Needle Too: Junkies in Paradise

by Craig Goodman

  27

  Although while Savannah was under my care I got out of the habit of smoking weed in the morning, it certainly wasn’t because I couldn’t function or care for the kids after indulging. Once again, pot didn’t affect me like it did when I was in college. I’m not sure if it’s typical for a drug to affect an individual so differently over the course of time, but that’s what happened to me. Now, in many ways, weed was really just a creature comfort. It was a soothing security blanket. It was a warm, waterlogged sponge sitting on the top of my head. It made me calm—almost like a Xanax, but without the sleepiness or the heavy subduedness it can shroud the user with. Whether or not the subtle, helpful and productive aspects of smoking pot were unique to me and my own fucked-up physiology and situation—I wasn’t sure and I didn’t care. And incidentally, I only did away with the A.M. toke because, with Savannah around, my routine was immediately altered and for some reason the same compulsion seemed to be missing. But it returned with a vengeance after she returned to Jupiter and I reassumed the position for Willie Whitman.

  In December of 1999 I convinced Amy to let me have Savannah for what would be her first real Christmas. I remembered Kristen went all-out for the kids with Santa Claus the year before, and I was convinced that Savannah would be awed by the colors, candy and decorations and she was. She was also awed by Tiva, Kristen’s 70-pound Pit Bull, who was smitten with Savannah and absurdly protective of her, as she would gently herd Kristen’s unruly little boys out of the immediate area whenever she felt the roughhousing in the room was getting a little too rough.

  Before returning Savannah to Jupiter on the final evening of her holiday visit, we packed the Trooper with her new toys and clothes as I was struck by the winter chill, the likes of which I hadn’t experienced while living in Florida. After I fastened her into the car seat while my ancient Isuzu warmed itself in the cold night air, I rolled up the driver side window and noticed a stray gray kitten rising up along with it and staring at me as she clung to the top edge of the glass, almost as if she was doing chin-ups against it. I gently opened the door, stepped out of the truck, carefully unhooked kitty’s claws from the edge of the window and gently placed her in the grass beside the apartment before transporting my daughter across the state—oblivious to the first monumental failure of my own humanity.

  28

  As the new millennium began to unfurl itself, I began a string of relatively short-lived intimate relationships, and though in retrospect I realize they were mostly shallow and born from a mutual kind of convenience, they occasionally compelled Amy to use her daughter as a bargaining chip of sorts—or even ransom for what she wanted. Consequently, whether it was a matter of increased support or simply seething resentment, she wouldn’t hesitate to suspend my relationship with Savannah if she felt the ends justified the means. And though at first I was livid with her tactics I’d eventually realize the best course of action was to sit tight, ignore her, stay away from the phone and wait for her to come to her senses.

  As far as the aforementioned, personal relationships were concerned, I believe they were largely a side-effect of living in Southwest Florida among so many turnkey families with pretty, young, women at the helm—most of whom had relatively low expectations but a desperate desire to play house with someone in something resembling a conventional domestic setting. And as a “recovering” junky with a dysfunctional family background and a revived libido but no conception of what it really meant to be a husband or even a serious, sober, boyfriend—I was so ripe for the picking I fell the fuck out of the tree. But most importantly, however—though I’ve never admitted this to myself or in any other forum—I think the primary motivation behind assuming the surrogate daddy/hubby roles was the real daddy role I’d been playing alone, a role that I had no prototype for. So, lacking the character to admit it back then—though I suppose given the circumstances there must have been a shortage of that to begin with—I believe I was largely exploiting those sad, patriarchally-challenged living arrangements in order to furnish Savannah’s visits with real homes and real moms who would go out of their way to be extra good to my little girl. And indeed, Savannah’s visits were always filled with lots of love, lots of kids, trips to amusement parks and incredible Christmases—so much so that each year she would almost always be in Cape Coral to greet Santa. But certainly, I too would extend similar gestures as drunk, ornery and abusive ex-husbands or former boyfriends would occasionally drop by to kick-in doors and issue threats while terrorizing their own children and looking for a fight. And of course, each time they got exactly what they came looking for. In fact, one of them hit me so hard I actually shit my pants, but believe me—there are times in a frightened woman’s life when nothing means more than a big pair of balls and a little bit of poop.

  Meanwhile, by the end of the summer of 2000 I left the Wealth Center and began a series of business writing positions with companies that included a devious data provider, a deceptive employment agency and a multilevel marketing firm, all of which I enjoyed about as much as Willie Whitman as I realized Cape Coral was hardly a mecca for legitimate and respectable businesses types. Then on April 1st, 2002 my mother relocated to Bonita Springs in Southwest Florida as she could no longer bear the thought of being so far away from her beloved son—but only a fucking fool would believe that. In reality, her income—pilfered and otherwise—could no longer support the quality of life she demanded in Connecticut so she headed to Florida, and after 137 years the South would finally be getting its comeuppance.

  As far as Perry was concerned, Total Tree Care was up and rolling and by 2002 he had his own truck, the necessary tools of the trade, and everything required to run a successful lawn care and tree removal business except for customers. As a result, he revived a less artistic version of the starving artist role he played in New York and got a job in a San Francisco restaurant to support his less glitzy aspiration, and the hectic schedule was apparently pushing him to the brink.

