Marijuana Girl

by N. R. De Mexico

  Ginger had turned on the radio, and the little dial light in the corner of the room became a friendly, protective eye. Then out came music--visible music, music that darted about the room in little blue bolts of lighting, in little colors of sound. It came so slowly, now--so much more slowly than with gauge--that every separate note had time to be counted in its individual vibrations and colors, and to develop an overlay of meanings on meanings on meanings.

  Joyce let herself sink deeper into the soft armchair that felt like caressing paternal arms clasped about her body--that seemed to pick her up and carry her, like a little girl, with kisses, to bed ...

  13 ~ Tolerance

  The answer to the cable that Priscilla had decided to send instead of making a telephone call--perhaps because it deferred the evil day of having to hear her brother's angry voice--came the following morning. It read:

  CAN CONCLUDE BUSINESS HERE IN TWO MORE DAYS THEN WILL TAKE PLANE LANDING AT IDLEWILD THURSDAY NITE--EDWARD

  She thought, you're in a great hurry about your own daughter, aren't you, Edward. But then she remembered how slowly she herself had hurried ...

  Christmas got by, somehow, and so did New Year's. Joyce spent both holidays with Ginger at the Golden Horn, where a mixed band of somewhat indifferent skill played under a white leader who served mainly to provide a background for Ginger's easy talent. Then, before Jerry came back with his anger and his storms, Ginger had a new offer from a mid-town club--a big club with a big all-colored show. And after that things began to roll faster and faster for Ginger. There were record dates and radio shows and guest appearances.

  Joyce meanwhile, was learning a new language. The language of the heroin user was deeper and more occult than that of the "viper", as was determined by the relative illegality of the narcotic heroin compared to the intoxicant, marijuana. Sniffing and popping replaced blowing and lighting up or turning on, though the latter two might on occasion be used interchangeably with the former. Then there was shooting it and mainlining it--when you drove deep into a vein with a hypodermic needle and a solution of the white powder. There was nothing comparable to that in marijuana. But you got high on the big charge. You hit the horse, and when the stuff was real gone, you, sometimes blew your top.

  You had to be careful with it. You couldn't let the habit get out of hand. A three cap habit, now, that was bad, because when you started making it with three capsules, you could get in deeper, and when it got up to six caps, suddenly, one day, you were liable to wake up all of a sudden carrying the monkey on your shoulders.

  That was what they called it when it had you--when you really felt the hook. That was when you had to go out and get it, no matter what.

  It didn't get like that with Joyce for a long time, and the time seemed even longer because there was so much happening in it.

  After a while Ginger had shown her about the needle and taught her how to shoot the white stuff, because the other way, sniffing it, was so wasteful.

  There was no money problem, because Ginger was making all the money in the world. It came rolling in, faster and faster, and you could find her voice calling to you from juke boxes, chanting at you from radios, shouting out those blues from the doorways of bars and from the windows of apartment houses, from televisions.

  Then the spring began to roll in from somewhere in the Southland--but it was hard to notice the spring when there was so much happening in the little apartment on Twelfth Street.

  Joyce had made some sort of peace, too, with Eugene Tip and his machine-tooled colleagues. That is, the job no longer appalled her as it had. And it was great not to be bugged just because the job was something you could do with your eyes shut.

  Mr. Tip, though, was not quite as reconciled as Joyce, It seemed to be his absurd opinion that sometimes she was doing the job with her eyes shut. And it was things like that which sometimes put you to a great strain making it to work in the morning.

  Things like that ...

  Jerry knew as soon as he got back. He knew when Ginger never called, never came to see him, never dropped in at the Golden Horn.

  He talked about it with Don. He said, "I'm putting gauge down, Don."

  "Why, man? Ain't nothing wrong with gauge."

  "I know. But you got to put things down once in a while. You got to put them down so you keep being sure who's boss. Like liquor. Even cigarettes. You got to keep in the habit of being on top of things."

  "No point quitting till you get beat," Don said.

