by David Poses
A waiter offers dessert menus. We decline. He says, “The calories won’t matter if the Millennium Bug kills everyone on New Year’s Eve.” We decline again.
Nana brings up my aunt Cathy, my mother’s brother’s second wife. “Always a shrimp cocktail appetizer, tiramisu for dessert, and a cappuccino at the end. And the drinks.” She glares at Herbie. “But she stopped drinking.”
Nana asks if I’m still “being good”—as in “clean.”
“Four years.”
After dinner, my grandparents drive off, and Jane and I walk home.
“It’s sweet how protective she is of you,” she says. “She doesn’t want him to drink in front of you so you won’t be tempted.”
“That’s not it. My mom’s told tons of stories about my great-grandmother stopping my great-grandfather from smoking cigars. Nana comes from a line of women who deprive their husbands of any vices.”
“Still, she obviously thinks he has a drinking problem.”
“He doesn’t have a drinking problem.”
“Doesn’t he drink every day?”
“Yeah.”
“Then he’s an alcoholic.”
“Alcoholics get belligerent and beat their wives and crash cars. He’s not an—”
“But he drinks every day.”
“It relaxes him. He’s funnier after a few drinks. It makes him more himself.”
“Don’t you think that’s sad—he can’t be himself without alcohol?”
twenty-seven
Mom calls on Sunday morning. “You’re on the front page of today’s New York Post,” she says. “Same picture they used in that nightclub book.”
I grab Anthony Hayden-Guest’s The Last Party off the bookshelf and flip to the photo taken at Tunnel when I was seventeen. I’m wearing Mom’s leopard print tights, a Western string tie, my face slathered in makeup, a pile of powder on a flier on my lap.
Jane asks what’s going on. I explain. She’s seen the picture before.
“I wouldn’t have known it was you,” she says. “All that makeup and the outfit.”
Mom says, “Remember when you showed up in that magazine and I called the photographer? I think I need to call him back and buy that negative. And this one.”
“Those guys are pretty well-known.”
“It’s not about the money, David. I’ve had a horrible pit in my stomach all morning.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s . . . you remember what they told me in Hazelden.”
“That was a long time ago.”
Jane and I walk to the deli on Henry Street. Outside, a metal rack displays today’s major newspapers. The New York Post headline reads, “Club Drug Blitz: Gatien Hotspot Faces Padlock after Cops Bust ‘Ecstasy Supermarket.’”
Of all the pictures they could have used, why this? Why now? I grab every copy and go inside to pay. When I reach into my pocket for my money clip, the check from Herbie falls out. Ten thousand dollars.
At home, Jane lays the Post on the kitchen table and opens to the feature spread.
“They mention Michael Alig,” she says. “That must’ve been crazy for you, being friends with—did you ever think he’d be a murderer?”
“Never.”
“And you were really close, right? He was the one who gave you heroin the first time.”
“That was Rob.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard that name before.”
“He’s probably dead.”
“Why did I think Michael was a heroin addict?”
“Not when we met. He used to make fun of Rob and me for—”
“But then he got hooked?”
“A lot of people got hooked.”
“So you and Rob got them addicted to heroin.”
One bag. Maybe two. That’s all.
At work, I spend the day scouring mp3 websites for the dealer Geoff mentioned. The next morning, I find a link to a Yahoo forum: Opiates212: For Connoisseurs of Dope in the City.
Hundreds of posts by hundreds of users, all referring to somebody named SWIM. SWIM is selling pot. SWIM is looking for heroin, Vicodin, Dilaudid. SWIM took a ton of Imodium because the active ingredient, loperamide, is an opiate receptor agonist. SWIM didn’t get high, but it helped SWIM’s PAWS. SWIM, I soon realize, is an acronym for somebody who isn’t me. PAWS is post-acute withdrawal symptoms.
Scrolling down, I see a thread started by Chickenbone_77: “Can’t find dope? SWIM knows a spot in Brooklyn.” I set up a dummy email account on Yahoo and send a private message to Chickenbone_77 via the forum’s internal mail feature. “I’m interested. I don’t check my PMs often. Please reply to my Yahoo address.”
For ten minutes, I refresh my Yahoo inbox incessantly. Then Kara comes by. “Congratulations,” she says. “You’re filling in for Marge today.”
She walks me to Marge’s desk and gives me a list of names and numbers and instructions for every conceivable request Martin could have, from coffee to private air travel. He strolls in fifteen minutes later and enters his office without acknowledging my existence.
Refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh.
The intercom buzzes. “Get me Phil,” Martin says.
The lone Phil on my cheat sheet is Geier, CEO of Interpublic, the publicly traded company that owns Ammirati Puris Lintas. I connect Martin with Phil and refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh.
The intercom buzzes. “Turkey powerhouse.”
