Authors: Jerry Stahl
The girl's face staring back at me from my compact is suffering from malnutrition. My skin is diaphanous, I can almost see the bones in the front part of my skull. All I need now is lipstick and I'll look fabulous. It's not in my purse. Probably because its nestled in Angela's faux cleavage. She's an unrepentant thief.
Crouching in the wild overgrown weeds, I poke my head out of the hole in the fence to make sure the coast is clear. At dusk the air reeks of night-blooming jasmine intermingled with exhaust fumes and the infamous smog blanketing the City of Angels. Six to nine is family values time. A sea of bodies flows in and out of the local stores. A pulsating microorganism, the antithesis of the invading scary monsters and super freaks that come out after all the good people have turned in for the night. The hustle and bustle takes away my loneliness.
Waiting for the traffic light to turn green, I see a man and his young son struggling to get a cart up the steps of a building. I met Jose and Jesus selling homemade tamales outside a mini-mall where foot traffic is always heavy. When I was hungry I would stop by, and more often than not they would feed me for free. They were Christian; what Christians should be. Even though I politely decline Jose's numerous invitations to go to church, they are always happy to see me. Even though I am part of the problem, another neighborhood junkie, they don't judge and they don't ask questions.
Jose and I share a love of Pablo Neruda's poems. He told me he wooed his wife Maria by reciting them to her. These sporadic exchanges bring me close to them. Awakening a small desire in me to be “normal” again.
I hurry across the street to help, eager to do something for them for a change. When we get the cart into the lobby, Jose insists I come stay with his family for a couple of nights. My protestations fall on deaf ears. I follow them up the three flights of stairs and Jose opens the door into a small living room. The aroma of garlic and freshly cooked chicken fills the apartment. It feels like home. Maria, his wife, comes out of the kitchen and puts her arms around me.
“I'm so glad to meet you, those two have told me so much about you,” she says, still holding me. She has an exquisite Roman nose, hazel eyes, and white skin. Her hair is pulled back off her face in a chignon. For a brief moment, I'm not a motherless daughter.
Grandma sits in front of the TV. She isn't thrilled. Maria leads me into the kitchen and sits me at the table. Grandma and Jose are arguing in Spanish about me staying. He comes into the kitchen and says, “Don't worry, she's just a frightened old woman who never leaves the house except on Sundays to go to church.”
The walls in the small apartment are adorned with saints. It's been years since I've sat down at a table to have a meal. After dinner, Maria hands me of pair of sweats and suggests I take a shower. I do so and rejoin them. Above the television is an ornately framed picture of a saint holding two eyeballs on a plate. I ask Grandma who she is.
“Santa Lucia, the patron saint of the blind. Like you.”
I am insulted by her remark, but I soon fall asleep on the couch watching TV. Much later I awake to Grandma covering me up with a blanket. I drift off again.
It's early dawn when the monster begins to stir. I come to. I panic, I have no idea where I am until I hear Grandma snoring gently. The monkey on my back is doing cartwheels on my spine. I feel my way to the bathroom, change back into my clothes, and slither away.
The streets are deserted. The neighborhood is still slumbering. I have an ominous feeling that something's amiss. As I walk down the sidewalk, I notice the same car go past me twice. It's a curb-crawler, circling me like a vulture. He pulls alongside me slowly. When the tinted window rolls down I see a man's face covered in third-degree burns.
“Are you workin'?”
I'm already too sick to turn a trick, and I yell at him to fuck off. He speeds away. My veins are ravenous. The backs of my legs are being sliced by razors. In the movie
Barbarella
there's a scene where Jane Fonda is tied to a post while a gang of mechanical dollies with sharp teeth bite at her sinewy legs. Now I'm in the leading role. With every step I take my legs grow heavier from the discomfort. I hear footsteps approaching fast. I want to run but I can't. I turn around abruptly. It's a friend from the park that goes by Willie, but I call him Abdullah after the militant character played by Bill Duke in the movie
Car Wash
. He calls me Che Guevara. He says it as one word,
Cheguevara
. Our conversations are almost always political. We are a couple of park-bench revolutionaries. Abdullah needs a gallon of vodka daily.
When I get dopesick my mood turns foul. I let loose a stream of expletives at him for scaring me. Ignoring my outburst, he fills me in on what I've missed during the two days I've spent sleeping. The police did a mass sweep of the area and arrested dozens of people. The neighborhood's hot. I tell him I have to go to the park to find Angela. She'll give me something to tide me over if she has any.
