Destroyer

I picked up my first cigarette when I was thirteen. Even though I had seen what it could do to you, like give you lung cancer and all that stuff, I knew I wouldn’t get addicted, not after the third or fourth, or the fifty-fourth, or the hundred-fourteenth time I tried. Nothing would happen to me at all. I could have stopped any time I wanted to.

When I was fifteen, I tried my first joint. Then, instead of cigarettes, I smoked those instead. I dropped out of school when I was sixteen. My parents kicked me out when they found out and from then on, I lived with my boyfriend, who was twenty years old.

When the cops found us one day, only a few months later, he was thrown in jail for ‘raping’ and having sexual relations with a minor. The cops returned me to my parents, they all talked it out, and I stayed there until they got me a small apartment on the other side of town. They bought me a crappy car and the court deemed me as an emancipated minor. My parents gave me about seven hundred dollars a month to pay the bills, buy food, and buy the necessities. Instead, I used half of the money for food to buy pills. They found out a few months later, I still don’t know how, and the day I turned eighteen, they stopped giving me money for anything.

I got a job, lost the apartment, and lived with my boyfriend for a few months until we broke up. I had to beg him to let me stay until I had enough money to rent a room. My excessive drug use, though, got me thrown out after six months. I began working two jobs, lived with my new boyfriend, and eventually earned enough to rent an apartment in the worst side of town before he broke up with me.

By then, I was twenty years old. I surely looked like a drug addict but for the most part, when I was working, I did my best to look clean. At least, clean enough for them not to fire me.
I couldn’t stop, though. I didn’t want to. I liked the feeling. I didn’t care what happened to me because my life was fucked up as it was without the absence of a little carelessness. I tried a lot of drugs, but they all eventually didn’t work for me anymore. I moved onto harder drugs. When those weren’t enough, I got deeper and deeper. I began mixing things. It was dangerous, but totally worth it.

My neighbor, who was even worse off than I was, told me about the black market. He told me where it was and taught me everything there was to know.

It was a dirty business. In my twenty-odd years, I’d never seen anything like it. There was an entire underground operation just beneath our feet, or rather seven blocks away. Sure, the streets of New York had seen its fair share of criminals and drug dealers, but there wasn’t anything like this.

This was a potential death trap. One way or another, you ended up gone, whether you overdosed, or disappeared within the society of addicts and dealers, or withered away from depression after all the destructive paths your veins took. The lucky ones got a single bullet to the back of the head.

Once you got in, you never got out. It became a way of life. There were some dominated by it, and there were other who dominated. You got used to the flow of things and you knew who not to mess with, who to look out for, and who to sell to and buy from.

It was rather silent process. No one looked you in the eye. No one asked questions. Asking questions was an open invitation for either a beating or for anyone to get to know you, get to know where you’ve been. So you didn’t ask. It was simple. Everyone had their secrets.
My life wasn’t exactly a secret. If people ever asked, which was rare, I’d shrug and say something that resembled the truth. I’d pay for the drugs and before they bullied some answers out of me I’d escape and go home.

Home. I could hardly call it a home. I lived alone in a rundown, moldy apartment on the fifth floor of a building graffitied to look like it was abandoned. I had to sleep with the manager, though. It didn’t really matter. I’d had sex with tons of other guys so it didn’t matter if he was twenty-five years older than I was.

I tried to make my living selling and buying drugs, but I mostly got around by playing poker once a week and making bets. Sometimes, to get what I wanted when I didn’t have enough money, I’d have to sleep around. It got me by, but just barely. I’d sometimes go a day or two without food to be able to buy drugs or pay the rent, or I’d just stay high or sleep. I’d lost a lot of weight, but I was okay with it. Better my weight than my life. It wasn’t a great lifestyle, but it was how I survived. There was no way I could turn my back on it. Not now, not when I’d gotten so far, so deep.

I didn’t have extra money. I couldn’t buy myself a new pair of shoes, even if I really needed to. On top of that, I owed two drug dealers money. It wasn’t a game to gamble with someone else’s money, especially not on these streets. Everyone was in it to play and you didn’t cheat in this game. If you did, you were disqualified. For good. You could only hope you’d go the lucky way out.

I had about three weeks to earn $5000. There was no way it could work if I didn’t make sacrifices. Maybe I’d get out of paying rent if I slept with my manager again, and I’d get a little more money at work if I did my boss a favour. I’d have to eat less, make do with the drugs I had. Maybe I’d earn enough to stall my dealers. Just for a few more weeks.

But I couldn’t stop buying or using. Abusing. It was the high that kept me going, just like any other one of us would say. The first time you try it, you get so high, but then when you get back down, you’re lower than where you started. And then you try again and again, but each time, you’re not as high and you sink back lower. You try again and again but it never works as well. Then you have to try something new.

After a while, all you want to do is just get where you were before you tried the drugs. Sometimes you got a little higher and you tried again and again trying to get to that point again.

I had tried a lot of things. I didn’t know some of the things I’d tried. I mixed things together, nearly died, but it almost got me there. I had to try again, but I couldn’t get my hands on it. The dealer I knew had gotten arrested and I didn’t have any connections.

It was dangerous. If you got caught, you weren’t heard from again. Everyone knows prison’s not a pretty place.

I didn’t like thinking about it. I hardly did, but when I was incredibly hung over and lacking my stash, I couldn’t help but let my mind wander.