According to the cheat sheet, this is a sandwich, attainable at the crappy restaurant in the lobby. I call in the order and tell the woman on the phone it’s for Martin.
Refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh.
I pick up the sandwich. How is the handoff supposed to go? Do I knock on Martin’s door and give it to him? Buzz him and say, “Your turkey powerhouse is here?” Should I ask if he wants a plate and a napkin? Assume he does? Where are they?
Martin is in the hall when I step off the elevator, a disappointed look on his face as he snatches the sandwich neatly wrapped in wax paper. He pivots on his heel and sits on the couch in his office and inhales his lunch with the door open. I keep one eye on him and one on the computer screen.
Refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh.
Martin wipes his mouth with a cloth napkin, balls it up, and tosses it on the couch.
Refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh.
Martin leaves his office with the New York Times under his arm. “I’m going to the washroom,” he says.
Refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh. I have to pee. Refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh. I really have to pee. Refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh. I really, really have to pee. Refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh.
Martin returns. Refresh refresh refresh. I run to the washroom. On the way back, I see a gaggle of executive administrative assistants in the lounge, all eyes on the TV.
CNN is broadcasting live from a school in Colorado, where two students shot and killed a dozen of their classmates and then committed suicide. The screen is split between looped footage of the school’s exterior and talking heads.
“Not only did the alleged attackers have guns—they had bombs too.”
“They wore all black. They referred to themselves as the trench coat mafia.”
“The massacre appears to have been meticulously planned over a period of months, as evidenced by information discovered in the alleged assailants’ diaries.”
The executive administrative assistants chatter.
�
��It’s the parents’ fault. How could they not know what their kids were planning?”
“It’s society’s fault. We’re obsessed with violence.”
“It’s Marilyn Manson’s fault. The shooters listened to that sick bastard’s music.”
“Marilyn Manson should be locked up.”
A picture of two smiling boys appears on TV—it could be a Gap ad.
“The assailants have been identified as Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris.”
An administrative assistant throws a crumpled tissue at the screen. She says, “I hope those vile creatures and their parents rot in hell for all eternity.”
A lump forms in my throat. I go back to my desk and refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh.
Intercom. “Decaf cappuccino.”
I run to the coffee shop on the cheat sheet—on Second Avenue and Forty-Fourth Street. The news is on TV.
“Klebold and Harris are thought to have been drug abusers.”
Hitting your wife is domestic abuse.
Unwelcome groping is sexual abuse.
Shooting dope to ease the pain of existence is drug abuse?
Martin peels the lid off the cup and gives a satisfied nod and retreats to his office.
Refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh. Clap of thunder. Refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh. Rain pelts the windows. Long, beaded strands come together and stretch across the tinted glass, a liquefied spider web.
Refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh re—
A new message appears from Chickenbone_77: “I can meet after work if you’re still interested.”
I reply, and we go back and forth via email, coordinating a 5:45 rendezvous outside the Bowling Green subway station.
I call Kara. “I’m so sorry. I need to leave early. My grandmother had a stroke.”
“Oh, David, don’t apologize. I’m sorry. Please—go be with your family.”
twenty-eight
On the subway, I fixate on the possibilities. Chickenbone_77 could rob me and beat me within inches of my life. He could be a cop. Is this a sting? It’d be entrapment but I’d still be fucked. A million bad scenarios and only one good one.
The train stops at Bowling Green. Going through the turnstile, I see buckets of rain flooding into the station. When I get to street level, clouds part and a rainbow appears in the sky. Sharp, vivid colors. A perfect fucking rainbow arching over lower Manhattan. It’s gone in ten seconds.
A guy in a crisp blue suit pauses on the sidewalk and looks me over. He’s older but not by much. Thirty maybe. Close-cropped hair and clean-shaven. Carrying an umbrella with a Chase Manhattan Bank logo. A normal dude. Unremarkable.
“David?”
“Chickenbone_77?”
“Grant,” he says, shaking my hand. On the train to Brooklyn, he describes himself as a functioning junkie. He has a good job on Wall Street as an analyst and occasional consultant for venture capitalists.
We talk about the racist catalysts for US drug laws—beginning in the 1870s, when a bunch of white dudes in San Francisco got opium smoking banned by complaining that white women were sleeping with Chinese men who owned the city’s opium dens. Cocaine was outlawed in the 1920s—after newspaper articles described black men as “impervious to bullets” when on coke. Pot became illegal in the 1930s when Harry Anslinger, head of the newly created Federal Bureau of Narcotics, started referring to it as “marijuana” and associating it with Mexican immigrants. In propaganda, marijuana was said to cause insanity and was blamed for bizarre murders and sex crimes.
Grant pulls a tattered issue of Harper’s Magazine from his backpack and reads a quote from an interview with John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs. About the origins of the War on Drugs, Ehrlichman says:
We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.
