Needle Too (7 page)

“They’re
both
friends of mine. And honestly, Jack’s a lunatic but he’s really a good guy when you get to know him.”

“Jack is
not
a good guy.”

“
You
don’t know him,” I told her as I was suddenly less intrigued with the notion of conquering that wild and unruly frontier.

“I know him well enough to know he needs to go away. He’s an
enabler
. Every night he’s dragging Randy off to Calloway’s with the rest of you freaks.”

“That’s not really accurate and even if it was—it’s not that simple.”

“Of course it is! Life is full of people that need to be eliminated.”

“Trust me, Jack isn’t going anywhere,” I told her. “They’ve known each other for years.”

“Listen, I know you guys have all known each other for a while but Randy’s different. He’s a beautiful, vulnerable, soul—and you guys need to give him some space and stop being such negative influences on him!”

“Wow, Paula! What’s it like to have the inside scoop on people you barely know?”

“I know Randy well enough not to sit by and watch him unravel!” she said as the tone of our conversation had taken a decidedly different turn. “Listen, I know you have demons you’re battling like all the other fuck-ups around here, but just don’t drag him down with you.”

“You know, you know, you know, you know, you know.”

“Randy shouldn’t be running around every night smoking dope and chugging down Long Island iced teas! It’s not like it was back in New York!”

“You’re right! Back in New York he was smoking crack and chugging down dicks.”

“WHAT?!?”

“Oh, you didn’t
know
? Well
now
you fucking know! And by the way—if you’re gonna talk shit you might wanna learn the proper terminologies because
we
smoke
POT
and besides—I think you’re confusing my readers.”

“Huh?”

“Nevermind! All you need to know is that the word
‘dope,’
at least in
this
particular context refers to one thing and one thing only and that’s
heroin
. People who refer to anything else as
dope
are usually people who talk a lot of shit but know very little about drugs—
like fucking cops
.”

“Well then good for them!”

“Yes, indeed, Paula—good for
them
. But if
you’re
gonna insist on

inserting yourself in
our
midst and talking about
our
shit, then maybe you should stop teasing me with your verbiage and get it straight,” I said before walking away from her and over to Randy who seemed to be monitoring our conversation from the bar.

“I just totally outed you,” I told him.

“Oh, thanks! And now are you gonna get a gander at Paula’s Magic Garden?”

So that ended my extraordinarily brief courtship of Paula, and though I was a bit disheartened by her disposition—I was certain that Stamford had to be home to less obnoxious chicks with equally alluring grooming habits.

5

So yeah, pretty much every night throughout the month of August we were smoking “dope” and drinking liquor, but I wasn’t doing any more than anyone else. In fact, I think I was doing less. I was definitely
drinking
less. Still, I was clearly trying to somehow fill a void—a need to be high on
something
—that I was unprepared to live without, and though my own drug use was strictly limited to a little weed and whisky, I would soon begin socializing with some of my harder partying coworkers because besides Jack and Randy the group also featured an
After Hours Club
. The Club seemed to have come into existence simply because Randy, Jack and a couple of the older staff members would always draw the line after a few rounds at Calloway’s, which meant the heartier partiers would inevitably continue the festivities elsewhere.

When I reflect on those first weeks in Connecticut, after six years
of unrestricted, unremitting drug use of the most virulent variety, I find it difficult to express how I was feeling, what I was thinking, or what my specific plans were for either the immediate future or the long term. In reality, I suppose I was just shelving things and figuring them out as I went along without thinking too deeply about anything. After all, Perry was in Florida and since I hadn’t heard from him I could only assume he was at least a little peeved about the sneaky way I flew the coop. Nonetheless, my head was now clearer and though I was determined to avoid a future in Florida, with the same conviction I knew I needed to stay dope-free and in order to do that it would be imperative for me to avoid New York as well. The mere mention of the city was a trigger, and I knew there was no way I could live anywhere even near a subway station as that would virtually
guarantee
a relapse. In fact, just walking by the Stamford train station conjured-up visions of 125
^th
Street which was only four stops away on the Manhattan-bound express. Invariably, I realized that in order to avoid succumbing to an addiction that boasts recidivism rates as high as 90%—a figure that ironically considers only those who’ve had the luxury of undergoing treatment—it was either my mother’s apartment or nothing…or quite possibly nothing
ness
. Regardless, I knew she really didn’t want me there, and in order to remain in her home and buy some time until I felt confident enough not to eventually suffer a relapse, I knew it would be prudent to avoid crossing paths and do whatever was necessary to remain invisible.

For the
most
part it was easy enough to avoid her
most
of the time, as we were
mostly
on opposite schedules and
mostly
couldn’t stand each other. She worked from nine to five and I deliberately worked double-shifts at the café which would usually keep me out of her apartment from 10 a.m. until 2 a.m. or whenever Randy and Jack decided to call it a night at Calloway’s. In fact, even on my days off I would usually linger around the café, help out and then proceed to the bar with everyone else until it was late enough for her to be asleep and oblivious to my arrival. Unfortunately, however, although by this point the methadone-masked physical withdrawal symptoms had run their course, the long-term
psychological symptoms were in full bloom. As a result, even though I was usually able to avoid the not-so-good vibrations of my mother, I still felt dreadfully depressed, hopeless about the future and
always
fatigued from restless nights though it came as no surprise; long ago the ghosts of Methadonia told me to expect a deep depression and debilitating insomnia, but that paled in comparison to the ghosts in my head and the full-blown panic attacks that began erupting if I happened to somehow fall asleep.

Until this point I’d never had a panic attack, and it wasn’t until a few days later when I mentioned the symptoms to Randy and he told me what it probably was, as his sister had suffered from identical symptoms for much of her adult life. The attacks also, not surprisingly, seemed eerily similar to the desperate and terrified feeling that often overcame me as a kid during the middle of the night.

