Entry #572231, added on 03-20-08 @ 6:14 am EDT
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| Chapter One: "The loath of his life" | Entry #572231 |
CHAPTER ONE
“The loath of his life”
Winter 1973
Myles really didn't like Cocaine. But Cocaine liked Myles. Never having mastered the fine art of saying no to anyone or anything … he’d allowed her to stay. He liked her okay, but she wasn’t really the love of his life … Heroin was.
Myles had known from the beginning that his Heroin didn't really love him, but he adored her.
"I hate her!" he declared venomously. "I hate her more than anything or anyone I've ever known … ’cept maybe for my probation officer … and my father … sometimes.
“No! … I love my father,” he acknowledged. “I just can’t stand him.”
His sweet Heroin had come to him enchantingly that fateful afternoon in New York City as an Angel of Mercy, but now he knew … she was the Antichrist.
Noise outside his little hotel room door was nothing out of the ordinary, but a knock on his door, was not only unwanted, it was unnerving.
I hope it’s not the cops again, Myles thought as he rolled out of bed.
The jerk Myles administered to the doorknob a moment later, not only startled his visitor, it set free more of the old door’s loose paint chips.
The twig of a figure standing in the open doorway, grinning from ear to ear, was no one he’d expected to see. Myles momentarily looked at the paint chips that had fluttered to the floor. He’d swept them aside several times before with his bare feet during one of his all too brief, but pleasant, moments of stupor.
Myles hadn’t been expecting anyone before the rap on his door had shattered his morning meditations; ripping him back to the dismal reality of the squalid hotel room he now occupied. In fact, Myles told me, “I’d just been wishing I wouldn't ever have to see anyone again … ever!”
Fingering his sparse moustache, Myles studied his visitor.
The somewhat familiar face spoke:
“Can I come in?"
Without a word, Myles Shrugged his shoulders and indicated yes with his head, then stepped back out of the way.
His visitor’s eyes traveled around the room as he slid into the sunlit cubicle.
“Hey man … ya’ got anything?” the disturbance whispered to Myles anxiously as he strolled past him.
Now Myles remembered where he’d encountered this fully-grown urchin before. It was while he’d been serving time in the Marin County Jail near San Francisco.
Myles had gotten three-and-a-half months for two burglaries … “with credit for time served, not bad, hun," he‘d boasted on more than one occasion.
Of course, we both knew full well, had Myles not been from Chapel Hill, the judges alma mater, and, not had that short skirt wearing sultry public defender who made a point of bending over the defense table, her backside to the judge, to … “Have a word with my client, Your Honor,” Myles would now be paying for his crimes in California State Prison.
Then again, unfortunately, had Myles been Black, even that short skirt wouldn’t have saved him. Had his unbelievable luck gone any other way, there’s no doubt in Myles’ little Machiavellian mind, that he’d be about half-way through the second year of two five to ten year sentences in San Quentin.
Therefore, Myles had concluded, the little hotel cell he now occupied … “ain’t all that bad … least I can come and go as I please.”
Myles’ never-ending pursuit of Heroin kept him on the move the better part of each and unfortunately every day; holidays were the worst he said. “Everybody’s home and the stores are all closed.” Myles never went anywhere or did anything without the ever-present realization that he needed money and he needed it badly. Myles knew he needed that money more than the owners of it did … there was no question in his mind about that.
His true love had cost him dearly; he’d given her everything he’d ever owned, including his damaged heart, which of course she’d accepted with pleasure in exchange for a small bag of halfway decent dope.
Myles sighed, looked back down at the paint chips, swept them aside with his bare foot, then leaned forward and cautiously peeked out into the hall. He eased his head back in and gently shut the door.
With no telltale expression on his face, Myles turned, and eyeing this nuisance, said sternly:
“What are you doing here?”
“Just got out man … work furlough … you said to look you up … remember?” the Twig’s somewhat squeaky voice responded.
Myles plead guilty with a curse. Me and my big mouth!
Eyeing his guest suspiciously, Myles paused a moment, making up his mind, he reached into the breast pocket of his black leather jacket … the one on the nail he’d pierced the door with shortly after his arrival at his new found residence … Myles extracted a flip top box of Marlboros from the pocket.
“I like the box better than the soft pack, keeps my smokes from get’n crushed” he added, interrupting his own story.
Myles reached into the pocket again, this time his hand went in a little deeper. He pulled out a neatly rolled paper towel not much bigger than a cigar tube.