  "No, just running out of charge doesn't prove anything. You have to put it down when you got it. I know a couple of cats, three-four of them, that are really hooked with charge."

  "But you can't get hooked."

  "Not the way you can with hops or junk. Not with your body. But you can get mentally hooked, like with any kind of a crutch. You get so the way you feel happy is with grass, not with yourself. I know a cat's making maybe forty bucks a week, which is real beat loot, and he spends about twelve of it for gauge. He just lost the habit of balling without his hay. If he runs out, he can get along. But he'll go for it the first chance he gets. And it comes before most other things. Not like horse. Not before food. But it comes right after food for this cat. I don't like to owe that much to anything. Look at Ginger, man."

  "Gin's doing all right. She's really grooving."

  "It ain't the ball she tells herself it is. She's not really grooving. She got on that hemp crutch and walked with it so long and so hard that she got used to having a crutch stronger than her legs were. Then, when it got real hard going there, then she had to go try a bigger crutch. I know that chick, man. I got eyes for her--but not with the junk. Part that really bugs me, though, is that little chick, Joyce. She's a flipped chick. She's got a real trouble there. I only know a little about it, like her parents dumped her on her aunt, man. But nobody can make that, man.

  "You got to be bugged in a way to get into any of these grooves. Big bug or little bug, you got to have a bug to turn on with anything. And Joy's got a big bug, like the kind that really throws you. And being around like that with Gin, she's digging that white stuff, and it scares me."

  Don said, "You done what you could, man."

  "Not everything, Don. I could of straightened her out, made things come out for her. I don't feel good with myself about that chick."

  "Come on, man. Get that horn, man. Let's turn on a little jive here."

  "Look, Mr. Taylor," the Chief told him, after a particularly virulent outburst of abuse, "You really can't expect a helluva lot from us. When you wait half a year to tell the police your daughter is missing, we're kind of in the position of someone who comes so late to the show he can't tell what it's all about. We've put out an eight-state missing persons alarm. The New York bureau has broadcast descriptions of the girl, but you can't count on that. Besides, she's not a criminal. She's eighteen years old now, and you can't even make her come back if she doesn't want to. Maybe she got married? You can't tell."

  "Look," Taylor said, "I don't want any excuses. I don't want any stories. All I want is for you to find my daughter."

  "I haven't lost any daughters, Mr. Taylor. She went--all on her own. From how I can make this thing out, you never gave a damn about her until she took off on her own. My pitch on this thing is, you and your wife got no more than was coming to you. You don't just dump a kid on relatives and let it go at that, Mr. Taylor. I'm trying to find your daughter--but I'm not doing it for you or your wife or anybody else. I'm doing it because I have to--because it's my job. The way I feel about it, she's probably a lot happier where she is ...

  14 ~ Trauma

  The cops came one fine warm spring night, and snatched Ginger right out of her dressing-room at the Hot Club. It was really the pusher they were after, a man named Gonzalez, a dark little Puerto Rican with thin, hollow cheeks and great, deep-sunken eyes, but they followed him to Ginger's dressing room and they watched them make the deal through the keyhole, so they took her along too, because it was a good id
ea, now and then, to make an example of somebody well known--and who better than a black singer?

  It happened just before Joyce got there. They had found Gonzalez with some other little packets in his pockets, and they found the stuff where Ginger had pushed it in the drawer when, they burst open the door. They found it there with the needle and the flattened-out spoon and the matches, and the little vial with a pierced rubber top that she used for loading the needle. They found everything they needed, right there in those few seconds.

  And then Joyce came. She knocked at the door, and one of the cops--a federal man with no uniform--pulled it open.

  She saw Ginger standing there, between two men, and there was a little dark cat, with manacles on his wrists. And then Ginger put on her act

  "What the hell do you want?" she demanded

  "Gin ..."

  "What right have you got to come busting into my dressing room? You, copper, get that kid out of there. You think I want everybody to know about this? Isn't it bad enough you pinch me without making a public performance of it. Get her out of here."

