Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Tales of the International Jetset Homeless

It was supposed to be a city ambulance and I suppose it looked like one from the outside, but the interior looked more like a prison cell or an interrogation chamber. It was a tin can on wheels and I was inside and strapped to a gurney. It was just me strapped down in a dark van with a man in NYPD blue sitting next to me...not the doctor I needed, but an officer who loathed me for the barely living, waste of time that I had allowed myself to become. I had walked on the wild side and tripped on the poorly laid shag carpeting.
The mask had fallen away and exposed me in a thoughtless moment, a selfish greedy moment where I had wanted nothing more that to get as high as possible and then, hopefully, pass myself off as just another sleeping passenger on an L-1011 bound for Frankfurt.
A few minutes earlier, 30 45 or 60...I have no real idea; I had been in an aircraft bound for Frankfurt with a jet full of strangers who I would unintentionally delay with my stupidity and my lack of control.
That afternoon, in fact the whole week had been unusually hot and humid. The only thing cold to drink in the mini fridge of Caroline's downtown apartment was the vodka in the freezer. I drank from those bottles freely and on an empty stomach. It was a strange day that would take a horrible turn. I did not know it then, but I was about to crash and burn. I look back on it and see that all the fuel was there, the alcohol the drugs and the ego, and I was standing in the middle and playing with matches.
"So, what kind of drugs did you take?" asked the mustached officer in a somber cracked monotone. I said nothing. I was still woozy and semi conscious but aware enough to know that I was in deep and had better choose my next words carefully. "So, what kind of drugs did you take?" he asked again. I heard the siren of the ambulance as we drove across the tarmac to the nearest emergency room.
It was raining and drops of water the size of fists pounded on the roof of the vehicle. This was not your typical ambulance with white sheets and cabinets. There were no doctors in white or hanging bags of plasma. There was just one dim bulb casting Kafkaesque shadows, the officer on his wooden stool and my drugged body. I needed information as to how much trouble I was in and if I was under arrest. My first explanation to him was that I had had nothing to eat and plenty to drink before the flight. Actually that was true, but the officer suspected, probably just by looking at my dilated eyes that there was more to it than irresponsible drinking. He was right. So he pressed on repeating the same question in his monotone. The only thing we had in common was a mutual desire to be in any of a thousand other places doing anything but what we were doing. However, as I started coming to realize that I was going to a hospital I thought I should tell him about the heroin. After all I would be in the hands of doctors soon and they should have an honest appraisal of my situation. Yes, I would tell him about the one bag of heroin that I had snorted in the bathroom of the plane as passenger were taking their seats and loading belongings into the overhead compartments.
Just the one bag and I inhaled it fast barely having time to notice its dark brown color which was unusual for street dope in New York at the time. However, this was not from the street. It had been given to me but a rather successful screenwriter named Zoë in her kitchen earlier that day. I had been visiting Zoë regularly and trying to recruit her as a writing partner for a talk show pilot to be shot in Europe and LA. She was quite famous for writing drug themed scripts and in the quieter circles it was known that she was still using. I had not been as I had too much responsibility and too much visibility.
We did talk about drugs one afternoon. She got up from the couch where we were sharing tea and went to her bookshelf. There she pulled down an old binder that looked like a dusty family photo album. She held it for a moment to her breast as if it were a living but sad child. Her eyes closed for a private memory and when she opened them she sat down beside me and smoothed out her skirt. She slowly turned back the cover to open her scrapbook and reveal what I suppose was, to her, the equivalent of vacation snapshots. Each page was lined with row upon row and column after column of empty glycine bags. All of them were neatly and evenly spaced with great care. All of them looked quite similar with the exception of the various brand stamps. They had brand names like blue tape, red tape, ballerina, roadrunner, Mercedes Benz, Q-45 and on and on. She would point at one of the empty bags and recall its flavor and the circumstances surrounding its purchase and use. She did not show this book to many people but she claimed that ABC television was aware of it and wanted permission to interview her about it. It was quite a document really and it held a collection of names that had been whispered from the darker doorways of the neighborhood.
On some afternoons an older man in a fishing cap would arrive with a Mc Donald's bag in one hand and a soft drink in the other. We would go to the kitchen and he would spill the contents of bag on the table. Soft drinks and hard drugs … bundles of narcotics on the linoleum tabletop. Every couple of days I had witnessed the same routine and had resisted partaking. Why, well...because I had meetings to go to and people to meet. But today I had thought that just one bag would be OK. It would help me sleep on the long overseas flight. I would wake up in Germany refreshed and ready for POPCOM. I would splash on some 4711 walk through customs and no one would be the wiser.
Now I was entering the emergency room. It was a Saturday night and it was busy. Sounds of crying, moans of pain and general medical clatter filled the area. I was placed on table and a thin green shower curtain wall closed around me. Some earnest young man tore at my sleeve and jabbed a needle in my arm. Above my head institutional fluorescents flickered and I was scared. A large German looking nurse came in to look me over. She explained something to me about what they would do. She wanted to inject a chemical into my system that would immediately negate the opiates in my blood. It would in effect put me into a state of instant withdrawal. What would usually take a few days would happen in an accelerated period of 15 minutes. They lifted a large syringe that had a piss yellow liquid in it and into my arm it went.
After a moment I had a strange burning sensation in my toes. This very painful and unusual feeling started moving slowly up my legs and every inch of my skin that was left in its wake felt burned and felt like it was converting to a hard baked breakable plastic. It is hard to describe but I remember thinking about burning seat belts. It was terrifying and I was convinced that I had been inadvertently poisoned. I bucked in the restraints; I cried and felt so incredibly stupid that this was the way I was going to die. The sensation went up my legs toward my groin. Oh god, please make it stop! However, it continued its slow trip up my body and through my torso until it engulfed my head. Stupid stupid I am so stupid, I screamed silently to myself. The nurse looked on with sorrowful eyes and very aware of the violent chemical reaction taking place in my bloodstream. She did not move although I was pleading with her that I thought something was very wrong. I bucked and arched my back fighting the restraints until I lay there exhausted in a tepid pool of my own sweat and blood.
Soon my gurney was taken out and placed by a wall for observation and so they could decide what to do with me. I felt like a pie being placed on a shelf to cool. After some time an Indian doctor came to speak with me. He told me that I was very lucky and that when I was found that I had zero blood pressure. “How was I feeling?”, he asked. Actually I was feeling quite good. I felt clean, hungry, and anxious to move. This doctor was quite cool. He removed any reference to narcotics from his report. He gave me a doctor's note to present to TWA. An hour later they decided to let me go. They released me out into the streets of Jamaica Queens at midnight. I had bloodstains on my torn shirt and $10 in my pocket. I would now have to call my hostess and explain to her why I had missed the flight and would need her hospitality for one more night.

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