American Junkie Page 18

  “Let me check,” Cindy said. I waited as she made a phone call.

  “Yes, it’s okay. Just be back before dark. And make sure you do your pressure releases.”

  I took the elevator down, wheeled myself out the front door onto Madison Avenue. It was around noon, and the sun was bright. I had some sunglasses in my pocket and I put them on, and had a cigarette while I waited. Fifteen minutes later a bus pulled up. It knelt down to the curb, the door opened and the wheelchair ramp came down accompanied by a beeping sound. The driver folded up one of the seats near the front and strapped the chair into place. I told him I wanted to get off at Third Avenue downtown. He nodded and said he’d tell me when we got there.

  The bus ride was relaxing, in a way. I’d always been in control, always been the one steering. I’d always been highly mobile, able to get out of any situation, an escape artist. I’d always been on high alert, always plotting out multiple get-away routes, what to do if someone came along and tried to fuck up my world. Now, I could almost just close my eyes until I got where I was going. It was strange, being able to just let go. After getting off at Third I wheeled myself up to Fourth, then across the street to Westlake Square, a public square right in the center of downtown, surrounded by stores and boutiques. People were walking around. Eating sandwiches. Drinking coffee. I wheeled myself over to the fountain. It wasn’t an ordinary fountain, but a long horizontal concrete wall that spilled a sheet of water from the top. I got close, and I couldn’t hear anything except the crashing sound of the water. And then it happened.

  It would be so easy, I thought. There were drugs, heroin, within a block. Second and Pike, the most notorious drug corner in town, was two blocks away. I could wheel that far, hell, I could crawl that far. I even had twenty dollars in my pocket. It was so close. And yet it was too far somehow. It would be so easy to get the drugs, that part would take five minutes, probably. But then I would have to drum up a syringe, and a spoon. But something else was going on. I had always been all the way in that life, not halfway, or part of the way, it had always been one hundred percent. And this would have been half-assed, clinging to one world while playing around in another. Thinking about it had just been some kind automatic reflex action, a magnetic pull from being in a certain place. No, if I were to do that again it would be all or nothing, a rational decision, like it always had been, and I wasn’t physically capable of that at the moment. That time might come somewhere in the future. Then I would have to make the decision whether to throw myself off that cliff again, go full speed into that life. Be that and only that.

  But right now I couldn’t. I sat there by the fountain, smoking cigarettes. New Age weirdos gave me dirty looks, offended that I dared stain the temple of my body with cigarette smoke. They had no idea. I ignored them and listened to the water, watched people walk by for about an hour, then I rolled myself back to the bus stop.

  [DECEMBER 13, 1993]

  I was parked under the Alaskan Way Viaduct. The driver’s side window was open a crack and smoke from my cigarette trailed up, then took a bend near the roof like it had a mind of its own and disappeared out the window. The whooshing sound of cars and the clack clack of tires came down from the viaduct overhead. The sun was about to set and it beamed in from the west, reflecting off the Sound.

  I’d been making a lot of money. After expenses and what I was shooting I was pulling in close to a thousand dollars a day. It was way too much to safely have lying around, so for the last few months I’d been meeting my mom once a week, usually in a grocery store parking lot. She knew about my drug use and the dealing, I’d never tried to hide it from her. There was no use pretending anymore, never had been, really. At first she was worried that the cops would come after her, but I convinced her it was safe. No one would suspect my mom, a typical sweet church going old lady, of being in cahoots with a drug dealer. And besides, she didn’t have a choice. It was the only time she got to see me. I didn’t have a choice either. She was the only person I trusted. I certainly wasn’t going to put my money in a goddamned bank.

  I’d never been able to do anything for very long. But I had made this last, for seven years now, like I had finally found out who I was and what I was supposed to be doing in this life. I had found a level of existence where I could function and thrive. I had found stability in a world where there was none. I didn’t feel smug, and I didn’t run around flaunting my new wealth, it was simply that for the first time since working on my uncle’s farm, I felt useful. I knew what I was doing. The ground was solid, not always shifting.

