by Mike Sager
“I thought Christmas and Easter commemorated the exact dates of the birth and resurrection of Christ.”
Sojii shot him a look, a distinctly teenage expression:
Duh.
Freeman shot one back, a distinctly gay male expression: Don’t even try it, girlfriend. “You don’t really believe in all this crapola, do you?”
Sojii’s eyes dropped. She appeared to cave in upon herself.
Freeman felt horrible. The girl seemed so poised and strident that it was easy to forget she was only sixteen. Hoping to set things right, he pointed to another display case. “Who’s she?” he asked, his tone overly interested.
“Ishtar,” she answered halfheartedly. Like I didn’t hear what he just said? “She’s Babylonian. The goddess of love.”
“The original cruel mistress …”
An earthy voice, full of mirth and condescension, carrying with it the scent of patchouli.
Freeman and Sojii turned.
She was forty-ish and zaftig, with long blue hair and Cleopatra bangs. A Wiccan pentagram hung from a chain around her neck.
Sojii allowed herself to be hugged, albeit briefly.
“We’re thinking of adopting her,” the woman said effusively to Freeman. She winked at Sojii. “She practically lives here.”
The woman reached over and pulled the watch cap from Sojii’s head, made a fuss of smoothing the fine, flyaway hairs.
“Who’s your handsome friend?” she asked.
Sojii had met Freeman only about an hour earlier, when Seede had dropped her off at his house for safekeeping. Though Seede had been vague with his instructions—not to mention jittery and out of focus, in Freeman’s opinion—he’d made one thing pretty clear: Sojii should stay put on Corcoran Street until he returned.
Freeman stuck out his hand and introduced himself.
“Ava Diner,” the woman replied, taking his hand.
“A pleasure, Ava Diner.” As he’d learned some time ago at a sales retreat, Freeman repeated the full name of his new acquaintance. While experts insisted that the early years of a person’s life were the most formative, Freeman liked to believe that a person could continue to form himself over the course of his entire lifetime. He’d spent the first eighteen years at home, true. But now, at thirty-five, he’d lived away from home almost as long. Why shouldn’t those years be just as influential? Since college, he’d studied Transcendental Meditation, Tai Kwan Do, and EST. He’d taken assertiveness training, visited the Chopra Center and Canyon Ranch, tried every diet and health regimen that came down the pike. He’d taken an entire catalog of courses, from a three-month cooking fellowship at Cordon Bleu to a DC Free College class on cloisonné. As he liked to say: “Life is an ongoing process.” Nowadays, when he looked in the full-length mirror in his third floor loft bedroom, furnished entirely from Roche-Bobois, he saw nothing of his upbringing, and he was pleased.
Ava’s smile was a tad too large. Her teeth were a tad too small. Despite her Halloween airs, she put Freeman in mind of an evangelical Christian. She clasped her hands upon her breast prayerfully, turned her attention to Sojii. “So what brings you in so early today?”
The girl hesitated, unsure exactly where to begin. It had taken a lot of convincing to get Freeman to come here against Seede’s wishes: It’s really important; it’s only five blocks; it’s totally safe; no one’s ever in the store; the people who work there are friends. Now she was having second thoughts.
Ava turned to Freeman. “She comes in every afternoon, sits on the floor and reads till closing time. Quiet as a mouse. And never the same section two days in a row.”
“Not every afternoon,” Sojii objected.
Ava bowed to the teenager. “Okay, a lot of afternoons. Many afternoons. Refresh my memory: what was it last time?”
“I can’t remember.”
“What do you mean you can’t remember? You never forget anything,” Ava chided. Addressing Freeman: “A mind like a sponge, this one.” Back to Sojii: “Go ahead, impress us: it’s good for your self-esteem.”
“Carl Jung,” Sojii said dispassionately, a child called upon to perform. “This thing about the Holy Grail.”
“What thing?”
Rolling her eyes: “Jung thought that the quest for the Holy Grail symbolized a person’s need to move beyond the collective beliefs of the group,” she recited. “A person’s higher calling, he said, is to create an individual life.”
