Meth Relapse: Driving With the Ferryman Back to the Underworld

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 11 Part 5

Warning: Graphic descriptions of drug use and sexual situation.

It was closing night of Jesus Christ Superstar. While I gave the same performance I’d given for the past two months, I was simultaneously standing outside of myself: unthinking, catatonic, still.

Richard had flown out from New Jersey to see closing night.

He brought meth and syringes with him.

When the show was over, I was going to slam for the first time in seven months.

It wasn’t a question; the choice had been made.

My thinking brain had gone dark, complete radio silence. I was bound, gagged, held hostage by the expectation of the needle puncturing my arm, the cold rush in the back of my throat, my lungs struggling to take in air, the explosion of euphoria that would once again pull me back down the rabbit hole.

Richard was in the audience, his first time seeing me perform. I had been excited to show him what I could do, to introduce him to this very significant part of myself, but now I didn’t care. He was the ferryman waiting patiently to collect his toll and escort me back to the underworld.

“Gethsemane” hit different. Again, I gave the same performance, sang the same notes, hit the same acting beats, but the lyrics were more painful, more honest.

All I want to say

If there is a way

Take this cup away from me

For I don’t want to taste it’s poison

Feel it burn me.

We took our final bows and I choked back tears.

Yet all those feelings I should have had — the satisfaction, the sadness, the unwillingness to let go coupled with the eagerness to move on — were all lessened, overpowered, like the chimes of a music box drowned out by a chorus of air horns.

I didn’t head out to the lobby for the horrid audience meet and greet. That had nothing to do with the impending slam, I simply didn’t want to and it wasn’t like they could fire me. Besides, I never wanted to work for this theater ever again anyway.

Instead, I went back to the dressing room, took off my costume for the last time, put on my clothes, and started packing up.

I wasn’t running out the door to meet Richard. Not that I couldn’t have. I hadn’t known any of these people before we started rehearsals 10 weeks earlier, and I don’t think they would have blinked an eye if I had made an Irish exit. However, I was back in user mode where any and all red flags were to be avoided at all costs.

So, while Richard waited for me at the hotel, I took my time and made an appearance at the closing night party. After what I’d felt was a respectable amount of time, I said my goodbyes — making sure to give Dan a big bear hug — loaded my bags in Richard’s car, and left.

A short time later, I was in Richard’s motel room, a belt around my arm held tight with my teeth. He had gone ahead and made up the slams so it was ready for me when I arrived.

I took a deep breath and inserted the needle.

I pulled back on the plunger and saw a red cloud of blood flash into the thick liquid.

I pushed down on the plunger and sent the slam into my veins, into me.

Cold rush on the back of my throat.

Heat cascading through my limbs.

My lungs struggling to take in air.

The euphoric rush exploded inside me, enthralling, glorious.

I once again became a writhing creature of lust.

I slithered over to Richard, who had slammed just before me.

I ran my tongue up the inside of his thigh and took his dick into my mouth.

I felt his hands run through my hair before grabbing and holding my head there, forcing his dick deep into my throat.

I gagged and came up for air, gasping, “fuck yes,” before diving back in.

Every time Richard and I slammed together, when it was just the two of us, there was always this brief initial phase where the euphoria of the slam had us both on the same page. During this brief window, we enjoyed each other as we had originally enjoyed each other. For few short moments, we were has we had been when we first met: joyous, passionate, lustful men who fucked in the rain.

But it would always pass.

“We have to go.”

I was naked on the motel room bed enjoying my hot, slick, sensitive skin.

“John, we have to go.”

“What?”

I could hear the “people in the trees” tone in his voice, but I chose to ignore it.

He squatted down so his face was level with mine. “They’re here.”

Fuck my life, really Carol Anne??

The party was over.

“Who?” I asked. I didn’t look back at him but stared straight up. I knew who, but played along. If I started questioning his sanity, he could very well have taken his car and left me there, I didn’t have another way home.

“Them,” he answered, as if “Them” was a proper noun, the proper noun. “They’re in the ceiling.”

I looked at him for the first time. “What?”

“Look, see for yourself.” He pointed to the ceiling over the sink outside the bathroom. He’d moved one of the lowered ceiling tiles exposing the dark space above.

I begrudgingly humored him. I got up and walked over the sink, looking up at nothing.

“I don’t see…”

“Don’t you fucking start that again, you blind bastard!”

“Ok, ok, fuck.” I kept pointlessly looking.

“He’s looking right at you. How do you not see that?!”

“Well, what do you wanna do about it?” I asked, still looking, still placating.

“We have to go.” He was putting on his clothes in a hurry. He meant right now!

“Richard, it’s the middle of the night! It’s,” I looked at my phone, “fuck, Richard, it’s not even 1 AM.”

“Or I could just leave you here!”

Richard’s license had been revoked when he was sentenced for his drug arrest. He’d loaned me his car so I could drive myself to my gigs in Illinois and Ohio, and I would be driving us back east. Yet, the way he was spooking himself, he could very well hop in his car and drive away, leaving me stranded, lack of license be damned.

“Wait, wait, fuck. Fine. Richard. But you got to give me at least another hour to come down a bit more.”

“And what? Wait for them to just….!”

“Listen, they haven’t done anything so far, right? If they were going to do something they would have by now. Maybe they’re just watching.”

Richard had his coat on and was next to the door, but was stopped by whatever logic I seemed to have stumbled upon.

“Please, give me another hour, at least, and then we’ll go.”

After a long moment, Richard acquiesced, sitting in a chair closest to the door.

I put on my clothes, chugged a few glasses of water, and laid down on the bed. I knew I wasn’t going to sleep, so I tried focusing on my breath, seeing if I could slow the pounding of my heart.

