The Story of Junk

by Linda Yablonsky

  “Heroin cures everything,” I say. “It’s the only known cure for the common cold. You don’t hear much about it from doctors, because it would put them out of business. All you hear is how addictive it is.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t care. It’s cheap enough—ten dollars a day to keep you feeling good. People spend more than that on candy and toothpaste.”

  “We’re spending a lot more than ten dollars a day.”

  “Well, we don’t have to buy food.”

  “What would you do if I didn’t work in a restaurant?”

  She looks at me calmly. “I’d deal.”

  DEAD OF WINTER

  The kitchen at Sticky’s, February 1982. Dead of winter. One of the guys who hangs out with the bosses, Marty his name is, approaches me. His blue eyes seem sad, maybe scared. I’ve been warned away from him by wait-staff gossip, which I always take for fact.

  Marty’s supposed to have done time on a drug charge. Some say he was a rat in jail, gave up his pals and got out. Others claim he made parole early. I don’t know, he’s never revealed anything of himself to me. Our longest conversation was, “Hi. How are you?” But Marty’s a handsome guy, the kind who knows it and likes to show it. A preppy ladies’-man type: white smile, long legs, nice chest. Waspy nose. He draws me aside, away from the line, pushing his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

  “Listen,” he says. There’s a wince in his voice, a nasal baritone. “D’you think you could go over the East Side and cop a couple of bags for me?”

  I look at the time: two a.m.

  “I can’t go over there,” he explains, his cheeks going red. “I’m too shaky.” He stutters a little. Marty’s a cokehead, he’s been blowing coke. He has to bring himself down. Like, now. “I’ll buy you a bag and pay your cab,” he offers.

  It’s freezing outside, plenty of ice on the street. Do I want to go over to the Lower East Side in the bitter cold to buy drugs for a guy who has no other interest in me? I pretend to think about it but I know I’m on my way. He looks so helpless, it makes me soft.

  I tell Marty he’ll have to buy me a bag for each one of his. I’m thinking about Kit. I can hear her voice in my head, complaining that I would cop for a guy like Marty and not get something for her. He hands me forty bucks for the dope, ten more for the cab. I have to close the kitchen first. He retreats to the office.

  Rico comes out a minute later. I haven’t been seeing much of him—his wife has adopted a baby. Some nights he actually stays home. He walks behind the line and casually nuzzles my shoulder, like old times. I hope he’s not going to start telling me how he was a bag man for the C.I.A. chief in Cambodia. I’ve heard that one. It’s his favorite bedtime story, how they were running dope to disperse opium lords in the Golden Triangle who were selling scag to American soldiers. I look around. Maybe he can tell it to someone else. But these cold nights don’t bring in much work and most of my crew has gone home. The rest mind their business, as usual.

  “Hey, you goin’ over there?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I must be crazy, but yeah.”

  “You mind getting a little something for me?” He’ll turn me on to some coke for the favor. Okay okay. I’m going.

  A little before three, my coat thrown over three sweaters and a fur-lined cap pulled over my eyes, I go out and hail a cab. The air sparkles in the cold, the park looks barren, the streets are deserted. Even the homeless have gone inside. My cab’s all that moves for many blocks. I give a vague destination. I don’t know exactly where to go, what’s open this time of night. I decide to try Executive, even though I’ve heard it’s been busted.

  The cabbie drops me a block and a half away and I walk fast toward Avenue D. On the far end of the street, I spy a lookout standing in front of the steps. The police have nailed a metal sheet over the door to the building, but the sellers have cut away the bottom half of the metal. “Watch your head,” the lookout says. He’s friendlier than usual. I duck under the sheet and find myself standing in a pitch-black hall. In the distance, I hear the shuffle of feet. As I edge toward the stairs, I see the light of a burning candle. A worker is standing there warming his hands over the flame. “Tracks?” he says.

  “You gotta be kidding!” I’m not about to peel off any clothes—I want to cop and get out of there. “Straight on up,” the guy answers, breaking into a laugh. “Shit’s good tonight, all right! G’wan up.”

