What If

By Arthur Richter

What If is an fictionalized drama that depicts the life of a woman that grow up facing a great many crisiss in her life. The first being having to over come her drug addiction from the age of 10, due to becoming addicted by her two, older brothers being involved with drug.
Then having to deal with her mother up and leaving for another man.
Until she finally graduated from high School where she studied to become an nurse. After which she went to work as a private taking care of a rich crippled young man.
While working for him she was abducted and found herself in a Mexican jail cell being sexually abused only to be sold to a drug syndicate being used as a prostitute. Where upon she escaped and returned back home.
Once back home she became an nurse again. where met and fall in love with a young doctor. during which she discovered he was using drugs to keep himself going because he was running a private clinic for kids who were addicted to drugs.
While joining him with the clinic she married him and had two children by him. after which he died and she carried on the clinic and the words What If were established.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503599611

Arthur Richter

Hello, I’m Arthur Richter, the author of The Carl Hildridge Journals. This the first of a trilogy that came to me when I was traveling the United States at sixteen, riding the rails down South. That’s right, I would listen to hobos telling their tall tales just to pass the time. I thought I would tell one of my own. Of course, leaving a lot more to tell for the others to follow. I hope you become as enthralled as I did when I wrote them. They do become pretty enthralling.

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Copyright © 2015 by Arthur Richter.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015913458

ISBN:       Hardcover       978-1-5035-9960-4

                 Softcover         978-1-5035-9959-8

                 eBook               978-1-5035-9961-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 08/21/2015

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Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Prologue

My story started some thirty-five years ago, but in the present, it is July 1985. I’m hiring my services out to an elderly married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Howard. Frank Howard is sixty-six. He’s dying of lung cancer. Mr. Howard was a successful stock broker. Mrs. Anna Howard is sixty-two. She is suffering from bronchial asthma. The Howards have three children, two sons and a daughter. The eldest, being Daniel, age thirty-six; next came Steve, age thirty; then there was Nancy, the daughter, age twenty-five.

Daniel was the athletic one and very good-looking. Steve was a very dashing young man, but all he ever cares about is himself. Nancy is a gorgeous blue-eyed blonde who knows where her head is at. She had twice the brains of both her brothers combined, and she used her head as well as her looks to get what she wants.

My name is Alice Riley. I’m a nurse. I’ve been hiring out my services for outpatient care for some fifteen years. I’m a widow with three children of my own.

I haven’t had much time for socializing, but there really wasn’t any need because the people I’ve worked for are upper-class socialites. I met many of the upper-echelon people. Mr. and Mrs. Howards weren’t much on throwing parties but their children were party fanatics.

I have worked for the Howards going on some ten years now. Officially, I had full control of the staff as well as the entire household. I’ve made it a point to not interfere unless it upsets my patient’s mental or physical well-being.

Living the life of the rich is all it’s claimed to be. Those who can afford to live it are, in fact, snobs. Living among the rich is by no means a prestigious position to be in. It’s a totally different living environment. It’s like living among human-sharks which incites greed and pursues the love of sex and destroys personal ambitions. It turns a fantasy world into a hellish nightmare for those who fall victim to it, domination over their minds and wills, and it’s virtually impossible to break from because of its overpowering possessiveness over their lives. The power I’m referring to comes freely but with heavy consequences. Drugs.

My story came to me as I sat on the veranda remembering how my battle with drugs first began and how the grim horrors overtook me and how I overcame the addiction to get to where I now am in life. I remember the torment, the pain, and the agony and how I must never forget.

*     *     *

Alice’s story is not a common one. What makes her story so unique is that she is telling it for only one reason, and that is to get those who are on drugs to stop and think and to say just two words.

Though Alice’s story is associated with her autobiography, it’s a fictionalized dramatization of her life, and God only knows how many other life stories are similar to hers. Her life is still a day-to-day struggle to say no to drugs. How many others are doing the same?

Alice doesn’t claim that the two words are a cure-all, but they might raise those who use them up out of the infernal damnation. Make them take the initiative against the day-to-day pressures of life, the instabilities, the frustrations, and the temptations associated with it. Only the addicts themselves can turn their lives around. Those two words will help and those two words are

The pain she suffered in order to discover those two words and the time she lost and all that she went through because no one ever said those two words that could have possibly changed the hardships and perilous ordeals she we through. Until the age of twenty-six, she underwent therapy for her drug addiction after having a very close encounter with death. While just sitting, listening to a group of teenage kids talking, she came upon the two words that could have changed the past fourteen years of her life.