“A path of one’s own,” Ava said sagely.
“Free from dogma and expectations,” Sojii added.
“Sounds like the hippies,” Freeman said. “Do your own thing.” He turned to Sojii. “I used to be a long-haired hippie freak myself. Hair down to here in a braid.” He put a hand behind his back, just above the waist. “People would always come up behind me and tug on it. I remember this one time—”
“Actually, the hippie movement did have a lot to do with the New Age movement,” Ava said. “It all started with the Beatles. They got into the Maharishi, and pretty soon everybody was tuning to Eastern thought—the meditation, the yoga, the—”
“Tune in and turn on,” Freeman said brightly. “Or was it turn on and tune out?”
Ava frowned. “It wasn’t about drugs, although drugs have always played a part, especially in the shamanistic cultures. Drugs served to open people’s minds to the possibilities, yes. But even Castaneda gave up on drugs and moved to higher plains of awareness. He started looking inside. And backward. That’s the whole thing: New Age thought is not really new. It’s about rediscovery of the past. It’s about going backward to get forward. Some scientists believe that our ancestors possessed certain abilities that we don’t have anymore. Physical abilities. Psychic and spiritual abilities. Use it or lose it, you know? Things atrophy. Evolution can mean de-evolution too. Isn’t it true that—”
“Excuse me, Ava?”
In the manner of someone accustomed to being interrupted, the older woman didn’t miss a beat: “Yes, Sojii?”
“Didn’t you say that Geoff is into crystals and stuff?”
“He works with crystals, yes, if that’s what you mean. Crystal is your best source for energy and clear vision. Nowadays, they use crystals in computers for memory.”
“To store information,” Freeman concurred.
“That’s right.”
“But don’t they grow the crystals for computers nowadays?” Freeman asked.
“In giant autoclaves,” Ava said. “But the essential ingredient is still a tiny piece of natural high-quality quartz. You need quartz to grow quartz. It can’t be synthesized.”
“Do you mean, like, crystal balls?” Sojii pointed to a display case full of them. “I always thought those were just kitsch.”
“Those are glass, not crystal. Crystals are way more powerful. What you can do with them depends upon how you’re wired.”
“And Geoff is wired for crystals?”
“He doesn’t like to advertise it, but yes, he’s particularly gifted with crystal.”
Sojii cut her eyes toward Freeman, a look of vindication: a strong part of her argument for coming here had been her dire need to consult an expert … though she hadn’t explained exactly why or about what. Addressing Ava: “You think I could talk to Geoff?”
“Well, he usually sees clients on Mondays and Wednesdays. Lemme go get his appointment book. When do you think you would want to come see him?”
“How about now?” She took the older woman’s hands in her own. “Please? It’s really important.”
30
Larry the Pharmacist entered Ma’s Place ahead of Seede. His face was sallow and deeply lined; his eyes were hidden behind thick, photo-gray lenses. He turned immediately to Jamal: “Is there someplace I can do this?”
Jamal directed the threesome away from the front window, to a counter in the back of the restaurant. Larry the Pharmacist chose a stool and sat down, unzipped his army surplus jacket, retrieved from the front pocket a white plastic box—three
by five by two inches deep—and placed it upon the orange Formica counter. Inside was a travel alarm clock and six identical wax paper bindles, each about the size of a postage stamp.
The bindles were folded in half and then half again, secured with a slice of Scotch tape; inside each was one tenth of a gram of China White heroin. Grown and refined in the Golden Triangle region of Southeast Asia, most likely Burma, it had been smuggled to the eastern seaboard of the United States by Nigerian traffickers. In the last ten years, the purity of street heroin in Washington had risen from roughly 3 percent to nearly 40, a fact attributed to increased competition from growers in South America and Afghanistan. On the front of each bag was a red stamp—a cartoon rendering of a lil’ devil, complete with horns, tail, and pitchfork—the symbol of the Hellraiser brand, distributed by the T Street Crew, a crack gang that had recently diversified into heroin. Cheap and plentiful, heroin was a perfect compliment to crack, providing a tranquilizing effect that killed the jittery edge. Unlike crack, however, heroin was physically addictive. Junkies and scientists agree that the only drug harder to kick than heroin is nicotine, available on practically every corner in America.
