A Naked Singularity: A Novel (27 page)

“You see, what the overwhelming majority of these people can’t say is that they don’t use drugs or that they’ve never used drugs. So I say the answer, certainly the most entertaining one at any rate, isn’t legalization but rather criminalization. I’ll show you what I mean. First, let’s outlaw all drugs and see what happens, what do you say? Of course, the first thing we’ll have to do is define what we mean by the term
drug
in this context. How’s this? For the purposes of our new law, an illegal drug will be any substance ingested by a person that has the effect of, and which is taken for the purpose of, altering that person’s physiology in a manner that person deems beneficial and which is taken in the absence of physical pain or malfunction. There you have it. Unless you had a legitimate medical purpose, and I’m talking exclusively about maintaining your corporeal health since all sorts of non-nutritive, highly-altering substances are susceptible to justification in the name of that ever-elusive mental health, you would not be allowed to use any of the substances you’ve grown to first know, soon love, and finally worship. Now I would happily wager that, operating under this new definition, every adult you know is on drugs so what would happen in the days following the implementation of this new law? How about utter chaos?”

“But—”

“That’s right, try utter chaos! I believe we’d see open revolt in the streets. You might as well outlaw eating. The only thing that would compare would be if you took Television and computers away from them. Think of the substances people would have to give up. Talk about kicking the crutches out from under a nation of invalids. Take your average dipshit to see what I’m talking about. The rooster crows and now this clown has some rising and shining to do, must report to his cubicle to ride that carpal tunnel. Only he was up the entire previous night worrying about how he’s going to get that big promotion his wife wants so his energy level is currently nil. Well no matter really because he heads into his marbletop kitchen, the one with the center island, to brew your parental homeland’s second most popular export—”

“How do you—”

“He guzzles his coffee and the caffeine kickstarts his limited brain so he’s ready to face the day. This drug gives him energy that he wouldn’t have otherwise. Let’s examine this closely because I can tell from your look that although you know where I’m going with this, you’re having trouble getting past the admittedly benign appearance of this situation. Remember he doesn’t ingest this drug because he’s sick and the drug serves a medicinal purpose. He’s taking this drug because it will make him feel a certain way i.e. it will make him feel, at least in some sense, energetic as if he had gotten a good night’s sleep the night before. Any run-of-the-mill coffee drinker will admit this. Put another way, this person’s body has a highly normal reaction to its circumstances, only its owner doesn’t like this reaction, is not willing to be discomfited in any way, so he takes a substance that allows him to avoid the unpleasantness for the moment. Of course, as is always the case, there’s a cost and any hardcore caffeine user will tell you that if they discontinue use they are rewarded with consistent migraine-level headaches. So perhaps the apparent benignancy of the situation was misleading. After all what kind of substance, when spurned by a former lover, takes its revenge by attacking the spurner’s head? Unconvinced?”

“Consummately so, move on counselor.”

