Four to the Power of Zero

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 I'll tell you now how heartless the world had become: I put powdered cat litter in his dope and sat and watched in delight as he chased his first toot, almost choked and said: There's something fuckin' weird in this!

Mine looks fine, I Said, And a nice big bag to boot.

Big??? You fucking kiddin' me?

I scooped out a fix worth of smack and poured it in my spoon. Sitting up, atop the duvet on the double bed, he measured out another dose too. I heard his hit the foil, the crinkle as he manoeuvred it into place, his lighter lighting, then a kind of sputtering cough as he inhaled the smoke and struggled to keep it down. I didn't look at him. Just listened.

Nah, there's fucking brick dust or summin' in this... It dont run jus' burns up black! There's B in it ... there's definitely B, but there's some other shit too.

I heard him ripping off a fresh piece of tin foil and emptying the content of his bag onto it. He had a pen or something and was pushing the smack around, sorting through it, segregating the small harder rocks and saying all the while : Not evn the same fuckin'colour... not fuckin' gear! Then he screamed like someone who would be violent if the right weakling were sat in front of him: It's a third of the fucking bag... Wot the FuuuucK !!! Finishing by letting out a coarse, barbarous sound of rage, back-heeling the wooden base of the bed and screaming “fuuuuck!!!” once again.

I ignored him. I was sat cross-legged on the floor. I cooked my dope and carefully placed the spoon down on a book in front of me. My first two injections would be on that Cunt. Kinda. Kinda as two nights previous my morning bag had mysteriously disappeared and even more mysteriously reappeared, three hours later, with barely anything in it. After having turned the room inside out multiple times it was finally the Cunt who found it: sat there on the table under our gaze all the while.

Found it!!! He cried. Panic over!

W-what??? Where?

Right there, on the fucking table, he pointed, his mouth hung open in mock disbelief. How the fuck did we miss that?

I stared at him with a hatred in me that I could not and did not want to veil – his cool, insincere friendly face, the flushed guilty demeanour manifest in his eyes and mouth and oozing out of every filthy pore in his deceitful fucking head. It was the look which had outed every thieving junkie since the dawn of time. It was more than circumstantial evidence; it was the embodiment of guilt itself. And it wasn't even with the honesty of primal greed. This wasn't tearing a strip of meat off the carcass first. It was a manufactured selfishness, a Frankenstein behaviour, something that doesn't exist in the wild.

Neither of us had 'missed' the bag. The Cunt surely couldn't be stupid enough to have forgotten we'd already cleared and upended the table thrice (me first and then him and then me again). It was all but impossible the bag had remained there, defying gravity and the scrutiny of four keen junkie eyes. No. Stupidity had nothing to do with it. The Cunt's motivation for returning my heroin was borne from the exact same impetus that had had him steal it in the first place. He'd already tried giving me the slip once that evening, halfway down the stairs and almost out the door when I shouted: "Er, Sean.... have you seen my bag that was on the table?"

The Cunt must have froze in terror, knowing that if only I'd realized seconds later he'd have been out the door and away. Instead he traipsed back up, looking way too innocent for anyone with a foothold in this junk life, and said: "Well, if it was really there then it can't be far... it'll turn up. It can only be in the room! Let me know tomorrow where you find it.

What dyou mean IF it was really there? You fucking know it was!

Um, was, he said, smiling. You sure you din't do it? You was pretty well gone for a while!?

Fuck off! I snarled incredulously. And in that moment I knew, without a degree of doubt, that my bag of heroin was sitting in one of his pockets or inside his sock. I also knew that if I allowed him the opportunity to worm his way out of mine that evening then my gear and morning well-being would be leaving with him.

Used accidently!!! I repeated. When was the last time you or any other fucking addict 'accidentally' used their morning bag? Acci-fuckin-dently!!! No, it’s not been used. It’s fucking here somewhere, and if you're any kind of a friend you’ll not want me getting sick either so will help search for it until it’s found…. Even if it takes all fucking night! Bags are not gonna start fucking disappearing here!

