Liquid Lunches – A SHORT STORY

I like to call myself a functioning addict or a responsible junky – an oxymoron if I have ever heard one. You ask what makes me so different or special from other junkies or addicts? Well, nothing really except the amount of work involved. It is much harder to be a functioning addict. You are forced to live two very separate and distinct lives. Your public face is the only face that anyone is allowed to see. no one can be allowed entry into your private world. This you keep very well hidden from view.

No one can know that your half hour lunch is not sitting down at the nearest coffee shop consuming today’s special washed down with a couple of cups of coffee. No, instead you have quickly headed over to the local public library and have locked yourself in one of their bathroom stalls. Once you are safely behind its closed door, you carefully remove a brown eyeglasses case from your purse only you don’t have a spare pair of glasses in it. You place a strip of toilet paper across the back of the toilet bowel and gently place a spoon on it.

You grab one white pill out of your baggy and place it in the centre of the spoon. With the end of your lighter, you carefully crush it until it is a fine white powder. Next you rip the packaging off of a new syringe and open your small bottle of sterile water, placing the tip of the syringe in it to draw up 50 units. Carefully you fill the spoon with water.

Lifting the spoon up into the air, you flick your lighter and aim the flame so that it is centered beneath the spoon. The water starts to bubble and the fine powder dissolves. Breaking some cotton off the end of one of the many q-tips you have, you drop it dead centre into the warm liquid. Quickly you suck the liquid out of the spoon into the syringe. Sit back for a second to breathe a sigh of relief. No clumsy accidents. So far, so good. Taking some more toilet paper, you wipe your spoon clean before returning it to its case. You make sure that your small bottle is properly capped and your baggy zipped up tightly. You crumple the syringe’s wrapper up tightly and place it in the case also. You will have to dispose of it later.

Enough time should have passed so that the liquid had cooled. You perch your rear at the edge of the toilet seat making sure your feet are square to the ground. Taking a look at both arms you decide which one to go for this time. The left looks as if it will yield the best results. You tap your forearm a few times and flex your hands. Carefully you remove the cap from your syringe. Taking a deep breath you stick the needle into your skin gently pulling the plunger back a fraction. A rich red floods the barrel. Bulls eye. With as steady a hand possible and a silent plea for them to remain that way, you depress the plunger at a uniform rate until all of the liquid has disappeared.

Bliss. Now not too quickly, you remove the point from your skin, firmly pressing some tissue over the bloody hole. Once the bleeding has stopped, you qrab the point of the needle with your bloodied tissue and twist it until it snaps off. Throwing both into the toilet, you flush them down the drain. You recap your now empty syringe and return it to its place in the eyeglass case. Wrap two elastics around the case and return it to your purse. You certainly can not be too careful. You want no rude surprises should you ever drop purse with contents spilling everywhere. Too big a risk to take for the functioning addict.

You gather your stuff and exit the stall, stopping to wash and dry your hands. Look for your comb to run through your hair. As everything went smoothly, you still have time to freshen your makeup. Touch of lipstick and a brush of powder and you are good to go. With one final glance back at the mirror, you open the bathroom door refreshed and satisfied by your half hour lunch break.

Black Dog On My Shoulder – a short story

OK, lying in bed watching the second hand slowly tick by. Come on, come on you think. Almost eight in the morning. Banks will be open soon and that cheque that has been on hold for the last week should now have cleared. About bloody time. You are not even sure how you have managed to make it through these past two days.

Throwing the covers back you put two unsteady feet onto the floor. Your muscles tighten then twitch. You are now dancing on your toes into the bathroom. Looking in the mirror you shudder. Last night’s makeup is now streaked across your face. It takes ever effort to run the water. You make a feeble attempt to make yourself more presentable but who are you really fooling? Do you honestly care? No, you just need to get to the bank. Look down to see what you are wearing. OK, your shirt has definitely seen better days but the slightly ripped cutoffs will do. A bra wouldn’t hurt but that just sounds like too much work and you have places to go. Now.

