Last Thursday after dinner, listening to the radio

William S. Burroughs once stated that the closest you can get to junk is being really stoned on hashish, having walked down both those roads i can tell you that Bill was pretty spot on and while they are not the same by any stretch of the means there are some distinct similarities if you know what you're looking for, and so it was that last Thursday after i was done cleaning up the dinner dishes and before taking Nick Disaster to the rink for hockey school that i heard this song on the radio, it was the first time i'd ever heard this version, i'd heard Warren Zevon's original version years ago but this one fucking smacked me in the face, the symmetry of a warped history coming back up the pipes like so much mental backwash... so i'll connect the dots cuz it entertains me...

A long time ago i wrote what i consider one of my favorite pieces called August and Everything After, about how i used to sit in a bar on Wicomico round the corner from the Fry Hut, a scant three blocks from a fried chicken stand and also the place where i heard the album in which that piece was titled after, an album i've gone on record as admitting to loving though the indie rawk kids of the world would revoke my hipster card for admitting so, but fuck those indie rawk hipster kids, all hair gel and no substance and more likely to develop a habit than a disciplined low life shambling through a life that at the time was part Munch and part Monet, soft and fuzzy around the edges, hard and terrifying and beautiful in the center, and so while sitting on a bar stool or tucked in the corner and watching the tourists walk by i came to study and appreciate that record and what it meant to me at that time of my life, a topic that's been well covered over the years here from my stool at the lounge...

Of course that post may have been the first piece to introduce to the story our lovely Heroin, it was first obtained and taken in that little place by the bay off of 2nd St., so imagine the look on my face while i watched the snow begin to blow in and my youngest boyo run through the house taking imaginary slap shots with his curly mop wildly flying about, i was a bit dumbfounded listening to the voice of the guy i sat and listened to that summer as i stared into a beer or through dilated pupils, singing about my old new bad habit and though i was strung out back then it wasn't on smack but more life in general... but as i stood watching the small specks of cold and biting snow fly through the air i was suddenly back to that hot apartment with the little windows where if you sat right next to them you could catch a decent breeze, of sitting in that room pinned out and listening to the sounds from the park and the birds from the bay, my beer getting warm and leaving wet rings on the old hardwood floors, a poorly rolled joint sitting in the ashtray, it was the first place i'd lived in five years that had cable tv, every now and then i'd roll out and watch the weather channel for a bit but mainly i hung about that room with the typewriter and my various drugs and drink, our Heroin was just the latest sweetheart to show up...

Now if you were to ask me if there was ever a drug i had respect for i'd smile and say all of them of course, and you'd have the definitive right to smile right back and say bullshit, and you'd be right, but i'd spent too much of my youth reading drunks and speed freaks and tea heads and particularly junkies, what's that saying about knowledge being power? and so i had strict rules when it came to Lady Day, i knew her voice was warm velvet and so i had to be disciplined no matter how many sweet nothings she whispered in my ear, and so the rules were laid down and for someone as undisciplined in most aspects of his life as i was at the time (and most likely still am) i maintained and did not break, never two days in a row, preferably three or four between tastes, be cautious when trying new gear, and above all respect her power for she do not fuck about dig? and so i got on with it...

When i'd left my fair city of iron in June of 94 i was more than a bit tuned in to the happenings in the East End when it came to the topic of contraband and when i left that horse wasn't even on the track, not for the kids anyway, yes it was around but it wasn't as easily obtainable as when i'd return just over a year later in September of 95, in what i'd call the first wave of good cheap smack, the years from 95-99, suddenly it became easier and easier to obtain, hell even the kids from the burbs could get it and the media hadn't yet started it's crusade,  i had scored a job in a warehouse a block from my place when i got back and right off there was a cat who had more than a little habit going, within a week he had scored for me, i stuck to the rules, the gear made the stuff at the shore look like dog shit, this had the classic marketing of stamp bags with all the names and flavors, the local weed game still lacked that, there was dirt, brick, middies and kind, every now and then you'd get a name for a strain but mostly it was classified as one of those four, it was a study in need when i used to ride around with my co-worker, he'd have us rushing through deliveries so that he could cruise his local haunts to try and score, the worry and need rising every time he struck out and couldn't cop, the worry and need rising when he had to lift money off his girl or his mom, his total jubilation every time he scored, his whole spirit lifting and him laughing and joking and singing...

There was the Burger King two blocks from my apartment where you could cop in the parking lot, there was a occult/record store in South Oakland where you could score from the sinister minister with his own wicked habit, there was Mitchell's Tavern in North Oakland, my old haunt, where the junkies sat nervously biting their nails and waiting for the pay phone to ring back so they could slip out and score a half block from my old apartment, the place where i'd meet Maggie and Martha aka the Glimmer Twins, there was the bathroom at Chief's, clandestinely passed stamp bags under the bar at the Luna, my hood was awash in places to score, when i felt like scoring i saved myself the trouble of doing it myself and helped out my co-worker, when dealing with people with habits you know they're going to fuck you a bit, it just depends how much, and i knew T. Rex (my co-worker dubbed so cuz he loved glam) was tacking on a tax but i didn't mind, he knew i knew and i knew that in this game nothing is done for fucking free, i'd usually toss him a bump as well cuz these were the days of the snorters and smokers, the shooters were out there but it took awhile for most to graduate and for some the hassle of scoring needles just added to the mess so they stuck with what was easy, so T. Rex would get a cheap bag and i'd get mine, his would be gone by morning, mine would last a week or two, discipline my friends discipline...

And while the song was playing i kept thinking of the education that i received, the up close and in-depth look at what people would do when in need, the loose collective of the hooked, how they spent almost all of their time trying to find places to score, alternate places to score, cheaper places to score, how if one could cop when it was dry they'd help each other out, to a point of course, they'd do what they could for their pals who had cash but whoever the lucky dope fiend was who found the gear got to tax everyone they scored for, usually enough for an extra stamp bag or two, then they'd try to pinch some from the other bags, try to weasel a bump out of the "friend" they scored for, hell even when it wasn't dry it was like that or if someone was short it was the usual game of bag now getcha back later, this wasn't like the weed dealer running out, this was a physical and psychological need and as the clock ticked you could watch them slip deeper, the sanity stretching with each nauseous tick of the clock, i watched Maggie's boyfriend one day, he was sitting and gnawing his hand as the ice melted in his drink as he waited for the Glimmer Twins to come back with the gear, the sweat beading, the eyes jumping around the bar, the promise of relief and the smiling monkey making him hand over his car keys knowing full well these two might be gone for hours, without the discipline, the respect, it was a full time job, and frankly i already had two full time jobs back in those days, i didn't need another...

And the truth is there are alot of people from back then who didn't make it, in those days it seemed every week or two you'd hear of someone dying, some i knew, some i knew of, some i knew well and one i knew really well, the only one that i had any emotions about, sad and bummed but not shocked when i got the call, but that cat and others will show up in the Wilderness, now it was just hearing that song sung by that guy, and going back to the end of that summer and a rented Crown Vic and winding my way back to me barrio and a set of unpainted, rickety wood steps and  the beginning of everything else... then the I-mac aka Stretch came bopping by and hugged his old man before bopping away and behind me i heard Nick Disaster make a whooshing sound and raise his arms in the air as he scored another imaginary goal...