A Day in the Life of a Psychotic Drug Crazed Maniac

Today is Wednesday. I wake up on the floor of my dingy, dirty apartment early in the morning, slowly arising with the sun of a bright new day outside. A harsh mixture of cold sweats and shivers come over my body. I’m still alone. Somehow I’ve managed to survive through another night, which is now nothing short of a miracle, and even more incredibly, I’ve actually been able to catch a few hours of sleep on the side. The personal fortress which serves as my place of residency isn’t appealing to any of the senses whatsoever, and to say that I don’t hunger for breakfast in such an environment is far beyond an understatement. Uncleaned blood and vomit stains coat the fabrics and upholstery which make up the apartment. The walls are stained a deep yellowish-black from excessive cigarette smoke and the heavy dark navy blue curtains which hang over the only window, blocking out the sun, are covered in a layer of dust several inches thick, as they haven’t been opened since I first moved in. I can quite confidently say that this place is extremely hazardous to my wellbeing and health in general, both to a physical and mental degree, but this was the life that I chose, and therefore this is my cross to bear. I finally force myself to get up off of the ground, even though I feel like just simply remaining in that same spot until I die. There’s only one thing in the world that could convince me to get up, and that’s no longer Jade, the girl I gave my heart to only to see it crushed in an instant. That ship has sailed and she’s long gone now, along with the rest of the friends and love that I once had, leaving me all on my own in this nightmarish hell. The television is still turned on in the background from the night before and now plays the morning’s newscast. More war and murders – always the same old bullshit. I stopped paying attention to it a long, long time ago. I walk through the apartment in an uncoordinated fashion, tripping over clothes, bottles and other trash scattered across the ground, making my way into the kitchen to fetch a drink of water. The sink is absolutely filthy and of course I have no clean dishes. I don’t care. I fill a glass from the unclean taps and drink it all in a single go. Travelling down my esophagus and entering my stomach, the cool, revitalizing liquid feels like the greatest thing in the world, but only for a second before those feelings fade. I then set the glass off to the side and head out of the kitchen and down the short hallway into the bathroom. I urinate in the toilet which is quite dirty and unhygienic as well, the bodily fluid a very dark yellow, indicating a significant level of dehydration that I was experiencing. Again, I didn’t concern myself with it for more than a moment. At last it was time to get down to business. I return to the grim living room from the bathroom, tossing a cigarette into my mouth and lighting it as I retrieve my briefcase from the side of the room and sit down with it at a small card table, facing the television and exhaling a large, thick cloud of smoke. I click the briefcase open and slowly lift the top, revealing the products inside. My hands are still shaking violently. Lying displayed now on the table in front of me are several different narcotics with corresponding drug paraphernalia. I take several items from inside the case and gently lay them down on the table’s surface – a tourniquet, a syringe with the needle already attached on the end, two miniature, blue resealable plastic baggies – dime bags as we call them – as well as a small vial of yellowish liquid, a cotton ball, a tablespoon which had been burnt on the bottom and finally the lighter from my pocket. I take a heavy sigh. This has been my ritual for countless mornings now. I try to think back but there’s just no way for me to remember when it all began anymore. It seems like lifetimes ago. I’m only dressed in my shorts and as I look myself over, it’s quite obvious that I am still drastically losing weight. My veins are clearly protruding and my arms are covered in track marks from where I keep inserting the needle into my bloodstream. Additionally, several of my main veins have turned black and have begun to collapse due to the acidic substances I have been injecting them with, and because of the lack of body fat, they have become very noticeable. Nonetheless, I’ve been doing this for too long to stop now. I pick up the tourniquet off the table and tie it tightly around my upper right arm, very close to the shoulder, causing the veins to stick out even further. I unscrew the lid to the small vial and then transfer a modest portion of the lemon juice inside to the old, darkened steel spoon using the syringe. My hands are so unsteady that some of the liquid splashes onto the table. It’s almost as if I’ve aged forty years over the course of only two and a half. There’s no denying now that I am dying. I tear open the two miniature bags in an act of desperation, allowing myself access to the powerful chemicals inside – white powders, pure as the driven snow. I have what would appear to be endless names for both of the substances depending on quality, where I am, and who I am purchasing the product from. Over the course of my time spent immersed in the drug culture, I’ve heard the first of the two substances referred to everywhere from Aunt Nora, Barbs, Foo-Foo Dust, Her, King’s Habit, and Snow to Witch, Zip, Peruvian Lady, Blow