Needle (24 page)

“You fucking pig motherfuckers!” he screamed, as a C.O. then reached up to tighten the cuffs. “Yeah? Good!!! Fuck you!”

All of the benches were taken, so I was resigned to remain standing as the cold cement floor was soiled with substances and matter I don’t know how to describe. Unfortunately, after about three hours of standing I realized I wasn’t going anywhere for a while and finally gave in.

“Fuck it,” I said, and staked out a small spot on the vile floor.

It was three in the morning and I was tired and filthy. By this point, I’d already been in custody for close to nine hours and if I didn’t need a bag of dope so desperately—I would’ve sworn off the habit again. I decided to try to relax and hopefully sleep through some of the nightmare because after all,
I was going home
…someday. I allowed fatigue to overcome me until I finally heard the magic words.

“Goodman! Craig Goodman!”

At last! The moment my name was called, I sprung to life and could almost taste the heroin.

“Thank God! Oh thank GOD!!!” I rejoiced out loud.

However, my jubilance was premature, for as the sun began to rise they were now preparing to transport a group of us to “The Tombs,” which was a complex of cells located directly beneath the very courtrooms in which we would be tried and sentenced.

Before departing, we were provided scrambled egg sandwiches for breakfast. Afterwards, we were once again chained together and crammed into another van to continue the odyssey at The Tombs, which was only a minute away. Unfortunately, it took two hours to get there as the van sat motionless for almost the entire duration while the rising sun intensified. These two hours were the most unpleasant of all in what would be a 27-hour ordeal—from arrest to release. It was so bad, in fact, that another junky—apparently further along the road to withdrawals than I—began spewing up chunks of scrambled egg. This was just too much. Keeping twenty of us bound and baking together in a dirty, stinking, van was one thing—but being chained to a vomiting junky had to qualify as cruel and unusual punishment. I banged on the wall which separated the cops in front from the cargo in back.

“Hey!!!” I screamed as I continued to slam my fist against the partition. “This fucker’s puking all over the van!”

Suddenly, a panel on the wall slid open and revealed the fat, food-filled face of a cop.

“What’d you say!?!?!” he barked, annoyed that I’d distracted him
from a breakfast cake.

“Somebody fucking puked back here!!!” I shouted again.

“Alright!! Just don’t play around with it!” he bellowed, and it’s a good thing he had because Lord knows—there’s nothing I like better than a good game of vomit.

Finally, the van started to move. Although at first I was horrified by the puke, it was obvious that had the junky not heaved, we would’ve remained stationary for who knows how much longer. With 20/20 hindsight I now recommend that if you ever find yourself holed-up in a police van, vomit—or better yet,
shit your pants
. Your fellow prisoners may be a little put off at first, but trust me—they’ll thank you later.

Within less than a minute we arrived at The Tombs, and were led to a cell equipped with a sink and a metal toilet bowl sitting right out in the open. Then, at about noon we were served lunch, and not a moment too soon as I was starving and willing to eat just about anything—as long as it didn’t involve mustard or bologna. Of course, I would soon learn that mustard and bologna sandwiches happen to be the official lunch item of the NYC Department of Corrections. I traded mine to a cellmate in exchange for a cigarette.

In jail, candy and cigarettes are treated like gold and were each worth two dollars on the jailhouse black market, as sugar temporarily staves off withdrawals and almost everyone’s a smoker…or at least decides to become one. I staked out a corner of the cell, and crouched down with my back against the wall as I lit the butt and took a deep drag.

As I sat there with the cigarette between my fingers, I detected another kind of smoke lingering in the air and was immediately able to identify it. The fact that somebody was able to smuggle a rock into the facility was impressive enough, but how those motherfuckers could smoke crack in jail without wanting to kill themselves afterwards was simply beyond me.

Another five hours in the cell would pass before my name was called, during which time I began going through the beginning stages of withdrawals. I spent four dollars on two, fun-sized Butterfingers and tried to hold it together.

Eventually, I was escorted up to the courtroom and led to a row of empty wooden chairs where I waited until further notice. Within about ten minutes my name was called and I was told to stand beside my public defender. I pleaded guilty and it all seemed extremely
routine, though a bit embarrassing.

