BLIND MAN ON CRACK: Episode 18

Hi, here is episode 18 of the unusual saga that is Blind Man On Crack, also known as How To Become A Crack Addict.  Feel free to rummage through past posts, or even get the ebook on amazon, if you stoop that low.  Meanwhile...

Episode 18

 

Twelve Steps To Rehab

Months dragged on, me turning up at the drug service, constantly reporting relapse, skin blotchy and spotty, fridge and cupboard empty, and many calls being made to my mum requesting twenty quid, or maybe an internet food order.  Two phones were thrown at the wall, and leads pulled from handsets, with me raging in my boxers in my cell.  One afternoon, I picked up my acoustic guitar by the neck, smashed it on the floor, repeatedly, until it broke in two with a twang.  Then I took it out and chucked it in a wheelybin.  Soon after, I was dragging my keyboard (on loan from a friend) down the road to that shrine of iniquity and stolen goods, Cash Converters.  It was heavy and unwieldy, but somehow I heaved and cajoled it onto the bus, over the road, and into the reinforced doorway of the esteemed high-street name.  It cost my friend £800.  I got £100 for it, and went straight round the corner to score.  The next morning, I woke to see a void where guitar and piano had been.  My dreamed-of recording career was spiralling down, in freefall, blowing in the breeze with other random crumbs.  I was running out of options.

Sipping herbal tea at the drug service one morning, someone sitting by me said they went to Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and found them helpful.  Born of Alcoholics Anonymous, there are NA meetings in community centres and church cellars all over the world.  There were several in my neighbourhood, some of them unnervingly close to places I’d used.  But one Monday evening, I slipped into a meeting, untempted by the adjacent hostel, where I’d used only weeks before.  All human life was there, street-geezers, social-workers, teachers, builders, an auctioneer, and a person off the telly.  We sat round in a circle by candlelight, with a tank of tropical fish tranquilly, though discreetly, observing proceedings.

After a few readings, people began talking, and I could identify with a lot of what I heard.  Come the end, I felt encouraged, energised, and almost hopeful.  I went home and played ‘Irish Blood, English Heart’ by Morrissey, in a spirit of utter defiance at my seemingly bottomless decline.

I rose the next morning with hope in my heart, and money in the bank, which I blew in the afternoon after spiralling back into disarray as the day dragged on.  Not the best start, but I returned to meetings, and tried to listen to other people’s experiences, and readily dished up many theories and thoughts on the nature of addiction, whilst doing precious little off the back of my observations.  I felt like an astronomer, seeing the universe about me, coming to an understanding of it, able to convey with enthusiasm how amazing and fabulous it was, but unable to reach out and touch or tweak it.  I felt lights years from myself.

But the meetings were a lifeline, human contact and support from people who were going through, or who’d been through, something similar to myself.  They were a cup of tea or coffee, and biscuits too, which were a rarity in my life at the time.  One night, I loaded up my coat with malted milks, as my kitchen-cupboard contained one can of chickpeas and a squeezy ketchup, which, even in my emaciated state, didn’t throw up many recipe ideas.

One of the founding principles of NA is that addiction is a ‘disease’, and that the sufferer is ‘powerless’ over it, but following the twelve steps offers a path to ‘recovery’, a better life.  At first, I leapt at these words like a wolf who’d suddenly found his pack.  Yes, it was a disease, and I was powerless over it, my record proved it, and now I’d found people, and a framework, to put the drugs down and move on.  But sometimes I would hear people, months or even years clean, talking about their disease, and how they were still powerless over it, and meanings seemed to become so vague, and unpinned from their origins, that I began to feel I was just swishing around in a huge linguistic melting-pot.  What did it all really mean?  I witnessed the word ‘disease’ suddenly developing a hyphen, to imply a state of ‘dis-ease’, rather than anything medically observable.  A few months in, it seemed to me that all desire, if not life itself, was a form of disease, which I didn’t buy, and this nebulousness could end up with someone blaming their ‘disease’ for wanting a new Mercedes, which really just meant they were an overpaid twot.

I don’t find it helpful to think of addiction as a disease, with or without a hyphen.  Nor do I believe that anyone is powerless over it – in fact, I feel it can be dangerous to use the word ‘powerless’, which can undermine the notion of personal choice.  As for the promised recovery, well, how can one recover from a disease that doesn’t exist?

The twelve steps offer a ‘spiritual program’ of ‘complete abstinence from all drugs’.  I didn’t much like the sound of complete abstinence.  Much as I wanted to quit crack, and the heroin that was now becoming its compulsory sidekick, I had no desire to stop having the odd drink or spliff.  As for the spiritual aspect, though no religion is promoted, sometimes I feel the framework itself becomes a kind of religion - for example, if one says, ‘I’ve put down the crack, but I still like the odd drink,’ the ethos of complete abstinence has been transgressed, and fundamentalist brows may furrow, as often I think they did when I spoke.

