escape
11. escape
i’m busting out the window to restore the peace. i’m busting out the window to restore my circulation. i’m busting out the window to let you know. warned enough. if my efforts are a headache, i’m going for blood . . vic pulled a gun on a cop. he went to prison. vic and i were fucking the same girl. we each knew there was someone else, but we didn’t know whom until she insisted on introducing us. vic and i talked so long about painting, barbara fell asleep. we became friends and drinking buddies and barbara became a hooker. but vic represented an extreme i did not believe in – time wasted in prison and rehab and on life-support, 3,000 used rigs in his bathroom like trophies or mementos. but we were able to hustle more cash together. when you are a junkie you mostly encounter assholes, some bright, most whining and self-centered, who are such greedy and resourceful machines they could have their own private jets. vic was a writer and painter, educated and older than me. he had worked as an archaeologist until some doctors and lawyers and a judge said he was insane. once insane, he was no longer qualified to dig holes into the earth . . the rush is a quickie: it has its stunning place at the front. but i dig the hours of low sound waves and curtained light: i like being a root. you are almost not alive and you can watch. if you push it, this death turns to dying, which puts you in bed for the worst three days of your life. if you push it further, dying turns back to dead, but this dead looks like gray meat on the slab . . rehab egoists profit off the predicament, as do badges, doctors, handcuff-makers, judges, and coroners, glad to tell you your lover had symmetrical breasts and chipped nail polish . . at the peurto ricans’, we went around back. the routine was you banged on the steel bulkhead. they lived in a fucking bunker. someone would yell from inside, “who is it?” vic yelled “zeek!” in the window of the first floor a couple of kids shook their heads at us. they knew what was going on. we weren’t the only ones. this place was hot. sometimes they shot at us with toy guns. it wouldn’t be long before the peurto ricans were raided by real guns. meanwhile, vic and i were standing in the snow, breathing clouds, waiting and waiting for our woman. he leaned over and banged on the bulkhead again. a few minutes and there was the sound of the thing being unlocked and it was pushed open and angelina was there, telling us to “shut the fuck up.” angelina was the matron of the bunker and she was in command of the heroin, which she dispensed much more quickly than she answered her bulkhead. angelina was small, in her 40’s, and had graduated from kennedy plaza long ago. she lived with her man and another girl in her 20’s in this dark unfinished basement clogged with furniture and divided by curtains. the floor was concrete, the ceiling exposed beams. they had a tv and a couch to the right, a dining room table straight ahead, where she let us shoot up, and a bedroom to the left, blocked off by a curtain. she kept the dope in there and we were never welcomed in there. down a narrow hall to the left was a makeshift bathroom with a bucket of water and no running water in the sink. the toilet was as clogged as our american dreams. angelina asked us what we wanted and took $50. this time we brought the dope into the bathroom and used the top of the sink. we had brought our own water. we decided to split a bag to start because angelina’s dope had killed sandra a week ago and put vic in the hospital. vic said the dope looked like the same dope. the shit hit harder than anything i’d had all year in any amount. by the time i was out to the dining room table to retrieve my coat, i didn’t know if i was walking straight. we split out the bulkhead and walked for the bus, bright and stupefied. it’s good, it’s good. we drank a couple beers at the bus stop and scratched. on the bus back to newport we agreed we would save the other bag for tomorrow because we were so fucking high it’d be a waste to shoot it. i nodded for most of the hour home. back at the hotel, we stopped by john’s for a quick visit. john later said we were aglow, and he, on methadone, was jealous. we split john’s place, each for our own rooms. i told vic i’d be right over. i dropped my coat and backpack off at my place and headed to vic’s. as i came into his room, he said, “i just did half a shot. yours is on the table.” i eyed the amber barrel and thought, “no fucking way. i’m so high already. why did he do that?” i sat down to roll a cigarette. before i opened the can of tobacco, vic fell over and the blood was sucked out of him and he was gone. before cops and paramedics arrived, john cleaned out vic’s room. while police shredded me with questions, john shot my heroin – to no effect.
