American Junkie Read online

  I pedaled down the street a few blocks, across an empty dirt lot, jumped off and began pushing my bike up the trail that wound its way up through the woods. When I got to the top I pushed the bike across the plateau and out to the edge of the cliff. I set the bike down on the dirt, leaned out and peered over the edge. At the bottom, about sixty feet down, the cliff had eroded and left a slope of dirt. A short distance from that the trees had been cleared and a group of homes were being put up. They were half finished, just frames, without walls, windows or doors. Beyond them the soft tops of evergreen trees spread over the low hills. Cars faintly hummed in the distance. My new school peeked out from behind some trees not far away. I picked up a rock, turned it over in my hand a few times, and threw it out into space. I walked back with the bike, across the plateau to the tree line. A blanket of clouds covered the sky.

  I stood there for a minute, squeezing the orange plastic handgrips. Little plastic stubs stuck out from the ends, all that remained of the streamers I’d torn off. I took a deep breath. Then I ran, as fast and as hard as I could, pushing the bike alongside me, the playing card clattering on the spokes. At the last second I let go, my sneakers skidding to a stop on the dirt. The bike sailed out into space. It seemed to hang there for a second, suspended in midair. I leaned over the edge, and watched as it flew perfectly down toward the ground. Part of me wondered what it would be like to go with it off the cliff, just to see what would happen, see if something would save me, see if it was like the dreams of falling I’d been having, and I would wake up.

  The bike hit the slope near the bottom on its wheels. The handlebars spun hard to one side and it crashed, tumbling in an expanding cloud of dust. I watched until the dust settled, then walked the long winding trail that led down through the woods, kicking pinecones out of my way. At the bottom I walked along the half built homes over to the bike, still in one piece, covered with a layer of dust. As I bent down to pick it up I noticed the wooden clothespin and playing card had fallen off.

  I pushed the bike back up the trail, the tires bouncing on exposed roots. At the top I walked to the edge of the cliff again. Soon the houses down there would be finished and painted. They would be filled with families, the dirt lots would become lawns. Fences would be put up around back yards. Dogs would be running around, barking. Dads would come home from work every day. In the summer kids would be running through sprinklers. They would become houses like the one we used to live in, and they would have lives like mine used to be. I picked the bike up off the ground, pushed it back to the tree line, turned and started running.

  [May 26, 1999]

  “Nine-One-One. Can I help you?”

  There’s something wrong with your hand. It won’t move, won’t put the phone down.

  Then the voice again, more urgent, “Nine-One-One. What is your emergency?”

  Is this an emergency? You’re not sure. It’s not like there’s an earthquake, you’re just one man. You could put the phone down right now, finish this thing, and no one would even know.

  The phone is still there, pressed to your ear. Time passes, one second or five minutes. You’re frozen, paralyzed. Something has to happen, and then it does, suddenly, out of nowhere, a dam bursting. You need help, you tell her. You say you can’t walk, can’t move your leg, there’s something wrong with your hip. It’s rotting, or something.

  “How did that happen?” she asked, her voice calm, steady, flat.

  For a moment you don’t know what to say. Where would you even begin? But then it breaks again, a jumble of words, spilling out, the heroin, the syringes, the smell. The holes. You’ve been waiting for them to get smaller. But they just keep getting bigger. She asks for your address, you give it, and she tells you someone will come soon and then she suddenly hangs up.

  Your hand, holding the receiver, falls into your lap. You look at it, wondering what just happened, then place the receiver in its cradle. A cigarette has burnt a hole in the crotch of your jeans. You remove the butt, place it in the overflowing ashtray, and sweep the ashes away.

  You’ve always known this day was coming. You’d been preparing for it. Getting ready. First you filled a paper bag, then a shoebox, then a small toolbox, and now this, a padlocked double-decker toolbox with a removable tray. It’s right over there in the corner of the room. Some of the pills are wrapped in cigarette cellophanes, some in old pill bottles, the labels worn off. Some in empty Camel cigarette packs. Most you don’t even know what they are anymore, bags and bottles and boxes of tablets and capsules and ampoules and patches with letters and numbers and symbols on them. Methadone, Buprenex, Morphine. Demerol, Percodan, Fentanyl. Valium, Xanax, Clonopin, others. All you have to do is crawl over there, take a handful, knock yourself out. You’ve done it before. The only problem is it always ends with you waking up.

