by Karen Tucker
And if you do start, don’t eat/sniff/smoke/shoot/boof and drive. I know a woman who nodded off, smashed into a utility pole outside the Quik Chek, woke up to being Narcanned in an ambulance, and was taken straight to County where she got to go through withdrawal in lockup. Another guy I know railed percs in his bedroom one night, decided he just had to have himself a ten-piece McNuggets and ended up flipping his mom’s Celica. Dude walked away with nothing more than a nasty bruise on his shoulder, thanks to Junky Jesus, but the car was totaled and of course his mom only had liability. A year later she’s still taking the bus to work.
If you decide to drive, don’t keep your stash in your glove box or your center console. You get pulled over, that’s the first place they’re checking. Even if they don’t have probable they do is pretend they smell weed and just like that your vehicle’s being searched and you’re being felt up by a rubber-gloved deputy sheriff. Do yourself a favor and hide it in your fuse panel. In the overhead light fixture. Depending on your personal situation, you can tuck it in your privates, but believe me when I tell you the pervert cops will be jamming their fingers in you in about two seconds flat. Luce’s solution was to take out the padded inserts in her bras, which left a couple handy pockets for storage that no one ever found no matter how enthusiastically they groped her. Then again Luce was always lucky, for the most part.
Don’t steal your grandma’s pain pills, it’ll haunt you forever. Don’t steal her fent patches. Don’t volunteer to drive her to her friend’s house for their weekly cribbage tournament, ask if you can use the bathroom, and go through the medicine chest. Don’t get mad at your grandma when she starts hiding her Dilaudid from you. Don’t dig through her garbage so you can smoke the used patches. Don’t take her cash out of her purse. When she asks you about the missing dough, don’t lie to her face and make her worry even more about her failing memory. Don’t steal her ATM card and try out your birthday for the password—she loves you so much that it will work. When she dies, you will 10/10 feel like a piece of shit for having been the worst kind of grandkid imaginable but even if it hurts so bad you think you might black out, definitely don’t leave her funeral early and hurry back to her apartment and search her bedroom until you find her meds hidden in the lining of her old winter parka. You’ll end up sharing that story at meetings for years and it’ll never get easier.
If you can quit at this point, do.
Don’t say dumb crap over text. Ask if the tickets are still available, if they can hang, if you can pay them the hundred bucks you owe them. Don’t fuck people over. Always pay your debts. Don’t wear good clothes or sit on a nice couch if you’re a smoker because when you nod you’ll wake up to find burn holes in the fabric. Don’t ignore your gut—take off if something feels sketchy. Keep your eyes open. Never let your money walk.
It’s true that Junky Jesus will often help out if you need it. I can’t tell you how many people I know who’ve been sweaty and feverish and almost doubled over in pain, and then they look on the ground and find a legit OC 80 just waiting for someone to come along and eat it. A ziplock of roxies. A strip of a215s still in the blister pack. Once Luce and I were so sick we thought we were going to die right there at the Chevron and of course the rain wouldn’t stop and none of the regulars were around and no one was answering texts, not even the shady middles or the dudes who took pleasure in ripping girls off. When the cashier, a stocky redhead named Sharlene who used to babysit me when I was in kindergarten, came out and said she was going to call the cops if we didn’t get a move on, my bowels cramped up so bad I thought I was going to poop my pants like a little kid. And then in rolls this beat-up Chevy Impala, same exact year as Luce’s only this one is midnight blue instead of green, and a girl with candy-pink hair and a weirdly cool chambray jumpsuit climbs out and starts filling her tank, her head bobbing in time to some private interior music. She also has this giant corduroy purse she hugs close to her body instead of leaving it in the front seat like most people—and this is what tips us off. We go up to her and Luce asks if we could maybe get directions. Directions to where exactly, Luce doesn’t say. The girl flicks her eyes over our gray sweaty faces and then she tells us to hold on a sec because she has to pee like a mother. Goes inside, comes out a few minutes later, hands us a plastic sack. “Got you a couple Gatorades, some Sour Skittles. Threw in a little extra something on me. A get-well treat you could call it.” She slides into her car and goes zooming off into the distance. At the bottom of the bag are a half dozen dillies. Junky Jesus for the win.