It was usually on Wednesdays when I thought about it. I was always so fucking hung-over from the poker game I’d played the night before. Afterwards I’d go out with a couple of girls I knew and we’d play games and get high. It was fun, even though I didn’t know half the things I was doing.

Before poker started, I usually hung out at my neighbor’s place. He usually gave me some extra pills to get me excited and pumped up enough to play. Jasey always told me couldn’t refuse a fellow addict a fair share.

I didn’t know Jasey’s real name. He never told me, just said to call him Jasey. I didn’t really care, though. It seemed as if his name was the one thing I didn’t know about him. As far as I knew, he was worse off than I was.

“I’m thinking of quitting.”

“Quitting what?” I popped the pills in my mouth and took a sip of a beer.

“Ah, the whole thing. I’m tired of feeling down after every high, you know?”

I almost choked on my alcohol. I cleared my mouth before looking at him with wide eyes.

“Are you serious? How can you even think about that? I haven’t thought once about quitting. At least not for real.”

“I’ve been doing it for so long—”

“Exactly! I just can’t – Are you sure you’re not high?”

“Lauren, don’t be stupid. You know when I’m high. I feel like shit right now so don’t even start.”

I chugged my beer before tossing it in a pile of empty bottles in the corner. Jasey stared at them for a minute as I stared at him.

Jasey was in his forties. He had laugh lines around his mouth and crows’ feet. His dark brown hair wasn’t slicked back today, but instead lay in a messy tuft of hair on his head.

He didn’t look old, not as first glance, but when you really looked at him, looked in his eyes, you could see the stories. You saw the years he’s lived. You could see the pain in them from the time he saw his friend die from an overdose. From when his mom became a drug addict and neglected him. From the time he saw his best friend die in a hit and run. When he had to go to the ER and almost died from an accidental overdose. When he lived on the streets for almost two years. From when his wife left him and took his kid. From the time his very own son disowned him as a father.

It was hard to look at him when he was talking about his life. There was just so much pain when he spoke. He tried to smile to make me feel better but it never did work. I just had to do my best to keep myself from crying, save it for later, when I was alone again.

I always believed that Jasey must have had really bright blue eyes when he was really young. When I looked at them now, I’d see that there was a fading light in them. They weren’t happy. I’d never seen him happy, maybe satisfied, but never happy.

Today, Jasey didn’t talk about his past life, not really. He talked about how he wanted to go to rehab and become sober, how we wanted to see his wife and kid again and maybe they’ll accept him again. Maybe she’ll love him again, like she used to. I saw the hope in his face.

In a selfish way, I didn’t want him to get sober. I didn’t want him to leave me alone. He was one of my best friends. I could talk to him for hours and get high with him. I could cry in front of him—not that I did that often—and not be embarrassed. I could ask him for advice. I trusted him with my life.

I did want him to get better, though, and have his own family without having it fall to shit. I wanted him to happy because he’d made me happy for being my friend. I wanted to see him smile again. The only smiles I’d seen in months were his sad ones, the ones where he’s remembering his old days, when everything was okay enough.

We talked for a little while until I had to go. I didn’t want to be late for poker and I definitely didn’t want him to see me cry.

~

“I win again, boys. And Lauren.”

I cursed in my head, but kept my poker face. I nodded to myself, swallowed the lump in my throat, and left the house.

It was 4am and I had just lost seven hundred fucking dollars. I knew I was an idiot to gamble that much away, but I was feeling cocky.

I definitely couldn’t pay the rent now.

I felt like a fuck up. Not that I had never felt like the biggest idiot in the world, and I wasn’t just realizing how much shit I was in, but I felt like such a screw up that I couldn’t fathom what I was going to do next.

I couldn’t think. I didn’t even realize that I was crying. The wind whipped at my face and the salt water running down my face did not make me any feel any warmer, or better. I felt like so much shit. I was so worthless. How the fuck did I even get this far into this shit hole? How was I going to get out of this?

I couldn’t even scrape $1500 by next week. I couldn't pay them in less than two weeks, not when I had to buy food and pay the rent. Not a chance, unless I sold everything I could sell, but there wasn’t I way I could do that.

I felt like screaming. I wanted to jump off the bridge I was walking on but I couldn’t bring myself to, so I just gripped the railing as tight as I could and wished I would just freeze on the spot. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the water. I watched my tears fall into the rushing water below before I buried my face into my hands. After a while, I felt too weak to stand. I sank to the ground and hit my forehead against my knees.

I was pathetic. I was an idiot. I was worthless and stupid and useless. I was a waste of space. I didn’t deserve to live at all. I didn’t know how I could wake up and look at myself in the mirror.

I didn’t want to think anymore. Once I could breathe properly, I stood up and walked home. I didn’t know if I was breathing. It didn’t feel like I was.

I got to the shitty apartment I call home and found my stash immediately. I found my needle and the heroin. At the familiar spot in my arm, I felt the rush being injected into my veins. I took a deep breath and waited a few minutes.

It wasn’t enough. I needed more. I needed something different.

I got out everything I had. I took a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

In my hand, I held a pile of pills. At this point I did not have a care if I overdosed at all. No one would miss me. Maybe Jasey, but he was leaving anyway.

I took the pills and shot more heroin. Pretty soon I couldn’t see anything at all. Everything was doubled and my tears clouded my vision. I couldn’t even get up, let alone roll over. The only thing I could do was hold onto that needle and push my thumb down.

I needed help, I knew I did, but once that rush hit my blood, there was no way I could stop.

And there was no way in hell that I wanted to.