Once I said I’d had a glass of wine at a friend’s, but felt that was very different from smoking crack and crawling home to isolation and hunger.  Someone after the meeting warned me that wine today would be crack tomorrow, laying out before me the slippery slope to self-destruction.  I didn’t find this helpful, because my experience of alcohol has always been very different from my run-ins with crack.  Also, if there’s one thing an addict likes, it’s an excuse to relapse, and this seemed to be setting up a self-fulfilling prophesy I could use to rationalise further falls from grace.  But equally, another person said that if I was able to drink, I shouldn’t feel compelled to emulate others, whose circumstances may be different.  Could it be that one size doesn’t fit all?  Could it be that everyone is different?  Could it be that fundamentalists are pests?  Could it be that twelve-step fellowships are a way, not the way?  I don’t belong easily.  Even if there were a club for outsiders, I don’t think I’d join.  But what would I have done without this, sometimes troubling, human contact?  The osmosis of experience can be powerful, keeping alive people who might otherwise not be.  Sometimes, someone would disappear from a meeting, having been a regular for weeks, maybe because they were using again, or gone to rehab, but often it was because they’d died, as addiction, however you define it, can kill you with your own hand.  So far, I hadn’t assassinated myself, and had no desire to return to Morrissey’s warehouse any time soon.

I stuck around for months, and I think I was trying my best, even though my views were mostly heresy.  I turned up, spoke, made friends, took numbers, got a sponsor (someone to help me through the steps), answered the questions in the step-working guide, wrote a load of claptrap to back up the claptrap I’d verbalised in meetings, but something wasn’t taking, the shoe wasn’t fitting, and I was still going down, just slightly slower than before.  Then a combination of apathy, intellectual differences, and embarrassment, meant that meetings faded away, at least as a daily, or weekly, ritual.  I’d show up occasionally, say I was fine, and dash away before anyone, zealot or not, could collar me.  I only had a message of failure, humiliating for me, and probably very boring for everyone else.  So it was back to the drug service, to my still-smiling counsellor, with a resigned request to be sent to residential rehab, but preferably not a twelve-step one.  There’s only so long you can live on biscuits.

Thanks for popping by.  I do hope you'll have a glimpse at the next episode, in a few days.  Meanwhile, here is a small musical entertainment for you, one of my songs, so just click on this youtube link, and you will be regaled with song:  Someone Get That Cripple Out Of The Music Room

BLIND MAN ON CRACK, Episode 17

Hello, and thank you for dropping by.  Here is the 17th sordid episode of Blind Man On Crack, otherwise known as How To Become A Crack Addict.  You can read it all, with other selected gems, here on this blog if you want, or you can buy the ebook/kindle of it on amazon, if your morals are sufficiently loose.  It has four good reviews, so far, and another one would be much appreciated, if you have the time.

Chapter 17

Just A Little Prick

I returned to Spike and Suzie’s the next time the good taxpayers of Britain put money in my account.  I’d been experiencing experience-envy since witnessing Faith inject crack’n’heroin a few months earlier.  I couldn’t see the exact detail of how she did it, nor could I see enough to do it myself, but I could perhaps get someone else to.

Vaguely knowledgeable by now, I stopped off at a chemist to get new needles, and made my way to Spike and Suzie’s.  I figured they’d be more willing than Faith, having only just met me, and turning up with clean works, coupled with some knowing needle-talk, would surely be enough to get one of them to do the honours, especially seeing that I’d be bankrolling proceedings.

Back past the BBC, pharmacist’s bag swinging at my side, I disappeared down a White City side-street, finding Spike and Suzie’s place with ease.  I rang, and moments later an upstairs window opened and Suzie called down, ‘Oh hi, Dan, I’ll come down.’  I didn’t mind being called Dan, as long as I got what I wanted.

Upstairs, Spike was in his normal chair, clutching a can and stubbly, and Poppet, the in-house puppy, began leaping all over me, almost like it wanted to escape.  I made out I’d got the fresh needles for myself, and was just dropping by on my way back from the chemist, but if they needed any, they were more than welcome.  I asked if we could get something, and soon Suzie was ringing around.  I gave her the money and off she went to meet the guy, somewhere near KFC on Uxbridge Road. 

She returned, and we all had an inaugural pipe.  Then, party started, I gave them some more blather.  ‘I was planning to go home and have a hit, but my flatmate wasn’t answering the phone, so what on Earth was I going to do now?’  Then Suzie said those special words.  ‘I can help with that, love.’