  There’s another guy on the landing, blowing his breath in his hands and jittering. No waiting line—that’s a relief. I pull out Marty and Rico’s money with twenty of my own and hand it to the seller. He passes the money through the hole. While I wait, I’m thinking, For another twenty dollars I could buy a bundle, ten bags. Nobody messes with bundles.

  Eight glassines emerge from the hole. I stuff them in my sleeve and hustle down the stairs, hugging the wall. When I get to where I think the door is, I lunge. Something hits me hard, knocks the hat off my head. I get ready to fight but I think I’m blacking out. It’s so dark, I can’t see the metal sheet over the door and have forgotten it was there. I steady myself, pick up my hat. Then I flee.

  Moving fast, sliding along the icy sidewalk, not stopping to look around, I hurry down three long, frosty blocks west, when I spot a cruising taxi. It must have dropped some other desperado nearby. I jump in the cab and go back to the store, deliver the goods, and run home.

  It takes me several minutes to thaw. When I get off my hat, I see a lump forming over my eye—a mark of honor, perhaps, like the Red Badge of Courage.

  “I can’t believe you went over there this time of night,” Kit says, taking her share from my hand. “How is it?”

  “It hurts.”

  “I mean, the dope.”

  “Same as usual.”

  “Anyone out there?”

  “Couple of guys. Maybe it’s better going over there in the middle of the night. Safer. The workers are a lot nicer and there’s no one in the street to give you the eye.”

  “I wouldn’t do it too much.”

  “I don’t really want to do it at all.”

  “People like getting drugs from you,” Kit says. “Maybe we should buy larger quantities and sell some. It would save us money. I hate paying for this stuff all the time.”

  I know what she means.

  “Dickie Howard knows someone who has China White.”

  “Who’s Dickie Howard?” I turn on the TV. There’s a movie ending. The sound-track music rises to a crescendo.

  “One of Sylph’s friends. You’ve met him—the Vietnam vet, the war poet. Maybe you should get to know him better.”

  “Maybe.”

  “We know enough people who like getting high. We could do it.”

  “I don’t know …” I change the station—another movie about to end. “What’ve you been doing all night?” I ask.

  “Waiting for you. Did you bring anything to eat?”

  “I forgot. It’s awfully cold in here.” Still in my sweaters and jeans, I get into bed and pull up the covers.

  “You didn’t bring any food at all?”

  “I brought the dope.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t get into bed with those clothes on. You smell like garlic and oil.”

  I throw off my jeans and climb back under the quilts. “I like the smell of garlic.”

  Kit goes to the refrigerator, opens the door. “I wish there was something to eat,” she says. “Can you go down to the store and get some chips? Maybe I’ll make nachos.”

  “You’re asking me to go out to that wasteland again?”

  “Well, I’m not dressed.”

  “Neither am I!”

  “You’re half-dressed.” She comes back in the bedroom and gives me a pleading look. “I’ll cop for you tomorrow.”

  “I already copped for tomorrow.”

  “Next time, then. Come on. The dope’ll keep you warm.”

  Before I know it, I’m back on the street again, copping tortilla chips and jack cheese at the all-night grocer
y around the corner. I don’t know why I’m doing this, except I’m a little keyed up from the earlier run, and maybe Rico’s coke. I might be hungry now, too. I never have time to eat at work, and cocaine always makes me want to chew.

  Kit makes the nachos, and we sit in bed with the cats and talk about our future. We’re a family now. When the sun comes in the window, we find ourselves watching an aerobic exercise program on TV and smoking. Kit gets a kick out of the chirpy blond instructor, who’s not very graceful, considering.

  STICKY’S

  When Kit leaves for a tour of Europe, I work two weeks straight before I take a night off. I feel pathetic when the only place I can think of going is Sticky’s. There isn’t any other place. At his tables sit the great haircuts and shiny suits of the day, the bar filled with noisy chatter and bright ideas and everyone in it stoned. Everyone but Sticky. He never even takes a drink. Maybe a brandy, now and then, at last call.

  I find him on his barstool, watching the door. He isn’t surprised to see me. “Your friends are here,” he says, grinning at a spot on the floor. He never looks at me directly. “And Rico wants to see you,” he whispers, leaning past my ear. “In the back.”

