Heroin Chronicles

by Jerry Stahl

  The Casa Sonora, a seedy motel a few blocks from the park that rents only to lost souls, will be the last permanent roof over my head until I get clean. My small room contains bulky, antiquated wooden furniture, carpet worn thin as cloth, and stark white walls. Cheaply framed Van Goghs that I rip out of a dime store calendar offset the funereal atmosphere.

  A local gangbanger crack dealer, Spooky, sometimes stows away in my room to smoke so his homies don’t find out he’s getting high on his own supply. He rarely says a word. The only evidence of his presence in my room is the noise the lighter makes when he lights up. He likes that I never pester him for a hit. He is gorgeous. The ladies swoon.

  On what will become my last night here, Spooky’s ex-girlfriend ambushes me in the hallway. In a murderous rage, she grabs me by the throat and drags me to the banister to throw me over. I fall back into the wall and make myself as heavy as possible. When she realizes she can’t lift me she unleashes punches to the back of my head, stomach, torso, and chest. I am so terrified I can’t scream for help. She spits at me. I keep my head down to safeguard my face. She tries to push me down the seven flights of stairs. She tries to pry my hands open but I grip the railing with every ounce of strength I can muster and she’s powerless. I don’t want to die this way, murdered by someone else’s hands. It is my life, mine to destroy and no one else’s, and I want to live. I figure that everybody has to take a beating at some point and this is my turn. But I’ll be damned if I’ll let this mindless Medusa take my life. Her kicks are like a baseball bat on the side of my body. She’s screaming vitriolic obscenities inches from my face. No one comes out to check on the commotion. I cling onto the railing with all the life force within me. My mouth tastes metallic. My sweat feels sticky. I look down—it’s blood. Her screaming pierces my eardrums like daggers. Neither of us notice my gigantic ex-con neighbor, Cadillac, until he pulls her off me and throws her against the wall.

  “You better watch yourself, bitch,” she snarls, and takes off. My eyes are squeezed shut. I don’t dare move. I jump at the tap on my shoulder. Cadillac asks if I need help getting back to my room. I assure him I’m okay. He treads softly back to his room as if he knows the slightest movement may cause me more pain. After an eternity, I let go of the railing. I crawl back to my room on my hands and knees, and once inside I lie down against the door and curl up in the fetal position. I fall asleep counting my bloodstained tears as they soak into the carpet. I dream of floating on waves, suspended between a starless night and the deep blue sea.

  The Van Goghs frown upon me in the morning as I throw some clothes and toiletries into my junkie luggage—a black trash bag. Miraculously, my face doesn’t bear any traces of last night’s homicidal attack, but the rest of me feels like I did ten rounds with Muhammad Ali. When I reach the foyer I picture myself splattered on the snow-white marble floor. My blood pouring out into the street. It sends shivers through me as though someone walked over my grave. Scoring is the first order of the day. The monster is awake and it’s demanding to be fed.

  I’ve been thrown out of every other motel in the area for nonpayment or drama. There’s nowhere left to go. I’m living like a feral alley cat, in the basement of an abandoned building. I have dragged a chair and table out of the trash through the hole in the chain-link fence. The perfect setup for the day’s only activities. Cooking up, shooting up, and nodding out. I can’t risk being on the streets during the day. I have racked up a number of felonies and nonappearances in court, and the local cops know my face. I may as well be wearing a scarlet “A” for Addict. I’m an arrest waiting to happen. Next time I’m stopped I’m going to the pokey. And that’s a hell I don’t want to visit because there I would have to kick. There’s no dope in jail. And that is what I fear the most.

  I cop before sunrise, walking through the side streets and back alleys, passing the cardboard dwellers and sleeping bodies on the ground. After my early-morning dose of stress and anxiety, relief and gratitude pour over me once back in the safety of my living and dying room. Unwrapping the balloon takes a small forever. Who wraps these, Mexican midgets with tiny midget fingers? At long last I get the dope into the spoon. I squirt a bit of water over it and heat the mixture with my lighter to dissolve it. My needle is as dull as one of the nails used to crucify Jesus, so I sharpen it on a matchbox. The amber nectar has cooled, and I draw it into the syringe. I have to swing my arm around like a windmill to get my blood pumping. Otherwise I won’t hit a vein and will end up looking like a bleeding pincushion.