Larry the Pharmacist propped open the digital clock, removed two bags of dope, placed them carefully to the right of the clock. He reached into the breast pocket of his coat, withdrew a pair of stainless steel surgical scissors and a grade school–variety Bic pen, this one missing its ink cartridge—a transparent plastic tube with a tiny air hole machined into the side. He placed them both on the counter next to the dope.
He chose the bag closest to the clock, tapped it lightly on the counter three times—tap, tap, tap—to settle the powder. Picked up the scissors, snipped the Scotch tape, put the scissors back down. Unfolded the bag, flicked it twice with the long nail of his middle finger—flick, flick—eyeballed the count. There was a practiced grace to his movements, a sense of ritual, of choreography, of clinical precision. And also a sense that he was handling something cherished and fragile, something very dear.
He picked up the scissors again, cut off the top of the bag. Traded the scissors for the Bic pen and raised it to his nose, taking care to cover the small hole in the side of the tube with his fingertip. Checked the clock—10:36. “This will hit me in exactly twelve minutes,” he announced. Inserted the Bic into the bag and sniffed—a single strong inhalation. He switched nostrils, sniffed again.
Now he looked up and spoke to Seede directly, making eye contact for the first time. “You feel your nose burn. And then you get this smell, an aroma like … I always say it smells like those gel-cap vitamins you buy in a natural food store. Is this the sort of thing you want to know?”
Seede stroked his beard. The truth was, he didn’t know exactly what he wanted to know. It took time to develop a piece. You had to let things simmer. You had to trust your instincts. So far in his research, Seede had gathered a lot of material on the federal government’s war on drugs—hard data and firsthand reporting. He had some strong opinions and anecdotal information about the dangers of prohibition (how denial leads to fixation and abuse), and also about the impact of the Just Say No mentality on American life. With a little reflection, he would also admit that this book project was being driven, in no small part, by the way he perceived he was being treated at home—the way he was being ignored and taken for granted at home—as if to say, Okay, if you don’t love me, I’ll write a book and achieve literary success and the larger world will love me; as if to say, Okay, let’s see how deep into hell I must descend before you put aside your selfish preoccupations long enough to see what’s going on right beneath your nose, ha ha, fuck you, you don’t give a shit about me anyway!
What sort of thing did he want to know? He wasn’t totally sure yet. But he did know this: he was on the trail of certain broad notions and vague truths that he was positive would lead him somewhere vital, and he was pledged to proceed, putting one foot in front of the other, following his instincts until he got there. Sometimes, he figured, you don’t know what you’re onto, you just know you’re onto something. You have to trust yourself. You have to dare to be bad. You have to take the chance that you might fail.
He pulled his tape recorder from his coat pocket. He held it up for Larry the Pharmacist to see. “You’re doing great. Mind if I record?”
Larry dipped his Bic pen inside the bag again and sniffed, lighter this time, more prolonged, rooting for errant grains. “Heroin restores my normal physiological function,” he said, placing the Bic down on the counter. “Without heroin, I have no sex drive, I have no desire for food, I have no energy. But when I snort heroin, if you wired me up and monitored my vital signs, you would find that exactly twelve minutes after administration of the drug all my functions return to normal. When I turned the corner from Ninth on to U this morning, I felt about seventy years old.” He checked his clock—10:38. “Ten minutes from now, I will feel about thirty. Another bag, I’ll feel twenty-five.” He popped the empty bindle into his mouth and commenced chewing.
“How old are you, actually?” Seede asked.
“Sixty-two on October second.”
“Have you always snorted? I thought people with hard-core habits usually—”
“I stopped injecting on December fifteenth of last year. That was the day my brother died.” He removed the soggy bindle from his mouth and placed it on the counter. “See, I came into the kitchen at 3:15 in the morning and his head was on the table. It was late. I thought he was asleep. I tried to wake him. He looked so …” He faltered, struggling to find the words. His photo-gray lenses had lightened; Seede could see a tear forming in the corner of his muddy brown eye, the pupil of which was stopped down to the approximate diameter of a finishing nail.
