T’was twilight, about a week ago I guess. I’d stepped out of the neighbor’s pad after having achieved a pleasant drunk… needed some fresh air. Walked down to the parking lot from the third floor when from the darkness I heard a whimperish, desperate voice. She was slumped over, holding her stomach like an old world Gaelic gremlin lurking in the shadows, “Can you get any heroin?” she blithered from beneath a disheveled mass of blond hair. “Heroin,” I repeated, “nope, no heroin here.” Actually, its come to my attention that the shit is everywhere but I avoid it like the plague.
That might have been the end of our interaction… might have been, but it wasn’t. “Well, do you have a smoke?” she asked. “You’re in luck lady, for I have not one but two smokes for you.” I pulled out the half empty pack of marlboro’s and partitioned a couple to her and lit one for me-self. A few minutes of introductory drivel followed, a few minutes wherein she asked me another four times for some tar in between her hunching over and trying not to vomit. Seeing that she wasn’t the fuzz and seeing that she was about to have a hell of a ride (withdrawal, it’s a heartless bitch-mistress,) I kicked her a couple more smokes for the karma.
“Listen, Nicole,” said I, “I can’t help you with heroin… but I got a some herb I’ll puff with you… won’t help your come down but it might dull the edge for a moment or two.” I’m sort of a sucker for good deeds and giving that she wasn’t sporting a purse big enough to steal anything that I care about, that and she wasn’t crawling with literal bugs of any kind, I invited up to my humble abode, twisted a couple roots to blaze and threw on a lecture series about the High Middle Ages. Figured that’d run her off quick. But…
She passed out after about two puffs and, well, having nothing better to do than veg out to my lecture series and babysit a decrepit junkie I put a blanket on her and posted up on the far end of my wrap-around futon couch. About half way through joint number two my neighbor knocked on my door. I stepped out to smoke a cig with him and he says point blank, “There was a narco chick around her about twenty minutes ago that asked me for heroin,” he whispers, “I blew her off and walked away but I think she might still be around here.” Not a good read on people, obviously. “About five foot two, blond hair, hunched over like she’s dying of gut-rot?” He nods, “Yeah, that’s the one. Undercover cop.” Chivalry, its a dying courtesy. “Dude, she’s strung out and sick as fuck… she also just passed out on my couch.”
“Oh, well she’s obviously not a cop then… she wouldn’t have gone up to your apartment if she was.” No shit, Sherlock “Yeah, and I wouldn’t have invited her up if I hadn’t recognized her situation. Do me a solid and hang out with me till she leaves, I’d feel a lot more comfortable.” Actually, I needn’t have asked because he was caught up in his own drama and subsequently needed a bit of carpet to sleep on for the night. I’ve grown unaccustomed to guests over the past few years and suddenly I’m running a flop-house. But as I’m trying to re-familiarize myself to being around people I was obliged to accommodate.
That first night was rough for all of us… what with Nicole running a marathon on my couch, intermittently between praying to God for a fix and crying out in agonizing pain. The neighbor, well, he was still lamenting his own sitch what with the girl he’d been staying with “playing on my heart strings.” I couldn’t explain it to you if I wanted to, but my door got more knocks that night than I care to remember and as for poor Nicole, every time the door opened she squeegeed, “Heroin?” I eventually resolved to explain the cold hard facts… “Nicole, your safe here, there’s food in the fridge and I’ll even cook some of it for you but, alas, you need to come to terms with the fact that ain’t no heroin coming through this door… not now, now ten minutes from now, not ten hours from now… all you’re doing is torturing yourself by holding out hope.”
Morning came and the neighbor went and eventually Nicole crashed and burned. She’d wake up every hour or so, just long enough to ascertain that the lecture series I was digging hadn’t reached its conclusion; toss and turn, scream and froth, pray to God for a miraculous bag of sympathy dope, realize he wasn’t answering those prayers today and then toss back to sleep. That sums up the first day and a half. Then suddenly she levitates off the couch clutching her butt-hole as she skirmished to the bathroom… I gingerly yet curtly stated to her, “Nicole, dear, if you blast a dookie on my couch I won’t kick you out, no but no, I’ll throw you out and then post a blog about you on my notorious facebook wall of shame.”
She managed a disingenuous laugh while giving me a Go To Hell look but then cut a sincere grin and said, “Zach, my body hurts so bad… but I like you and I’m grateful that you’re letting me chill here for the time being.” Indeed, “Don’t mention it doll, I’ve been in your shoes… and you happened to catch me with a couple days off, but don’t get too comfortable, we’ll both have to face reality again in a couple days.” I can’t testify to the truthfulness of her predicament but what she proclaimed was that she’d left Arizona and was making her way to Texas… she didn’t divulge anything more and so I didn’t bother probing for further intel. I knew enough and besides, a good deed is a good deed regardless.
T’was about midday I guess, following two days of hell for her and three soiled pairs of pajamas of mine but to her credit she managed to reach the bathroom without shitting on my couch or carpet (I’m pretty sure that at least once she only made it by plugging a finger up her rear,) (and so I don’t care too much about tossing out the funky pj bottoms she’d ruined….) “Zach,” she says, “I can’t stay here much longer… hurting like this and shitting myself.” You readmy mind, love, “Yeah, I was having similar thoughts of my own.” She sprawled back out on the far side of the couch, back down for about another hour and then jumped up and stated, “I have to grab something from my car.” She rolled a cig from a pack of Top she pulled from her purse, walked out the front door in my favorite pair of pj’s and never came back. I hope she made it to wherever she was going.