I was provided the option of performing my community service in Central Park or the subway system. I knew that both would involve something vile, but I assumed the park would be the lesser of two evils.

As I left the courthouse, I realized that the trip to jail was intended to teach me something about drugs, which it did. It taught me that nothing could make me want them more than a trip to jail.

47

I was very lucky that the arrest occurred just prior to my day off from Serendipity, otherwise I most certainly would have been fired. Upon returning to work on the following day I was determined to keep the news classified, and thought it wise to avoid early morning conversations that might result in a dangerous slip of the tongue and self-incrimination. So, without saying a word to anyone, I immediately reported to the kitchen to consult my daily sidework assignments and to thank whoever was responsible for completing them.

“Did you have an interesting day off?” Aaron suddenly asked in a tone that implied he knew exactly where I’d spent it.
But how could he?
I found the probing nature of his question a bit troubling as I certainly wanted my alternative lifestyle to remain under wraps. Of course, as far as Manhattan Criminal Court and the Department of Corrections were concerned, the cat was already out of the bag.

“Yeah,” I said to him, and was then able to escape the conversation as Andy told me I had a phone call. It was Perry.

“Katrina OD’d last night,” he told me.

Apparently, Katrina’s cat might have made it out as well.

“Oh shit!” I said. “Is she OK?”

“If dead’s OK she’s doing great.”

“Oh my God!!! How could—”

“Just kidding,” he interrupted after only a moment of gut-wrenching agony. “She’s at a hospital in Brooklyn.”

As soon as my shift ended, I met Perry at Dabney’s and we headed to the hospital. Along the way, he filled me in on the details which I was eager to hear as dope-fueled experiences with Katrina were very rare, limited to snorting a single bag, and only in the event of a Sections gig. Aside from those occasions, I never saw her high—even while I was living in her apartment. Furthermore, since it’s difficult to accidentally overdose by
snorting
dope, at some point Katrina must have graduated to the needle which was hard to believe.

Perry informed me that about a month after I moved out of her Brooklyn apartment, a friend of hers from Georgia named Doug Gentry moved in. Doug happened to have been a vein-tapping junky and apparently, Katrina was under his influence when she picked up the syringe. Even so, I couldn’t help but feel partially responsible for the overdose because
I
was the one who introduced her to heroin in the first place.

Perry and I arrived at the hospital by 5 p.m. We were then sent to the third floor and roamed around until we came to a room with the name “MacKay” posted on the door.

Although I knew she was OK, as Perry turned the doorknob I was half-expecting to see her on a ventilator with tubes and hoses protruding, but that was hardly the case. As soon as we walked in, there was Katrina—propped-up against a pillow and wearing the sweet smile of a southern belle.

“Hey guys,” she said, a little embarrassed but extremely happy to see us. “Perfect timing! I’m being discharged any minute.”

“What the fuck, dude?” Perry said.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I hope I didn’t freak anyone out.”

“Perry told me you were dead.”

“I swear I’m not.”

“
You
can’t OD, Katrina,” I said. “I’d feel responsible. Perry can OD anytime he wants because he’s a fucked up junky and I had nothing to do with
his
problem—but you don’t have that luxury. Got it?”

“I don’t have a problem,” she said. “I just lost track of what I was doing.”

At that moment—two, fat, uniformed cops stormed into the room and toward the bed like there was a pig in the blanket instead of Katrina. Then, one of them made the unfortunate mistake of attempting to say something.

“Miss MacKay? I’m Officer Marty Da—”

“Get out,” Katrina interrupted, at first calmly.

I’m not exactly sure what the police expected to accomplish but whatever it was, they weren’t going to get very far because the only thing Katrina hated more than snakes—
were cops
.

“Miss MacKay, I know you’re not in the mood to discuss this right now, but—”

“You don’t know fucking shit!” she screamed at the cop, and I suddenly realized I loved her.

“That’s fine,” the officer said as he finally gave up and turned to leave. “But I certainly hope you’ve learned something from all of this.”

