The Story of Junk

by Linda Yablonsky

  “My table!” she cries. “My mother’s good table! Get your shit off. I’m taking it out.”

  “That’s my book there,” I say, indicating the papers I’ve spread to hide the mirrors. I’ve put away the scale. “I’m writing a book to decriminalize drugs.”

  “Ha! Ha ha! That’s very funny,” she says.

  “Look,” I say. “I’m serious. Read my notes.”

  “You’re crazy,” she says. “You are really nuts.”

  “Look, Betty,” I say. “How much do you want for this table? I’ll pay you, even though you did leave it behind.”

  “I don’t want your dirty drug money!” she yells. “I don’t want to look at you another second! You ruined my life, goddamit. And you totally fucked over Kit. You did that, not me! You! If it wasn’t for you, I’d be—”

  The cop moves to settle her down. “Betty,” says the man.

  “All right, I’m going! Let’s go! But I’m coming back, I tell you. I’m coming back to get my shit.”

  “You think that guy was really a cop?” I ask Kit when they slam the door.

  “I don’t know—maybe. It doesn’t matter. She’s dying, can’t you see? She won’t do anything to hurt us.”

  NO ORDINARY SUNSET

  I’m standing in the living-room window looking down toward the river. Over the water I can see the sky. This is no ordinary sunset. It’s beautiful. Beauty is power—more powerful than drugs. Beauty makes you forget you live in a sixth-floor tenement walkup the police have just closed the door on.

  They’ve taken Kit out in an ambulance. Over the last few days, she swallowed ninety Valium. She said the first eighty didn’t do anything. She was taking them by the handful. After the last ten she started convulsing. Maybe she’d done some coke, I don’t know. Must have been something.

  We’ve both been kicking, bad. Punched all the feathers out of our pillows. Kit thought it was a good idea to call Mr. Leather. Kit wanted him to go out and refill her ’scrips, but he saw through her. Mr. Leather’s quit drugs for AA. He picked up Kit’s prescription and then he called 911. Kit punched out another pillow.

  The two EMS workers, a woman and a man, walked in through a shower of gently falling feathers. I didn’t try to explain. Didn’t have to. A couple of dumbfounded uniformed cops were with them, a man and a woman. They didn’t stay long—about as long as Kit stayed in the E.R. Not very. They couldn’t find anything wrong with her. As a matter of fact, they ignored her. She walked home and fell asleep.

  Poor Kit. It’s all those pills. Pills are much worse than heroin. They get into the liver and they don’t come out. Heroin’s pretty safe, as drugs go, in tolerable amounts. Too bad it isn’t legal.

  Dick says heroin will never be legal. “This country’s at war,” he reminds me. “The President says so—the war on drugs? I’m part of the solution to the drug problem.”

  “The problem with drugs is they work,” I explain. “They work a long time, then they don’t. That’s the problem.”

  “Shouldn’t the question be who is the problem? Is it me or is it you? The government or the dealer? The junkie or the junk?”

  “If I knew the answer to that question,” I reply, “the drug problem in this country would be over.”

  PART SIX

  I WANT OUT

  I WANT OUT

  Christmas 1983. Kit’s been in an awful funk since the endocarditis. The antibiotics have zapped her strength, the demise of her band has stripped her spirit. The dope has done the rest. Most of the time she stays in bed. Now she’s hooked on soap operas.

  I’m sympathetic at first. I cook the meals, pay the bills, sit with her and watch TV. In three months, she hasn’t improved. Paul says there’s been no damage to her heart but he doesn’t know it the way I do. My sympathy turns to resentment.

  I never have a single moment to myself. When Kit isn’t here, the customers are. Sure, I make money, so what? I spend it—on a new guitar for Kit, a typewriter for myself, new clothes. When the linoleum on the kitchen floor wears out from the hallway to the office door, I have the whole thing tiled over, carpet the other rooms, buy new chairs. I never care what I spend; what goes out one day comes back the next. Yet, I wake up every day feeling robbed.

  Kit isn’t to blame but I blame her. We have a fight. It isn’t just an argument; we come to blows. That is, I throw dishes and she kicks the walls. We never have physical contact. That’s over.

