Read Online A Crowbar in the Buddhist Garden by Stephen Reid - Free Book Online
Authors: Stephen Reid
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the needle still hanging from his arm. I shouted his name. When he wouldnât respond, I started to shake him. Box gradually came around enough to repeat the whole cooking ritual, and this time he sank the needle into my wing.
We spent the remains of the day in his room, sprawled across the sagging bed listening to a scratchy Chet Baker record. My tolerance was low, and I about went to heaven on less than a quarter cap. Box didnât get seasick, but me, I ran to the bathroom and spewed my junkie bile every half hour or so.
I entered the world of Hastings Street with all the zest of a kid joining the carny. Box and I shoplifted meat and sold it to the five oâclock crowd at the Blackstone. We dry-tricked the fags over on Seymour, hustling them for ten bucks with a promise to appear. A ten-dollar bill was known as a sawbuck, the currency of the Corner. It is what the hookers charged; the price of a blow job was tied to the cost of a single cap of heroin. Box and I did whatever it took to go back to the Balmoral and get high.
Teddy Beaver appeared on the Corner every afternoon about three and stood there surveying his kingdom. One day he overheard Box ragging on me about rent. He led me by the elbow to a back booth at the Plaza for a mano a mano . I went to work for Teddy. Whenever one of his singles dealers needed to be re-upped, I would make the pickup, then the delivery. I was handling twelve to sixteen bundles a day, 300 to 400 caps, and yet I still couldnât score on my own.
Teddy put me away with a hooker called Kitty, whose old man had, until his court appearance that morning, worked for him. He was now sitting out a deuce-less in Oakalla. I retrieved my gym bag from Boxâs room and waited at the Plaza for Kitty-Cat to finish her shift. She scored two caps and we hailed a cab, stopping on Davie Street at the all-night pharmacy. KC kissed me to pass me the stall, then clip-clopped inside to grab a new kit â one eyedropper and a number 26 point.
Kitty had a one-bedroom in a six-storey building on Butte. She started apologizing for the messy apartment while we were still in the elevator. Kitty was a serial apologist; she was still saying her sorries through the bedroom door while I rummaged in her kitchen drawers for a spoon. I had cooked up and fixed half a cap before she came out in a housecoat. Kitty stood short in flat-bottomed slippers and was every inch a tender mess. I hesitated when she asked me to cook her up one cap â a cap fix was a major habit, one that would kill most users â but I threw it in the spoon.
Before I got even half the whack into her, Kitty was into an overdose. She turned blue. I wrestled her limp body into a cold shower where she came around slowly. Kittyâs ex had been âgiving her the Fraser Riverâ. It was an old junkie double-cross, which in New York would be called giving somebody the Hudson; in Toronto, Lake Erie. Kitty thought she had a major habit but she had been shooting mostly water while her boyfriend âh.o.âdâ the dope for himself.
Kitty and I fell into a routine. We kept vampire hours. Every day we woke to the setting sun, did a jimmy-hix; then she put on her high heels and painted her mouth target-red. I put on my sneakers and we caught a cab to the Corner. She went to work at the Blackstone, me to the Plaza Cafe.
Kitty became the mirror I was afraid to look into. The heroin had us both by the throat, and I watched her skin turn grey, her bones start to jut, and sores develop at the corner of her mouth. We began to resemble the other zombie dope fiends, spiritless, single-minded in our obsession. The search for pleasure devolved into the avoidance of withdrawal. If I went without heroin for more than a few hours my nose would drip and my legs would begin to ache. My quest for utopia had become a ritual of drudgery, the daily grind to maintain a habit.
One night on our way home, after she had scored our dope, Kitty
We spent the remains of the day in his room, sprawled across the sagging bed listening to a scratchy Chet Baker record. My tolerance was low, and I about went to heaven on less than a quarter cap. Box didnât get seasick, but me, I ran to the bathroom and spewed my junkie bile every half hour or so.
I entered the world of Hastings Street with all the zest of a kid joining the carny. Box and I shoplifted meat and sold it to the five oâclock crowd at the Blackstone. We dry-tricked the fags over on Seymour, hustling them for ten bucks with a promise to appear. A ten-dollar bill was known as a sawbuck, the currency of the Corner. It is what the hookers charged; the price of a blow job was tied to the cost of a single cap of heroin. Box and I did whatever it took to go back to the Balmoral and get high.
Teddy Beaver appeared on the Corner every afternoon about three and stood there surveying his kingdom. One day he overheard Box ragging on me about rent. He led me by the elbow to a back booth at the Plaza for a mano a mano . I went to work for Teddy. Whenever one of his singles dealers needed to be re-upped, I would make the pickup, then the delivery. I was handling twelve to sixteen bundles a day, 300 to 400 caps, and yet I still couldnât score on my own.
Teddy put me away with a hooker called Kitty, whose old man had, until his court appearance that morning, worked for him. He was now sitting out a deuce-less in Oakalla. I retrieved my gym bag from Boxâs room and waited at the Plaza for Kitty-Cat to finish her shift. She scored two caps and we hailed a cab, stopping on Davie Street at the all-night pharmacy. KC kissed me to pass me the stall, then clip-clopped inside to grab a new kit â one eyedropper and a number 26 point.
Kitty had a one-bedroom in a six-storey building on Butte. She started apologizing for the messy apartment while we were still in the elevator. Kitty was a serial apologist; she was still saying her sorries through the bedroom door while I rummaged in her kitchen drawers for a spoon. I had cooked up and fixed half a cap before she came out in a housecoat. Kitty stood short in flat-bottomed slippers and was every inch a tender mess. I hesitated when she asked me to cook her up one cap â a cap fix was a major habit, one that would kill most users â but I threw it in the spoon.
Before I got even half the whack into her, Kitty was into an overdose. She turned blue. I wrestled her limp body into a cold shower where she came around slowly. Kittyâs ex had been âgiving her the Fraser Riverâ. It was an old junkie double-cross, which in New York would be called giving somebody the Hudson; in Toronto, Lake Erie. Kitty thought she had a major habit but she had been shooting mostly water while her boyfriend âh.o.âdâ the dope for himself.
Kitty and I fell into a routine. We kept vampire hours. Every day we woke to the setting sun, did a jimmy-hix; then she put on her high heels and painted her mouth target-red. I put on my sneakers and we caught a cab to the Corner. She went to work at the Blackstone, me to the Plaza Cafe.
Kitty became the mirror I was afraid to look into. The heroin had us both by the throat, and I watched her skin turn grey, her bones start to jut, and sores develop at the corner of her mouth. We began to resemble the other zombie dope fiends, spiritless, single-minded in our obsession. The search for pleasure devolved into the avoidance of withdrawal. If I went without heroin for more than a few hours my nose would drip and my legs would begin to ache. My quest for utopia had become a ritual of drudgery, the daily grind to maintain a habit.
One night on our way home, after she had scored our dope, Kitty
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