Needle (19 page)

“THE HELL YOU HAVEN’T!!!”
she screamed at me.

I finally decided that honesty was the best policy, and then Melody decided that I find another place to live. Quite frankly, though, I thought she was overreacting. For five months Bridget had been tearing me to shreds and I finally
had
to put an end to it. Granted, my instinctive reaction was a bit harsh but the cat had it coming and I really didn’t see what the big deal was.

“You’re a fucking junky—
that’s what the big deal is
,” Melody said as Rachel uncomfortably looked on in silence.

“Melody, maybe you’re projecting your anger at Matt onto me,” I theorized. “He’s a self-centered asshole, but I told you that right after you met him. I know he may have misled you during the summer, and it’s weird because I think he really does care about you, but it isn’t my fault and you shouldn’t blame me for what
he’s
done to you.”

“I’m not blaming you for what
he’s
done to me,” she countered. “I’m blaming you for what
you’ve
done to my cat. Craig, you’ve got a problem and I really hope that for the sake of your music career—not to mention your
life
—you check yourself into rehab. But before you do, get the fuck out of my apartment!”

“Melody, I can stop using anytime I want,” I told her. “The drugs don’t affect anything and there isn’t a problem. I go to work everyday and at the same time front the best band in the city. I may like dope—but everyone else is busy being alcoholics, so what’s the fucking difference? Trust me, you’re overreacting. I’m absolutely fine and I really don’t understand why you’re so pissed off.”

“Craig!!! You punched my cat in the face!!!” she pointed out.

“It was an accident.”

“How the fuck do you accidentally punch a cat in the face?!”

“It was a gut reaction and I didn’t mean to do it, but you know what? I’m glad it happened. Really, from day-one your cat’s been ripping me apart and you think it’s funny!”

“I don’t think it’s funny,” she said. “I think it’s cute. Now get the fuck out!”

35

After Melody ejected me from the household, Katrina caught wind of the news from Rachel. The very next day she called me at Barry’s to ask if I’d be interested in renting a small room in her Park Slope apartment. It would cost only $350 per month which included utilities, but I wasn’t thrilled with the notion of departing Manhattan to become a bridge-and-tunnel Brooklynite. Even so, I accepted the offer and my relationship with Rachel ended without a word, much the way it began.

As things turned out, Brooklyn wasn’t so bad after all. Though I was forced to suffer the inconvenience of actually having to pay rent, the added expense was somewhat mitigated by the lower cost of living that exists outside of Manhattan. Ultimately, I would be staying with Katrina and her roommates for less than a year, but I immediately knew we’d be getting along quite well. I always had the impression that Katrina understood me better than most. She related to the band and the music, and even shared a similar opinion regarding drug use. She was an avid pot smoker and had also developed an appreciation for dope, though she would rarely allow herself to indulge. Beyond that, she worked as a receptionist at a doctor’s office in Manhattan, where she had access to a steady flow of Xanax as well as a variety of other pharmaceuticals. Yes, Katrina was quite an asset and had moved to New York, not to pursue an acting career, but to experience life in a big city where she would never have to cross paths with another snake… at least of the
reptilian
variety. As a child in Georgia she was once bitten by one, and had ever since harbored an intense fear of all things serpentine.

“I hate that fucking cat,” she said to me in her southern drawl as Bret and Stacy, her Georgian roommates, insisted on examining the battle wound to my finger.

The topic of conversation was one that I definitely wanted to avoid. The incident was still fresh in my mind and I was a little sensitive about it all. Unfortunately, for this group sensitivity wasn’t high on their list of priorities.

“But you know, Craig, you really shouldn’t punch a cat in the face,” Stacy said as the others looked on in agreement. Apparently, the Confederacy felt it an inappropriate form of punishment to exact
upon a cat.

“Yeah,” Bret said. “You can kick a cat, run it over with your tractor, hell—you can even
skin-it-alive
if you want, but you shouldn’t try to kill a cat with a punch in the face. That’s just weird, man.”

