Authors: Phil Shoenfelt
We had managed to get the electricity, gas and water supplies hooked-up, and I had painted our room, laying an old carpet from a second-hand shop across the bare, wooden floorboards. Cissy had decorated the walls with photos, posters and cotton wall-hangings, and had even managed to create a canopy for our bed out of one of them, so that it now resembled an old four-poster or, together with all the embroidered cushions she had, something from North Africa or the Middle East. It was a warm and comfortable room, and as I walked through the backsreets I could see, across the tangle of gardens and wind-blown treetops, the light from our window high up at the top of the house, and I was looking forward to surprising Cissy with the gear I had stashed inside my sock. It seems incredible to me, now, that I actually believed this plan would work: that Cissy would be able to systematically reduce the amount she was taking each day and, even more, that I would be self-disciplined enough to be able to refrain from dipping into the supply myself.
When I arrived in our kitchen at the top of the stairs, there was nobody in. I put the bag of heroin on the table, then sat down to read a book and wait for her. I must have fallen asleep, for I awoke a couple of hours later, cold and bad-tempered, and the first thing that my eyes fell upon was the little plastic bag
of brown powder, tied with an elastic band, that sat waiting patiently on the table. Drawn inexorably, I went over and picked it up, turning it over and over in my hand. Surely, just one little taste wouldn’t hurt, nobody would know. It would probably be hours before Cissy came home, and I could wait until the morning to tell her about the smack. And, almost before I knew it, I had gone to the cupboard where she kept her spoons and syringes and was cooking up a hit, just as if I had never stopped at all.
Once, in New York, I watched somebody who had been clean for five years take a shot. Something had gone badly wrong in this poor fucker’s life, and in a wonderfully perverse spirit of masochistic glee, he had obviously determined to wipe out everything he had so painstakingly built up in the intervening period. Since he had kicked the habit, he had got a good job, married, started a family and bought a house, and he believed his years in the drug wilderness were behind him, just a faint recollection from his wild and wasted youth. He had come to our flat with some mutual friends, and asked me if he could get high there, rather than return to the cold and empty house that awaited him in Westchester, or wherever it was that he lived; and though I was reluctant at first, not wanting him to
OD
on our floor, I did eventually agree. I watched, fascinated, as he prepared his shot, and as it hit him layers of his personality seemed to peel away. He was like a snake shedding its skin, and he literally seemed to grow years younger right in front of my eyes. The responsible adult character that he had attempted to grow into and adopt as his own also seemed to slough away — it was as if all the intervening years had melted into the air, and he was right back there as if they’d never happened, back on the one-way track to oblivion. I felt dizzy and vertiginous as I watched him enter his spin.
The brown liquid bubbled in the spoon that I held above the candle, and as it cooled I drew the smack up through the
cotton filter into the syringe. As if in a dream, I tied-off and got a vein up almost immediately, “Ol’ Faithful” in the crook of my left arm, and as I stuck the needle in I almost shit myself in anticipation. The rush was incredible. I thought I was going to pass out, it was so intense, a spreading white light that warmed every cell and nerve-ending in my body, and that felt like the best one hundred orgasms I’d ever had, all rolled into one. I lay slumped in my seat, totally sledgehammered, drifting in and out of consciousness while luxuriating in the warm, healing waters of the high.
There is something undeniably sexual about shooting up, and I’d experience a sharp pang of jealousy if I ever watched another man give one of my girlfriends a shot. But it’s like a surrogate sexuality, and with some junkie couples it does more or less take the place of active sex, due to the well-known effect of long-term heroin use on the male libido. Paradoxically, it doesn’t seem to affect the female of the species in quite the same way, and I’d often noticed that girls who were uptight sexually when straight became much freer and more relaxed, and had orgasms more intensely, when they were stoned. Some junkies sit for half an hour at a time, booting and re-booting the blood in the syringe, out and back in again, which always struck me as being quasi-vampiric, maybe even necrophiliac. In a room full of addicts, the air thick with cigarette smoke and the odour of sweat, the feeling is somehow pornographic — a sleazy, voyeuristic type of necro-sexuality that is, to a greater or lesser extent, addictive in itself.
