Gay Meth Addict has a Bad Day: High and Begging For Money

Slammed a Memoir — Prologue 3

It’s still hot for September.

The sun, high enough to finish chasing away the previous evening’s cool, refracts off the countless widows of the surrounding high rises. I begin to feel like an anxious ant under a legion of magnifying glasses. The air grows thicker. The cement turns up to a light sizzle.

Though the initial euphoric wave of the slam has passed, the tweak continues full force. My body temp is still well above normal, and I break out into a fresh sheen of chemical sweat that joins the already existing secretions of both mine and Ted’s. Had I been fucking in this moment this would have been enjoyable in a sexy-dirty kind of way, but on the morning streets of Chelsea, with my shirt clinging to me, it just felt tangy and gross.

I constantly catch myself chewing on my tongue and lips, trying to stop before I chew them fat and raw. My whole body is tense, clenching, like I’m constantly bracing for impact. My jaw aches, my neck is stiff, and I’m pretty sure the pain in my lower back is my kidneys screaming for water.

I pull out my phone. The only number I have for anyone in the area is Kevin, my dealer. The number of times I’ve been to this part of the city, to several parts of the city, and the only number I could call right now is my dealer.

Of course, I have other numbers in my phone. Many, many numbers. Friends and family, people who would say, nay, sing, “If you need me, call me.”

But, no. If I called them, they would ask annoying questions like, “What were you doing down there so early in the morning?” or, “Why do you sound like that?” or perhaps, “Are you using again?”

Nope, Kevin is my only option.

Still, Kevin is good people. Yes, he is my dealer, but, at least on some level, he is also a friend.

I dial.

Just when I think it would go to voicemail, “….Hello?”

“Hey Kevin, it’s John, how ya doing?”

“…what…what do you need?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not calling about that. I’m…well…I’m actually in a bit of a jam.” As I play up my it’s the darndest thing, silly ol me tone, I start walking up 9th avenue and head toward his building on 23rd street.

“I’m in the neighborhood,” — no need to explain why — “and was about to head home when I realized I only have 50 cents on me. I was wondering,” — gee, isn’t this embarrassing — “well, would it be ok, could I bum a buck fifty from ya for the subway?”

“Um…well…no.” I stop walking. “Sorry, I can’t. I can’t have any visitors. Right now.”

“Oh,” now genuinely worried, “are you ok? Is everything…”

“I can’t,” lowering his voice, “The building,” even softer, “the building approached me. People from the building. They. And…they approached me with complaints. About traffic. To my apartment. And I…I can’t have you up. I’m sorry.”

“Well,” shit, “I don’t mean to be a pest, but could you come down…”

“No!” getting a hold of himself, “No. I’m sorry, I can’t. I actually haven’t left my apartment in a week.”

Nothing reinforces that drug fueled paranoia better than knowing people are actually watching you.

So, I cross the one name off my list and continue walking nowhere.

I travel past 23rd street, up to 28th and, for no reason, turn left, taking the long block to 10th Avenue while trying to answer the riddle of how to get 180 blocks north on 50 cents. On my left is a fenced-in AstroTurf park and soccer field — young people wearing bright solid colors, this team in green t-shirts and shorts, that team in red, a mixture of English and Spanish chirps through the air, a team or class probably from the local PS.

As I turn left down 10th Avenue, I pass normal humans making their way to work. I strongly consider asking them for help, for spare change, but I don’t.

I didn’t want to be that guy. The man or woman I’ve passed countless times in my years in New York. His needing air, her looking like she’s had better days, reaching with a hand, both a plea and apology in their voice, pained, perhaps said for the thousandth time that day, “Excuse me, could you spare…”

“Sorry,” I shrug, passing by, never breaking my stride, onward into my normal privileged day.

Taking a left and another left, appropriately walking in circles, I find myself sitting on a wooden bench in the courtyard of the Chelsea City Health Clinic on 28th and 9th, a two story, red brick building with barred windows and a courtyard whose foliage looks to be barely surviving on a city budget.

A line had formed out front: people here to get tested. Perhaps they’re fretting about a one night stand they had a few weeks ago. Perhaps they get tested regularly as part of being a responsible sexually active adult.

Perhaps a guy they were hooking up with pointed out that they have obvious physical symptoms of 2nd stage Syphilis, wrote down the address of this very clinic, before kicking them out of their apartment.

Whatever their reason, no one on that line is happy to be there. I sure as hell wasn’t a month ago.

I compulsively check my phone for the inevitable message from Richard, putting it down on the bench, while I wait for the clinic doors to open. If I remember right, they give out free 2-ride Metrocards as you check out after your appointment. While I wait, I tell the rational part of my brain to shut the fuck up, refusing to let this be some kind pathetic “after school special” epiphany.

The doors open.

As the line of anxious people file in, an aging Black security guard walks into the courtyard. His deep blue uniform was just a touch too loose, making his belt a necessity. He is followed by a bear of a man with a sandy red beard wearing a button up lime green shirt with short sleeves as well as a middle-aged wisp of a woman wearing a light blue sundress, large wireframe glasses, and thick salt and pepper hair piled up on her head. They begin to smoke and chat while sipping on their coffee from the local cart.

As they pass around a lighter, I tentatively approach them, dripping with sweat and embarrassment.

“Excuse. Excuse me?” They turn and look at me. “Um. Morning,” nervous hand wave. “Could. Can. I’m sorry,” hard breath. “Can you tell me if. If the clinic has. Happens to have those. Those prepaid Metrocards? I’m,” fuck. “See I’m…I’m broke and. I’m trying…I’m trying to get home.”

