The Story of Junk

by Linda Yablonsky

  Blood. Blood everywhere. A gusher. I forgot to loosen the tie, so it doesn’t last long. While I’m cleaning up the mess, the phone rings. It’s Kit.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “Thinking about you.”

  “I want to come home.” Her melancholy tone feels threatening.

  “I guess that’s not possible,” I say.

  “I know, I know. But I wish. Are you high?”

  “Not especially.”

  “Don’t lie. You sound stoned. Is anybody with you?”

  “No, I’m alone.”

  “I don’t like the idea of you being with someone else.”

  “I’m not with anyone,” I say. Just the dope.

  Back in the days of my heroin honeymoon, I happened to see a man I knew in college. “How do you stay so young-looking?” he asked. “Heroin” was my answer. He was a newspaper reporter and was accustomed to asking questions. He wanted to know what the drug did for me. I told him it calmed my nerves, relaxed my features, and lifted my spirits—in other words, kept the aging process at bay. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Are you telling me heroin is the fountain of youth?” “Well, yes,” I said. “Heroin cures everything.” “What’s it really like?” he asked. “What does it feel like to be on heroin?” “What’s it like?” I said.

  This is what it’s like.

  THE WORK COMES FIRST

  Vance was right. With Kit in the hospital, I do make more money, customers in and out. They talk about all the usual things: opportunities for love they missed, work they haven’t done, places they haven’t been … places only heroin can reach, love only heroin can warm, work only heroin can form. There’s always a longing for things that never touched them. Makes me feel sad. Also useful.

  All day long I sit and serve. Then I go to the hospital and stay till they throw me out. Then it’s back to business. Ginger’s here almost every night, sometimes with her girlfriend Vivian. We watch movies on the VCR and don’t say goodnight till we see the sun.

  I don’t know what I’d do without Ginger now. She’s really a terrific person. When you need a friend, she’s there. When you need an idea, she has one. When you’re having a long night, she makes it pass. She’s smart as a whip and likes sexy clothes. She reads books and can gossip with the best of them. Ginger cracks me up.

  She has this theory about a third gender and what it will do to break down the sociopolitical power structure, no scandal, no shame. It’s interesting, listening to her ideas and ambitions—until she asks about mine.

  “What are you writing these days?” Ginger asks. Vivian lies on the floor and smokes.

  “Writing?” A casual question, but it stuns me. “I have no time for that.”

  “But dealing can’t take up your whole life—you’re too driven.”

  “All I ever seem to be doing is changing channels,” I observe.

  “Well, that’s something,” she says, a weak smile curling her lips. “What about Kit? Her pictures at Davey Boxer’s are wonderful.”

  “I know,” I say. “But now she’s in the hospital. And her band broke up. She’s feeling pretty discouraged.”

  Vivian sits up from the floor. “Toast broke up? That’s awful.”

  “Listen to me,” Ginger says, her eyes so penetrating I want to crawl under the bed. “You have to snap out of this. Kit, too. You can’t lose touch with your work. The work comes first. The work always comes first.”

  “No,” I say blankly. “Life comes first.” Vivian blows a smoke ring.

  “No,” Ginger says, her expression somber. “It doesn’t. It can’t. It’s too short, especially now. So many of our friends are sick with AIDS, and other things. How many are already gone? We’re not going to outlive ourselves. There’s nothing more important than the work. Get back to work, girl. It’ll save your soul.”

  She’s too stoned. I shake my head. It’s not my soul I want to save. It’s Kit. Besides, dealing is work. Talking is work. Turning on the lights, taking showers, buying groceries, waking up—it’s all very demanding work.

  I don’t sleep at all that night. Next day, I get to the hospital early.

  “How much is that?” I hear Kit say as I step inside her room. Doctor Paul is giving her the methadone.

  “Sixty milligrams,” he says. “You shouldn’t need more than forty.”

  “It’s not enough,” she replies. “I need eighty.”

  “Forty’s what they call a blocking dose,” he explains. “That’s what the experts say is required to take you off heroin without putting you into withdrawal. Anything over forty won’t get you high, it’s just icing on the cake.”