I must have stayed in this oceanic state, bathing in the glow, for three or four hours, slipping in and out of dreams and feeling the warmth in the pit of my stomach like a comforting weight. It anchored me, it allowed me to feel the physicality of my own existence, and it entwined its warm tentacles through my intestines and around my spine, reaching every part of my limbs and body.
Eventually, I started to come down, and I began to feel guilty and bad-tempered again. I knew that I’d fucked up by getting high, but what was most worrying was that I had no real awareness of how it had actually happened. No conscious decision had been taken. I had moved as if under the control of some power alien to me, like a sleep-walker; and it suddenly seemed that this whole idea I’d concocted of weaning Cissy away from her habit was merely a pretext that my unconscious mind had formulated for getting me back into close contact with heroin once again. I was aware of a hidden part of me that had its own agenda of secret appetites and desires, that moved of its own volition and took no account of “me” at all. I could feel it inside, working away, moving silently along its own invisible tracks; and not only that, it was much stronger than me — of this, I was totally sure.
I went to bed determined not to succumb to the urge again, and when Cissy came in about 4 a.m. I pretended to be asleep. I didn’t want her to know that I had got high, and decided I’d wait until the morning to spring my surprise upon her.
She, of course, was delighted. She had only managed to cop a pitiful amount of skag the night before, after waiting for hours, and was depressed and sick when she woke in the morning. Her big eyes nearly popped when she saw what I’d bought, and I allowed her one big hit to celebrate before she began her reduction cure. We went back to bed and fucked for a couple of hours, slowly and dreamily, and I forgot all about my worries of the night before.
• • •
I began to dole out progressively smaller amounts of gear to Cissy each morning, until after a week her habit had stabilised, and less than a quarter-gramme a day would keep her straight. I managed to resist the temptation to take another shot myself;
but after about ten days, while Cissy was out visiting a friend one afternoon, I chopped out a little line and sniffed it. I told myself that this was a much safer form of ingestion, and that anyway, ten days between doses of the drug was long enough for it to pass through my system — there would be no danger of my developing even a small habit from this. But I missed the rush, and thirty minutes later I found myself tying-off and locating the same vein in my left arm. Again, the shot nearly floored me, and the rush was so powerful this time that I had to run to the bathroom and throw up.
To someone who has never indulged, it must seem a mystery how anybody could possibly enjoy taking a drug that has this effect on the body (not to mention other potential dangers, such as overdose, hepatitis,
HIV
, and a whole host of minor infections, abscesses and possible damage to various bodily organs that go with the territory). All I can say is that the feeling is akin to being poised on top of a very high roller-coaster, staring down into the precipice and experiencing a mingled sensation of terror and excitement as the car accelerates and you feel your stomach fly up into your mouth — the main difference here being that seconds later you are in paradise. It’s a feeling for nihilists and hedonists — for people who have either given up trying to make sense of existence, and want a quick and easy way out, or for people who don’t give a shit about a future they can’t see or believe in, and want only the most intense and immediate rush that life can offer.
Of course, in the beginning, you might just slide into it. Maybe someone offers you a chase at a party and you quite like the buzz you get off it; maybe you indulge a few times at a friend’s house, and it’s nothing particularly earth-shattering or special to you. But for those who have a genetic predisposition to smack (and the problem is, you don’t know whether you have or not until you’ve tried it), such casual indulgence rapidly becomes an impossibility. Very quickly the drug takes over all
areas and aspects of existence, until nothing else really matters except the rush, the warmth, and the freedom from anxiety that only heroin can bestow upon its legion of devotees.
I must have nodded out for a couple of hours, because suddenly Cissy was in the room, and she was not pleased.
“I knew this would happen, I just knew it! What, have you been using every day since you scored, or is this the first time? I thought you were supposed to be helping me, or was that just an excuse you were looking for? Jesus, now I’ve got this on my head as well — you gettin’ back into gear — that’s all I fuckin’ need … shit!”
I didn’t even bother trying to lie, or make excuses. The evidence was right there before me on the table: spoon, syringe, cotton, matches and gear, and although I knew I should feel humbled and apologetic, I felt myself getting angry instead.