  I knew it was against the law. But the laws regarding drugs were inconsistent and arbitrary. I had seen much more mayhem, pain and suffering come from booze, and if they were going to keep saying that drinking was just fine, even encourage it, I was going to make up my own rules. I also knew that I was destroying myself, and that it would probably end badly. But I was willing to pay that price. It was better than being nothing.

  I enjoyed it, having people need you and count on you and coming through for them. At the very least it kept me busy, and it inspired in me less despair than anything else I’d done for a living. I loved the driving around town all day, never in a hurry, but always with a destination, completely outside the madness of the rat race. This must have been how things used to be, I thought, in my dad’s day. You left home, kicked around for a bit, then found a job, something you were good at, a simple job where you could make a decent living. This must be what people meant when they talked about ‘financial security.’

  Kurt and Dylan stood across Alaskan Way waiting for a break in traffic. The cars finally let up, they started across and I stubbed out my cigarette. I’d been giving my customers nicknames, there were so many it was just easier that way, but with these two, Kurt in particular, it was impossible. Everyone in the world knew who Kurt Cobain was. He’d established a name so big that it was impossible to call him anything else.

  They got into the car, Kurt in front. He was wearing a plaid coat and ripped jeans, his hair was greasy and he had big sunglasses on. I hadn’t seen him for a while, and asked him how he was doing. He looked tired, and mumbled something about those fuckers in New York, then looked at me for a second, smiled a bit, and then stared out the window. Dylan explained. Nirvana had played Saturday Night Live the week before and when they’d arrived in NYC, there were limos waiting, hordes of music and TV people everywhere, photographers, fans, cameras, all rolling out the red carpet, fawning all over them. Kurt had ditched everyone, taken off in a cab and split, throwing the music and TV people into a panic that went on all day until he walked into the studio for the show that night.

  I handed Kurt a piece of heroin and he handed me some money. It was a shame that the only times we met were under these conditions. I didn’t feel much solidarity for most people, even junkies, but I had the feeling we could have been friends given half a chance. The times we’d met before, in a hotel or one of his houses, he’d often sit and talk to me, most of the time about nothing, but obviously trying to keep the conversation going as if he didn’t want me to leave, like it was an immense relief for him to just sit and talk with someone who didn’t want something from him. It was very strange, he was one of the most visible people on Earth and I was the most invisible, and yet I had something he needed. Sometimes, I had to awkwardly tell him I had to go, and then extract myself.

  The sun was setting over the Sound, and people had started gathering on the pier. Kurt’s face was kind of haunted, but he managed a smile. Then he broke my gaze and stared out the window again. Dylan and I finished doing a deal, and Kurt handed me a backstage pass to the show that night, something MTV was filming called Live and Loud. He extracted his lanky body out of the car, and flipped up the back seat. Dylan climbed out, shut the door, leaned in the window, “You should come back down for the show,” he said. I told him I probably would. They would probably want more heroin by then anyway. Kurt hunched up his coat, like a turtle retreating into his she
ll. They waved, and walked back across Alaskan Way, disappearing into the glare.

  My beeper had been vibrating in my pocket for a few minutes. I turned on the car, lit a cigarette and got on First, turned left, then up Cherry Street to the freeway entrance and got on Interstate Five going north. Cars sped past me doing about eighty, tailgating and changing lanes like madmen. The irony hit me. I was the only polite and considerate person on the road, the only one observing certain laws of society. The only one not in a hurry.