Myles turned and, pushing past the Twig, walked to the head of his bed, the mattress of which he’d wondered, time and time again, what exactly had sat on it before he’d arrived. Myles flopped his butt back down on the edge of the old stained mattress, he didn’t really care.
Myles carefully lifted off the rubber band that held his precious little bundle secure, then placed it at its usual spot on the window sill.
With nimble fingers he gently unrolled the paper towel and smoothed it out with the palm of his hand on his little bedside table.
Without a word Myles cut his eyes up at Twig who was just standing there in the middle of the room all wide eyed.
Look at him … drooling already, Myles thought.
Next, Myles extracted one Marlboro from its container; with long stained fingernails he gently coaxed a thin strand of white fibers from the end of the cigarette’s filter. Studying the specimen he determined it would suit his needs just fine. Myles popped it into his mouth and with his tongue created a small perfectly sized ball of wet cotton.
He stuck the Marlboro between his lips and ignited it with the Zippo he’d used a million times to punish the undercarriage of his little dope spoon.
A minute or two after carefully inventorying and arranging the contents of the paper towel Myles pushed his dirty blond hair off his forehead with the back of his wrist and looked up towards the ceiling. It occurred to him then that he hadn’t pronounced a death sentence on that Marlboro quite soon enough. His eyes were burning from the smoke that had ascended into his face as he’d sat hunched over the little table.
Cautious not to dislodge the hanging ash onto the table, Myles flicked the cigarette out his open hotel room window.
Lifting it from the paper towel, Myles carefully unwrapped a small packet of aluminum foil which held the remains of a small rock of cocaine he’d grudgingly saved for himself the previous evening.
“It was for my morning's jump-start, you know,” Myles explained to me.
Twig’s eyes sparkled when he saw the rock of cocaine, for he knew, at least he hoped, he’d never have even been permitted to see it; if he wasn’t at least “gonna’ get a taste.”
Everything was just as Myles had lovingly packed it the night before, before he’d allowed himself to nod into unconsciousness as his Marlboro burned itself out between his fingers. He’d felt no pain.
Using his old razorblade, Myles carefully sliced the rock of cocaine at several strategic points, then gently placed the little pieces into the blackened silver spoon.
Dipping his long finger into the melted ice left over from last night’s A&W Root Beer, Myles allowed just enough water to drop from his fingertips into the spoon to suit his needs.
No need for heat this time.
They watched the little white islands of cocaine slowly dissolve and sink below the surface of the water. Myles stirred the precious nectar with the tip of his needle cover and watched the coke completely dissolve into the liquid.
Moving the little ball of wet cotton to the tip of his tongue, he introduced it to his waiting fingertips. From there, he carefully lowered it to a spot just above the liquid in the spoon; with a twist of his fingertips, he dropped it into the pool of cocaine.
Almost there, they thought.
Watching the little ball of cotton expand in its new environment, Myles could hear the orchestra of his mind building to crescendo.
He picked up his works, as he calls them, a homemade syringe. It consisted of a baby pacifier, a Binky, attached to the big end of a glass medicine dropper.
Next Myles wound the small paper collar, torn from the edge of a dollar bill, around the little tip of the glass medicine dropper, then twisted a twenty-six gauge hypodermic needle tightly over the collar making sure all was airtight.
“Wouldn't want that needle to fall off and spill out your dope, now would ya?” Myles made clear.
“Certainly not.” I said somewhat sarcastically. “We wouldn’t want that to happen.”
It was about then that Myles remembered he hadn’t checked the point of his little needle for barbs before he’d forced it onto the tip of the medicine dropper.
“There was after all, no need for excessive pain and scarring,” I was informed.
But, it wasn’t too late. Myles gently dragged the point of his needle across the soft tip of his finger as he’d done a thousand times before.
Having completed that delicate operation, he’d determined the needlepoint was acceptable, no barbs. “I didn’t need to sharpen that rascal on my match striker.”
By now in his story I’d learned more than I wanted to know, but that was Myles’ way.
Myles gently squeezed the bulb of the ‘Binky‘ secured to the end of the medicine dropper with rubber bands. Enough air escaped through the tip of the needle of his homemade syringe to reassure him, it would work at least one more time, he released the pressure.
Twig hadn’t taken his eyes off the process; his excitement filled the little hotel room, to the dismay of Myles.
Myles squeezed the bulb of the Binky again as he lowered the point of the needle into the center of the little cotton ball, then slowly and methodically he began releasing the pressure on the bulb. As usual the clear liquid could be seen rising up into the glass medicine dropper.