OK, where did you put the keys yesterday before you fell into that restless sleep willing the next day to arrive quickly? Think. Think. You were angry and sore and feeling tremendously sorry for yourself that you put them…?? Right, tossed them at the old man who now is sleeping deeply and not worth the trouble of waking up because he certainly won’t be of any help and this would not be the best time to argue. You can easily tell by glancing around the bedroom that it has been a couple of days without. The laundry that you frantically started the last time you were feeling normal has not been put away. Instead all of the hours spent sorting, folding, piling have been for naught. Soon to be dirty laundry again is strewn from the en suite bathroom door out into the hall. Stumbling across it, you shake pieces to see if your keys will suddenly free themselves. Hah! There they are. You scoop them up in your hand, tripping head first out your bedroom door.

You pull your aching body into your vehicle. Before you even have the keys in the ignition, you are throwing your car into forward and screaming down the now busy street. The morning rush hour is upon you and your frustration starts to build. Don’t even have a smoke to drag on. Broke, remember? Quickly, quickly, get to the bank before the lineup becomes unbearable. As you reach the top of the incline, you can see the green and white sign to the left indicating the bank’s parking lot. Flipping your turn signal so it flashes left you manoeuvre your car into the left hand turning lane and quickly scream into the parking lot narrowly avoiding the oncoming cars. Barely stopping to shove the car in park and remove the keys from the ignition, you are bounding up the steps two at a time.

Struggling to open the heavy bank door, you slide on through and immediately take your place at the end of the line. Tap, tap, tap your foot goes. You can barely contain your legs from shaking so you try to distract by withdrawing your wallet from your purse, aimless flipping through it looking for your bank card. Finally it is your turn and you thrust your card into the face of the smiling teller. You mumble the amount that you want to withdraw and silently keep counting to ten in your mind so that you don’t end up losing what precious little sanity you have left.

“Anything else that we can do for you today, Ms S?” the teller asks in a grating voice. You look at her and silently shake your head not trusting your own voice. You practically snatch the stack of $20 bills from her hand and shove it carelessly into your purse. Throwing it over your shoulder you rush out the glass doors jumping once again into your vehicle. Halfway there. Mission almost complete. Another twenty minutes of this annoying traffic and you will be in a much calmer, peaceful space.

You push down on your accelerator risking the chance of being stopped for speeding. Willing to take this chance today so tired and sore your body. Finally you are in front of your dealer’s house. You park your vehicle and bound up her front steps, knocking loudly on her door. Usually asleep at this time, she absolutely promised that she would make an exception and wake up for today’s visit. No answer. Frantic you knock a little louder and a little louder again until you finally hear her dog barking. You hear some shuffling behind the door and the sequential unlocking of enough locks to protect Fort Knox. She waves me in. I quickly close the door behind me, locking all the locks abruptly. I stagger up the stairs behind her tossing a pile of twenty dollar bills on her bed in front of her. She counts them, puts them in her wallet and then counts out the required amount, dropping each pill carefully into a small, clear baggy.

I pocket them and casually look around her room. I know that she hates anyone to do anything at her place but decide that I can’t wait so I mumble something about having to go to the bathroom before I head out promising that it is only the toilet that I need and nothing else. I race down the stairs and lock the bathroom door behind me, frantically searching through my purse for everything that I need. Quickly crush my pills in the spoon that I have laid on the back of her toilet, draw up sufficient amount of water through my syringe and fire it into the center of my spoon. I search through all of my pockets until my lighter is located and then quickly set fire to the underneath of the spoon. Just as the liquid comes to a boil, I remove the flame from the spoon. Stirring the now dissolved mixture, I then proceed to drop a filter into its center and quickly suck up all of the dope until the filter squeeks that there is no more left.

I sit down on the edge of the bathtub and lightly tab my forearm looking for that sweet spot. Located. With as steady a hand as I can muster, I line the syringe up with my arm and gently jab it into my skin. Drawing back on the plunger, I see the barrel fill with crimson colour. With measured speed, I depress the plunger until there is nothing left in the syringe and gently remove it from underneath my skin. A small drop of blood forms as I drop my head forward, sighing. My breathing slows to barely a whisper. Raising my head, I inhale deeply while at the same time thowing everything into the top of my purse. I run my arm under water, flush the toilet and quickly exit the bathroom happy now that the last three days are all but a faint memory.