I said that with just enough of a hint of violence about it that he understood the situation had the potential to get ugly. The problem now was that after having been so close to slipping out and away with my smack he'd then taken mental possession of it, had envisaged a morning free from the rigours of shoplifting and even now still held onto the hope that he could help search for the missing bag for a while before throwing his hands up in the air, flummoxed, and then leaving. But tonight he was trying it on with someone who knew the ropes a little too well, who knew every move light-fingered addicts like him were fixing to make. I knew it would take a while for him to mentally unclench from the idea that the bag was his, and so we both played for time and I knew I had more than him.

It took three hours, the both of us searching, the both of us aware we'd not find it as it was sitting in the bottom of one of his pockets. It was only when he was in need of a hit himself, after he had realized that searching till it was found was no joke, that he disappeared into the kitchen and then the bathroom searching out a workable solution. That solution was splitting the bag 70/30 in his favour then arriving straight out the toilet, without the slightest care for credibility, exclaiming: Found it!!! I settled for being partially robbed, content my ploy had been successful enough to keep me well until the following morning when the dealers phones would start switching on.

70/30... So, in a way, now, I wasn't getting anything free just getting something even: having today what I was robbed of yesterday.

Back to the cunt on the bed, moaning like his world is gonna totally collapse, miserably separating what he thinks is brick dust out his gear.

Look, he said, look at all this weird shit in the dope! You gonna shoot that?

He asked that in a strange way, like he wasn't really expecting me to say no, like he was beginning to question something else. I didn't reply just sucked my smack up out the spoon and flicked the air to the top of the syringe. I felt him looking at me. That was obvious. I concentrated on looking as guilty as hell.

Giv'us a sprinkle of yours, he asked, with a slight arrogance attached to his words. I wanna see if the same shit's in it.

Fuck off! I'm not wasting my gear burning it... you crazy or what?

You'll not fuckin' waste it! I'll give ya a trace of mine in return!

And what if mines not like yours? I'll have swapped good dope for bad and you'll still be left with yours anyway. How does the quality of my gear help you? All it can do is make you feel even worse.

You're not worried what you may be shooting, no?

Fuck knows what I shoot, I said, what anyone shoots. Even clean dope's cut dirty. I'm more scared of what I've already shot... The shit which cooked up but wasn't dope. If its brick like you say it won't cook down so on that score it's safer.

Well you seem pretty fuckin' cool about it s'all I'm sayin'. I know you, if you seriously thought there was summin in the gear, even a suspicion, you'd be all over it... studying it, shitting yaself of getting a dirty hit!

Then maybe that tells you something, I said. Mine cooked up clean, not a trace left in the spoon... actually looks like a pretty decent bit of kit. I could even smell it during the cook... and it's not often that happens.

The Cunt visibly smarted with anger. He cast a look down at his pathetic measure of heroin which would barely last him even if he quit. He looked like he was going to cry. I could see him going through his options, making the fated decision:

1) wrap the gear up now and pass a mildly uncomfortable night thinking of it until he could smoke the remainder in the morning.
2) smoke what's left immediately and at least get a nod and pass a sleepless night of mild withdrawal dreading having to go out grafting in the morning half sick.

Of course the logical decision, the one that would affect him the least was the former, having one evening of restriction so as the cycle of physical addiction was kept up. But junkies think short term, they take the immediate relief and deal with tomorrow only when it's there. The Cunt struck his lighter, gave one last cursory thought to what he shouldn't do and then did it anyway: his deplorable face chasing around what was already the last of his bag, secretly disgusted by my presence and driven crazy by the amount of heroin I still had left and which I had purposely left open to his full view. He blew the smoke out like it was the last of the air in his lungs.

Out the corner of my eye I saw the Cunt's neck and arms relax and his upper body collapse half a foot forward. I heard the foil touching down on the bed and crinkling up. For a moment he'd nodded out. I waited just until he was on the precipice of his nod, his body bent over in an impossible way, all his anguish and worries left in the world he had momentarily vacated, the smoking tube fall from his lips.

Can't be that BADLY CUT, I said, raising my voice to wake him, to cut short the only nod he was good for.