The doorbell went, and Spike was left to organise three syringes’ worth of finest White City crack and heroin.  I had a pipe as he went about his work with needle, spoon and lighter.  He asked me how much heroin I usually had.  I told him about a fiver’s worth, not really knowing what I was saying.  Minutes later, he was placing each finished article on the coffee-table before him, one for him, one for Suzie, and one for me.  Then Suzie returned with her guests.  It was a couple they knew, she a lumbering ogre of a woman, called Mo, and he a curly-haired scamp of a man, who looked like he could do with a meal, or a lifestyle overhaul, called Sam.  They were users too, and delighted to find a supply of fresh needles to cook up what they’d arrived with.

Then it was time.  Spike explained which syringe was whose, and Suzie took up the bayonet of destiny earmarked for me.  She asked me whereabouts I usually did it.  I admitted to being early in my injecting career, so I still had sufficiently prominent veins left in my arm.  I rolled up my sleeve, using a donated belt as a tourniquet on my upper arm, both to bring veins closer to the surface, and to hold the chemicals in place until the moment of release when the tourniquet was pulled away, and the ingredients could coarse through my whole being, rendering me the monkish equivalent of Faith’s ‘nun kissing God’.  I was on the brink of revelation.  Poppet was locked in the hall, because he was jumping around, getting in the way.

The tiny press of the needle was painless, as I sat there on the sofa, peers around me.  It was like keyhole surgery with a kick.  I could feel something entering my bloodstream, asking directions to my brain.  ‘There you go,’ said Suzie, ‘you can pull the tourniquet away now.’  I let the belt fall and sat there, waiting to see what it was I was going to feel.  Initially, I felt a bit blank, numbed, queasy.  Then Mo, troll-like on the floor before me, said, ‘Are you ok, Dan?’

The next thing I remember is waking up, shirt torn open, with two paramedics above me.  ‘Can you hear me Dan?’ one of them asked.  I soon realised I’d overdosed, and began apologising repeatedly, as I was helped to my feet, and down the stairs where an ambulance and police car were waiting.  My plan had gone awry.  I think I was relieved to be alive, even though my name was now apparently Dan.

I was helped into the ambulance, and a blanket put around me.  I felt quite shaky, and the woman looking after me was so attractive that my sense of being damaged goods felt heightened to a point of pivotal self-loathing.  I said, ‘I don’t usually do this kind of thing, I’m sorry to waste your time, thank you so much for being there.’  I looked at her like one scowling from hell at a soul in heaven.  I requested a glass of water, or maybe that was the closest I could get to asking her if she’d like to go for a coffee some time.  She wasn’t allowed to give me water.  Health and safety, I guess – I mean, imagine what harm a glass of water could do compared with crack, heroin, brick-dust, ant-poison and bleach coursing round your bloodstream.  Blanketed, I was driven to the hospital.

I arrived in the ward, where a nurse wanted to put my possessions in a locker.  I gave her my white cane.  I didn’t have much else.  Then, after a preliminary interview, in which I said sorry several more times, I sat on a bed, curtains drawn around me, crying.  Then, when a doctor came in, I apologised some more, and continued crying, and answered his questions as best I could.  He was very calm and sympathetic, and gently recommended I tried to exercise some harm reduction.  When he went away, I sat there some more, still weeping, not sure what to do.  Then, a rustle of the curtain, and Sam appeared.  He’d seen fit to come and see if I was ok, and offered to walk me home, which I found extraordinarily kind.  It wasn’t such a long walk, so we asked for my cane.  The woman who’d dealt with me before had gone, and the new nurse didn’t speak great English.  I tried to explain that my white stick had been put in a locker, and she eventually returned with two walking-sticks, which I kindly declined.

Sam walked home with me, I got in, called a friend, distraught, and went to bed.  The next day, I went back to Spike and Suzie’s to apologise.  Apparently I’d slumped over, and even though they stretched me out on the floor and tried to slap me back to consciousness, they ended up ringing the ambulance.  I was grateful they had, cos I’ve heard of people overdosing, dying, and their bodies being left out with the rubbish.  The police and paramedics had asked a few questions, but no accusations were lodged, and I guess it was just put down as a regulation overdose, maybe making a brief appearance a while later in a Town Hall spreadsheet.  So, apologies made, and accepted, and after I promised not to inject again, we all three scored, and this time Poppet could stay in the living-room.

I don’t know when it came back to me, but at some point I recalled something of what I experienced during my overdose.  Maybe I wasn’t so far gone, or perhaps I was nearer to leaving than I knew, but when I was out on Spike and Suzie’s floor I had the vaguest, quietest of dreams.  I was looking in on a darkened room, from the side, as if in an empty warehouse.  There were people standing there, in profile, silent, as far as I could tell, as if waiting.  Reader, one of them was Morrissey.  I know not why.

