by sam paul
“Temporality is the cause of all sorrow.”
—Joseph Campbell
Jenifer and I are moving out of the dilapidated apartment from behind the house of love. With all of our friends so fucked up with their various shit we’re taking baby steps to try and get ourselves together and beat this plague. Half of our friends are addicted to smack and the other half of our friends are addicted to shooting meth and coke.
All this drama and shit is spreading through town faster than a virus. New people I would have never pegged as dope heads are looking to Jen and I for leadership in getting them started, like we’re the fucking pioneers that paved a smooth path into some fucking unknown wilderness. There is nothing worse than giving somebody who’s never injected drugs their first shot. Their eager eyes are always tinged with slight frightfulness and then their faces light up as the rush hits them and everything makes sense to them for the first time. It makes me feel guilty because a month or so down the line I might meet the same person and they’re shooting themselves up with anything imaginable or helping some nai’ve kid do their first shot. Everyone enjoys it too fucking much. The next thing we know the same people who were our friends are coming over to our house begging to score, trying to fuck shit up, or eyeing the fucking stereo.
We’re generation-fucking-X and what do we believe in except the shallowness we observe? Addiction is flesh without life, it’s as if the instincts that spawning salmon follow to justify their death have been initiated in us, we’ve activated a switch in our heads that somehow makes it ok to follow this path of self destruction.
No more. Jen and I are getting the hell out of here. Sleep is good, but sleeping while we’re awake is just blindness.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
We’ve tried everything to stop. Jenifer even told her mom what was going on and she brought us over bananas and bread so we could eat while trying to kick, trying to kick is the worst a person can ever feel. Her mom found out when we took Jenifer to Charter rehab hospital for treatment, but after being there a few hours, she threw a fit and signed herself out of there. I got the call to pick her up. I didn’t ask too much about it and I was sad she failed because what does that say for me? I don’t even have insurance to pay for something like that if I wanted to go. I need help.
The body stops producing the endorphins that regulate pain in everyday life. So with the Heroin gone and the endorphins on vacation, everything in my body hurts. I can feel every bit of pain that’s caused by the hair follicles pushing their way through my skin everyday and that’s just one nuisance; I won’t even get into trying to use the bathroom or the pain in my intestines. AHHHH.
My stomach can’t hold anything at all, I hardly even sip water and my tummy produces green acidic bile as if it’s digesting itself. My throat feels like hydrochloric acid. My eyes forget how to adjust to the light. My body rebels against me in every fashion imaginable—clear and strong expression of its displeasure. I’m burning up with chills, sweats, diarrhea. Thus, I would rob my own mother at this point to get dope. There is no sleeping, only fit full nightmares and more of the same. It feels worse than being dead. It’s hell. It’s been about three days now. I’m told these first three days are the worst, and, if you can make it through, you’ll feel yourself getting better and by that point a little better is something.
Getting my hands on some Tylenol with codeine or something could be a lifer saver; even a couple valiums would ease this torture. That’s the only way I know how to try and make it through the detox from smack. Honestly, it’s the only way I’ve made it lately. The voices in my head kick in strong now, I am fighting myself every second of every minute of every day.
Some people can get on a methadone program, and Ive heard that shit works, but I’ve also heard it’s more addictive and takes longer to get off of the need-to-be-high kick. Odd. Most people I know on methadone also go out and score, using the methadone to give their buzz a little kick. Fuck that. That’s another problem I don’t need in my life—methadone, shit.
And then there’s Jenifer and she’s in as much pain as I am and it breaks my heart. I can distract myself into doing something, but for her, there’s nothing to do except ride it out or get more dope. If I could tolerate sounds, I would listen to Morrissey, hole up here and just feel sorry for myself…but I can’t ignore Jenifer or her pain. Everything is real and strong and powerful. It hurts to have somebody lying in the same bed; even the scratch of blankets against my skin whenever she moves hurts like somebody’s putting pins in my body.
WE’VE almost made it through a few times all the way, almost back to functional adults. And then to celebrate, we’ve gone to get us a little—knowing that with our tolerance down, getting just a little bit will really fuck our shit up. When your brain and body work together to trick you into something they both want, it’s similar to being possessed. Ah this sucks, suck sucks.
Evident, but worthy of stating: the new apartment isn’t helping much. It’s shinier and nicer but we keep falling into the same habits. I have this new job lined up with Kroger’s; I took the “honesty test” that they give new employees and found out that I passed the other day. The test was a joke though, “Is it right to give friends money out of the cash register even if they say they’ll bring it right back?” I was more worried that the shoplifting arrest on my record might screw it up for me, but it looks like I’m good to go. I realized the other day that I’ve held a steady job of some sort or another since I was about thirteen, maybe earlier, and this will likely be another shitty addition to my resume, but it’ll help pay the bills and that’s all that matters right now.