i’m busting out the window to restore the peace. i’m busting out the window to restore my circulation. i’m busting out the window to let you know. warned enough. if my efforts are a headache, i’m going for blood . . vic pulled a gun on a cop. he went to prison. vic and i were fucking the same girl. we each knew there was someone else, but we didn’t know whom until she insisted on introducing us. vic and i talked so long about painting, barbara fell asleep. we became friends and drinking buddies and barbara became a hooker. but vic represented an extreme i did not believe in – time wasted in prison and rehab and on life-support, 3,000 used rigs in his bathroom like trophies or mementos. but we were able to hustle more cash together. when you are a junkie you mostly encounter assholes, some bright, most whining and self-centered, who are such greedy and resourceful machines they could have their own private jets. vic was a writer and painter, educated and older than me. he had worked as an archaeologist until some doctors and lawyers and a judge said he was insane. once insane, he was no longer qualified to dig holes into the earth . . the rush is a quickie: it has its stunning place at the front. but i dig the hours of low sound waves and curtained light: i like being a root. you are almost not alive and you can watch. if you push it, this death turns to dying, which puts you in bed for the worst three days of your life. if you push it further, dying turns back to dead, but this dead looks like gray meat on the slab . . rehab egoists profit off the predicament, as do badges, doctors, handcuff-makers, judges, and coroners, glad to tell you your lover had symmetrical breasts and chipped nail polish . . at the peurto ricans’, we went around back. the routine was you banged on the steel bulkhead. they lived in a fucking bunker. someone would yell from inside, “who is it?” vic yelled “zeek!” in the window of the first floor a couple of kids shook their heads at us. they knew what was going on. we weren’t the only ones. this place was hot. sometimes they shot at us with toy guns. it wouldn’t be long before the peurto ricans were raided by real guns. meanwhile, vic and i were standing in the snow, breathing clouds, waiting and waiting for our woman. he leaned over and banged on the bulkhead again. a few minutes and there was the sound of the thing being unlocked and it was pushed open and angelina was there, telling us to “shut the fuck up.” angelina was the matron of the bunker and she was in command of the heroin, which she dispensed much more quickly than she answered her bulkhead. angelina was small, in her 40’s, and had graduated from kennedy plaza long ago. she lived with her man and another girl in her 20’s in this dark unfinished basement clogged with furniture and divided by curtains. the floor was concrete, the ceiling exposed beams. they had a tv and a couch to the right, a dining room table straight ahead, where she let us shoot up, and a bedroom to the left, blocked off by a curtain. she kept the dope in there and we were never welcomed in there. down a narrow hall to the left was a makeshift bathroom with a bucket of water and no running water in the sink. the toilet was as clogged as our american dreams. angelina asked us what we wanted and took $50. this time we brought the dope into the bathroom and used the top of the sink. we had brought our own water. we decided to split a bag to start because angelina’s dope had killed sandra a week ago and put vic in the hospital. vic said the dope looked like the same dope. the shit hit harder than anything i’d had all year in any amount. by the time i was out to the dining room table to retrieve my coat, i didn’t know if i was walking straight. we split out the bulkhead and walked for the bus, bright and stupefied. it’s good, it’s good. we drank a couple beers at the bus stop and scratched. on the bus back to newport we agreed we would save the other bag for tomorrow because we were so fucking high it’d be a waste to shoot it. i nodded for most of the hour home. back at the hotel, we stopped by john’s for a quick visit. john later said we were aglow, and he, on methadone, was jealous. we split john’s place, each for our own rooms. i told vic i’d be right over. i dropped my coat and backpack off at my place and headed to vic’s. as i came into his room, he said, “i just did half a shot. yours is on the table.” i eyed the amber barrel and thought, “no fucking way. i’m so high already. why did he do that?” i sat down to roll a cigarette. before i opened the can of tobacco, vic fell over and the blood was sucked out of him and he was gone. before cops and paramedics arrived, john cleaned out vic’s room. while police shredded me with questions, john shot my heroin – to no effect.
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