by Tony O'Neill
“Hi…I’m Elektra.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
The band was a three-piece: the diminutive Elektra on vocals, Paris on guitar, and a bass player who called himself Louis XIV. He was absent because he had to appear in court, having drunkenly crashed his Ford Cortina into a fence in Croydon. We talked and drank. My initial awkwardness faded away as the booze went down. Soon I was talking about the old days with the Catsuits and arguing over the merits of Suicide’s later albums with them. They weren’t nearly as pretentious as their personas and demeanors initially suggested. Elektra, the supposed renegade Russian heiress, was actually an Israeli girl with the less memorable birth name of Sue. Paris was actually a rather shy Dutch girl whose real name sounded like someone clearing their throat. We got on immediately. They remembered the Catsuits and there was a tense moment when they asked me what I’d been up to since the band split up. I shrugged.
“Oh, you know. This and that. Traveling…”
“Well, do you want the gig? If you’re up for trying it out we’re ready to start. You’re the best person we’ve seen by miles.”
This flattered my ego just enough.
“Cool. What were the others like?”
Elektra laughed. “A forty-year-old creep who kept telling me how sexy he thought Russian girls were, a butch lesbian who was really into Ani DiFranco, and a guy with a ponytail.”
Rehearsals began immediately. They had written three songs that they gave me on a CD. On the back of their crude demo, the band had secured a prestigious slot doing a session for John Peel’s show on Radio 1. The recording session was in a month and a half, and without a live keyboardist they could not perform any of the songs. I felt a familiar twinge of excitement. One of the first big things the Catsuits did was a session for Radio 1. Maybe somehow I could fluke my way back into the industry. I had the sense that somehow, I had stumbled upon a way out of the wilderness.
When I got back to Batman Close, Susan was nodded out in front of the little black-and-white TV, a cigarette burned down to her knuckles. I looked at her and closed the door behind me. I still had two problems: Susan and heroin. Susan roused from her stupor. In one movement I had my shirt off and was unlooping the belt from my jeans. I perched on the end of the bed, dumped some citric acid and heroin into the spoon, and began to cook up a hit.
“How did it go?” Susan slurred.
“Great. I’m in a band. We’re called Liquid Sky.”
“Thass…great.”
“Yeah…”
I looked back at Susan, her slack jaw slumped onto her chest. Jesus, she looked bad. She was really giving up. I’d had a sense that maybe some of the spark would come back into her when she removed herself from the chaos of Los Angeles and found herself in a new city. But since we’d moved here, she barely ventured outdoors. I was the one who went out and found RJ, found the apartment, scored the heroin. Money was dwindling, one of us would soon need to get a job, and already Susan was whining about having no papers and how I’d have to be the breadwinner for the time being. She said it as if there was no one working without papers in London. The old girl seemed as if she were waiting around for death, but there was still something inside of me that wanted to hang around and find out what happened next.
Susan would have to go, right after I quit heroin again. I noted the irony of this thought, as I slid the needle into my flesh to hunt for a vein. But there was time. First and foremost, I had to do a good job with Liquid Sky and nail the John Peel session.
Then, I thought determinedly, feeding the shot into my arm, then I can quit.
8
MARCH
I am terrified. Vomiting. RJ has not answered his phone in days. I have been calling every ten minutes. Susan lies on the bed, twisting and turning in the duvet and cursing. I have taken to lying in the bathtub, fully clothed. Thank God our roommates are away for the weekend. It feels good to rest my head against the cool of the plastic tub and the tiles. At least for a moment. There is not enough money to risk going to Kings Cross to score. One rip-off and we would be fucked. “Why the fuck do we have to rely on RJ!” Susan screams, on the verge of tears again. “You couldn’t have found a fucking backup for emergencies?”
“Why the fuck is it always on me to do this shit?” I yell back, and that makes me cough and then the dry heaves start again.
“This is your fucking city! Your responsibility!”
“If you make me get out of this tub,” I warn her, “I’m gonna throw you out the fucking window, do you hear me, cunt? I’ll put you out of your fucking misery once and for ALL!”
She shuts up after that.
9
HABIT
It was depressing to realize that despite all of the promises to myself I had gotten a heroin habit again. I had not intended to get a habit. I mustn’t have. But I had done the same fucking thing again: I had promised myself that I would use heroin only every other day to stop my body from building up a tolerance. But there was always an excuse for an exception to the rule. The weather was shite, there was nothing to do but sit around the place and get high. The weather was good, so why not have a little hit to celebrate? I was depressed, needed a shot to cheer me up. I was happy, needed a shot to enhance my happiness. The same old shit I had been pulling on myself since day one.
Every morning that I didn’t wake up sick I’d think, Well, I got a reprieve. No smack today, and I’m back on track. In fact, being not sick and back on track would turn out to be a perfect excuse for a little hit. I’d think:
Did William Burroughs sit around, worrying about taking dope? Or did he just do it and then write immortal books?
