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The Million-Rand Teaspoon

Page 8

by Nikki Ridley


  We tried another place in Krugersdorp, but he left after a couple of days. They couldn’t keep him against his will. He just packed his bags and hiked into Hillbrow. He’d taken a guitar with him into rehab, and that was the first thing he sold.

  We then sent him off to Shekane in Dalton, Pietermaritzburg. They were very good there, and they really tried to help him. It was run by a religious group, and we hoped that the philosophy of living a righteous life would complement their efforts to get him clean, and so keep him clean. For a time it seemed as if they might have some success, because Paul settled in for almost two months, working in the gardens – even playing squash again.

  But when he came home, he disappeared into Hillbrow, and we didn’t see him for several months.

  After this, Paul no longer even seemed vaguely receptive to efforts to help him. I didn’t know which way to turn. I no longer wanted this son of mine with his drug habit in my house, because when he was with me, I couldn’t relax … but then, when he wasn’t with me, I worried.

  It was tearing me, us, down.

  Paul either stole or borrowed money from everybody he came in contact with. Paul preyed on people, and he preyed on his family. He’d often go to his sister, and he’d steal from her. He stole from his brother when he visited him on one occasion in Durban. He even admitted to us that it was easy for him to do that because he knew they’d never shop him. At worst, he’d get a clip on the ear and be told to leave. Our friends were soft targets, because, besides one or two very close friends, they didn’t know. We didn’t like to tell people too much. There was a certain measure of embarrassment, and a certain measure of feeling that we shouldn’t involve other people in what was a family affair. I consequently lived in a constant state of fear that he’d shame us by stealing from visitors and neighbours. Everyone who met him thought he was wonderful because he was so charming.

  There were other concerns too.

  I worried about my other son’s little girl. Paul adored children, and he’d play with her when they came to visit, and anyone knows that a small child will follow a person around if that person gives them a lot of attention. I remember finding a pink pill under Paul’s bed when she was two or three years old. He must have dropped it. I became absolutely terrified that she’d pick something up and put it in her mouth – that she’d think it was a sweetie. What that could have done to a little thing like her is unthinkable.

  Shortly after he left the second rehab, my husband and I decided to join a Tough Love group in Randburg.

  Tough Love taught us three things. The first is that you are not in this situation alone. There are hundreds of other parents out there who are suffering in the same or similar situations, feeling the same powerlessness and anxiety. The philosophy of Tough Love helps you to survive drug addiction through your actions and attitude and with the support of others in the same predicament.

  The second is that your child’s drug addiction is not necessarily within your power to fix, but that it is within your power to learn to cope with it, and not let it destroy you.

  The third is that the only way that you, as a parent, can survive this and exert any influence over your child at all is to steel yourself against his wiles and manipulations, because you are not an inexhaustible resource. They say you must make the rules: Don’t allow them to be at home unless they are clean. Don’t baby them – in other words, don’t wait on them hand and foot (don’t give an inch, they’ll take a mile). Simple things like not doing their washing for them, not that Paul would have cared if his washing was done or not – if he even noticed.

  Don’t allow them to play one parent off against the other.

  We saw many single parents there, and many mothers attended the meetings alone because the fathers had thrown up their hands in exasperation long before. ‘I’m not taking this any more’ and ‘I don’t want to know’ were the reasons so often quoted. One parent would throw in the towel and the other would keep trying because they had no choice. There were some couples very close to divorce.

  Mark and I made a pact that we would not allow Paul’s addiction to drive a wedge between us, as it seemed to be doing to so many other couples. We agreed that whatever the one said or thought to do, the other would support them in it. Decisions would be made together that way. If it turned out to be the wrong decision, then we would discuss the situation and modify our thoughts and views to a point where we were both in agreement. Always.

  We felt so lucky to have each other in this situation. I felt so sorry for the ones who had to do it alone.

  Tough Love helped a great deal. Many people don’t like it because they think it promotes the wrong attitude, but for me, going through all of this, there was no other avenue. Until you have been there – you cannot know.

  The helplessness one feels can be emotionally crippling. This is my child. Why can’t I do anything? Why won’t he let me help him? It is something only a parent can know – the way you look back over a grown child’s life and see the whole of it, from the moment they were born. You think you must know them better than anyone, and yet still their actions and choices can mystify you.

  You come to realise that you can only control so much, and the rest is out of your hands, but your hands must always be there to pick up the pieces.

  When you are unable to help your child, it is you who suffer for your failure. They do not suffer, or at least, in the case of an addiction like Paul’s, they do not perceive themselves to suffer for your lack of success. On the contrary, it merely gives them carte blanche to continue. It’s your fault now, because it has created conflict between you and in your home, and that just gives the addict ammunition.

  (A primary characteristic of drug addiction is that the addict is so utterly wrapped up in his own world that he feels little or nothing for what he is doing to those closest to him.)

  Ultimately, continued failure to successfully intervene will destroy your life as fast as the addiction is destroying your child’s life, and how can you be there for them if you are broken down and in need of help yourself? You need to stay strong, and Tough Love taught us how to maintain that strength.