__________________________________________________

So there you are.  I hope you feel like tuning into to episode 18, in a few days.  Meanwhile, just in case you need more entertaining, here is a song of mine, just in case you're not depressed enough already.  It's a safe youtube link, just click here for entertainment:     Mental Illness Is The New Rock'n'Roll

Thanks for now.

BLIND MAN ON CRACK: Episode 16

Hello, and thanks for dropping by.  Here is the 16th tawdry episode of 'Blind Man On Crack', or 'How To Become A Crack Addict', if you prefer that title.  White City is an area of London, where the BBC used to base their operations, at Television Centre, and where you will also find numerous soulless flats in which many less privileged souls reside, some steeped in virtue, others in lager, or whatever they can get their hands on, really.

Chapter 16

White City

I spent the next three days in bed, brain flatter than a leaking battery, torn red t-shirt on the floor, and one of the Discovery channels burbling away as I drifted in and out of sleep, occasionally raiding the cupboard for whatever was left to eat, which was never much at this time.  When I rose, in a bout of desperation, I wrote a handwritten letter to my doctor, asking to be sent to rehab, or a psychiatric ward, or wherever there was a vacancy.

 

A few days later, I made an emergency appointment, and my doctor, almost impotent to help, referred me to my local drug service, and I went for an assessment.  I was assigned a counsellor, who I saw for about six months.  She was very good, knowledgeable, honest, and patient, but she couldn’t stop me using week after week, and coming in with tales of increasing degradation.  By this point, the compulsion to use crack, with a heroin chaser, felt like something separate from what I considered to be myself.  It was as if the decision was made in me, but not by me.  ‘It’s happened again,’ I’d say, time after time, and she would say, ‘You mean you’ve used again.’  Seemingly, none of the complementary therapies had helped, and nor had any of our circular conversations.  I just became a more literate addict, and could talk at severe length, sometimes quite engagingly, about the same thing – I’d used.  Truth is, at this time, I wanted to use, but didn’t want the consequences, and heroin, sneaking up on the rails, had only made the whole cycle seem slightly less unmanageable, softening, as it did, the comedown from crack. 

 

Ear acupuncture, very nice, shiatsu, interesting, reflexology, quite sensual, cupping, whatever that is, hypnotherapy, and various relaxation CDs, all made a minimal indentation on my pattern of use.  I even wrote a few worthy articles for the drug service newsletter, all teacher’s pet stuff, saying how wonderful the therapies were, and how I found the service so very valuable as a community hub, but they were all just words, worthy, placatory, hollow words.  The drug service subscribed to a magazine called Black Poppy, a health and lifestyle journal written by users and ex-users.  Over the months, I wrote a few articles for it, even compiled a cryptic crossword, with mostly drug-related answers, but even this, coupled with volunteering at the magazine’s office, and the new friends it afforded me, made no difference to my using.

 

So far, the most successful path I’d found to getting a period free from crack was going to my parents’ by the sea, which I did many times at this point, in various states of disrepair.  There, I’d be spoken to frankly, in a spirit of concern, and bewilderment, by both parents.  Then, having had another good think about my predicament, I’d return to London and relapse.  The hypnotherapy, dispensed by a chap in a shack in Ealing, and paid for by my parents, seemed to work for a few days.  Hypnotised on a Monday, I managed to abstain from crack, with money in my pocket, ‘til Friday.  But then, when I blew it, it was back to scoring at every opportunity, regardless of time of day, or danger.

 

By now, I was firm friends with Faith, especially when I arrived at hers fresh from the cashpoint.  It was kind of unfortunate that she lived on the same street as the drug service.  In fact, it was probably possible to see the place from her window.  Often I’d have an appointment that I simply wouldn’t show for, because I’d stumble into Faith’s literally yards from safety, like a rugby-player with a knack for tackling himself.

 

One afternoon, I was marching to an appointment, knowing full well I wouldn’t get there, because I’d already decided to trip myself up at Faith’s.  Torn at her door, half hoping she was out, half wishing she’d hurry up and answer, I was surprised when my old chum Dennis appeared before me.  Butler-like, he ushered me into the living-room.  He’d already scored, and furnished me with a pipe, which led to a flurry of notes being pulled from my pocket, accompanied by the request, ‘Can we get something?’  He was happy to oblige, and called down the hall to Faith, to let her know he was popping out.  She came into the living-room, and was equally delighted to see me, and the notes I was scrunching into Dennis’s palm.  She returned to whoever she was entertaining out the back.  Dennis and I were negotiating what we wanted, and who we should get it from, when another figure appeared in the doorway.  It was Jacob, and he didn’t seem very happy.

