The Story of Junk

by Linda Yablonsky

  Kit is consumed with work, making new photos, running to the lab with one of our customers, a color expert, printing through the night. She’s going through massive quantities of drugs, which we happen to have on hand. Bebe’s coke is always just around the corner and Dean has gone to Europe for an extended vacation, leaving me with a summer’s worth of dope. There’s money stashed all over the apartment; I have to pay up on his return. I’m more nervous about the money than the drugs. The money takes up more space.

  I run out of stuff long before Dean gets home. So does Vance. He’s waiting for a fresh supply. We can get by a few days on pills, but I can’t let the business slide. That’s out of the question. I find a new alternative in a guy named Massimo, I don’t remember how—through somebody someone else I know knows, most likely.

  Massimo’s an ex-skier from Switzerland, comes from the Alps—born to be high. His connection’s small-time but at least it’s Italian—on the money. In September, Maggie returns without Peter—they’ve split. Now she’s always in the company of suspicious men. I don’t like her scene at all, but Kit’s and mine really isn’t much better.

  We’ve both developed a tolerance for dope that’s hardly cost-effective. Every week we need more and more. We ought to get away, bring the tolerance down. Anywhere will do—a beach, a hot tub, a hotel room, anything. Trouble is, Massimo can’t extend me much credit and I’m low on ready cash. Who’s gonna front us a vacation?

  I remember a place in Montauk where the off-season rates aren’t bad. It’s the farthest place on Long Island we can go and still be on dry land. The beach is beautiful this time of year, let’s go. Kit agrees. “Sounds good to me,” she says, but she can’t leave till after her gallery show. That’s not soon enough for me, so when Sylph suddenly books a five-day tour for the band, I go along for the ride.

  WE HIT THE ROAD

  With my customers and dope from Massimo temporarily in Honey’s hands, we hit the road. We’re going north, to Boston, Detroit, Montreal, Toronto, and Buffalo. Toast is used to these one-night stands; I’m depending on pills and nerve. I’ve offered to help drive the van—the only way I can get a comfortable seat. Otherwise, I have to make do on an amp like the rest. We’re seven all told: four band members, a roadie, a road manager, and me.

  The band has to keep touring to make any money. They’re still taking offers for a record contract but they can never agree on terms. Meanwhile, there’s no getting away from the fact that their audience isn’t growing—it’s been too long since they put out a record. Some of the places they have to play are god-awful clubs that smell of beer and sweat. Boston doesn’t give them a bad reception but Detroit is a ghost town—some diehard fans and a few dozen stragglers who happen to be drinking in the bar. The band still puts out at every show and their humor never flags. At each gig they play better than at the one before—in Montreal, to a crowd of Quebecois punks who can’t get enough of their music. Spirits are so high I don’t even notice the edge I’ve got on, not till we reach Toronto. That’s where I run out of pills and Kit finishes the last of her dope.

  In Toronto, they sell smack in vitamin capsules the way Honey used to sell MDA. We can’t get many—the kids who take us around don’t know the scene well enough to score. I let Kit have the pills but I do take a taste. It’s nasty. But there’s over-the-counter codeine for sale in every drugstore. Not to worry.

  None of us have had much sleep when we get to the border. Customs agents order us out of the van while they search it. They look under the seats, in the engine, in the instrument cases and amps. They read every word of the band’s working papers, the fine print on the tax forms. When they start on the luggage, we’re confined to an office, can’t even get permission to go to the bathroom. Sylph sits on a bench clutching her kidneys, a pained expression on her face. The rest of us stand aside and smoke.

  Two hours go by before they get to Kit’s duffel. That’s where she packs her electronics. Her shoulder bag contains twin black nylon makeup cases. One holds her makeup, the other a few cotton swabs, a blackened bent spoon, and a syringe—enough to get us all arrested. We hold our collective breath as an agent unzips the first bag. It’s the makeup. He examines the compact, removing the mirror and tasting the powder. It’s hard not to laugh. Kit’s foot taps the floor. The guard picks up the other bag, then looks at his watch. “All right,” he says. “I’ve seen enough. You’re gone.”

