The Story of Junk (22 page)

I don't stay long in the hospital that night—Kit's out of it and things are busy at home. When finally all is quiet, I sit in bed with the cats and feel afraid. Her bed, her cats, her apartment. She saved me from myself once. How often can a person count on that? I don't want to lose her. This is hard.

I retire to my blade and mirror. With a small jeweler's hammer, I pound the white rocks and crush them, chop them into powder fine as Turkish coffee. I take my time. I've hooked up the VCR, but this is my evening's real amusement. I like the blade. I like the feel of it on my tongue. It tastes of dope, bitter and sweet. I think casually about infection as I chop. I think about my health, my sanity, the shape of my kidneys, the possibility of my getting AIDS. I watch the rise and fall of my chest, visualize my lungs. They don't look so good. I chop and push the powder into decorative lines, abstract doodles. Wish I could draw. I try to read the lines, between them, as a fortune-teller does a palm. I pick up a spike I've been saving—haven't had time to toss it. I put a pebble of dope on my belly and wait for it to melt. I'm wasting it. It's wasting me. I consider the blade, reflect on its affinity for my tongue. I consider the edge of night, the razors at my elbow. I tie off, load the spike, find the vein.

Blood. Blood everywhere. A gusher. I forgot to loosen the tie, so it doesn't last long. While I'm cleaning up the mess, the phone rings. It's Kit.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Thinking about you.”

“I want to come home.” Her melancholy tone feels threatening.

“I guess that's not possible,” I say.

“I know, I know. But I wish. Are you high?”

“Not especially.”

“Don't lie. You sound stoned. Is anybody with you?”

“No, I'm alone.”

“I don't like the idea of you being with someone else.”

“I'm not with anyone,” I say. Just the dope.

Back in the days of my heroin honeymoon, I happened to see a man I knew in college. “How do you stay so young-looking?” he asked. “Heroin” was my answer. He was a newspaper reporter and was accustomed to asking questions. He wanted to know what the drug did for me. I told him it calmed my nerves, relaxed my features, and lifted my spirits—in other words, kept the aging process at bay. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Are you telling me
heroin
is the fountain of youth?” “Well, yes,” I said. “Heroin cures everything.” “What's it
really
like?” he asked. “What does it feel like to be on heroin?” “What's it
like?
” I said.

This is what it's like.

THE WORK COMES FIRST

Vance was right. With Kit in the hospital, I do make more money, customers in and out. They talk about all the usual things: opportunities for love they missed, work they haven't done, places they haven't been … places only heroin can reach, love only heroin can warm, work only heroin can form. There's always a longing for things that never touched them. Makes me feel sad. Also useful.

All day long I sit and serve. Then I go to the hospital and stay till they throw me out. Then it's back to business. Ginger's here almost every night, sometimes with her girlfriend Vivian. We watch movies on the VCR and don't say goodnight till we see the sun.

I don't know what I'd do without Ginger now. She's really a terrific person. When you need a friend, she's there. When you need an idea, she has one. When you're having a long night, she makes it pass. She's smart as a whip and likes sexy clothes. She reads books and can gossip with the best of them. Ginger cracks me up.

She has this theory about a third gender and what it will do to break down the sociopolitical power structure, no scandal, no shame. It's interesting, listening to her ideas and ambitions—until she asks about mine.

“What are you writing these days?” Ginger asks. Vivian lies on the floor and smokes.

“Writing?” A casual question, but it stuns me. “I have no time for that.”

“But dealing can't take up your whole life—you're too
driven.
”

“All I ever seem to be doing is changing channels,” I observe.

“Well, that's something,” she says, a weak smile curling her lips. “What about Kit? Her pictures at Davey Boxer's are wonderful.”

“I know,” I say. “But now she's in the hospital. And her band broke up. She's feeling pretty discouraged.”

Vivian sits up from the floor. “Toast broke up? That's
awful.
”

“Listen to me,” Ginger says, her eyes so penetrating I want to crawl under the bed. “You have to snap out of this. Kit, too. You can't lose touch with your work. The work comes first. The work always comes first.”