  Someone’s coming. It’s Katrina, your ex. She’s chattering away like always, on and on about what she’s going to do and when or who screwed her over and how. The usual stuff. You tune her out and start flipping channels. Talk is cheap, that’s what your dad used to say. You tell her about the phone call and she goes silent. She’s been waiting for this and she looks at you, surprised, waiting. Your hand lifts the beeper from the floor and holds it out to her.

  It’ll end badly, you’re pretty sure. Everyone thinks they can sell drugs and make a pile of money. Oh well, if she wants to try you can’t stop her. She’ll just get to where she’s going a little faster. You fix up a few more shots, do them, and nod out.

  Two men in black uniforms are standing at the foot of the mattress. The short one is carrying something that looks a bit like your toolbox, the taller one has a stethoscope around his neck. “How are you doing?” he asked.

  They wait for you to answer, say something, anything but you can’t. It’s a stupid question, isn’t it? The last thing you hear him say is they are going to wrap you up...

  And then, you’re being carried out like the victim of a mob hit, wrapped in a blanket. Half awake, half asleep. Half dead. The tall one keeps asking questions. You feel like you should do something, say something, but what?

  A screaming siren, and you open your eyes. On the wall there are drawers with labels on them. It takes effort, but you turn your head and look over at the medic, sitting on a bench across from you. He smiles. The road roars by outside as you rock back and forth.

  And then, you see the sky, crystal clear and incredibly blue. Something is shaking and wheels are rattling. Then the sky is gone, replaced by perforated white ceiling tiles and fluorescent lights. You know where you are now. Harborview Hospital. The ER. You’ve been here before. You remember.

  Would you like to take a shower?

  Skin grafts. Central lines. Blood draws. Catheters.

  Are you allergic to anything?

  Tissue damage. Morphine drip. Check for endocarditis.

  Just a little prick.

  Ultrasound, x-ray, MRI. IV antibiotics. Pain cocktail.

  You really should eat something Mr. Hansen.

  Take some skin from one place, stick it on another. Osteomyelitis.

  Do you know you have a heart murmur?

  And then, you see yourself. You’re two years old, in Edmonds Park. You’re wearing red overalls and your dad is pulling you around a grass field in a little red steel wagon. Rays of sunlight shoot down through the branches of maple trees. Birds are chirping. Behind the trees the sky is clear and blue. Bright orange leaves slowly drift down. When they reach the grass a gentle breeze blows and they float along the surface, dragging their stems behind them. The deep blue of the sky, the green of the grass and the orange of the leaves are so vivid it’s almost unbearable.

  You’re three years old, with your dad, at work. He’s showing you how to hammer nails, and giving you a ride on a yellow bulldozer.

  Now you’re five years old. You’re in Edmonds Park again, sitting at a picnic bench in the shade. You’re wearing a little leather carpenter’s tool belt arou
nd your waist. A small hammer dangles from a leather loop. Your mom and dad are across the table from you. It’s your birthday. Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes sit on the table. You wipe chicken grease off your mouth with one of those crummy KFC napkins. You toss chicken bones over near the base of a maple tree. Squirrels snatch them and run off.

  And then, suddenly, you’re six years old. You’re sitting on the lowered tailgate of your dad’s powder blue ’67 Ford pickup truck as he drives slowly around the neighborhood. You look down and watch your legs swing. The pavement rushes by below your sneakers.

  You’re eight years old, at the oil docks in Ballard, helping your dad paint a crab boat.

  And then you’re ten years old, in the kitchen with your mom. She’s taking bottles of vodka down from the cupboard. She unscrews the tops, pours out vodka and adds water. And then.