 

He said a cool hello, and reminded me of a previous warning, given some days before, not to hang out with Dennis.  According to Jacob, Dennis would con me, keep drugs back, was a known criminal, in fact was everything Jacob was himself.  Then he addressed Dennis directly.  ‘Ben is my associate.  I look after him.’  ‘He just wants to score,’ Dennis said lamely.  ‘Ben, come with me,’ Jacob instructed, ‘I’m taking you home.’  I didn’t want to go home.  I wanted to score.  ‘I’m ok,’ I said, trying to appease the now approaching figure of Jacob, ‘I’m happy to share whatever we get.’  ‘You won’t be getting anything,’ he replied, ‘I’m taking you home.’  I didn’t believe this for a minute – he just wanted me away from Dennis, so he could take control.  ‘I don’t want to have to slap you,’ he warned.  His crazed yet cold eyes were up against me, and I thought I’d better go along with things.  Then I was being escorted down the road, with Jacob saying, ‘Ben, I know if I let you go, you’ll find someone to score through, so if you want to get something, tell me now.’  So my protector and I set off on a journey to this couple’s place in White City, just off Wood Lane, near the BBC.  In my comedy fumblings, I’d dreamed of walking in there, checking in for rehearsals, having established myself as a comedian of note.  Now I couldn’t get past fast enough, desperate to reach our destination to top up the pipe I’d had some half an hour ago.  Why doesn’t the good draw you in like the bad?  Couldn’t they see who was going by?

 

We arrived in some dive, a flat that even the ‘How Clean Is Your House’ team would have had to touch up before filming.  It was inhabited by a guy who looked like a cross between Wayne Slob and Mr Sneeze, haggard’n’gaunt, hair an explosion.  His partner, who it turned out he beat (no doubt the bond that brought him and Jacob together), seemed quite friendly and normal, even made me a cup of tea, and took an interest in my various aborted dreams and aspirations.  She’d had them too.  Somewhere in the undergrowth of their living-room, there was a puppy skulking, apparently acquired from someone at the drug service we’d all been fruitlessly attending for months.  Formalities over, Jacob popped out with my clutch of twenties, and I took tea with my hosts.  Spike had been a postman, until he got sacked for intercepting chequebooks.  Now he allegedly gardened for a well-known singer from the 80s.  My hostess, Suzie, showed me pictures of her children of whom she was very proud – they were scattered about the globe, and seemingly quite happy.

 

I faked conversation until Jacob’s return with the crack.  Unwrapping the bits, he went first, of course, then me, then our hosts, on a variety of hastily constructed pipes.  Then Spike and Suzie began discussing something discreetly, and it soon became clear they were injectors, of which Jacob roundly disapproved.  He would smoke crack, but not heroin, and he certain wouldn’t inject anything.  I, however, hell bent on experiencing all I could experience, made a mental note of where I was, and to call back some time when Jacob wasn’t around.  Spike and Suzie disappeared into the bedroom and bathroom, respectively, to inject in peace, leaving me and Jacob smoking just the crack in the living-room.  When they returned, Spike moaning he couldn’t find a vein, and Suzie talking so fast it was hard to keep up, Jacob popped out to the cashpoint.  I managed to cajole a heroin spliff in his absence, which helped with the crack cravings.  Then, after an agonising wait, he returned, and we all four smoked away until the money went.  The heroin hadn’t really been enough to calm me down, but, somehow, having said our goodbyes, we left, and Jacob and I parted on the street with a handshake, as if having just sealed a small business deal, and later, there I was in bed, sweating, and desperately trying to get to sleep, cursing every second, wracked with regret that one, I’d ever touched crack, and two, I couldn’t go on smoking forever, if necessary to death, cos it seemed there was no way out of this slow nosedive my life had become.

And here, as ever, is a song I wrote, on a safe link to youtube, just here:  Thank You For Your Help In This Matter

Maybe see you tomorrow.

BLIND MAN ON CRACK: Episode 15

Hi, and thanks ever so for dropping by.  I've been in and out of eye hospital lately, due to having had a few operations, but here, I hope, is today's riveting episode of the much-vaunted Blind Man On Crack.  And thanks to Kenneth for helping me post things up.

Chapter 15

Crackhouse Rules

It was around this time that the beauty of a chap called Dennis was unveiled to me.  I can’t actually remember where I met him.  I just recall our paths crossing frequently around this time.  Although I couldn’t decipher his strong Grenadian accent too well at first, we soon found that we were speaking the same language when phrases like ‘do you want to get something’ or ‘where’s the nearest cashpoint’ were being employed.  He was quite a spectacle, in his loafing, lugubrious way.  It didn’t take me long to notice that his teeth were smashed to shards, as if some kind of dental iconoclast had wreaked havoc in his mouth.  They were nice and white, but that only helped to highlight their plight.  The front two had clearly been knocked for six, but there were jagged bits of white poking from the gum.  It looked like someone had taken a set of pliers to the bottom row.  This, coupled with a thick mat of stubble, and a look of having just got up, meant the shambling Dennis cut quite a caper around the Green.  He was a friendly guy and, although he ripped me off once or twice, was never threatening or violent, and didn’t hold back the drugs, like Jacob.

