Heroin Chronicles (18 page)

I poured the coffee, emptied the red devils into the muddy brew, and prayed for deliverance while slinking over to the couch. He handed me the note, I gave him the cup. I just wanted to get this over with.

He swigged the coffee like he was chugging beer. Old habits and all that shit. I snorted a fat blast of what I thought was coke and immediately fell ass backward, landing on the bag I had been packing earlier that night and hitting my head on the edge of the table. It knocked me out.

I woke up bloody and puking. Projectile vomiting. All over the table. All over his dope. All over his boots. Down the front of my slip. Great heaving waves of gelatinous funk shooting out of my mouth and nose. Thick rich fists of sour phlegm cascading in golden arcs all over the room. I pissed myself and started to laugh. The bastard had almost killed me. I had never done heroin. He knew that. It just wasn't my trip. I wasn't looking for nirvana, a velvet womb, or a soft euphoric haze of interstellar space to melt into. I dug the shit that jacked up the irritation level. Barbs and booze. Coke or speed. LSD. Something that accelerated my already jacked-up metabolism. I wasn't interested in slowing shit down. Smoothing it out. Softening the edges. I wanted to keep the edges rough, like the one I had just hit my head against. The one that had finally banged a bit of sense into my thick nugget. Never, under any circumstances, will I ever again answer the door at five forty-five a.m. on a Sunday morning.

J
OHN
A
LBERT
grew up in Los Angeles. As a teenager he cofounded the seminal “death rock” band Christian Death, then played drums for a stint in Bad Religion. He has written for the
Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Fader
, and
Hustler
, winning national awards for sports and music writing. His essays have appeared in numerous national anthologies. The film rights to his book
Wrecking Crew
, which chronicles the true-life adventures of an amateur baseball team comprised of drug addicts, transvestites, and washed-up rock stars, have been optioned by the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.

the monster

by john albert

I
wake up to the sound of surf with sand in my mouth. After a few seconds I manage to sit up and focus on my surroundings. I'm underneath a lifeguard stand on a beach just south of the Los Angeles airport. It is dawn so I instinctively check the water. It's smooth as glass with perfectly shaped peaks rolling in. I am wearing a thrift-store suit and suede Hush Puppies. Not exactly the latest in surf wear. As I trudge toward the parking lot, a group of long-haired surfers carrying short dayglo boards approach. They get closer and recognize me.

“Danny, what's up? It's good to see you. Welcome back, dude!”

I force a smile feeling like a has-been. A week ago I turned twenty years old.

Half an hour later I'm nearby in the residential neighborhood I grew up in. It's typical Southern California suburbia: flat houses, dying lawns, and campers. I walk to my parents' front door, reach under a fern, and grab their spare key.

Inside the house is quiet. It's just past dawn and my parents are still asleep. I walk into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of milk. My old cat appears on the counter purring loudly and I scratch his head. I walk down the hallway into my old room and sit on the bed which seems surprisingly small. I remember how safe I felt as a kid and want so badly to go back in time. I don't notice my mom standing in the doorway until she speaks.

“You're home.”

I nod and fight an urge to start crying.

“Do you want some breakfast?”

I say yes, but not because I'm hungry. The pills are wearing off and I am starting to feel nauseous. But eating breakfast in my parents' kitchen seems like it might somehow bring me back to a world less horrific than where I have just been. “I'm gonna wash up,” I tell her. “I'll be out in a minute.”

In the bathroom I glance in the mirror. My pupils are getting huge from withdrawal. I notice something dark in my hair, pick it out, and inspect it. It is congealed blood. I drop it in the toilet and the water clouds red. I immediately slide a small plastic bottle from my pocket, shake out the two remaining pills, and dump them in as well. I am done.

A day before, I'm wearing the same suit and feeling much better. I'm sitting on the fold-out bed in my small apartment with five hundred dollars on the coffee table in front of me. That afternoon, my rich young girlfriend left for the desert with a group of our friends. The plan is for me to join them later that night after scoring the necessary narcotics. Ordinarily, with cash in hand, this would take a couple of hours at the most. This afternoon the task is made far more difficult by a citywide police crackdown.

In the last month there has been a series of home invasion–style robberies in the wealthy Westside neighborhoods. Victims have been violently assaulted in their beautiful homes, sometimes even sexually, their valuables stolen. What really set the world on tilt was when the perpetrators busted into the home of world-famous actress Betty Le Mat. The grand dame is well into her seventies, her classic roles distant history, but she remains a beloved figure and cultural icon. Beyond merely robbing the regal old lady, rumors have been circulating about a particularly gruesome sexual assault involving her cherished “best actress” Oscar statuette.

In response, the entire police force is prowling the streets day and night in a collective rage, clamping down on anything remotely illegal. They are making arrests by the thousands, packing the already overflowing jails in an effort to gain information from anyone willing to talk in exchange for freedom. As a direct result, every respectable drug dealer has either been arrested or has decided to visit out-of-town relatives.

So here I am—money in hand, tapping my feet, racked with nervous twitchy energy, and working the phones. I've been calling everyone I can think of who might know where to score. So far it's been a unanimous chorus of no's accompanied by a lot of sniffling noses and junkie whining. To combat my own withdrawals I've been swallowing some codeine pills I stole from my dad's medicine cabinet last time I visited my dear parents. While not in full dry heave withdrawals, I'm not exactly comfortable either. That said, the pile of cash in front of me makes the world a more hopeful place.

My persistence pays off and I get a serious lead. A once famous singer of a now defunct hair metal band says he scored some overpriced Persian the night before. The deal was facilitated by an older record executive turned cokehead we both casually know. Without saying goodbye I hang up and make the call.