  “You wish you could be with a man again, don’t you?” she says, her eyes cold as the air.

  “No,” I say, my voice flat. “I don’t want anyone else.”

  I want out.

  I’m tired. Junk makes me tired, Kit makes me tired, dealing is exhausting. I’m out of it. Not my mind, my body. I want to eat and it doesn’t. I want to sleep and it won’t. I want to fuck and it isn’t in the mood. There are days when the sadness of this life weighs so heavily I can’t see the sky. I don’t lift my head to look. The winter air snaps at my teeth, the wind burns my face. The apartment’s so cold I live in my coat. I never really sleep. The darkness tucks me in and I go missing for a while. When I wake up, it’s dark out again.

  Maybe, I think, maybe it’s the season. The holidays are numbing. But I feel something: boredom. I’m hearing the same things too many times; I don’t want to hear them anymore. I don’t want to know who steals what to get money for their drugs. I don’t want to know who they lie to or why. I don’t want to know who’s dying or who’s getting famous, who they’re fucking or how, if they’re shit-eaters or thumb-suckers or virgins or witches. I’m sick of it.

  Doctor Paul comes but not to check on Kit. His girlfriend wants something for New Year’s Eve. It’s been a heavy week with her patients. She’s an AIDS nurse. He’s in love.

  “This is probably the last time I’ll see you,” he says, but I don’t pay him any mind. They all say that, at least once. “We’re getting married,” he says then. “Leaving the country. The atmosphere now is depressing. I want to do work that has some meaning and I don’t have it here. People are too paranoid and suspicious.”

  He’s talking about AIDS. Doesn’t AIDS work have meaning?

  He shakes his head. “You can’t help people with AIDS,” he says. “They’re dying. People don’t want to help and I can’t fight it alone. Besides,” he says, biting a nail, “you can’t help people with AIDS.” He’s going to Ethiopia, where people are starving, where he can lay on hands. Those people can be helped.

  AIDS is keeping Big Guy away, too. He’s bought a house in Honolulu. Mr. Leather called to say our old apartment’s up for grabs. Do I want it?

  Kit and I could use some breathing room, but what happens to her if I leave? Maybe I could use Big Guy’s place as the office. Maybe we’d both feel better. No, I can’t afford that, get real. I’ll wait. Kit will get better someday. Someday a record contract will come. Someday we’ll be off drugs. I’ll simply have to wait.

  I wait till April, counting money, marking time, my head bent over the foil, couching myself in the dark. I have a room of my own, Kit says. Why can’t she have one, too? We move the bed to the living room, behind a shelving system that acts as a screen. The old bedroom is now her studio. People really like the necklaces she wears; maybe she’ll make some jewelry. Maybe she’ll do some painting. Maybe she’ll do some drugs.

  Little by little, Sylph draws Kit back to work. In May they start recording a demo with a new drummer and bass player—Poop and Gloria are gone. On the new band’s last night in the studio, Kit asks me to come along.

  I go and sit stoned in the dark, drinking beer with the band. We’re passing lines of cocaine, smoking pot. I listen to the music. Every song seems to end with a death wish. Kit turns up the volume on her guitar tracks; the producer turns it down. He wants to hear the drums. Sylph says he’s burying her vocals. Kit thinks the lyrics sound like shit. Why should they take up more tracks than her guitar? I find this all very tedious. What am I doing here? Kit doesn’t need me.

 
; Next thing I know, I’m sitting up in bed and it’s the middle of the afternoon. Magna’s in the armchair by the television. Mr. Leather’s sitting on the floor by the bed. Kit stands in the doorway while Honey talks on the phone.

  “Listen,” Magna’s saying. “Don’t worry about the bill. I can take care of it. GLAD to.”

  “What are you talking about?” I say. I feel groggy.

  “The phone bill,” she says. I see it in her hand. “Weren’t you depressed about not having money to pay it?”

  I don’t understand this. I pay all my bills when they’re due.

  “You all right?” Mr. Leather asks.

  “I’ll get it,” says Kit. The doorbell.

  “What’s going on?” I say, bewildered. My God, the dope is lying open in its bag beside me. What is this?