and Dream. And as for the second powder, which is a slightly more off-white colour than the first, such slang terms include Smack, Tar, Chiba, Junk, Brown Sugar, Skag, Mud, Dragon, Dope, and White Lady. To the general public these highly illicit and lethal drugs would be known in layman’s terms as cocaine and heroin, respectively, but to me hold a name of much greater meaning, which is Life. It’s a vicious cycle that leaves me craving and aching for more, but all I can say for certain is that these substances have brought a sense of meaning and purpose back into my life, and give me a reason to pull my pathetic body up off of the ground in the mornings. So I take the first open bag and tap a small bit of the coke carefully out into the spoon, mixing it with the lemon juice and then firmly pressing the seal back together and stashing the remainder still in the bag back again in the briefcase, ensuring that I don’t accidently spill any of the valuable powder in the process before doing the exact same with the second powdered drug. We addicts call it the speedball, and it truly is the pinnacle of all highs, the combination of the narcotic opiate and the stimulant mixed together in one, single deadly shot. When administered intravenously, the speedball produces, hands down, the best rush in the world of drugs and truly is the most lethal of procedures, claiming the lives of such influential artists and actors as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Trevor Goddard, Sebastian Horsley, River Phoenix and baseball icons Ken Canniniti and Eric Show. This mixture is highly addictive and beyond destructive and will certainly bring any junkie to his knees. It will call you and lure you, lie to you and kill you. I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody. Every use is a leap off of a new cliff to a lower and lower level. That initial leap is the furthest though, and after you’ve made it once, there’s never any returning to the top. I gently stir the two powders together in the spoon with the acidic juice cautiously using the tip of the needle, making sure not to spill any of it or lose any of the product during this phase. Using my left hand, I raise the spoon slightly into the air, then spark my lighter with my other hand, holding the bright yellow-orange flame underneath the spoon until the emulsion begins to bubble violently. I remove the source of heat after several seconds and then hesitate for a short moment before I drop the cotton ball into the spoon as well, allowing it to absorb the concoction almost instantaneously. It’s not very big – about the size of cotton that you could pull off the end of a q-tip. The purpose of doing so is to filter the solution of any impurities. Heroin bought on the streets may contain any number of cutter and filler chemicals, including such things as coffee, quinine and glass particles. It is therefore clear why a procedure must be taken before the actual injection itself to clean these impure materials from the mixture. At last, preparation is complete and it’s time for the moment of truth. Just one last day, I tell myself. Just help me make it through today, God, and I promise that tomorrow I’ll quit this horrid lifestyle. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said that same lie. I’ll never quit. There’s no escape from this – this nightmare. I’m trapped with these demons for an eternity. Mind racing with anticipation already, I take the syringe and softly push the point of the needle into the small, rolled up wad of cotton before pulling up on the plunger with my right thumb. Much to my delight, the liquefied drugs are drawn up, into the chamber of the syringe. I keep pulling the plunger up as far as I can to make sure that I have gotten every last possible ounce of the substances. Now comes the trickiest part of all – trying to find an injection site. My arms have endless scars and marks all over them which have turned black and can no longer be used. I flip my right arm over, so that my open palm is facing up and I can look over the underside of it. I run my left hand over it gently, all the way from my wrist, up to the bend in my arm at the inside location of my elbow where a major artery is clearly defined. It too had been one of my more popular administration spots since the time I had first began injecting, and there was a large scar there, about the size of a dime that had grown greatly infected. Puss seeped from it and it was extremely sore and the vein had already grown greatly discolored. Like so many others, it was on the verge of collapsing completely from the acidic solution that I filled it with on a daily basis. But nevertheless I needed a spot to inject, so took the needle in my left hand and slowly placed it flat against the skin of the underside of my right arm, aligning it with the vein and respective scar. It slid easily through the infected area, preventing me from being forced to puncture my skin yet again in a different location. It was certainly painful at first, but I knew that it would be worth all the suffering and agony in the world in a couple of seconds. I pull back on the plunger once again just ever so slightly, blood racing up into the chamber. This is to confirm that the needle is, in fact, in the vein. I pause briefly, with the needle stuck into my infected arm and all, allowing my mind to continue to anticipate and build up my following course of actions. Then, I push the plunger down steadily.