“Well you can see where this is going as our now-energetic protagonist is in his office waiting for the meeting that will decide his fate. Of course he’s incredibly nervous, what with the wife and all, and his anxiety, abetted by his earlier drug use, is climbing steadily. Luckily he’s the sort who’s always prepared and he has just the thing for this situation. What he whips out are these little sticks. The sticks are specially-formulated so that when sucked on in the manner of a nursing infant they deliver among other things the required drug which is nicotine. Now nicotine is just what the doctor ordered so to speak because although it is, like caffeine, a cerebral stimulant it has the useful property of being the only known drug that reduces anxiety without diminishing affect and this is good. Remember that with someone like dipshit, anxiety, whether justified or not, is a constant companion and as a result the sticks become a constant presence as well, creating both a physical and psychological need in the user that ensures their lofty status as beloved chemical appendage. The drug works, not surprising given its popularity, that is to say the user’s brain is altered in the way he wished, a way he finds pleasurable and a way that can eventually be summed up as going from needing nicotine to not needing it. This is critical. Ultimately, as is the case with all of the drugs I’ll discuss, the physiological effects of the drug become unimportant and the only relevant physical and psychological states become need and the absence of need. Moreover, the latter state will ultimately only truly be achieved when the patient has just recently ingested the drug. Thus satiated, our friend can survive his meeting and any other obstacles that may come his way. Made of stern stuff this guy no? Of course the end of the meeting requires either celebration or consolation. In this city there are over ten thousand locations where you can buy, then imbibe, a liquid form of these nouns. Now when it comes to drugs favored by the multitudes, alcohol is the unquestioned leader with all other competitors rightly genuflecting before it. On TV, white-skinned, yellow-haired females of dubious repute and their predatory admirers blissfully jump into skimpy swimwear in its presence as the stuff flows like a beechwood-aged, cold-filtered waterfall. For once Madison Avenue might not be exaggerating either because truth is they love the stuff. Here we don’t have to speculate what would happen with criminalization because we saw what happened, as people decided
en masse
that this was one prohibition they could skip. So our friend goes to one of the countless places dedicated to providing this drug. I’m there almost every day. People sit around and pour the stuff down their gullets as quick as old Joe can keep it coming and if it would get their bloodstreams to kick the shit to their brains faster they’d pay extra. They’d pay extra because alcohol is a depressant and they need depressing. But more than that they need to disappear. They need to disrupt, if only for a limited time, their constant, tyrannical self-surveillance. The drunk person is not happy in the classic sense. Inebriation is instead prized for its liberating qualities. What they’re liberated from is insecurity and if you don’t think that’s psychologically addictive you’re crazy. Is that what you’re saying Casi?”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“The drunk don’t have to weigh their words and calculate their effect. The drug diminishes their ability to do so and reduces them to an uncalculating will that externalizes, without censorship, its internal cravings. This freedom is the undervalued effect of intoxication and it is this effect that proves so attractive. But that’s neither here nor there since the main point is that this drug is employed in overwhelming numbers and without the slightest sense of irony by those who most recoil from our clients. And yet there’s more. Because when our drug-abusing friend gets home he’s greeted apathetically by his hypermedicated family. The crewcut boy’s on Ritalin to combat his quick-cut-advertising-induced-therefore-overdiagnosed hyperactivity and his twelve-year-old, weight conscious sister’s on Prozac to take the edge off her classmates and all this with the blessing of both our drug addict and his anxious, Xanax popping wife. And the whole thing’s just so depressing that thank God the highly recommended Dr. Upper-West-Side just prescribed him some Lithium to be taken with his nightly Bordeaux so he can better deal with the whole thing. He does this from the sofa. The aforementioned chemicals course through his veins as he watches the news and complains bitterly about the damn druggies he’s supporting with his tax dollars and how to his liking you can’t throw the keys away fast enough. Right?”

“Therefore what?”

“Therefore I say blow this sloppy hypocrite out of the water. Criminalize the chemical crutches he walks with and watch him change his tune on the
chemically-dependent
; see how quick addiction becomes a disease when it’s him who’s been stripped clean. What would disappear is the distinction these people hide behind, the distinction that the substances they live by are legally permissible making their abusers of higher moral worth. Note that every drug I referred to is perfectly legal in the context described so I’m now really only speaking of the hypocrisy of people who limit their drug use to the non-criminal. I’m saying nothing for the moment about those who use illegal drugs but rationalize that the particular drug they use is harmless and really shouldn’t be illegal so in the end it’s okay because they’re not
really
drug users. Or others who currently limit their use to the respectable drugs but secretly couldn’t be prouder of their past
real
drug use, which they think makes them interesting, and which they will take any opportunity to divulge but only in hushed mock regretful tones. They’re too obvious a target. Our law-abiding user is not so obvious, however, and he profits from this distinction while being a supreme weakling. Here’s a person who can’t get through a single day without chemical assistance. This despite the fact that his day consists of wearing an Italian suit and tapping keys from an ergonomically-designed chair in an airtight, temperature-controlled office then after work stopping by Citarella to pick up some freshly baked peasant bread to complement his dinner overlooking the arboreal serenity visible from his apartment on Central Park West. That’s the life he leads yet he can’t abstain but he’s perfectly willing to judge harshly people who share their beds with rats, use their ovens to heat their apartments, and so turn to admittedly stronger chemical distractions. What do you say about people like that? What do you say about a situation where the Citarella people control the fate of the oven-heated people and use that power to cage them for behavior they themselves engage in? What do you say about these drug addicts Casi?”

“Which ones?”

“The fiscally-blessed ones who have pushers with waiting rooms and think of the PDR as The Good Book. Do you think this is a good situation where they cast their votes to send the three-eared Hurds of the world off to rot for their shared crime? Is it
just
?”

“No.”

“More than that right. Someone like you should think it’s a fucking abomination.”

“Okay.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“This isn’t multiple choice. What response can you generate to this? Now that I’ve pointed this societal mutation out to you, at length and in mindnumbing, intentionally yawn-inducing detail meant to replicate the utter inanity of such societal questions, what do you think you’re going to do?”