  “You’ve been kind of out of it,” Honey says. “Maybe you should think about taking time off.” When did she get here? I can’t remember. What about the others? Why can’t I remember?

  I hear Kit walk someone into the office. She comes back in the bedroom for the dope. “You swallowed all my Valium,” she says. “A whole bottle. You didn’t even leave me one.”

  Valium? I never take Valium. I hate pills. These drugs—there’s no getting away from these goddam miraculous drugs.

  Kit puts a newspaper in my lap. Three days have come and gone since that night at the studio, and all the while I’ve been weighing packages, counting money, giving out advice. That’s what they tell me. Three days?

  “Why don’t you get dressed?” Magna says, gesturing with her elbow in a peculiar fashion, like a piston, or an upset chicken. “I’ll take you shopping,” she offers. “You can use a new sweater, right? EVERYONE needs a sweater. How about a jacket? Or some shoes?”

  Honey has another idea. Her business has been pretty good of late, lots of visiting Europeans. She’s subletting her apartment for the summer and renting a villa on the Amalfi Coast. It’s just a few hours south of Rome, easy to find. Why don’t Kit and I come and stay? It’s really great, she says. She adores it. There’s a guy there she met on a vacation the summer before and she’s been thinking about him, just thinking, but a lot. Prescott will be there, and Davey Boxer—maybe Ginger too. All kinds of people. Lots of room.

  How can I get away? I can’t even get out of bed.

  Later on, in the evening, alone with Kit, I’m still trying to remember what happened. She’s sitting in the chair opposite the bed, her eyes soft, her face open, placating, contrite.

  “I know I was sick a long time,” she says. “I know it’s been a strain on you. I know I can be demanding and possessive and jealous, and I’m sorry.” At this, we both reach for a cat.

  “When I was in the hospital,” she goes on, “I really felt close to dying. I thought I didn’t care and I’m still confused. I don’t know the answers to life. But I want to live and I want to live with you.” She stops talking a moment. I can’t return her gaze. “I don’t know how you feel about any of this,” she says, her voice husky. “I hope you feel the same.”

  How do I feel? I don’t know. How should I feel? I don’t feel good. I know she loves me, but she’s always saying that. What’s it supposed to mean?

  “I wrote a song for you,” she says.

  I pull myself up. “You wrote a song? Actually wrote? For me?”

  “Want to hear it?”

  I almost say no. Whatever it is, it represents a kindness and to my mind, kindness always kills. Right now I’m glad I didn’t die. Listening could be dangerous.

  “When did you write this?” I try to look expectant.

  “Oh,” she says with a sheepish grin, “I’ve been working on it for a while.” Kit has never composed without her band before. A song for me—I can’t believe it.

  She puts down the cat and picks up her guitar and I listen, reaching back in my mind for three days. I don’t know how I could have taken those pills, what was going through my head. I should never do cocaine.

  “I love it, Kit,” I say when she’s done. “It’s a hit.”

  “It needs words,” she says. We feel fine, and then I know: there isn’t anything wrong with Kit or me. The trouble isn’t us.

  I call Daniel.

  “What do you think of this dope?” I ask when I have him alone in the office. “Doesn’t it seem a little off?” I think he’s going to punch me out. His face is red and I see his teeth, but not because he’s smiling.

  “Are you saying I cheat you? You can’t get away with that again.”

  There was another day, a few months before, when I was convinced there was something wrong with his stuff. Some of what I had when I went to sleep wasn’t there when I woke up. I told Daniel I’d left the bag open on my desk overnight and that some of the dope had evaporated. The big pussycat, he bought it that time.

  “This stuff is really no good,” I say now, hesitant but calm. “I think you should replace it.”

  I’ve never seen Daniel so mad. “You must be the most stupid woman alive,” he says, spitting out the words. “How can anyone do business with a person like you? I front you every time you ask, I let you owe me money. I know what you’re trying to do—you forget how well I know you.”

  My head feels hot, my eyes are clouding. “Ssh,” I say, embarrassed. Kit’s only in the next room. She still needs quiet. She needs a lot of rest. “I’m not trying to take advantage,” I say, my voice beginning to crack. “I know I’ve been a little messed up, but this stuff really made me sick.”

