Why I Committed Suicide (31 page)

There’s another big thing that’s going on. The house is finally disbanding. Jerry is moving in with the sorority girl he’s been shagging for a few years and they look like they’ll get married at some point. Dan is getting out of town for a bit and Kirk is moving in with Bryce since David’s shit is all fucked up with smack right now too and Bryce needs a roommate who can pay rent. I’m moving into Jenifer’s apartment and sadly I already know where the extra money we save on rent will be going.

Adrenaline: In some animals it makes them stiff with fright, with others it delivers bursts of action and activity. Humans are a combination of both; our brain is trained to overrule our instincts. The rare form of the athlete is applauded because he focuses his mind into utilizing the power being generated by his own body. There are other athletes that merely surrender to their primitive brutal urges, tapping into the same energy but not as formally or even intimately. The difference is comparable to drinking a rich wine where the grapes have been carefully tended, prepared and aged in just the right fashion, or drinking a gallon jug of hooch. The energy source being tapped into is the same and the results are often comparable, but the crowd always senses when it’s “on” in the mind and body of the athlete. That’s why all of us wait. That’s why we are bored by the rules, angered by the referees and also why our emotional lives become wrapped up in competition. We want a show. We want a display of skill; a POP of surprise and excitement that makes us light up with smile or grimace in horror.

The alternative to the increasingly rare normal person with a healthy normal cool-headed decision making balance, is where society’s perversions and odd urges creep into our lives. I suppose we all know the available forms of escape by now and if nothing works, or feels as if it’s working, then there is always the choice of ending this existence in hopes of an exchange for something better.

We are burnouts. The synapses and receptors I had in me are fucking fried everywhere except my heart. Through all of this shit, I still love Jenifer more than ever. I’ve overloaded my system with junk trying to give solace to my pain, only it’s creating more pain than it alleviates now. The pain of my generation.

I started out writing about adrenaline because I got fired from the Tomato today. That’s bad news for me but it’s also kind of good in a way. Without having the stolen beer money crutch I get from the Tomato maybe I can focus on cleaning up my life and doing the right thing for me and Jenifer in the future. Besides it was worth getting fired. I knew if I let what happened go, I would have to spend years in therapy regretting giving into my
flight
instinct when I should have had the balls to
fight.

I was standing behind the counter helping make the afternoon lunch orders for people as they filtered in the door. When this guy, who I vaguely recognize, parks his white Nissan truck in the spot out front and comes in to order a slice of pizza. I’m not working the register but I’m standing behind the counter kind of looking at him as he’s giving his order when it finally hits me where I know him from. He’s one of the managers from Hastings and he’s looking at me like he knows about the crap that went down. He’s a young, average mid-management-sized white guy (cursed with a curly blond mullet hair) and he starts to say something to me when Becky inadvertently walks between us and asks me to go wash the windows outside. I fill up a big bucket of warm water and soap, get the squeegee and go outside, enjoying the morning and doing my work. I’ve about worked my way around to the front when Manager Boy comes out with his lunch and gets in his truck. I’m standing there with this squeegee in my hand staring at him and giving him a semi-evil eye since I’m not 100% sure that he’s the guy who fingered me. Then from the seat of his truck he starts yelling at me and giving me shit. He’s on Fry St., MY street, shouting that I’m a thief, telling me to “fuck off’ and to “stop staring” at him. I give him my best smirk and still stand there not saying anything to him, fully knowing now that he’s the prick that got himself promoted by pointing the cops towards me. He’s even a Flying Tomato regular; I watched as he ordered his food and he knew exactly what to get, so I’m guessing he’s the guy who told the cops where to find me too.

I’m getting more and more pissed at this guy sitting in his truck starting shit with me through his open window. I’m being calm on the outside but the whole time he’s yelling, I’m standing there getting angrier and angrier at his tirade, holding this huge 10 gallon bucket of scummy water that I just used to wash the windows. He finally figures out he can’t bait me into reacting, shakes his head, and he’s about to drive off when he starts talking about Jenifer, referring to that “blonde bitch who should have gotten busted too.”