  A couple of exits later I got off and drove down to the Eastlake Deli-Grocery. The sun had just gone down but the city still glowed a little like it does at twilight. The streetlights had come on but it wasn’t really dark yet. I looked out at the shimmering surface of Lake Union and then at downtown on the other side. It was my town now. I knew it like the back of my hand. I was in my element. There were no complications, glitches, or surprises. If my car broke down or I nodded off and crashed, which had happened a few times now, I just left it there and got my backup, or bought another. I had money stashed to get me over any rough patches. If Beto or another supplier went away I had more. I was a businessman, and my business wasn’t that much more dangerous and risky than many others. It was odd, when I thought about it, that I’d found a measure of security selling heroin. It didn’t make sense, but as I was finally discovering, in this world not very much did. At least it was stable, not many people worked the same job for ten years anymore. Everyone else was just sitting around being entertained, giggling along with canned laughter as they were all reduced to underpaid temp workers. After using the pay phone to set up some deals, I crossed The University Bridge and followed the winding road along the north shore of Lake Union past Gas Works Park toward Fremont, a neighborhood of old hippies, nudist sun worshippers and hemp-wearing weirdos.

  Humpty Dumpty got his name because he was shaped like an egg. He had fallen off the wall and right into the arms of heroin. His girlfriend answered the door, a gorgeous girl who sold lingerie downtown at Nordstorm’s or someplace. Humpty and his girlfriend were one of the great mysteries of the western world. After, I headed down Aurora Avenue to meet Pumpkinhead by Tower Records. He got his nickname because he had a huge head of red hair. I had been trying to weed out the customers like him. He ran around town all day every day stealing whatever he could from one place and then selling it somewhere else. He always wanted to meet on the street, and his huge red hair stood out like a beacon. Most of the time I ignored him and didn’t call back, but I had decided to go back to the show and figured what the hell, he was on the way. Of course he only wanted a fifty, the smallest amount I sold. And more often than not, he would act surprised when he only had forty-two dollars and some change and then make up some story about a hole in his pocket or the dog ate it or something. He was a bad actor.

  My last stop was in Belltown to see The Prez. The President of The United States of America was a good customer, one of the best. He shared a name with one of the first US Presidents and lived in an old brown and white apartment building. He and his girlfriend Steff had moved up here from Atlanta. The Prez had a regular job and a regular habit, he was reliable and trustworthy, and was never short with the dough. He was well groomed, humble, and seemed like a guy with some integrity and self-respect. How he could have a regular job and a heroin habit at the same time I didn’t know, but whatever. Some people could do that. Not many, and none for very long that I’d ever seen.

  I got back to the waterfront and parked under the Viaduct. A cold breeze was blowing in off the Sound. I wasn’t used to being out working this late. There was a large crowd of people milling around on the pier. When I got to the door, I flashed the backstage pass. Inside I wandered around the crowd for a while. Something had changed the last few years. I used to know half the people at shows, but now I didn’t recognize anyone, not one person. It’d happened in a moment it seemed, like I’d taken a nap, woken up and everything had changed, suddenly instead of ten bands in town there were five hundred, and instead of two clubs in town there were two hundred. It made me feel a little old and out of place.

  Nirvana eventually started playing and I wandered out front, then through the crowd to the back of the hall. Pat Smear, the old guitar player from The Germs was playing with them. I listened for a few songs, hoping they would play Something In The Way. That had always been my favorite Nirvana song. Something in the way...mmhh...hmmm, Something in the way, yeah...mmhh...hmmm. There was definitely something in my way. Probably me. Shouting into Dylan’s ear, I told him I was leaving. There wasn’t any point in staying, this wasn’t my world anymore. It probably never had been. As I walked out I looked up at Kurt, on stage. It would be the last time I saw him. In a few months he would be dead.

  [SEPTEMBER 22, 1999]

  It was my birthday. Greg had invited me to something called High Tea in the dining room this afternoon. How did he find out? I must have opened my big mouth somewhere along the line. Either that or he looked at my records or something. Birthdays and holidays have always just been a nuisance when I was selling drugs, especially Christmas and Thanksgiving. I had to be extra careful on those days, it was like the whole world had stopped. The only people out driving around were cops. Most of the usual meeting places were out, because they were closed, empty. Everyone was somewhere else, with their screwball families, opening presents that would be forgotten after two days or stuffing their fat faces with stuffing.

