Drug Deal

The junky presses ‘call’ and connects to the dealer’s handset. His desperation is digitalized and relayed over the network to the dealer. He folds his ill-gotten cash into a palm-sized square so an easy payment can be made with an underhand shake. The drugs are rolled beetle balls and spat, spit covered, into the junky’s open palm. If the CCTV temperature is high and police ride nearby, the junky immediately places the bags in his mouth between gums and cheek. He will swallow the contents if apprehended.

New Lows

The last time I felt compelled to write about the new lows I had been reaching in terms of shameless drug use was just over a year ago. At the time, I had recently left a nicely paid job working in financial recruitment with sizable pay-off and a healthy cocaine habit. The free time and large bank balance lead to the cocaine use getting dangerously acute. Luckily, I ran out of money before blood-vessels in my nose. At this point I had moved up from scoring off a one-legged guy in Bethnal Green. I was seeing a wonderfully cheerful Jamaican man called Charlie (probably not his real name) for my party prescriptions. He sold excellent quality gear, and provided cheery Jamaican chat about his many girlfriends. I picked up wrap after wrap which he handed over with a gold-toothed grin. The particular low point last year involved me smoking crack behind a bin in Hackney. I used to make my own crack, more out of a geeky love of drug chemistry than any desire to sell my possessions (although that was a slight side effect). I was smoking it crouched behind a bin because I did not think that inhaling inside the club would result in me staying in there for any length of time. A few tokes of the lovely plastic-candy tasting smoke and I was high as kite for about 7 minutes before crashing downwards. Luckily, I still had enough powder cocaine to prevent me falling all the way down into an unmediated crack-comedown which is notoriously intense. In the throws of a particularly bad one, suicide can become a viable solution.

Maybe I’m writing about low points again because they often coincide with the death of summer and the winter blues checking in to my soul department. New lows do not happen much in summer. It must be to do with mindset because I am sure snorting pills off a bin last June should have counted. So this winter I have become a Heroin ‘chipper’. A chipper is someone who ‘chips’ their heroin use so that they do not become physically addicted and risk suffering from withdrawal. This can be achieved fairly simply by not doing it more than 2-3 days at a time without having a 2 day break. It is a simple rule: ‘2 days on and 2 days off’. The use of the word ‘on’ is apt when on heroin. It is the sort of drug you can do it all day and still go about your tasks without too great a decline in performance. It gives you a wonderfully warm, fuzzy shield about yourself: a ‘big smacky cuddle’ as Russell Brand has put it. But there is a downside (well, there are loads that have been well documented but this is one is more amusing than life-crushing) and that is ‘nodding out’. The ‘nod’ comes when you have taken just a little too much and you fall asleep quite instantly. One minute you are awake, the next thing you head drops and the lights go out. You go straight into REM sleep and start to dream immediately. Reality and dreams mingle, I often wake to find myself talking on a dream blackberry or ordering food whilst sat in my room. You can easily loose up to an hour of your life in this fashion. My new low this time was nodding out whilst eating a mouthful of fruit and nut chocolate. I awoke 20 minutes later wondering why the fuck I had 20 minute-old half-chewed chocolate in my mouth. My grandmother regarded me with what seemed like suspicious pity, my story of being ‘very tired’ was quite strained at that point as I sat with a stupefied grin in her living room watching X-Factor. ‘It’s not as good as Strictly Come Dancing’ she said. I swallowed my chocolate and agreed

'Quaaaak': Duck on Heroin

After a typical night spent passing out for a few hours, waking up, taking more heroin, passing out, waking up, stumbling to the toilet, trying to piss, trying harder to piss, nodding out, hitting my head on the way down, waking up again, failing to piss again, consoling myself with more smack then passing out again, I decided to take a morning walk. I wound a trail among leafy North London streets through the brisk breeze towards a nearby park and small lake. The world was separated from me by a fuzzy smacky barrier and I looked on with pleasurable disinterest. I kicked a stone out over the water and a few morning joggers passed me in bright skintight attire, their ass-cheeks wobbling with each hit of the pavement. I ambled on walking around the lake while wrapping my trenchcoat around my adidas joggers when I heard a small noise whick broke through into my mystified mind,

‘Quack’

It said.

‘Quaaaack quack’

Despite the communication being in the form of quacking I understood the meaning. A duck was in some kind of distress! I opened my mind and engaged in my surrounding for the first time in a while, scanning the area for… aha. I medium sized duck flapped in distress on the grass a small distance from the lake

‘Quak quak quaaak’

It made a spluttering sound and looked around mournfully. It half flapped its wings and collapsed again.

‘The poor thing’

A feeling of immense pity for the animal overtook me as I moved towards it. The duck became fearful but it couldn’t move. I stroked its back and examined its shivering feathered body. It had a broken leg and an injured wing. The animal regarded the dirty junky holding it with the same wild fear it would a nice mum and child. I soothed the suffering animal with gentle murmurs. It seemed to relax.

‘It must be in so much pain’

I thought

So I took it home and gave it a small shot of heroin. The duck, Henry, spent its final days sharing my blissed-out cocoon. I put it into a small bucket of water and it seemed quite content occasionally emitting a peaceful

‘Quaaaaaaaak’

Its leg and wing were in pretty bad shape but I couldn’t do anything about this. I couldn’t get it to eat either, I tried breadcrumbs and milk but it wouldn’t take. 2 days later it shat all over my floor and keeled over. That’s gratitude for you. I buried Henry in the park where I found him. I thought about chucking him in a bin but an affinity for my smackhead duck companion stopped me. I felt Henry deserved better then that plus I wanted to avoid any embarrassing scenes with binmen and/or the council. I didn’t feel any sadness after he had gone. I was happy his last days were comfortable.