Needle Too: Junkies in Paradise

by Craig Goodman

  “Stratis!” I said as my eyes lit up and simultaneously looked down on him while I salivated like a hungry lion about to pounce on a pound of flesh. “I’m gonna make you famous.”

  “Hey, Rick!” Stratis shouted to the man who asked for my resume. “This is the fucker that stole a hundred bucks from me back in 1995!”

  “It was actually a hundred-and-thirty-five and you still owe me money,” I said as I slowly turned around and left Ciano along with Stratis sitting there like yesterday’s news. But of course, it wouldn’t be too long before Stratis would suddenly find himself newsworthy again.

  The Afterward

  Several months after I left Mole, The U.S. District Court in Miami found Stratis Morfogen and one of his restaurants, Philippe, “guilty of false advertising and unfair competition by deceptive conduct” and as a result, ordered him to pay Mr. Chang—the owner and namesake of the world renown restaurant whose reputation he was trying to exploit—a million dollars in damages. But the fun was just beginning, and about six months later TMZ reported that four Philippe employees had filed a lawsuit claiming they were forced to serve pot-smoking patrons which exposed "them to smoke from a harmful and illegal substance." In fact, according to The Huffington Post, one employee claims to have been fired after confronting the owners with the issue as well as his displeasure at having to return home to his family covered in smoke and the smell of weed, which, when given my own proclivities it seems odd he didn’t forget about the money and hire me on the spot. And though the lawsuit didn’t explicitly name the patrons involved, TMZ points to Rick Ross and Nicki Minaj, both of whom have been known to dine at Philippe.

  Not surprisingly, Stratis dismissed the lawsuit as an attempt at "extortion" and said, "We do not allow smoking of legal cigarettes in our restaurants, so obviously we strongly deny these ridiculous accusations.” But Stratis certainly shouldn’t have been the only one investigated for his business practices and during the summer of 2012, a few months after publishing Needle, I would be courted and then exploited by a scurrilous publicist who supposedly represented the interests of a well-known cable news correspondent. As a result, after falling victim to her silver tongue and what I believe was a fabricated concern for charitable causes, I believe she plundered almost a thousand dollars of funds that would have otherwise been used to help scores of displaced and affected pets in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Needless to say, she has now found herself squarely between the crosshairs of my pen and my middle finger.

  Perry, meanwhile, remained in San Francisco, and though he successfully avoided another relapse that didn’t prevent the most recently donated pig valve to finally start squealing toward the end of 2013. Fortunately, thanks to twenty years worth of advancement in the field of cardio thoracic surgery, Perry's impertinent pig part could now be replaced through an artery in his leg and as a result he was out of the hospital the next day and just in time to visit his mother who was in the midst of succumbing to cancer.

  “How’d it go out there?” I asked after he’d returned from that final visit at a hospice in Wisconsin.

  “There were no surprises,” he said.

  “You mean no miraculous recoveries?”

  “I mean she didn’t want me by the deathbed.”

  I would have thought that Felicia, during her final hours, might have wanted to make things right with Perry but apparently that wasn’t on the agenda. Of course, as an absentee parent she was never in the running for Mother of the Year, but by the very same token she was obviously a much less destructive force in Perry’s life than Mrs. Goodman was in mine. Either way, I suppose that even during one's final hour, self-serving self-righteousness can reign supreme. Needless to say, at this point my own mother, who is certainly not on her deathbed (come to think of it, I don’t think she can ever really die), has never shown a scintilla of real remorse about her own poor parenting—which is obviously a euphemism beyond words.

  Certainly, from the child's perspective, the physical abuse I suffered while growing up was the defining aspect of my childhood and as a result—and as far as from what I can glean from the lives of others—it was essentially snatched away from me. But still, as I’ve previously mentioned, I don’t directly blame my mother and the abuse she doled-out for my addiction. However, it seems to me that the dysfunctional relationship I had with her as well as the dysfunctional relationships I’ve had with other immediate and extended family members may have been an obstacle to my recovery...or at least my sustained state of abstention. And though the ramifications of having flawed familial relationships was mostly unknown to me until later in life, I believe that had those relationships been of a more functional nature then perhaps my use of opiates wouldn’t have dragged on for as long as it had. In fact, had I been part of a tightly knit and supportive clan, the kind of clan that I was occasionally exposed to while growing up, then maybe I wouldn’t have had the balls to stick a needle in my arm to begin with. But who knows because regardless, I was ripe for the taking.

  Of course, there is one aspect of my childhood that I believe my mother’s parental shortcomings not only delayed the maturation of, but almost eliminated the possibility of ever being realized, which was my undying devotion to the animals. Clearly, that passion began to reveal itself while I was in the midst of writing Needle and then again after Leo arrived, but of course—it was there all along. And without question, my life and journey were irreversibly altered by Kitty…and I will never forget her, nor will I ever forgive myself for failing to save a life when I could have. Indeed, this is the albatross I’ll wear around my neck forever. So, in retrospect, it is that personal shortcoming—more than anything— for which I resent my mother most and hold her personally responsible. It is that which has prevented me from saving lives that I could have saved and that is, indeed, the hardest thing to come to grips with. And maybe, just maybe, had she embraced my germinating interests as a child I would’ve been too busy as an adult with important things to be wasting time shooting dope…but I suppose there’s no sense in crying over spilt milk. Nonetheless, sometimes I think about how things might have turned out differently and what I might have accomplished and it’s during moments like these when I keep picturing all these little dogs playing in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little dogs, and nobody's around—nobody big, I mean—except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff and what I have to do is catch them if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the dog catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.*

  THE dog CATCHER in the RYE…due out in 2016—but you know how that goes. Fortunately, there’s tons of shit to be agitated by until then—so stay tuned. And to be notified when any future efforts become available please visit www.NeedleUser.com, join us on Facebook (Craig Jordan Goodman), follow us on Twitter (@CraigJGoodman) or send a request to NeedleNews@yahoo.com.

  In the meantime, however, as part of a groundbreaking and grassroots effort to improve the plight of homeless animals, we’re in the process of developing a nonprofit business model and new concept for pet store owners that will enable them to find homes for animals rescued from city and state kill-shelters, as opposed to those being bred for business and often the product of puppy mills. With a little luck, the first of these brick and mortar operations will be coming to Brooklyn by the end of 2015. Clearly, this is a tremendous undertaking and all hands are needed on deck, so if you’re interested in getting involved, especially if you happen to work in the pet supply business or have influential contacts within it, we’d love to hear from you and can be reached at NeedleNews@yahoo.com. Of course, monetary contributions to the cause are desperately needed and appreciated. For more information please visit https://www.NeedleUser.com.

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  * Inspired by The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger