Needle (11 page)

Then the phone went dead.

Amazingly, as things turned out, at about 7:30 in the morning Al found his stuff sitting on the sidewalk—right where Pat said it would be. Apparently, the fear and revulsion of what may lay hidden in a crumpled paper bag left on a New York City sidewalk overcame even the most ardent sense of adventure.

Unfortunately, I didn’t learn of the equipment’s recovery until much later that day, and for a while was forced to wrestle with a mixture of guilt, regret, and anger over how empty-headed Pat could be—especially when he knew the band’s stupid-quota had already been filled by Matt.

I was lying in bed feeling awful about everything when the dope in my bloodstream clashed with a continued lack of sleep, and the effect was finally overpowering. I allowed myself to drift off while clinging to the hope that somehow Al’s stuff would be recovered. Just as I was about to fall asleep, the phone rang yet again and I think I saw a pattern developing.

As if things weren’t bad enough already, Matt called to tell me that he’d left one of our guitars—a $600 Ibanez Artist—behind at The Speakeasy. He then suggested that I head down there straight away before somebody steals it. As it turned out, somebody already had.

19

I have never been one to flaunt the greatness of the city in which I was born and raised. However, when it comes to pizza, bagels, and Halloween—there’s no place like New York.

Each year the Halloween Parade travels along Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village. The costumes are lavish, the colors are mesmerizing and accordingly—the majority of the participants are extraordinarily gay.

By this point Venus and I had been dating for about four months, and I wanted to take her to the parade as she’d never before witnessed the spectacle. Unfortunately, on Halloween morning she called to
inform me that she wasn’t going to be able to attend, as an old friend from college was in town and had invited her to see the ballet at Lincoln Center.

“Oh,” I said upon hearing the news.

“Honey, it’ll be over by ten o’clock. Would you mind? I promise, I won’t be home late and we can do something afterwards. I just can’t blow this off. We were really close.”

And just who did the love of my life share this incredibly close bond with?

Well, I don’t quite recall the name. All I do remember is that he was a former lineman for the Princeton University football team. Of course, they were
just friends
, and though I maintained my composure I found the news to be a little unsettling. Nonetheless, we agreed to scrap the parade and meet at her apartment by 11 p.m.

At about 3:30 that afternoon, Karen Rubio—a friend of mine from Binghamton—had called to inquire about my plans for the evening as she and a friend were coming into the city from Westchester to see the parade. I liked Karen. We were good platonic friends for almost three years, and with the exception of a few drunken moments during my junior year had remained as such. I agreed to meet her and her friend at 6:30 on the corner of 14
^th
Street and Sixth Avenue.

At around 5 p.m. Venus called again to confirm our eleven o’clock rendezvous. “And don’t stay home waiting for me,” she said. “Go out with Perry or something.”

“Perry has to work, but Karen’s gonna go to the parade with me,” I told her, trying to imply nothing as I could see my choice of guest might in some way be interpreted as retaliatory.

“Who’s
Karen
?” she asked.

“A friend from school.”

“You know, today
both
our horoscopes actually said that we should remain committed to established relationships.”

“No kidding?” I said, surprised by the coincidence—but still unable to disguise my own utter lack of interest.

“Nope…no kidding,” she said. “OK, then—so I’ll see you at eleven. Bring over a pumpkin to carve!”

At 6:30 I ran into Karen and her friend, Ann, outside The Gap on Sixth Avenue. We smoked a joint but didn’t need to because as usual, the parade was extremely entertaining. The highlight came as three gentlemen dressed as road workers passed by. Suddenly and from out
of nowhere the first two pulled out foldable stools, sat down, and began eating sandwiches in the middle of the parade route. As they did, the third worker produced two lit flares and began redirecting the rest of the procession around his dining cohorts to ensure their mealtime went undisturbed. After a few moments they would stand and pack their “equipment” only to repeat the performance again, as those lining the parade route couldn’t help but relive the daily commute. Art imitated life, as the impromptu moments of street theater and “work” stoppages caused traffic jams, delays, and collisions as confused paraders slammed into the backs of one another. Periodically, a mixture of flowers, feathers, and sequins could be seen exploding into the air as collisions reverberated down the route.

