The worst though is what he did to his dog. He killed his dog. Like butchered it, on the steps of the old bank that’s now a social security office, on a Sunday morning in front of the brunch crowd outside of Boogaloos. They caught the whole thing on iPhones. Axed that fucker open. The cops were on him.
I hoped he’d get better. Maybe being locked up would do him some good, get him some help. But it did and it didn’t help. It cleared up his mind, all right. But he couldn’t live with what he’d done. He killed himself in a SRO in the Civic Center.
Poor guy. I used to think he had it made. I used to wish I were him. I wanted to be like him. That’s the life of the junkie though. You don’t know what it is until you’re on that side.
There used to be this RV on Twenty-first Street. If you were desperate or dopesick, you could stick your hand in the hole with a ten-dollar bill, and someone on the other side would give you a tiny balloon of heroin.
On that same corner now is a food truck. If you are hungry or desperate, you can hand them a ten-dollar bill, and they’ll hand you a kimchi burger. Much less of a deal, if you ask me.
I have to take the edge off. I feel like shit. My sweat’s coming out in a slick film. My crotch is damp. My fingers are tingly. Loud. Everything is too loud—cell conversations, barking dogs, yelling children. Cars honking. Ring tones.
A woman in Lululemon gear ties her dog to a parking meter and heads inside the café. The dog cries, and I feel sorry for it. It has to live with her; it’s codependent on her chronic abandonment. I know her type; I’ve worked the cafes before: she’s the kind who asks for a drink, but everything about it is special needs: the temperature, the milk, the foam, the glass it’s in . . . nothing can be done for her like it’s done for everyone else. She can’t find one thing on the menu that she likes as is. Back in the day, we could just tell her no, to fuck off, that we weren’t doing all that shit. But the new cafes ruined everyone. Which is my real beef with Starbucks. I don’t care about corporate this and that. They indoctrinated the public into the coffee world. No one in America knew what a latte was until they came along. Starbucks became a place for all the fuckers with special needs to give directions and get attention. We used to ask for lattes and mochas in singles and doubles; now it’s sizes. That’s not how it should be done. We had a terminology that had existed for however long the espresso machine existed, and that place ruined it. I don’t give a good god damn about the mythical mom-and-pop places, which are often owned by complete jerks who should be out of business. I’m against these marketing fuckers branding something that didn’t need it.
Sunday mornings are hell in the Mission. It fills up with the brunch crowd that, if you don’t live here, I can’t really describe. Brunch is the disco of this decade. People wait in line for pastries at Tartine. Sure, it’s good, I’ve been there on a weekday, but it’s not stand-in-line-like-it’s-Studio 54 good.
Mornings are hard on drug addicts. Shit is wearing off. Stuff we took two days ago is coming out of our systems, and we’re coming down from stuff we took the day before. A call must be made: more of the same to keep the sickness away and the party rolling, or some assistance in the crash with something to take the edge off? A delicate balance must be maintained.
Some people see the drug life as easier, that you just get high and don’t worry about shit. Not the case. The moment you buy your drugs, they start to run out. The more drugs you take, the more your tolerance grows, and therefore, you must buy more the next time. It’s a tightrope act, with your emotions being the rope and drugs as the balancing pole. You fuckers on the ground do nothing, and you stay nothing. Not high, not coming down, nothing. I don’t remember the last day I wasn’t on something, coming off something, or recovering from something; usually it’s a mix of all three in varying degrees, like three colors of light that sometimes, occasionally, when I get the mix right, burns a perfect pure white. Which makes it all worth it, and if you don’t know about that, you’ll never get it.