I wasn’t a stranger to driving while high. I’d driven Richard’s car all over Manhattan and a good bit of New Jersey at varying levels of tweaked.

Yet, I’d never driven this soon after slamming, even with the extra hour. But Richard was a spooked animal ready to bolt. It was either start driving home with him or be stranded. Then I’d have to reach out to someone for help and, in doing so, admit — once again — I was still using.

We got on the road a little before 2 AM.

At first, it wasn’t so bad. That time of night, there weren’t a lot of cars on the road, and I was hypervigilant about my speed: not a single mile over the speed limit.

As we started passing through Columbus, Ohio, we started hitting highway construction and it was raining. With the glare of the headlines behind me and the red brake lights in front of me, all blurred by sheets of rain that the wipers could not keep up with, I struggled to gauge how close the cars were around me.

I let a car ahead of me gain a little distance when the car behind me honked.

“Jesus Christ, John, fucking go, what are you waiting for.”

“Shut the fuck up and let me drive, Richard! The guy behind me can fucking wait.”

As traffic slowed to a crawl, Richard became more impatient. He reached over and honked the horn.

“Richard! Fuck! What are you doing?”

“Stop being a pussy driver, John.”

“As long as I’m driving, you don’t touch the steering wheel, got it?”

“No I don’t got it. This is my fucking car and I’ll touch whatever the fuck I want! If you’d stop driving like a little bitch…”

Without taking my eyes off the traffic in front of me, I involuntarily cocked my right arm back, ready to punch.

“Oh, you wanna, hit me? Go on. Hit me. Hit me, you sorry piece of shit.”

I held my arm cocked for a moment before lowering back down. I really wanted to hit him. I wanted to hit him so fucking bad.

But I didn’t.

“Just, just, please, stop it…please, let me focus and… get past this construction.”

He didn’t say anything after that.

And now I had tears blurring my vision.

We appeared to finally be getting past the construction as traffic started to flow faster.

Much faster.

What had been three lanes was narrowed down to two flanked on either side with concrete dividers. Traffic flowed faster and faster, but there seemed to be no end to these dividers.

The dividers seemed to get closer and closer, like the cars next to me were nudging me into them. I knew at any moment I was going to scrape Richard’s car, and then what would he do?

Ironic since I just played Jesus, but in that terrifying moment, I sure as hell found Jesus. I started praying, hard, asking the good lord, please, send down angels to buffer me, keep me from hitting anything, keep me on the road.

Maybe he heard my prayer or maybe I was just a lucky sonofabitch, but we finally passed the construction free and clear.

We pulled into a rest stop shortly after the sun was up.

Richard got out and went to the restroom.

I stayed in the car. I was exhausted.

Out of my coat pocket, I pulled the point I’d used to slam the night before. Because I was a little weary about doing too much after not having used it for so long, I hadn’t injected the entire slam. There was still a small amount left.

I looked around. There was another car some distance away. Otherwise no one was around.

I reached for my belt to take it off, but stopped.

For as much as I’d put myself through, there were just some scenes I wouldn’t play out. One was shooting up in the bathroom of the bus station in Chicago. The other, apparently, was shooting up in the parking lot of a highway rest stop.

I stowed the unfinished slam back in my pocket.

Driving during the day was worlds easier. I still had to stop frequently — too frequently for Richard’s taste — so I could close my eyes and rest for five or ten minutes. Finally, after a good eight hours of driving, we crested a hill and, in the distance, I could see a faint hint of the New York City skyline.

Talk about a second wind!

I sat up straighter, breathed deeper, and dared to push my speed to a couple miles over the speed limit. A short time later, we arrived.

I had survived.

When I parked in the lot outside Richard’s building, I didn’t get out right away. I shut off the car, and just sat there, eyes closed, breathing. Thanking God, the gods, the fates, whoever the fuck was on my side that day.

With nary a thank you from Richard, we went inside. As he made his way into his bedroom, I put my bags down in the living room, went to the kitchen, and chugged glass after glass of water.

Hydrated but still dazed from my ordeal, it took me a minute to acknowledge Richard bellowing for me from his room. I found him at his computer.

“What did you do to this?” he snapped.

“To what?”

“My computer isn’t working.”

“…Ok…I’m sorry, but I didn’t…”

“What did you do to it?!”

“Woah, Richard, we just got home. I didn’t do anything to your computer.”

“You’re still working for them, I knew it. Fucking bastard.”

Fuck my life.

“Richard. We just. Got. Home. When the fuck would I have done anything to your computer? Here, let me see, maybe I can fix it.”

“Oh no! I’m not letting you anywhere near my computer. You are worthless, treacherous, pathetic…”

Nope.

I was done.

If I was going to relapse and throw away months of being clean, I wasn’t going to waste any more time subjecting myself to this horse shit.

Without saying another word, I turned around, walked into the living room, grabbed my bags, and left.

I made a brief stop at my apartment, my room having been recently vacated by my sublet. After a hello to my roommate, Hector, a quick shower and some fresh clothes, I traipsed back out my door to visit my dealer Kevin, who had moved to the Bronx. We partied a bit and had a little fun, but he was on day three or four. After he’d fallen asleep in the middle of slamming himself, I gently removed the syringe from his leg, put it out of harm’s way, and hopped online to find another playmate.

The next playmate turned out to live in a beautiful apartment in Tribeca. We slammed and fucked and had a wonderful time.

At least I had a wonderful time. I never heard from Tribeca again.

So there it was. I was relapsing.

For however long it lasted, I was determined not to waste it.

I was going to enjoy myself.

I was going to slam.

I was going to fuck.

And I was never going to travel to Fort Lee ever again.

And I never did.

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