As the parade wound down, the girls and I headed to Peculiar Pub for a round of beers. Afterwards, we said goodbye and went our separate ways, though I still had a couple of hours to kill before Venus was due back from the ballet. I purchased the pumpkin she requested and as a surprise—filled a plastic jack-o-lantern with twelve orange and black roses anchored in mounds of candy corns. I then headed uptown to Venus’ apartment.

It was only 10:30, so I decided to sit and wait on the steps of an elementary school located directly across the street from her building. After a few minutes, the sound of a very familiar giggle grabbed my attention. I looked toward Second Avenue and immediately recognized a thoroughly intoxicated Venus, hanging on the shoulder of her gigantic, football player friend. As they stumbled toward her apartment, however, their demeanor seemed to belie the platonic portrayal of their relationship.

I couldn’t decide how to handle the situation:

Should I make my presence known before anything really fucked up happens, just in case something really fucked up is about to happen? Or, should I just sit tight and wait to exploit the situation as an opportunity to measure her loyalty—especially since she just stressed the importance of remaining faithful
.

They made it across Second Avenue and I could tell that Venus was completely wasted as the football player was practically carrying her down the street. I so much wanted to jump up and prevent what might become my own undoing, but couldn’t. The opportunity to see the
real
Venus, uninhibited by my presence, was simply too much for me to resist. I decided to remain seated and silent on the other side of
the street.

Just after they reached the stairs of her building they began to kiss. With the candy and flower arrangement on my lap, a pumpkin at my feet, and the word “D-I-C-K” stamped across my forehead I watched the passion unfold.

Now in order to appreciate the ringside seat I had for my own humiliation, it’s important to understand how narrow Manhattan streets are. Unlike the avenues, many of which support four lanes of traffic and two lanes of parked cars, the streets often provide barely enough room for one of each. That said, if I were any closer to the action it would have been a threesome.

For what seemed like an eternity they continued to kiss, and as the football player leaned her against the front door of her building they started grinding hips. It was like I was suddenly stuck in a John Hughes film. I sat there on the 50-yard line lost in a fog of anger, hurt, and resentment until Venus finally broke away from his grasp and ran upstairs to her apartment.

I didn’t quite know how to deal with the situation. As the football player dejectedly walked away, my initial instinct was to do the same and save the confrontation for the following day. At first, after throwing the pumpkins in a trash can I did just that. Unfortunately, the need to respond had overwhelmed me as I turned around and headed back to her building.

She buzzed me upstairs, and when she came to the door she was even drunker than I had at first suspected.

“Hey baby!” she said with what seemed like feigned excitement. “I missed the shit out of you.”

“I bet,” I said, half smiling and desperately trying not to freak out.

“Did you have fun with
Karen?
You better not have kissed her.”

“Venus, I saw you and your friend fucking around outside.”

“You saw
what
?” she asked in a voice that sounded genuinely confused.

I lost my patience:

“Don’t play stupid with me, you silly bitch! I saw you and the gorilla. I was sitting right there while you were making-out with it.”

Then she said it. It was something so amazing and unbelievable that I’ve taken great pains to recall it precisely—word for word:

“I was not.”

Perhaps she didn’t understand what I was saying.

“Asshole! Don’t you get it?!? I was sitting there…
watching
!! I
could have reached out and touched you with my fucking tongue! Please, save the bullshit for another time when I’m not actually there to witness the humiliation.”

I then stormed out of her apartment and headed home.

As I stepped into my own apartment I could hear Venus leaving the first of what would be a series of drunken and contradictory phone messages, some of which begged my forgiveness while others berated me for overreacting. Stranger still, a few even reiterated her original denial.

The following afternoon I thought it best to I end my relationship with Venus Bellini and did so.