“I guess nothing more than what I’m already doing, although not for much longer since I’m already tiring of it.”

“Is that enough? And do you do it for the right reasons?”

“You mean as opposed to the immense prestige and monetary compensation?”

“Fine, let me concede that you do what you can, do it well, and for the right reasons. You know, I trust, that in the vast ocean of Injustice there are certainly bigger fish to fry than Hurd. Accordingly, there’s a philosophical argument that goes something like this. Imagine yourself gaily reposing in your lavishly-landscaped backyard. Suddenly you’re drawn, in reaction to some plaintive moaning, to look over the fence and into your neighbor’s yard where you see a young girl with dirt-caked hair literally starving to death. Can you envision a scenario under which you would not immediately drop everything and come to her aid? My strong guess is you would do so regardless of any resulting personal detriment, economic or otherwise. Indulge me with patience Casi and allow me to once again tell you something you already know. At this very moment while you and I pick at this fried calamari, which incidentally has inexplicably not been properly breaded or fried and is therefore unforgivably rubbery, there exists just such a girl slowly starving to death but out of our sight, her belly bloated by empty want, her lips scarred with thirsty lesions. This girl starves while people like us throw away turkey sandwiches because the sweaty guy behind the counter put mayo on it. Now the only difference between these two girls as they relate to you is proximity yet one spurs you to action and the other you callously disregard. You know, I again trust, that proximity is not a legitimate basis for favoring one over the other. So why don’t you obey this moral imperative, drop everything, and devote yourself to rescuing this girl and the many others like her? Or perhaps you think these people should starve to death while you and I gorge on fatted calves by candlelight. I mean please. This philosopher, through me, has lifted your veil of ignorance and laid bare your inconsistent behavior and I can see from the vertical nodding of your head that you agree there is simply no justification for your inaction. Can you really just keep your head buried in the sand while only ineffectually addressing the unjustly caged. What say you to all this? Speaketh.”

“Well as I tried to say earlier,” I said now. “I’m getting tired of dealing with the caged but I think you might be on to something with this other dilemma.”

“How so?”

“Because even though I am an exceedingly happy person, well, that may be pushing it. Even though I’m quite happy. Not really happy, I mean, content let’s say. I’m not miserable that’s for sure. Not
that
miserable. Let’s say I wasn’t a happy person even though I am. Let’s say I was a fucked-up, confused person. Or sad, that’s it, kind of weirdly sad. Just take this premise at face value. Imagine this persistent drizzle between my ears that maybe threatens to turn into a full-blown mental tempest. The real question would be why this is so and how to fix it. Well I’m aware, in the troublingly peripheral way I’m aware of so much suspect data and concepts, of the psych notion that says I’m better off viewing my difficulties as externally based and therefore transient and capable of being borne rather than as internally based, with its suggestion of intractability and concomitant depression. Of course even as I say that I’m also vaguely recalling the seemingly opposite notion that those who view the world as acting on them in a manner outside of their control are more fucked than those who view themselves as agents of their own destiny and maybe these kinds of epistemological vagaries are part of the problem. Not that I don’t have things I could point to. Like say a pain in my ear where every sound received feels like a tiny dagger finding its mark and none of the daggers come from a gorgeous miniscule girl who used to yap but now only practices an inexplicable silence. And imagine she had an aunt who always brings up ancient incidents freighted with significance, with Beethoven and loss, or a weird kid who asks simple questions that go unanswered, questions about bumpy old men who approach you all shirtless in icy air and maybe try to hug you and imagine I looked for that nut this morning, the way you might look for a misplaced pair of gloves, outside on the street on my way to work, but didn’t see him or an ambulance or anything. Where do these people go anyway? Where do they disappear to? The babies outside of pubby restaurants and the preternaturally old? Do they all fly hastily off of overpasses or step gingerly in front of trains? What about ten-year-olds with perfect uppercut swings and severely overweight bus drivers with big plans and their demented, agoraphobic Prometheus? Imagine I was the kind of person who thought about things like that all the time and imagine I had placed myself in an obscene amount of debt so that I could get yelled at by insane immoral people and deal with criminal defendants too and even when I sleep—sleep for Chrissakes!—a time when all should be placid and good, even then there are leeches in lab coats sawing my skull open and bleeding my brain to their desired effect. Imagine I was that fucked up is what I’m saying.”