There are still more and more people around us shooting dope. Our apartment is all the way across campus now and the rent is more expensive but it’s also more isolated and easier to hide out in. Plus I feel better about having neighbors that can see if anyone tries to break into our place. Every scrap of money we can beg borrow or steal goes towards our habit now. We drive down to Dallas every day just to hook up with our Mexican “friends”. I’ve never written about the drama that goes along with doing a street level dope deal and I don’t feel like rehashing the obvious. We are totally at their mercy as far as scheduling goes. Half of our time is spent waiting for a return call by a shitty payphone in the worst parts of town. There’s an army of white people that will cater to anything these guys want. I imagine the money and power is addicting but I see the wear and tear in the dealers’ lives too. One guy we score from is called “Negro” (pronounced “Nay-grow”) even though he’s Mexican. I’ve seen some of the older junkies like Donut trade him boxes of formula and diapers for his baby in exchange for dope. Weird shit.
I think we’re going to beat this shit for good. We’ve got a possible trip to New Orleans lined up in the next week or so and we’re driving down there, balls to the wall, without any dope on us. That means when we get there we’ll be going through serious withdrawals and we’ll be a solid day away from anybody we know that can help. It’s a crappy plan, but around here I know where I can go out and score and there is no way my body will let me stop shooting smack. I can’t explain it, I’ve never been powerless like this before and I have to step up.
New Orleans—We shouldn’t have driven down here. We’ve been staying with Sam Escobar, one of my old frat brothers who moved down here a while back, and his semi-girlfriend Michele, who Jen and I have partied with several times. The little bit of smack we brought to sustain us on our trip is starting to wear off now and I’m realizing the full extent of my mistake.
Yesterday Sam took us out to these wonderful white sand beaches, in Alabama of all places. It was a pretty long drive to get there and back in one day because we had to drive all the way across a chunk of Mississippi, but the scenery was fantastic and we enjoyed ourselves for a brief while. By the time we got there, Jenifer started feeling the sickness again and its fever is raging full on inside of her right now. I feel it
again too, but it’s not bad enough to immobilize me yet.
This was a fucking stupid, stupid, stupid plan. Now we are in an unfamiliar town and staying with people who really don’t want to put up with us puking around their house sick for a week. As the decision maker, I’m looking at two options now. We can drive about 20 hours to Mexico and try and get some pills to take the edge off this shit and finish kicking or we can rush back to Dallas and try and score to get some of this pain taken care of. We don’t have any money but Jen has been begging me to use the emergency credit card her parents gave her for traveling to get some cash and score. You would think in New Orleans we would be able to find somebody what could hook us up but it’s nobody knows anybody and it’s too much effort to hit the streets blind. Our bodies are taxed and worthless tired from just being alive now. The insane part is I’m willing to drive the 12 hours back home just to score one more time and feel better and then be miserable in my own apartment.
We’ll rest a bit for the evening and then head back as early as we can. We’ve got to get home right away, this situation is a really bad fuck up. Between the two of us, Jen and I should have known better but I guess it only emphasizes how desperate our situation really is.
PART III
THE ACCIDENT, JAIL
TIME, SUICIDE and
LIFE
The automobile is the place where modern America learned to fuck in the outdoors, the place where many baby boomers were brought into life and the same place where some Americans have learned to casually die. Passing only one major accident or death on the freeway during the daily morning commute is considered a good day even as people curse the dead and injured souls that have the nerve to keep them locked up in traffic. An old lady drives to the grocery store and kills a busload of retarded kids, so fucking what? We’re desensitized. Forged in Detroit, or maybe overseas nowadays, the car still holds beauty, status, power and even our lives in its cold womb.
To the teenager, the car is a key to freedom. To some minorities, it can be a modern mating dance, complete with flashy plumage. To a college-bound kid, their car might be a means to see the world before the shackles of responsibility harness theirs souls to a desk all day. To us, it was our refuge and life.
Car accidents are supposed to be sexy, they always have been. Ever since James Dean and Jane Mansfield made the allure enticing, America’s been entranced by the beautiful kind of accidents where the cars seem to caress each other, wrinkled fingers of steel reach out to scratch and mold to the places of another car or object, while the glass eyes shatter and stream down onto the ground as if from a spent lover. A famous person’s death car, riddled with bullets or wrapped around a tree, becomes a symbol, often reduced to legend with one grainy black and white photo that’s held in high regard as if it was forever trapped in time like mass-produced posters, mini Monets symbolic of eternal youth. In truth, the silence that follows the aftermath of carnage is an eerily hypnotic absence of life and sound that seems to hypnotize, similar to those tense moments of freefall before your parachute mercifully jerks open.
The accident was ugly. None of it was beautiful or romantic. None of it was perfect. If it were an ending to a movie the audience would grumble and complain to their friends about how the director failed to leave them feeling special. It was pain and confusion and dread and sand and dirt and blood.
The worst of it all is that it’s entirely my fucking fault. I’d never ever fall asleep while driving. I couldn’t have.
We left New Orleans bright and early while the sun was still nesting and hit the road, hoping to tear ass homeward as fast as we could. Jen drove like a bat out of hell, smoking Marlboros and vomiting into a crinkled fast food cup, determined to get her needs met as soon as possible. She got too tired to move and I took over at some point along the way, doing my best to focus on the road and not be sick. I kept repeating “I will not be sick, I will not be sick” over and over as my mantra but after a while our bodies couldn’t do any more. They shut down and we pulled over to sleep. For several hours we slept right off the side of the highway and I regained terrible consciousness to the sickening smell of diesel fuel and the annoying whoosh of traffic shaking the car. I was still in the driver’s seat so I started the car and drove on while Jenifer slept fitfully.
