The Heroin Scene in Fort Myers

by Oliver Markus Malloy

  But as soon as Veronica had nothing to offer them, they moved on to the next person who would give them money or drugs, unless she left them first. There was no loyalty, no love among any of them, although they all constantly threw around the word love. And the more Veronica dated other crackheads, the more she reinforced the idea in her head that everyone will leave her sooner or later, and nobody will ever truly love her. It was really sad to watch.

  At one point, right after she had told me that she wanted to be my girlfriend, she asked me to log into her Facebook account and link both of our accounts in a relationship. She couldn't remember her password, but her phone was set up to automatically log into her Facebook. She asked me to get her belongings, including her phone, out of the jail's property storage.

  Once I picked up her phone, I went through all her text messages. I was being nosy. Shoot me. What I found shocked me. While she had been in the hospital, she threw herself at every single person in her contacts, male or female. She told everyone she loved them and wanted to be in a relationship with them. She was hoping that someone, anyone, would say it back. That's how desperately lonely she was. And she was networking, hoping other junkies, who "love" her, would bring her drugs into the hospital. It worked.

  A bunch of her so-called friends brought her crack and Dilaudid pills, or "Ds." Those are even stronger opiates than the oxycodone Blues. She was also on a Dilaudid IV drip in the hospital, because of the excruciating pain in her leg. Between all the drugs she was doing, she was more fucked up in the hospital, than she had ever been while living on the streets, bouncing from one cheap motel to the next.

  Then I found text messages that proved she had been having sex with guys while she was in the hospital. One of her johns texted her how much he enjoyed eating out her pussy in her hospital bed. Her mother Rachel later told me Veronica not only had sex with johns, but with some of the doctors, too. How sick is that?

  But Rachel was by no means innocent. The text messages that shocked me the most were the ones that involved her. Rachel was a benzo addict. She was hooked on Xanax and alcohol. When she mixed those, she completely blacked out. And she had turned her daughter into an addict by feeding her Xanax whenever she had a bad hair day at school, or felt anxious, like teenagers with low self-esteem often do. When Xanax didn't do the trick anymore, Veronica moved on to harder drugs, until she ended up on heroin and crack. And Veronica learned from her mother how to survive by manipulating men with sex. Like mother, like daughter.

  Veronica and Rachel had such a disturbed relationship, they really didn't act like mother and daughter at all. They were drug buddies.

  Both of them were tall, skinny and beautiful, and they had the same strange rivalry that I had noticed between Alice and her mother. Like I said, the more time I spent around drug addicts, the more I saw the same situations repeat themselves over and over. Only the names changed.

  Rachel pretended to be holier than thou when I had met her at the hospital, but now in the text messages on Veronica's phone, I could see that Rachel not only knew about Veronica having sex with guys for money and drugs, but encouraged it, because she benefited from it. Whenever Veronica had drugs, Rachel got some. Veronica was Rachel's most reliable source for her own drugs. Rachel left the dirty work up to her daughter. In the past, Veronica had sex with johns for money or with dope boys for drugs right in Rachel's house, and Rachel not only knew about it, but got a cut.

  The most recent text messages in the phone were from Veronica's stay in the hospital, right before she went to jail. She and her mother Rachel were texting back and forth about buying drugs from dope boys who visited Veronica in the hospital. Her condition was so critical, the doctors thought about amputating her leg to save her life. She was literally on her death bed. Meanwhile her mother made Veronica meet dope boys and buy drugs for her. On her death bed! Rachel gave her money for drugs, to get Xanax, but gave her a few extra dollars, which Veronica used to buy herself more crack and Ds.

  During one of these text conversations, one dope boy had been delayed, so Rachel was afraid he'd be a no show, and told Veronica to call another one. Then both of the dope boys showed up, and Rachel told Veronica to meet one of them in her hospital room, while Rachel would meet the other one in the parking lot.

  With a mother like Rachel, who could blame Veronica for being a totally screwed up train wreck?

  When I found out Veronica was cheating on me with Theresa and then with Snickers, and that she had been throwing herself at a dozen other girls as well, I just felt sorry for her. I should have been livid, because my so-called girlfriend was a total whore, cheating on me nonstop. Instead I felt bad for her, because she was so damaged, and this behavior was all she knew. She was beautiful, smart, and had so much potential, but she was a totally broken human being.

  I thought I could fix her. I believed that if only I hung in there long enough and showered her with love, affection and kindness, if only I could show here that not everyone was going to leave her or use her, then one day she would snap out of being such a lying, cheating, selfish, sociopathic whore. If I could show her unconditional love, and if I could get her to bond with me in a deep, meaningful way, I could save her from the drugs and from her own self-destructive behavior, I thought. I was a poster child for codependency.

  Anyway, I didn't know at the time what she was doing behind my back while she was dating Theresa and then Snickers. Now, after 7 months in jail, her time was almost up. She had been sentenced to serve jail time followed by a six month rehab program. So upon her release she was going to have to stay at the Salvation Army. I was really worried about it, because I figured whatever she may or may not have done behind my back in confinement was going to be much worse once she had more freedom. And that's exactly what happened.