“First of all—who the fuck ever said I was trying to kill the cat?” I asked. “And secondly, I shudder to think of the misfortune befallen me to be anywhere even
near
a tractor.”

Katrina must have sensed some agitation in my voice.

“Don’t worry about it, dude—it’s no biggie,” she said. “It’s just kind of an odd thing to do to a cat—that’s all. I mean a dog, well—you know, that’s different. Most of the time a dog’s just
asking
to get punched in the face. But it’s sort of undignified for a cat, don’t you think?”

I wanted to throw a snake on her.

“Undignified? Let me get this straight,” I said. “It’s perfectly acceptable to crush a cat to shit with some fucked up piece of hillbilly farm equipment, but a punch in the face is somehow disrespectful. Is that right?”

“Hell yes!” Bret responded. “It’s a much more honorable death.”

They
had
to be fucking with me.

“What the fuck kind of redneck-warrior bullshit is
this
?!?” I asked without actually wanting to know, and then fled to relative safety behind a locked bedroom door.

As my living arrangements grew more bizarre with each passing month, Perry’s improved dramatically. While staying with his mother he started dating Gina, and though he didn’t officially move in—he spent practically all of his waking, sleeping and nodding hours at her apartment on First Avenue in Greenwich Village. However, truth be told, from early on in the relationship Perry realized there were problems. Although beautiful and smart, it became readily apparent that deep within Gina there existed a truly obsessive and domineering bitch just screaming to get out. Ultimately, we would identify and isolate the genetic aberration responsible for her behavior, naming it the “Gina Gene” or for short—
The Gene
.

One afternoon during the middle of September, Gina called me at work to inquire if I’d be interested in seeing Eric Bogosian later that evening.

“Who the fuck is
Eric Bogosian
?” I asked.

“He’s an actor,” she informed me. “He does this monologue that’s
supposed to be pretty good.”

“What’s it called?”

“Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll
…coincidentally enough.”

“Sounds like a waste of money,” said I, the heroin addict.

“Perry already picked up a ticket for you so you might as well come,” she added without much enthusiasm.

“All right, fine.”

After heading up to 110
^th
Street to score, I took the #6 downtown and caught the F train to Brooklyn. Although I’d fully acclimated myself to the new living arrangement, paying rent forced me to curtail my escalating habit and since I’d cut it down from four bags-a-day to two, snorting my stash on the subway would amount to nothing other than a big waste of dope. So, in order to compensate for the reduction in dosage, I was left with few options other than resorting to the needle, and would now have to wait until I returned home where I could more cost-effectively shoot-up.

The temptation to break out my stash and spike a vein right there on the F train was incredible; however, I didn’t yet have the nerve for such a public display of depravity. I made it home safely at around 4:30, at which point I booted and then nodded off. The dope was unusually strong, and although the Bogosian show wasn’t until 9 p.m., Sections would be meeting at Big Sounds by 7:00. About an hour before the meeting I showered, got dressed, and headed back into Manhattan.

The band would be reconvening for the first time in almost two months and a few things needed to be discussed. First and foremost on the agenda was Kurt’s departure from Sections.

When I arrived at the studio everyone was there except for Kurt, who unlike Matt was made conspicuous by his absence. We immediately dealt with the issue at hand which was, once again, the lack of a bass player. However, on this particular occasion the sudden vacancy, as well as our interrupted momentum, was all Danny’s doing. I liked Kurt and quite frankly, was a little annoyed with Danny and the circumstances under which our most competent bassist to date felt forced to leave the band.

I was still extremely high from the dope, which, in combination with the anger I was feeling on behalf of Kurt, resulted in an elixir of nastiness brewed specifically for Danny. It was one that had been fermenting ever since our first unpleasant exchange regarding Matt, and the enormous talent concealed within his pinky.

“Kurt couldn’t tolerate being spoken to in such a manner, by someone he considered nothing other than an ornamental member of the band,” I explained to Danny while savoring every last word.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!?” he asked, as if I was speaking a foreign language.

“What the fuck do you think it means?!? He said you were an ornament—
a decoration
—and in no position to give him shit about anything.”

“He actually called me an
ornament
?!?!”

