The Junkie Tales Read online

Your hand strokes my cheek. “In a year from now, this will all seem like a bad dream.” The warmth of your fingers draws my mind from despair. “Have faith, baby. I know you can make it.”

  My stomach burns from withdrawal and shame. I have faith, faith in my own weakness and the powerful call of smack in my blood. I gaze into your sad eyes.

  Why do you stay?

  If I die before I wake.

  The chills start in earnest. My body quivers with need as the heroin fades from my system. Setting my trembling body on our tattered couch, you kiss my forehead, gently as if I will break. And maybe I will. Break and shatter into fragments of the woman I used to be. The junkie I am now.

  “I have to go,” you say. “I’ll be home as soon as I can. Get some sleep.” To you, work and family come first. To me, the next hit rules everything.

  Why do you stay?

  Your lips press against mine. “I love you.”

  I say nothing.

  You nod and turn for the door.

  “Why do you stay?” I whisper.

  “For the same reasons you’re kicking.”

  Fear boils inside me. “Why’s that?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Because I want our life back.”

  You nod and walk out the door.

  I pray the Lord my soul to take.

  A year later, I clutch a needle tightly in my fist, filling it with precision, tapping it against my fingertips. Air bubbles rise to the surface. I grin. A rush of adrenaline makes my heart race and my blood quicken.

  I love this moment.

  I search for a vein, feeling my way, like riding a bike, I never forget. The faint blue line rolls under the pressure of my fingertips. I tap it, willing it to compile. Pressing the needle to skin, it pierces the flesh with little resistance.

  A high-pitched scream rings through the room followed by a whine. “Nurse Adrian, you promised it wouldn’t hurt.”

  I chuckle, pressing a cotton ball followed by a band-aid to the small pinprick in the crook of a child’s elbow. The small boy rubs his skin where a new snoopy band-aid stretches across his thin arm.

  “I’m sorry, Paulie.” I pass him a bright green lollipop.

  He grins, reminding me that when you pick me up after work, we need to buy a piece of poster board for Jonah’s science project.

  Marco Polo

  The moon light reflected off the bright orange cap of the hypodermic needle, warning of the dangers lying beneath its hard plastic exterior. He clutched the smooth tube, taking care to remove the cap without bending the fragile steel point. His smile grew as the cap came away without hesitation. The cold metal flashed in the beams a headlight.

  He moved further into the filthy alley, stroking his prize. Leaning against the hard brick wall, he slid downward with jerky movements like a Slinky spiraling out of control.

  The sound of rats warring with demonic cockroaches rose above the stench of rotting garbage and flesh. A sharp squeak of a fallen rat soldier burst from the darkness. The cockroaches were winning the epic battle of good versus evil.

  He reached behind the graffiti covered dumpster, removing his works. The small metal box shimmered in the high beams of a Beemer. He glanced around making sure the other junkies and crackheads running the avenue didn’t notice his good fortune.

  No one did, least of all the petrified body of old Abe, who laid a few feet away buried under human waste, his shrunken skin plastered over his graying bones. He’d been dead for weeks. Thankfully, the stench had faded, leaving Old Abe better company than most.

  Old Abe was a homeless crackhead like most crackheads. What did they see in that shit? he wondered. The high lasted all of five minutes, and it was back to chasing the dragon. Moreover, they walked around like zombies, not caring who they fucked over for a piece of the rock.

  The American Dream.

  “Marco,” a crackhead yelled from up the street. She was dirty, eyes unfocused, her skin scabby and pitted.

  “Polo,” he called back, laughter bubbling inside him.

  The crackhead’s eyes narrowed, but the shadows offered refuge from her blank stare. “Marco, is that you? Where you at, man?”

  The irony of the game was lost on her, so he gave up and returned to the job at hand. He slipped a blackened spoon from the box and shook out a fair amount of poison onto the corroded metal. Chucking a glob of spit onto the spoon, he dipped the spike into the mixture and slowly stirred. His hands trembled, growing slick with sweat. A chilly rush of air ripped past him, whipping the trash on the ground into a frenzied dance, much like the one he did daily.

  He flicked his lighter. Nothing happened. Fuck. He closed his eyes and sent a prayer to the heavens above. He flicked it again. Sparks flew from the flint igniting the fuel.

  The bright blue flames licked at the edges of the darkened utensils, causing tiny bubble to rise to the surface. Tiny bubbles…

  Was that a song?

  He shook his head, focusing on the loving ritual of cooking dope. Powder to liquid, liquid to vein, vein to no more pain…

  Was that a song?

  Some demented Sesame Street rhyme?

  The smack heated, welcoming the thin steel point of his needle. The syringe filled, growing warm against his calloused fingertips. The plunger slid slowly along the cylinder like making love.

  But he just wanted to fuck.

  So he tore it back with force.

  Time was the enemy.

  Love a faded memory.

  The spike, held at ready, filled with promise. One pinprick away. He half stood, slipping a black belt from the worn loops of his grimy Levi’s. The leather smelled of dead cow. Of weekends spent on his grandfather’s farm.

