Odyssey of an Octopus Junkie: A Dysfunctional Love Story

By Tracey Winter Glover

This 85,000 word literary novel that tells the ill-fated and quixotic love story of Phoenix Shannon, tormented drug addict and talented artist, and Hannah Lieberman, the pathologically co-dependent daughter of a Holocaust survivor. Hannah is drawn to Phoenix's pathos and compelled to repeat her lifelong pattern of trying to rescue the terminally wounded. But Hannah underestimates the baffling and ruthless power of addiction, as well as her own destructive desire to be needed. After a year of nearly relentless insanity and devastation, Hannah's world is collapsing around her. When personal tragedy strikes Hannah's family, Phoenix, Hannah, and her recently widowed father, Thomas, embark on a cross-country road trip in a quest to liberate a giant octopus, who may be psychically pleading with Hannah to free him, or may simply be the fanciful creation of a desperate psyche. When events make it impossible for Hannah to continue denying how toxic Phoenix is for her, she does her best to let him go, while Phoenix struggles to stay sober and redeem himself. But both of their addictions are powerful, and it is unclear whether either will ever be able to kick the habit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tracey Winter Glover
• Release date: Jul 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466108370

Tracey Winter Glover

Tracey Winter Glover earned her BA in History from the University of Michigan and went on to obtain a JD from the University of Michigan Law School. After 8 years of practicing law in Washington D.C., she came to her senses and fled in search of a more purposeful life. She spent two months in Northern India reclaiming her soul before landing on the Gulf Coast, where she has been writing, making films, caring for a whole lot of rescues dogs, cats and chickens, running an animal rights group, and trying to make the most of this short life we've been given.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Waking. Hannah dreaded it. Those first few moments of consciousness were the cruelest moments of each day. She awoke like a child with a sense of excitement, anticipating all the unknown possibilities the day might bring. Then she would remember where she was, and what she had to face when her eyes opened.

Some days, days during Phoenix’s fleeting periods of sobriety, she was overwhelmed with gratitude at the sight of him. She would press her body up against his as closely as she could, inhaling the faint suggestion of honeysuckle that escaped from his soft, caramel skin. On those mornings, she wished time would stand still, freeze them in their tranquility like prehistoric ants in amber.

More often, she awoke to the sound of snoring, and then once she’d gathered up her courage and opened her eyes to face him, she’d look over and see the red and swollen skin, that look of anguish frozen on his hardened, pre-maturely aged face. On those mornings, he smelled metallic, and she didn’t dare touch him, this stranger in her bed, sure that his usually soft skin would be covered now with thorns, or scales, or some kind of poison or armor, an ingenious invention of nature designed to repel her, the perceived enemy.

Today, Hannah forced her eyes to stay closed a while longer. A dream lingered somewhere in the back of her mind, down one of those layered obsidian corridors, impossible to penetrate, deceptive as a house of mirrors, from where obscure and faint noises escape, perhaps a cat’s meow, or is it a child’s cry? Where is it coming from? Who is it? Wait! Wait! There was something she had to get back to down one of those corridors. She couldn’t leave it just yet.

She walked along a boardwalk by the sea, the kind with skee ball and bumper cars. There were throngs of people, screaming children, black-headed seagulls with snow white bodies squawking as they flew overhead. In the back of one of the many arcades that opened up onto the boardwalk, there was a glass tank that held a giant octopus the color of smog. The octopus’s body was too large to be contained by the tank, and tiny bits of its glossy flesh protruded over the edges of the tank. Pink suction cups on the underside of his arms smashed up against the tank’s slimy glass walls, and his squishy head pressed up against the side of the tank facing the boardwalk. Children tapping their fingers on the tank thought he looked at them, but from the front of the arcade, Hannah could see the giant mollusk’s black, soupy eye clearly fixed down the center aisle of the arcade, past the flashing lights of Ms. Pac Man and the giant mechanical claw, and out across the boardwalk and the beach and out to the vast ocean beyond, like poor Tantalus and the ever receding waters.

Although the tourists found the octopus to be simply an amusing diversion during their carefree beach vacation, she could hear his waterlogged mantra repeating over and over . . . I will never be able to escape this tank and traverse that hazardous desert. I will die in this tank with an unquenchable yearning to swim free. I will never be able to escape this tank and traverse that hazardous desert. I will die in this tank with an unquenchable yearning to swim free . . .

