Meth, Porn, and Another Elusive F*ck

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 3 Part 4

Warning: Graphic descriptions of drug use and sexual situations.

I’m standing on the deck of a ship.

The cloudless sky seems to go on forever before meeting the horizon. The sun glints off the undulating waves of deep blue. I lean over the railing to watch the ship slice through the water, watch the hull being drummed by waves and splashing them away, see the ever expanding trail of churned up water the ship leaves in its wake.

My cell phone rang.

I stand up from the railing and walk down the deck…

…and down the hall.

I blink against the sun coming…

…in from the bedroom windows. I picked up my phone, still ringing. Randy was standing in front of me.

How did he…?

My cell phone rang..

I looked at Randy. “I…I’m not on a ship, am I?”

He stared at me for a second. “Answer your phone.”

I answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

“… Yeah?”

“It’s Nick, … John? You ok?”

That’s right! My name is John. Nick is…my roommate. I’m in…Matthew’s bedroom with…Randy.

While hanging out at Matthew’s, I realized I had been up for more than 24 hours and decided to take a little disco nap so as to avoid another “is the Enterprise real” incident.

I waved a hand at Randy, gesturing I’m fine, I’m good. He gave me some side eye and continued doing whatever he was doing.

“Yeah, sorry,” I said into my phone. “What’s up?”

“My job needs me to stay over the weekend, so I won’t be around till next week. Just wanted to let you know.”

I had met Nick a couple months before my relationship with Henry ended. He loved New York City but couldn’t leave a good paying job in Omaha. So he split the difference: he worked four days a week in Omaha and flew back to NYC on the weekends.

This was a perfect situation for me as half the rent was paid and I had the apartment to myself most of the week.

Now I would have the place to myself over the weekend too!

“Hey Randy, how ’bout we switch things up and hang out at my place?

The shell shock of moving from one of the whitest states in the Union to a Dominican neighborhood in NYC had worn off.

Here in Inwood (or Washington Heights depending on who you ask), on the east side of Broadway, middle aged Dominican men would sit in the early evening around card tables clinking dominos, vigorously commenting on every play. Young men would be getting their fades touched up in brightly lit barber shops that outnumbered bodegas two to one, with baseball games playing on mounted TVs. There was always Latin music playing, as if this neighborhood, more than most, came with its own soundtrack. Occasionally the life of Nagle Avenue would pause for parades, for a Catholic Saint or the Virgin Mary carried on a bier while the devout would call and respond their prayers, or when the beginning of Little League season was announced with a procession of teams of young baseball players wearing uniforms in bold and bright colors, followed by a drum core of proudly fierce teenage girls, all making their way to the nearby Inwood Park baseball fields

This is how I saw my neighborhood where I was the minority who didn’t speak the language. Full of a frenetic life that I lived separate and apart from. I didn’t bother anyone and nobody bothered me.

Randy, born and raised in NYC, came from the west side of Broadway, which in many ways was a line of demarcation between the solidly Dominican neighborhood I knew and a mixture of 2nd and 3rd generation Europeans, Hasidic Jews, and people of color living a more middle and upper-middle class life. He grew up with a stronger understanding of neighborhood boundaries, and whatever they meant to him, he was always a bit skittish coming to my neck of the woods. He couldn’t get in my front door fast enough.

Once we were “safely” in my apartment, it still remained to be seen if we would stay on target. The previous time he came over we both got distracted by shiny objects. I became hypnotized by the internet and he, finding my sheet music collection in disarray, decided to organize it, first by composers, then again alphabetically by song.

Projects and the Internet: catnip for tweakers.

This time seemed more promising. He came prepared.

“Here,” he said, handing me a small stack of VHS tapes.

“What are these?

“Porn. You didn’t have any last time I was over.”

It’s an unwritten but universally understood rule that porn must be playing at all times while PNP-ing.

“Find one you like,” he said while meticulously closing the bedroom curtains, making sure to block all possible lines of sight into the apartment. Finished, he sat down at my desk and started rummaging in his bag while I sat on the floor in front of the TV sampling his porn.

“Would you close the living room curtains?”

I turned away from the TV and looked at Randy. He was sitting, frozen, holding his little baggie of Tina under the desk.

My bedroom opened onto the living room through a pair of French doors giving the apartment a more open concept feel. More importantly during the summer, it allowed a little bit of airflow through the apartment. It was hot and muggy and I didn’t have an air conditioner. We both were already sweating as it was.

It was about the windows of the building across the street. “Those buildings are far enough away. Like, what, over a hundred, maybe 200 feet away?”

He just sat there.

“Even if they could see in the living room,” I got up and walked the line of sight from the window to the bedroom, “they can’t see you where you’re sitting right now.”

“There’s…a guy standing in the window.”

“What?” I turned and tried to find what window he was talking about.

“Across the street,” still frozen, he stayed facing my computer while stealing quick glances. “There. One…two…three floors from the top.”

Finding the window he was talking about, I did indeed see a shadow that could be a person. “Randy, that’s a stairwell window. See, it’s frosted over…”

“Please.”

I looked at him and decided this wasn’t the hill I wanted to die on. I removed the small wooden bat holding the window open and closed it lest the wind blow the curtains open allowing the mysterious figure behind the frosted glass to observe gays doing crime. I closed the curtains, attempting to be as meticulous as he had been, and resolved myself to the increasing weight and thickness of oppressive NYC summer heat.

What the hell, I was gonna be running hot here in a minute anyway.

Finally appeased, the statue came back to life. He tapped out a bit of Tina on a CD case and handed it to me. “Just have a little. I’m going to make up a shot. Wait for me to finish before you do the rest.”

Randy preferred to slam.