  He rolled my sleeve back, carefully searching in the dark for the knowing lumps. Like reading a map he traced his life back by each track. The journey began here, he rubbed at the oldest wound half-covered by scar tissue.

  His finger traveled along the road to hell, finding today’s destination. The hardening lump of the injection site was warm to the touch—infection, corrosion and decay—buried just below the surface.

  Licking his fingers, he wrapped the leather around his arm, pulling it taunt with crooked teeth. He pressed his fingertips against the vein feeling the swell of blood backing up in his arm. He prepared himself for the battle ahead. The needle popped through layers of disease and tissue. The sharp sting faded as the spike hit home. The vein rolled, but he fought it.

  A junkie bull ride.

  A bright splash of red shot into the syringe. Pressing the plunger down, heat raced through his vein as acid met blood. His eyes filled, wetness seeped along his cheekbone. His stomach lurched expelling acid and bile in a junkie rainbow. Mucus and blood splattered across his chin, but he wiped it away with the back of his sleeve, a smile floating on his cracked lips.

  The dope slammed into his brain and functioning began to shut down. The sound of the rushing of cars on the street faded. The aroma of rat droppings and urine drifted beyond his heroin haze.

  His mind floated free.

  ...one...two...three....

  He counted the beats of his heart. The blood rushing in his ears slowed like molasses poured over pancakes on Sunday morning.

  Breathe.

  Heart beat.

  Breathe.

  He nodded out, drifting along the abstract, fading from this world.

  Marco...

  A white light filtered through the haze. He sat up, blinking. The light filled him, welcoming and pure. The edges flickered as if it might vanish. He wanted to be embraced by the light, to become one with the warmth.

  Was this heaven?

  He laughed, unable to feel the heavy limbs of his external body. Free. His body floated swimming along the currents.

  He didn’t want to die.

  That thought registered like a punch to the gut. He was only 25, too young to die, and far from good.

  No! Not like this. He needed more time.

  He backed f
rom the light. Run! Run from the light. He willed his heart to beat, to take another breath. To live.

  The light was closer now, almost upon him.

  Please, don’t go gentle into this goodnight.

  His finger twitched with life.

  He laughed. He was alive! He’d beat God at his own game.

  He opened his eyes. A truck horn blared, its headlights pinning him in place, seconds before the bug-splattered grill smashed into his body.

  Polo...

  Safety First

  “I have something special for you,” she said, her hair brushing my naked chest.

  I grinned, awaiting my prize. She crawled off me, handed me a condom, and disappeared into the loo. I unrolled the plastic sheath and slid it on, giving a fleeting thought to her HIV status, and my own.

  What was a little exchange of bodily fluids among junkies anyway?

  Water ran in the sink. She reemerged from the bathroom carrying what I desired much more than her body—two smack filled syringes. Orange caps pressed between her teeth.

  I’d never seen anything as powerful or as sexy as her and the needle. I almost came right then.

  She laughed. “Oh no baby, not yet.”

  Straddling me again, she reached for the belt of her silk robe and wrapped it slowly around her arm. I watched, my heart slamming in my chest. She pressed the needle against her vein, and slid it in. Back and forth, she wiggled it until blood burst into the chamber, and she found God.

  She cried out, and then moaned low in her throat louder than she had moments ago. When she opened her pinpricked eyes I fought the urge to drive into her pliant body, to fuck her until she found the same salvation in me.

  “Your turn,” she whispered.

  I laid my head back against the pillow, and nodded, ready to succumb to the devil inside me. Why fight it? I was a junkie, no amount of steps or second chances would change that.

  I needed her.

  I needed smack.

  She uncurled the tourniquet from her own arm and wrapped it around mine. Long-neglected veins popped to the surface, drawing a smile to my lips. I guessed there were advantages to sixty-seven days of sobriety.

  Before she pressed the needle to my flesh, she took me into her body, rocking slowly. Rising passion sparked between us as friction worked its magic. Just as my body tightened for climax she stabbed the needle into my vein, hitting it with precision. She twisted the plunger sending a wave of acidic dope into my bloodstream.

  I rode waves of pleasure so intense I thought for sure I’d die. The dope reached my brain, short-circuiting my every thought, fear, and memory. I spiraled downward into the bliss, my heart and lungs slowing, my movements vague, hazy like a fogged Seattle morning.

  “Sweet dreams,” she whispered in my ear, and I disappeared into a realm somewhere between life and death, between sanity and disease.

  I vanished into the one place I truly belonged.

  Romeo & Juliette

  “Hi, my name is Juliette.”

  “Hi Juliette,” came the response from the crowd.

  “Yesterday, I lost the love of my life….”

  She woke in a cold sweat, her body shivering with need and the desire to forget and forgive past transgressions. Her only thought upon coming into consciousness was for the needle sitting on the nightstand inches away from her body. The call of the spike was her siren song, beautiful and deadly, but a constant companion.

  Scooting across her pillow, she inched her way toward her goal careful not to disturb Marc’s sleeping/comatose form lying next to her. He was another bad choice in a string of worthless decisions and mistakes. The steady pound of his heart thumped against her naked chest as she reached over his inert form to the nightstand.