Everything was satisfactory so far, no clogs, no leaks. The second Myles heard the telltale hiss of air, indicating to him that all his solution was safely encased behind glass; he paused for a moment of contemplation.
How much of my dope should I give Twiggy? He wondered to himself.
Myles looked at him, their eyes met.
“Twig still had that stupid grin on his face,” Myles said acridly
Slowly Myles returned pressure to the bulb, allowing a few drops of the precious nectar to fall back onto the damp cotton ball in the spoon.
Not enough for even a Twig to feel.
I’ll give him a little squirt.
There, that’s plenty.
I think I gave him too much.
Oh well, we’ll see, Myles mused.
“After all, I hadn’t exactly given it to him yet, now had I?”
Holding the syringe with his left hand, Myles pulled his shirtsleeve up over his measly white bicep with his right hand and gave the sleeve a good twist. Then, squatting down on the floor of his little hotel cell, he tucked the twisted sleeve up under his left knee.
Myles interrupted his story to tell me the morning sunshine was streaming in through his open window onto his back. “It was nice, it felt warm.”
I guess even a junkie can stop and smell the Roses once in a while.
He closed his leg, clamping it like a vice around the twisted sleeve of his dirty shirt.
Though he’d never seen anyone else use this method, he preferred his way of tying off better. He felt it gave him more control when all he had to do was move his leg a little to release the pressure. His method had always worked better for him than trying to untie a knot with his teeth while holding the hypodermic needle that was protruding from his vein.
Myles found his favorite vein. He could do this in the dark. He’d been blessed with wonderful veins. Although his old favorites were now calloused and dark with scars (tracks) he’d found new favorites.
Once Myles had placed the dull point of the needle gently on the engorged target, he gave the bulb three good taps with the index finger of his right hand. With the third tap, as expected, he felt the tip of the dirty needle pierce the tough outer casing of his vein and settle into place.
There it was, that little bubble of blood rising up from the bottom of the glass dropper registering a good hit. This was the moment he, like all other junkies, looked forward to.
The orchestra of his mind had built to crescendo. The time was at hand. He released the pressure of his leg allowing his shirtsleeve to fall loose and unwind by itself, releasing the pressure on his little bicep.
He squeezed the bulb gently and watched the blood disappear, then the precious nectar, down through the tunnel of glass. The last of the liquid vanished behind the green paper collar.
When he heard the telltale spit of air enter his vein he released his grip on the little bulb and watched his blood slowly rise back up into the glass tube, reassuring him that ‘the fix‘ was in. Now, nothing on earth could stop his rush as the cocaine arrived at his waiting brain.
That's good stuff, he thought, rendering his opinion after running his usual brief analysis of the experience.
Twig was now dancing around the little hotel room like some kid who’d waited to long to go to the bathroom.
Myles ignored him and just stared off into space, waiting.
Several minutes later, as the rush from the cocaine he’d injected into his body began to subside, Myles thought:
Twig don’t need that much.
I can get another rush out’a it and he'll still be able to catch a buzz.
Myles looked at the Twig waiting for his turn at the remainder … “salivating“.
“I left you too much!” Myles announced.
Ignoring Twig’s pleadings, Myles repeated the previous process. Once again, there was the all too familiar rush as the cocaine arrived at his brain. True, it wasn’t as strong as before, but, acceptable nonetheless.
“I was right; I had left Twig too much,” Myles told me.
That mistake now having been rectified, Myles was ready to be nice … and share.
Even loaded though, Myles prided himself on his ability to stay in control of any situation, therefore he was not about to let this intrusion into his privacy take charge of his precious syringe. No, he would fix it for the Twig.
Again he allowed a few drops of water to fall from his fingertips at predetermined spots in the spoon. After they’d settled themselves around the wet cotton ball, Myles used the tip of the needle to swirl the dirty cotton ball around, extracting any remaining coke that might have dried around the edges of the old spoon. That done, he squeezed the bulb, then drew the liquid up into the glass tube.
Myles told Twig to hold his bicep and make a fist. He felt for Twig’s vein.
Twig didn’t have good veins like Myles did, but he’d seen worse. Myles prided himself on his ability to get a register, no matter who it was, even his wife Mari, and she had the worst veins he’d ever had to hit.
Having located the intended target, Myles gave the tip of the Binky three good taps with his index finger, Twig winced. There it was, a register. Twig’s blood could be seen swirling around within the small glass tube, mixing itself with the clear cocaine liquid.