Everything around me disappears. Not literally of course, but my mortal body is no longer part of me. I’m disconnected. The first hit of the day. Nothing can beat it. I close my eyes and set the syringe down on the table in front of me with a small, soft tapping noise which seems to echo throughout my apartment forever. Junkies often use the analogy that injecting feels like being hit by a speeding freight train of euphoria and bliss. I don’t know if I necessarily agree with this. What one must first understand is that there’s no way to recapture the feeling in words to begin with. Only a firsthand experience can describe what it’s truly like, but I still would never recommend it. If you were to take the best orgasm of your life and multiply it thousands of times over, you still wouldn’t be close to feeling received when injecting cocaine or heroin individually. I always think of it instead as jumping into a bottomless lake of pleasure and invincibility. Shooting up both of these drugs at the same time was unprecedented. My ears ring. I know that there will be problems later on in the day. It’s basic laws of physics – anything that goes up must come down. I won’t be looking forward to the ensuing low. It hits me every day, early on in the afternoon and makes me wish I was dead. But for the moment, I’m not concerned with that. I am a god. I am in heaven, looking down at the pathetic peasants running around on the earth below, and their meager problems mean nothing to me now. I’m untouchable. The power of the cocaine with the euphoria of the heroin course through my body. It really is impossible for me to describe the feeling. Despite the tremendous, overwhelming sense of invincibility I feel, there’s a small, taunting voice buried deeply within the back of my consciousness, brought on by the very drugs that help me feel so good. It’s a nagging voice which I cannot shake in spite of my best efforts to do so. A voice that continues to remind me continually that I’m their slave for all of time. I still don’t feel bad. No. Far from it. But I must still take these feelings into consideration. My eyes continue to remain closed. It’s as if I’m in that lake of ecstasy, but a tide keeps pulling me down further and further. I don’t particularly want to escape right at the moment, but that option’s been taken away from me completely, if I ever do get tired of trying to swim and just want to find myself back on dry land once again. It seems that’s no longer possible in this state of being. I feel powerful and weak, energized and exhausted all at the same time. The first time that I ever took such action, my mind was so overpowered by a sudden rush of feel good chemicals that I actually experienced mild closed-eyed visuals, similar to those seen on a low dose of psilocybin, also known as magic mushrooms, or marijuana the first few times. Jade had still been with me back then, and it had actually been a very sensual experience. I had only injected heroin once before that, and so we were both extremely nervous and administered the dose to one another. She didn’t feel comfortable trying to find my veins and a good place to inject it after she was already under the influence, so she went first. We followed the same procedure I just described, and once the first shot was ready to be inoculated, she carefully approached my right arm with the needle, locating a large, visible artery on the top of my arm, running from the frail portion of the top part of my hand where the skin was very thin, all the way up my forearm, across my bicep and finally up to the shoulder. I softly had placed my hand on top of hers and guided the needle in, so that if anything were to go wrong, she wouldn’t feel as though she were to blame. Once the needle had pierced the skin and we had drawn up on the plunger to ensure that we were indeed in a blood-vessel, I let go and closed my eyes, which since then had become a habit of sorts which just felt natural for me to do every time. I relaxed my body completely and felt Jade slowly but steadily pushing down on the plunger, forcing the foreign chemicals into my body. My heart was racing for a moment but suddenly I felt at ease. All of the same feelings I just told you about had been there, but nothing comes even close to equally the power and intensity of those feelings during the first experience. I gave myself several moments to be free of all cares. Time had slipped into an abyss. Everything was relative to eternity after that. You may have heard that heroin is a great way to pass time, and I can definitely confirm that is true. Under the influence of the villainous drug, you can literally lay on a floor for eight hours with your eyes closed watching the blackness, and it feels like only a couple moments have passed, at the most. That may be why it’s such a commonly abused drug in prisons. A forty year sentence may seem like only five if the incarcerated stays high on the deadly opiate the entire time. But I digress – I’m getting off topic. I sat on the couch next to Jade and we prepared the second shot in the exact same manner. She was shaking with nerves and perspiring. I told her once again that she didn’t have to go through with the deed if she was uncomfortable in doing so, but she insisted, her logic being that we had already been through everything else together, and that this would just be one more thing to add to our repertoire of stories. We had known each other since we were both five years old. We truly had been through everything together, but if I had only known what it would lead to in the end, I would have never agreed to it, not in a hundred years. But I did. I had taken the syringe in my right hand, after we had exchanged the needle on the end – that’s one thing I at least can still be proud of; no matter how low I’ve sunk in this life or no matter how many sins I’ve committed, I’ve still never shared a needle or reused one more than once; I replace them after every single use – and placed my left hand on her back gently to try and comfort her. I spoke quietly and told her to try and relax as I drew close to her right arm with the needle. I knew it would be hard to get the point into a vein if she was shaking too much, and I certainly didn’t want to have to put her through the procedure more than once. I used the same vein on her that she had used on me, along the top of her right forearm, almost in the exact same place too. When I finally pierced the skin, she too had her eyes closed, and was still shaking but fortunately I had still been able to successfully hit the artery. I pushed down on the plunger at a slow rate, until all of the liquid inside had been transfused into the girl’s circulatory system. Once the chamber of the syringe was empty, I cautiously withdrew it and placed it on a coffee table in front of us. Then I immediately took hold of the girl, embracing her tightly from behind and pulling her close to me as we fell backwards onto the couch in our drug-induced haze. We didn’t move from that spot for the rest of the day.