“And a hairless little fucker.
”

To be honest, I felt some culpability for allowing things to transpire the way they did. Although I didn’t want to control everything with an iron fist, as the singer and primary songwriter there was a certain leadership that I should have assumed from the very beginning, and quite frankly—Perry and Matt expected me to. It was a democratically agreed upon, fascist arrangement concocted by the three of us. Of course, we each had our roles to play—but make no mistake about it: driving musicians out of the band was
my
responsibility. Unfortunately, my reluctance to play front man on stage apparently gave Danny the impression that some sort of power vacuum existed—and one which he was only too willing to fill. Ironically enough, however, as everyone had now improved musically and we had some standing in the local music scene, Danny’s value to the band was greatly diminished along with my ability to tolerate his nonsense.

We wrapped up the meeting with a general advisory for everyone to keep their eyes and ears open for a bass player, at which point we would again schedule auditions and attempt to get back on track.

At around 8 p.m. Perry and I left Big Sounds and headed uptown to meet Gina at the theater. Before boarding the train, however, he brandished a bag of dope and offered me a snort. I was still entirely loaded from the previous dose and hardly needed anymore, but was somehow able to accommodate his generosity.

By the time we found Gina in front of the theater I needed Perry’s help to safely make it inside, and the moment he dumped me into my chair the lights dimmed and I realized I was too mangled to enjoy the show. My eyes had become a couple of paper cuts through which I could barely distinguish the outline of a man who I assumed was Eric Bogosian. For about two hours I drifted in and out, occasionally trying to focus on the performance as I heard strings of meaningless words
followed by moments of laughter.

Eventually, while resting on the periphery of consciousness, I detected an explosion of applause that seemed to come from very far away. Moments later, Perry shook my shoulder.

“Time to go, dickhead,” he said as he attempted to gather my lifeless form.

“It’s over?” I lamented. “I can’t believe I missed the whole thing.”

“It was great. You really missed out, stupid,” was Gina’s sympathetic response.

“Fuck you,” I tried to say, but I don’t think it quite came out.

“Bogosian’s awesome,” Gina said. “I knew he was a good actor, but I didn’t realize how intelligent and funny he is.”

“I’m surprised I haven’t seen him in anything else,” Perry remarked.

“Really?” asked Gina. “I think he’s in something else that’s out right now.”

“What’s it called?” Perry asked.

“I forgot, but it’s supposed to be really good.”

“I’m so glad we went. That’s the best film I’ve seen in months,” Perry decided.

Wait a minute…That was a fucking movie?

36

Within a few months, Perry had convinced himself that Gina’s primary goal was to pin him down, and somehow get him married and herself pregnant. That perception resulted in an uncomfortable moment when Perry was caught desperately rummaging through the garbage in an attempt to recover a hastily discarded condom and thus, prevent Gina from “kidnapping his sperm.” As a result, the relationship immediately went south and Perry soon became a boy-toy for a sexy guitar-tech named Monica, who in exchange for services rendered compensated him with a beautiful Les Paul. But Perry must have missed the fine print for in addition to the guitar, he was also rewarded with a raging case of gonorrhea that he was kind
enough to pass along to Gina. In fact, Gina was the first to become aware of their mutual infection after a thick, yellow, discharge dotted with bloody specs began appearing in her panties—which Perry brazenly dismissed as “just a bad period.” After a gynecologist offered up the correct diagnosis, Perry—never missing a beat—actually threw Gina’s fidelity into question and then immediately found himself once again bonding with his mother in Brooklyn.

By November, Perry recruited Justin Filmer to play bass for Sections. Justin had grown up in Australia and South Africa, and it was difficult to determine where one accent began and the other ended. What wasn’t difficult to determine was the fact that he was clearly the most talented bass player we’d seen thus far, and his style and disposition were perfect additions to the lineup. Beyond that, he was pretty to look at which was always a plus. I was finally at peace. Justin’s musical instincts perfectly complimented our songs and I knew that the search for a bassist had finally come to an end. Now, if only Pat would get with the program we’d be in decent shape.