Twig released the pressure from his bicep without having to be told.
“Twiggy’d obviously had that done to him before,” Myles said.
Myles began to slowly squeeze the bulb of the Binky, propelling the cocaine and blood mixture into Twig’s vein, up his arm and into the heart of his waiting brain.
After hearing the telltale spit of air, Myles quickly withdrew the homemade syringe and folded Twig’s arm up to stop the bleeding.
Looking up at Twig to see how he liked his little taste Myles was surprised to see that Twig’s eyeballs were wide open and staring at the smoke-stained ceiling of the little hotel room.
As Myles watched curiously, Twig’s eyes slowly closed and his chin descended to his chest. A split second later Twig threw his head violently back.
Myles stepped back a little further from Twig and watched, Twig’s face was actually facing the ceiling now.
Suddenly, to the amazement of my cousin, Twig began grabbing at his chest, “like some kind’a tough guy trying to rip his shirt in half.” is the way Myles described the scene.
Then, as Myles leaned back, a little more perplexed, Twig fell backwards onto the old stained mattress.
Myles leaned forward and stared in wonder as he watched serious trouble slid off the bed onto the dirty wooden floor.
“Whoa man … it killed him,” Myles feared.
“Is he dead?" Myles wondered leaning over to get a better look.
What am I gonna’ do? … with a body?
Myles squeezed the bulb of the Binky and, stepping over to the old Root Beer cup, drew up some water into the syringe, then let it go to sink to the bottom of the cup.
He turned back and stared at the crumpled body lying on the floor, he thought he saw movement.
Then, happily, as he watched, Twig gradually rolled over onto his hands and knees.
Cool … he's not dead.
Seating himself back on the edge of his bed next to the little bedside table, Myles watched. He watched Twig slowly crawl towards the door. He watched as Twig reached up, turned the door handle and crawled out through the opening.
Still on his hands and knees, Twig gradually propelled himself out into the hall, turned left, then disappeared beyond the door casing.
Myles, still seated on the edge of his mattress, was squirting water out the open window, cleaning his works. Using the remainder of the melted ice from last night’s drink, Myles was filling his homemade syringe from the cup and squirting, filling and squirting, time was of the essence, “Didn’t want my needle getting clogged with Twig's ol’ nasty blood, you know.”
Myles was however glancing at the open door and quietly listening for the sound of someone tumbling down the antique staircase of the old dilapidated hotel.
His stoned mind finally convinced his stoned body to get up from the discolored mattress. They scuffed their way to the gap made by the still open door.
Myles cautiously poked his head out half expecting to see the Twig, or whoever he really was, lying dead on the sparsely painted hardwood floor, outside someone else’s room. At least he hoped it would be outside someone else’s room. But the pain in the neck was nowhere to be seen.
Easing his head back into his chamber, Myles gingerly closed the door and locked it before giving anyone else in the hotel a chance to see his scraggy face.
This was one of those rare occasions in the life, and I use the term life loosely, of Myles High, when he actually saw the light coming at him in the tunnel. Now, even Myles could see how messed up he really was.
Myles acknowledged, “I knew then man, if I hadn’t done half that dope I left the Twig, that dude really would’a been dead.”
Myles had done more than ninety percent of the cocaine, yet the remaining few percent had nearly killed his visitor.
Myles realized … once again, he needed help.
So whom does he call?
The only real friend he has.
He calls me, cousin Stephen.
“Can you come get me?" the familiar voice pleaded over the phone, without need of introduction.
“Where are you this time?" I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.
“At my hotel.”
“Okay. … Are you alright?
“No!”
“I’ll pick you up out front in fifteen minutes, be waiting … outside" I repeated into the receiver.
“Thanks,” I heard him say just before the line went dead.
Exactly fifteen minutes later, I spied him, standing at the curb next to the alley in front of his hotel.
Look at this place, I thought as I looked past him. A hotel they call it. This place is nothing more than a hive for drug dealers; a brothel, customers constantly buzzing in and out, and a place to unload stolen loot Myles confessed.
This dump also doubled as a hotel for junkies and drunks who just wanted to be left alone, cousin Myles fell into the junkie category.
The relationship Myles and I shared was an unusual one … to say the least. Although our mothers were sisters, we’d been raised in entirely different worlds. For some reason though … which I could never quite put my finger on, … we seemed to be connected, connected by some unseen elastic umbilical cord. Even when we wanted to, it seemed we weren’t able to stay away from each other for very long, fate always seemed to bring us back together.
