by Cat Bruno
“Shit, you should have just offered that from the beginning.”
Lincoln, despite being an addict, was good-looking. He had just turned twenty, he told me as we walked to a nearby restaurant, but had been on heroin for two years. When I asked if Tyler’s death had made him fearful, he assured me that he knew his own limits.
“Tyler always wanted a bigger high,” he huffed. “Man, that’s what so many of these junkies don’t understand. You have to stay in your lane. The most I’ll do is two bags at a pop. I’ve never had Narcan used on me, you know.”
“Neither had Tyler,” I reminded him before asking if he had ever gone to rehab.
His fingers trembled as he pushed a knife across a roll, buttering it until the insides shined wet. I glanced at his forearm, which bore a tattooed image of crossed revolvers and hinted at another side of him. After he finished the roll, he answered me with the honest brevity that I would come to expect.
“No money for it. And I haven’t gone to jail long enough for it to be offered.”
“You seem too young to be an addict.”
He didn’t disagree. Instead, he said, “Most are older than me, for sure.”
“Can you introduce me to a few?” I hesitatingly asked.
Shaking his head, Lincoln stated, “You’re asking for trouble, Ms. Jackman. It’s a war zone out there, and you’re used to taking pictures of what? Sunsets and flowers?”
“Hardly,” I laughed with a growing ease. Lincoln had the natural charm that so many try to buy or fake. A way with people, I suppose.
“What else can you tell me about the scene?”
Our waitress lingered at the table while Lincoln spoke of Carfentanil, a synthetic opioid that had surged in popularity.
“That shit is strong,” he whistled. “You know they use it on elephants and shit like that.”
“Have you tried it?” I asked once the purple-haired woman left.
His shoulders lifted in quiet affirmation.
“Do you work?”
“Yeah, at a gas station near my house.”
“Do you go to work high?”
“Not usually. I might be coming down sometimes when I’m there.”
After dinner, he agreed to let me tag along with him for a few hours. I again promised that I would refrain from showing his face or full name. Only that cloak of anonymity allowed me to stay, and I did not break any rules in granting him such.
“Pretend I’m not here,” I suggested. His raised eyebrows indicated that the offer was far from realistic.
My editor had reminded me before I left that I should not seek to alter anything that might occur in front of me. When I pressed him for an example, he explained that I might witness an overdose or criminal activity.
“You have always arrived at the scene after the police have, Dandelion,” he had said. “With this story, you will be a part of it. Present and evolving. But that does not give you the right to interfere. If you have fears or doubts, call the police once you have safely exited.”
I must admit that I had not given his advice enough weight until I began trailing after Lincoln. But I refused to abandon the story, even when it found me in an abandoned warehouse with more broken windows than full ones. After snapping a few shots of the building’s exterior as the orange-red sun shifted low behind it and painted streaks of fire over its sloping, metal roof, I caught up with Lincoln. I listened as he explained who I was to the gathered group. To me, it seemed as if I had entered a recovery meeting, and I was the only one who recognized the irony. The group – three men and two women – sat on wooden pallets stacked to resemble benches and formed a crooked circle. Lincoln stood behind one of the women and was rubbing her bare shoulders in a friendly massage. They all eyed me unevenly, and no drug paraphernalia could be seen. I was not naïve enough to think that they were clean; Lincoln’s warning had scared them off.
For most pictures, the Gazette’s policy is that a release must be obtained if a person can be identified in a private setting. In a public space, the rules are much looser, but the warehouse presented a gray in between, and I struggled with what I should do next. I doubted that any of them would sign a release, so I introduced myself as I had with Lincoln and assured them that I would allow them to approve any image I recorded.
“It is not my intention to cause any of you embarrassment or legal trouble,” I vowed with sincerity that I did not fake.
“She’s cool,” Lincoln told them, but his words were not met with acceptance.
Within an hour or so, it became clear that my presence was unwelcome. Someone’s phone played a strange collection of music, jumping from the pulsing beats of electronica to guitar-heavy country songs. I made myself as small as possible and walked through the building unaccompanied, lifting my camera here and there to capture the industrial deconstruction. Just after I had climbed down from a lofting alcove, Lincoln found me.
“They want you to leave.”
His words were curving and slurred, and his lake-blue eyes shined. He was high, I suddenly realized.
Nodding to show him that I understood, I quietly asked if I could take one final picture.
“Just your eyes,” I explained.
Before he could change his mind, I lifted my camera and hastily snapped the upper half of his face. His eyes shifted liked waterfalls – shining, clear, and powerful as they descended into a crescendo of foaming bubbles. But rising uncertainty behind his water-softened gaze tainted the beauty crystallizing there. Regret, mesmerizing in one so young, haunted him.
In the final moments I spent with Lincoln, he walked with me toward the rear exit of the warehouse. There, nearly all of the windows had been shattered and jagged chunks of glass hung desperately onto the wooden frames. I squeezed through the narrow opening of the door, where the thick-linked chains had been loosened enough to allow entry. Before I walked further, I looked back at him. He stared at me through one of the broken windows, and I lifted my camera once more.