  “A cop pulled me over in my truck yesterday while I was driving around without a license,” he called to tell me.

  “What happened?”

  “I cried.”

  29

  Not long after my mother landed in Florida and the South began paying reparations for real—I suddenly found myself single, and rather than buy some time at a friend’s house while waiting for the next insignificant relationship to develop, I decided I should finally strike out on my own, put on my big boy pants and get my own apartment. As luck would have it, two months later a coworker made me aware of a small, one-bedroom apartment that was immediately available in the Cape. It was $500 per month and for the first time in my life I was living alone, which at 33 years of age was extremely convenient for me not to mention Emily—my brand new, 18-year-old girlfriend.

  I met Emily Marcott about a week after I moved into my new digs, which was located a few blocks away from a restaurant she tended bar in. Only a few months short of her 19th birthday with blond hair, blue eyes and a whole lot of beautiful she was 15 years my junior, and given her youth and immaturity there were obviously some lifestyle disparities between us—most notably was that she didn’t smoke pot. But I couldn’t hold that against her as she was hardly a puritan and though she didn’t seem to have any passionate feelings of any kind toward any drug, like so many others she was strangely intrigued by the fact that I’d been a dope fiend, or perhaps it was just my willingness to admit it.

  “I could never do heroin,” she told me one evening during our third week together, while we finished eating dinner at a local restaurant in the Cape.

  “Good for you!” I said as I commended the tyke’s ability to JUST SAY NO. “And now tell me, squirt—why’s that?”

  “My mother would be so disappointed in me!” said my underage girlfriend as she threw back a shot of Jack before following it up with a swig of Sam. “Wasn’t yours?”

  “First of all, I couldn’t care less about what my mother thinks and secondly—I never told
her.”

  “You were a heroin addict for all those years and your mother doesn’t know?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t like her and I’m not interested in her opinion,” I explained.

  “Oh, but I think secretly you are.”

  “Secretly I wanna throw her under a bus. Trust me, my mother’s opinion has NEVER factored into ANY of my decisions—wholesome or otherwise,” I said to the drunk teenager I was about to bed.

  “That’s unfortunate.”

  “By the way, what does your mother think of me?” I asked as I was wondering about the woman who was in her late-forties and about as hot as her daughter.

  “Oh—she really likes you and she said she can totally see why I’m attracted to you,” Emily said as I made a mental note for the next morally-bankrupt decision. “My stepfather’s not so good with everything, but Momma’s all that matters.”

  Indeed, Momma Marcott was all that mattered which was a good thing because Tom—Emily’s stepfather—wasn’t terribly thrilled by my relationship with Emily but then again, nobody seemed terribly thrilled with Tom. In fact, he was constantly at odds with Jon, Emily’s 22-year-old brother, who was a talented musician in his own right. Incidentally, Jon and Emily shared an extraordinarily close bond and would soon become fixtures in my apartment, though Emily had yet to spend the night because of her…curfew.

  Meanwhile, out in San Francisco, Perry was burning the candle at both ends as he spent his days pulling trees out of the mud, his nights waiting tables and the time between enjoying the nod he purchased in The Tenderloin on his way to work. Certainly, I’m not sure how after two heart surgeries and an ocean of antibiotics Perry would even consider doing heroin again, but there’s always a reason for that one last drink, one last hit, one last hurrah and one last potentially fatal indiscretion. And making matters even worse, the black tar shit being sold in this seedy section of San Francisco was much dirtier than the powder being peddled in New York and couldn’t even be snorted—not that Perry would ever consider such a thing.

  30

  Toward the end of October I got a phone call from Perry and he told me to expect a present. He got it and sent it without asking because he knew I would want it—just like he would want it. Junkies are really easy to shop for.

  The package was delivered to my doorstep at three in the afternoon on Halloween by someone dressed-up like a mailman.

  Trick or treat.

  I opened the box and in it was two CD jewel cases with an unmarked disc in each, and wedged between the plastic portions of each case was a little yellow balloon. There was also a note:

  Craig,

  Here’s the software we discussed. There are two of them. Don’t download both or you’ll crash your computer.

  -Perry

  I removed the heroin from one of the balloons and was surprised to find that “black tar” wasn’t just a meaningless nickname because that’s exactly what it looked like. Black tar…with the consistency of warm taffy.

  By this point I hadn’t had any heroin in four years, and as I stood on the precipice of something I’d managed to avoid since just prior to the birth of my daughter, I was about to take the plunge and nothing in the world would save me. Nothing could save me. I didn’t even have to think about it because it was right there all along, just like I was right there all along…waiting for it. Of course, I knew it was coming and now it was finally here…waiting for me. So there we were in the midst of the moment and there was no turning back because there was no desire to turn back. There was no fear and there were no doubts, just a little reflection. There were no hypocritical regrets or self-recriminations—just eager anticipation. There were no sudden revelations or confessions of helplessness in the face of evil—just an extended, almost meditative pause to appreciate what I had on this fine Halloween afternoon: NO trick—ALL treat. I even had a set of works in that same old duffle bag I hadn’t opened since departing Montauk in ‘98. Why I kept it at all I hadn’t a conscious clue, but now it was right here along with the rest of us—waiting for the big revival. And the show was finally about to begin.

