Nashvillian of the Year

Holed up in a crack house right next door to her mother’s East Nashville home, Greenlee, accompanied by her older brother, spent her days and nights in a drugged haze. Because there was no electricity or running water, a few times a week Greenlee’s mother left soap and washrags and buckets of water on the front porch so her two eldest children could bathe.

When she slept, which was rare, she passed out on a rancid mattress dragged in from a nearby alley. A steady stream of men drifted in and out of the crumbling structure, paying for sex and smoking crack. At night the only light came from a few candles on the floor, or from the fleeting glow of the glass crack pipe as it was lit.

It was a living hell that seemed to drag on uninterrupted for an eternity. At the age of 41, Greenlee had spent more than half her life trapped in a cycle of seedy sex and illicit drug use. If she was going to change, she needed help from someone who could relate.

Then came a knock at the door that ultimately would change her life.

Outside on the front porch was an old friend, Regina Mullins, whom she hadn’t seen for several years. Assuming Mullins had been serving time behind bars, Greenlee initially believed her friend was back looking for drugs and a place to crash.

“But when I opened the door and saw her, she was fit and had some weight on her,” Greenlee recalls. “She was smiling, eyes glowing, looking healthy.” Mullins explained that she’d been through a two-year treatment program called Magdalene House, and she urged Greenlee to go there for help.

But Greenlee wasn’t ready, and she angrily chased her friend away, warning her not to return. But Mullins came back the very next day, and again the following week. For the next six months, Mullins showed up again and again, often yelling inside the house, “I love you, Clemmie. We’re waiting for you to come to Magdalene.” Each time she visited, Mullins threw a balled up piece of paper through a broken window with the contact information for Magdalene House.

The visits haunted Greenlee, who came to expect them, and whenever her friend skipped a day, her heart sunk.

Then came the morning of March 24, 2001.

Coming down from a weeklong high, Greenlee was in a haze and sleep-deprived when, for once, the stench of her surroundings made her ill. “I looked down and I saw the big pile of notes that Regina had left me and I grabbed one and I went out the door,” she says, recalling how, after spending weeks cooped up in the darkness, the sunlight was blinding. “I made it to my mom’s porch just being as poor and skinny and hungry and as fragile as I could be. I showed up at her door and said, ‘Momma, please dial this number,’ and she said, ‘No. You dial it.’ ”

Had her mother retreated inside to make the phone call, Greenlee admits she probably would have changed her mind. But she made the call herself, and when her friend Regina Mullins answered, she sobbed, “I’m ready,” and within an hour she was on the road to recovery.

As Greenlee recounts the events of her life, she breaks down at the mention of Magdalene House. “These are good tears. I just didn’t ever think I would have a chance to do anything right in my life,” she says, pausing for a moment as she regains her composure. “I can’t apologize for my tears. I just can’t explain this feeling. I was going to die out there on the streets, but God saw fit that he wanted me to come out here and do his work and lead people to the places where they can get help. Ain’t no way I shouldn’t be dead.”

The next two years at Magdalene were spent getting clean and learning how to live in society again. There was job training, stress management and even a class on personal hygiene. Having to teach grown women to bathe properly sounds ridiculous, Greenlee admits, but she says when you’re on the streets, high on drugs, the thought of washing your face or brushing your teeth escapes you for weeks or even months at a time.

Greenlee welcomed the fresh sheets, warm water and hearty meals Magdalene offered. But not surprisingly, after a few weeks in the program she felt the itch to get back out there. Past attempts at rehab had proven to be more of a vacation, giving Greenlee a chance to regain her strength, put some meat on her bony frame, and then leave a little healthier. But this time, for some reason, her conscience wouldn’t let her go.

Almost one year into the program—Greenlee had 11 months and 29 days clean—she recalls skipping out on a 12-step meeting early, but instead of heading back to Magdalene, she ended up in an old haunt looking for a fix. She spent the next few hours smoking crack, but says she never got high, no matter how much she smoked. “God wouldn’t let me enjoy it. God had something else for me for real to do.”