  Her fingers closed around the works box, tracing the worn latch and scarred wood. Quietly tugging it from its resting place, she licked her dry lips in anticipation.

  Salvation was minutes away.

  Carefully, she dragged the box toward her. Sweat dripped down her spine pooling in the crease between the bed sheet and her naked flesh. Her hands shook—another bad sign that her habit consumed her. She was losing the battle for control.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Marc screamed.

  He grabbed her skeletal arm. The box clutched so tightly in her grip danced like a puppet on a string. She let it go, and it fell harmlessly onto the bed.

  “I just need to get right,” she whined, hating the betrayal and fear in her voice. She was a grown woman, for fuck’s sake, capable of making her own choices. She was educated and semi-intelligent, or she had been before dope entered her life. Now, she found it difficult to string two thoughts together.

  What the hell had she become?

  The slap caught her off guard, too lost inside her own head to notice his raised hand, or the violence radiating in his eyes.

  Pain registered in her brain, the first feeling she had in days. Wiping blood from her busted lip she tried to focus on the pain, to remember what it was like to feel.

  Marc shook his head. “I’m sick of this shit. It’s pathetic. You’re pathetic.”

  He grabbed the works box and threw it against the wall. It splintered spewing its contents across the bedroom floor like the scene of a horrific crime.

  An aching cry burst from her throat. She scrambled off the bed and ran to her fallen lover. Inside the broken heart-shaped box lay a bent blood-encrusted needle, but nothing else. She threaded her fingers through the carpet searching for the remnants of her one desire.

  O, where for art thou?

  Her hand closed around a plastic baggie and a smile broke from her bloodied lips. Her heart swelled with love, desire, and sick need. She held destiny in the shaking palm of her hand.

  Marc stepped back rage fading from his yellowed eyes. “This shit is going to kill you, and I ain’t gonna be around to save you.”

  What else is new she wanted to scream but shrugged instead. What was the point? It wasn’t like they had some kind of great, tragic love story. Loves like that rarely existed outside the acidic confines of the needle.

  “So go,” she said, her fingers flexing on the plastic baggie. “I don’t need you or your salvation.”

  Staring into her eyes, his mouth opened and slammed closed. Without another word he pulled on a pair of jeans, checked for his wallet, and left the bedroom. She grinned; thankful she’d taken the money from his wallet the night before.

  The front door of their apartment closed behind him as she twisted a band of leather around her arm, bringing weakened veins to the surface for one more hit. She rubbed her bruised, track-marred skin once, and then slid the dulled spike into its faint blue vein.

  As she depressed the plunger, the warmth of the liquid saturated her bloodlines. Satisfaction hummed from deep inside her fogged mind, accepting, even loving the pleasure/pain of the toxins boiling below her skin.

  In these moments, she saw God in all his fucked up glory.

  She released the leather strap pinched between her teeth, and closed her eyes against the tide of a hazy, cloudless world where nothing touched her.

  A love like that was hard to find.

  “Yesterday, I kicked heroin for the last time,” she declared to a room crammed with others suffering from the loss of lifetime lovers, of the very thing that defined them, cradled them, and ultimately left them afraid and alone.

  But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?

  It is Juliette, and heroin is no longer my sun.

  Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

  The shaking wouldn’t stop. It tore into me like a drill, ripping and clawing at my sanity. I needed a hit. Just one fucking hit to get right. Twenty fucking dollars worth. Was that too much to ask?

  Looking at my face in the rearview mirror, I knew the answer. It was written in every burst capillary lining my nose and the white pallor of my skin. The disease took my life. No longer was I the man I used to be. He had died and soon my body would follow.


  My hands, slick with bitter, dope sick sweat gripped the steering wheel while I prepared myself, checking the list in my hand twice. Lying, cheating, and stealing came naturally now, as did the stinging burn of acid sliding into my vein.

  “What have I become?” I asked the empty car, but the foil wrappers and burnt spoons that littered it, remained silent.

  The house was dark. From the distance, it appeared empty and a little shriveled, as if the owner had forgot to water it. A weak streetlight furthered the dilapidated effect making what I planned to do that much worse.

  Taking a deep breath, I eased from the car, careful to squelch the creak of aged metal. Moving in the shadows I approached the house.

  Nothing stirred, not even a mouse.

  Easy target.

  A string of twinkling Christmas lights blinked in a bizarre puzzle-pattern above the window. Through the grimy pane, I could see a sad, little tree. For the kids, the dejected mom would say as she wrapped another set of lights around the barren branches. I pictured my own mother’s heartbroken face when she last saw me behind the steel bars of the Santa Monica jail. My guts twisted with a growing need, and mom’s face slowly faded.

  Time to work.

  I pulled on a pair of thick leather gloves wishing things were different. Reaching into my pocket, I removed the tools of my trade. The brass shined like an omen in the red and green glow of the blinking lights. Jimmying the lock, I twisted the knob and slowly slid the door open. It groaned in response. I paused, listening for signs of life. Not that it mattered. Nothing would stand in the way of my addiction.