“Angela was picked up this morning,” he says sadly.
We reach the park, and Abdullah is right. In the aftermath of the mass arrests nothing is jumping off. Usually at this early hour there are still a few homeless crackheads left. But it's deserted, and they have all scurried off like rats to wherever it is that rats go during daytime. The powers that be have put forth a valiant effort in the war on drugs.
The only ones here are the three wise men, sitting on their usual bench from which they run their own apothecary. They sell every kind of pill imaginable. They are the only African Americans allowed to sell in the park. But they still have to pay taxes to the local gang. The leader, Mr. James, had been a sax player when the jazz clubs were in full swing. He finally kicked his forty-year habit in exchange for a methadone maintenance program. The first time I met him he said to me, “Dope is misery.”
In my youthful arrogance I shot back, “Of course it is for YOU, old man.”
They make room for me on the bench. Seeing that I am in good hands, Abdullah bids his farewell and leaves for the liquor store. Midway through my tale of woe they begin discussing my financial predicament amongst themselves as if I'm not even there. Finally Mr. James turns to me.
“Because you're a hustla and you always come correct, we have decided to donate the first twenty dollars we make to your cause. This is the only time we'll ever help you out, so don't be gettin' any ideas.”
There is a God after all. I thank them profusely and say to Mr. James, “You are a prince among men.”
He corrects me: “No, senorita, I'm a king. Now go sit over there. I'm a superstitious fool. This is our place of business and you throw the numbers off.”
I do as I am told, but not before he gives me a Klonopin to tide me over. I swallow it immediately.
I lie down in the wet grass a couple hundred yards away from them. My insides are on a slow burn; within the hour they will be boiling over into my abdomen. I can feel my blood pounding against my eardrums. I shut my eyes to stop myself from continuously checking up on the wise men. When you're jonesing, a minute lasts an hour. It's still cool, the fireball in the sky hasn't covered the neighborhood. I'm grateful for the cold chillsâthe sun always makes me feel worse. I can't take the suspense any longer. I open my eyes to see Mr. James walking toward me. He gives me the money, I thank him again, and I'm gone.
I score behind a dumpster in an alley, half a block from my favorite Laundromat. It's the cleanest one I've ever been in. Whenever I enter I'm overcome by the scent of detergent. It's intoxicating. And the toilet in the bathroom is pristine, bleached as white as the heavenly clouds. I have actually eaten in there. My works are hidden in the bathroom wall in a hole at ceiling level. I no longer carry paraphernalia just in case the cops stop me. With the balloon safely tucked between my upper gum and cheek, I already feel less nauseous as I begin the walk. All I can think of is the needle going into my vein. The promise of relief, sweet euphoria, waits for me in my celestial white bathroom.
Out of the corner of my eye I see a car peel out from the curb on the other side of the street. Pulling a sharp U-turn, it comes to a stop directly in front of me. I know without looking up who it is. I have to remain calm. Staring at the ground, I continue walking. I have nothing on me anyone can find. All that stands between me and getting well is this cop obstacle. I start praying to a God I don't believe in. The car door opens, obstructing my path.
“Stop right there. Drop the purse, put your arms above your head, and face the wall.”
It's Mr. Undercover. He's stopped me on many occasions and is responsible for my only arrest, which got me locked up for three days. Mr. Undercover's one of those hard-boiled film noir detectives. He picks up my purse.
“Is there anything in here I can cut myself on, any needles?”
I must stick to monosyllabic responses. If I swallow the balloon I'll have to wait for hours to shit it out. And like every junkie I have a serious case of constant constipation, a side effect of opiates. He finishes his search of my purse and hands it back to me.
“Well, Miss Hype, looks like I'm going to have to let you go.”
I thank him, and the balloon falls onto my tongue. He catches a glimpse of the bright yellow color.
“What's that in your mouth?”
“Chewing gum,” I answer, trying to swallow it. My throat's so dry it won't go down.
“Spit it out, NOW!”
He pulls down my bottom lip. The pain's horrific. I think he's ripped it off my face. Tears shoot out of my eyes. Stifling a scream, my mouth opens up and out plops the balloon onto the ground.
“You're under arrest.”