There are a couple of strange phenomena with the act of shooting the speedball. The first is that since one of the drugs is a stimulant and the other is a depressant of the central nervous system, the effects may offset each other, so to speak, and the user may feel in an almost neutral state, causing them to do more and more of the drugs. This is why there’s such a high risk of overdose when using these drugs in conjunction with one another. Want to feel more awake and powerful? Not a problem, just do another line of the cocaine. Want to boost the dreamy state of delusions? Also not a problem, a touch of heroin will take care of the instantly. Starting to come down? Fuck it, just shoot another. That brings me to the second trend of shooting the speedball. The duration of cocaine is much shorter than that of heroin, so after shooting you may feel the initial peak for several hours, depending on the tolerance that you have to both drugs, which slowly recedes, the cocaine wearing off while the heroin is still in full effect, leaving the user in a much slower, depressed and opiate-induced state of mind, which isn’t to necessarily say that it’s a bad thing, but is something the user should be aware of beforehand.

I opened my eyes once again, bringing myself back to my horrible reality, revealing the obscene, filthy, indecent apartment in front of my eyes again. At heart, I’m a maniacally depressed person, and seeing such a lewd atmosphere certainly doesn’t help in that regard. But I know that I’ll be elevated to the heavens for the next several hours, and so, temporarily at least, there’s really nothing to worry about. The news still plays on the television in the background. More meaningless bullshit. I can’t help but think back on that first time though, as I do every morning. That first time when Jade was still by my side and life still held some traces of purpose and meaning and pleasure and joy. It’s all gone now. It’s all gone and I have no one to blame but myself. I’m held hostage by these chemicals. I sigh heavily again and pack the supplies back up into the briefcase before rising to my feet and walking across the room, placing back in the same spot against the wall. I pull back the dust-covered curtains a sliver and peer out over my balcony to the streets below to watch the world pass by. Cars struck in traffic and people walking in such a hurry to make it to their destination. All of these endless, generic names and faces – lost souls, who deep down just want the same thing as me, and that’s to feel loved and wanted. All the lonely people, where do they all come from? I let the curtain go and walk away, flipped the television off finally as I pass by it. I light yet another cigarette as I grab my keys off the table and toss them into my pocket before heading out the door on my way to work. My job is loading and unloading supplies on and off of large cargo boats, down at the Los Angeles shipyard. It’s not a very glamorous job, but I don’t care. It’s the only job for a junkie. I can go and do my job under the influence, and continue to get high throughout the day, as needed. I don’t have a supervisor standing there, looking over my shoulder every second, and I only work with a couple of others who are also addicts. We don’t really see too much of each other anyways. And, above all, it supports my habit. I make my way down the hall of the apartment building and then down a short flight of stairs. I live on the second floor, so thankfully it doesn’t take much effort to climb up and down the stairwell to my apartment anyways. They’re quite cheap apartments to begin with. I don’t like people in the slightest, and therefore don’t really socialize with any of the others residents there, but I pass by them occasionally in the halls or the parking lot. I would doubt that any of them have sunk quite as low as me yet, but who am I to judge? They don’t appear to be addicts anyways. I don’t see endless track marks all the way up their arms or anything like that, but most of them seem to be losers just like me, living reclusively and living week by week, probably on social assistance. I swear, sometimes it seems like I’m the only person in that goddamn place who can even hold a job. How that’s possible is far beyond the limitations of my comprehension. I make my way out the front door and across the parking lot to my rusted, beaten, old Honda Accord that was built in the year nineteen hundred and eighty one, and had certainly passed its prime. Despite its aging existence however, it still did the job I needed it to do, getting me from point A to point B, being my apartment and job, respectively, not to mention to meet my drug dealer once or twice a week. Being a drug addict is a very, very costly profession. Only a very small fraction of it is about enjoying the initial high. The rest of the time revolves around warding off the withdraw symptoms and somehow scrounging to come up with the money to re-up once the supply runs out. The good news is that many substances of abuse, particularly cocaine, inhibit the sensation of hunger, as well as sleep – two of the greatest joys in life. But that allows more time in a single day to make money and get high. It’s an expensive drug to abuse though. My case is slightly different, as I enjoy abusing all drugs too much to abruptly cease using any of them. But if you’re looking for one particular drug of choice, I would certainly cast my vote on heroin. It is, without a doubt, much more cost efficient than any other substance. The high is surreal and ten dollars can often get the user a bag of high quality product that will last all