One by One

by Nicholas Bush

  I suggest to the woman that she call her other son and explain the situation to him in order to resolve the situation in a way that the family is happy with. The sweet old lady doesn’t have a phone plugged into her wall, which is guaranteed by the facility in its residents’ rights handbook. When I find out that it had been removed, I replace it immediately. The woman is then able to make the call and have the situation resolved. To me, my resolution is perfectly rational, but my boss and my coworkers don’t take kindly to my approach of actually taking care of the residents. They tell me that it’s not my job to get involved in family affairs. I agree reluctantly to simply let her cry or wail if this happens again, and to shut the door next time. Other staff members remove the phone to avoid her connecting with her family that way and them upsetting her again, about what exactly I never learn. The entire ordeal is beyond frustrating.

  One day I arrive at work and find the place surrounded by police cars. I’ve been clean for some time now, but I panic anyway and scurry back into my car. Flashbacks of all the times I’ve been arrested or run from the police come quickly. I calm myself down with a cigarette, and reason that all those cops couldn’t possibly be there for me. When I finally get the courage to go inside, I find out that they’re there because one of my coworkers in a previous shift was found unresponsive with a needle in her arm on the floor of the utility closet. She had apparently been stealing lidocaine patches, dissolving them in water, and injecting them into her arm. She is taken to the hospital and declared legally brain dead after a week, at which time her family decides to take her off life support. I didn’t know the woman well, but she had offered to help train me when I started and always seemed pleasant. She was scorned by the other certified nursing assistants, called CNAs, because she went above and beyond when it came to taking care of residents, and they thought it made them look bad.

  When my coworker dies, I don’t know what to think, but I have a sense of impending doom, like I am cursed and it is somehow my fault that so many people close to me have become victims of opioid overdoses. I know it’s ridiculous, but I can’t make the feeling go away. I press on at the nursing home, which is located downtown, next to three different hospitals, and I push out of my mind the creeping question of if I might not be cut out for this line of work. I look the other way and keep my eyes on my goal: working at one of the nearby hospitals.

  My coworkers, who are all female or homosexual, hate me after a while and eventually excommunicate me. I’m just not able to do the, well, gross stuff, due to resident preference. One night on my shift, a morbidly obese man, who weighs close to five hundred pounds and sits upright in a reclining wheelchair, complains to me that he’s having severe back pain. I immediately call the registered nurse, and she proceeds to give him medication and tell me that the man needs to be placed in his bed as soon as possible.

  I obtain a Hoyer Lift, which is used to get morbidly obese patients in and out of bed, but it requires two people to operate it, so I track down two other CNAs to assist me. One of the women simply ignores me, and the other says something along the lines of, “We don’t like that guy, let him suffer.” I return to the man’s room and he begs me to put him in bed to ease the pressure on his back. I can’t let him just sit and suffer, so I decide to take this on myself.

  The next day my supervisor calls me into his office and tells me I didn’t follow the rules when I made the executive decision to not sit idly by and let the patient suffer. I explain my decision and the circumstances in detail and he doesn’t object, but then he reveals that my coworkers have made claims against me for other issues too. He asks me, “Why did you lay Mrs. Smith down for bed with her shoes still on?” and similar questions. The issues brought up are ridiculous or the results of fabricated stories, and my frustration grows.

  After having heard enough, I can’t hold back, “Geez, with a long list like that, you’d think I would have been called out for these things much sooner.” None of it makes any sense, but the message that they want to get rid of me comes through loud and clear. I tell the supervisor that I’ll sign a termination contract.

  With no income, and unable to get a job as a CNA after being fired for allegedly violating safety precautions, which was the formal reason listed on the termination contract, I’m feeling hopeless again. My criminal record is so substantial, with more than ten misdemeanors, that at the close of my twenty-second birthday even gas stations and fast food restaurants won’t hire me. The tickets include things like shoplifting, littering, vandalism, and so on. The only reason I was able to get a job as a CNA was because the federal government vouched for me with letters of recommendation from the vocational school.