We finally made it out of Louisiana and hit I-20 for the last leg of our drive home. I was tired and my body was screaming, intent on purging itself of anything inside it—as much and as soon as humanly possible. Just a few more miles. Just a few more miles. Just a few more.
I woke up with the jolt of the car going off the shoulder on the driver’s side and sliding into the median between the East/West directions on I-20. It was a beautifully mown bowed-in field of grass still glistening with the sheen of leftover morning dew that prevented the brakes from having any effect. I tried, oh GOD, I tried braking, tapping the brakes, turning the wheel every which way looking, hoping, praying for some kind of traction to steer that damn Escort in any direction, even onto the other side of the freeway, but it was all to no effect. The car was not responding and we were no longer rocketing under our own power, just gliding along with unstoppable highway momentum on a crisp green slip-and-slide of death. In the split seconds before we careened off the bridge between the roads I tried to shake Jen awake so she could brace herself for the impact but she didn’t even get the chance to stir.
A sickening weightlessness, then a hard thud and crunch of bone against plastic against metal against dirt and concrete.
Then black. For a minute or maybe more.
Can’t breathe.
Then black again followed by an almost instant return and barrage of my senses. The taste of glass and dirt and blood in my mouth and the goddamn horn blaring it’s consistent pathetic note of announcement.
Can’t breathe
I finally shook myself together enough to look and see Jenifer twisted and lying next to me. She was dead.
Oh God, she really isn’t fucking moving!
“Jenifer wake up Jenifer wake up Jenifer WAKE UP!”
Careful not to move her around, I somehow managed to find something and cut the tightly choking seatbelt off of her.
A gasp for air. An exhale. Too much of an exhale. “Breathe IN!”
I can’t breath!
“JENIFER WAKE UP!” I screamed at her over and over, pinching her cheek, accidentally wiping some of the blood from my hands onto her face. “I can’t live without you Jenifer and I’m fucking sorry okay?” Maybe you’ll forgive me for my simple possessive selfishness some other time but you are going to live! “Do you fucking hear me in your HEAD, you are going to LIVE!”
A person was running down the embankment to our smoking car, screaming words I couldn’t hear over the blare of the horn and the bees in my head. He got to the car and backed off for a minute as if he might throw up when he saw us. He yelled to me that he saw us go off the highway and that he had just called for help. He backed even farther away when he saw Jenifer and smelled the gas.
Oh my God, we just filled up the tank!
I yelled to him “WE CAN’T GET OUT, GET HER OUT OF HERE!” I looked around for the first time and saw my door had barely missed a concrete support column from the bridge. The car crashed two inches from my own instant death; my door was shredded like paper against the concrete and completely sealed off. The only way out was across Jenifer and if we had to burn together so be it. If help arrives at least they can push or pull her out first. “JENIFER PLEASE WAKE UP!”
And then she finally stirred. Very weakly she stirred, wheezing in a quick breath for the first time in minutes, her dry lips barely mouthing the words “How did I get back?” then “I can’t feel my legs.”
For the first time I noticed her legs had been pinned under the dash and saw the fear in her eyes as she started to go into shock.
“HANG ON JENIFER, DON’T GO BACK OUT THERE ON ME YOUR LEGS ARE J
UST STUCK AND YOU’RE GOING TO BE FINE!”
She passed out again and I had to touch her face with my hands, accidentally smearing more blood from my arm, why is it still bleeding, onto her smooth white cheeks, forcing her to look at me, yelling her name so loud until her open eyes fluttered back with a spark of life and fear.
“Jenifer. Jenifer. Jenifer. Look at me Jenifer. I love you Jenifer. CAN YOU HEAR ME? I’m so sorry and I love you. I LOVE YOU. CAN YOU HEAR ME? SAY IT BACK TO ME! Everything is going to be ok,” my voice panicking at first, then trying to stay calm.
Can’t breathe
“I got your seatbelt off of you, you can breath now. I love you.” Then she passed out again, eyes closing this time, chest moving in and out in a weak rhythm.
“Jenifer, sweetie, I love you Jenifer, listen to my voice, stay with ME.”
Despite my lack of faith at the moment, I baptized her then, using my thumb covered with my blood and saliva to make a crude cross on her forehead while I prayed her soul would be spared the torment of the afterlife and that she would be there always. I didn’t know if she would live then, I just cried and cried while trapped inches from her torn body, listening for any changes and wanting to be thankful she came back to life for me, even for just a few minutes. “WHERE’S THAT FUCKING AMBULANCE!?!”
The guy from the road, backing further away said it had only been a few minutes by that point. “You fucking coward, come here and help us out, smell that gas? YOU need to help her! HELP HER PLEASE!”
Can’t breathe.
But he backed off and nobody would help us. So for minutes, hours, days, I talked to Jenifer while she was unconscious beside me, begging her to listen to my voice, begging her to not let go, fearing each sigh and labored breath might be the last moment we ever share together.