Visible just above a lightning-shaped chard, his eyes watched me. His mouth hovered just out of sight, and I do not know if he spoke. Behind me, a light post gleamed in yellowing rays, which fell across the windows like divine streaks. Lincoln’s gaze, bordered by abandoned decay, became edged with the reflecting light and shadows cut crooked lines across the rest of his face.
Weeks later, it would be that image that would be the final one in the gallery that would captivate and shock the Gazette’s readers.
__
The next morning, I returned to Columbus. William seemed happy that I had returned safely and without an addiction of my own. When he pressed me for the names of those who I had contacted, I told him that I did not ask for any of their last names, so that we might all be protected. The attorney in him doubted me and pushed further, but I did not sway.
“They’re addicts, William,” I told him with a long sigh. “Their lives are bad enough as it is.”
Days later, I made my way south, to an area that bordered Kentucky; a rural town that had little commerce or industry. Opiates had taken hold in this tri-state region a few years earlier, and methadone clinics doled out Suboxone regularly and at higher percentages than across other counties in Ohio. Here, the heroin was nearly always mixed with fentanyl, which resulted in a spike in overdoses and a higher rate of deaths. I did not have any contacts in the area aside from a doctor at one of the clinics, which is where I was headed when Toby called.
“Dandelion, we need to finalize your bridesmaid dresses,” he chastised me. “What about the burnt orange ones?”
“Were you able to get in touch with William’s cousins?” I asked loudly over the sound of my tires clunking against the uneven road.
“That’s where I am headed now. I must admit that I find it strange that you have no bridesmaids of your own choosing.”
“What about Alison and Tessa?” I reminded him of two friends from college.
“Since I have yet to meet them, I don’t quite know that they
exist,” he laughed.
The two were twin sisters, and both had moved to Virginia after college. They each had had babies within the last six months, and could not come to Columbus until the weekend of the wedding. Arrangements had been made to order their dresses based upon their measurements and have them shipped to them for fittings, which Toby knew.
“You live to tease me,” I mumbled too low for him to hear.
Louder, I stated, “You are the wedding planner, so pick what you think is best. And my cousin Alexis will be there if you can pick her up. Let her choose.”
“I am the wedding planner, not the bride,” he reminded me again.
When we first met, I asked him why he had chosen to become a wedding planner. I still remember what answer he gave: What woman with money does not want a gay man as a best friend? I had not argued then, nor would I now.
“Can you FaceTime me from the shop? I am out of town for a few days working on a story. If you don’t have Alexis’s number, let me know and I’ll text it to you.”
“The heroin thing again? Don’t come back an addict,” he warned, parroting William’s distasteful joke. “I’ll call your cousin and make arrangements, but, really, you should be here for this.”
“I have to stop just ahead, Toby, but make sure you call me tomorrow,” came my hurried reply as I neared my turn.
While I was in France, after I decided that William must die, I thought on ways to kill him. Which would be the cleanest? Which would be the least suspicious? How could I be far from him when it happened? I had thought that I could poison him, but after I did some research on one of the burner phones, I decided against that. It would be far too risky to attempt to hire someone. I hated guns and knives, so that was out. Staging a suicide was far too premeditated and far too complicated.
I wanted something easy. And mostly painless.
And, of course, I did not want anyone to believe that it was murder at all.
Surrounded by so much heroin and so many opiates, I figured that this assignment had made things simple for me. Sure, some would question the irony that I had been the feature photographer for a segment about drug abuse, but proving an overdose as intentional is a very difficult thing to do. It shouldn’t surprise you that this particular thought crossed my mind. You saw this coming, right?
Most of the staff was out for lunch when I arrived at the clinic, and a woman with the feathered hair of another generation gruffly told me that it would be best if I waited in my car.
“Park in the back and leave your camera in your car,” she added without looking up from her phone.
She cared little for who I was or that I had driven down from Columbus. In small towns like these, the city, which was a three-hour drive, existed as if in another world. A trip to the airport or hospital was their only reason for going. But I did not argue, and stood outside my car in the gray, gravelly lot while I waited for Dr. Basra to return. As I leaned against the slanting hood of my car, I scrolled through my pictures from Akron, and thought of Lincoln. It had become clear after our arrival at the warehouse that he was a middleman who sold more than he used. In a den of rookies, he was a veteran, despite his youth. When he spoke of the various hybrids, it was with the knowledge of a businessman. He was the type of guy that William’s counterparts in Summit County would beg to have information on.
But I was no rat.
When a late-model BMW rounded the building and splashed dust and cinders across my pink-painted toes, I knew that Dr. Basra had returned.
Wearing wrinkled khaki pants and a navy button-down shirt, he exited his car and paused to greet me.
“You’re the reporter from Columbus,” he stated with thickly accented words.
“Dandelion Jackman,” I nodded, extending my hand. “A photojournalist, here to take some photos with your permission.”
“That will be a hard sell,” he laughed. “But follow me. You can see what a day is like down here.”
Dr. Basra was the type of man who did not attempt to hide how much he hated his job. Years of medical school and thousands of dollars spent to land in a rural town that viewed him as both a foreigner and drug dealer. Hundreds of miles from culture or cuisine, he was stuck in this land where coal and steel had given way to timber and opioids, stripping both the land and the soul.
“Whom did you piss off to get this assignment?” he asked once the door of his office closed behind us. Noticing my surprise at his words, Dr. Basra continued, “My apologies. After three years here, I speak much like a native.”
It seemed odd to laugh, but I smiled and answered, “As you know, Ohio leads the nation in overdoses and deaths. The Gazette plans on covering the issue more fully and with an eagle-eyed focus that no other newspaper has done so far. I am quite proud of this work and hope that my pictures can make a difference in how people see addicts and the treatment options available to them.”
“A valiant goal,” he said somewhat dismissively as he placed black-framed glasses on. “Let’s go meet some of your subjects now.”
The first was a woman who appeared to be at least fifty; patches of her face were marked with dark spots and scars from the unkind years of a life lived hard. I listened from the corner as Dr. Basra introduced me and asked her permission for me to stay. In a voice deepened by cigarettes and whiskey, she told me that everyone in Ironton already knew that she was on methadone. As Dr. Basra asked her what seemed like a list of memorized questions, I pulled out a release form and pen. Terri, I overheard him call her, complained that her prescription did not contain enough pills.
“I don’t want to be tempted to use again,” she grumbled when he reminded her that the goal should be to taper off and not increase her supply.
“Are you still going to your group meetings?”
“When I can get a ride. There’s a new mediator each time, though. No one wants to stay around here.”
“Well, Terri, here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll write you a refill for the same dosage for the next four weeks. But after that, we are going to have to start looking at some other options.” As he scribbled on his pad, Dr. Basra asked me if I would like to speak with Terri in private.
After an awkward glance toward her, I asked if she had plans on attending a meeting this evening and if I could accompany her.
“You have a car?”
When I nodded, she asked to borrow Dr. Basra’s pen and wrote down her address. “Pick me up here around 6:45.”
I followed the doctor from the room and back into his office.
“Terri is harmless enough. She’s one of the few who I would let you travel with,” the man dryly suggested.
“Are they all looking for more pills?” I asked.
“Most of them are not given take-home prescriptions like Terri has. They come here for a dose when they feel like they are going to use. Less than twenty percent of my patients have been clean long enough to be trusted with a prescription.”
“That’s not a high number,” I admitted with no attempt to cover my surprise.
Dr. Basra ran his sun-tanned hands through his dark hair, which he kept long on top, and said, “They’re addicts. And most have committed criminal acts because of their abuse. We’re the best option for those in the early stages of their recovery and when in-house treatment programs aren’t available. Some of the patients come daily. After a year of being clean, we allow them to visit three times a week. After two years, they are allowed a monthly prescription, like Terri has.”
“How long should one stay on methadone?” I inquired, realizing I knew little of how the treatment program worked.
“At least a year. Some can have success after a few months, but, in my experience, that is rare.”
“And for people like Terri who use it for long-term maintenance?”
“It’s better than the alternative. She can stay on it for years, as long as her blood screens are clear of other drugs.”
“So heroin is that bad then?”
“Come with
me,” he sighed without further commentary.
Moments later, I would learn why.
Jesse, his skin winter white despite the lengthening days of spring, quaked with withdrawal as Dr. Basra quizzed him. Half of his face was covered with a green and brown camouflage hat that had been curved and dirtied, and I could only see his chin and lips. Both were covered with unshaved hair, weeks worth if I were to guess.
“You look worse than yesterday,” Dr. Basra told the man roughly.
“I don’t think I can do this,” the man mumbled as he shifted back and forth on the examination table.
“The first few days are the worst. Did you use last night? If so, I cannot give you a dose.”
“No, man, I ain’t using. I told you that yesterday.”
As he wrote a note on the man’s file, the doctor asked who had brought him to the clinic.
“My girlfriend Mandy.”
“Is she still using, Jesse?”
The man’s hands pulled his hat free, and his fingers wiped off bits of mud as he answered, “We both quit. She’s trying to get into Meadow Lakes.”
“And your job? Have you given your boss proof that you’ve been coming here?”
Once his hat was back in place and masked his eyes, Jesse said, “I texted him a picture of those papers your nurse gave me. I can’t go to work while I’m still so sick.”
Dr. Basra nodded.
“Be happy that he is letting you come back at all. Give yourself another week, but you should be able to return next Wednesday.”
“Man, I’m broke, Dr. Basra. I can’t afford to miss this many days.”
“Is your girlfriend working?”
“She watches our kids and her sister’s kids. But she’s been applying for some jobs in case she doesn’t get into rehab.”
“How old are the kids?”
“Eight and five. Her sister’s are younger, maybe two and four.”
With each question, Jesse’s shaking intensified. He reminded me of a rat caught in a maze and searching for the cheese that would end the interrogation. He was older than me, but I could not be certain how much so. That was what I noticed most about the addicts I was meeting: their ages were difficult to guess. The thought of his children having two addicts as parents filled me with uneasiness, which I figured was part of what Dr. Basra had implied.
