During the weeks I was there, I found it increasingly difficult to get to my supplier. I begged him to move closer to the house, but he refused. He wanted to be on time for his appointments and the house was too far out of his way. But still, I begged, and eventually he moved a block closer.
Around this time, I was up to 3 hits a day, and my money was running dry. Thankfully someone was using my account to pay off my charge cards, but soon that would stop too. Everyday I was wasting about two hundred dollars in cash on heroin and my dosage and the strength of the drug was increasing bit by bit. I felt terrible every time I shot up, but after I begged for more. I would crawl to the ends of the earth for another dose.
My arm was a disaster. Still lined with scars from my previous battle, it was now becoming infected from the needle I was using. It itched like hell, but there was nothing I could do. I tried forcing myself not to scratch it, but like my addiction, I just couldn’t help it.
I realized that part of the reason behind the infection was that I wasn’t sure if the needle I was using was really mine. In the house, there were needles basically lining the floor. Sometimes when I rolled over, I could feel one penetrate my skin, but I did nothing about it. There was nothing I could do. I was one of the culprits for the littering as well. During my high, I often dropped my needle to the floor and by the time the high was over, I didn’t know which was which. So when I rolled over, I prayed that the one I rolled on was mine.
Winter came so suddenly. I hadn’t realized the changes in the weather, because the only time I went outside was to get my heroin. Our bathing place had to change as well. We used the back entrance of the local pool, a farther and more risky distance than our lake.
The sheer thought of bathing in a pool full of chlorine, debris and small children wearing diapers made me sick to my stomach. I knew that I was twice as dirty as the pool itself, but my star-style life shone through at the worst moments.
Before I could think of the consequences of bathing in this pool, I was rudely tossed in. I ended up with a mouthful of water and two sore knees. They had thrown me in at the shallow end of the pool, because we were all in such a hurry. Breaking and entering was a felony; I knew that for sure.
We left as suddenly as we had come, leaving behind only a few suds and a trail of wet footprints. I had wanted to dry off, but there was no time. As soon as I hit the cold air outside, I became ill. This was a fault due to my weakened immune system. I knew that I was running out of time, but I couldn’t bring myself to go home, not after I’d made myself all things I hated in a person.
The druggies took care of my fever the only way they knew how. By ignoring me. They felt badly enough for me to get my dosage of heroin, because that was the only thing that we had in common. Sometime in their lives they had a shortage of heroin and they could sympathize with me. I was thankful despite myself. It took away my pain and fever and soon I fell into a dreamless sleep.
When I woke up, all I felt was cold. Cold all over me. Cold drenching the air. Cold bathing in my sweat. And God, did I feel terrible. I remember my first thought was that it doesn’t get this cold in LA. My second thought was: “Why are the druggies still here?” Then I got into thinking that I should give them a proper name, but I never got down to that.
As I struggled to get up, a druggie was kind enough to fill me in. “It’s that damn La Nina, it’s actually snowing in LA, can you believe it? But now we have no food, and worst of all, no drugs! Our suppliers refuse to come out in the snow! This sucks some serious shit….”
I flopped back down onto the pillow. Snow. I hadn’t really seen snow since my childhood. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the strength to get up and look, but I could imagine. Overall, I was quite impressed that the druggies knew their air currents. At the time I didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. I hadn’t watched TV for months.
Another druggie approached. “Hey man, we were getting kinda worried that you wouldn’t wake up. You were asleep for three days ya know. We tried to feed you, but you just wouldn’t swallow the shit. Nobody’s going out into that bloody cold to bury you, ya know.” I rolled my eyes behind my eyelids. Sometimes these guys were so dumb it made me sick, possibly the outcome of many years worth of drug abuse. I prayed I would die before I ended up like them.
After the third day, I was desperate for a hit. I had actually gotten to my feet, even so I had not eaten in six days and I was actually bouncing off the walls for the first time in almost a year. Mind you, I was in terrible pain, but my subconscious pushed this beside with thoughts of relief.
The druggies were becoming impatient with me. “It’s either go in or stay out!” they said. Eventually they ended up just throwing me outside. Since I had nothing in my mind but heroin (that would be quite literally if I could find my supplier) and charged off to find the drug kid.
On my way, I passed the same TV store that had delivered the bad news that Louie had cashed in on me. The TVs at the window were still on full blast, so I decided to take a rest to listen. I had only gone ten meters and I was becoming increasingly tired with every footstep.
While I was watching, the TVs had nothing interesting to tell me. As I was about to leave, it starting getting interesting. I saw a picture of my mom on the TV screen and my heart shattered into a million pieces. She looked so tired and helpless that I hardly recognized her. I guess I shouldn’t have talked, but she did look totally different. She had dyed her hair, but it looked like it was unprofessionally done. Also, she wasn’t wearing any makeup. I thought it was a golden rule that women wear makeup when they’re being interviewed. None of that mattered to me though, because she was my mom. I wasn’t she if she still loved me after all I’d done to her, but she was my mom.