Phoenix let out a roaring snore that sucked her back into reality like the crack of a baseball bat to the skull. The octopus was gone. But there was Phoenix. He rolled over onto his side, facing Hannah, and fell back into his own restless slumber, pocked by grunts and moans, and thunderous, guttural snores, just as he always did the morning after a relapse.

She pulled the curtains back from the window next to the bed and stared blankly out at the flocks of pigeons bursting to and fro under a flat, grey sky. She felt like crying, but she was so tired of crying.

How much life had changed in the year they had been together. All the hope and excitement, all the potential, seemed to have escaped, like helium from last year’s birthday balloon, hovering just above the floor, with so much angst, so much determination to deny the inevitable.

Chapter 2

Exactly one year had passed since that cold first day of spring when a small group of protestors clad in faux leather jackets and synthetic shoes milled around outside of a fur shop in the middle of downtown Washington D.C. holding placards with photos of baby foxes that read She Needs Her Fur More Than You Do! and Fur is Dead! To a rhythmic beat, they chanted 50 dead animals . . . one fur coat! Fifty dead animals, one fur coat!

Two PETA interns, a boy of about 17 with flawless, dewy skin, exuberance just oozing out of his patchouli smelling pores, and a girl about the same age with rosy cheeks and long brown ringlets framing her perfectly proportioned Botticelli face, stood near the road shivering inside of their I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur! wrap-around banner.

Hannah held the bullhorn and started up another chant. Hey hey! Ho ho! Bloody fur trade’s got to go! Hey hey! Ho ho! Bloody fur trade’s got to go! The group all joined in. Gradually a small crowd of spectators formed. A cameraman from the Associated Press and a Russian news crew came looking for some back-up stock footage in case it turned out to be a slow news day. A couple businessmen in well-tailored suits stopped to gawk and take pictures with their cell phones. Cars driving by honked their horns, and nobody knew if they were for or against the protestors.

A stout woman clad in a full fur coat made her way up the sidewalk not realizing what she was walking into until she was directly in the middle of the protestors, who spontaneously formed a circle around her. She looked terrified, like someone might trap her and turn her into a rug and lie on her on chilly nights before the fire. She bowed her head and scurried indignantly into the store, as the protestors heckled and taunted her.

A few moments later, a line of people, mostly men, streamed out from the building next door. A sign above the door read Serenity Club; Recovery Happens Here. The protestors started up their chanting and shuffled over to be closer to the new audience. Most of the people coming out of the Club gave a curious glance to the demonstrators and then hurried off, not wanting to be bothered by other people’s issues. Four or five men lingered by the door, huddling in a group to light their cigarettes.

When the door opened again, Phoenix came bolting out like a colt from the starting gate. He joined the other men and lit a cigarette. He was taller than the others by several inches, lanky, with rich, dark skin and hair, and even from a distance of 15 feet, Hannah could see his emerald eyes sparkling in the sun. As he turned to see what the commotion was, Hannah saw the scar. A wide, jagged line cut down his face from the corner of his left eye down towards his chin where it disappeared in a scruffy mass of facial hair. In her mind’s eye, she saw her own lips tenderly grazing the remnants of violence that had left their mark on his otherwise flawless face.

Hannah approached the group. Hi, she said, wiping her long auburn hair away from her face. Would you like to help end the bloody fur trade?

All the men stared back silently trying to discern just what kind of freak she was. And then Phoenix turned around, and their eyes met for the first time. Hannah had deep, grey eyes, the color the sea would be if you ever got out far enough beyond the blue. She was tall and thin, with smooth, pale skin and delicate, fine bone structure like a porcelain doll maybe, or some other fragile, breakable thing.

It is not clear whether love at first sight actually exists, but there can be no doubt that the recognition of the potential for true love can occur, unexpectedly, in an instant. Something that sparks hope that the person before you is the one for you, the one who might soothe your aching heart, be the balm for all your deepest, gaping wounds. When Phoenix looked up, their eyes held for just an instant, as each experienced the slight murmur of a hopeful heart.

Sure, Phoenix said with a smile, as he took the flyer from her outstretched hand. Thanks.

Unlike the majority of passersby who either shunned the protestors entirely as if they were handing out the plague, or accidentally took their flyers before realizing that they were full of fanatical exhortations to stop senselessly torturing sentient beings for vanity, only to throw them in the next trash bin with disgust, Phoenix took Hannah’s flyer over to the stoop in front of the Serenity Club and read it from cover to cover.