And you fuckers with your yoga mats and strollers and fair-trade toddlers crowd up my sidewalks and give me stares like I don’t belong here. I’m here every day. Where are you? You’re only here on the weekends. You’re working down in Silicon Valley, leaving this street every day so you can afford to live here. You could take it easy and live in a van, like me. But you’ll be paid off on that mortgage in another twenty-seven years when you’re seventy. Maybe you’ll like it here still. Maybe you’ll be dead, and I’ll be squatting in your house. How many purebred dogs will you go through in one lifetime? How many hybrid cars will you purchase? I hope you had a nice time with your life. I did stuff. I may end up with nothing, but we’ll both be dead and it won’t matter. We’ll be on our deathbeds in the same room at SF General, and yeah you did CrossFit and yoga and ate gluten-free bagels, you had an IRA and a 401(k) and T-bills, whatever those are, and you dated respectable people and you married one and had two kids, one of each, and you raised them bilingual and sent them to good schools and you named them after your favorite characters in your favorite books that you read and you didn’t watch TV because TV is bullshit, and me, I went into neighborhoods I shouldn’t have been in and bought what I was pretty sure were drugs from people I didn’t know and I smoked them from pipes I made out of garbage, and I didn’t go to the dentist for the entirety of the ’90s, and I ate meat, smoked, and wore leather, and I flushed the toilet whenever I fucking felt like it, fuck the drought and fuck the bad karma . . .
Chuck, bro, are you okay?
He’s shaking me, a hand on each shoulder. I’m not wearing a shirt. Scratches like I fought a cat. Pants, no shoes. Barefoot on the sidewalk. The wind is cold; I’m covered in a thick sweat.
Chuck, we have to get out of here.
I know this guy. Can’t place it. He’s from another time, another life.
I’m in front of Tartine. The phones are out. I’m being filmed with iPads and cell phones. Nannies are shielding kids from me. Someone’s yelling. Wait, it’s me. I’m not thinking. I’m yelling.
Chuck, it’s me, Eric. You are fucked up.
Eric’s an old roommate. He lived in the pantry of my house on Laguna Street for a hundred bucks a month. Ninety. Ninety-one. Something. What year is it?
Eric tugs at me. I follow.
I’m at Eric’s house. The walls are covered in rock posters and flyers. I’m sitting on a futon in the living room that’s probably his bedroom as well. He tries talking to me, but the words are coming out so slowly I can’t understand him. I’m falling in a remote hole.
Time pauses and restarts. A fly stops in front of me, hovers like a helicopter. It backs up, goes forward. This isn’t good.
Eric comes back. He has a briefcase with him that’s a stashbox. He opens it, rifles around, comes out with a tiny squeeze bottle. He tilts my head back and drops something liquid in my eye. It’s cold. Then I feel good. And my cock gets hard immediately. I need to fuck somebody. Right now.
Ha, you like that, right?
Remote . . .
Oh shit, that’s what this crash is. I have some of that. Hold on.
He rifles around some more. Finds a pill. He crushes it into a fine powder and holds it under my nose. I snort it like a drowning man grabbing for a rope.
What the fuck, Chuck?
What was that first shit you gave me?
Some new shit I’m fucking with. It’s a failed antidepressant. It’s supposed to turn depression into happiness, but it just crosswires sadness with sexual arousal. Of course, it never got through clinical trials. But it’s the best ecstasy comedown cure ever. I’m running a weekend party the last week of every month. Sunday is comedown day. We show Hallmark commercials and montages from Old Yeller and shit, and everyone gets naked and fucks. Even the ugly old guys like me. You should come. You’re already halfway naked. Really though, what the fuck?
Blacked out. Been taking a lot of shit. Speaking of which, I need to take a shit, a literal shit.
Down the hall. And
take a shower. You smell fucking horrible.
The first shit blasts like a shotgun. Then nothing. Then it wells up again and blasts. Water and chunks. Then a stream of water, like a riot hose. Then nothing. I sit for a while.
Rock hard. Stroke. Think of Liza. What she used to look like. The Catholic schoolgirl uniform she showed off to you before you fucked her way back when. The event that led to the fetish. You’re not interested in Catholic schoolgirls. You’ve been trying to fuck Liza again for years. Fuck her again. That’s your thing with the skirt. You’re chasing after her memory. Scars. Burns. No. Fuck. Think of that ass peeking from underneath the hem of the skirt. The first shaved pussy you’d ever seen. Only strippers and porn actresses had those then. It was the unshaven punk era. Shaven armpits were mainstream corporate bullshit. She’s standing over you wearing a skirt with no panties and asking you what you think, and you’re still afraid to make a move, frozen from a childhood of abuse and rejection. You can’t say anything, and she laughs. Take it out, she says. She can see you’re hard, you still harbor fear that she’s going to laugh at it, but you take it out because that’s what you’re told to do. Instead of laughing, she hovers closer and closer, till she slides right on top of your cock and she’s grinding you. A drop of sweat runs off her face and lands in your mouth. You don’t want to come right away, but you do, a flush of heat ripping through your neck, you close your eyes . . .