  For a moment, he doesn’t respond. I can see his mind working away. “You cut this last batch, didn’t you, Daniel? Tell me the truth.” I still think he’s attractive.

  “Your problem is you smoke everything you do, you waste it. You don’t even know how much you do, sitting here all night with your aluminum foil—it’s stupid!” He shakes his head. It doesn’t matter what he thinks of me; he can’t afford to lose my business.

  Finally, he admits this is not the usual stuff—there isn’t much profit in argument. His supply is low and he’s been scraping. He’ll let me slide on this one, but I won’t get away with it again. He’s leaving for France in a couple of days—he has to meet his mother in Marseilles. Meanwhile, I should give Massimo a call. He has something.

  Instead, I call Vance, I don’t know why. Maybe I don’t want a cocaine haircut. “You’ll never get ahead this way,” he says, when he’s sitting in the chair by my desk. “You really should go to Thailand—you could make some real money as a mule. I know a guy who can hook you up over there. Put away some cash, you won’t need a lot. You should go.”

  “I will never do that,” I say. I would never take that chance, not for him, not for anyone. I’d rather pay more and stay here.

  But I do save some cash and I don’t stay here. Magna has a private doctor in Queens who has a license to dispense methadone. Kit and I take a cab there every morning through the middle of summer. We drink his juice and take his vitamins, skim the dope only late at night, when the meth is wearing off.

  In July, I turn my business over to Bebe and Daniel over to her; Kit sublets the apartment. We get on a plane and fly to Rome.

  We get out.

  ITALY

  In our rented Fiat, the four-hour drive from Rome to Positano stretches on for eight. We get lost in Naples. When we finally reach the Amalfi Coast, it’s at the opposite end from our destination. Traffic inches along a narrow road, the Mediterranean to one side, mountains to the other, curling up toward Ravello and down through the white flats of Amalfi, twisting through tiny resort towns that emerge every few miles from limestone hills. It’s beautiful but it goes on too long. We can’t enjoy it. The methadone isn’t holding, at least not for Kit. She’s cranky. First she wants to drive, then she doesn’t know the way. She wants to stop and swim, then she can’t be bothered. She wants to stop and eat; then she won’t. She wants to look at scenery, then she looks away.

  It’s dusk when we pull in to Positano. People spill from café’s,
hotels, and shops, flooding the single road that loops through the town around two steep hills dotted with villas and pensiones. I don’t see Honey on our first pass. “We’re easy to find,” she’d said on the phone the night before, when I called from our hotel in Rome. “Ask anyone.”

  I drive through the town once, twice, a third time. Traffic moves at a snail’s pace. There’s no place to park. It’s hot. At last I pull into a space reserved for some official and get out to look for Honey on foot. Kit stays with the car.

  On the phone, Honey had given me directions to her villa. Now I walk back and forth along a narrow stone path in the upper part of town. It’s flowing with bougainvillea. This seems to be the street she’d described, but I find nothing resembling the doorway she’d said was hers—a weathered green wood without a number. A mother and her six children stare as I go by their house. A dog barks, but Honey doesn’t show her face. On my third trip down the alley, a man steps out of the kitchen of a modest pensione. He’s wearing a bright red shirt open wide at the collar, a friendly smile above it. In halting Italian I’ve picked up from Massimo, I ask if he happens to know an American named Honey. The man’s face lights up at the sound of her name. “Si si!” he says, with a grin, and then in English, “Every-body know Honey!”

  “She’s my friend,” I say. “I came from New York to visit.”

  “Ameri-cane!” he says, emphasizing the last syllables, the word for dogs.

  “Do you know where she is?”

  He calls a young boy out of the kitchen, his son, I suppose. Out comes his wife, joined by several other women. Together they discuss the matter, and me, while I stand there and sweat. Darkness falls. Then the man points in the direction I’ve just come from. I make a sign that Honey isn’t there. He takes my arm and draws me to a door I’ve already decided is wrong. It has a faded number and a tile embedded in the doorpost reading CAVE CANEM, Beware of the Dog.