  She glares at him. “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  “The idea is to bring your tolerance down so the antibiotics will be effective,” he says. “I don’t want to detox you too quickly, but this isn’t a maintenance program. It’s all I can offer for now.”

  “Are you sure Paul knows what he’s doing?” she asks when he’s gone.

  “I think he’s a good doctor,” I say. “But, you know, I met him at a disco.”

  “Can’t you bring me some dope? This meth will never keep me straight. I’m sick enough as it is.”

  I hesitate. I’m running low on patience. “Let the methadone go to work first, will you?” I plead.

  Anger crawls over her face.

  “All right, all right,” I say. “I’ll get it.” Goodbye profit, I’m thinking. Hello grief. “Will you take the methadone or not?”

  “I have to,” she says. “They make me. Don’t be so mean,” she says then. “I’ll get better faster that way.”

  A SUNNY SPELL

  Doctor Paul reports Kit’s AIDS test is negative, but she’s slipped into some kind of new crisis. The infection’s more virulent than they thought. Her skin is gray, there’s no life behind her eyes. I’m terrified.

  Some things have to hurt, that’s all. It’s the way life goes. We don’t have to like it. I wonder if miracles really happen. But drugs were made for people to believe in miracles. Chemistry is magic: it can turn shit to gold and gold to shit, just like that. Nice work, if you can get it.

  I sit by Kit’s bed until Sylph stops in with Poop. They take over the watch and I race home to work, weighing out dope in a robotic haze. “This batch is especially strong,” I say to the customers, but it’s only the same old shit. “Promise you’ll be careful.”

  Admonishments get them buying more. Oh wow, they say, after sneaking a taste. I wasn’t kidding, this is good. Am I gonna have this stuff tomorrow?

  Tomorrow? Tomorrow? I have to think. “Tomorrow,” I say. “Yes, I am.”

  Kit’s awake when I return to the hospital, where I find Bo Brinks slipping her a bag of street dope.

  “Well,” she says. “You wouldn’t give me anything.” He looks flustered.

  I don’t say a word. I close the door after Bo and hand Kit a straw and she takes up the dope in my hand. If it hasn’t killed her yet, it’s not going to. By nightfall, her condition stabilizes and it’s safe to take a break. Her good mood allays my fear. Maybe also my guilt. I’m still smiling when I run into Massimo outside, edging down the street with a large, heavy package. Can I help?

  “I believe so,” he says. He and his girlfriend Cherry are getting married. He’s moving out in just a few days. This is sudden.

  “I believe so,” he says again. “But I like it.” Cherry’s at his apartment now. Why don’t I come over to meet her?

  She’s labeling boxes when we arrive, wedding gifts and personal belongings: skis, a pasta pot, a drawing board, and a new stereo, computer, and radar detector. Massimo’s into gadgets. Cherry puts on a tape. “Sounds good,” she says. “I’m happy!”

  Cherry’s a cheerful sort, like Massimo. Clear, freckled skin, red hair, and blue eyes. We crack a few beers while she makes spaghetti and tosses salad, moving to the music. The kittens run around our feet, play in the empty boxes. I relax.

  After we eat,
Massimo unveils his package, a large oval mirror for Cherry. She cuts hair for a living and offers to give me a trim. Why not? It’ll be therapeutic. A person can’t live by dread alone.

  A friend comes by as she’s finishing, a handsome frog named Daniel. I assume he’s Cherry’s coke connection—the salon where she works is famous as a candy store. He takes a seat on a carton beside the kitchen table and starts shaving the sides of a golf ball-sized rock with one of Cherry’s razors. The lines he draws are anything but generous. When I taste one, I find out why: it’s not cocaine. Daniel is Massimo’s new source for smack. He’s letting me meet his man.

  Daniel’s a virile, matinee-idol type: square jaw, strong arms, straight nose, bright smile, a curl of dark hair over smoldering eyes. I sit beside him and study his ear. Somehow I find it seductive. That jaw line: it works so easily into a smile. His mouth looks so pliable, his chest inviting as a plush welcome mat.