  We scramble back in the van and peel out. I’m behind the wheel. “Shit man,” says Poop. “Was I sweating bullets or what?”

  “Really, Kit,” Gloria says. “That was too close.”

  Kit wants to know where she was hiding her stuff all that time.

  “They didn’t look in my bags.”

  “You mean, you do have drugs on you?”

  Gloria looks out the window. “Pretty landscape,” she says. “Isn’t it?”

  “Pull over,” says Sylph. “I’ve really got to take this piss.”

  We arrive in Buffalo with only enough time for a sound check and a quick bite to eat before showtime. The club is a skanky bar that smells of varnished vomit, the stage in a small back room. “Jesus,” says Poop. “Who booked this gig?”

  “You did,” Sylph reminds him. Buffalo is Poop’s hometown.

  “Oh, yeah—sorry,” he says with a sheepish grin. “This ain’t the way I remember it.”

  It’s a gray, depressing town, nothing but smokestacks and dull red brick, hardly anyone on the street. We’re beat, but there’s no place to rest. After the border search, we decided to cancel our hotel and drive back to New York after the show. Sylph lies down on the stage to catch a few winks while Poop stays at the bar; he’s found a girl to make out with. Kit can’t do anything but stew. Gloria’s shot the rest of her dope and is floating on a cloud of superiority. “Fucking Gloria,” Kit says through her teeth. “Why couldn’t she save me a line?”

  “Sorry, Kit,” she says. “It’s just not the kind of thing you share.”

  “I can’t play,” Kit says. “We’ll have to cancel.”

  Sylph’s eyes flutter open. “Kit, you’re not serious.”

  “I can’t play. I’m too sick. I’m sorry, this place is a hole. We’re not gonna make any money here. Let’s get in the van and go home.”

  “There must be someone around who has something,” Gloria reflects. “There’s always someone.”

  There is—a derelict who’s been watching us from an unlit doorway at the back. He sidles up to Kit, who can barely tune her guitar, much less play it. He tells her he has some pills that are something like methadone. They won’t get her high but they’ll straighten her out. He quotes an outrageous price. I pay it.

  There are barely fifty people in the bar when the band begins their set—the smallest crowd they’ve ever played to. Kit turns up the volume on her amp. The sound is nearly deafening. I sit in the back with the road manager, listening in awe. I’ve never seen Kit look so grim onstage and never heard her sound better. She makes pain seem almost desirable. I don’t care what Honey says: this is art. Too bad no one’s around to hear it. Damn shame.

  GOOD CONNECTIONS

  Dick just threw me a curve. He showed up without any warning. “What’s that you’re taking?” he asked, indicating a prescription bottle in my hand.

  “Clonidine,” I answered, licking my lips. Clonidine gives you dry mouth. “Or Catapres, for high blood pressure.”

  “How long have you been taking these?”

  “Not long,” I told him. “You want one?”

  He looked at me intently. I was twitching. Actually, I was about to throw up.

  “Listen,” he said, “do you want to go to a clinic?”

  “I don’t have insurance,” I said. “I can’t pay.”

  “That’s no problem.” He smirked. “We can get you into any rehab, any institution. We do have good connections that way.”

  Do you? I thought. Me, too!

  Cal Tutweiler had sent over his doctor the night before,
a balding man in his fifties, dressed in rumpled tweeds. Have ’scrip pad, will travel—that’s him. He’s helped everybody, Cal said, meaning the celebrity underground. My kind of people, he implied. The kind who deliver.

  Kit could hardly wait for the doctor to arrive. She couldn’t stand to be sick. She was in the customer chair, bouncing one of the cats on her knee. The other two were sleeping on my desk. I led the doctor in the office and began telling him our story. He didn’t wait to hear it all.

  “I suppose you know what you want?” he said, producing a prescription pad and a pen. “Or do you want me to recommend something?” He seemed very nice.

  “I guess I know what works for me, yeah.”

  “I want Valium,” Kit said gruffly. “Valium and codeine and methadone.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the doctor, his eyes lighting on a drawing Cal had given me. “I can’t write for methadone. You need a special license for that.”

  “What I really want is heroin,” Kit remarked.