Fucking punk!
I’m seeing nothing but red then, all the shit in my life right now and all the anger that’s built up while worrying about how to change my life for the better, and this guy wants to throw down. NOBODY calls Jenifer a cunt and a bitch in front of me and NOBODY tells me they tried to get her in trouble with the law without repercussions. I threw the squeegee down so I wouldn’t have a weapon and gave him a quick rabbit punch to the jaw. It was just a light tap, and while he was stunned for a second I picked up the full 10 gallon bucket of shit-water and poured it right into his driver side window, all over his work clothes, his lap, his lunch, his hair, his stereo and several rental tapes in the car.
Fucking punk, NOBODY!

He gets out of the car and I know I’m going to beat the shit out of him, but by that point I’m serial killer calm and while he’s still sputtering water I’ve already calmly walked into the Tomato and found Becky. I quickly corner her and say “I know you are going to have to fire me, so I’m going to quit now instead and save you the trouble. I’m sorry it has to be this way, thank you for giving me a job here all these years, now I’m going to go and beat the fuck out of this guy.”

By that time, I’ve got my work clothes off so that the Tomato isn’t going to be held liable and this guy’s soaking wet at the counter wanting to talk to the manager and insisting they call the cops. I’ve run up there too and I’m just reaching over the counter to get a piece of his ass when little Becky races up behind me and gets between us. This guy’s crying like a bitch now, talking about the cops and screaming to Becky that her employee is a thief, trying to tell her about the Hastings incident. Becky tells him to shut up, calls the cops for him and then gets in his face with an inhuman amount of resolve and tells him he has no right coming in here and antagonizing people or calling them thieves and that if he has a problem in his own store he should take it up there. Go Becky!

In about two seconds the police are there and then this guy is blubbering to the two cops about what happened, trying to get me arrested for assaulting him with hot water and for vandalism since the videotapes in his front seat got wet. I’m calm by then and when each officer takes us aside to interview us separately, I tell my cop straight up that Manager Boy came into the store where I worked, followed me back outside giving me shit and finally insulted my girlfriend so I poured a bucket of water on his head instead of kicking in his teeth. Since the guy isn’t really hurt and he’s blubbering like a puss, the cops kind of laugh it off, telling Manager Boy to go home and clean up and that they’ll file a statement for him. He drives off and they tell me I can go on home and that’s it. I quit or I got fired depending how you want to look at it, but it was SO fucking worth it. I’ll remember that surprised look on that fucker’s face and laugh about it for the rest of my life. I might not even need to find him and kick in his teeth.

“Temporality is the cause of all sorrow.”

—Joseph Campbell

Jenifer and I are moving out of the dilapidated apartment from behind the house of love. With all of our friends so fucked up with their various shit we’re taking baby steps to try and get ourselves together and beat this plague. Half of our friends are addicted to smack and the other half of our friends are addicted to shooting meth and coke.

All this drama and shit is spreading through town faster than a virus. New people I would have never pegged as dope heads are looking to Jen and I for leadership in getting them started, like we’re the fucking pioneers that paved a smooth path into some fucking unknown wilderness. There is nothing worse than giving somebody who’s never injected drugs their first shot. Their eager eyes are always tinged with slight frightfulness and then their faces light up as the rush hits them and everything makes sense to them for the first time. It makes me feel guilty because a month or so down the line I might meet the same person and they’re shooting themselves up with anything imaginable or helping some nai’ve kid do their first shot. Everyone enjoys it too fucking much. The next thing we know the same people who were our friends are coming over to our house begging to score, trying to fuck shit up, or eyeing the fucking stereo.

We’re generation-fucking-X and what do we believe in except the shallowness we observe? Addiction is flesh without life, it’s as if the instincts that spawning salmon follow to justify their death have been initiated in us, we’ve activated a switch in our heads that somehow makes it ok to follow this path of self destruction.

No more. Jen and I are getting the hell out of here. Sleep is good, but sleeping while we’re awake is just blindness.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

We’ve tried everything to stop. Jenifer even told her mom what was going on and she brought us over bananas and bread so we could eat while trying to kick, trying to kick is the worst a person can ever feel. Her mom found out when we took Jenifer to Charter rehab hospital for treatment, but after being there a few hours, she threw a fit and signed herself out of there. I got the call to pick her up. I didn’t ask too much about it and I was sad she failed because what does that say for me? I don’t even have insurance to pay for something like that if I wanted to go. I need help.