  First, I scan the room. Honey Cook is holding down a center table. She’s sitting with two other women, one in a flesh-baring dress. This is Magna. The other one’s wearing a man’s suit. That’s Lute, Honey’s girlfriend.

  “Hi, Granny,” I say. Lute’s older than the rest of us, though not so anyone could tell. Not with those freckled blunt cheeks and sapphire eyes, that mop of yellow curls and puckering mouth. She has a body that seems to square itself at every turn. No wonder Honey likes her. Lute’s dramatic.

  “’Bout time,” she grunts. Her eyes flash. “Where you been, sweet thing? We thought you’d never get here!”

  “We can’t seem to get our drinks,” Honey explains, as I take an empty chair. “Can you do anything, hon?”

  “If you can, I’ll buy the first round,” Magna offers. Having a bar for a second home does come with certain advantages. A waitress is already at the table.

  “We’ve been talking about Whit,” Magna tells me. “I’m considering him as a possible boyfriend.”

  “Whit?”

  “That’s him over there by the bar.” I crane my neck. It’s three-deep in male agendas. None stand out. “I’m trying to imagine his mouth on mine,” she says, “but somehow I just can’t GET it.”

  “Child,” Lute says. “You keep looking over there like that. You’ll get it.”

  Magna likes the strangest guys, the runty ones with scars. No denying her own sex appeal. Unlike most of Sticky’s clientele, she has the plump of genuine health. Her proportions are large and perfect, with more curves than a winding river. She’s young, too. And rich. Her dark eyebrows appear to have been pasted on her porcelain complexion, each in a high, delicate arch. It’s hard to pin down the color of her eyes. They change from blue to gray to green quicker than you can say “Fuck me.” But it’s Magna’s mouth that really draws attention. It, too, looks appliquéd to her face, drawing up in a thin red line even when she isn’t smiling. I can’t help staring whenever I see her. I love a mask.

  “I don’t know,” Magna says, burying her face in her hair, a peekaboo veil of golden brown falling to her chin. “All Whit ever talks about is what he DOES, but he never asks me anything about myself. Isn’t that peculiar? I know he likes me.”

  I look to the bar again. “Those LIPS,” she says. “Do you see them? I think they’re GOOD.”

  “I see them,” I say. “They’re good.”

  “Kissing is so important. Don’t YOU think so, Honey?”

  “Absolutely,” Honey hisses. She isn’t angry. She has a lisp. “Cupid misses without good kisses.”

  That’s our Honey, quick with a quip. Now she writes a personal interest column for a downtown weekly about the art world, and deals a little cocaine on the side. She can’t afford to give up the dealing, but the column is the first job she’s ever liked. If she’s smart, she’ll do for the crowd at Sticky’s what the writers at the Algonquin Round Table did for their time—create a legend. If I know Honey, she’ll be it.

  We hear laughter behind us. It’s Toni, Big Guy’s transsexual friend. She’s with Calvin Tutweiler. He’s obsessed. Almost never appears in public without wearing Toni on his arm. When he’s home he lives with Bobby D., a composer who sweats too much. Big Guy says their domestic life is pretty interesting, but I’m always working when they’re receiving, so I don’t really know what that means.

  One of Cal’s canvases is hanging opposite where we’re sitting. He practices what our group, privately, likes to call “mineralism,” because he works with the elements of Mother Earth—red clay and quartz and precious metals. This painting looks as if it’s been plucked from a tomb in Byzantium and seems to be oxidizing before our eyes. It’s so ugly it’s actually interesting. To my eye, it’s almost supernatural, but so is Cal; he’s something of a mystic.

  He takes a glance at the painting but keeps his attention turned to Toni, whom he calls his “demon princess.” With her pale skin and platinum hair and his long legs and priestly clothes, they make quite the couple.

  “You’re all coming to Cal’s opening, right?” Toni says with a deep-throated chuckle. “Saturday night?”

  “Yeah,” he agrees. “You should see my new paintings—I’ve been working in gold. They’re really great.”

  “They’re in a new penthouse gallery,” Toni adds.

  “Isn’t that special?” he says.

  She nods. “Too divine.”