Did Chet Baker worry like this? Or did he just get high and sing those beautiful songs?
Was Johnny Thunders a big crybaby pussy, skipping shots and worrying about getting a habit? Or did he just get on with it, and play his guitar like Jesus?
For Christ’s sake, I’d tell myself, don’t be such a fucking crybaby. And cook up a fucking shot already.
So, inevitably, the morning came that I woke up sick for the first time. My first thought was, Am I dope sick, or just sick? I couldn’t tell. But I was wet. Soaked. I had sweat so much in the night that my side of the mattress was cold and soggy. And my stomach was feeling ominous. But the worst part was the beginning of the symptom that I knew meant withdrawal: the chills. Like my blood had been replaced by ice water. Bollocks, I thought, you’re dope sick. You fucking idiot. My next thought was: Well, you’d better get straight and figure out what’s next.
Susan woke up to find me perched on the end of the bed trying to shoot up. It was amazing that, having been off dope for almost three months, none of my veins seemed to have healed up. I’d imagined that I would be completely regenerated after three months of no needles, but it seemed like within days of starting to shoot up again my arms were mostly no-go areas. I was shooting into a vein in my foot, which hurt like a motherfucker. She blinked a few times and then muttered: “I feel sick. Fix me a shot.”
“Fix your own fucking shot,” I hissed. “I’m busy, you lazy bitch.”
I had a rehearsal lined up for 4:00 P.M. I had to get hold of RJ and get enough heroin for the day. This was all happening at a very inconvenient time. Money was getting low, and we needed income. I made a vow to start looking for a job as soon as I copped some drugs. Miracle of miracles, RJ picked up first time. We agreed to meet in an hour.
I was waiting on a bench outside the tower block when he showed up, an hour late. I had been watching a bunch of young kids lurking outside a newsagent, grabbing smaller kids as they left and taking their loose change. I was feeling sick again. I handed him eighty quid and took four bags, hiding two of them in my pocket from Susan’s probing eyes.
“You don’t look well, mate,” RJ said. “You all right?”
“Just a little sick. I should have saved a little for this morning, we’ve been bang at it recently.”
“You got a doctor? I mean for juice or what
ever?”
“Juice?”
“Methadone. It’s handy to have a prescription for days like this. There’s a surgery in Shepherds Bush, I hear he’s okay. You should get yourself on. It don’t cost anything if you’re out of work you know.”
“I’m not ready to quit, RJ. I tried that once.”
“Who says you have to quit? Doesn’t do you any harm to have a little extra shit in case of emergencies….”
After my experiences in the methadone clinics of LA, I was doubtful. But it was free. I thanked RJ and went upstairs to get Susan and myself well. Then I told her we were signing up for a doctor.
The surgery was deceptively normal, after my experience at the clinic on Hollywood Boulevard. No crackheads asking for change. No heroin-addicted transvestites staggering around in hooker boots. Just a bunch of kids with runny noses and old folks with diabetes. We each filled out the required forms and waited around for an hour. Then we were called in together. Dr. Stein watched us impassively as we walked in and closed the door. He was a tall, cadaverous man whose hands and face seemed to be too large for the rest of his body. His expression was stony, and the room was silent except for the hum of the fluorescent lights. I felt like I was slipping into a confessional booth.
“How can I help you?” he asked eventually, after studying us for a while.
“Well…we wanted to ask about getting onto a methadone program.”
“Hmm.” Dr Stein started tapping at his computer, half-turned away from us.
“And you are both using?”
“Yes,” we answered in unison.
“How much? Approximately.”
“About a gram a day,” I answered.
“Each?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a lot.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, it is.”
We weren’t quite up to a gram a day yet, but it always helps to massage the figures. Dr. Stein tapped on the computer for a while and we both sat in silence. I glanced over at Susan, and she pulled a face. I mouthed Asshole to her. She nodded.
There were more questions. History of drug use, history of treatment attempts. It took a while. When you went through it all, piece by piece, I realized that I had been doing this longer than I had been playing music. I got a break at eighteen and played music professionally for two years. But I had been using heroin for the past four years solidly. It was a depressing statistic.
“Well,” Dr. Stein said after collating all of the evidence, “I’m sorry to tell you that I can’t help you right now. There simply aren’t the places on the program at the moment. The best I can do is put you on a waiting list and get back to you.”
Susan went into her crying, begging routine. She was really good at it. I had seen her do it to get drugs, money, and now she was using it to get on a methadone program. She started pleading and hot tears began to flood down her cheeks. He voice got higher, more insistent and demanding; she started to sob and her words became jagged and almost indecipherable.
“But…the money…we can’t…and we’re sick…and I’m starting a job…soon…and I’ll lose it…if I can’t show up…want to change…honest to God…”
It even took me by surprise. I put a stiff hand on her back and awkwardly said, “Hey, calm down…. We can manage, I suppose….”
“HOW? HOW CAN WE FUCKING MANAGE? WHERE’S THE MONEY COMING FROM? I CAN’T WORK SICK! WE’RE FUCKED!!!!!!”