 

Dennis’s usual bolthole, having scored, was a house not far from Faith’s.  For some weeks, it was my regular haunt, and most of my using would occur or at least pass through there.  It belonged to a guy called David, who had mental health issues.  Apparently he was schizophrenic, but there seemed to be more to it than that.  Whatever the time of day or night, there would always be some scallywag on that bed, in that chair, asleep on that patch of floor.  In addition, there’d nearly always be another band of bit players, just to add fluidity to proceedings, sleeping, sitting around, going from room to room, looking for a smoke.  Stepping through the net-curtained door into David’s, uninitiated, it was hard to know whose place it actually was.

 

David himself seemed to spend much of his time on his bed, encircled by a coterie of spongers, all waiting, like so many sea-urchins, to see what bits of plankton were going to drop their way today.  I was an urchin, yet less well-rooted.  There’d be a knock at the door, a general tramping into the hall would ensue, to see who it was, what they had, if a pipe could be charmed out of them.  Maybe even David would emerge, to claim what was rightfully his, a pipe for ‘the house’.  Normally, if you visit someone, you might take a bottle of wine, a bunch of flowers, box of chocolates.  Abnormally, crack-etiquette dictates that you’re obliged to cough up a smoke for the homeowner, if you can tell who it is.

 

The bathroom in a crackhouse is perhaps the most sought-after room.  Certainly this was the case at David’s.  Usually there were two or more people crammed in there, smoking, or receiving or giving a blowjob.  If you were one of them, you wouldn’t remain undisturbed for long.  There would always be someone wanting to have a sneaky pipe in there, away from all the prying, greedy eyes elsewhere in the house.  If you wanted to get in there, though, your chances were slim.  Either it would be locked, or, if the lock was broken, the door would get shoved backatcha with the urgency of a guy with a pipe in one hand and his cock in the other.  But if you were one of those odd people who actually wanted to use the loo, there might be a local paper on the cistern, if you were lucky, an absence of loo-roll being a key feature of any crackhouse worth the name.

 

The kitchen, you’ll be unsurprised to hear, was pretty light on food, and mostly used by people who couldn’t get into the bathroom.  Even though it was overlooked from outside, there would often be half a dozen people clustering in there, some smoking, some blagging, some just taking in the ambience.  Standing in there one morning, around five I think, I found myself in the privileged position of buying the stuff direct from the dealer, and having it placed into my closing hand, rather than Jacob’s or Dennis’s.  As with any product, the more middlemen, the more you get ripped off.  One or two girls who were hanging around were swift to offer to ‘help me unwrap it’, because ‘that cling-film can be fiddly, can’t it hun?’

 

News of my elevated status spread, and moments later some guy with ill-fitting dentures was standing by me, telling me it was his birthday.  He failed, but I wished him many happy returns.  A net-curtain hung vaguely in the window, which was one way of telling roughly what time of day it was, and through it the next wave of visitors could be inspected.  Many came and went, until, morning now underway in earnest, I realised I only had a tenner left, and I was determined this should go on some heroin, to soften party’s end.

 

There were about five of us left in the flat, including David on his bed.  I went into the bedroom, putting feelers out regarding the purchase of some heroin.  No one had, or knew anyone who had.  The woman sat on the bed said, ‘Oh look, Prince Charles wants to get something.’  Gauche in adversity, I’d obviously used a turn of phrase that set me apart from my peers.  A fairly calm guy by the wardrobe offered me a cigarette, as if consoling a child who’d lost his parents.  I asked David if he knew someone I could ring.  He was too drunk, or drugged, to answer.  Then a fidgety guy, on his haunches on the carpet, said, ‘Oy, blind man, gimme that fag.’  I fended him off with a word or two, but my approach was too soft.  ‘Come on, blind man, gissa lug.’  I tried again to placate, but in the end he got so animated I thought I’d better give it him.  He took a few drags, then threw it on the carpet between us, half-smoked.