  HALEY'S EMERGENCIES

  "One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody."

  "Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat."

  "Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own."

  Mother Teresa

  I was faithful to Veronica, so I hadn't talked to Haley, Crystal or any other girl in months. By now Haley had realized that this was no coincidence, and that I was ignoring her phone calls on purpose. During one of our last conversations I had told her that I had met Veronica. Since I was used to being completely open with Haley, I also told her that I had a feeling that there was something going on between Veronica and her new "friend" Theresa, and that I felt kinda stupid for being faithful to Veronica, while I was pretty sure that she was cheating on me.

  Haley was heartbroken when I kept ignoring her calls after that. She and I had been through so much together. We had been so close. She felt I was the only person in the world who really cared about her. And now I was giving her the cold shoulder, like she was nothing, because I was in some bullshit relationship with a jail whore who cheated on me the whole time.

  Haley left me a bunch of really sad voicemails on my phone, whenever I ignored her calls. One time she sobbed: "Why are you treating me this way? Why are you just ignoring me? I love you. Veronica doesn't give a shit about you. She's just using you. You and I have known each other for so long now. Why don't you love me the way you love her? What does she have that I don't have? I wish someone would love me as much as you love her."

  That voicemail broke my heart. I hated the thought that Haley was in pain because of me. I really did care about her a lot. I did love her. But I had never really thought of her in a girlfriend kind of way, because she was so bad on drugs. I didn't think she was interested, or even capable of being in a relationship, because she was so high on crack or heroin or alcohol all the time. I don't think I had seen her sober for even one minute in the past year or two. And she was getting worse and worse.

  In the beginning, Haley and I had still been able to d
o normal things together when she stayed at my house to get away from her miserable life on Palm Beach for a little while. But lately she had just been hiding in the bathroom for hours, smoking every bit of crack that she had brought with her. It was supposed to last her all night, until the next morning, but instead she smoked it all at once. Every damn time.

  When she finally ran out of crack, she'd come out of the bathroom and ask me to take her back to Palm Beach or Ione. That was bad enough. But then she'd beg me to give her a couple of dollars, so she could buy more drugs. The first couple of times she did that, I felt bad for her and gave her some money.

  But then I realized that she did this to me every time now. I was getting fed up and I told her that it wasn't fair to make me drive all the way from Bonita Springs to Palm Beach Boulevard to get her, drive her all the way back to my home, thinking we'd spend some quality time together and watch a movie or something, and then she'd just hide in the bathroom the entire time, and as soon as she got out, she'd ask me to drive her all the way back to Palm Beach. What the fuck?!

  I told her if that's how it was gonna be now, then at least I wanted to have sex with her first. That made her cry. She said: "Please don't talk to me like that. Please don't make me feel like a whore. Everyone treats me like I'm a piece of meat. I can't handle it, if you talk to me like that, too."

  She said she didn't want it to be like that between us. She said she wants to have sex with me when she stays at my house, but she wants it to happen naturally, not on command. She said she wanted to feel like a normal girl, and like I care about her, and like we're making love, not like I was just fucking her like some cheap whore.

  I knew her well enough by now to know that she was telling the truth. She really did want to feel loved. But how was that ever gonna happen, if all she did was hide in the bathroom, smoking crack for hours, and then wanting to go right back to Palm Beach, as soon as she got out? And that's why I didn't see how we could be in a relationship while she was on drugs like that.

  When I met Veronica, I obviously knew she was on drugs, too. But she still seemed to be able to function on a somewhat normal level. And when she asked me to be in a relationship with her, she had been sober for a few weeks in jail.

  Anyway, now that I had made a commitment to be faithful to Veronica, I stopped talking to every other girl, including Haley.

  But like Hussy, Haley knew that I would never say no if she had an emergency and needed my help. So when Haley realized that I was ignoring her calls on purpose, she started to fabricate all sorts of emergencies to get me to talk to her and spend time with her.

  One time she told me that she had an offer for a regular job, that would allow her to stop tricking on Palm Beach. She told me she needed to go to the DMV and get a copy of her driver's license, before they gave the job to someone else, and only I could drive her to get her papers.

  Every time I saw Haley, I tried to convince her to go to rehab. I told her all she had to do was say the word, and I would drop everything and drive her to rehab right away. So one day she told me she finally decided to go to rehab, and she needed me to take her there before she changed her mind. I drove all the way to Palm Beach to get her and drive her to detox in Port Charlotte. But after I picked her up, she said she wanted to make a quick stop and say good bye to an old friend first. She disappeared in his house for a few minutes and then told me to take her back to where I had picked her up. She really wasn't going to Port Charlotte. She had just conned me into taking her on a quick drug run. She did that a lot. She always came up with new stories why she needed me to come get her. It was an emergency! And then it always ended up being just another drug run.