  I caress my arm in search of a vessel to carry me to oblivion. One pops up and my teeth clench as the needle goes in. I pull back the plunger and watch my blood blooming like flowers in the syringe.

  The shades of my blood are ever-changing, depending on time of day, body temperature, and circumstances. I label the crimson and red hues each time they appear in the needle, like tubes of lipstick. Scarlet Harlot, Better Red than Dead, Poppy Love, The Bride Wore Crimson, Devil’s Magenta, Fuchsia Fox. Mine are more romantic sounding than the names the makeup companies use. I push the plunger down, and before the needle’s even out of my vein, my breathing slows and my heartbeat is barely there. I am God. I want to live forever. I don’t want to die, I just want to stay high. My chin hits my chest. Let the drooling commence. A movie plays in my mind’s eye, directed by David Lynch. In it I’m fronting a rhythm & blues band, wearing gold lamé pedal pushers with a matching gold jacket and nothing underneath. My tiny breasts make a cameo appearance every so often. The backing vocalists are horrified. I’m singing at 33 rpm, though I should be at 45 rpm. Swaying on my gold five-inch stilettos like a wounded bull in a bullfight, bleeding out as it struggles to stay standing. The audience below waits for me to keel over and die, or for the song to end, to put them and me out of our collective misery. I can’t keep up but I carry on butchering the classic James Brown tune.

  I feel good,

  I knew that I would, now

  I feel good,

  I knew that I would, now

  So good,

  So good,

  I got you.

  I feel someone’s presence down here with me. I lift my two-hundred-pound head up off my chest. A silhouette stands in the doorway, backlit by the unrelenting sun.

  “Girl, I would knock but you ain’t got a door. Girl, you in there?” The Marilyn Monroe voice belongs to Angela, a six-foot-tall Nicaraguan ladyboy. She’s stunning; black cat eyes, black shiny shoulder-length hair, cherry-red lips, and legs that put any supermodel’s to shame. Angela just got out from doing three months in jail. She’s still in the men’s clothing the county gave her upon her release. I’m annoyed she found my hideout but I try not to show it. There aren’t any steps and she has to jump down onto the dirt floor.

  She glances at our surroundings and asks, “How you livin’?”

  “Large.”

  We howl with laughter and hug.

  “Preciosa, give me something to wear and some whorepaint. I need to get out of this boy drag. I’m keeping a low profile until I go into this drug program in the desert. I got bumped up their waiting list cause of the SIDA. You should come with me.”

  SIDA is Spanish for AIDS.

  “Don’t be a vibe slayer,” I say, raising an eyebrow and giving her my best stink eye.

  “I heard about the beating you got. You should get out of the neighborhood. This place ain’t no joke. Get yourself in a program. Don’t you know there’s nothing but hope for us until we’re six feet under?”

  “Hope is for suckers, Angela. And frankly, I would rather get the shit kicked out of me again than go to rehab.”

  Angela keeps up a steady stream of mindless chatter. I stop listening. The only way to get rid of her is to give her what she wants. I want to go back to nodding in solitude. My trash bag’s hidden behind some rotting cardboard boxes. In exchange for clothes, she gives me a balloon. We prepare a shot. I fix first, before letting her use my rig. She has no problem hitting a vein. They’re thick as ropes; t
hey’re all that’s left of her masculinity. I’m jealous of her veins. The Marilyn voice has slowed to a purr. I light a cigarette for her and put it between her lips. Eyes closed, she smiles with every part of her face as if this were the kindest gesture anyone has ever made toward her. The first shot of dope’s always the best after a period of abstinence. The cigarette falls onto the trash bag lying between her feet, and I pick it up and finish it in a few drags.