They regard me silently, and I know what I look like: high and begging for money.

Because I am high and begging for money.

I had become that guy.

I recognize in them the defensive stance adopted by most people who live in New York City, those who share the sidewalks and subways with the transient and downtrodden: that tense, neutral, often floor-ward gaze, showing neither pity nor annoyance, sometimes giving, most of the time not, perhaps wanting to be kind, but more often just trying to co-exist and get to where they are going. “Sorry,” I expect them to shrug.

Thankfully, in this moment, kindness won out.

The bear extends his hand in a simple gesture, as if to say, “Is this your card?” There in his hand is the very two ride prepaid metro card I had been dreaming of. I take it graciously and awkwardly, thanking him, and them, profusely.

A short walk later and I am riding the 1 train home. The train car air conditioning never felt so nice.

Once home, I make like I was running against the clock expecting Richard to walk through the door at any moment while still covered in another man’s sweat. A tweaker’s luck is Murphy’s Law.

I throw off my clothes and jump in the shower, finally ridding myself of every sour layer. Half dry, naked, clean and evidence free, I go to my computer and nudge my mouse. I hear the small whirr of my computer tower as my monitor blinks to life. No emails or instant messages from Richard. I might be in the clear. I pick up my pants and reach in the pocket to check my phone.

My phone.

Which was in the right pocket.

Or left?

Back pockets?

Did I take it out and set it down somewhere?

I look around, all around, on things, behind things, under things. I move things. I throw things. I look everywhere. I look in places my phone could not possibly have been, in the freezer, in the oven, cause, hey, you never fucking know.

Nothing.

I stand in the middle of my apartment, a little more in shambles for the searching.

The last time I remember having my phone?

The bench. The bench outside the clinic. The bench where I set it down.

“GOD DAMMIT!”

I sound like my dad when I curse.

I take out a cigarette. I lost a two-hundred-dollar phone, but I sure as hell didn’t lose my smokes.

I light my cigarette and plop down into my desk chair and take a long, fretful drag. I can feel the scowl on my face, my eyebrows trying to meet in the middle, my eyes wide in angry disbelief.

I lost my phone.

I lost another phone.

I lost another phone I had barely had for two weeks.

I laugh, hard, anxious, “fuck.”

I flick my cigarette into the still half-full ashtray and log into my bank account. Might as well see what’s going on there.

I stare at the answer for a good long minute.

Bing, instant message.

“Why aren’t you answering?” yelled NOWforNOW, Richard’s screen handle.

“Lost my phone,” I type.

I stare at my bank account.

“Jesus Christ, John, again?!”

Before I could type an answer, he binged again. “I can’t get ahold of Kevin but I got in touch with Mick. Gonna visit him for an hour. Be outside in 20.”

“Visit for an hour” meant he was going to buy a gram of Tina.

“Ok,” I replied, still staring at my account balance.

While I was slamming with Ted and he was whispering horrid “pozzed up” nothings in my ear, my rent check hit. Rent money provided, again, by my parents. Money that should have been in the account but had been spent long ago in predictable ways.

Now I stare at an ugly, red, four-digit number.

Though it is well into the morning and the sun is shining bright, the light is dim and muted in the apartment thanks to the covered windows preventing prying eyes and all but a few slivers of light to get through.

The unmade bed, all the furniture, even my computer with its mean red numbers, had all been purchased and left behind by my ex-boyfriend and a half dozen other roommates. There really isn’t an item in the entire apartment, save perhaps for a video game or two, that I bought with my own money. I don’t have my own money. I don't have a job, and I’m not exactly in the right headspace to be going on any interviews.

The phone I just lost to replace the phone I had lost were both paid for, along with my cell phone plan, by my parents who live thousands of miles away.

I have no way to financially contribute to the gram of Tina Richard and I are about to head down to the East Village to get and which will shortly thereafter be flowing through my veins.

The cigarettes I smoke, the food I eat the bills I pay (when I pay them), none of it is paid for with my money, with money I earn. In truth, I’ve spent a quarter century on earth and haven’t been financially independent for a single damn day of it.

Oh, yeah, and I’m a pozzed up boy.

So far, my 26th year has been fucking stellar.

On the wall of my bedroom hangs one item that’s undeniably mine: a poster from my first national tour, Crazy for You. For four months in 2001, a little over three years ago, I got paid to spend my days on a bus traveling across the country and my nights on stage playing a tap-dancing cowboy singing “Who Could Ask for Anything More!” In the frame with the poster is a large picture of the entire company gathered on the steps of an old Victorian home belonging to the family of one of our chorus women

Smiling faces in colorful shirts flanked by thick porch columns and white rose bushes. There I am, smiling, with my bushy, itchy goatee. There’s Amy, married now to Joe who she met on our next tour. They have a beautiful baby boy now. Christine and Joe, also married with a kid. Matt, our leading man, as charming and graceful as Fred Astaire and as nice a guy as you could hope for. He’s made it to Broadway. Joe too, as well as some of the others I’m sure.

On my desk is the opened envelope for a greeting card that helped me snap back to reality and remember who I am only hours ago. There was no greeting card inside it, however. Instead, there was a divider you would normally see in a greeting card store denoting a section like “Birthday” or “Graduation” or “Get Well.”

On this divider: “Thinking of You.”

The return address was a Federal prison in Virginia.

I look at the digital clock by my bed. Richard would be here in a couple minutes.

I get dressed, grab my keys and smokes, and head out toward my second slam of the day and hopefully a better fuck.

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Chapter Guide

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