Now … once again … here we were … seated side by side in an automobile. This time it was my brand new 1972 Mercedes-Benz 250.
“Hi Myles, I said, after he’d slid in, tossed his Huckle Bag onto the back seat, and pulled the door shut.
“Yeah,” he admitted.
I rolled my eyes and chuckled quietly.
Just before pulling away from the curb, I looked back over at him.
“Seat belt!” I said in a cheerful voice.
Myles made an overt sigh and, without looking at me, said just under his breath:
“You sound just like my father!”
Out loud he said:
“Thanks for coming to get me.”
I watched as he snapped his seat belt together.
His waist was now smaller than my wife’s, and she only weighed 133 pounds at the time.
I reached over and tightened the strap of his seat belt with a little tug. Even through his dark sunglasses I could tell Myles had given me the look. He folded his arms, and turned his gaze out through the side-window of my car … thinking.
But I thought I’d detected a slight grin on his down-turned face before he turned away… Hmm.
I checked again for oncoming traffic and pulled away from the curb.
It wasn’t really that bad of a neighborhood, nonetheless, I felt much more at ease once we were out on Second Street.
Myles existed in San Rafael; I lived in Larkspur, about fifteen minutes away, on Wilson Way.
Several moments of awkward silence elapsed. No longer able to restrain myself, just as we pulled onto the Redwood Highway, I glanced over at my friend.
“Myles!”
“What!” he replied.
“Are you alright?” I said, watching the road again.
He turned a grim face towards me, and moaned:
“Nooo! … I‘m not alright!”
I tried to see his eyes through the dark blue glass.
He looked away ashamedly and said:
“I’m messed up! … Then hissed out … Again!”
He cursed under his breath.
Angrily, not at me, he turning his face towards the side window, took a deep breath, and exhaling audibly.
Not knowing what to say, I sat silent for the next few miles … thinking. Suddenly, without warning, “Have you eaten anything?” escaped from my mouth.
He swung an infuriated face around towards me and hissed. “Eaten anything! … Who cares about eating!
Myles folded his arms back across his chest and stared out through the windshield, pouting.
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” he said a moment later to the windshield. He unfolded his arms, allowing his hands to slide to his lap, turned towards me, sighed, and uttered calmly:
“I‘m talking about … I nearly killed some dude.”
“What!” I gasped, not expecting to hear that come out of his mouth.
Getting my eyes back on the road after my double-take I said:
“What are you talking about … what do you mean …nearly killed somebody?”
By the time Myles finished telling me the story I just told you about Twig we were parked in the driveway of my little home. We both sat quietly gazing through the windshield at nothing, each deep in our own thoughts.
He‘d done it to himself again.
I was the first to break the silence.
“What are you going to do?”
“I gotta get off this stuff, man … again!” he added.
He pulled his sunglasses off and looked at me; his blue eyes all squinted up.
“Can I stay at your place for a while man?”
How could I say no to him? I’d known him all my life; we were friends, cousins … blood brothers. We‘d grown up together, played together, fought, shared secrets, and cried. Myles wasn’t a quitter. But that, as I’d learned over the last year and a half, was part of his problem, he couldn’t quit doing drugs, but he wouldn’t give up trying to quit doing drugs either, Myles just wouldn‘t quit.
“You know I’ll have to check with Michelle, let’s go in, but we both know she won‘t mind.”
We turned and opened our car doors at the same time, and again one slam proclaimed another tie.
Which reminds me of the first time I brought Myles into my home early in 1971. I’d received his call, rather unexpectedly, February ninth, a mere three days after Michelle and I had happened upon him that morning hitch-hiking in Corta Medera. I must admit though, I had anticipated a greater lapse of time before he’d take me up on my offer to “call me sometime.” I was mistaken.
At that point in his story Myles was living in Santa Venetia, just north of San Rafael. He, his wife Mari, and little Andrea, only about three months old at the time, were all still living together.
He’d called and informed me that Mari had taken Andrea (the baby) and gone to her parents for the afternoon; he wondered what I was doing. After a somewhat lengthy phone conversation I got the idea of going to get him and bringing him to see where I lived, maybe share some old stories, see what he’d been up to, and more importantly, find out what happened. You know, I was, after all by then, eaten up with curiosity.
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© Copyright 2008 Myles (UN: myles at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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Content Rating Notice: Recommended for Readers 18 Years and Older Only
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