  What am I thinking? I can’t think this way. Cherry is his girlfriend’s hairdresser. They all met on a double date. But this is how connections are made, through family and by hairdo.

  I know I should give Kit a call, but she’s all right where she is and, after all, the work comes first and the work is here. I flirt like crazy with Daniel and don’t let up till we come to terms. I shouldn’t come to his place, he says. The girlfriend disapproves. He’ll deliver.

  We do a few lines and help Massimo and Cherry with their packing. What a domesticated crew we are—and what a nice night it’s become, too nice to spend alone. When I leave, I take Daniel home with me.

  I like his craggy French face and black hair, his accent, and his dope. His mother smuggles it from Turkey to Marseilles. His mother! I like that, too. “Doesn’t she know what she’s carrying?” I squeal over coffee. It’s morning. We didn’t get much sleep.

  “Oh, sure. She just likes to travel. I could get away with it once or twice, but they never search her at the borders. She’s a bourgeoise, you know, but she looks like an aristocrat. They think she’s trading jewelry from abroad. My mother is very chic.”

  I can believe that. Daniel seems to have more than the usual measure of vanity, for a man. Maybe it’s a French thing, maybe a dope thing, I don’t know. Drug addicts tend to fuss.

  Kit’s condition improves with the upswing in the quality of our dope. Daniel’s a boon to the business. The customers remark on the difference.

  “You’re in such a good mood,” they say. “My, aren’t we chipper!”

  “I’m having a sunny spell” is all I say. They can figure out the rest.

  THE BOOK

  November 1983. I prepare for the book I’m going to write, the one that will legalize heroin. “It’s so NEEDED,” says Magna. She’ll bring me a book to help with my research—Diary of a Drug Fiend, by Aleister Crowley. A classic. But, she says, it’s OLD, and a downer. She’s counting on me to bring us up to date.

  She’s not the only one. Books come in from others, too—whatever anyone can find on narcotics laws, drug trafficking, or addiction. I have to ask Ridley to build me a new bookcase. I put the books on the shelves, certain they say nothing I don’t already know, but to please my friends I read snatches aloud while they’re here in the chairs. To their nods and grunts, their muttered amens, I read about the romance of drugs and the nightmare of addiction. I go through the history of the world.

  There has never been a day people didn’t want a drug, not since the beginning of civilized time. Prohibition’s never worked, how can anyone think it will? Aren’t the jails and hospitals full enough? Drugs are financing films, revolutions, art projects, businesses large and small. They generate millions of dollars in research, not to mention hundreds of hours of entertainment value. What would television writers do for material without drug dealers and drug users? There’s hardly a show on today whose plot doesn’t turn on some aspect of drugs. Clinics provide employment for I don’t know how many ex-addicts and paid killers society is happy to keep off the street. Policing the borders is no good. Drugs are the biggest business there is. Even back in 1870, so many Persian farmers were growing opium there was a famine, and it didn’t stop them then. In China, chandoo was practically the national stimulant, much more profitable than rice. You can grow opium anywhere there isn’t excessive rainfall and the labor’s cheap. It says so right here, in one of these books.

  Cal brought it over. He wants to paint my portrait. I’ll think about it, I say. How about Sunday? Come Sunday. (It’s my day off; the phone won’t wake me.)

  When he shows up again, it’s with Magna. Now they’re a pair. A drug couple. NO sex. That’s what Magna says. Cal’s legs aren’t right or something. Too long. She likes his arms. Cal has effeminate arms. She thinks they’re SWEET. He says she’s his “precious light,” but he must be referring to her trust fund. Toni’s left him for Davey Boxer, and Magna is filling the gap.

  Magna. She’s the touchy-feely type: snakeskin boots drive her wild, chairs with suede cushions give her goosebumps, most of her clothing is silk. She can’t keep her hands away from Cal. Her father, the son of a lumber baron, died when she was only eight and left her all his money. I gather she loved him a little too much, albeit from afar. She spent most of her childhood in boarding schools, kicked out at sixteen for drugs. She went to Europe and met a man her father’s age. She moved in. She came back at eighteen and married a musician who was also a junkie and a car thief. When she dumped him, she moved to Paris to finish school, came back to New York and enrolled again, this time for graduate study. She still has a hankering for older guys. Any guys, from the look of it.