  Then one of the cops came to the door. He was a big guy, and his voice wasn't mean at all. He just said, "G'wan. Beat it, kid. Beat it out of here."

  And that was the last time Joyce saw Ginger.

  Joyce woke up the next morning with the monkey ...

  Jerry did what he could. He saw Ginger, and he got her a lawyer, and he raised the bail for her with the money he had planned to spend for her Christmas car. But they were really out to make an example of her, so his offers to finance her in a private hospital didn't impress the United States Commissioner. She waived trial and was sent to the United States Public Health Service Hospital for the full cure.

  Joyce hadn't felt the hook before. But now it was in there, turning and twisting. She got out of bed, that morning, feeling there was something wrong with her. Her mouth tasted dry and fuzzy, and water wouldn't make it go away. She kept yawning; great gaping yawns that went on and on and on. Her hands trembled, and her legs were rubbery and uncertain. Her stomach kept twitching as though it were trying to detach itself from her flesh and just flatten out there inside her.

  Her eyes kept watering and watering and watering, so that her vision blurred, and there was no getting them clear, and her nose felt runny, but faster and harder and looser than with a cold.

  At first, not knowing what it was, she couldn't place it. She was just sick. That was the thing. The flu, maybe. But it wasn't the flu, because there was something you wanted--something you had to have. Something you couldn't wait another second for.

  Then she knew what it was, and she went to the drawer where she kept the needle and the stuff. She could hardly steer her trembling fingers as she brought out the spoon with its handle bent straight so that it would hold the cup part without spilling. There were only two capsules. That wasn't going to be enough. But it would have to do for the moment. She spilled one capsule into the spoon, thought hard for a second, and then dumped in the other feeling her hands endangering the whole project.

  She went to the washbowl and got out the eyedropper from the little medicine chest, and half-filled it with water from the warm tap. Then she squeezed the water from the dropper into the spoon. With shaking hands she lit a match and then picked up the spoon, holding the match under the cup and counting off the long frightful seconds until it boiled. Another match, and the boiling water dissolved the white crystals, and then it was ready. She set the spoon down and took the eyedropper and sucked it clean and dry, then she took a little pellet of cotton from the toothache kit that stood on the bureau and squeezed it into the mouth of the eyedropper, leaving just a little tail free to pull it out with later on.

  From the closet she got a belt, and doubled it through the buckle, then, slipping it over her left arm just above the elbow, jerked it tight, liking the pain because it took her mind from the great, gaping yawns that swept her again and again. She stuffed the belt under itself in a hitch so it would stay tight, then bent the arm and tightened the muscles until the veins stood out in ridges against the pale skin.

  Then, because she had been too hurried, she made herself go calmly. With her cramped left arm she held the eyedropper. Then, like a laboratory technician, inserted the hollow point of the depressed hypodermic through the cotton in the tip of the dropper and into the body, then, slowly, cautiously, pulled outward on the piston.

  When all the liquid had been withdrawn from the dropper, she laid it down, and took the bit of cotton from it and threw it into the washbowl in the corner. Then she held the needle, point upward, and depressed the piston, driving the fluid up into the hollow point, until just one tiny drop formed at the open point.

  The swollen veins now stood out clearly. She selected a spot free of old pits, and fiercely rammed it into the vein, then slowly depressed the piston--down, down, down, all the way, then withdrew it a little, seeing the winy blood spurting up into the cylinder behind the glass piston. She allowed the blood to flush out he cylinder and then returned it to the vein with the needle Then she pulled the needle out and lay down on the bed.

  In two singing seconds the yawning ceased, the shimmering tears ceased to flow in her eyes, her pulse settled to tranquility, and her stomach stopped flapping at the walls of her abdomen.

  But it was not enough. There was nothing for later--nothing for the monkey. She would have to get a fix.

  She knew the contacts, but now it was a question of money. Ginger had always had all the money in the world. Ginger had always paid the fix man. She looked in her pocketbook. She had only five dollars. That would get her two, maybe three caps, Not even a deck. Not enough. Not even enough for today, and what about tomorrow?