That’s when I picked up a pen and put it to paper. I had to recall my worst nightmares and write them down. I was hoping that it would help warn others not to fall into the same trap, not to fall victim to it.

Chapter 1

It was when I was twelve years old in 1962 that I first tried dope or smoking marijuana cigarette as they say. That first drag should have warned me of the fate that lay ahead. I took a drag, and it nearly killed me. I coughed my lungs out, but I ignored it. Soon afterward, I was floating like on a cloud of serenity.

I felt as light as a feather, and my mind drifted into nothingness. I was feeling euphoric and at total peace, but I was getting ahead of myself. Let me backtrack a little.

One April day, my brothers were in the garage behind our home. I just came home from school and was curious about what they were doing in there. I went into the garage. John was rolling something into a cigarette. He didn’t seem to be too concerned about me walking in on them. John lit the cigarette and handed it to Mike. Mike took a deep drag off it and handed it back to John. John took a deep drag and held it out to me.

It won’t hurt if you take a drag. Look, Mike’s doing it. Come on, sis! It will make you feel wonderful! Look at Mike. He’s on cloud nine. John held the rolled-up cigarette out to me.

John was my elder brother. I trusted him, so I took it. I kept listening to him telling me about what I should do with the cigarette. He told me to take a drag. The smoke burned my lungs, causing me to choke. I started to cough vehemently.

No, sis, Mike said. You’re doing it all wrong. Breathe in, and hold your breath. Don’t try to take so much. Take just a little bit.

I did what Mike told me.

Hey! I could hear John yelling, but he sounded so far away, yet I could see him standing there in front of me. Slow down! Not so much! Save some for us . . . !

I felt myself drifting into the wondrous realm of dreams. I felt warm all over. My mind, as well as my body, experienced incredible sensations. I began tingling all over. I felt myself wanting to be touched all over.

Slowly, my mind started to clear. I was trying to focus on where I was, but I also wanted more. John had finished the last of the cigarette though. I was losing the splendor, and I wanted to go back to the euphoric high, but I couldn’t because the cigarette was gone now.

I kept drifting back and forth, in and out of spellbinding trances of utter bliss, not knowing where I was going or how long I would stay. It was so blissful yet nerve-racking. I struggled to stay longer. I wanted to see and feel more of the splendor I was experiencing. The sheer nothingness. The urges. The tantalization. Those tingling sensations. My body felt so sensuously provocative, so sublime. The sensations didn’t last long enough for me to revel in them. I wanted more, so I asked John what was in the cigarette.

Marijuana, he said. It’s a form of drug, but it’s harmless. All the kids are smoking it.

It might have been harmless to everyone else, but it wasn’t to me. I kept experiencing flashbacks all night. It made me irritatingly sensitive and highly temperamental. I was fidgety and nervous. My lungs ached, and my throat seemed dry and coarse, and I felt clammy all over.

Later that evening, Mom and Dad went out as usual over to the neighbor’s house to play bridge. John was left to watch Mike and me. No sooner had our parents left than John pulled out a marijuana cigarette, saying, Look what I found!

Mike and I both became excited by John’s find. We begged him to light it up. He made us both promise never to tell Mom and Dad about letting us smoke dope. John lit the reefer as it was called. He took a deep drag and handed it to Mike. Mike took a deep drag and handed it to me. I took three deep drags and tried to hold on to the reefer, but Mike took it away from me.

John pulled out two hairpins from my hair. He showed me how to hold the reefer so that I wouldn’t burn my fingers. I sat watching John as he rolled three more reefers. He lit one and passed it to Mike. He lit another one and gave it to me. He then lit his own.

Did I ever get high? I was so high that I didn’t know or care about what was going on around me. I could see and hear everything that was happening though. I lay on the floor in front of the TV. I was back in my wondrous realm of nothingness. Every muscle and nerve in my body relaxed as my mind reveled in the splendor of uninhibited bliss.

Mike and I were lying there enjoying our cloud-nine feeling when John’s girlfriend Patty came over. It wasn’t easy for me to lie on the floor pretending to watch TV with her sitting there on the sofa with John. As far as I knew, she was ignorant to what my brothers and I had been doing. Suddenly, I was aware that she was sitting real close to John and whispering something in his ear.

Sure, John loudly replied. Bring it out. It’s all right. We can share it with them. The house will air out before our parents get home.

Patty pulled up her dress to expose her thigh, not even concerning herself with Mike, who was sitting right in front of her. He was looking right at her. I was doing the same thing. In her nylon stocking was a