Twenty minutes later I'm getting buzzed into a large art deco apartment building just off a seedy stretch of Hollywood Boulevard. Not waiting for the elevator I scurry up several flights of stairs and arrive at a door where a shirtless tanned man in his sixties named Ron lets me into a spacious apartment. Behind him stands a far-too-thin, forty-something woman named Ann whose ravaged beauty perfectly mimics the fading grandeur of the building. The two have obviously been on a cocaine binge. Ron is sweating and talking a mile a minute about music. He used to be a big shot in the business and keeps dropping names of new bands he thinks will impress me. I really don't give a shit. This kind of chatter is strictly a coke thing and I find it annoying.

The buzzer finally rings; the connection has arrived. He's a thin Persian kid in his early twenties, dressed kind of new wave. He appears as jittery as the other two, avoiding eye contact and laughing at nothing in particular. The three seem to know one another so I hand over my cash. I will wait there while he gets the dope and brings it back. It's something I would never do on the street, but a mutual friend's apartment is another story.

He doesn't come back. Initially I tell myself he's just late like every other power-drunk dealer. I eventually persuade Ron to call him but there's no answer. To placate me Ron and his girl offer some cocaine. I know it will only exasperate my withdrawals, but I still say yes. I just need drugs. After the rush it makes things worse. No surprise. After several more hits I am crawling out of my skin and so desperate for heroin that I feel like I can kill.

“Fuck you guys!” I suddenly roar at Ron and his girlfriend. “You were in on this the whole time.
You're
fucking responsible.”

“We had no idea!” Ron's girlfriend yells back, with shrill indignation. “See what happens when you get involved with junkies? Just get the fuck out of here!”

I skulk toward the door, stop, and turn back. “You're responsible” I repeat, pointing an accusatory finger at them both. “This isn't over!”

I step outside and the sun is already up. As I walk back to my car I am absolutely seething. The whole thing is made immensely worse by my increasing need for heroin. The world now appears too bright and everything looks ugly. With the cash gone my options are severely limited and I point the car once again for my parents' house. Maybe my dad has left his pain pills in their usual hiding place. Forty minutes later I walk out of their house with the remaining four pills. It should last me a few hours at best. I drive and try to think of who might still be willing to loan me some money. It's a nonexistent list. I decide to get some alcohol to take the edge off and pull into a liquor store. As I climb out I see a familiar figure leaning against the wall, lighting a cigarette, and I get an idea I will come to regret.

Troy Galt is the most frightening person I know. He is enormous, well over six-foot-five, and built like a professional football player, which is what he would have become if he hadn't gone off to war. He has a thick beard that makes him look far older than his twenty-two years and he is undeniably insane. Not the kind of crazy where he directs traffic with a potted plant on his head—the kind where he will cripple someone and then calmly wash the blood from his hands. If that isn't enough, Troy has a metal plate in his head. He took a bullet to the dome while butchering some enemy combatants in close quarters. It seems the army approved of the deed but not his methods—which reportedly involved a decapitation. He was awarded an honorable discharge and came home to wander the streets and sleep on the beaches of his previous life.

Troy and I went to school together from elementary up to high school. Even as a kid Troy wasn't exactly a pacifist and was capable of beating the shit out of anyone who challenged him. But after several years doing unspeakable things in the Special Forces, he seemed a different species

“How's it going?” I ask, climbing out of my car.

He studies me and furrows his brow. “Hey, dude,” he says. “I want some heroin. You have any?”

I shake my head. “I should have a whole bunch of good dope, but some fucking dude burned me last night.”

“Robbed you?”

“Listen, man, if you help me get my dope back, half of it is yours. Interested?”

He smiles weirdly like he's amused and I'm certain he's going to tell me to get lost. Unfortunately he doesn't. “I'll get your dope back,” he says, and flicks his cigarette against my car.

We arrive back at the Hollywood apartment building and grab the door as a tanned actor type is walking out. He starts to object, sees Troy, and keeps moving. Upstairs, an irritated and still shirtless Ron opens the door thinking it is just me. I see concern in his eyes when Troy follows in behind me.

I calmly ask if there have been any new developments. Before he can answer his girlfriend walks into the room, her eyes wild from the cocaine.

Who the fuck is this?” she says, gesturing wildly at Troy.

“This is my friend. Half the money was his.”

“Don't even try it, asshole!” she screams at me.

Ron shoots her a look to shut up. She either doesn't notice or doesn't care. “We're not scared of you and your fucking goon here,” she continues. “I know people that will eat you two for fucking lunch. Get the hell out of here before I make a call.”

I'm thinking of a proper response when there's a flash of movement to my side. I turn and see Ron crumpled on the floor with Troy looming over him.

“Hey!” the girl yells out, and begins to scramble for the phone. Troy picks up a floor lamp and throws it like a javelin. It hits her in the face and she drops to her knees with a groan. She brings her hands to her mouth and blood trickles out through her fingers. I am stunned by the sudden violence. Fantasies are one thing, but to actually see people hurt is something entirely different. I stand there as if in shock.

Troy studies me a beat. “Why don't you go wait in the car, dude,” he says.

I nod and start for the door.

“Hey,” he calls after me. I look back. “Don't you fucking drive off,” he says, staring at me as a warning.

I sit in my little car with my head just spinning. I have made a serious mistake. I think about calling the police and try to envision the various outcomes. When I finally make up my mind to call, the passenger door swings open and Troy slides in. He hands me a slip of paper with a handwritten address. There is blood smeared on it.