  I can’t pay rent without an income, so I end up at my parents’ home again, where I fall back into stealing from them as a way to get the cash to survive. One day they tell me that they know I’m stealing from them and have figured out that years back I stole several expensive pieces of gold jewelry, including Rolex and Patek Philippe watches. I try my hardest to deny this, but they’re having none of it and they tell me I must move out of the house for good.

  I find an inner city apartment, paying the first month’s rent with the little cash I have left and hoping desperately that something will come my way that will help me make ends meet. In a fit of desperation, I contact Adriana Russo, who still lives in the area, and tell her I need a way to make some cash again. She says, “Oh, Nick, I thought you went straight” and I can tell her heart is going out to me because she knows I want to get my act together, but that she also deeply cares for me and wants to help me get back on my feet. She puts me in touch with a man who tells me I should meet him at his home and take his truck-full of pot plants back to my inner city apartment and set up three dozen hydroponic units there.

  I do as requested and return his truck early the next morning. In exchange for maintaining the plants, the man gives me a sawed-off shotgun with shells and agrees to pay half my rent each month and also provide me with as much low-grade pot as I want. To pay the other half of my rent, I resort to burglarizing garages and vacant homes, petty crime, and drug deals.

  It is during this string of burglaries and drug deals that I amass a collection of guns. I now have two .22 rifles, a pocket-size revolver, the shotgun, a semiautomatic MAC-10 pistol, and even a grenade. I spend some of the money buying and selling vehicles on Craigslist for profit. This lifestyle allows me to do little else than pay my rent, but I take whatever surplus I have to Giovanni so he can help me blow it all on opioids.

  It is on one of my visits to Giovanni that I find my old friend has taken a liking to injecting Oxy into the veins of his hand. I immediately want to experience the rush he’s enjoying. I’ve never injected anything before, but if Giovanni is into it, I’m up for it. I soon find out that the high is as powerful as when I tried the drug for the very first time. I inject, and then I sit back and breathe a deep sign of relief. My mind calms.

  Giovanni knows my dire financial situation, so he loops me in on a few tricks he’s learned and uses it to make money off OxyContin. He tells me that Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, and federal policy makers who regulate the sale of the drug, are well aware of the addictive nature of the drug and its consequent impact on society. Purdue was sued for misleading the public after it initially billed the narcotic as a nonaddictive “miracle drug,” and ended up having to pay more than $600 million.

  Somehow they were still able to market the potent opioid after the lawsuit. This was without question in part due to altering the chemical makeup of the drug, which had evolved to contain an additive intended to prevent the user from being able to crush and snort it. This added chemical not only makes the pills far more difficult to crush, but renders the drug ineffective if snorted or injected, providing the user was somehow able to crush it.

  But as that expression goes: where there’s a will, there’s a way. Giovanni found out that if the pills are frozen solid f
or a few hours, crushed in a pill grinder, and then the resulting powder baked in the oven for exactly seven minutes, the additive is removed.

  Through this process we are able to bypass the deterrent enacted by the manufacturer and continue to abuse Oxy. It also becomes readily apparent that while the drug is baking it goes from white to dark brown and takes on the appearance of heroin. Ever the opportunists, we realize that if it looks like heroin, we can sell it as heroin and bump up what we charge. We’re soon in business, adding crushed vitamins to the powder and selling it as heroin.

  Pure OxyContin, “government heroin,” as Giovanni calls it, taking the name from Red, is actually more potent than heroin and provides a better, purer high. We successfully pass off the imitation narcotic as heroin and the money flows in again, finally. It’s not, however, going toward food or cleaning myself up to get a job; instead, it’s used to satisfy my opioid addiction, which has completely taken control of my daily life once again. I start constantly going to and from Giovanni’s house, buying and selling opioids exclusively, and consuming them in large quantities.

  The ease of this is short-lived though, as only a little while after diving headlong into the opioid market, I notice the Oxy has stopped flowing. I bring this up to Giovanni and he gets pissed. He says Red has stopped answering his calls. He tells me Red had gotten the Oxy by robbing several pharmacies, and we surmise that he’s AWOL because he’s run out or been busted by the police or killed. We’re well aware that it’s a dark underworld we’re part of.