The body stops producing the endorphins that regulate pain in everyday life. So with the Heroin gone and the endorphins on vacation, everything in my body hurts. I can feel every bit of pain that’s caused by the hair follicles pushing their way through my skin everyday and that’s just one nuisance; I won’t even get into trying to use the bathroom or the pain in my intestines. AHHHH.

My stomach can’t hold anything at all, I hardly even sip water and my tummy produces green acidic bile as if it’s digesting itself. My throat feels like hydrochloric acid. My eyes forget how to adjust to the light. My body rebels against me in every fashion imaginable—clear and strong expression of its displeasure. I’m burning up with chills, sweats, diarrhea. Thus, I would rob my own mother at this point to get dope. There is no sleeping, only fit full nightmares and more of the same. It feels worse than being dead. It’s hell. It’s been about three days now. I’m told these first three days are the worst, and, if you can make it through, you’ll feel yourself getting better and by that point a little better is something.

Getting my hands on some Tylenol with codeine or something could be a lifer saver; even a couple valiums would ease this torture. That’s the only way I know how to try and make it through the detox from smack. Honestly, it’s the only way I’ve made it lately. The voices in my head kick in strong now, I am fighting myself every second of every minute of every day.

Some people can get on a methadone program, and Ive heard that shit works, but I’ve also heard it’s more addictive and takes longer to get off of the need-to-be-high kick. Odd. Most people I know on methadone also go out and score, using the methadone to give their buzz a little kick. Fuck that. That’s another problem I don’t need in my life—methadone, shit.

And then there’s Jenifer and she’s in as much pain as I am and it breaks my heart. I can distract
myself
into doing something, but for her, there’s nothing to do except ride it out or get more dope. If I could tolerate sounds, I would listen to Morrissey, hole up here and just feel sorry for myself…but I can’t ignore Jenifer or her pain. Everything is real and strong and powerful. It hurts to have somebody lying in the same bed; even the scratch of blankets against my skin whenever she moves hurts like somebody’s putting pins in my body.

WE’VE almost made it through a few times all the way, almost back to functional adults. And then to celebrate, we’ve gone to get us a little—knowing that with our tolerance down, getting just a little bit will really fuck our shit up. When your brain and body work together to trick you into something they both want, it’s similar to being possessed. Ah this sucks, suck sucks.

Evident, but worthy of stating: the new apartment isn’t helping much. It’s shinier and nicer but we keep falling into the same habits. I have this new job lined up with Kroger’s; I took the “honesty test” that they give new employees and found out that I passed the other day. The test was a joke though, “Is it right to give friends money out of the cash register even if they say they’ll bring it right back?” I was more worried that the shoplifting arrest on my record might screw it up for me, but it looks like I’m good to go. I realized the other day that I’ve held a steady job of some sort or another since I was about thirteen, maybe earlier, and this will likely be another shitty addition to my resume, but it’ll help pay the bills and that’s all that matters right now.

There are still more and more people around us shooting dope. Our apartment is all the way across campus now and the rent is more expensive but it’s also more isolated and easier to hide out in. Plus I feel better about having neighbors that can see if anyone tries to break into our place. Every scrap of money we can beg borrow or steal goes towards our habit now. We drive down to Dallas every day just to hook up with our Mexican “friends”. I’ve never written about the drama that goes along with doing a street level dope deal and I don’t feel like rehashing the obvious. We are totally at their mercy as far as scheduling goes. Half of our time is spent waiting for a return call by a shitty payphone in the worst parts of town. There’s an army of white people that will cater to anything these guys want. I imagine the money and power is addicting but I see the wear and tear in the dealers’ lives too. One guy we score from is called “Negro” (pronounced “Nay-grow”) even though he’s Mexican. I’ve seen some of the older junkies like Donut trade him boxes of formula and diapers for his baby in exchange for dope. Weird shit.