It felt like time to make tracks.  But this was easier said than done, as the tenner in my pocket, which I’d declared in my attempt to barter for heroin, was a magnet for badness.  I slipped out into the hall and into the bathroom, surprisingly unhindered.  From there, I would slip out into the darkness, and away.  However, as I pulled shut the front-door, it swung open with a violent tug.  Fag-thrower didn’t want me to go.  Sight, plus the darkness, didn’t allow me to run, and I didn’t especially want to argue or fight, so out came my elementary diplomatic talents.  ‘Now, look here,’ I began, ‘I’m not looking for any trouble, I just want to make my way, I’ve no axe to grind.’  He did, however, and pushed me against the wall and held what looked like two old knives to my face.  Diplomacy had failed.  I tried to gently ease his hands away, like some amateurish dog-whisperer trying to get the creature to respond in a new way to old dilemmas.  This too failed.  ‘Get off me, blind man,’ he explained.  I tried to assure him I meant him no harm, perhaps as Jean Luc Picard might when presented with a volatile, but essentially frightened alien.  But even the values of Next Generation Star Trek fell short of resolving things.  ‘Don’t touch me,’ he warned again, and I could feel old metal on my face.  ‘Gimme that tenner, blind man.’  Either I was still hoping I’d stumble on some heroin, or I just didn’t want to reward his force with gain, so the tenner stayed in my pocket.  I called help into the still flapping front-door, but no one came.  Meanwhile, my attacker was mauling me like a lion, with knives, and each time I tried to fend him off he warned me not to touch him, and reacquainted my face with his blades.  I wanted to run, but couldn’t see to.  I didn’t want to fight, cos violence breeds violence, innit?  I was determined to diffuse the situation with decency, reason, and fair play.  However, having exhausted all diplomatic channels, and concerned I might come away with my cheek slashed or throat cut, I reached into my pocket and yielded up the tenner.  He took it like a pushy child might a present, snatching it from my clutches almost before I’d extended my hand.  Then, as if off to the sweetshop, he scampered into the night, pocketing his blades, bounding up the stone steps into the backwaters of Shepherd’s Bush.

 

I gave it a few minutes, made a mental note of the dangerous people I was now meeting daily, brushed myself down, and made my way home in squally rain.  Red t-shirt ripped, and hanging from my shoulder, I trudged down Goldhawk Road on the cusp of night and dawn.

 

Chapter 16

 

White City

 

I spent the next three days in bed, brain flatter than a leaking battery, torn red t-shirt on the floor, and one of the Discovery channels burbling away as I drifted in and out of sleep, occasionally raiding the cupboard for whatever was left to eat, which was never much at this time.  When I rose, in a bout of desperation, I wrote a handwritten letter to my doctor, asking to be sent to rehab, or a psychiatric ward, or wherever there was a vacancy.

 

A few days later, I made an emergency appointment, and my doctor, almost impotent to help, referred me to my local drug service, and I went for an assessment.  I was assigned a counsellor, who I saw for about six months.  She was very good, knowledgeable, honest, and patient, but she couldn’t stop me using week after week, and coming in with tales of increasing degradation.  By this point, the compulsion to use crack, with a heroin chaser, felt like something separate from what I considered to be myself.  It was as if the decision was made in me, but not by me.  ‘It’s happened again,’ I’d say, time after time, and she would say, ‘You mean you’ve used again.’  Seemingly, none of the complementary therapies had helped, and nor had any of our circular conversations.  I just became a more literate addict, and could talk at severe length, sometimes quite engagingly, about the same thing – I’d used.  Truth is, at this time, I wanted to use, but didn’t want the consequences, and heroin, sneaking up on the rails, had only made the whole cycle seem slightly less unmanageable, softening, as it did, the comedown from crack. 

 

Ear acupuncture, very nice, shiatsu, interesting, reflexology, quite sensual, cupping, whatever that is, hypnotherapy, and various relaxation CDs, all made a minimal indentation on my pattern of use.  I even wrote a few worthy articles for the drug service newsletter, all teacher’s pet stuff, saying how wonderful the therapies were, and how I found the service so very valuable as a community hub, but they were all just words, worthy, placatory, hollow words.  The drug service subscribed to a magazine called Black Poppy, a health and lifestyle journal written by users and ex-users.  Over the months, I wrote a few articles for it, even compiled a cryptic crossword, with mostly drug-related answers, but even this, coupled with volunteering at the magazine’s office, and the new friends it afforded me, made no difference to my using.

 

So far, the most successful path I’d found to getting a period free from crack was going to my parents’ by the sea, which I did many times at this point, in various states of disrepair.  There, I’d be spoken to frankly, in a spirit of concern, and bewilderment, by both parents.  Then, having had another good think about my predicament, I’d return to London and relapse.  The hypnotherapy, dispensed by a chap in a shack in Ealing, and paid for by my parents, seemed to work for a few days.  Hypnotised on a Monday, I managed to abstain from crack, with money in my pocket, ‘til Friday.  But then, when I blew it, it was back to scoring at every opportunity, regardless of time of day, or danger.

 

By now, I was firm friends with Faith, especially when I arrived at hers fresh from the cashpoint.  It was kind of unfortunate that she lived on the same street as the drug service.  In fact, it was probably possible to see the place from her window.  Often I’d have an appointment that I simply wouldn’t show for, because I’d stumble into Faith’s literally yards from safety, like a rugby-player with a knack for tackling himself.

