A Meth Induced Psychotic Break is Such a Buzzkill

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 3 Part 3

Warning: Graphic descriptions of drug use and sexual situations.

Randy and I rode in the back of a black-car service cab hurtling down the West Side Highway.

Old leather, cigar smoke, and the overpowering tang of an evergreen air freshener masked any number of other aromas that linger in New York City cabs.

Wind rushing in through the open window hissed off my skin like water hitting a hot pan. I was slowly kneading my own thigh, amazed by how even that little movement felt so good.

I looked over at Randy. He was wearing a yellow and white striped tank top and light blue shorts. His thighs and calves had a thickness about them common with dancers, meaty and lean. I wanted to feel those thighs. I wanted to dive face first into his lap and run my tongue up the inside of his thigh feeling the brush of his red-blond leg hair on my face.

“Randy?” I was trying to keep my voice casual, trying to keep the lid on. “What does PNP stand for?”

“No,” he said quickly, nodding toward the driver. “When we get out.”

On the sidewalk as the cab pulled away, I looked at Randy as if I had just asked the question.

“What? Oh. Really? You’re serious? You don’t know what PNP means?”

I shook my head.

“It means… You can’t be serious. It means Party and Play.” He said this matter of factly, as if I had to understand. Seeing I was still not getting it, though honestly that was just my face in that moment, he said, “Getting high and fucking?”

“Oh.” I saw the NBC “The More You Know” star in my head.

Then why the hell haven’t we fucked yet?

We bounced around Manhattan like pinballs. Apparently, a couple of errands meant ten or fifteen stops. I absolutely did not like being out in public high, but as the pinball game dragged on, it became easier.

Along the way we picked up a friend of Randy’s, a heavier flamboyant Black man named Landon, with shoulder-length straightened hair and a loud “I’m fabulous, don’t fuck with me” personality. As we finally arrived back at Matthew’s in the early evening, Landon was going on about how “circumcision is mutilation.” All I could think — aside from wanting to re-up the high — was “He must really like foreskin.”

As night fell, the pipe was passed around and we all smoked our cigarettes while Matthew, Phil, Randy and Landon dissolved into more conversation.

“What I’m saying is that the doctor who performs the circumcision should be charged with assault.”

Unlike the previous night, I wasn’t able to contribute to the conversation. With each successive hit, my rolling, pulsing desire to fuck increased, but my ability to speak decreased. Words were no longer piling on top of each other all wanting to be heard at once. There were no words at all, like my thoughts were stuck on a subway train between stations. So I smoked my cigarettes, took a hit when the pipe was passed, and sat there trying to keep the lid on.

“How do you clean the burnt stuff out?” Phil asked. The pipe bulb was coated on the inside with spots of residue like burnt sugar.

“That’s why you have to roll it, like I told you,” Randy said, implying for the millionth time. “If you don’t roll it, it burns and you’ve basically wasted it. Go set the pipe over the flame on the stove. That will burn all that stuff off, but be careful. It makes the glass really weak.”

The More You Know.

A few minutes later, while everyone but me kept talking and talking, the sound of glass breaking followed by “Shit!” brought the conversation to a complete halt.

“Damn it, Phil!” Randy stormed out of the room into the kitchen where a heated discussion ensued. Matthew didn’t seem too bummed as he preferred to snort. “Well, I’m going to take a shower,” he said, scooting off his bed and disappearing into the bathroom.

I looked at Landon. “Does that mean we can’t smoke anymore?” This might have been the second or third thing I said all night.

“No, baby, there are other ways.” While Matthew showered and Randy dealt with clumsy Phil, Landon left and soon returned with a sheet of tin foil. He folded it over several times forming a V-shaped trough. Scooping a little bit of the Tina into one side, he heated it from underneath, careful not to burn the foil, holding the trough at a slant. The Tina melted, ran down the trough, and began to smoke, which he caught by inhaling through a straw held in his teeth. When he had inhaled enough, he leaned over and shotgunned me.

“This is also how some people smoke heroin. They call it Chasing the Dragon.” He handed me the straw then heated the tinfoil again. I caught as much of the rising smoke as I could and returned the shotgun. I handed the straw back to him and we repeated the process a few more times.

Tremendously high and desperate to throw the lid off, two straight days of waiting finally seemed to tip in my favor.

“Come on,” Randy said. “Let’s head over to my place. My mother’s working the night shift so we’ll have the rest of the evening to ourselves.”