  You’re back in Harborview.

  Someone is wheeling the gurney through the lobby. Lights pass overhead. You turn your head to the side and see a crowd of people, some of them pacing back and forth. You close your eyes and hear them chattering, complaining, saying stupid things. You wish you could have a cigarette. Damned hospital smell.

  Suddenly, you’re in a small room, laying on some kind of bed with railings. You look around. There’s a small counter and a sink. There’s a jar of swabs and another filled with cotton balls. There’s a plastic sharps collector, a red biohazard sticker on the side. It’s translucent, filled to the brim with used syringes, butterflies, central lines and plastic tubing. There’s a big clock high on the wall. It’s six o’ clock. The big black second hand ticks forward relentlessly. As you watch it seems to slow down and get louder, hammering like a judge’s gavel over and over, echoing. Bam bam bam. You try to ignore it, imagine that it’s two o’ clock, that you have more time. Eventually you fade out.

  This is a different room, dark, spacious. A male nurse is standing next to you, wearing a blue scrub shirt. He lifts you off the gurney, and carries you across the room, then sets you down gently on a low platform. He walks out for a minute, then returns with a black panel about two feet square. He lifts you up again, slides the panel under your ass, then sets you down. It will just take a minute, he says, smiling. Carefully he moves an X-ray machine into position over your pelvis and steps into another room. You hear the click and the buzz.

  You’re back in the small room again, and Katrina is there. She’s talking but the words seem to be coming too fast, you can’t understand her. She removes six full syringes from her bag, the ones you told her to bring. Each one holds about a half gram of heroin. Carefully you tuck them under the pillow, like a kid with his teeth that have fallen out. The customers have been asking about you, she says. Right. You know that one, the pretending to be concerned. She talks for a while longer, then the beeper goes off, she says she has to answer it. You tell her you’ll be okay even though you’re not sure that’s true, just so she’ll leave, just so the noise coming out of her mouth will stop and you can have some peace.

  This is it. The old thing is about to end. You don’t know if there’s going to be a new thing, or if there is, any idea of what it might be.

  One by one you pull the six syringes out from under the pillow, pop the caps off, jab them into the side of your thigh and push the plunger. A burning lump forms under the skin, getting a little larger with each shot. After each syringe is empty, you flip it over your shoulder towards the small garbage can in the corner. They clatter onto the floor. The lump on your thigh has become hot, and tender. You massage it for a few minutes so the heroin will hit you faster. You lay back. Close your eyes. Let go.

  [MAY 27, 1999]

  There are different shades of gray, the faint outline of a window, a door in the corner. A man on a hospital bed, covered with a blanket, unmoving. His hair is greasy and sticking out in clumps, his eyes two skin-covered marbles loose in the bottom of two dark cups. His cheeks sunken, his shrunken head dangling from a pencil thin neck. There is a tube in his nose and a smaller tube, an IV, taped to his neck. Lights glow and flash from machines next to his bed. A nurse enters. Blond hair, tied in a ponytail. She checks the machines and tubes and hoses attached to the body. She takes one of the hoses in her delicate hand, looks at the clear tube on the IV to make sure the fluid is still dripping.

  And then.... you’re slowly moving. The wall to your left gets closer and closer until it seems you’re right up against it. Everything goes dark.

  There is a bright hallway, crooked. Two old women are sitting in chrome and blue fiberglass chairs along the wall. A man in a white lab coat walks over and stands before them. He’s holding a medical chart. Blue pant legs and orange clogs walk up and down the hallway behind him. He speaks to one of the women and she looks up at him. And then, you’re moving again, back toward the wall. Back the way you came.

  [May 28, 1999]

  I’m still breathing. I could tell because my chest was going up and down. I was lying down, in the center of a room. It was dark, but I could see that the walls were covered with white tile. A nurse was standing in the corner, one of those white things on her head. She was frantic, opening cabinets and drawers, looking for something. She turned her head, saw I was awake, stopped and walked over.

  “Have they explained the procedure to you?” she barked, looking down at me.