Coming down the street are Jose, Maria, Jesus, and Grandma, dressed in their Sunday best, on their way to church. They avoid looking in my direction. I know they are averting their gaze to spare me the indignity of being handcuffed in public. Still, Jesus turns and waves at me, tugging his father's hand. Jose pulls him forward.
On the drive to the station, Mr. Undercover gets chatty. I'm not in the mood to talk. I keep wishing he would give me back my dope and drive me to my Laundromat. He won't shut up. He says drugs are just a platform for politicians to get easy votes.
Dare to Keep Kids off Drugs
is a scaremongering tactic, a lame slogan on T-shirts. Narcotics should be legal. Only pregnant users should be arrested. Addicts are only killing themselves. The CIA is responsible for flooding the ghettos with cheap cocaine to fund the Contras. This is not what he signed up for. In hindsight this all makes senseâwhen his division makes international headlines for corruption.
When he's done with his monologue, I ask why he won't let me go if this is such a charade.
“I got a job to do, paperwork to fill out,” he replies sarcastically. We finally arrive at the dreaded cop shop. I ask Mr. Undercover if I can have one last smoke. He uncuffs me, takes a cigarette out of the packet in my purse, and lights it.
“Why are you a junkie?” he asks. I envision the scene from
The Wild One
where Johnny's asked, “What are you rebelling against?” to which he replies, “What have you got?”
With a sweeping dramatic hand gesture I declare, “Because of all this.”
Without missing a beat he says, “That's just not good enough.”
My Marlon Brando moment is ruined.
Sitting in the cell like a wounded animal, I recollect an argument I had with my mother in my early teens.
“It's my life to destroy,” I had hissed at her.
“You can't handle freedom.”
Cold turkey is taking a hold of me. The Klonopin that Mr. James gave me helps me doze off.
I'm in a holding cell inside the women's correctional facility at the Twin Towers jail in downtown Los Angeles. We call them Twisted Towers. I want to scream but I'm afraid I'll vomit. It's an infraction here in the catacombs that will get you a beatdown. There are thirty of us squashed into a sardine can made for twenty. I lie on the floor wishing that the physical pain would kill me. Wishing these feelings would kill me. I am rotting from the inside out. My guts feel like an abattoir. The symptoms of my soul sickness. The agony that stems from my heroin addiction. It's all that remains alive within me. It's all there is. I want to smash my head against the concrete floor. My skin is on fire, my every pore is being torched. My eyes are swimming in battery acid. Please, someone; please, Mr. Policeman with the gun, come in and open fire, please kill me. Put me out of my misery. For I know that even this torture I'm enduring won't stop me from going back to the poppy at the first opportunity. I'm not a victim, I'm a volunteer. I am a junkie, a bottomless pit of despair and desperation. My dreams, desires, and wishes, my hopes and ambitions all cooked up in the spoon. Lying next to me is another girl in the same shape I'm in. She reaches out to me and we hold hands.
It's five a.m. and I am on the toilet. I haven't pulled my regulation blues all the way down to my ankles, instead they rest on my thighs. I want to appear as if I'm just sitting here, because what I'm really doing is taking a shit. Even though the correctional officers are busy, they can see me. I flush immediately, so the smell doesn't linger. I wipe myself quickly. And flush again. My humiliation is palpable. It fills the tiny cell. I take a seat on the steel desk attached to the wall. A slither of bulletproof glass doubles as a window. I realize all that I have taken for granted as I gaze upon the hills.
The car plummets through trees and bushes, finally landing on a small precipice with a sonic crash. Smoke pours from the hood. I wait for the explosion that will blow me to bits, but after a couple of minutes, it fizzles out. Reality hits me. Not only am I still alive, but a fate far worse than death has befallen me. I am now carless in Los Angeles. Tears of rage lash down my face. How is it possible for one to launch oneself off a decent-size cliff and survive? The doors are jammed shut. I hurl myself out of the open window and lay sobbing on the moist ground. I want to crawl away and hide forever. It is pathetic. There is no way humanly possible of making it back up to the road. I have to call for help. I dial my friend Marie two thousand miles away in Chicago. I explain the quandary I'm in. Her words, so loving and compassionate, make me feel like an even bigger piece of shit. She is thinking logically, and calls 911. The EMTs find me almost an hour later, and strap me into a flexible stretcher, encasing my head in a contraption that prevents me from seeing anything. All I need is a ball gag and I could be the star of my own S&M movie.