I didn’t have any problem with this, but I also had zero interest in trying his method. To judge by Randy, it seemed to be such a drawn out, tedious process. Smoking and snorting was much quicker and far less complex than whatever alchemical ritual he seemed to have to perform every damn time.

“Don’t tell anyone else about this,” he once confided in me. “I mean, I’m fine with you and Matthew knowing, but no one else, ok?”

There seemed to be a bit of a double standard in the PNP community. Those who slam are looked down upon by other partiers, as if slammers are hopeless junkies and everyone else is just partying on the weekends. Which is ridiculous. Slam it, snort it, smoke it, stick it up your ass, you’re still doing Tina. You’re still using meth.

You’re still a fucking tweaker. Queen, sit down.

I snorted a small bump, sniffed through the burn, and let the now familiar rush wash over me. I sat down and continued perusing the porn, one hand on the controller, the other hand exploring my now brightly sensitive parts.

I passed on the porn where the bottom half of the picture was scrambled.

I passed on the vintage porn which seemed less carnal and too voyeuristic for my taste, not to mention the audio track seemed to belong to a completely different movie.

I finally settled on a porn with overly muscled men devoid of body hair on a really cheap set that I guess was supposed to be a jail? The trash lighting, or maybe the aging tape, gave them the skin tone of Oompa Loompas.

After my five minute task was complete, I turned to Randy to see how he was coming along.

Turned out he wasn’t.

Instead of prepping his slam, he was clicking away on my computer.

“Randy?”

“This program is cool. You can find any kind of porn you want.”

I really can’t stress enough the importance of porn for a tweaker.

“Here look.” He relinquished my chair and moved over to the bed, finally starting to prep his slam.

He had basically downloaded Napster for porn. Buzzed from my initial bump, I began clicking through videos (unknowingly downloading viruses and malware in the process). The grunts and moans from my computer mixed with those from the TV along with its synthesized, bass clef porn music. I divided my attention, pleasuring myself in earnest, while Randy prepped.

For what seemed like half an hour, my guest performed his alchemy. I resisted the urge to look at him to see what was taking so damn long, because “I can’t do it if someone’s watching me.”

I waited and watched the dual screens of grunting and sucking and fucking, revving my engine, wishing more and more through a clenched jaw that Randy would hurry the fuck up.

Finally, he finished prepping the slam.

“Ok, don’t look at me,” he said superfluously.

He wrapped a tourniquet around his arm and began.

I found I was holding my breath as I waited. Eventually I continued breathing again as I continued to wait.

He was quiet, then he’d curse, sucking air in through his teeth, then hold his breath before cursing again.

“John, I need a couple paper towels.”

I turned to look at him to see three lines of blood, like bright red paint on canvas, running down his arm. The deep red of the blood with his cream skin made his hair look even more like copper.

Again, I don’t have a problem with needles or blood. To me, this was yet another frustrating setback keeping me from jumping in the pool. Quick as I could, I retrieved some paper towels and a few Band-Aids. While he patched himself up and began again, I sat there thinking, What’s the point?

A couple long minutes later, hallelujah, he hit.

But still, I waited.

He capped the syringe and sat still for a few minutes while I was to leave him alone. Apparently, the initial hit of the slam is strong, understandably, and he actually didn’t like that part, so we had to wait for it to pass.

Again, what’s the point?

At long last, the slam was in, the initial wave had passed, and I snorted the rest of the Tina he had given me. The tweak was on, the curtains were drawn, the porn was playing, the clothes were off and…

I was the only one doing anything.

I looked up at Randy. He was miles away. His head was turned, listening. He looked like a squirrel, frozen, looking sideways, like at any moment he would scamper away and up a tree.

“Hey,” I said to him, gently rubbing my hand on his chest.

“Can you…do you hear…” He continued to listen, his jaw moving in slow, jerking circles. My jaw had been doing the same thing since the first bump.

This wasn’t a precursor to an event like my psychotic episode. This was just straight up drug-induced paranoia. I didn’t at this point understand his paranoia, but I was used because as it happened every time we hung out at my place. Maybe his feelings about the neighborhood? I didn’t know.

What I did know was that it was a fucking buzzkill.

I got him to lay down on the bed and did my best to bring his attention back to me, assuring him there was no one watching, no one listening, no one at the door. At last, he seemed to believe me and we were back to it.

Until I realized I was, again, the only one doing anything.

“Randy?” I looked at him.

This motherfucker had fallen asleep.

Sometimes a crash will not be ignored, even after a slam.

“Randy.” I gently, but vigorously, shook him. He made a muffled noise, absently scratched his nose, and fell back asleep.

Frustrated, jaw clenched even tighter, I left Randy to sleep. I sat at my computer, lit a cigarette, and proceeded to half watch the muscled Oompa Loompas while licking the Tina remnants off the CD case. Licked clean, I put the case aside and began pointlessly scrolling through Manhunt.

The last time Randy came over to my place, it was a much shorter visit.

Despite the day being ungodly hot, the first thing Randy intended to do was shut the living room windows and close the curtains.

“No, Randy, wait, DON’T!”

I flew forward to grab the small wooden bat holding the window open, but I was too late. When it fell, I jumped back as if an explosion were about to occur. I stood frozen as I heard a series of wooden thuds as it hit the sidewalk below. Thank the Fates, the bat didn’t hit anything but concrete.

I looked up and Randy was gone.

This man of frozen indecisiveness and crippling paranoia might as well have left a cartoon cloud of his fleeing body he shot out of my apartment so fast.

I went downstairs and sheepishly retrieved the bat, enduring the silent looks of a few angry neighbors as I raced back inside.

Randy didn’t really want to hang out at my place after that.

Next Chapter

Chapter Guide

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