weekend. That is, until their tolerance starts to increase. That matter comes into play once you start injecting as well. Performing such an act is indeed high risk behaviour. While it’s true that you can only relate to the feelings you gain from it by trying it firsthand, thinking you’ll try such an experience and having the delusion that you won’t become addicted is like playing with fire and refusing to believe that you’ll get burned. It’s foolish and will come to haunt you in the end. As junkies we all have those beliefs – that we’ll be the exception to the rule. That we’ll, for whatever reason, be strong enough to keep the pressing urges at bay. That we’ll all be that weekend warrior, able to shoot-up once a week and still carry on with our lives as normal. And we do, for a little while. But by the time we realize what’s happening to us, it’s already far too late, and we’re already far too dependent on the substance, cursing the man who first synthesized it from the opium poppy. Very, very few can use heroin recreationally and responsibly, though there are the few who have, they seem to be the ones who continue to snort the drug. That’s typically how the vicious cycle begins – users begin by getting a prescription from a doctor or finding a dealer on the street to give them access to painkilling medication, such as heroin, morphine, codeine, methadone or oxycodone that the user ingests orally or crushes and inhales, which brings the effects on slightly quicker. The thing with heroin however, is that the effects are by no means astounding during that first time use, unlike other categories of drugs such as psychedelics or stimulants. The user just simply experiences this nice, calming, mellow feeling and thinks of it in a very pleasant light. Immediately afterwards, they don’t feel any uncontrollable urges to use the substance again. This baffles most. They’ve heard their whole lives how heroin is this evil drug that will most certainly destroy their lives. They feel manipulated and lied to, and may start using the drug regularly on weekends. Tolerance with heroin builds quite rapidly though, and if the user allows this trend to continue, which unfortunately, many do, that same ten dollar bag may only last them a couple of hours within the next year. This is when some turn to injecting the drug, which is the biggest mistake they could possibly make. Yes, it does make the substance go further, but at what cost? After the user takes that first initial plunge, there’s no escape after that. Most end up dying that way, but even for the microscopic percentage of users that do manage to get clean, they still have to live with that forever. They’ll always know what they’re missing when they’re not using, and despite their best efforts, the substance often gets the best of them, and ultimately calls them back for another round with it, regardless of how many years they think they’ve been free of it. Snort heroin, and you might get away, though even then you will still have to live the rest of your life being aware of your past actions. But inject heroin, and it’s a commitment to suicide. A long, slow, drawn out death to be fair, but still death by the user’s own very hand nonetheless.

I reach my vehicle and unlock the door, climbing inside and sitting down in the driver’s seat, slipping on my pair of sunglasses. It’s very bright outside and the morning sun blinds my eyes as it casts the shadows of the previous night back into the realms from which they came. I insert the appropriate key into the ignition and turn, hearing the old, reliable engine under the hood of the car roar to life again. I roll down the window to avoid filling the car with smoke from my cigarette, which has almost burnt down to the filter by now. I open the glove compartment. Inside there are two more dime bags, one yellow and one blue. The yellow is the cocaine and the blue is the heroin. I smile as I see that I have at least enough to make it through one more day. Just one day at a time; it feels like I’ve been living life that way for far too long already, but that’s really the only way to live it. It doesn’t matter if you’re a drug addict or not, with age and wisdom you must ultimately come to accept that there’s never any telling what the future holds in store for any of us. We can do our best to make plans and influence the constantly-changing world around us, but we really do just kind of have to go with whatever happens to us, and whatever situation we find ourselves in. I’ve always tried to keep this in mind as I stumble hopelessly through life. How I’ve survived for even this long, I cannot say. I place the car in gear and pull out of the parking lot, leaving the set of apartments in the distance behind me as I turn west along the roads. After a moment I turn onto a busier freeway and find myself held up in the morning traffic, at which point my mind begins to wander again. I think about what I would say if I could go back and talk to the fifteen year old version of myself, knowing what I know now. I think about Jade, as I always do. I wish that I could just run into her on the street, and hold her in my arms and kiss her and tell her how beautiful she looks, and that all the time we’ve spent apart would melt away and things between us could be like they were many, many years ago. But I’ve lost hope. I’ve been wishing and praying for that encounter for years – lifetimes, it seems – and it just never occurs in my life. Each night brings with it the closure of yet another chapter with the setting of the omnipresent sun, and a new episode begins again the following day with the rising of it.