  Then one night she called me with yet another so-called emergency. Her baby daddy Rodney had just gotten out of jail again recently, and they were staying together at a dirty little trap house off of Palm Beach Boulevard. Now he was supposedly trying to kill her, because he thought she had stolen his last bag of heroin.

  It was late, and I was already in bed. I had taken some melatonin, a natural supplement that's supposed to help you fall asleep. I really wasn't in the mood to get up and drive all the way to Palm Beach for one of her fake emergencies again. She had cried wolf one too many times.

  But I could tell by the panic in her voice that she wasn't kidding this time. She really was scared for her life: "Please come get me! PLEASE!!! He's going to kill me!"

  I got up, got dressed and drove to Palm Beach to get her. I had no choice. Even though she had fooled me a bunch of times with fake emergencies, what if this one was real? And it really did sound like the real deal this time. What if I didn't go get her and then the next day I'd read in the paper that her dead body was found in a ditch somewhere? I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

  When I pulled up in front of the run down house where they were staying, I called Haley. She didn't answer the phone, but she came running out from behind the house. Rodney was right behind her, chasing her with a baseball bat, taking swings, but narrowly missing her. Holy shit! I'm as anti-gun as they come. But in moments like these, I really wished I had a gun.

  Haley was quicker than Rodney. Taking swings slowed him down. She easily jumped the broken chainlink fence in front of the house and got in my car. "GO!" she yelled, while he was clumsily trying to jump over the fence as well. The baseball bat in one hand made it difficult. We took off down the road.

  Haley was hysterically crying, trying to explain what had happened, but I couldn't understand a word, because she was sobbing so hard. And it didn't really matter anyway. It was just another normal day in the life of Haley the crackwhore. Although it was a different story every time, all the stories were the same somehow. This wasn't the first time she sobbed so hard that I couldn't understand her, and it wouldn't be the last. Rodney tried to call her a few times, before her phone died. She slowly calmed down. "Thanks for coming to get me, Oliver. You just saved my life."

  I gave her a hug with my right arm while holding the steering wheel with my left, and said: "You need to get clean, sweetie. If you keep doing drugs and hanging out with these lowlives, you really will end up dead one day."

  By the time we got back to my place, it was 2 am, and I was dead tired. The melatonin really worked. "I'm going to bed," I said.

  "I'm way too hyper right now. I can't sleep. Is it ok if I sit in the living room for a while and play around on the computer?" Haley asked.

  "Sure. Just don't wake me up at 4 am and ask me to drive you back to Palm Beach," I said.

  Haley laughed and promised she wouldn't.

  At 4 am, she came into the bedroom and woke me up anyway. I fucking knew it. "I'm sorry, but Rodney keeps calling me, and he knows where you live. He said if I don't come back he'll come here and start problems," she said.

  "Bullshit," I mumbled half asleep. "Your phone is dead, and we both know Rodney doesn't know where I live, and he has no way of getting to Bonita Springs anyway."

  "No, really, he keeps texting me," Haley insisted.

  "No he's not. Show me his texts," I demanded.

  Of course she couldn't. Her phone really was dead, Rodney really didn't call or text her, and she just wanted me to take her back to Palm Beach so she could get more crack.

  I was so pissed at her, but I knew that I wasn't gonna get any more sleep until I drive her back. I dropped her off at the same house where Rodney tried to kill her with a baseball bat, and by the time I got home, the sun came up. I went back to sleep.

  I woke up around noon and tried to get some work done on my computer. That's when I noticed my two external hard drives were missing. Haley had stolen them while I was sleeping. Motherfucker! I went out of my way for her in the middle of the night and literally saved her life, and she thanked me by robbing me in my sleep. Nice.

  I was so pissed at her, I needed revenge. I was thinking about pretending not to have noticed that she robbed me and then, when she calls me the next time, I'd pick her up and beat the shit out of her. Oh, who was I ki
dding? I had never hit a girl, and I wasn't going to start now, no matter how pissed I was at her.

  While I was plotting my revenge, she called me: "Hey sweetie, wanna come get me again?"

  "Are you fucking kidding me?" I blurted out. "You stole my fucking hard drives!"

  "What are you talking about? No, I didn't," she claimed. "We have known each other for so long now. You know I would never steal from you! I would never jeopardize our relationship like that. You mean too much to me."

  "Spare me the bullshit and give me back my hard drives, or I'll call the cops," I demanded.

  "Fuck you! Now you're gonna threaten me with the cops? FUCK YOU! I don't have your stupid hard drives," she yelled. She acted like she was highly offended.

  "I'm warning you. I never make empty threats," I said. "I'm telling you, I really will call the cops if you don't give me my drives back."

  She kept denying it, so I hung up on her and called the cops.

  A deputy arrived a few minutes later. Haley was blowing up my phone, calling over and over, trying to convince me that she really didn't have my drives, and that I shouldn't call the cops. She even tried to threaten me. She said she knew a lot of bad people who could make my life very difficult. She should have known better, because that only pissed me off more.