Jason -- the reason I stayed the F away from opioids

I was terrified of the water slides at TY Park. I hated water in general because I couldn’t swim.  So, I was really nervous when my mom forced me to go to summer camp one last time the summer after eighth grade.  It was the YMCA day camp, not one of those fancy away camps where people ride horses. 

Jason was a CIT, or counselor in training.  So, his responsibilities were making the “bug juice” and walking us to our swim lessons and arts and crafts sessions.  I can’t say I really found him attractive, but for some reason, he took a liking to me.  So, naturally, since I had really low self-esteem, I decided to like him, too, even though I had heard all of the drug rumors. 

The rumors may have been true, but Jason, who was a couple of years older than me, was very kind.  I did not want to go down the water slide on the left at TY park, the one with the steep (to me anyway) slope at the end.  I watched people go down it and it seemed like they always went under the water in the pool when they reached the bottom.  I hated the whole getting water in my face. The chlorine stung my eyes and nose.  Plus, that whole not being able to breathe thing sucked.

ALL of the kids made fun of me.  Not Jason.  He asked me to trust him, which I really wasn’t good at. He took my hand and led me up the steps to the scary water slide.  He sat at the top and told me to sit between his legs.  I must have been feeling brave that day because I did it.  Then, he wrapped his arms around me and promised me he would not let me go underwater.  He smelled like cigarettes and chlorine. I will never forget that. Unlike many people in my life up to that point, he kept his promise and lifted me up when we hit the bottom.  It was then that I officially became his girlfriend.

Until camp ended.

We really only spent a couple of days together.  Once camp ended, I didn’t see him.  I didn’t hear from him for a while either, even though I had given him my phone number. It was still summer so I kept busy with my friends.  I figured I would see Jason at school as I was going to be a freshman at South Broward where he was going to be a sophomore or maybe a junior; he wasn’t sure how many credits he actually had because he skipped a lot. I didn’t see him in school the first couple of days, but I didn’t really care because I had pretty much decided that I didn’t want to be his girlfriend. 

One evening, shortly after school had started, he called me.  I picked up the phone in my room and was kind of anxious once I realized who it was. Caller ID was the best invention ever for people like me, but it wasn’t around yet in 1985.  Jason apologized for not calling sooner. He had been on a cruise with his family. It was boring but he snuck off with some girl he met and got drunk and had oral sex with her, which he described. Fourteen-year-old Lisa was intrigued by parts of that story.  She was also relieved that his attention had shifted to someone else.

  I don’t remember the exact segue, but the conversation shifted to rehab. Jason had been to rehab for heroin addiction, and he told me all about it. I think it was when he was detailing losing control of his bowels during withdrawal that my older brother picked up the phone. Tony was staying with me because my mom and stepdad had gone to Vegas to get married. I wasn’t close to him but he was nine years older and my parents thought he would be a good babysitter.  When my brother heard what Jason was talking about, he actually acted like a real big brother and told Jason to leave me alone and never call again. 

Jason hung up and never called again.  I was relieved and kind of embarrassed. I’m glad Tony didn’t pick up during the oral sex talk. 

YEARS later, while trying to procrastinate grading papers, I Google stalked Jason.  He had a common last name but his father was a local judge, so he was easy to find.  And he was dead.  After years of fighting addiction and helping others become sober, he overdosed. I’ll always remember him being kind to me about the waterslide when everyone else made fun of me.