You open your eyes. See the scars. Living room. Liza’s here. Fucking Liza on the floor. Not a fantasy anymore.
Where am I?
What? Jesus, Chuck. You’re in my living room.
I was just taking a shit in Eric’s bathroom.
WHAT are you talking about? Shut up and keep fucking.
No, I was somewhere else.
You’re high. Or not high enough. Here, take another hit.
She hands me the marble in a pipe and I hit it. I inhale and hold.
Shower water’s hitting me.
I’m in Eric’s bathroom.
Fuck, that felt real.
I look over. The bowl is disgustingly full. I reach out and flush.
There’s nothing in this shower except for the peppermint Dr. Bronner’s. I guess it’ll have to do. I might stink too much for this. I need something stronger. Pine-Sol. Something.
I get out of the shower. Eric’s waiting for me.
Take these sweats, this shirt, and these socks. I found your shoes and your jacket. Your shirt’s gone somewhere. And your socks, well, fuck them. Totally gross. Basically you did a striptease at Tartine while you were blacking out.
Fucking hilarious.
Not really. This isn’t the old Mission. This Mission belongs to the techies.
Bullshit.
Face it. They’re here. They have money. That’s how this country works.
Fuck it. I’m leaving anyway.
Listen. This isn’t twenty years ago. You can’t get away with anything you want anymore. You can’t have a freakout like this. Dude, if I didn’t live upstairs, you would’ve been arrested. And bro, you had a gun in your jacket, and god knows what in your system. They could’ve 5150’d you. Easily.
I know. Is my stash still there?
Fuck, really? That’s what you’re concerned about? Are you listening to me at all?
Christ, I just . . . is my stash still there?
No. Keys. And a little gun.
It’s a Raven.
I don’t care. Fuck. Dude, get your shit together, and get out of here.
Hey, sorry, I didn’t mean to . . .
But you did. I’m trying to help you, and it’s like you’re in a different god damned world.
Sorry . . .
I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry for a lot of things. But it’s not the good ol’ days anymore, and frankly, I’m not sure that they even were good, ever. But one thing I know is that we’re not twenty-one anymore. It’s okay to be in our forties. We just have to act like it.
Okay, I’m leaving.
I get my things and wander instinctively toward the front door. As I open the door, Eric stops me and hands me a flyer. Some warehouse party off Third Street.
Show up. I’ll put you on the list.
Thanks. I’ll get these sweats back . . .
No worries, dude, he says, waving me off.
I lope down the steps and wander away, in the opposite direction of Tartine.
Where my van should be, it isn’t. My mind shuffles. Did I move it? Did I drive it somewhere in a blackout? I don’t remember, but hell, that doesn’t mean a damn thing. Doesn’t mean I did or didn’t.
You looking for your van?
The voice startles me.
Over here.
A pile of garbage sticks an arm out and waves.
Yeah. Did you see what happened to it?
Got towed.
Towed?
Towed.
Ah, for the love of fuck.
Hey, got a quarter?
No. Especially not now.
Why?
You know why. They towed my van.
You have pockets.
You talk pretty bold for a pile of garbage.
Fuck you. I prefer refuse-American.
My money. My fucking money was in the van. I can’t get the van out of the impound without them finding me, but I can’t get to the money unless I do. Is this how they’re trying to get me? Take my van and my money and wait for me to show up and then nab me?
Not me. Nope. They’re not getting me that easy. No sir. They’ll have to try something else. I’m not falling for that trap.
But I need money. I need drugs. I have to work something out. Someone has to front me.
By the time I get to the Tenderloin, I’m coming down again; I still have a hard-on, but it’s not like it was.
Big Mike won’t answer his buzzer. Calls go to voicemail; texts sit unread. Not good. He has a kitchen full of everything I need, but I can’t get in.
There’s a Crown Vic parked across the street. Undercover cops are common in the TL, but maybe they’re watching Big Mike’s place.