  After they get high, we sit in the office with the Times Sunday crossword, the way Big Guy and I used to. Heroin is the perfect puzzle-solving tool. Words flow and connect in a dazzling stream; obscure references come to mind as if they were common slang. We’re hooked.

  “Those people were here an awfully long time,” says Kit on her first Sunday home from the hospital. After six weeks apart, we have to make adjustments.

  “It’s just the crossword,” I say. “We had a hard time with this one.”

  “You’d rather be with them than me.”

  “That’s not true.” I reach out to give her a hug, but she turns away to look for the cats. The kitten Massimo has given us is all that delights her. I don’t want to say I don’t love her. I don’t want to say that.

  Daniel phones. He’s coming to pick up money.

  “I’m going to bed,” says Kit, clasping the kitten to her shoulder.

  “But I want you to meet him.”

  “Are you going to get high with him?”

  “Probably.”

  “Wake me when he gets here.”

  They hit it right off. Guys always like her. The next time Weems visits, she doesn’t make any noise. He’s here to look at her pictures. He’s seen them at Davey Boxer’s and now he wants to buy one for a French collector. But Kit doesn’t trust Prescott. She thinks he’s a flake. Drug addicts tend to be flaky. It doesn’t say that in any of the books, not in so many words. I rethink my collaboration with Honey. It’s not dealers who need a manual; it’s junkies who need a book of etiquette. I reach for the phone but it rings in my hand.

  It’s Betty.

  “Put Kit on the phone,” she commands, the voice of doom. “And don’t try to tell me she isn’t there.”

  I motion for Kit to pick it up in the bedroom and close the office door. I have a book to write.

  This call could only mean trouble. I know Betty still wants Kit back. Has she got some sort of plan? Is she going to drop a dime on me? No telling what’s on her mind. Not the crossword.

  “She’s coming over,” Kit calls out. “She wants to get her things.”

  Oh, no. Moments later, I hear Betty whining in the hall. I stay in the office, pretending to be out, but when the decibel level rises, I pull the door ajar.

  “You!” she yells when she sees me.

  I don’t know what she means. She looks awfully thin. She was alw
ays so voluptuous.

  I step into the kitchen, she makes a move toward the office. “Your stuff’s not in there anymore,” I say, blocking the door. “We moved your things to the closet.”

  “I already looked,” she says. “It’s not there. What did you do? Sell it all?”

  “Everything you left is still here, come on. You’re the one who abandoned it.”

  “I told Kit I’d be back to pick it up.”

  “But that was two years ago,” says Kit. I’m glad to see she’s on my side; for a minute, I wasn’t sure.

  “I know what you’re doing in there!” Betty shouts, pointing at the office. “You think it’s a secret? Everyone knows! Everyone talks about you, and what they say isn’t nice. You don’t want to fuck with me, I’m telling you … see?”

  She’s got someone with her, a stocky older man in a plaid shirt and chinos, with a brushy mustache and silver hair. “This is a cop,” Betty says, grasping his shoulder. He gives her a wary look. “That’s right,” she says. “A cop. I came here to get my stuff, so get out of my way and let me get it.”

  “Betty,” I say. “Calm down, okay.” I’m lookin’ at this guy, Kit’s backing into the bedroom. He could be a cop, he certainly could. He could also be Betty’s pimp. Pimps might easily look like cops out there in the suburbs, where Betty lives now. She’s moved back in with her mother. Maybe this is her mother’s friend. Maybe I’d better do what they say.

  But I don’t. Betty’s sick and I’m sorry about that, but it’s my house and they’re not welcome. “Get out of my way,” she says, and moves to push me aside. The cop stays where he is, leaning on the kitchen table, watching. Betty barges into the office and shrieks when she sees the desk.