My Next Reads....

Let's hope these haunting, real-life drug tales don't end up to be a farce too. Damn you James Frey, you had me in tears every morning on the train.

Anxiously awaiting purchasing these 2 books: one by a father of a meth addict, and one by said meth addict. I read about them in Oprah's magazine today. I couldn't find an exerpt from both, just the father's.

Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines (Hardcover) by Nic Sheff

Excerpt from 'Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Meth Addiction' by David Sheff

It's after eleven and Nic isn't home. I had been so tired, but now I'm wide awake in bed, feeling more and more uneasy. There are a million harmless explanations. Oftentimes, groups of people at AA meetings go out afterward for coffee. Or he could be talking with his new sponsor. I contend with two simultaneous, opposing monologues, one reassuring me that I'm foolish and paranoid, the other certain that something is dreadfully wrong. By now I know that worry is useless, but it shoots in and takes over my body at the touch of a hair trigger. I don't want to assume the worst, but some of the times Nic ignored his curfew, it presaged disaster.
I stare into the dark, my anxiety mounting. It is a pathetically familiar state. I have been waiting for Nic for years. At night, past his curfew, I would wait for the car's grinding engine, when it pulled into the driveway and then went silent. At last — Nic. The shutting car door, footsteps, the front door opening with a click. Despite Nic's attempt at stealth, Brutus, the chocolate Lab, usually yelped a half-hearted bark. Or I would wait for the telephone to ring, never certain if it would be him ("Hey, Pop, how're ya doin'?") or the police ("Mr. Sheff, we have your son"). Whenever he was late or failed to call, I assumed catastrophe. He was dead. Always dead.
But then Nic would arrive home, creeping up the hallway stairs, his hand sliding along the banister. Or the telephone would ring.
"Sorry, Pop, I'm at Richard's house. I fell asleep. I think I'll just crash here rather than drive at this hour. I'll see you in the morning. I love you." I would be furious and relieved, both, because I had already buried him.
Late this night, with no sign of him, I finally fall into a miserable half-sleep. Just after one, Karen wakes me. She hears him sneaking in. A garden light, equipped with a motion detector, flashes on, casting its bright beam across the backyard. Clad in my pajamas, I slip on a pair of shoes and go out the back door to catch him.
The night air is chilly. I hear crunching brush.
I turn the corner and come head-to-head with an enormous startled buck, who quickly lopes away up into the garden, effortlessly leaping over the deer fence.
Back in bed, Karen and I are wide awake.
It's one-thirty. Now two. I double check his room.
It is two-thirty.
Finally, the sound of the car.