Strange bedfellows

"It's too hot out here" he tells me "my nuts are sticking to my leg".
I shake my head.
"Ohhh you think that is too much information?" he asks me.
I roll my eyes.
He follows "how do you think I feel about think I feel about watching you dig for a vein a half inch from your pussy?"
I pull my hat down, pretending I am slightly embarrassed.
The truth is- when it comes to drugs I have no shame.

We met in the hall way of my hotel. I wasn't looking for anyone. I preferred to do my thing alone. A man tended to get in the way. A man was either lying in the bed crying about ho he was sick, in and out of jail, or trying to put restrictions on my use. The last one I dated only wanted me to use when he was around, as if I couldn't handle myself. The idea was ridiculous. Everything bad had happened to me in the first six months after I got to San Francisco.
Raped? Check.
Overdose? Check.
Robbed? Check
Beaten up? Check.
Had someone try to kill me? Check.
Those things were long in the past. That was a whole year ago. I was in a different place now.
He had blue eyes, blond hair. He had a remarkably muscular body for someone who used drugs every day. He was around my height, I'm tall so that made him average height. He had a slightly chipped tooth in the front. He had overdosed on cocaine. He hit the nightstand during a seizure and chipped it. He was a speedballer and overall hustler of the highest order.
"What are you looking at?" he asked me as I passed him fixing by the stairway.
"Not much..." I told him as I sprinted toward my room.
"....wait..." he told me as he tried to register.
I stopped and asked him "for what asshole?"
He finished his business and took a look at my face.
"You are a FEISTY one," he told me. His face went bright fucking red from whatever he had just injected.
"Whatever..." I told him as I turned back towards my room.
I heard a gurgling sound. "I'm dying...." he told me as he grabbed his chest and fell on the floor.
UGH fuck. For a split second, I think about leaving. The good person in me takes over.
This tar in my bra in going to start melting in the cellophane if I don't take care of this soon.
I sprint back down the stairs to the landing where he is halfway lying on the floor.
As I reach down to check his pulse, I see I have been tricked
"...I'm dying to know your name..." he tell me.
I kick his leg. "Fucking asshole," I tell him.
He jumps up. "Well now that you know my name, what's yours?" he asks again.
A junkie fucking jerkoff. Great.
He didn't get my name that day but he found me. It turned out he was my upstairs neighbor. We used the same connection in the building if we needed at midnight shot. I had done too much speed without landing gear. I needed someone to hit me. Someone who knew what they fuck they were doing. He volunteered.
I should have never let his tweaking ass come anywhere near my arms but of course, I did. I was desperate. After that, we were a junkie couple of sorts.

My hustle was an intricate one that ate up most of my day. I was a middle man for various dealers. This one couldn't know I was working for that one. That one couldn't know I was working for this one. They all couldn't know I spent my own money on a completely different guy I had deliver a 1/2 mile from my hotel. These customers, these were people on the street. They had absolutely zero patience. They were rolling up with runny noses, looking for a place to shit if they couldn't get a hit in the next 30 minutes. They had no time to wait. Time and time again I would direct them to some crappy dealer, knowing the bags were short and stomped on. After I got my free bags, I would turn around and sell mine then take the money to my guy.

He was a smash and grab guy. He would walk miles and miles up and down the streets of San Francisco at night. He would hit the tourist district, the parking garages of the hotels. He would look for any high value item worth stealing. He would take a piece of platinum spark plug, throw it at the window, and have it silently shatter. From there, he would quitely take out the glass. He even popped the trunk in some cars. I have never, ever met such a brazen thief in my life.

"Don't you ever feel bad?" I would ask him.
"That is a complicated question," he would respond.
Yeah, so that means no, I thought to myself.
I was out all day. He was out all night. We would hang out right before the sun went down. I left when he would start carpet surfing. Or he would leave if it took me too long to get a hit. He told me it made him sad to see me like that. Such a beautiful girl with blood crusted all over like a fucking ghoul.
"Shouldn't we be fucking?" he asked me.
We laughed in  unison. Such a preposterous idea. I curled up next to him in bed as he hit the light.


Comments

  1. Considering your life now, can you still relate at all to that girl or do u feel like u are telling a third person story?

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    Replies
    1. I still relate to that person. I was on the bus a few weeks ago. I saw a handsome and obviously strung out man on the bus. I thought to myself if I was 20 years younger, that would be my future ex-husband.

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    2. That IS interesting. I've been clean for 26 months, with suboxone. The person I was two short years ago is so completely different, that woman is a stranger to me. I hate her and I pity her. I pray she never comes back. Much love to you, Tracey. I check your blog daily to see if there's anything new. I've said it before, you're my hero.

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    3. I think my situation might be a little different though. I am around drug users pretty much on a daily basis. I have to stay connected to that old place. My life, my daily life, is completely disconnected

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  2. Reading your stories help occupy my mind a way from cravings...it's been a a very rough week but I've kept you mind as I continue the struggle....thanks tracey for being an inspiration. jf

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