  “Come, precious,” he says. “Let’s take a walk.”

  I’m glad when they don’t try to sit with us.

  “But they’re fabulous,” says Honey.

  “Maybe,” I hedge. “But a woman who’s never had a period always makes me feel like a freak.”

  “Mercy!” says Lute, running a hand through her curls. “Can you cheer up? Take a pill or something?”

  Honey seems nervous. “Another depression coming on, hon?”

  “I’m not depressed and I like Toni fine. She’s too beautiful, that’s all. It isn’t fair.”

  Magna downs her drink. “Maybe we should get some food.”

  Lute waves her arms in the air, her eyes rolling. “At this place? I cast no aspersions on your kitchen,” she tells me, “but it’s a pain in the butt to get waited on here.”

  “I don’t care,” Honey says. “I’m so hungry I could throw up.”

  Magna wouldn’t mind another drink. “Maybe I’ll walk over there,” she declares, her eyes still on the bar. “I think that bartender’s cute.”

  “Poor Whit,” I say.

  Magna’s cheeks puff out. “I am NOT going home alone tonight,” she pouts. “You can all understand that. A person should not have to live without the pleasures of the flesh—human beings were not meant to sleep alone.” She gives me an intensely meaningful look. “Sex for one simply doesn’t CUT it in my house.”

  “Maybe you didn’t know, but I don’t live alone.”

  “Where is Kit, anyhow?” Honey asks.

  “On the road,” I tell her. “Germany.”

  “Really?” she squeals. “I’m going too! To Berlin, to the film festival. I’m a judge. Does Kit know Udo? Of course she does, she must. Tell her she has to look him up. He’s really great, if you’re in Berlin, though he’s kind of an asshole here. Anyway, he knows everyone—he’s really fun. You should come with me, hon. Why don’t you? Oh, come! We can stir up all kinds of trouble there.”

  Of this I have no doubt. “Excuse me,” I say. Rico’s signaling me from the kitchen. “Daddy wants to see his girl.”

  Lute gives me a poke in the side. “When are you going to make up your mind which sex you like?”

  “I don’t see why I have to,” I object. “I like them all.”

  This is not my favorite topic.

  Where I grew up, no one talked about sexual identities. More attention
was paid to class. This was just north of Philadelphia, an all-American suburban town, a house and two cars and a pet for the children. You were middle-class white or blue-collar white, mostly Protestant. The Catholics went to their own schools, the Jews were the ones who took fashion seriously. I was one of these: a style queen. We were tolerated. There were a few black people in the area, but they lived in another township, on the other side of the tracks. The richer white people lived on the other side of another set of tracks, in large homes overlooking a riverbank. We were in between, not working-class but not professional, either. Truly middle—just where I hated to be.

  Middle meant ordinary. Middle meant safe. I wanted excitement and excitement meant sex, but it was never a question of gender. If you were a boy, you were a boy, and if you were a girl, you were a girl, and that’s all. There was no confusion over who wore the pants, who the lipstick. Boys had crewcuts or long greased-up hair and sideburns. Girls set their hair in rollers every night and lacquered it with hairspray. They shaved their legs and padded their bras, they made jokes about sanitary napkins. It was all in good fun. No one took drugs. No one mentioned them. We lived among dairy farms and monuments that commemorated the Revolutionary War. We drank beer and milkshakes. We were wholesome.

  You had to be a good kid or you were bad. Good meant smart; bad was lower-class. Bad meant you got pregnant while you were still in school, you smoked in the bathroom and got drunk in the parking lot, and you had more style than the good kids, who would say you didn’t know how to dress. If you were bad, you dressed for sex. That wasn’t so bad in itself; what ticked people off was being obvious about it. It didn’t make you more boy or girl, but it did make you more available. All you wanted was to be popular. And that’s how it is in the world today; sometimes it seems we never got out of high school.

  My school was just a stone’s throw from the birth of the Bristol Stomp, but it bored me. Everyone wanted to get married. I only wanted to get out. Freedom lay on the other side of the world, in Paris, Rome, New York, San Francisco, or in the back seat of a car. We all had cars. It was important to stay mobile.