 

One afternoon, I was marching to an appointment, knowing full well I wouldn’t get there, because I’d already decided to trip myself up at Faith’s.  Torn at her door, half hoping she was out, half wishing she’d hurry up and answer, I was surprised when my old chum Dennis appeared before me.  Butler-like, he ushered me into the living-room.  He’d already scored, and furnished me with a pipe, which led to a flurry of notes being pulled from my pocket, accompanied by the request, ‘Can we get something?’  He was happy to oblige, and called down the hall to Faith, to let her know he was popping out.  She came into the living-room, and was equally delighted to see me, and the notes I was scrunching into Dennis’s palm.  She returned to whoever she was entertaining out the back.  Dennis and I were negotiating what we wanted, and who we should get it from, when another figure appeared in the doorway.  It was Jacob, and he didn’t seem very happy.

 

He said a cool hello, and reminded me of a previous warning, given some days before, not to hang out with Dennis.  According to Jacob, Dennis would con me, keep drugs back, was a known criminal, in fact was everything Jacob was himself.  Then he addressed Dennis directly.  ‘Ben is my associate.  I look after him.’  ‘He just wants to score,’ Dennis said lamely.  ‘Ben, come with me,’ Jacob instructed, ‘I’m taking you home.’  I didn’t want to go home.  I wanted to score.  ‘I’m ok,’ I said, trying to appease the now approaching figure of Jacob, ‘I’m happy to share whatever we get.’  ‘You won’t be getting anything,’ he replied, ‘I’m taking you home.’  I didn’t believe this for a minute – he just wanted me away from Dennis, so he could take control.  ‘I don’t want to have to slap you,’ he warned.  His crazed yet cold eyes were up against me, and I thought I’d better go along with things.  Then I was being escorted down the road, with Jacob saying, ‘Ben, I know if I let you go, you’ll find someone to score through, so if you want to get something, tell me now.’  So my protector and I set off on a journey to this couple’s place in White City, just off Wood Lane, near the BBC.  In my comedy fumblings, I’d dreamed of walking in there, checking in for rehearsals, having established myself as a comedian of note.  Now I couldn’t get past fast enough, desperate to reach our destination to top up the pipe I’d had some half an hour ago.  Why doesn’t the good draw you in like the bad?  Couldn’t they see who was going by?

 

We arrived in some dive, a flat that even the ‘How Clean Is Your House’ team would have had to touch up before filming.  It was inhabited by a guy who looked like a cross between Wayne Slob and Mr Sneeze, haggard’n’gaunt, hair an explosion.  His partner, who it turned out he beat (no doubt the bond that brought him and Jacob together), seemed quite friendly and normal, even made me a cup of tea, and took an interest in my various aborted dreams and aspirations.  She’d had them too.  Somewhere in the undergrowth of their living-room, there was a puppy skulking, apparently acquired from someone at the drug service we’d all been fruitlessly attending for months.  Formalities over, Jacob popped out with my clutch of twenties, and I took tea with my hosts.  Spike had been a postman, until he got sacked for intercepting chequebooks.  Now he allegedly gardened for a well-known singer from the 80s.  My hostess, Suzie, showed me pictures of her children of whom she was very proud – they were scattered about the globe, and seemingly quite happy.

 

I faked conversation until Jacob’s return with the crack.  Unwrapping the bits, he went first, of course, then me, then our hosts, on a variety of hastily constructed pipes.  Then Spike and Suzie began discussing something discreetly, and it soon became clear they were injectors, of which Jacob roundly disapproved.  He would smoke crack, but not heroin, and he certain wouldn’t inject anything.  I, however, hell bent on experiencing all I could experience, made a mental note of where I was, and to call back some time when Jacob wasn’t around.  Spike and Suzie disappeared into the bedroom and bathroom, respectively, to inject in peace, leaving me and Jacob smoking just the crack in the living-room.  When they returned, Spike moaning he couldn’t find a vein, and Suzie talking so fast it was hard to keep up, Jacob popped out to the cashpoint.  I managed to cajole a heroin spliff in his absence, which helped with the crack cravings.  Then, after an agonising wait, he returned, and we all four smoked away until the money went.  The heroin hadn’t really been enough to calm me down, but, somehow, having said our goodbyes, we left, and Jacob and I parted on the street with a handshake, as if having just sealed a small business deal, and later, there I was in bed, sweating, and desperately trying to get to sleep, cursing every second, wracked with regret that one, I’d ever touched crack, and two, I couldn’t go on smoking forever, if necessary to death, cos it seemed there was no way out of this slow nosedive my life had become.

And, as ever, I offer up a song for your consideration:  Run Out Of Drugs Again

Maybe tomorrow?