He came to with a start, looking angry, annoyed with me for waking him yet even more annoyed with himself for nodding off and losing any sympathy he'd built up about how useless his smack was and what a hellish evening and night he was in for.

Just tired, he said. This fucking life is beginning to exhaust me! I'm bored with it all. Everything! This shit fucking gear and these CUNTS ripping you off!

'These cunts' meant me. That's why he'd stressed it. But he knew it was pointless accusing me out right, same as I knew it would have been useless accusing him two days ago. The junkie rule of plea is you only ever admit a crime when caught absolutely bang-to-rights, and often not even then. Regardless of damning evidence, logic, probabilities, lack of any other possible culprit or alibi all must be denied with a passion: "I don't know how it happened... I know I was the only one here, but I it wasn't me... It wasn't fucking me!"

For the first time since robbing him I now looked him square in the eye. I gave him my smug face to hate, I needed him to hate me, to see himself in me and despise what he saw.

Tired? Ha! You was having a right good nod more like it, I said, trying to further wind him up.

It's not the quality of the heroin that's the problem... it's the fuckin' quantity!!! All that other shit crushed into it!

Maybe it was his last bag or something and he was trying to stretch it out? I suggested knowing it was implausible.

Yeah, right! Said the Cunt. And it was just my bad luck to get THAT bag?

Well one of us had to get it. 50/50 isn't bad luck, its equal chance. 1 in 50 would be bad luck.

Hmm... Even fucking chance!He said. When a junkie comes straight in from scoring holding his stomach, desperate to shit, and bolts himself in the toilet with the bags, it's not fifty-fucking-fifty... Its odds-on!

I did need the fucking toilet, I said, what you trying to say?

It's cat litter, he said.

What's cat litter? What are you talking about?

In my gear, it's not brick dust it's cat litter. He wasn't angry. He said it in a fatigued, doleful way as if he was always on the shit end of everything, like I had done this many times before and had now completely and finally broken his spirit.

There's cat litter in my gear, he repeated, quietly and then he lay down, looking at the wall and silently crying, pretending his tears were derived from healthy emotions and not the abandoned and hideous self-pity which he knew they were of.

I pretended I hadn't noticed his sadness and sticking the knife in further I said, Oh well, if you're gonna have a lie down I may as well take an extra shot and join you. At that point he sat himself up and looked over at me, at my heroin as I scooped another fix out. He watched for a moment and then flopped back down, supine, staring off at the ceiling.

As I prepared my second injection I could sense the Cunt eyeing me. The room was heavy with his being, his conniving thought processes, his anger and self-pitying sadness. He was battling with himself, I could tell, wanting to keep his self-respect, hating me, hating heroin, blaming just about everyone but himself as to why he was laying their so morally weak and on the point of degrading himself even further. To him this was about power, his weakness as an adult male under my dominance, my superior strength and success: having heroin when he had none. It was a disadvantage you can't help hating the other fellow for. The Cunt didn't last out long. He swallowed his pride, prepared some murderous plans in case I refused him, then looked my way once more.

D'ya think you could spare me a trace until tomorrow? He asked, as if to no-one, as if it wasn't even a question.

I ignored him though we both knew the words had been said. He waited a while, squirming, impatient, until the reverberation of his words had stopped sounding and all that was left was an uncomfortable silence, playing more on me than on him.

So whadj'ya say? He asked. Have ya?

I shouldn't have but I felt sorry for him. His words, and the emotions which fuelled them, seemed so genuine. They reminded me of a humanity I had once known, a suffering I couldn't fail to respond to. And I would have responded if it would have come from any other heart but a junk filled one. In the Cunt's request was a self-centredness and a weeping self-pity that sickened me, that made me despise him more for even asking. Come on, don't ask me that, I implored, it's not fair and you know it! I've just another four fixes here myself and am lucky I even have that as my bag was so BIG.