“Look, it’s only one time, for Christ’s sake! I’m not gonna get back into it on a regular basis, am I? That’d be really stupid … an’ anyway, you’re not exactly in a position to be preaching.”
“Yeah, but you’re supposed to be helping me, you’re supposed to be being strong. How am I gonna stop if I see that you’re using all the time as well?”
I knew she was right, but at the same time I felt arrogant and without remorse — just angry at myself for getting caught.
“So, I fucked up, I admit it — I’m guilty as charged, if that makes you feel any better. Look, it’s only twice, I’m not gonna get back into using every day, honest.” As soon as the words were out of my befuddled brain, I felt like kicking myself.
“I thought you said it was the first time, you lyin’ bastard! That probably means you’ve been using every day, smokin’ or sniffin’, if not actually shooting up — I bet you’ve got a fuckin’ habit again already. Well, fuck off, if you’re gonna get high then so am I, I’m sick of this tapering-off business — an’ anyway, it’s boring, an’ I feel like you’re controlling me. So come on,
shit-head, give me a decent-sized hit … if you’re gonna be high, I wanna get high too!”
I could hardly deny her under the circumstances, and I measured out a fairly large amount into the big silver spoon that lay on the table. I added water and lemon juice, and cooked the whole lot up until the hot brown liquid bubbled in the spoon, then drew half of it up into the syringe before handing it to Cissy. As she tied-off and tried to find a vein, I took another syringe and booted the rest of the freshly-cooked gear myself.
• • •
Within a week, I’d cultivated a nice little habit and was shooting up several times a day. I’d had to cop again almost immediately, the first quarter-ounce having largely disappeared, but I was able to score easily, and more this time, too. Cissy helped me to sell the stuff. She had numerous friends and contacts who were ready and willing to buy, mostly street junkie types who usually bought off the dealers that hung around the backstreets and alleys near King’s Cross station, and a rapid turnover was essential if we were to support our own growing habits. I also bought an ounce of speed, as I knew many people who used the drug on a casual basis — just at weekends to go to concerts and parties — and it meant that if, for any reason, I couldn’t manage to buy an amount of heroin, I would still have something to sell.
This meant that there was a constant stream of people in and out of the house at all hours of the night and day, and I was always worried that the neighbours would become suspicious and telephone the police. However, the fact that the squat was on a busy main road, full of pedestrians and traffic, and that there were other squats nearby, also with large and shifting populations, meant that our never-ending stream of visitors
went largely unnoticed, or at least unheeded. I refused to do business after 9 p.m., unless it was a special favour to friends, but I was in a constant state of anxiety, always expecting the police to raid the place, especially as other people in the house were also dealing. A couple who had moved in downstairs were dealing hash — and speed also — and the boy who lived down the hallway from Andy’s room sold acid; and although most of this drug activity was on a fairly low level, money-wise, it did mean there was a perpetual flow of variously weird and wasted people, arriving and leaving from early in the morning until late at night. Sometimes, the house resembled a non-stop drugs party with people coming and going at regular intervals, buying and consuming various drugs in the different rooms on each floor, often staying for hours at a time. It was not at all the discreet, anonymous premises of a professional drug dealer: loud music blared from each crazily decorated room, there were always bizarre scenes happening somewhere and the place was more like a mixture of commune and opium den than a serious money-making proposition.
My life, once again, fell into a routine of using and scoring, of hunting through the streets and council estates of North London and sitting in smokey, smelly rooms, often for hours on end, waiting for a delivery to arrive. At least I wasn’t having to go out on a daily basis, though, only each week or ten days when stocks got low and had to be replenished, and the rest of the time I could sit up in our room getting high and waiting for customers to arrive. It beat working in the T-shirt factory, but I was also aware that a threshold had been crossed when I’d begun to use again. My relationship with Cissy was beginning to change, and it was no longer on the same basis that it had previously been. The bond which tied us together, now, was not so much love as a mutual need for the same drug: we became more jealous if one of us got high without the other than if either of us disappeared to spend the night with someone else.