When the last reporter had gone, the demonstrators packed up. Hannah said goodbye to the others and walked to her car, inserting the key in the lock, and then turning to look over her shoulder and back at Phoenix, still sitting on the stoop, reading the pamphlet. She hesitated a moment, then took the key from the lock, and despite her lofty anti-corporate principles, turned and walked down the block to the ubiquitous chain coffee shop at the corner.

As she stood at the counter waiting for her soy latte, Phoenix walked in, and they smiled at each other. Phoenix walked up to the register and placed his order, digging in the front pocket of his ratty old blue jeans for his money. As he pulled a fist full of change out of his pocket, one large coin tumbled down to the tile floor, began to roll and kept rolling until it stopped right at the tip of Hannah’s left lace-up boot. Only it wasn’t just any old coin. In Alcoholics Anonymous, chips are given out which mark the major milestones in recovery: one day; 30 days; 60 days; 90 days; six months; one year and so on. Phoenix had just picked up his 30 day chop. Hannah bent down and picked up the coin and handed it to Phoenix.

Thanks, he said, with a large grin.

Sure, Hannah said, as a giggle escaped her mouth before she could swallow it.

I’m Phoenix.

Hannah, she said, still smiling.

So I read your pamphlet.

Yeah, I saw, she said. ‘I appreciate that."

That’s pretty sick shit.

Yeah. It’s horrible. They can’t speak for themselves, you know. It’s just heartbreaking what kind of suffering billions of living beings endure while people close their eyes and go about their shallow little lives so flippantly, so selfishly.

Yeah, Phoenix said, I’m kind of embarrassed I just mostly try to put it all out of my mind, I guess. Too awful to think about.

Hannah smiled. That means you’re sensitive. You have a good heart. I can tell.

She thought she saw him wince a little at that. Then the smile returned, but he said nothing. The barista handed Hannah her soy latte. She looked at Phoenix, as if waiting for something.

You taking that to go? he asked.

Um, I . . . I don’t know.

Do you wanna sit down?

Sure, she said, biting her lower lip.

As they went through the standard first date kind of getting to know each other conversations about jobs, pets, astrological signs, families, and the like, their eyes flirted and caressed each other with much less timidity.

They talked about how much Hannah hated her job as a corporate lawyer, how she had gone to law school to save the world but sold out when she realized just how poor you actually have to be to save the world. Hannah tried to avoid asking Phoenix what he did for a living. It was the most common, and annoying, question in Washington. The first thing anyone asked at a party. So, what do you do? And everyone in Washington thought what they did was terribly important. Hannah, however, hated the question, as her job did not convey either who she really was or who she wanted to be, so she tried to avoid imposing that same question on others, but Phoenix was not forthcoming about anything, and despite herself, curiosity got the best of her, and she eventually broke down and asked the question.

So, how about you? What do you do, like, for a living?

Phoenix looked off out the window and said nothing. Hannah wondered if she had offended him, or whether he had heard the question and thought about repeating it.

Uhh. . . well, he finally responded, I don’t really do anything at the moment. I mean . . . He paused again looking down and rubbing the calloused tips of his fingers back and forth across the coffee table. I used to be a sculptor. But I haven’t done anything in a while.

Really? Hannah squealed at the discovery of a common interest. I got my undergrad degree in fine art, actually, she said. I used to paint.

Really? Used to? You don’t paint now?

Yeah, I mean no, she said, looking down into the bottom of her coffee mug and laughing. I pretty much sucked.

No. I bet you were good.

Well, I appreciate that, but no, really, I wasn’t, she said shaking her head and laughing at herself, but I was sincere at least. I think Oscar Wilde once said something about that. Sincerity making bad art ok, or something like that. How about you? Why don’t you sculpt anymore?

Hannah noticed that same spasm in his face, as if he were suddenly afflicted with some pain in his head, or having a mild stroke. He furrowed his brow and dug his thumbnail into one of the deep grooves of the dark, wooden coffee table in front of him.

I injured my hand, he said, holding his right hand up in the air and looking it over. My dad and I had a fight. I had to have surgery. Couldn’t use the hand for nearly two months. That’s pretty much when my life went to shit I guess.

Your dad? she said, wrinkling her brow, a fight with your dad?