  I just can’t do it, I told him. As soon as he left I completely lost it, and started crying. Why, I don’t know. I had survived, after all. Wasn’t that something to celebrate? Perhaps I had wanted this? Perhaps I had done something that could not be undone in order to force my life in a new direction. I suppose if it was true, I’d gone a little overboard with that. At any rate, I knew Greg meant well, but any sort of birthday celebration was just unbearable right then. It would be like celebrating a car crash. Days like today it all comes out. Did I have a choice? Could I have made something of my life? Could I have changed course somehow, or had it all been predetermined? I’d always held on to the notion that because I felt more and saw more and thought more and couldn’t shut it off that I was more human than other people. Even though my blood was stronger than my will, my self-destructive impulses stronger than everything else, days like today I felt so bad I couldn’t have been someone else. Was I a loser because I’d gotten myself in this position, or was I a winner because I’d survived? My survival hadn’t been due to a conscious decision, an act of my will, as far as I could see. I had just been lucky, if you could call it that, being born with this strong biological constitution. But then I wondered if maybe there was some will to live in me somewhere that I was not aware of.

  There was no doubt that my biological constitution was exceptionally strong. I had my mother, and Jack to thank for that. I’d never known him but I had pieced together enough. After having success painting in the late 50’s and early 60’s he’d left town because all the gallery owners refused to deal with him. The “things that shouldn’t be talked about” had alienated too many people. After that from what I’d gathered he’d gone to Spain for a while, then to Japan. Occasionally he’d make a trip back to Seattle, rent a space, and sell all the paintings he’d done while he was gone in a few hours. He had quite a few wealthy patrons. They would buy up his work and then he would split again. After doing that for a decade, he’d come back to Seattle in the early 70’s. He’d been around forty then, a couple of years older than I am now. He moved into a little apartment on Ravenna Boulevard in the University District and had spent the last ten years of his life on welfare, destitute, drunk and alone. His family had disowned him long before. People he knew and people he’d sold paintings to would occasionally come to see him, offer to buy paintings, help him out. He’d refused to sell anything, at any price. He was still painting, if you could call it that, shaking all the time, alcohol jitters, DT’s or something. So much that he couldn’t paint with a brush anymore, and was c
reating these tissue paper collages and the like. He stayed there in that apartment until he died in 1980, liver meltdown. His addiction ended right about the time mine got up to speed, as if his self-destructiveness had transferred to me. And now, I wonder if my life will end like his too, alone in some shitty apartment, driving away the few people who care about me. It sounds exactly like something I would do.

  Greg came in, saw me crying and tried to comfort me. It’d all come crashing down, just like it used to before the heroin, the pain of the past and the fear of the future, every single tragedy in the world at that moment, every crime, every sin I’d committed, every person I’d hurt, combining and collapsing on me like an imploded building. Greg tried to talk to me, ask me what was wrong. I managed to get out a few words, but it was all too much, it would take hours, I wouldn’t know where to begin.

  Was there something wrong with me? Society kept telling me there was. But was that really true? Their contradictory messages were a little confusing. It’s okay to drink, but don’t do heroin. It’s okay to drink, let it impair your judgement but don’t let it impair your judgement too much, drink and lose control but don’t lose control. It was as if they were trying to confuse people, destabilize them, carve open holes in their souls so they would seek comfort in their useless trinkets.

  But none of this mattered. I was still crying. In the five months I’d been here this sadness, these tears, were the main evidence that I wasn’t dead anymore, that I was still alive, or coming back to life. Not joy, or love, but sadness and pain. I had been afraid of this, I’d known it would happen once I quit, and now it was all coming down at once and I was on the verge of a mental and emotional breakdown. But now there was no way out. Now there was nothing I could do but just hang on, hope that eventually something would shift somewhere inside me, something would get rearranged, something open would get closed off like scar tissue forming over a wound, and then, it would be over.