  I come to some time later. It’s dark and quiet. I could be the last surviving person on earth. All of Angela’s happy horseshit about getting clean keeps echoing around inside my skull. I have to obliterate the thoughts. I have to do more dope to forget what I had to do to get the dope. I lead a vampiric existence—out of the sunlight during the day and into the moonlight at night. I only come out at neon. An existence as mediocre and mundane as the bourgeoisie and the nine-to-fivers I detest. My life’s become so small you can barely see it under a microscope. Being a dope fiend is a twenty-four-hour-a-day job with no time off and no vacations. And the most dreadful thought of them all: What am I doing? That is the one thought I have to kill. I need to end this unwanted moment of clarity. I still have a tiny piece left of Angela’s gift. I light a few candles and prepare another shot. Hitting a vein by the flickering light turns into a bloodbath. If the blood coagulates the heroin clogs up and won’t go through the tiny opening of the spike. That’s a waste I can’t afford. A dozen holes later I’m in.

  The girl’s face staring back at me from my compact is suffering from malnutrition. My skin is diaphanous, I can almost see the bones in the front part of my skull. All I need now is lipstick and I’ll look fabulous. It’s not in my purse. Probably because its nestled in Angela’s faux cleavage. She’s an unrepentant thief.

  Crouching in the wild overgrown weeds, I poke my head out of the hole in the fence to make sure the coast is clear. At dusk the air reeks of night-blooming jasmine intermingled with exhaust fumes and the infamous smog blanketing the City of Angels. Six to nine is family values time. A sea of bodies flows in and out of the local stores. A pulsating microorganism, the antithesis of the invading scary monsters and super freaks that come out after all the good people have turned in for the night. The hustle and bustle takes away my loneliness.

  Waiting for the traffic light to turn green, I see a man and his young son struggling to get a cart up the steps of a building. I met Jose and Jesus selling homemade tamales outside a mini-mall where foot traffic is always heavy. When I was hungry I would stop by, and more often than not they would feed me for free. They were Christian; what Christians should be. Even though I politely decline Jose’s numerous invitations to go to church, they are always happy to see me. Even though I am part of the problem, another neighborhood junkie, they don’t judge and they don’t ask questions.

  Jose and I share a love of Pablo Neruda’s poems. He told me he wooed his wife Maria by reciting them to her. These sporadic exchanges bring me close to them. Awakening a small desire in me to be “normal” again.

  I hurry across the street to help, eager to do something for them for a change. When we get the cart into the lobby, Jose insists I come stay with his family for a couple of nights. My protestations fall on deaf ears. I follow them up the three flights of stairs and Jose opens the door into a small living room. The aroma of garlic and freshly cooked chicken fills the apartment. It feels like home. Maria, his wife, comes out of the kitchen and puts her arms around me.

  “I’m so glad to meet you, those two have told me so much about you,” she says, still holding me. She has an exquisite Roman nose, hazel eyes, and white skin. Her hair is pulled back off her face in a chignon. For a brief moment, I’m not a motherless daughter.

  Grandma sits in front of the TV. She isn’t thrilled. Maria leads me into the kitchen and sits me at the table. Grandma and Jose are arguing in Spanish about me staying. He comes into the kitchen and says, “Don’t worry, she’s just a frightened old woman who never leaves the house except on Sundays to go to church.”

  The walls in the small apartment are adorned with saints. It’s been years since I’ve sat down at a table to have a meal. After dinner, Maria hands me of pair of sweats and suggests I take a shower. I do so and rejoin them. Above the television is an ornately framed picture of a saint holding two eyeballs on a plate. I ask Grandma who she is.

  “Santa Lucia, the patron saint of the blind. Like you.”

  I am insulted by her remark, but I soon fall asleep on the couch watching TV. Much later I awake to Grandma covering me up with a blanket. I drift off again.

  It’s early dawn when the monster begins to stir. I come to. I panic, I have no idea where I am until I hear Grandma snoring gently. The monkey on my back is doing cartwheels on my spine. I feel my way to the bathroom, change back into my clothes, and slither away.

  The streets are deserted. The neighborhood is still slumbering. I have an ominous feeling that something’s amiss. As I walk down the sidewalk, I notice the same car go past me twice. It’s a curb-crawler, circling me like a vulture. He pulls alongside me slowly. When the tinted window rolls down I see a man’s face covered in third-degree burns.

  “Are you workin’?”