I arrive at work after a short commute and making it through the traffic and begrudgingly get started with my job immediately. I’m a robot. Lift the boxes of cargo off one ship, stack them off to the side, and load them onto the next. Just go through the motions each and every day, and don’t you dare question it. When I grow bored, I simply remind myself of the final product, which is ten dollars an hour and the ability to purchase more ‘medication’ and ultimately the opportunity to survive another day. I don’t mind though. Due to the lack of active supervision at the site, it allows me to take breaks whenever I need to retreat to my car and snort more of the substances whenever I feel compelled to. One personal rule that I live by is that I only inhale the drugs during my shift; I never shoot them. I suppose I feel it’s a more subtle manner of administration and more time efficient as well. But as the day drags on late into the afternoon, I start to crash hard and I need that boost to get me through the rest of my shift. As soon as I get it though, I’m able to do my job much more effectively. Sometimes, on the really slow days, I’ll find that I may actually require two or three or four breaks to make it through. But somehow I always do. I can’t say that I know why. I grow very tiresome of returning alone every night to the same dirt-covered apartment. I’ve worked hard my whole life, and have only tried my best. I don’t think it sounds selfish to say that I deserve much more than this. I live in the city that’s the apex of greed, and every single day, driving to and from work, I’m surrounded by materialistic assholes who have so much more than me, while not putting in nearly as much effort or long hours as myself. I’m not a very materialistic person. I never have been, and surely I know that money doesn’t buy happiness, but living in such an atmosphere certainly doesn’t help me feel any better about myself, and is just another further example of how unfair life is. What does it matter to me now? Suicide seems all but inevitable in this existence. Nobody will miss me. I hate what our society has become. Many nights after work I return to my apartment by myself, smoke a small amount of marijuana in solitude to help unwind from the day, and then proceed to break down, crying to myself, sometimes for hours on end as I think of all the hate and pain that we as humans subject one another to. I’m useless. I’m a loser. I’m old, and I influence no one else’s life. I don’t mean anything to anybody. This life is a lost cause. And then I must somehow find it in myself to wake up and do it all over again the next day. Lord knows I can’t change, and I wish he would just end all of this suffering for me. Does He not hear my cries? Is He not as merciful as everyone suggests? Perhaps someday I’ll get the chance to ask him myself. I never used to sound this depressed or hopeless all the time. It’s not like I enjoy being this way, but perhaps through these thoughts that I reveal to you on paper, you may get a slight look into my possessed mind and understand why I am this way.