  He chuckled. “Valium, Darvon, that I can give.” He scratched out the ’scrips with his pen. “I’m giving you three refills,” he told her with a very slight smile. “That should hold you awhile. Long enough.”

  I ordered clonidine for myself, to relieve the leg cramps, sinusitis, and twitching, and some Ativan to calm my nerves. As an afterthought, I got some Lomotil, a bowel-binder whose composition nearly replicates morphine.

  The doctor wrote the ’scrips and asked if we knew how to use them. We all had a laugh, low in the throat. Do we know how to use them?

  We hardly know anything else.

  PART FIVE

  CRUSHER

  CRUSHER

  October 1983. The world is in desperate condition. It only looks like a mountain of cash. Honey just left here in tears, on her way to another party. She was upset about her breakup with her new boyfriend, Julius, an intellectual part-time dope dealer. Brown, like himself. He was Honey’s idea of a potential husband, a man who could build her a ladder to the straight world—an artist. He made rickety, columnar assemblages out of detritus he picked up from the street. “Space junk” he called it. He pleased her. They were together only a few months, long enough for Lute. She’s left town, she clicked her heels together and went straight to New Orleans, where she’s making a career in the blues and carrying on with a Cajun singer, genus: male. “I’m so jealous,” Honey said. “Lute always gets what I want.”

  It’s all for the best. Julius was kind of a mess—a smart enough guy but he hardly ever took a bath. He said the dope kept him clean. “Junk doesn’t let you perspire,” he once told me. “There’s nothing to wash off.”

  On Honey’s heels came Brooklyn Moe. He was very unhappy. Not because of me. Someone stole his Chevy Nova. It was parked across the street from here—a safe place, I thought. Not anymore, not for Chevy Novas. Moe says they’re collector’s items. I didn’t know that. Poor Moe. How’s he gonna get back to Brooklyn? Subway? Poor Moe.

  Then came Rhonda Kay, a guitar player from a female blues band. This is a time of funk women and funk love. Rhonda Kay imagines herself a real hipster; her dad was into jazz. She came in drunk as all getout, squawking like a rooster, knocking things over, and babbling about the insane relationship she has with whoever the hell it is, I never did get the drift. She totally freaked out Kit, who was already on edge, troubled by the imminent demise of her own band.

  And Vance, my madman dealer, he was here, too, bloody and bruised and stitched up in the face, his lower lip hanging off after some “accident” he had last night copping from Russians, he said.

  Bo Brinks, now there’s a case, a painter who makes a living copping hard drugs for wealthy middle-aged women. He says he’s “building a collector-base,” and comes here with his boyfriend for comic relief. I accepted an air-conditioner from them in exchange for a tenth of D—my turn to laugh. At last.

  Then Toni stopped in, very squirmy, stroking those long legs and brushing his/her hair while she/he asked if maybe I’d like to give her forty dollars worth of dope in return for this black moiré pantsuit she just modeled in Paris. She knows it’ll fit me—aren’t we the same size? Sure, give or take a few feet. Anyway, it’s divine. She was sorry she didn’t have money, they paid her in clothes.

  Before you could say “designer dress,” Prescott was on the phone from an airport in Rome wanting to know will I have what he needs when he lands in New York seven hours from now? What have I got here? A home or a halfway house for the bummed? I’m surrounded by the wicked and the testy. Do normal people have days like this? I doubt it.

  Then Honey comes back with Bert, a painter I know from the bar at Sticky’s. He’s a mineralist like Cal. I didn’t remember Bert ever being into dope. “Well, every now and then, you know—something different,” he says. I can’t believe Honey would have sex with him—he’s so bourgeois. Are they fucking? Well, none of my business. Some questions you just don’t ask. Most of them, really.

  As soon as Bert has a snort, he starts speculating on the way Sticky died. He believed that story Angie was telling about me selling lethal dope. “I would have been here before,” Bert said, “but I never knew if I could trust you.”

  Trust me? Trust me? How am I gonna control him? Loose of lip, he is, that one, Norbert, that’s his real name. Norbert Fluss. What a cheap bastard. He nickels-and-dimes me all over the place, slumping in the chair like he’s ducking blows.