On Myrtle Avenue in Bushwick, oil slick rainbows appear in lake-sized potholes. I follow Grant down a side street to a restaurant with a filthy red-and-black-striped awning.
By the door, a dry-erase sign says, “Please seat yourselfs.” We pick a table next to a glass partition. Ceiling fans whir. Hanging on the wall opposite me, two speakers play Yellowman’s “Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt.” All the patrons have plates in front of them, but no one is eating.
A waiter in a dirty apron uses a dishrag to wipe two laminated menus. Grant orders spicy pumpkin soup, which isn’t on the menu.
“Bowl or cup?” the waiter asks.
“Two bowls.”
The waiter nods and shuffles into the kitchen.
“Check this out,” Grant says, pointing to the window.
A black Vespa screeches around the corner and pulls onto the sidewalk. Two guys in black leather pants, jackets, and helmets with tinted face coverings hop off. One stands at the door while the other is directed by the waiter to our table. I can already taste the dope as Grant makes the deal and passes a bundle to me under the table. I start to get up.
“Wait,” he says. “There’s a catch.”
I freeze, expecting a SWAT team to pounce.
“We have to order food and sit a while. What do you want?”
“I don’t care. I’m not hungry.”
“I’ll handle it,” Grant says. He gestures to a narrow hallway by the kitchen. “Bathroom’s over there—if you want an appetizer first.”
The sticky tiles in the hall are riddled with cracks and gouges. I duck into the small, windowless bathroom, lock the door with the flimsy hook-and-eye latch, and examine the off-white glassine envelopes. “Noise Gate” is stamped in red. I roll a dollar and shove it into a bag, careful to avoid the corner as I snort the hit. Then I gaze into the foggy, scratched mirror until my giant black pupils shrink.
While Grant is in the bathroom, I stare at the place mat. Ads for a vacuum cleaner repair service, real estate, a company that will advertise your company on a place mat. The waiter with the soiled apron serves a bowl of red beans and rice, a wicker basket filled with slices of white bread, and two dishes: thinly sliced gray meat slathered in a thick orange sauce and half a rotisserie chicken.
A cook steps out of the kitchen, wiping his face on his shirt. He points a remote at a busted receiver on a refrigerator, and Bob Marley’s “Natural Mystic” begins. Grant closes his eyes and slaps the table, drumming along and singing in a whisper.
I breathe deep and let it out slowly. This isn’t a relapse. It’s a resuscitation.
The next morning, I lock myself in the bathroom, run the shower, and snort a hit. I take off my clothes and stand under the water for fifteen seconds, long enough to rinse my body.
Jane is getting dressed in the bedroom. Facing away from her, I step into a pair of boxers and pull them up my legs, holding my towel in place.
“Why don’t you ditch that towel and your undies and let’s have a quick one.”
“I can’t. There’s a big meeting at nine.”
“When you were running around in tights and platform shoes and doing drugs, did you ever think you’d end up here?”
“I don’t know if I thought I’d end up here, but I wanted to.”
“Shack up with some goody-two-shoes girl and have a real job?”
“Not some girl. You.”
“You didn’t know me.”
“I knew you exis
ted. I knew I found you when I heard people call you Glinda.”
“Because I was a good witch?”
“Because you were Glinda.”
“I’m so confused.”
“I told you about the fifth grade DARE assembly, right?”
“The cop said a kid took acid and peeled off his skin.”
“He said something about every drug. When he said heroin came from poppies, I thought of the scene in The Wizard of Oz. Heroin is evil, poppy, wicked-witchy business, and you were Glinda—the exact opposite.”
“How come you never told me that before?”
None of my bosses protest when I refuse assignments under the auspice that another boss has me on another task. Nobody asks what I’m so busy typing all morning. It feels good to write. I think this story could be a novel:
Second Chances™ revolutionary new product, The Save As®, helps you realize your full potential™ by doing the Microsoft Word equivalent of a “Save As” to your life. You designate the changes you would like to make, and Licensed The Save As® technicians execute them by performing a Hippocampular Trituration (aka hippo scrub), a minimally invasive procedure that replaces old memories with new ones in your hippocampus and the hippocampi of your family, friends, and acquaintances. Second Chances™ then consigns your original life to their Certified Preexisting Existence Marketplace. Once the process is complete, the world around you shifts to reflect the changes. No one—not even you—will remember how life used to be.
Wednesday afternoon at three-thirty, a bar cart winds its way around the office, as it does every week. Snacks are served. In the lounge, Loretta, my supervisor, dressed in her usual beige, performs surgery on a glazed doughnut with a plastic knife. Dan swirls a martini glass, and I sip a small bottle of Coke.
Dan bites an olive off a plastic cocktail sword and points it at my drink. “What are you, ten years old?”