“The doctor,” he goes on—I don’t think he heard me—“the doctor said I was his Olympian star patient. I’m making a champion comeback, he said. Tomorrow I can have my first shower in a week. Amazing, how having a shower is the greatest thing that can happen in a week.”
I haven’t had a shower in days. Can’t bear the touch of water. “Life’s great when it’s simple,” I say. “Soon you’ll be running around crazy like everyone else—”
“—just another Joe Schmo.”
“Not a schmo, Dad.”
“I don’t like doing nothing,” he says.
“Look, you gotta get better,” I tell him. “Okay? It’s not nothing.”
“I know you’re right,” he says. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him say that. “The thing is,” he says, “I’m weeping so much of the time.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say.
“Doesn’t seem like I have so much to be sad about.”
“Let it out. It’ll be a relief.”
“I have no choice,” he admits. “Out it comes, on and off, all day, when I’m conscious. Gee—imagine looking forward to a shower, like it was the greatest invention known to man!”
“Imagine,” I concur.
“Haven’t shaved in a week, either. Sheesh! It’s terrible.”
“It’s not terrible, for Heaven’s sake—it’s trendy. My God, you are rough.”
“You’re a good kid,” he says, “always have been. Are you eating? You’re always so thin.”
“Well, I haven’t had much of an appetite,” I tell him. “Actually, I’ve been ill.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“I’ve been poisoned,” I say. My voice is gravel.
“Poisoned?”
I take a breath. “This good kid has been on drugs, to tell you the truth.”
“You mean … an addict?”
I keep silent.
“Are you saying it’s my fault?”
“No.” Another silence.
“The doctor said I was his chief star patient, did I tell you?”
THAT DEVIL D
At the end of March, I’m still feeling terrible. I still tense up when I hear the phone; I still can’t open the mail, but I’ve learned the location of every muscle in my body. Every ache and pain I have, every sleepless shudder and each nervous twitch comes right from that devil D. It’s dying, at last, but it’s putting up a fight, it screams in the night; I ignore it. Whoever said you could kick dope in three days must have been stoned; that’s just another junkie fib. It takes a lot longer—for me, a lifetime, however long that is. Longer than five to fifteen years.
I call the lawyer. Has he heard anything? Have they set me a date in court? No, nothing, he says. He thinks the cops are losing interest.
On the thirty-first of March, that devil starts kicking me something fierce. It’s bad. I’d give anything for even an hour’s sleep, anything. I let myself out for a walk. Up and down the stairs, several times. As long as I’m talking or walking, as long as I stay in the light, I can breathe.
Kit calls to say she’s coming home for real, they’re letting her out after tomorrow. Tomorrow is her last fucking day. Could I bring her ten dollars in quarters? She owes them to a woman there who didn’t make so many calls.
“I don’t have ten dollars,” I say.
“Call Bebe,” she tells me. “Bebe always has quarters. Are you going to come and get me?”
There seems to be a brick lodged in my throat. “No,” I say. “I’m not coming.”
She hangs up.
A minute later, Bebe’s on the phone. She has the quarters, I can come over whenever. Around dinnertime, I find myself ringing her bell.
“Uh-oh,” she says. “You look unhappy.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Well, you know.”
“Bet you’ll be glad to have Kit home again.”
I say nothing.
She says I look like I could use a line. I tell her no, I’m trying to stay clean. I still have a couple of pills, I’m doing okay. Then I snort the offered line. To take the edge off. If I was on methadone, it would be the same thing.
One little line—it stones me. I walk on air all the way home, eat a small dinner, my first in weeks. I sleep a bit, maybe an hour or two. In the morning, I can’t raise my head. My eyes are open, but my body … What did I do? Just a line. One line. I can’t believe what I’ve done. I look at the calendar: April 1. April Fool. No kidding.
HOME, TAKING A SHOWER
When Honey died I was home taking a shower. I’d been at the hospital all night—that night before Kit came home. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep no matter where I was. Mike, Honey’s son, and Lute were with me, Magna, and Ginger, who was taking pictures. For twelve hours we stood by Honey’s bed, watching her writhe in a blue plastic diaper, listening to her gasp for breath. She had a terrible, rasping cough, and was in and out of a coma all through that sleepless night.
“I’m here for the duration,” Lute said when I left, but I wasn’t planning to be gone long. I didn’t think the end would come soon. Grigorio hadn’t let go easily and Honey was a lot like him.
I returned to see Magna nodding in a corner of the hall and Ginger standing outside Honey’s room, weeping. A few others were milling around them. Honey never could feel popular enough. Lute told me when Honey died, everyone happened to be off in the lounge and she was all alone.
Mike came out of her room and I went in and closed the door. She looked good, I hope she knew that. No bags under the eyes. Good skin. I stared at her body as if from a great height. I wasn’t feeling rational. Now that her wretched cough was gone, I half expected her to breathe, but nothing moved, not even the air. My eyes fell on the tattoos around her fingers. They seemed faded.
The door opened then and two orderlies appeared with a gurney, asking me to go and close the door behind me. When it opened again, they were wheeling her out in a body bag. It looked very small, child-size. How could our Honey be there? I caught Magna’s eye and we both went to pieces. Fury took me back down the hall, down the stairs, to the street. I hate drugs, I said to myself. I hate them.
I hate them.
Kit was watching TV when I got home. Neither of us tried to speak. I lay down in bed and started rocking. I couldn’t stop trembling, shivering. I had my overcoat on top of me; it lay on the quilts, but it didn’t take away my chill. Kit took me in her arms and held me. I hated her touch, but it was warm. The rocking subsided, my legs took a rest. I drifted a little, maybe I slept, and for that day and the next and the next, Kit’s arms, her warmth, her poisoned, scarred body was all that kept me from the grasp of that devil D. She was all the protection I had.