  While he’s grousing, Bo calls to say he’s run into some kind of major life-drama he can’t explain. Would I, could I, tide him over with something on credit? He did so much of the dope he copped for one of his rich lady-friends, he had nothing left to sell. He’ll tell them he was mugged and they’ll give him more money, and then he’ll pay me. Later.

  How powerful must be a substance that turns otherwise well-behaved, levelheaded, hardworking professionals and loving sons into two-bit hustlers, liars, and thieves with disgusting personal hygiene and no sense of humor? Very powerful. And what happens to the person holding the strings?

  Let’s see.

  Ginger arrives with the left side of her face under gauze. She’s had surgery. Her boyfriend got drunk and beat her up in a hotel room in Germany, where she was having a show. She had to fly all the way across the Atlantic with her eye hanging half out and now she’s feeling vengeful. In certain circumstances vengeance is a girl’s best friend, better than diamonds ever were. Maybe not better than heroin.

  Ginger could lose her eye. She won’t say what the fight with the boyfriend was about, but it doesn’t matter here; none of us thinks it’s cool to beat up a lady. She has some painkillers but they don’t do much for humiliation. She wants dope. My dope. She also wants female company, so she’s brought along a quiet woman-friend who has huge and sympathetic watery blue eyes. Now that she has what she wants, Ginger goes back to being jolly, sort of. When she isn’t making jokes, she’s making a list of fifty ways to kill a lover.

  That’s when Claude Ballard stops by with his head in the clouds and wanting to go higher. Last year he was doing graffiti in the subways; this year he’s the most celebrated artist in town. And the most stoned.

  What do ordinary people do for fun? Do they come home from work, buss the spouse, plop themselves in front of the tube, and feel that their lives are complete? For me, it just goes on and on.

  At five a.m. the phone blows again, three, four times, junkies in trouble. One’s half out of his mind on cocaine, another has a sick friend on his hands, can I do something?

  Bo shows up with the money he owes. Now he needs some weight to take to a party in the Hamptons. He has to get there before breakfast. He doesn’t want to rush me, but hurry, hurry. Can’t talk now. See me later.

  Nearly everyone who comes talks about cutting down, getting out of this life once and for all. They’ve gotta come up for air. Oh really? What’s the air got to offer? No, it’s too hard, they say, really too, too hard. What, this life? This is my life. What about that?

 
Kit crawls home from a gig with bone-crusher symptoms, mild but scary. A bone-crusher is what you get when a piece of cotton from the spoon slips inside your vein. It induces cold-turkey chills, fever, cramping, and retching, but feels even more intense, as if your bones are crumbling and you’re going to die, soon. Only another shot can put you out of your misery. If you’re steady enough to hold the needle and have something left to shoot.

  “It’s not a bone-crusher,” Kit says. “It could be arthritis.” Her mother has arthritis. She knows what it’s like. “It’s in my shoulder,” she says. “I need to get some sleep.”

  Her left arm hangs limply at her side, it hurts to move it. The fingers on her right hand are numb, she has a splitting headache and a fever. She downs half a dozen aspirin but has trouble getting out of her clothes. I give her a line to help her nod off. She looks sort of all right but not really quite. Her eyes are dull glass. I want her to see a doctor. She turns to the wall and says, “Mmf.”

  I don’t like this, not at all, but I don’t know what to do. Suddenly the apartment feels empty. No, not the apartment. Our life. From now on I’m going to have business hours—must I be on call around the clock?

  Tomorrow, everything will be different. Its promise fills me with hope. I wish I could wake Kit. This will come as good news. I’m sure she’ll feel better when she hears it. Maybe I’ll go for a walk. But Kit’s lying so still, I can’t leave her. And I can’t stand being with myself.

  I decide to shoot myself up, I ought to know how by now. In spite of everything, or because, I want to try it. I pick up the spoon, add dope, add water. I’m careful with the flame. I tie off, hit a vein in my wrist, except I miss it. My skin balloons out the size of a Ping-Pong ball. An abscess—ugh. Good thing I deal. Good thing I have more. Good thing I have plenty.