England or Germany; alcohol is a part of every social gathering. It wasn’t out of character for me to go to a bar with my fake ID, order a Bloody Mary, and then suit up to play a basketball game for my school.

  So my buddy Chris and I were in the French Quarter waiting for the Bacchus parade. It’s one of the highlights of Mardi Gras, held on the Sunday before Fat Tuesday with amazing floats and national celebrities. I walked into Jax Brewery, a historic site that is now more like a shopping and restaurant mall. A little crowd was gathering over to the side, and at the center of it, there was a man performing magic tricks.

  I’d seen magic tricks performed on television before, but never in person. This shouldn’t have been any turning point in my life, except it was. My path was about to take a slight but meaningful twist.

  I was a sophisticated, worldly-wise junior in high school, right? I rolled my eyes at this little demonstration and the crowd of spectators hanging onto every move. What adult does magic tricks? I thought. Nothing but kid stuff.

  Yet that crowd kept growing. As a veteran class clown, I had a healthy respect for anybody who could command attention, however they did it. I couldn’t help but watch, and suddenly the magician was looking right back at me. “Hey, big man, come here,” he said. “I need your help on this next trick.”

  Who, me? I looked right and left, but there were no other “big men” around; I was well on my way to six and a half feet tall.

  “Yeah, you!” he said. “Come on, let’s go!

  I left Chris, walked to his side, and the magician said, “Here’s your job. Guess how I do this trick, and you don’t have to buy it.”

  Laughter from the crowd—so that was it. He was selling something. But before I could open my mouth to object, he pulled out a silk cloth, poked it into his left fist, and—hold it, where did it go? He reached over and pulled it across my top button and out of my shirt top pocket. Before I could catch myself, I gasped.

  “Did you catch it? How did I do it?”

  “Um—”

  Laughter again. I was utterly stumped. I hung around until he was finished, trying to figure out at least one of his tricks. I had struck out and stood looking at him sheepishly. He offered his right hand and said, “Jeff Schmidt.”

  “Robby Gallaty.” I introduced my friend as well.

  “I’m just in from Vegas, Robby—new here, but what do you say we go grab a bite to eat? It’s on me.”

  We walked down Decatur Street and had a couple of beers, and Jeff performed tricks all night. Watching the parade was an afterthought at this time.

  I could see this was his style; he became the center of attention everywhere he showed up, because magic tricks are so compelling. Who else challenges you to watch with such complete attention? A magician says, “I’m going to fool you, and I dare you to catch me at it!”

  Supreme command of a room was something I could get behind. Besides, Jeff had a couple of really cute waitresse
s practically eating out of his hand. He threw cards on the ceiling, and they’d stick there like glue. He tore cards in twos and threes, and just like that, they were in one piece again. We were all spellbound.

  Jeff looked over at us, saw our eyes bulging, and laughed. “Tell you what,” he said. “One trick I can’t do is make a vehicle appear. You guys drive me around town, and I’ll teach you how to do the tricks you’ve seen. Deal?”

  We looked at each other, already nodding yes. We had to learn those secrets.

  I say we, but I was the one who proved to be his star pupil. I wasted no time incorporating magic tricks into my lifestyle. Before long, I was running for student body president at my high school, putting on magic shows to get votes.

  I added my own brand of humor and presentation, and it was a nice fit.

  Magic was my new thing, meaning, my new obsession. As I’ve said, if I did something, I did it all out. I became pretty good at these illusions, and over the years I found they’d open all kinds of doors, including (particularly including) preaching opportunities. But during my junior year of high school, that particular door wasn’t one that would even occur to me.

  For now, I wanted to entertain my friends and impress girls. If somebody upstairs was watching out for me, lining up everything that would point my life to a certain destination, I was none the wiser.

  When I wasn’t making scarves appear and disappear, I was playing basketball or guitar. With my height and intensity, I began to stand out on the court. My parents never missed a single game. They were proud of me as I began putting up points and making all-star teams. In particular, they were thrilled that basketball gave me an opportunity to have a fully paid college education. Some of the smaller colleges were scouting me, and I eventually committed to attend the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. North Carolina is a state known for its university system (not to mention its basketball), and this was a great opportunity.