Somehow, she prompted Dr. Stein onto the phone. He had a whispered conversation as Susan tried to control her breathing and stop sobbing. I knew it was going our way. I could pick out words here and there over Susan’s sniffles and gasps for air: “very desperate…work lined up…I know he had one space available. Yes, they’re married….”
Dr. Stein hung up the phone.
“Okay, I managed to get you two on. Bear in mind that this is highly irregular. You’re lucky that someone happened to drop out of the program this morning and I’m taking you both on as one case. You will have to take urine tests when you see me, and I don’t tolerate any funny business. One dirty urine, and you’re out of my program. And that counts for cocaine, too. Understood?”
“Yes, Dr. Stein,” Susan sniffled. “And thank you.”
We left the clinic with two prescriptions, written on special pink prescription pads. That means they were for narcotics. We each were given eighty milliliters of methadone linctus a day. Walking away from the clinic Susan laughed a little.
“I thought he was gonna crap his pants when I started bawling.”
“Fuck, I thought I was too. That was pretty good.”
“Yeah, well,” she said somewhat bitterly, “I got a lot to cry about in my life. I just have to think about it for a while.”
I looked at the prescription. “Free fucking drugs,” I laughed, “you can’t get better than that. Maybe we could really get off dope using this.”
“Oh yeah,” Susan sneered, “You gonna join NA for real? Maybe we can practice our steps later.”
“Fuck off.”
“Then stop talking like a pussy. Quit dope! Jesus, sometimes I think you’re going soft in the head.”
10
JOBS (ONE)
Money is tight again. Money is always tight. The interview is in a couple of hours. Roar of the northern line and the shine of the shoes to Kentish Town, nod nodding—mouth slack and wide—a relaxed kind of autumnal mood. The leaves are turning and covering the ground in yellows, browns, and oranges, masking the dog shit and the used condoms and the crushed cans of Tennent’s. The city is almost beautiful.
His name was Brian Stoker. An old, overweight man who huffed and puffed through his nasal passages as if it were a kind of tick or nervous habit—like he was trying to dislodge some particularly persistent mucus. The office of the magazine was in his terraced house in a suburban North London street, and it seemed as if the place had not been cleaned or redecorated in some years. The carpets were brown and threadbare. The computers used to produce the magazine where cumbersome and outdated. There was a composite smell of mothballs, stale tobacco smoke, mildew, and ancient jizzum in crackling yellow Kleenex. I shook his hand, and he offered me a seat.
He regarded me silently for a while. I had made sure not to get too high before the interview so I could remain alert and enthusiastic about this new employment opportunity. Our money was low. We were facing the choice of heroin or rent this week, and I wasn’t looking forward to being homeless again.
“Do you like country music?” he asked me eventually.
“Oh sure,” I lied. “I like all types of music.”
“I mean real country music. Not the shit that they’re peddling in Nashville these days. The real stuff. Bluegrass. That kind of thing.”
I started to warm up. I have an amazing ability to bullshit potential employers when my back is against the wall. My father went through a period of listening to old country. The Irish like country; they even have their own horrible “country” bands who play an unholy genre known as country and Irish—watered-down country standards mixed with Irish folk, usually performed by a perma-grinning fool in a tuxedo, wielding an accordion like an instrument of musical destruction. Suddenly my mind was able to pluck out a few of the names my father had mentioned.
“Oh sure, I know what you mean. I can’t stand new country. The stuff I know is Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Charley Pride…those kinds of people.”
“That’s right!” my potential boss enthused, warming to me. “The new stuff is nothing but pop music! Real country couldn’t get played on Nashville radio these days!”
“My father is a big country fan,” I carried on, “so that’s the music I listened to growing up.”
Although not strictly a lie, this was a tremendous exaggeration. My father’s country period lasted a year or two. At heart my father didn’t really like music any more than he liked any of the arts. I recall him visiting a cinema once in my childhood, a trip to see a matinee of E.T., and even then h
e left halfway through to get a beer next door before returning for the credits. My father can proudly say he has never read any book apart from instruction manuals and how-to books. And music was just something to be on in the background when there was nothing to watch on TV.
Brian was asking me, “So you just got back from America, you say? What took you over there?”
“Work,” I told him, the lies falling from my mouth effortlessly. “And an urge to travel. I worked at a music magazine in Los Angeles. It was a fun time, but I missed London. It was time to come back.”
Brian got up, excited, and put a CD on. It was possibly the most excruciating music I had ever heard. It was a 1920s field recording of the “world-famous” yodeling cowboy Chip McGrits. I grinned and bobbed my head enthusiastically. Brian sat down and half-closed his eyes, dreamily listening to the crackly recording of the old dead bastard yodeling over fiddles and banjos. I was hit with the revelation that if funk was the logical conclusion to black music, then here was its white counterpart. After suffering through a couple of songs Brian informed me that I had the job and could start straight away.