  I grabbed the bag and immediately found the needle as if I’d packed it away only a moment before. I then took a spoon and placed the contents of one yellow balloon within it along with some water and began cooking black tar heroin as if I’d been doing it my entire life—though it dissolved much more rapidly than expected. And though it may have started off black, as the water bubbled the tar began to change in consistency and color and transform itself into a thick, brownish, oily pool sitting at the bottom of the spoon. I then stirred the syringe around in the spoon until the contents within it began to dissolve and resemble the color of tea, and as the needle scraped against the metal it gave me a chill. I then drew the narcotic into the delivery system and tapped a vein and just like a junky, not for a moment did I consider the damage I was doing to myself by putting a liquefied version of that sticky shit into my arm, through my veins and around my heart.

  Perry was entirely correct and it was a good thing I took his advice and didn’t load up on both balloons at once or I definitely would’ve killed myself. No question about it. Of course, I realized this fatal fact the moment I pulled the very first trigger, which makes it difficult to understand why I would immediately go on to cook-up the remaining balloon and then periodically stick myself over the course of a few hours while each succeeding dose brought me closer and closer to the point of no return. And after the last remaining bit was squeezed out of the syringe and into my arm I lost consciousness, though at some point I remember seeing Emily as she darted out of work and into my apartment to check on me because she somehow had some idea of what I was up to but didn’t dare get in the way because 19-year-old girls don’t tell 34-year-old boys what to do. And though the last remnants of a junky’s wherewithal compelled me to dispose of the works, there was still a stream of evidence strewn about the apartment that left little doubt of my activities including bloody tissues, yellow rubber remains and a spoon with a used and abused cigarette filter stuck to it.

  The following morning I woke up where I passed out amidst the wreckage of a bad decision, though I’m certain it would’ve had fatal consequences had the total dope consumption been over the course of even a slightly shorter duration. Certainly, it’s difficult to explain what I was thinking because it wasn’t as if I’d lost track of what I was doing. In fact, it was quite the opposite because I was completely conscious and acutely aware of how much heroin I was administering with every last poke, but as utterly reckless as it was, my goal was to ultimately ascend to the highest possible height without slipping up and going over the edge—like a mountain climber might in the face of ever-thinning air and increasing light headedness. Of course, the mission was fatally flawed—as in this particular instance there can ultimately be no clear validation, certainty, or final summit ascended without paradoxically pushing past the penultimate pinnacle and confirming the achievement with a fatality—which might have been my fate had I not run out of dope. Indeed, I could have easily gone over the edge without ever even knowing it.

  Thankfully, at least, there was no ripple effect or risk of relapse after doing dope in Cape Coral simply because it was delivered by the Post Office. Of course, had I purchased the heroin in Southwest Florida—which by now appeared possible given the recent arrival of the area’s first methadone clinic—things would have turned out decidedly different. Fortunately, however, I had no routine associated with scoring in the Cape other than strolling over to the mailbox and of course—I had no control over that delivery system. Still, even though Perry would send me black tar on only three more occasions over the next few years, each time I would roam around the neighborhood like a rabid dog looking for the mailman—just like I used to roam around the East Village looking for the dealers. Of course, back when I was an addict, “recovery” or even abstention was never on the menu, and if it was it was usually a k
neejerk reaction to avoid dopesickness. Now, however, things were different—or at least a little different as I knew with complete certainty that heroin could no longer have a place in my life. Obviously, though, especially at this particular point I still LOVED the thought of doing dope. And though in a thematic, general way Savannah’s arrival secured my abstention from the drug, I also survived by crafting schemes to outsmart my addiction, one of which—of course—was moving to Florida in the first place. And now that I’d relocated to a place where I had no history of scoring from anyone other than the mailman, it was imperative that I keep my nose clean and not put myself in positions that might help initiate a regular routine—especially since heroin had now apparently made it into the area. So, from this point on I treated myself almost like you might treat a puppy or a child and simply refused to be in situations or with people that could eventually get me in trouble. And ideally, I would have at least conditionally ended my relationship with Perry or at the very least, been a better and more responsible friend by chastising him for buying the drug and forbidding him from ever sending it to me again. But that was complicated for a couple of reasons, one of which was because I loved him—and the other and equally important one was because he was my only connection to the drug. It was almost as if I simultaneously became two different individuals, each one bent on destroying the other.

  31

  In early 2003 I left the multilevel marketing firm and accepted a position as a copywriter for a multilevel marketing software developer—and essentially went from one company that got rich exploiting poor people to another company that got rich helping other companies exploit poor people. And though I seemed to have effectively ended my career in the restaurant industry, most of my Florida friends hadn’t and as a result babysitting help was always available for Savannah during the day while I was at work. Certainly, as a single father of a three-year-old with a 9 to 5 job this was an invaluable asset that now permitted me the luxury of having Savannah visit for weeks as opposed to weekends which allowed us to bond, something I now look back on and appreciate more than ever.