Eventually six of the clock rolls around and I climb back into my car to conclude yet another day. Make no mistake, just because I’m a drug addict does not mean that I don’t have a strong work ethic. Absolutely not – my entire life I’ve held on to the underlying urge to keep myself occupied, and even as burnt out as I’ve become, I still get the greatest feeling of self accomplishment after a long day at work, though it does just seem to be all for nothing. Most nights I take the scenic route home from work, and certainly don’t rush as it means returning to spend the night in insolation in the prison that is my apartment. I’m typically in no hurry to return to my meager, meaningless existence, though once I do finally reach my apartment and close the door, I do feel a sense of relief and freedom of having survived another day and being blocked off once again from the rest of the cruel, devastating outside world, for it’s never done anything to me but try to harm me, and I must say, it has done quite a good job in prevailing with that. Anyways, on this particular evening I am running low on product and have to make a visit to my favourite drug dealer. I’ll say it now, lest I forget to mention it later on, for years of substance abuse are telling on my memory – the re-up; it’s my favourite part of living the life of a junkie. The moment that immediately follows the process is the moment that I have the absolute maximum amount of the substances in my possession, and I feel like a billionaire; like a hopeless gambler finally winning the jackpot and cashing out his chips at some prestigious casino. It’s a reassurance of life for at least the next three or four days, and I have no reason to worry myself over how much I’m using for that immediate time afterwards. My dealer is quite a laidback soul and we share good chemistry, he and I. I always feel welcomed in his home, and the two of us can talk for hours on end about seemingly nothing if we so desire to, and then I can get up and walk away in the blink of an eye without feeling as though I am deserting him. I never feel obligated to purchase from him, though he always has a great, wide selection with fair prices. In sorts, he is my only friend, as sad as that may sound. So once my shift ends, I use a payphone from the site to call the young man whose name is Ashton. I identify myself, assuming that he has hundreds of clients and won’t recognize me just by my voice right off the bat. He seems exuberant when I tell him that it is me, and ensures me right away that he will be home when I ask if I may come by to make a pick up. I thank him and inform him that I will be at his place within forty minutes. I return to my car and get all of my affairs in order, making sure that I have the cash to pay him with before indulging in the rest of the cocaine and heroin that is being held in my glove compartment, and then lighting a cigarette as I slowly pull away from the shipyard. The drive through the countryside that follows feels so surreal in the truest sense of the word. If anyone were to meet me suddenly, right at this very moment of my life, I’m sure that they wouldn’t know what to think. I once felt invincible, on a definite level above that of everyone else. Now, I’m just another lost and lonely soul, certainly bound for disaster. The cigarette that rests between my left index and middle finger seems to burn forever as I peer out at the passing nature scenery. I actually feel quite at peace, despite the pit that my life is in, like the calm before the storm. I click on the radio as I drive and the majestic tunes of Neil Young’s classic, Heart of Gold comes pouring out of the speakers of the automobile, filling the atmosphere around me with mystical, soft, good vibrations. I had been raised on the music, as my single mother had been quite the lifelong fan and had played his tunes constantly while I was growing up, and now it seems to hold more meaning than ever before. She’s gone now – the woman who worked so tirelessly to give me a good home when I was young. Part of me almost feels as though I’m betraying her by living this lifestyle that I’ve chosen, though everything begins at home, and as much as I loved my mother in her life, if you trace back my own life right to the beginning, you might be able to see how she was the one responsible for putting me in this situation. But please, let me spare you the personal opinions, for I don’t want to bore you. I am trying to remain concentrated on the hard, actual facts, and the fact of the matter is that cancer claimed her as one of its many victims several years ago. All these conscious thoughts race freely through my mind and, as always, return to focus on Jade as I make my way along the freeway and into the city. I suppose, in many ways, the girl had been very much like a young version of my mother, which may have been the reason why I was ever even attracted to her in the first place. I shake my head and try to free myself. I get such sick thoughts sometimes. Why is it that God hath made us to have such minimal control over our individual mentalities? The images of the fair maiden continue to swirl in my head for the duration of the drive to Ashton’s home, your typical rundown drug house with a rotting exterior and thick black sheets draped over all of the windows, and was located just on the edge of one of the local projects. It is the kind of house that police don’t even want to become involved with, which holds its own sense of ironic humour in it, because although Ashton does in fact own firearms, they’re for his protection only and he would never hurt a flea. He really is one of the gentlest souls that I have ever met. I pull up along the side of the street out front of the two storey house, placing the wearing out vehicle in park and shutting off the ignition before climbing out and letting the heavy door slam shut behind me. I cross the sidewalk and continue along the brief pathway across the small front, unkept lawn and up to my dealer’s doorstep, giving a loud echoing pound on the wood when I reach it. I know that I’m not a bad person, but I can’t help but feel as if I’m the exact type that mothers warn their young are dangerous and to stay away from. I don’t care. Fuck anyone who judges me. They can never relate or understand what I’ve seen in my life. The more that they try, the more it simply pains me to see them fail. There’s still no answer at the door as of yet, but I know there will be momentarily at my pulse quickens