20

After prolonged substance abuse, most addicts—regardless of their poison—begin to show signs of it. The medical community does note visible symptoms of crack smoking; however, they’re mostly concerned with singed eyelashes and burnt fingertips that become scarred after years of clutching on to that pesky crack pipe. But much like the gin blossoms that plague alcoholics and the raccoon-like rings that often surround the eyes of junkies, veteran crackheads show similar signs of their addiction—though they may be less recognizable to the casual observer.

It seems to me that after a while, the face of a serious crack smoker begins to appear—for lack of a better term—
waxy
. But it’s more than just that. Looking back, I can recall many crackhead faces that slowly seemed to almost wash away and become less defined as the years passed and the addictions intensified.

From the very beginning we had a
feeling
that Jim was a crackhead, and with his long, dirty, hair and clothes that were always covered in grime, he did little to tarnish the impression. He was only in his mid-twenties but already wore a face that began to betray him, and though I’d seen him lingering outside our building for months, it wasn’t until we actually met that I realized he was a crackhead
for sure
. Of course, it was obvious to me that Jim was fucked up on
something long before we were officially introduced and I was forced to shake that burnt, crackhead hand. On almost a daily basis I saw him pacing the streets, strung-out, and accosting strangers with requests for food, money, companionship, or whatever he felt he was most in need of at the time.

As soon as we moved into the 74
^th
Street apartment I found Crackhead Jim’s lingering presence to be unsettling, and each day upon setting out or returning home from work I would find myself crossing streets to avoid crossing paths. Unfortunately, this was a bit of a challenge because he was always stationed within fifty feet of my building’s entrance. Perhaps he was attracted to motion, or maybe it was the shiny, spinning, doors—but whatever it was, the moment he saw me he would always come running.

At one point I actually suggested to the building’s Mexican doorman—Eduardo—that he kindly ask Jim to find another place to loiter.

“I would, papi,” Eduardo told me. “
But de junky is you fooking neighbor
.”

I was vaguely offended when Eduardo referred to Jim as a “junky,” a term almost exclusively reserved for heroin addicts. From what I could tell,
he
wasn’t a junky—he was a crackhead and as far as I was concerned, crackheads were the lowest of the low. They were deceptive, often dangerous, and would stop at nothing to continuously fuel their habit. However, I have to consider that the indignity I felt from the doorman’s remark was somehow related to a subconscious admission, or perhaps, denial of my own emerging problem.

Regardless of how quaint it was to have the friendly neighborhood crackhead living in your building—none of the tenants wanted him around and quite frankly, it was a strange place for him to be. Crackhead Jim would have been right at home in Hell’s Kitchen, the East Village, or perhaps even Madame Tussaud’s—but the Upper East Side was definitely the wrong location for a very obvious reason:

There are no crack dealers in the area
.

For a crackhead, proximity to a continuous supply of crack is a fundamental consideration that must be factored into any decision regarding a permanent residence. It’s simply the nature of the addiction. You never have enough, and the second you run out—you want more. But of course, you
still
never have enough.

On a November evening upon returning home from work, I was shocked to find Crackhead Jim standing in my living room with Perry,
and smoking the biggest rock I’ve ever seen in my life. Though we still had yet to be officially introduced, apparently the size of the rock was reason enough to skip formalities.

“Dude!” Crackhead Jim shouted at me, as Perry looked on with an expression that revealed just how fucked up this little get-together was. “Look at this fat motherfucker!!! It’s a fucking gram-and-a-half!”

For a moment or two I just stared in silence, as Jim’s expression transformed itself from hopeful acceptance—to that of a basset hound caught sitting on the couch.

“You wanna hit the pipe, dude?” he asked, trying to sound as if it wasn’t a fucked up thing for him to be standing there and asking me that question.

“Craig, this is Jim…
he’s our neighbor
,” Perry interjected, as if this was a topic we
hadn’t
discussed.

“You wanna hit it?” Jim asked again.

I hadn’t dabbled with any form of cocaine in several months, and was far too fearful of its less savory side effects to do so without a bag of heroin at the ready.