If your girl tells you it’s so strong that dudes are falling out all over, listen. If the pill looks faded or crumbly, if the numbers are blurry or the lettering isn’t tight in the corners, do a test bump no bigger than the size of a match head. It’s probably fent-pressed. If you’re trying not to use, don’t go on r/opioids and look at the dope porn because it’ll just make you drool and put you at risk for slipping. If you need to cold-cop, buy a small amount at first so you’re not out a lot of dough if it ends up being trash. If you get shorted, say something. You don’t have to be a dick about it but stand up for yourself so you won’t keep getting taken advantage of. If you decide the game has gotten too exhausting, too stupid, that it costs too much and gives you a whole bunch of nothing or worse in return, maybe go to a meeting and see what happens, just for today.
If you’re sick and no one’s answering, J.J. has also been known to work his miracles on Craigslist. Look for listings under roofing tar, missed connections named Roxy, or designer blue jeans size m30. Also some folks swear by the DNM. Install Tor, get some BTC (localbitcoins.com), and check r/DarkNet for a good OPSEC guide and the names of a few reliable vendors. Although Luce and I never really got into that scene, even when we were flailing around in the snake pit, I’m told the quality can be off-the-charts fantastic and you can find rare stuff you’d never be able to get from your local dgirl. Then again now that the Feds have been seizing markets I hear it’s turning into a real cluster. Nothing’s as easy as it used to be. Still, imagine a package just showing up at your doorstep—you’d never have to leave the house if you didn’t want to! Which is also risky. If you’re able to get out of the game, try.
Make sure you and your friends have Narcan and know how to use it. If you can’t wake someone or if their breathing is slow/shallow and their eyes are pinned, they might be in serious trouble. Call 911, stick the tip of the device into one of their nostrils, press down on the plunger. Sometimes you have to administer repeated doses before they regain consciousness. Also be aware that it basically puts the recipient into instant painful withdrawal so don’t be surprised if they start howling in anguish. After a little time has passed they’ll be forever grateful you were around to revive them—but in the moment they’ll think they’re about to go meet the great dealer in the sky. And since you can never predict when someone you know will slip after an extra-crap night at work followed by drinks with their pervert manager, or after a surprise visit from their mom during which an entire weekend’s worth of tips vanishes out of their bag, or if you happen upon a stranger sitting outside the Food Lion in a dented blue Impala, slumped against the dashboard, circling the drain, you’ll want to keep a box of the spray in your purse or backpack. There’s a real crisis going on out there. Take it from a former high school mathlete: the real Junky Jesus = Narcan + someone who happens to care whether or not you pull through.
I’D SET MY ALARM SO WE COULD GET READY FOR OUR new Day 1s, but either it never went off or else I slept through it. It was almost noon when I woke up feeling more well rested than I had in ages. That was one good thing about using.
I got out of bed, took a step, yelped in pain and confusion. After rewrapping my knee and swallowing two Advil, I made my way into the kitchen. Luce was sitting at the table wearing Wilky’s giant Florida: Come Hell or High Water! T-shirt, picking the mini-marshmallows out of a leftover box of Count Chocula with one hand and scrolling through her phone with the other.
; “Where’d you find that?” I said.
“In the cupboard. Been there since Halloween probably.” She didn’t look up, just thumbed the screen over and over.
“Not the cereal, your phone. Did you go in my room while I was asleep and take it?”
“You gave it to me before bed, remember?”
I tried to think how the night had ended, but the last thing I could picture was me doing one last line and drifting into a warm froth of pleasure. “Okay, but you asked me to hang on to it for safekeeping.”
“And now I don’t need to be kept safe anymore.” She put the cereal box down and started typing. The sound of a message being sent whooshed between us.