I can feel them looking at me, their eyes scanning the back of my neck, trying to look at the hands for telltale tats. I know they’re behind that tinted glass checking me out. I have a sense for these things.
I scamper off, duck into the nearest corner store.
A smell hits me. It’s a soured-cat-piss smell. The owner has his shirt pulled over his face. Looks helpless against it. I head back toward the beer. I know this smell, personally.
Oso’s in the back of the store by the refrigerators.
Something’s wrong. The man has lost a lot of weight. There’s no way he could lose this much weight in what, a week and a half? His skin hangs loose on him like one of those Chinese fighting dogs. It creeps me out.
What you looking at, fool? he says with a sneer.
Oso, it’s me, Chuck.
Oso squints. He walks toward me. He has a shopping basket filled with TV dinners, four or five ice creams, and a Desert Eagle.
Oh, shit, fool. What the fuck is up?
He smiles, but somehow it looks creepier than before. As he gets closer, I see tiny lumps under his skin.
You’ve lost some weight.
Funny. I’m smaller and shit. But I don’t feel a god damn bit lighter.
You seen Big Mike around?
Nah. That fool is AWOL. Fucking up my business, that’s for damn sure.
Aw, fuck.
What’s up, fool?
I need something to tide me over. I lost my stash, my cash, and almost my ass.
I got your hookup. Come back to the crib and we’ll work it out.
We walk out. Oso throws two twenties on the counter, doesn’t stop to be rung up or wait for change.
In the studio, the smell is somehow worse than I remember. It throws me off balance. There’s a taste in my throat; I’m afraid to breathe through my mouth, but when I breathe through my nose, it stings and burns. I’m not sure what’s happening
here. This is beyond rotten food or body odor or cats. This is something inhuman, something wrong, something that shouldn’t be. There’s some kind of strong ammonia theme that is making it hard for me to keep my eyes open.
Sit down, fool, Oso says.
I’m afraid to sit anywhere. It’s really gross in here. I want to get some shit and leave. I want to go to rehab. I should quit all this shit. Not worth it. Not fucking worth it. I’ll sell some drugs, get some money and go to rehab, then get out and get a square job.
I’ll go to that rehab down south, Promises, I think it’s called, the one where Robert Downey Jr. and Ben Affleck go, where you get clean by a pool, and I’ll write a screenplay, and one of them will get it to their people, and then I’ll have people waiting for me when I get out.
And I’ll meet some nice actress from an old show like The Facts of Life or something who’s having trouble with pills since her kid died or a car wreck or something, and we’ll hit it off and she’ll be tired of those Hollywood jerkoffs and want a real down-to-earth guy like me.
I wonder if Fairuza Balk will be there. I’ll bet she has a drug problem. Look at those eyes, those crazy bright eyes—I bet you can see them in the dark like a cat. She’s done some shit for sure. Haven’t seen her in anything in a long-ass time; maybe she copped a habit and needs help.
We’ll hang out when we’re out and tell stories about when we were in there about how bad the food was and how fat one of the nurses was and how dumb the other actors were, and we’ll laugh like we haven’t laughed in so long and she’ll say, You know, I haven’t laughed like this in forever, and I’ll say, Me neither, and she’ll say, You look really good, you have some color back in your face and you put some meat on you, and I’ll be like, Thanks, I’ve been working out, and your skin looks great, and she’ll say, Thanks, and there will be this pause where we both try to take drinks of our raw-food juices but they’re empty and then we both go to say something then we both stop and then say, No you go, at the same time and then we’ll laugh and then she’ll say, Have you ever been to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery? and I’ll be like, No what’s that? even though I know what it is, and she’ll say, It’s this cemetery and they show old horror films there and tonight they’re showing Night of the Living Dead and we should go, and I’ll be like, Hell yeah, and we just hang out till then and everything’s cool till right when the movie starts and she just fucking gets on me and kisses me and looks at me with those crazy eyes and that’s how we fall in love, you know, and It’s weird, I’ll say, and What? she will ask, What’s weird? and I’ll say, We never would’ve met if we hadn’t gotten strung out and that rehab was the best thing that ever happened to me, and she’ll giggle and say, Me too, wipe a little tear out of her eye, and make out with me for the rest of the movie.
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