Three more days pass and nothing else happens, except I know what Kit is and she knows what I did and we live, rid of that devil D. That’s all it was, I know that now, the reason she gave us up: she wanted at last to give him the slip but she had him confused with me. More days pass and we take separate bedrooms and in a month I’m well enough to get a job. First I clean yards, picking up fallen leaves, then I’m cooking again, in a restaurant serving health food. I make ninety dollars a week, before taxes. It isn’t much, but it’s legal, and so nothing happens. Kit goes to work for an interior designer making wall art, and more weeks pass and still nothing happens, except the days grow longer than the nights and Dick’s calls get fewer and farther between. Then one day in June, I open the door and he’s there.
“I was just going out,” I say. “You feel like a walk?” He leads me down the stairs.
We sit on a bench on the sidewalk and smoke. “How you doin’?” he says. “How’s Kit? Heard anything from Daniel?”
“Questions, questions!” I exclaim. “What are you—a detective?” He laughs, and turns his head.
“So, did you ever figure out who set you up?”
He’ll never stop playing with me, never. I wonder how he’s doing with Angelo, but I’m too mad to ask. When there’s nothing else to say, I as
k. “How’s Angelo doing, anyway?”
“He’s been sweating it out. Like you.”
Right, I think. But I’m not in jail.
“And what does he say about me?”
“Nothing,” Dick replies, very cool. “Not a word.”
We share a moment of silence.
I know I’ll see Angelo again someday, it’s inevitable. Dick says he’ll turn eventually. Everyone does. I’ll be walking down the street, or sitting in a restaurant, or standing in line at a movie and he’ll be there, eyes burning. Will he know me? Will we speak? I don’t know but it doesn’t matter; by then I’ll have nothing to hide.
THE STORY OF JUNK
This isn’t the book Honey thought I would write. It isn’t a story I ever planned to tell. In a way, it was told to me, by all my friends and customers. I owe them. Like Sticky said, drug addicts are the best people I ever knew. I want Dick to know the same thing. I don’t want him ever to ask again how “nice” people like me get into this nasty business. It’s not because our lives have been so tragic, or so lonely, though that might be the case. And it’s not because our parents didn’t love us, though that might be the case. It’s not because of any personal failures or unmet expectations, though you could count on all of it to play a part. And it’s not because some of us died too young, even if it’s true. It’s not even because we like heroin—that’s just a song and dance. There’s no way to excuse or explain it. The whole story of junk is a song and dance. Everyone’s got a story to tell, and most of those stories will change in some way, every time they’re told. Not this one, not the story of junk. This one’s always the same.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to acknowledge my considerable debt to those constant friends and unexpected guardian angels who kept their homes, hearts, pocketbooks, and my eyes open during the process of writing this book. For the unwitting and generous conspiracy they formed to see me through it, I am deeply, deeply grateful:
To my dear Robbie Goolrick, like whom there is no other, whose close friendship and many kindnesses have been such that my being a yankee (or a Yankee fan) will never be the same; to the wonderful Judy Auchincloss, whose delight in all things has given our human comedy noble refreshment; to Ira Silverberg, who has seen me through many a dark night and blank page; to Clarissa Dalrymple, a worldly and genuine muse, who introduced me to much of my best material; to Annie Philbin, for her understanding and unqualified support; to Mary Heilmann and Ann Rower, for being there in a pinch; to Nan Goldin, without whose encouragement I may never have made a beginning, and to Lynne Tillman, for propelling me toward the end; to my editor, Elisabeth Sifton, who knew I could write this story before I did and has been my steady compass on the circuitous journey through it; to Edward Hibbert, for his tireless efforts on my behalf; and to sweet Chris Schiavo, whose selfless dedication to my cause made this truly a labor of love.
I would also like to thank the MacDowell Colony and the Corporation of Yaddo for giving me such grand places to work, and American Pen and Change, Inc., for helping to keep a roof over my head.
I can’t say enough about the essential contributions made by my best critics and readers, Brooks Adams, and Lisa Liebmann, while Rob Wynne, Charles Ruas, Keith Sonnier, Billy Sullivan, Klaus Kertess, Jane Dickson, Patty Smyth, Richard Boch, Gary Indiana, and Betsy Sussler uniquely enriched my creative life, not to mention my phone time and my place at the dinner table. I thank Leonard Drindel, Kate Simon, and Adrianne Barone for their help with my research; the forgiving staff of the Drawing Center and Phillip Munson for general assistance; Alexis Ford for donating the computer; Pat Hearn and my friends in the Wooster Group for helping me find my legs; P & J and David Becker for their patience; and all those many more anonymous souls whose stories ultimately gave voice to my own.
New York City
December 1996
About the Author
Since publishing her acclaimed first novel, The Story of Junk, in 1997, Linda Yablonsky has enthralled readers with her globetrotting reports from the front lines of the contemporary art world. Her byline has appeared in Artforum and T: The New York Times Style Magazine online and in print, as well as in the New York Times, the Art Newspaper, W, Elle, and Wallpaper, among many others. From 1991 to 1999 Yablonsky organized and hosted Nightlight Readings and Nightlight for Kids, innovative writers-in-performance series that introduced new work by more than two hundred authors to a broad audience in New York, where she lives. Yablonsky was also the founding producer for MoMA PS1’s pioneering Internet radio station, WPS1, and until 2009, senior art critic for Bloomberg News in the United States.
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All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1997 by Linda Yablonsky
Cover design by Mauricio Diaz
ISBN: 978-1-5040-0005-5
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The Story of Junk Page 28