  Procedure? That sounds...like maybe something I should be concerned about.

  What’s that sign by the door? Pre-Op?

  That’s where they send you to wait. Before they cut you open.

  “No,” I croaked, the word crawling up my throat.

  “What procedure?”

  It’s as if all this is happening to someone else.

  “The amputation” she said, nonchalant.

  “Amputation?”

  Now there’s a word you don’t hear every day. Say it. Amm-pyoo-tay-shun. Repeat after me. Really? That was kind of the one thing I wanted to avoid. Unplug me, disconnect me, put some more tubes in, whatever.

  Just don’t cut me up. I had a hard enough time in this life with all my parts. And now they’re gonna cut some off. Goddamnit! You fuckers. Always wanting to cut people up.

  Just don’t cut off my cock. That was the ONE place I never shot up. Last of the Mohicans. Long after all the veins in my arms, legs, neck, and everywhere else had collapsed, the vein running the length of my cock continued to beckon. Come to me, it said. But I resisted. Other guys I knew shot up in their cocks.

  “Your leg” she said. “Your hip is infected, down in the bone. You have extensive destruction of your pelvic girdle. The top of your leg bone, the part with the knob on it, has... well, ...sort of melted... away... from the infection. The socket too.”

  Thanks for the information. They must have me on some strange medication. I just don’t seem to care all that much.

  Oh, well. Go ahead. Doctors. Think you know everything. I can take it. You guys said I was gonna die ten years ago. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that one. Whatever... just send me back to the other side first, okay? And do not fuck with the cock.

  The nurse wheeled me into another room. Five people were looking down at me, their faces covered with blue masks. They made eye contact with each other and their masks puffed in and out, they seemed to be communicating telepathically. There were lights, surrounding me, the sort you see in a dentists’ office. They moved them around, and aimed them at my midsection.

  “Put on this mask. Take deep breaths.”

  Remove your skin please.

  Who said that? Can’t they see I’ve already done that for them?

  [May 28, 1999]

  There was a sound, far off, somewhere in the distance, but then closer, then farther away, like in an echo chamber. Someone was screaming. And then... bright lights, above me, out of focus, blurry around the edges. The rest was black. And then I felt it, something, a pain maybe, somewhere, but it was moving, elusive, now a little closer, but still dull, faint. I could al
most feel it. Two shapes approached me out of the darkness. Nurses, shouting, but I could barely hear them. The screaming continued in the background, a wailing, moving around, getting louder and then softer. One of the nurses stabbed a syringe into something next to my neck and pushed the plunger. They waited, looking down at me, their faces exchanged worried looks, then one rushed away and came back with another syringe. Plunge. Nothing. The older one seemed to be in charge. Her mouth moved, saying something emphatically to the other nurse. She rushed out of the room again and came back again with another syringe. Plunge. Nothing. And another. Finally the screaming slowed, faded away and eventually, stopped.

  ...I suppose I should introduce myself. Maybe I should have done it sooner, but I was a bit out of it. Don’t worry, I’ll be brief. There’s not much to tell. I am no one. I am nothing. You have never heard of me, you have never seen me, and you probably never will. I have a name, sure, but that’s all it is, a couple of words. Tom Hansen? Don’t really know the guy. People still call me that but he died when I was eight, I think. Or seven. Maybe later, I’m not quite sure. Not actually, physically dead, but somewhere along the line he faded away and no one ever took his place. Call it as good as dead, dead to the world, call it walking dead. Living dead. Call it half dead, three quarters, or 99 and 44/100ths per cent dead. It’s always been at the high end of the scale so let’s just round up, okay? It’ll make things a whole lot simpler.

  What would you call it? I’ve never known how to do those things that people do, those things that supposedly make life worth living, creating and maintaining human relationships, finding an activity to feel passionate about, a purpose in life. I have spent my entire existence alone, even when I was with someone. I dare you to call that living. I fucking dare you. Some might call it a bowl of carrots. I call it dead. The rest is just semantics.