“Fine,” I said. “We still on for the 1:30?”
“For sure.” Before she could say anything else, her phone lit up with an incoming message. She read it and let out a low, earthy laugh. Right away she went back to texting.
I put my hands on the table and told her I was going to take a quick shower and then call Greenie to see if she’d drive us, since my knee wasn’t fully recovered. “You think you can be ready to go in an hour?”
“For sure,” she said again.
But once I’d showered and called Greenie, I came back to find Luce had moved to the sofa where she was watching a YouTube video with her phone propped on her stomach. A guy with an Adidas snapback worn low to hide his features was explaining how to break the time release on OPs.
“Man, we weren’t even out of the game for a year,” Luce said when she looked up and saw me. “Since then, it’s gone total bananas. I’m not talking the old Dr Pepper soak or that Ped Egg horseshit. Just saw this one chick in a pair of swimming goggles grind up her pandas with an electric drill, toast the powder in her little Chefmaster, and then chill it and snort it up with a tube from one of those metal Zebra pens. I’m all, really bitch? That’s what we’re doing?”
“Sorry to interrupt, but you might want to start getting ready. Greenie’ll be here before too much longer.”
“And the prices. Be one thing if you knew for sure what you were buying.”
“There’s plenty of hot water left if you want to take a quick shower.”
“Not to mention the dupe market is seriously out of control. You can buy a tablet press on eBay for two hundred dollars.” Luce shook her head in amazement. “And you should see the mold die sets on Bonanza. Looking real as fuck. Used to be you could tell the fakes just by eyeballing them, but I guess that’s over.”
“Even if you don’t want to wash up, you better eat something besides chocolate marshmallows. You want me to make you a sandwich?” I turned toward the kitchen.
“Hold up, you got to see this.” Luce typed something into her phone. “Okay here, check it. Mall Santa nodding right in front of fucking Belk’s. Now wait, wait for it—” She broke out in a fit of laughter. “Down he goes! I must have seen this thing twenty times and it still gets me. I mean seriously, who downvoted this, it’s amazing!”
I had to admit it was pretty funny but at the same time it was completely sad. “Come on. We don’t want to keep Greenie waiting. After your little performance, she’s not going to be too patient.”
“Calm down, will you? Takes me thirty seconds to get ready.”
“Fine,” I said, holding my hands up. She was right. Over the past two and a half years we’d been through all sorts of stuff and though Luce had given me quite the scare on any number of occasions, no matter what happened she always came through.
I went into the kitchen and made us each a grape jelly sandwich. I told myself not to worry, but I couldn’t help trying to hear if she was still watching dumb junky videos. Of course she was. Back when I was using I often did the same thing and while it’s true all the online stuff cheers you up in the moment—like discovering your real family right there at the tips of your fingers—in the end it just makes you feel even more alone.
I brought her a Gatorade along with her sandwich and set them on the coffee table, hoping a little nourishment would give her the jump start she needed. She was sitting up, which I took as a sign of progress, and as politely as I could I suggested that if she wasn’t going to shower, she should at least put on a T-shirt that didn’t stink to high heaven. Some deodorant maybe.
She let out a huff of annoyance and pulled the afghan around her shoulders.
“No offense,” I said. “You’re a bit ripe for a meeting is all I’m saying.”
“Yeah, about that. I can’t make it.”
I stared at her. “You promised. Greenie’s on her way over.”
“Too bad.” She raised her head and looked at me. “I’m busy.”
With a shock I saw her eyes were pinned.
She hauled herself off the couch and walked toward her bedroom, her afghan clutched around her like a cape. I don’t know how, but whenever Luce was breaking your heart, she always managed to look especially regal.
“Wait,” I said. “I need to ask you a question.”
The only response I got was the sound of her door clicking shut.