“I certainly have,” she said. “I learned to put a little less in the needle next time, which from the looks of things should be in about 20 minutes—so if I run into any problems I’ll be sure to give you guys a call. But until then,
FUCK OFF!!!”

I actually felt an erection coming on.

For a moment the cops just stood there, flabbergasted and silent.

“Let’s go!” Katrina shouted as she actually snapped her fingers at them. “Out!! What the fuck are you waiting for!?!? Are you dumb
and
deaf? GET THE FUCK OUT!”

And so they did.

“Katrina!” I said, “I really can’t believe you!”

“What?”

“You still have some dope left and you didn’t tell us?”

48

I am not, nor have I ever been a big fan of the handshake. A lot of guys believe that a noticeably firm handshake tells a lot about a man. It tells
me
he’s an asshole. In fact, it seems in some testosterone-driven instances the gesture can actually transform itself into a brief but primitive display of chest-pounding dominance, as each hand momentarily attempts to overpower the other.

In mid-October Serendipity hired a new waiter, and when we met I shook his hand. His name was Randy Stewart and he was a big,
strapping, Californian who looked as if he’d just stepped off the football field. At first I thought he was straight, but then his handshake told me otherwise. It said:

“I’m totally gay. Not only am I totally gay, but if I wanted—through brute physical force and sheer will alone—I could bend you over and make you my honey. But I won’t do that because I’m a really nice guy.”

Actually, Randy
was
a nice guy. But he was different. He was, for lack of a better term,
straight gay
. Though certainly not in denial, this variety of homosexual
appears
straight when in reality he’s as queer as the others. Though I would later encounter straight gays in Florida, for whom keeping a low profile was a matter of survival, in New York they live openly but in a shadow cast by their more flamboyant peers.

“You wanna get high after work?” Randy asked me as our first shift together was nearing an end.

A loaded question for some, but I knew I could fly
this
plane blindfolded.

“Of course,” I said without knowing exactly which substance he was suggesting we abuse.

Bearing in mind that Randy was queer, I assumed getting high would involve cocaine as it seemed, along with ecstasy, to be the drug of choice amongst my gay friends. Armed with that bit of knowledge I wasn’t going to be stupid, and insisted on first heading uptown to “pick something up” before meeting him at his apartment.

I jumped in a cab, headed up to 110
^th
Street, purchased the dope, and then immediately flagged another cab to Randy’s building which was across the street from Serendipity. The round-trip journey took only 20 minutes which, given rush hour traffic, was remarkable time though apparently not fast enough. When I entered the apartment the stereo was blasting, cocaine was cooking, and Randy and his friend Jack were about to torch the first batch of homemade crack. Clearly, I was beginning to think that my fear of exposure at Serendipity was an overreaction, as it was now obvious that I wasn’t the
only
fuck-up employed there.

As the two of them sat on a couch hitting the pipe, I tossed my jacket onto a chair.

“Help yourself,” Jack said to me. “There’s another pipe on the table.”

I walked over to the table and just as he said, there was a glass pipe loaded with a rock that seemed to be calling my name. I hit it hard as a
Concrete Blonde CD played in the background.

“This shit is fucking good,” I said and then checked my back pocket for the waiting bag of dope. It was there. Now I could relax and enjoy the free cocaine without worry.

A plugged-in synthesizer happened to be sitting on the table which was too good to be true. When lit up, most people have their little obsession and mine was jamming to recorded music. It didn’t matter what the music was, or what musical equipment I had access to. If cocaine was involved, I’d almost always find myself mindlessly playing whatever instrument was available until the drug wore off. Beyond that, I also happened to have been a devoted Concrete Blonde fan.

I struck the keyboard and for a while was lost in a reverie as the cocaine seemed to intensify the gothic undertones of the music.

Wait a minute…Free drugs, a plugged-in synthesizer, and Concrete Blonde!!! Are they trying to seduce me? No, of course not! Evan told me that hitting on straights is frowned upon by homosexuals
. Even so, I would watch for the slightest indication of impending intimacy and swore that if they so much as even turned down the lights—I was fucking out of there.