  She tried to think about Ginger. Ginger in jail. Ginger going to prison. Wasn't that what they did to you? Put you in prison? But she couldn't think about her. Couldn't even take time to think about how Ginger had got her out of it--pushed her out before the police had understood what was happening. How could you think about a thing like that when this was going on, this terrible gnawing anxiety?

  Joyce knew that if she had what she needed for today, five more caps, maybe, the anxiety would be gone, and she would be calm and able to function, able to do something about getting more. But now what?

  Then she thought about the office and Mr. Tip. What time was it? Eight-thirty. She was due in at nine o'clock. And now Tip loomed in her mind like a great wonderful figure. The boss. The boss had to take care of his employees. That was what a boss was for.

  She'd tell him--something, anything. She went out into the morning not seeing the spring sunlight, not seeing the sprouting green of the park, because all there was to think about was the terrible yearning that was coming, the great need that only money could answer.

  She stood in front of Tip's desk feeling helpless and small and incompetent. He kept her standing, like that, only his bald head turned to her, and his myopic lenses closely focused on the paper that lay on the green blotter.

  Joyce said, "Mr. Tip?" very tentatively.

  "Yes?" He did not look up.

  "I have to have some money, Mr. Tip. I don't feel well this morning and I have to go to the doctor. I wondered if I could get a small advance ..."

  He looked up at her. "Miss Taylor," he said, "your work hasn't been very satisfactory lately. I meant to tell you on Friday, but I missed you when you left. It's too bad you had to come in this morning, and I really regret the waste of your time."

  "What do you mean?" It was so hard to concentrate, so hard to follow. The little nerves were tingling again, demanding, wanting, needing.

  "Don't you understand?" as though there couldn't be any misunderstanding.

  "No, Mr. Tip. I just wanted a small advance."

  "Miss Taylor, you are discharged, as of Friday. I will be glad to supply satisfactory references if you need them." The head was down again.

  All right. This was one kind of answer. She'd get the money now, anyway, and something would co
me up before that ran out. Two weeks salary was--ninety, less ... "Where do I get my check?"

  "What check, Miss Taylor?" The question seemed genuinely to interest him. He raised his head, and peered at her through the thick glasses.

  "My two weeks."

  "There is no check, Miss Taylor. We don't make a practice of paying unnecessary amounts." The head went down again. There was nothing left to do but go.

  Joyce found Roy Mallon sitting, as always, on the rim of the circular fountain in the middle of Washington Square. Roy, this joyous May morning, was a happy man. He had just made a stick deal with a cat from Brooklyn, and the loot would make it a ball for him for at least a week. That gauge deal was worth a hundred to him, and he had his own comfortable stash of white stuff in his pad.

  Roy tended to look down a little on the vipers--but not too much. After all, they were customers, and he did have stuff. He adjusted his sunglasses and let himself lean back against one of the gargoyle figures, feeling the charge circulating through his veins.

  Vaguely he saw Joyce as she came toward him from the Fifth Avenue bus. A nice chick. Friend of Jerry's and Ginger. Too bad about Ginger. They must have been on to Gonzalez for a long time to come like that

  Joyce came up and stood in front of him. She said, softly, so as not to alarm the women whose children were racing and sprawling about the empty basin of the fountain, "Look, man, I got to get a fix."

  "I got a little," Roy said. "Eight a deck. Real gone. Eighteen percent."

  "I can't make that," Joy said. "I'm beat. I got no loot."

  "Gee, that's a drag." Roy said. "I'd fix you up, but you dig what's with my connection. It's all gold in front. I got to lay it out, and then get it back."

  "Listen, Roy. I got to have that stuff. I'll get gold for you tomorrow, but I got to have a fix right now. I got to have enough to carry me the whole day and tonight."

  He didn't feel sympathy. He just felt good, and this was no time to stop feeling good. You couldn't let a thing like this drag you; not when you felt so gone, so really sent. And the kid was getting hysterical. She knew where you lived. You had to do something.