  We round up some weak opioids to prevent getting dope sick, but they don’t get us high at all. Finally, one day when we’re itching to get high, I turn to Giovanni and say, “Fuck it, let’s just get heroin.”

  Incredibly, heroin is the easiest drug to locate, even easier than pot. Most people who do drugs have somewhat normal lives. People who do heroin, however, just do heroin. The drug takes over their lives—people who are on it want to do it all the time and want to talk about it all the time. Even if you only know one addict, that addict can lead you to a source. And the people we are able to buy heroin from are local—and while they’re a mixed lot, they’re a lot easier to get to than the thugs from Chicago, and a lot less threatening.

  Often the heroin we score is far less potent than OxyContin, but injecting the drug can easily make up for this. After a few weeks testing the waters of this new avenue, we hone in on a couple of reliable sources and are confident that we have located the highest quality heroin available in our area. By the time I hit twenty-three, I am a full-blown heroin addict.

  The first time I shot it into my hand, I didn’t expect very much. A friend of mine had gotten me what looked like three very tiny black dots of heroin. I had seen powdered heroin, but nothing like this and I was skeptical, but I agreed to give it a go. Within seconds of shooting it, I was rocking back and forth, jumping up and down, and basically running in place, unable to sit still. Every physical sensation in my body was going nuts, overwhelmed by pleasure, like an endless climax. I said, “Thank you, oh thank you,” over and over again, rocking back and forward as I did. The heroin felt amazing, but the comedown is hard; you get dizzy, then sick. You need more dope to avoid this. Pretty quickly, we stop being put off by the drug’s reputation of being associated with junkies and losers—we just need to get high.

  At one point, sweet Adriana Russo, of all people, comes to us with some OxyContin and together we create more imitation heroin. Adriana has proven herself to be as formidable a dealer as Giovanni, electing not to go to college but instead to work jobs that revolve around nightlife, which both facilitates and hides her more lucrative occupation. She then follows us into the act of procuring real heroin. We multiply the amount procured by cutting it with additives the way we did with OxyContin. Each of us sells it as an individual vendor and we pool our profits.

  I come home from each visit to Giovanni with enough dope to last me at least a week or two, and enough extra to cut and sell (at a marked-up price) to people in my hometown who don’t have access to dope that is as pure. Big cities have the best dope—plain and simple. In Green Bay, it can take hours or days to locate people who can get so-so stuff; in Milwaukee or Chicago, good stuff is always one phone call away. I sell it right out of my townhouse, or meet people at gas stations. I deal it to boxers in the parking lot outside their gym or deliver it to a buyer’s home. I try my best though to only deal with a few middlemen. We call the product “boy,” “brown,” or most often, “H.”

  A typical day starts with me waking up at around 10:00 in the morning, checking my phone, smoking some weed, and falling back to sleep. I get up again in the early afternoon, check the PH level on the plants, smoke some more weed, play with my guns—taking them out, shining them, admiring them, then leaving them loaded and cocked—and then do heroin. I can be found alone late in the day playing Call of Duty, high as hell. As the sun sets, I decide whether to have people over to party, or go out to the bars. I never, ever bring drugs to bars. I’ve had close calls at bars with police, who profile the area like gangbusters, and the last thing I need is another possession charge or a dealing charge.

  One night I am out with my cousin Will, a straightedge, mountain biking guy who is recently back in town after graduating from Northern Michigan University. We hit the town, but are denied entry into a bar. The bouncer says it’s because of how I’m dressed. Indeed, my style is a bit of a mix between Kurt Cobain’s grunge wear of the nineties and something straight out of a Nelly music video, and sometimes everything in between, but the bouncer is still being an asshole.

  On this occasion, I’m wearing purple Nike Air Force 1 shoes, a designer XXL white T-shirt, a flashy silver Fossil watch, and camouflage cargo shorts. The bouncers are wearing black T-shirts tucked into tight jeans. They both have giant belt buckles. “This ain’t that kinda place,” the guy in the white T-shirt says. Will starts arguing with them, but I just laugh and walk past them. Inside, I stroll up to the bar and order a beer, and as the bartender turns to get it, I turn to Will only to see that he’s still outside arguing. Finally, he pushes his way inside. He tells me they want me out. “They’re serious?” I ask incredulously.