Yeah, Phoenix said with a sardonic laugh that Hannah didn’t understand. Yeah, my dear old dad. Anyway they gave me pills for the pain, and, you know, that was it. The pills dulled more than just the pain in my hand, I guess, and so pretty much everything fell apart after that, including my so called sculpting career.

So you could get back to it though, if you wanted to?

Phoenix smiled and shrugged. Yeah, one day, maybe. He sighed, gazing past her, somewhere in the distance over her shoulder. So anyway, he said, ancient history now. I’ve been working as a cook for the last . . . I don’t know, too many years to count. I do some construction sometimes. I’ve done pretty much everything at some point, he said with no pride. But I’m kind of unemployed right now. I’m just kind of getting back on my feet. I’ve had some problems, you know, like personal problems, he said with a nod towards the direction of the Serenity Club down the street, but things seem to be turning around, he said with a shy smile, as he stared down at his empty coffee cup. I have thirty days sober today, actually.

That’s awesome! Congratulations!

Thanks, he said without looking up.

Hannah leaned in and stared at Phoenix until he looked up at her. She forced him to make eye contact and tried to send some kind of telepathic message to him that she was ready to rescue him, to nurture him, to take care of him. She had been raised to bleed with the wounded. Really, she said, placing her hand on top of his, I think that’s wonderful.

Thanks, Phoenix said, nodding his head. Yeah, it is kind of a miracle.

Hannah was already late for a dinner-date with her friend Jennifer, her only real friend in town. So, reluctantly, she pulled herself away. They exchanged phone numbers, and Phoenix promised to call her the next day.

An hour later, as she was pulling into a parking spot in front of China Garden, her cell phone rang.

Hey, Phoenix said. I couldn’t wait ‘til tomorrow.

Hannah’s heart raced. She giggled. Her face flushed red in the solitary darkness of her car.

I just wanted to say I had a really great time talking to you today.

Me too, she said with a great big grin spreading over her face, and the hope of fairytales rising up in her heart.

So when can I see you again? he asked.

Not wanting to sound too eager, she restrained herself. How about tomorrow?

Chapter 3

For the next two weeks, Hannah and Phoenix were nearly inseparable. He came with her to the animal shelter where she volunteered on Saturdays. She went with him to his AA meetings. They spent most nights together at Hannah’s place, as Phoenix didn’t really have a home. For the last month, he had been living with a man named Jacob, a program friend. Jacob was a highly religious man with some undeniable idiosyncrasies. He dressed in bright monochrome outfits that made him look like a range of tropical insects. Pairing his kelly green turtleneck with his matching cardigan, pants, black socks, and black loafers he looked like a preying mantis in boots. In an identical outfit in red, he looked like some kind of incandescent beetle. Jacob had strict rules about bringing over guests, and anyway, the apartment, cluttered with religious paraphernalia and infested with roaches, was not terribly conducive to romantic interludes.

Although Phoenix had been looking for work, he was still unemployed. His long criminal record included a felony count of drug possession, which would have made finding a job tough even in a good economy, which it wasn’t. So most days, he would go over to Hannah’s apartment in the afternoons and make dinner, which he’d have ready for her when she burst through the door in the evenings.

As they lingered in bed one morning clutching each other as only new lovers do, Hannah giggled and then jumped on top of Phoenix smiling from ear to ear.

What? What’s got you in such a good mood?

Move in with me! she blurted out. Truthfully, she had wanted to ask him since the very first night he stayed, but she had forced herself to wait. Two weeks seemed reasonable enough.

Really? Phoenix asked with an enormous smile overtaking his face.

Yeah, Hannah said looking up into his eyes. I don’t ever want to let go of you.

I think I may be the happiest man alive, he said, squeezing her so she had to push back in order to breathe. Hannah noticed tears forming in his eyes.

Wait. Are you crying?

Jesus. I think I am, he said, laughing, as he wiped a tear from his eye. I’m just . . . happy.

So yeah, then? she asked with a smile.

Yeah, Phoenix said. Yeah.

The move was easy. Phoenix’s entire collection of worldly possessions fit into the two checkered plastic bags they had given him at the homeless shelter, where he had stayed in the weeks before he walked back into AA and met Jacob.