It wasn’t long before I realized the attacks only occurred when I fell asleep aware of my mother’s presence in the apartment. As a result, thanks to my evening employment, the After Hours Club and some Ambien I was able to completely rearrange my
sleep
schedule to coincide with my mother’s
work
schedule. Hence, moments after she headed out for work each morning I’d be heading in from breakfasting at Denny’s with the Club, and about an hour before she returned from work each afternoon I was already Rockin’ and Rollin’ at the cafe. I was still usually depressed as shit but thanks to the Ambien and the revised schedule I was never tired, and I think the only one happier about the arrangement was my mother.

Certainly, staying out all night with a group of pretty serious drug abusers in order to avoid my own relapse may sound counterproductive, but as far as my addiction was concerned I kept my head down and never looked up which was easy enough because although the Club did a lot of drugs—
they didn’t do dope
. That’s not to say they wouldn’t if given the opportunity, but most of them were too deeply immersed in the wonderful world of
cocaine and ecstasy and though I occasionally made myself available sexually, I never did any of the drugs…or at least any of the
real
drugs.

The After Hours Club consisted of about ten revelers, most of whom were a couple of years younger than I and included a few kids who were in college, a few kids who weren’t in college, three former strippers and a singer/songwriter named Edgar Feldman with whom I obviously shared some things in common—
besides
the strippers. In fact, the commonalities were almost uncanny. We both previously fronted bands that had self-destructed due to drugs, were mediocre guitar players, and had warrants out for our arrests.

On most evenings the club would end up in Bridgeport where the former strippers formerly stripped, presently lived, and usually bought their drugs. And though Toni, Michelle and Megan were no longer taking their clothes off for money, they still somehow managed to maintain stripper-sized drug habits. Each night several grams of coke would be depleted before Megan and Toni would get it on in front of me while I was beating on an old acoustic guitar and smoking like a Rasta. And though I abstained from the coke I was once again reminded of Randy and Jack and the time I’d spent at their apartment smoking crack and banging on the synthesizer while they were smoking crack and banging on each other. Needless to say, though I obviously didn’t play ball with the boys back then I did with the girls now—and I’m sad to report there was barely a blade of grass on
either
field.

So each night my evening progressed in much the same way: twenty minutes of free binge drinking at the Café, followed by an hour or so of slow and steady drinking at Calloway’s, capped off with a few hours of pot smoking and stripper sex. Not bad for a 28-year-old recovering junky still living with his mother. And I was actually
saving
money. Sad as it may be, until now I’d never saved a dime and hadn’t even had a checking account since college. And though certainly—by New York standards—my earnings were hardly impressive, while living in Stamford I wasn’t paying any
rent or bills and there was no heroin to be tempted by...at least not just yet.

6

“You don’t need anything else, Megan.
Trust
me. You’ll be fine; the Jaegermeister finally caught up with you. You just need to sober up a bit.”

“That’s exactly why I need more coke!”

Believe it or not, to an experienced drug addict that made perfect sense.

“You know, it’s really a fucked-up thing when I happen to be the voice of reason,” I still felt the need to say.

“Yeah, I know—
the big, bad, junky-musician from New York
,” she slurred and then almost puked as she fell over and not-so-gently grabbed my crotch.

“Don’t mock my junky street creds,” I said as I pushed her hand away. “That’s about all I have left at this point.”

“Oh, is that what you call them?” she said as she reassigned my reference and grabbed me by the pills once more. “
Your junky street creds?
I think that’s
hot
. I think I want you to fuck me with your junky street creds…
right after I get some more coke.”

“She does this all the time,” said Toni. “We run out, she drinks too much and then she needs a line or two to get it back together.”
That’s the thing about cocaine. It makes you feel in control, and sometimes even
powerful
—until you calculate how much you’ve spent and realize you’re about a thousand dollars less powerful than you were
before
you started feeling good about yourself.

“Oh, come on, Toni—do you really think she needs anymore?”

“No, but
I
do and
she
won’t take no for an answer.”

“Okay then, so let’s just get it and get it over with. I wanna go to sleep. I feel like shit from all the drinking.”

“It’s too late to score around here,” she informed me. “We’re gonna have to go to this totally shady place in Stamford anyway, so I’ll drop you off afterwards unless you wanna come back here and spread around some of those junky street creds.”

So we headed back to Stamford so I could sleep and Megan and Toni could snort some more cocaine. As rush hour traffic was just beginning to assemble I noticed the sun rising up over the tree-lined highway and thought about the fact that my mother would likely be getting ready for work when I walked in, which made me suddenly realize that every night for the past month I’d been totally drunk and stoned and not in a good way. Certainly, I knew this wasn’t an ideal “recovery” strategy but as far as I was concerned—
every day that I didn’t do dope was a good day
.

“Sarah better fucking be there,” Megan suddenly blurted out.

“Who’s Sarah?” I asked. “The dealer?”

“No, we don’t even know the dealer,” said Megan. “She’s just some fucking crackhead that scores for us.”

“For some coke?”

“For twenty bucks.”

“That’s weird. She could be taxing the drugs also.”

“You think?”

“I don’t know,
maybe
. Crackheads are the worst.”

“Well you know what? I’m gonna fucking find out!” she said as I dozed off and went to an entirely different place.

“Wake up, Craig—
wake the fuck up!”
Megan suddenly shouted in my ear as she was obviously consumed by that overwhelming anticipation and unbridled enthusiasm that typically precedes any indulgence in the
truly
deadly drugs.

“What’s going on?” I asked her while attempting to emerge from an incredibly sound slumber as Toni pulled into the Stamford train station.

“We’re about to score some coke!”

“Oh really? Who’s the dealer?
Casey Fucking Jones
?”