“When my brother died my life essentially came to an end,” Larry continued. “Technically, my heart is beating. But really I died on December 15, 1991, a Sunday, at 3:15 A.M. I loved my brother—actually, he was my stepbrother, and also my best friend. His name was Michael—did I say that? He was a phenomenal man, worthy of a biography. He had an IQ of 165—well into genius level. He was a master of astronomy, a brilliant pharmaceutical chemist. I myself have a doctorate in biochemistry; people have said I am rather brilliant. But I’m nothing compared to Michael. He could read, write, and speak six languages. He graduated Caltech with honors. He studied photochemistry under Dr. George S. Hammond, the world’s foremost authority on the subject. That’s like studying radio with Marconi—it gives you an idea of the kind of intellect I’m talking about. Would you believe that Michael once conceived a synthesis of methamphetamine from beta styrene? If you know anything about chemistry, that’s almost unbelievable. The structure of beta styrene is about as far from methamphetamine as you can imagine. If I had a quartz crystal in my hand and told you I could make methamphetamine out of it, you’d laugh me out of the room. But he actually conceived it—he never had a chance to test it, but it made sense, he’d mapped it out, he’d made diagrams: it obeyed the laws of chemistry. No one had ever even thought to look in that direction. He was quite a guy. A brilliant man. And he looked great in a Santa suit.”
Up to that point, Seede had been following. “A Santa suit?”
Larry the Pharmacist smiled, a memory only he could see. Then his smile faded. He shook his head mournfully. He reached over and picked up the second wax paper bindle, tapped it lightly on the counter three times—tap, tap, tap. Snipped the Scotch tape, unfolded the bag, flicked it twice—flick, flick—with the long nail of his middle finger. Eyeballed the count, cut the top with the scissors. Checked the clock—10:52. Pointed the Bic at Seede.
“I came into the kitchen at 3:15 in the morning, and his head was on the table. I thought he was asleep, I tried to wake him. I managed to get his eyes open and they flickered a little bit, but then he died. Quite remarkable, actually. It was immediately apparent. I didn’t even have to check the pulse. He took one last deep breath and he exhaled and that was it. Very final. A very final sound: there was no
mistaking it. The absolute sound of the end.
“I held him in my arms for I don’t know how long, just staring into his eyes, thinking about … I don’t know what I was thinking about. Wondering what it was going to be like without this person who was so close to me, the only person, the only one left who cared. Thinking to myself that my life was over, I guess. And that’s when it came to me. It was like: Wait a minute! Holy shit! Remember John Belushi? When he died of an overdose, the girl who’d furnished him with the drugs was charged with his murder. In this case, it was also clear: I had furnished the drugs. I was the one! Had I not given him the forty dollars, he would never have bought those four bags of dope. He would never have died. The chain of responsibility for his death led directly to me. I was a murderer.
“He’d been clean for a while, see. He’d been in detox, he’d been on methadone. And then I gave him that little taste in the bathroom stall at the Air and Space Museum—that’s where he was working as a Santa, outside the museum, collecting money in one of those kettles for the Salvation Army. He was on his break. I just gave him a little taste. The tiniest little snort. I was so happy that day. Feeling festive, I guess—the both of us were. It’s supposed to be a season of joy, is it not? I always loved going to the museum and seeing Lindbergh’s plane hanging in the lobby, and John Glenn’s Mercury capsule. And I guess that little taste got him going again, even though he assured me it wouldn’t. Because I asked, you know, it’s not like I didn’t think of it. I said, ‘Is this gonna knock you off the wagon or anything?’ And he was like, ‘No way—it’s under control.’ He should have known his tolerance was down. He couldn’t have not known. He was a brilliant chemist. I can’t for the life of me think of any reason he would have had to take his own life on purpose.”
“So what did you do?”