“No,” I say blankly. “Life comes first.” Vivian blows a smoke ring.

“No,” Ginger says, her expression somber. “It doesn't. It can't. It's too short, especially now. So many of our friends are sick with AIDS, and other things. How many are already gone? We're not going to outlive ourselves. There's nothing more important than the work. Get back to work, girl. It'll save your soul.”

She's too stoned. I shake my head. It's not my soul I want to save. It's Kit. Besides, dealing is work. Talking is work. Turning on the lights, taking showers, buying groceries, waking up—it's all very demanding work.

I don't sleep at all that night. Next day, I get to the hospital early.

“How much is that?” I hear Kit say as I step inside her room. Doctor Paul is giving her the methadone.

“Sixty milligrams,” he says. “You shouldn't need more than forty.”

“It's not enough,” she replies. “I need eighty.”

“Forty's what they call a blocking dose,” he explains. “That's what the experts say is required to take you off heroin without putting you into withdrawal. Anything over forty won't get you high, it's just icing on the cake.”

She glares at him. “They don't know what they're talking about.”

“The idea is to bring your tolerance down so the antibiotics will be effective,” he says. “I don't want to detox you too quickly, but this isn't a maintenance program. It's all I can offer for now.”

“Are you sure Paul knows what he's doing?” she asks when he's gone.

“I think he's a good doctor,” I say. “But, you know, I met him at a disco.”

“Can't you bring me some dope? This meth will never keep me straight. I'm sick enough as it is.”

I hesitate. I'm running low on patience. “Let the methadone go to work first, will you?” I plead.

Anger crawls over her face.

“All right, all right,” I say. “I'll get it.” Goodbye profit, I'm thinking. Hello grief. “Will you take the methadone or not?”

“I have to,” she says. “They make me. Don't be so mean,” she says then. “I'll get better faster that way.”

A SUNNY SPELL

Doctor Paul reports Kit's AIDS test is negative, but she's slipped into some kind of new crisis. The infection's more virulent than they thought. Her skin is gray, there's no life behind her eyes. I'm terrified.

Some things have to hurt, that's all. It's the way life goes. We don't have to like it. I wonder if miracles really happen. But drugs were made for people to believe in miracles. Chemistry is magic: it can turn shit to gold and gold to shit, just like that. Nice work, if you can get it.

I sit by Kit's bed until Sylph stops in with Poop. They take over the watch and I race home to work, weighing out dope in a robotic haze. “This batch is especially strong,” I say to the customers, but it's only the same old shit. “Promise you'll be careful.”

Admonishments get them buying more. Oh wow, they say, after sneaking a taste. I wasn't kidding, this
is
good. Am I gonna have this stuff tomorrow?

Tomorrow?
Tomorrow?
I have to think. “Tomorrow,” I say. “Yes, I am.”

Kit's awake when I return to the hospital, where I find Bo Brinks slipping her a bag of street dope.

“Well,” she says. “
You
wouldn't give me anything.” He looks flustered.

I don't say a word. I close the door after Bo and hand Kit a straw and she takes up the dope in my hand. If it hasn't killed her yet, it's not going to. By nightfall, her condition stabilizes and it's safe to take a break. Her good mood allays my fear. Maybe also my guilt. I'm still smiling when I run into Massimo outside, edging down the street with a large, heavy package. Can I help?

“I believe so,” he says. He and his girlfriend Cherry are getting married. He's moving out in just a few days. This is sudden.

“I believe so,” he says again. “But I like it.” Cherry's at his apartment now. Why don't I come over to meet her?

She's labeling boxes when we arrive, wedding gifts and personal belongings: skis, a pasta pot, a drawing board, and a new stereo, computer, and radar detector. Massimo's into gadgets. Cherry puts on a tape. “Sounds good,” she says. “I'm happy!”

Cherry's a cheerful sort, like Massimo. Clear, freckled skin, red hair, and blue eyes. We crack a few beers while she makes spaghetti and tosses salad, moving to the music. The kittens run around our feet, play in the empty boxes. I relax.