at the thought. Ashton has a process all of his own, and I don’t even try to understand the way his mind works. I have given up on that long ago, and all I know for certain is that he is very good at what he does; the best, to be sure. I knew that there is a tear in one of the sheets that hangs over one of the windows upstairs, which he uses to check outside every single time that anyone comes by to make a pickup to ensure that it’s not actually the authorities. I find it quite humorous to be honest, in a rather twisted sense. There are times when the two of us will simply be sitting and relaxing downstairs in his living room, when an expected client arrives and knocks at the door, and Ashton goes bolting up the stairs to the window to peak out and confirm that it is indeed his customer. Well, to each your own, and make no mistake about it, I am very grateful that I know Ashton. Finally I hear the click of the lock, and the door swings open to reveal a man in his mid-twenties, though much like me, years of drug abuse are already telling on his figure and his wrinkled face looks like that of a man’s much older than himself. He has long, dark brown hair which is already beginning to fall out, large, black circles underneath his eyes and is very sloppily dressed with a baggy white t-shirt that is covered in stains and black track pants on his legs. The outfit covers up his withering body. “Clyde!” my dealer exclaims enthusiastically, greeting me in a very similar manner and tone to the way that he did on the phone not even an hour earlier, as if he hadn’t been expecting me at all. I return the welcoming greeting and he instantly invites me in to his humble living quarters. I nod and thank him, making my way into the dark home while he quickly shuts the door behind me. I don’t bother taking my shoes off when I enter. The house is already about as dirty as it can possibly get anyways, and I know Ashton well enough by now to know that he doesn’t care. “So what can I get for you today?” he asks me as we make our collective ways into his living room and he invites me to make myself comfortable on the couch, turning on his television in the background. “Uh, the usual,” I reply, retrieving a wad of small bills from my pocket to determine how much I can actually afford. “Some cocaine and some heroin.” I don’t like to use slang much. Ashton nods and lifts the lid of a briefcase of his own that sits on a coffee table in front of me, revealing an entire arsenal of illicit substances before my eyes. I count through the cash in my hand. I intend to buy several bundles, so here’s the breakdown of my addiction for any of you who are interested. First off, let me state that I never waste my time on that black tar shit and Ashton knows this. It’s either china white powder all the way, or else I take my business elsewhere. For those of you who are completely drug illiterate, this refers to just the heroin only. Now, as is the case with any drug, the price may vary greatly depending on the location and quality of the substance. Ashton’s a fair dealer though, and because I’m one of his most loyal customers, he sells me only the highest quality products he can obtain, often giving them to me from his own personal stash, and for fair prices too. On this day he shows me three different types of heroin that he has, one of them being more expensive and of a slightly higher quality than the other two. Naturally I gravitate more to purchasing that one. I am evidently at the peak of my addiction, using anywhere between half a gram and a full gram and a half per day, and buying in the purest possible quality I can find. Typically, a bag contains a tenth of a gram, and a bundle consists of a solid ten bags to make up the entire gram. I buy what we call a brick; that is, five bundles, and each bundle costs a hundred dollars. Most bundles can be bought cheaper than that, but again I will restate, this is only the finest quality product. Ashton and I make the first transaction, then move on to our next order of business, the cocaine. Don’t ask me where the money comes from – I couldn’t tell you. All I will say is that, at times, I swear all I do is work and get high. And the longer that I’m at work, the fewer drugs I use, and the more money I have for them. On to the cocaine then. The amounts of each drug that I use are very proportionate to each other, and my cocaine use ranges between half a gram and a full gram every day. So I purchase five grams of that as well, which ends up costing me the exact same in total, five hundred dollars. Again, the price is typically cheaper, but then you get what you pay for, and at this stage of my addiction I need only the most powerful narcotics that this world has to offer. A thousand dollars done in the blink of an eye, just like that, but it doesn’t matter to me. I’ve got what I’ve came here for. “You mind if I shoot right here?” I ask Ashton as he hands me over the bag of coke after weighing it out on a scale for me. “Not at all,” he says with a smile. I figure he must certainly share the same sense of loneliness that I so often feel. While it’s true that he gets a lot more visitors and attention than I do, he still has deep layers of pain behind his darkened, burnt out eyes, and I don’t think many of his customers really consider him a whole lot more than just their drug dealer. I’m guilty of this at times as well, but figure what the hell? I might as well share my time with somebody. There’s no sense in rushing back to my apartment too waste away the night there getting high by myself. So I retrieve an unused needle from Ashton and repeat the same process from the morning, as does he, sitting beside me now. Time stretches into eternity as my mind fades to blackness. Pushing the plunger down on the syringe, shooting the combination of deadly drugs directly into the vein of my right arm, all of my cares disappear around me. I don’t become paranoid that the police are going to burst through the door and raid the place. I’m not thinking about the long drive back home or when I need to get up again for work. I don’t really hear the television playing on in the background. And I don’t even allow myself to think of Jade at this point. I definitely don’t allow myself to think of all the money that I just wasted. This is my life. I’m quite content lying back on the couch with my eyes closed, starring off into the abyss, with my only friend at my side doing the same. Every junkie’s like the setting sun. Today is Wednesday.