  I’m already too sick to turn a trick, and I yell at him to fuck off. He speeds away. My veins are ravenous. The backs of my legs are being sliced by razors. In the movie Barbarella there’s a scene where Jane Fonda is tied to a post while a gang of mechanical dollies with sharp teeth bite at her sinewy legs. Now I’m in the leading role. With every step I take my legs grow heavier from the discomfort. I hear footsteps approaching fast. I want to run but I can’t. I turn around abruptly. It’s a friend from the park that goes by Willie, but I call him Abdullah after the militant character played by Bill Duke in the movie Car Wash. He calls me Che Guevara. He says it as one word, Cheguevara. Our conversations are almost always political. We are a couple of park-bench revolutionaries. Abdullah needs a gallon of vodka daily.

  When I get dopesick my mood turns foul. I let loose a stream of expletives at him for scaring me. Ignoring my outburst, he fills me in on what I’ve missed during the two days I’ve spent sleeping. The police did a mass sweep of the area and arrested dozens of people. The neighborhood’s hot. I tell him I have to go to the park to find Angela. She’ll give me something to tide me over if she has any.

  “Angela was picked up this morning,” he says sadly.

  We reach the park, and Abdullah is right. In the aftermath of the mass arrests nothing is jumping off. Usually at this early hour there are still a few homeless crackheads left. But it’s deserted, and they have all scurried off like rats to wherever it is that rats go during daytime. The powers that be have put forth a valiant effort in the war on drugs.

  The only ones here are the three wise men, sitting on their usual bench from which they run their own apothecary. They sell every kind of pill imaginable. They are the only African Americans allowed to sell in the park. But they still have to pay taxes to the local gang. The leader, Mr. James, had been a sax player when the jazz clubs were in full swing. He finally kicked his forty-year habit in exchange for a methadone maintenance program. The first time I met him he said to me, “Dope is misery.”

  In my youthful arrogance I shot back, “Of course it is for YOU, old man.”

  They make room for me on the bench. Seeing that I am in good hands, Abdullah bids his farewell and leaves for the liquor store. Midway through my tale of woe they begin discussing my financial predicament amongst themselves as if I’m not even there. Finally Mr. James turns to me.

  “Because you’re a hustla and you always come correct, we have decided to donate the first twenty dollars we make to your cause. This is the only time we’ll ever help you out, so don’t be gettin’ any ideas.”

  There is a God after all. I thank them profusely and say to Mr. James, “You are a prince among men.”

  He corrects me: “No, senorita, I’m a king. Now go sit over there. I’m a superstitious fool. This is our place of
business and you throw the numbers off.”

  I do as I am told, but not before he gives me a Klonopin to tide me over. I swallow it immediately.

  I lie down in the wet grass a couple hundred yards away from them. My insides are on a slow burn; within the hour they will be boiling over into my abdomen. I can feel my blood pounding against my eardrums. I shut my eyes to stop myself from continuously checking up on the wise men. When you’re jonesing, a minute lasts an hour. It’s still cool, the fireball in the sky hasn’t covered the neighborhood. I’m grateful for the cold chills—the sun always makes me feel worse. I can’t take the suspense any longer. I open my eyes to see Mr. James walking toward me. He gives me the money, I thank him again, and I’m gone.

  I score behind a dumpster in an alley, half a block from my favorite Laundromat. It’s the cleanest one I’ve ever been in. Whenever I enter I’m overcome by the scent of detergent. It’s intoxicating. And the toilet in the bathroom is pristine, bleached as white as the heavenly clouds. I have actually eaten in there. My works are hidden in the bathroom wall in a hole at ceiling level. I no longer carry paraphernalia just in case the cops stop me. With the balloon safely tucked between my upper gum and cheek, I already feel less nauseous as I begin the walk. All I can think of is the needle going into my vein. The promise of relief, sweet euphoria, waits for me in my celestial white bathroom.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see a car peel out from the curb on the other side of the street. Pulling a sharp U-turn, it comes to a stop directly in front of me. I know without looking up who it is. I have to remain calm. Staring at the ground, I continue walking. I have nothing on me anyone can find. All that stands between me and getting well is this cop obstacle. I start praying to a God I don’t believe in. The car door opens, obstructing my path.

  “Stop right there. Drop the purse, put your arms above your head, and face the wall.”