Seeing no way around it, I texted Greenie and said we were grabbing a ride from a neighbor so she didn’t need to come get us. I definitely didn’t want her anywhere near Luce. Greenie had an NA connection in Raleigh, some bigwig named Flo she’d once met at a conference, and in the eleven months that me and Luce had been going to meetings at least half a dozen relapsers had disappeared out of the rooms without warning. Thirty days later they resurfaced, thumping the Big Book and talking in nothing but slogans. If Greenie saw how bad things had gotten, she’d be on the phone to Raleigh in seconds. And sure, thirty days is nothing when it comes to rehab, but I couldn’t imagine being separated from Luce for anywhere near that long.
From her bedroom came the sound of Tool blasting on the little boom box she kept on her dresser. Luce wasn’t much into prog metal when she was sober, but when she was using she liked to nod to everything from power noise to surfer music to even that whiny shoegazer garbage. It wasn’t too promising that of all the songs in the world, she’d chosen “Undertow” to play on repeat at earsplitting volume. I went to her room and pounded on the door. “I get it, the home group can be pretty stressful. You think maybe you could make the 7?”
When she didn’t answer I decided to lie down on the couch, let things cool off a little. The spirograph of pain in my knee kept getting worse, radiating outward like some evil geometry. I came close to asking Luce for another bag—just so I could knock the pain down enough to walk to the meeting—but I managed to talk myself out of it.
Maybe if I could get Nogales to bring me a brace it would take the edge off. I got my phone out, composed a message. I hadn’t even hit send when a car came gravelling onto our driveway. Pretty impressive, even for Nogales, but I guess some people just have a certain connection. I hauled myself off the couch and went to let him in. “You must be psychic,” I said, pulling the door open.
“Comes with the territory,” Greenie said.
I took a painful step backward and did a quick sweep of the room for any stray empties. “Sorry, I thought you were Nogales.”
“Nice to see you too,” she said. She pushed past me, holding a cardboard tray of three Dunkin’ coffees. “Extra cream, extra sugar, the way you like it.”
“Thanks, but didn’t you get my message?”
“Course I did.” Greenie sat on the couch like a detection dog that just alerted. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”
In the calmest voice I could muster, I explained that Luce was having a rough day and she wasn’t quite up for being around people. “We’ll definitely be at your 1:30 tomorrow, no question.”
“When she’s upset is when she most needs a meeting.”
“I know. I tried to tell her. You know how hardheaded she gets once she makes up her mind about something.”
But Greenie had already stopped listening to me. She angled her head toward Luce’s bedroom, where Tool was still blasting. You could see her trying to puzzle out th
e lyrics. Once she realized what Maynard was talking about, who knew what would happen.
“Actually,” I said, “I was hoping you could help me get a brace for my knee. You have time to run me out to Walmart?”
Greenie flicked her eyes over me. “You’re trying to hustle me out of here. I can smell it.”
“Look!” I rolled up my sweatpants to help sell my story.
When she saw the mangle of tissue, Greenie turned an unflattering shade of white. She hauled herself off the couch, faced Luce’s bedroom, and tilted her head back. “Lucille! Get out here now.”
Although she didn’t turn the music off, Luce lowered the volume—a testament to Greenie’s power. A long moment passed and at last she came out of her room. Though she did her best to smile like things were normal, her cheeks were smeary and red as if she’d been crying. “Did I hear the voice of an angel?” she said.
Greenie informed Luce she had two choices. Either go to the 1:30 and stay for some serious one-on-one time after, or skip it and go straight to in-patient treatment. “One phone call to the Department of Mental Health and the rehab wheels get set in motion.”
“Mental health,” Luce said. “Concept.”
“I take it you’re choosing the meeting?” said Greenie.
Luce appeared to think this over. “Yeah, hard pass. You two go on without me. I got shit here to take care of.”
“Okay then.” Greenie got her phone out. “Actually you’re making the smart decision. Considering all you’ve been through lately, going away is probably the best option.”
“Can’t fucking wait,” Luce said.
I stared at her. I couldn’t believe it. Was she really agreeing to a monthlong stint with the Big Book cronies? “Excuse me, but can we maybe discuss this on the way to Walmart? I got a real knee emergency.”