And for a time, merely being alive was ecstasy. For each, being with the other was like having found that lost half. They felt complete in ways they had never before realized they had felt incomplete. Hannah spent hours every night tracing figure eights with the tip of her finger over Phoenix’s soft golden skin, going over every mole, every birthmark, every scar, studying each one like a road map to his soul.

Every scar had a heart-wrenching story behind it. Hannah would clench her teeth and cry as he told stories about his childhood, a childhood marred by nearly constant violence, primarily at the hands of his father. Every night, they’d get in bed, and she’d marvel at the man lying next to her. He had so much pain in his heart. The only other man she’d ever known with so much pain was her father, Thomas, a Hungarian Jew who was the only member of his immediate family to survive the death camps.

And how about his one? she’d ask every time she discovered a new scar on Phoenix’s muscular body. After a while, though, she learned to anticipate the answer: Roger. The man Phoenix couldn’t bear to call dad.

Phoenix’s given name was Roger Glenn Shannon, Jr., a name that erased all traces of his mother’s Native heritage. His mother christened him with the nickname Phoenix when he was a boy in part because she could no longer stand to call her beloved youngest son by the name of a man she despised, her husband, Roger Glenn Shannon Sr., and because little Roger Jr. had resurrected himself like the mythical bird after being pronounced dead following a particularly vicious beating at the end of his father’s fist when he was just five years old.

Roger Sr. had come home drunk, as usual, and was knocking his wife around, when Phoenix stumbled into the room crying. Roger turned his rage on the little boy. Phoenix’s mother had reached out to stop him, but before she had a chance, Roger Sr. swung around and hit Phoenix in the face with a baseball bat. He ended up in a coma for nearly two weeks, emerging, miraculously, with no apparent enduring injuries other than the slightly disfiguring scar across his face and an internal crevasse that had remained agape ever since. The nickname had turned out to be an omen, and Phoenix had gone on to tempt fate throughout his life, rising up again and again when he should have been dead a dozen times over. As far as Hannah was concerned, even the scars he’d earned in bar fights were Roger’s doing.

In contrast, Hannah had been shielded from violence her whole life, knowing only the residue it had left in the depths of her father’s memory, a shadow that lurked always in the distance, a shadow she chased her whole life. But Thomas had created an insulated world for Hannah, never raising his voice to her, let alone his fist.

We will not be responsible for the suffering of any creature! he had told Hannah’s mother, Norma, on the day of their wedding, imposing a no animal product policy on the marital home. Norma would have agreed to anything, she wanted him so much, though truthfully she didn’t see any harm in a little chicken noodle soup from time to time, and would, on visits back home to New York, occasionally sneak to the deli for a hot corned beef sandwich. But neither animal flesh nor animal secretion had ever touched Hannah’s pure lips.

Hers was a peaceful, safe childhood spent chasing fireflies in the fragrant garden behind the house, marveling over homespun bed-time stories told while tucked securely into a canopied bed, and lavish birthday parties animated with puppets and more presents than any one little girl could ever need.

Despite the chasm that separated their experiences thus far, Hannah and Phoenix discovered that somehow they shared the same tastes, likes, dislikes, hobbies and values. They seemed to agree on everything from the inconsequential to the monumental. The country, they agreed, was better than the city, but the beach was better than anywhere; when discovered in the house, spiders should be deposited unharmed outside (unless of course the spider happens to have a red hourglass on her belly- there were limits after all); there should be no such thing as a child soldier; if God existed at all, he most certainly was not cloaked in long white robes, nor did he have a beard like Santa Claus; strip clubs are sad; and the list went on.

A couple weeks after Phoenix moved in, Hannah accompanied him to one of his AA meetings. They shuffled into the church basement, hand in hand, then pulled two fold-up chairs out from the broom closet and added them to the giant circle being formed around the room. There was a piano in one corner of the room, over which hung a picture of the stigmatic Jesus on the cross, looking forlornly to the heavens. On the other side of the room, near the main door, was a long table where people entering the room cheerily deposited baked goods and helped themselves to cheap coffee with non-dairy creamer and Lipton tea. Slogans like One Day at a Time and Live and Let Live adorned the walls, along with two long scrolls with the complete twelve steps and twelve traditions.

As people lazily made their way to their seats, a woman called the meeting to order. Ok, folks. Let’s get’s started. Thanks for coming, she said, looking at the faces of all those around the room. Hannah put her head down and tried to avoid eye contact. She always felt like an intruder at meetings. The room grew quiet, and everyone looked at the