I fogged up the glass several times, trying to get closer to her picture. My ears were totally frozen by now, so I had to strain to hear her words. I pressed my ears to the glass and I could finally understand what she was saying.
“Nick, I know you’re still out there, please, please, you’re running out of time! You’re my son and I don’t care what’s wrong with you or what you’ve done. Please Nick, we can help you! We all miss you so very much….” The report cut off and the reporters starting interviewing people on their thoughts. “Way overdone,” was one opinion, “Nobody cares anymore, it’s old news,” was another. Also, the little snot rag said something about making too much of a deal out of it. I’d like to see her deal with something like this someday. It sure would be a hell of a lot of fun to say things like that to her.
I thought about my mom on the way to my supplier. How could I just go to her? If I called a cab and told him to drive me to my mom’s house, that would be too obvious. If I told the cab driver to drop me off a block away, I wouldn’t be able to walk that far.
Thankfully, the answer came to me. It came to me when I wasn’t paying attention. There was a large patch of black ice that I didn’t see until it was too late. I fell very hard down on my tailbone and I feared that I would not be able to get up.
When my eyes began to focus and all I felt was intense pain surging up my spine, I saw something. If I could get to it, it would be the answer to all of my problems. It was a simplistic machine, but it was capable of doing my dirty work for me so I wasn’t complaining.
Since my spine was giving me agonizing pains, I crawled towards it. I have learned to be resourceful, even if it causes a few stares in your direction. My knees were becoming sore from crawling on the hard ground and when I hit snow I breathed a sigh of relief. This sudden movement sent streams of fresh pain down my back and also caused me to lose my balance.
As I lay face first in the unclean snow, I thought about what I was going to say to my mom. “Hi, mom, I’m addicted to drugs now, that’s why I didn’t come back sooner,” or “Hey mom, I’m a chicken shit bastard.” Both of those descriptions fit me perfectly well.
I tucked my knees under my tummy and stuck my arms out in front of me. Then I slowly began to crawl again. I would know what to say to her when the time was right, I knew I would. After all, I’ve known her all of my life and she was always there for me. She was the only person, besides my dad, who really understood me.
The machine stood before me now, and I gazed up at it in awe. How could something so simple mean so much to me? It was currently occupied, but what was a couple more minutes to me then?
The man who was occupying the telephone both stepped out and purposely avoided stepping on my head – but by mere inches. I didn’t really give a damn though. All I needed now was a quarter.
I crawled inside and shut the door. For a moment I just sat there between the cigarette butt and the chewed gum and thought. I was sitting on something wet, but that was on the back of my mind.
The booth was cold, but not as cold as the outside had been. The weather was absurdly cold for LA. It was mocking me, I’m sure of it. My hands were blue and swollen from the cold. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to grab a quarter and put it in that damn slot.
Hoping that my fingers would unthaw, I waited a bit longer. I tried wriggling them, but they wouldn’t budge. Rubbing them together didn’t work either; in fact it didn’t even feel like they were touching. At one point, I rubbed them too hard and my index finger curled under and cracked. I heard the crack, so I stopped rubbing them. There was no pain, but my index finger was dangling from my hand. It looked so grotesque, all bent and discolored. I concluded that I had broken it.
I dug into my pocket with my other hand so that I would not conjure any farther injury to my fingers. Nothing, I had nothing in my pocket. How could this be? My wallet contained bills, but no change. I felt like crying, but there was something inside me keeping me together. There was one hope left.
Slowly and carefully I pulled myself to my feet. My back gave in once and threw me to the ground, but after that I was able to get up with hardly any trouble.
When I got to my feet, I stuck my middle finger clumsily into the slot that handed back spare change. A single quarter tumbled onto the floor. This was my lucky day. Also, it was my only chance to get this right.
After a lot of maneuvering, I was able to get the quarter off of the ground and into the palm of my hand. One chance, I kept repeating to myself. I stuck quarter into the slot using only my palm. It was awkward, but somehow I got it in there.
Since I didn’t think I would be able to dial the number, I called the operator instead. One thing I didn’t think about was would she believe me? Somehow I’d forgotten that I was famous or something and I didn’t think about the fact that she might not believe me.
When she answered, I panicked. It was too late to fix my mistake now, but I could always try.
“Could you please get me the Carter residence,” I asked with some difficulty. Ok, a lot of difficulty.
“Um…not unless you have the number…”she stammered. Of course I had the number. I forced myself to memorize it that faithful day many months ago. I recited it to her and she paused yet again.
“Are you…are you Nick Carter?” she gasped. She already knew, but was asking anyway.
“Please…just dial that number…” I croaked. I was losing my voice and becoming so desperate that I was on the verge of tears yet again.
“My God, it’s you! Yes, of course, right away…” When I heard the phone dialing, I almost passed out with relief. In just a few moments I would get to talk to my mother once again.
Chapter 38
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