Randy lived only a short distance from Matthew, so we were soon in his motherless apartment. His bedroom was small. With a dresser, bookshelves, and plastic storage cubes sold at Target or Kmart, it was only slightly bigger than Jerry’s had been, with just enough space to stand between the bed and the wall. His bed lay flat on his carpeted floor without box spring or frame, covered with a plush gray comforter he pulled off so it wouldn't get soiled by the fucking that was finally about to happen.

After taking a few more full hits from an unbroken pipe, he grabbed my shirt and pulled it over my head. The second it flicked off, I felt his mouth on mine. Our tongues met like wet magnets finally snapping together after two days of torturous pulling force.

The fresh hits filled me and astounded me. There seemed no limit to the intensity. The currents of heat running through me seemed to be made of both water and light. I fell back, feeling his weight, his heat, his sweat on top of me. I inhaled the scent of his hot skin. I felt the burn of his stubble, the pull of his mouth on my neck, my chest. Feeling his teeth bite, I gasped and grabbed the back of his head, holding him there, wanting more, feeding off him as he fed off me. His hand kneaded my cock, went further, explored. “Fuck,” was all I could say.

He flipped me over, holding me down. I was his, in his control. I felt him on top of me, preparing me, inside me.

“Fuck!”

This was all. This was everything. This was all I was meant to be doing…

A sound, a small thump.

I froze. Tense. Still.

Another sound, from the hallway.

“What was that?” I whispered.

“What?” He looked around, he hadn’t heard. “Nothing. Probably just my cat.”

His thrust brought me back to the moment.

Overwhelmed with pleasure, heat, flesh, I threw my face down and moaned into his mattress, feeling him inside me, on top of me…

A floorboard creaked.

I froze again. “Stop,” I said. “Don’t move for a second… listen.”

What was that?

“Are you ok?”

“What? Oh…yeah. Sorry…Fuck, yes….Wait!”

I know I heard something.

Why can’t he hear it?

What was that?

Why can’t he hear that?

Why can’t he…

Why can’t this guy…

Why…

This guy…

Who…

Who is…

Who is this guy?

Another sound.

What was that?

“What was that? What was…” that.

What’s his…name…who is this guy?

His…

His bookshelf.

There are…

There are little men.

There are little men on his bookshelf

“There are…” little men on your bookshelf.

Why can’t he see them?

They’re right there.

What are they doing?

They’re planting something?

Planting…bombs?

Bombs?!

Why can’t he see them?

Why can’t he see the little men planting bombs on his bookshelf?

Who is he?

Who are they?

Why are they planting bombs?

Five…

Oh God.

Four…

I have to tell him.

Three

Why can’t I talk?

Two…

Oh God!

One…

I screamed.

Nothing…nothing happened.

Oh.

I guess I was wrong

What’s going on?

I just want to lay here.

“…talk.”

What? Talk?

“…John…talk to me.”

Why are you telling me to talk?

I don’t want to talk?

“…breathe!”

Breathe?

I know how to fucking breathe.

I am breathing.

Aren’t I?

“…need you to start talking.”

Who is this guy?

Why is he yelling at me?

What is going on?

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!

I cried.

I guess…

I guess the cops are coming.

I guess the cops are coming to pick me up.

“When are the cops getting here?”

Well, best be calm, can’t change anything now.

He’s talking.

He’s trying to tell me something.

“…home.”

What?

“What?”

“…home…have to go…cab…mother can’t see you…psych ward.”

What?

“What?”

Your mother?

What about the cops?

“What about the cops?”

“…putting you in a cab…going home…”

A cab?

Outside

“You want me to…” get in the cab?

Where do I live?

What’s he doing?

Telling the cab driver where I live?

And paying for it too?

Well, that’s nice of him.

I wonder if the cops will be there.

Here we are.

“Right here is fine…Thank,” you.

No cops.

Guess not.

My apartment.

Can’t believe it’s so late in the morning.

I wonder when the cops will get here.

I’ll just lay here on the couch till they get here.

Lord, they are taking a while

I slept.

I woke up.

I wonder how Randy is doing.

Wait a minute.

“Wait a minute.”

I’m home.

“How did I get home?”

In…a cab…that Randy put me in.

What happened?

Did I….?

“Son of a bitch!”

The fragments of what I could remember seemed completely implausible and yet I knew they had happened. It was like my mind fell asleep and began to have fucked up dreams while my body remained awake and physically reacted to them.

I called Randy. “Hi…uh…what happened?”

As he filled in the details about my psychotic episode — “You asked if the Starship Enterprise was real.” — I sunk deeper and deeper into embarrassment.

Which is why I was relieved when, to my surprise, I received another invitation to hang out at Matthew’s a couple days later.

I’d just have to make sure not to go so long without sleep. Aside from being embarrassed, it seemed like such a waste of Tina.

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