  You learn that you have no chance with a drug addict. You can never say that you can get them clean, even though you always think you can. We had thought that, my husband and I. We had thought that if we just showed him enough love and understanding, we could get him right. We were wrong, and by joining Tough Love we had reached a point where we had admitted that to ourselves.

  I did a short course and became a counsellor. They asked me to. It helps to talk, so it helped me and it helped them.

  Tough Love led us to attending a couple of talks on drug recognition with the Narcotics Squad from John Vorster Square. They showed us the various drugs that could be found on the street and taught us all about them, and taught us how to recognise the signs of drug addiction. We already knew what Paul was doing, but it gave us a clearer idea of what we were dealing with and how to better gauge the extent of his use on a day-to-day basis through awareness of the physical evidence in the house and in his behaviour.

  They also taught us about satanism. Apparently it was also rife at the time, and more often than not interlinked with drug use, but I guess we can be grateful that Paul was never involved in that. Altogether it was quite horrific, but also somewhat of an eye-opener as to one particular reason why the law is often so ineffectual against the influx of drugs. They showed us this brown ball that fitted into the palm of your hand – heroin – but when they told us the street value … well, I can only guess at the corruption that must exist. The streets are being policed by people who earn far from decent salaries, and this stuff is worth so much … no wonder the dealers and traffickers (allegedly) get away with bribery!

  After doing the course, we began to notice more signs of Paul’s addiction around our house. We had never seen him shoot up at home, but now that we knew what to look for, we found the evidence very quickly. The spot of blood on the sheet, an
d the tiny smear in the bathroom. Paul was also getting a bit more careless, and the lies and denials he spun when he told us that he was trying to come right weren’t washing with us at all any more.

  Mark and I again caught him out on another occasion after he left to see a friend. Part of the course with the Narcotics Squad included being shown places where the dealers and addicts met up with one another. One such place was the ‘Pads’ in Hillbrow.

  Mark had offered to take Paul windsurfing one Sunday, but Paul had, sadly, lost interest in his former sport. After he left the house, we drove to the Pads and waited on the opposite side of the road in the car. Sure enough, Paul turned up there, having hitched into town. We watched him go inside and come out. This was his ‘friend’ – and the denigration of daily life when one lives it with an addict was so subtly illustrated by the contrast between the idea of spending a Sunday windsurfing and the actuality of sitting in a car spying on our son at the dealers’ haunt. There were other times too – snippets of memory now – going into Hillbrow, to the police station, to see Paul after he had been beaten up in the process of being arrested yet again; going to the Pads to buy back his ID book from a dealer. We bought it back for R60, so you can imagine what Paul had sold it for in the first place.

  We had asked officers of the Narcotics Unit why they didn’t arrest the dealers at these places. They knew they were there, so why not take them off the streets? They told us that it was better for them to know where the dealers were. If they started making arrests, the dealers would simply go ‘underground’, and it would set their ‘intelligence’ back. The dealers were the little people, and they were after the ones who supplied them.

  We also visited the Wellconal factory with a group of other parents from Tough Love. One person came out to talk to us. When we told this person who we were, and that we were representing all the parents of kids on Wellconal, we were told that nothing could be done about it. They had to keep on manufacturing it for cancer patients. We understood that, but …

  We were also told that none of it went missing from the factory end, and therefore that the factory accepted no responsibility for the fact that it was on the streets.

  Although I could understand all the points made to me, it was extremely frustrating as a parent not to be able to do anything about the dealers and the company who were, both directly and indirectly, both intentionally and unintentionally, supplying my son.

  Heaven Goes Grey and Cold

  Paul

  MUCH OF MY LIFE IN JOHANNESBURG IS NOW A JUMBLE of images – all parts of a collage with huge holes in it. I get confused about what happened when, or with whom. Memories are blurred, or end suddenly just when I think they are getting somewhere. Some are like bright, colourful puzzle pieces floating around in a black vacuum. So I won’t even try to put things in order. I’ll just describe what I do remember, the places and the feelings. Memories have not been retained according to size or impact, so this is no account of notable incidents. It’s an account of who and where I was as much as I can recall.

  I was not miserable and crying out for help. I’d want to stop, for a few hours after the peak of the high wore off and before I started craving, and I’d think that I could, and that I should. Then I’d think I would just have one last one.

  Sometimes I tried to call Savannah, but she wouldn’t speak to me. That upset me. I thought I needed her, but she wouldn’t help me. She wasn’t there. My parents were, but then I’d want another one and then I didn’t want them to be there.

  I wanted to stop, but I didn’t. I’d fight with myself, and then I’d get sick of myself.

  The truth was that the idea of not being able to get high again was terrifying. If I could rationalise it, I would say that it was all mixed up with the fear of growing up and having to have responsibility … and that seemed so mundane. Being high was so much better, and when I was high everything was different.