  Will looks at me with a serious expression, and then says, “Let’s just go. This bar sucks anyway.”

  I don’t argue with him, but I’ll be damned if I’m leaving that easily. I’m lit up on some weed, a few lines of coke, and some H I did before leaving my house. If I have to leave, I’m at least going to have some fun with the bouncers first. I calmly walk past the first guy, saying exuberantly, “Okay, okay, sure, we’ll go, no problem.” I put my hands up as though surrendering in a battle. Coming up to the second guy, I see him straighten up to look taller and then begin flexing his muscles. I slow my pace, turn my palms to face him, and then lower my hands slowly, in a manner that indicates I want everybody to calm down. Will follows behind and says, “Fuck this,” as he passes the bouncer. I smile and then, leaning in closely to the second bouncer, I whisper, “My friend thinks you’re cute,” and make a kissing sound with my lips. I give him a wink for good measure and then stroll out onto the street. Will is absolutely livid, but I motion for him to calm down and look back at the bouncers. They’re clearly bewildered, no doubt talking about what I just said. I light a Newport 100 and wave at them, a big smile on my face.

  One of the bouncers comes out, angry, and tells us to move along or he’s going to call the police. He points his finger toward the street ahead of us, and then gestures to get going. I apologize, feigning sincerity, and explain in the most articulate manner I can muster that Will and I must have mistaken them for guys who like to play. Pretending to be gay, I say, “I’m really, really, sorry . . . . I didn’t mean to, you know, um . . . ”

  The other bouncer overhears the conversation and comes out too. He tells us to get the hell out of there, but I ignore him and keep talking to the first guy. “I just thought that the way you guys were
matching . . .”

  Will bursts out laughing, as I continue to lead the bouncers down a homosexual rabbit hole. Finally I say, “Okay, okay, man, I’ll go down the street in that exact direction. We’ll just go be together somewhere else, alright? Is that cool?” He looks at me angrily, but I ignore it and give him a once over. And then as if I think he’s reconsidering, I ask, “You sure?”

  “You fags go have your fun,” he barks.

  “Okay, but can I just have your number?” This continues on for what seems like half an hour until one bouncer goes inside to call the police, or so I assume. I continue pretending that I’m hitting on the other bouncer as I light another cigarette. Will is now beside himself; he has one arm above his head and is leaning on a brick building, laughing hysterically. “Come on, Will, they want us to walk this way,” I say, as I deliberately stroll smack into a wall adjacent to where the bouncer is pointing. I fall to the street, and then get up to brush myself off, saying in a bewildered voice, “What did you tell me to do that for? You guys are real jerks.” With that, Will and I move on.

  We head across the river to a bar that isn’t so crowded and stuck up. We share our plans for the future and reminisce about old times, all the times I basically lived at his house as a little kid. We don’t drink much, and I begin thinking about how Will is one of my oldest friends and a really good guy. He is moving to Minneapolis the following week, and I’m sorry that we haven’t spent more time together.

  As we get ready to bring the night to a close, Will gets his mountain bike, which is chained to a light post outside a bar, and walks it alongside me as we make our way back across the river to my red ’93 Mustang convertible. We hug and share one last laugh, then say goodbye.

  I fire up the four-cylinder engine and get going, but quickly notice a black-and-white cop car following me. At first I try to ignore it and drive in circles around two different blocks hoping the guy will leave me alone, and then I try to get away, but soon there are flashing lights on my tail. I don’t run when the cop’s flashers go on. Instead, I pull over and turn off the car. I put the keys on the dashboard and sit absolutely motionless, trying to not even breathe. It gives me a tiny bit of comfort to know that I don’t have anything on me and I didn’t drink much. The officer walks up to my window and explains that he’s stopping me because of my plates and I mentally let out an enormous sigh of relief. I just sold my Ford Ranger the day before, and put its plates on the Mustang today so I could drive it to the bars. This seems like an easy explanation, but the cop surprises me and asks me to step outside my vehicle.