After we eat, Massimo unveils his package, a large oval mirror for Cherry. She cuts hair for a living and offers to give me a trim. Why not? It'll be therapeutic. A person can't live by dread alone.

A friend comes by as she's finishing, a handsome frog named Daniel. I assume he's Cherry's coke connection—the salon where she works is famous as a candy store. He takes a seat on a carton beside the kitchen table and starts shaving the sides of a golf ball-sized rock with one of Cherry's razors. The lines he draws are anything but generous. When I taste one, I find out why: it's not cocaine. Daniel is Massimo's new source for smack. He's letting me meet his man.

Daniel's a virile, matinee-idol type: square jaw, strong arms, straight nose, bright smile, a curl of dark hair over smoldering eyes. I sit beside him and study his ear. Somehow I find it seductive. That jaw line: it works so easily into a smile. His mouth looks so pliable, his chest inviting as a plush welcome mat.

What am I thinking? I can't think this way. Cherry is his girlfriend's hairdresser. They all met on a double date. But this is how connections are made, through family and by hairdo.

I know I should give Kit a call, but she's all right where she is and, after all, the work comes first and the work is here. I flirt like crazy with Daniel and don't let up till we come to terms. I shouldn't come to his place, he says. The girlfriend disapproves. He'll deliver.

We do a few lines and help Massimo and Cherry with their packing. What a domesticated crew we are—and what a nice night it's become, too nice to spend alone. When I leave, I take Daniel home with me.

I like his craggy French face and black hair, his accent, and his dope. His mother smuggles it from Turkey to Marseilles. His mother! I like that, too. “Doesn't she know what she's carrying?” I squeal over coffee. It's morning. We didn't get much sleep.

“Oh, sure. She just likes to travel. I could get away with it once or twice, but they never search her at the borders. She's a
bourgeoise
, you know, but she looks like an aristocrat. They think she's trading jewelry from abroad. My mother is very chic.”

I can believe that. Daniel seems to have more than the usual measure of vanity, for a man. Maybe it's a French thing, maybe a dope thing, I don't know. Drug addicts tend to fuss.

Kit's condition improves with the upswing in the quality of our dope. Daniel's a boon to the business. The customers remark on the difference.

“You're in such a good mood,” they say. “My, aren't we chipper!”

“I'm having a sunny spell” is all I say. They can figure out the rest.

THE BOOK

November 1983. I prepare for the book I'm going to write, the one that will legalize heroin. “It's so NEEDED,” says Magna. She'll bring me a book to help with my research—
Diary of a Drug Fiend
, by Aleister Crowley. A classic. But, she says, it's OLD, and a downer. She's counting on me to bring us up to date.

She's not the only one. Books come in from others, too—whatever anyone can find on narcotics laws, drug trafficking, or addiction. I have to ask Ridley to build me a new bookcase. I put the books on the shelves, certain they say nothing I don't already know, but to please my friends I read snatches aloud while they're here in the chairs. To their nods and grunts, their muttered amens, I read about the romance of drugs and the nightmare of addiction. I go through the history of the world.

There has never been a day people didn't want a drug, not since the beginning of civilized time. Prohibition's never worked, how can anyone think it will? Aren't the jails and hospitals full enough? Drugs are financing films, revolutions, art projects, businesses large and small. They generate millions of dollars in research, not to mention hundreds of hours of entertainment value. What would television writers do for material without drug dealers and drug users? There's hardly a show on today whose plot doesn't turn on some aspect of drugs. Clinics provide employment for I don't know how many ex-addicts and paid killers society is happy to keep off the street. Policing the borders is no good. Drugs are the biggest business there is. Even back in 1870, so many Persian farmers were growing opium there was a famine, and it didn't stop them then. In China, chandoo was practically the national stimulant, much more profitable than rice. You can grow opium anywhere there isn't excessive rainfall and the labor's cheap. It says so right here, in one of these books.

Cal brought it over. He wants to paint my portrait. I'll think about it, I say. How about Sunday? Come Sunday. (It's my day off; the phone won't wake me.)