  The sameness of stuff had always bothered me. Other people’s lives, ordinary lives, looked so dull and so very boring to me. I needed the constant excitement and drama of the way I was living. I needed the pathos and the tragedy of the world I lived in. I needed the insurgency against the faceless worker-bee culture of the life I would have to live if I stopped taking drugs. I needed a life less ordinary, but I was so addicted that I could not see the possibility of a life extraordinary. I felt like something by rejecting society. FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!! Every time I scored I was making myself strong again. Each time I became strong again I was laughing in the face of things that tried to control me and make me a nothing like the people who went to work every day and watched TV and then went to work again and got married and got old and got three weeks’ holiday a year and a mortgage and ad nauseum. I laughed inside. I wasn’t a victim. I was in control. I felt like a part of the city. It was a beast, and it was where I belonged. I didn’t need Savannah. I didn’t need anybody. It’s amazing how much shit your mind can come up with when it wants something.

  I would sit and play chess in the Café Vienne or the Café Zurich after scoring. The dealers were always there or thereabouts. It was convenient.

  There is no time in Hillbrow, and consequently there is all the time in the world. Day turned to night and the lights came up and the others like me crept out and hung out. I’d get a shot and hit the street. We were together, and I loved who we were. They were messed up, and they were real. They weren’t made of suburban plastic to me. There was always something to be gained from them. They had fallen through the cracks and they had pain and sadness and they’d be high and they’d die young. They lived under the radar, and I was one of them.

  We were now. Every second was filled with sensation, with immediacy. We made our own reality. We were beautiful. Our hollow eyes were bigger windows to more interesting souls.

  It was like a movie, or a song. Forever young. Forever. It was so good up there.

  I remember looking around me and feeling completely alone. Completely, utterly, devastatingly alone.

  Is there anybody out there?

  Then I’d call Savannah again. She never answered. I think I stopped calling after a while.

  Then I’d go home.

  Somewhere along the line, I’d gone from being a happy, considerate person, to being a singularly selfish, nonchalant little bastard. I didn’t care about the people I hurt and walked all over along the way. The ones who cared about me and loved me were the softest targets, and therefore the best targets, because they were the least likely to pose any threat to me, no matter how much I kicked them in the teeth. Yet I told myself that no one cared about me. If they don’t care about you, you are freed of your obligation to take their feelings into consideration, and you learn to believe whatever you have to. You can’t have guilt dogging your highs. I convinced myself I was unwanted so that I could happily go on self-medicating and blaming someone else for it. My life is so shit. It’s not my fault. I feel so bad. I need to feel better. I am not responsible for the way things are, or the things I do.

  When you are in the wrong, but cannot face admitting it because that would mean having to face up to the challenge of changing your lifestyle, your reasoning becomes increasingly twisted as you rationalise your behaviour. I closed my eyes and ears to their efforts to help me and I retaliated to this ‘threat’ with emotional and psychological blackmail. I self-pitied my way all over the ones who loved me. I had to play my folks to get what I needed, and I needed them. I needed their love. I needed their sanctuary. I needed their things. My need changed all the time, according to circumstance. If I had money enough to get high enough often enough, I didn’t need any of them any more.

  My sister Lynn was easier. I didn’t have to pretend with her. I didn’t have to lie or act contrite. I’d give her the option of giving me money before I stole from her, and I’d get it too, because I’d threaten to nick it from someone else if she didn’t. She knew what my parents didn’t, so she’d give me the money. She knew the end result would be the same, but
that the path there could be improved upon.

  I did what I had to do to get what I needed. It wasn’t what I wanted.

  I reckoned I could, because they would be the last ones to stop trying to help me, and the last to shop me to the cops. Or so I thought.

  At one point I started getting very careless, leaving syringes and all sorts of other evidence lying around the place, too out of it to notice or care most of the time. I also didn’t pay much attention to keeping my surroundings clean, and my parents had begun to find traces of blood on the furniture and carpets and in the bathroom. I couldn’t be bothered to hide it any more.

  One day, out of pure exasperation, my mom called the Drug Squad and told them that I had just used, and if they were to come and search my room they would be sure to find enough evidence to take me in. My parents wanted me off the street for a while.

  Two of them came – real tough Jo’burg narcs – and they searched through my things. They found nothing. When they left they apologised to my mom, saying that they could do nothing without evidence. They could not arrest me.

  When they had gone, my mom turned on me, and demanded to know where I had hidden the drugs, because she knew I had them. I told her I had tucked them under my balls, where I knew they wouldn’t look. She was infuriated.

  I laughed. I went into my room, took the pinks out of my underpants, and shot up.

  I remember the way the streets breathed with the collective drug-world consciousness. Addicts sought each other out, and dealers sought them out. Or was it the other way round? Everyone knew where it was all happening, without a word being spoken. As a part of it, you learnt to read the streets, to feel where it was safe and where it wasn’t. If something went down – a death, an arrest, an infiltration by the narcs – the seething tide would move again, flowing and creeping in the shadows of a city that never slept. The drug world was an organism with a life of its own. A virus, ever adapting and mutating as it needed to stay alive, and growing fat with the absorption of new souls.

 

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