The cunt didn't reply in words but I felt him flush pale at my words before his heart found itself again and began furiously thumping litres of blood through his body until his head throbbed in shame and humiliation and murderous hatred. I was almost out-of-breath just sensing his deflated disappointment. Now on his face was a spiteful dejected look, the Cunt driven half crazy by the number four as it echoed around in his head: four to the power of ZERO; how much better four was to nothing; how four was a lot; how four wasn't fair; how four was just crushingly sad and overpowering; how four was what his existence had come to; how four was my advantage over him; how four and why and therefore.... and then he was on the bed, looking at the wall, trembling and blubbering and wailing like a small child, like he'd had his life and dreams and heart smashed to pieces. He boohooed on about life and what hell it had been and how he didn't want to live and never had. He cursed out every one from dealers to junkies to his own mother. He cursed his cousin for first introducing him heroin and bawled out something about his social security money not having been paid. It all came out in an almost incomprehensible tirade of tears and bubbles and snot and dribble. And when he was finished the only clear thing was that he was the victim, that he'd ALWAYS been the victim and it just wasn't fair!

I took immense joy listening to the cunts performance, and delighted further knowing that once he'd had a fix and straightened up that he would never feel comfortable in my company again, that he' would always know that his reckless junkie demeanour had cracked wide open in front of me and revealed a sobbing and pathetic man of 35 who had become so ruthless in life that he was totally alone and despised by the one person who would still sit in the same room as him. He was a ruined and spent force who would naturally evade my company once this was over, go off alone again until he found a new junk buddy he could recreate his myth to. I think in that moment, from the pleasure I took in his distress, that I’d never despised anyone quite as much. I wrapped my gear up, put it in the tight little pocket of my jeans and stuffed tissue in on top to protect against crafty fingers while I nodded.

When I next came around it was to the crinkling of foil and a lighter flicking anew. I looked across at the Cunt briefly thinking he'd somehow got my gear out my pocket. Sitting on the side of the bed he was now trying to smoke the cat litter, saying “there's maybe some gear in it after all”. Of course there wasn't and the powdered grain either just smoked or did nothing at all. When he realized he was just as sober as he was before he started he gave up and tossed the foil and its contents down on the floor. He looked over at me. I stared him square in the eye and let the faintest of smiles break out across my lips. He saw it and nodded in acknowledgement.

Well basically that's me fuck'd, innit? He asked.

Like I was the yesterday morning, I replied

Oh, so that's what this is all about.... Revenge?

Revenge? For what?

You fucking tell me, he said, I've never stole from you or done bad by you.... EVER. Whether you believe me or not that's the truth... I never did anything!

I didn't believe him. HE didn't believe HIM!. He was still trying to save himself only now in another way. And he would save himself.... just. He had but another two hours to wait first, another two hours of punishment, sentenced to his own company, to himself and who he had become and was.

I watched him through the evening, his distress at being fully conscious and having to deal with his own thoughts. He sat there in a kind of sulk, constantly shaking his legs so as his tormented existence didn't go unnoticed for a second. It was well after 10pm when I finally put him out his misery.

Sean.. give me your foil, I said.

At that he was up and alive, all the misery and contempt leaving him in an instant. I put enough smack on his foil to give him a smoke through the night and a good boot to get him up and out in the morning. He thanked me mercilessly and said he'd never forget it. He said that apart from himself I was the only other junkie who still had a heart. Not affording himself time to become any more emotional he heated and chased the heroin down the foil and sucked up the smoke. The night had come down and he'd survived. For a moment there was a peaceful silence, the silence of junk fiends having blocked out the world. The TV was on and the voices it emitted seemed homely and cosy and warm. In our downed mood we both watched the box, our eyelids getting heavy and sometimes closing over completely. I was glad I had gotten the Cunt well and I was even kinda glad he was there, if only as a presence in the room.

You know, it wasn't me who stole your gear, he said after a while. Honestly, it wasn't me.

I heard his words, nodded, but didn't reply.

You don't believe me do you? He asked. I'd never leave another addict sick, know too well what its like myself. I'd never put someone else through that! Fuck knows what happened to your bag the other night but I swear to you, on my life, it wasn't me!

And for the last time that night I heard his words and didn't reply again.

_ _ _ _

Thanks as ever for reading, Shane. X

Don't forget ---> BOOK LAUNCH: Reading and performance