Somebody will pay for what has happened here. Somebody always pays. That's for sure. It's the only sure thing.
He's not dealing any more. His phone's dead. He showed me the bullet wound; the gauze. Rolled down his sock and lifted his trouser leg as we waited at the lights. A hole right down low, by the ankle.
Fired seven shots, he said. Seven fucking shots! They'll kill a man for nothing today. They'll kill a man for nothing!
And I could tell by his voice: he would as well.
Somebody's gonna pay for what happened here. That's for sure. He's already scheming. Working a way out. Preparing to get more than just get even.
The Police are watching him now. Victim turned loose turned suspect. They want to know WHY? They ALWAYS want to know WHY?
People don't just get shot, he said they said to him.
I did, he said he said to them. I just got shot!
He's moved his garage; changed apartment; is laying low; biding his time. He's working a way out. I could see the cunning in his reptilian eyes, the knotted tension in his jaw. I watched him scheming as he drove; going through his options, the angles. Something eating away inside of him, something that only feeds on men, some loss of something that is hard to define.
Somebody’s gonna pay for what happened here. That's for sure. Somebody always pays.
Tailgating – following right up tight behind. His frame widened; pushed forward; looming large in his windscreen; his face twitching with anger.
The law of Increasing Returns: the debt of violence. On his upper lip a scar, like he's had a hook ripped up out his mouth. It glistens as he drives, as he schemes; it widens as he moistens his mouth, as he works a way out.
Comment ça va, mon ami? He suddenly asked. How are you, my friend?
I replied with a face like I was bored, like nothing ever changes. He nodded his head like he understood, only with a menacing air about his despondency.
Then he said: The shooter’s in prison.
And: That's not justice; that's a reprieve!
And: I'll do all I can to have him released.
Staring ahead into nowhere he grimaced a smile at some sadistic ending he had in mind.
Somebody will pay for what happened here. Oh, somebody will definitely fucking pay!
He's completely turned now. It's like his face is on inside out. Nothing hidden. He really is what he is. And he always said he was an animal.
The first time I hooked up with him alone he told me that.
I'm an animal, he said, laughing. Then he made out like he was gonna punch me in the liver. He pulled up centimetres short, his wrist curled his fist clenched, and made a restrained, frustrated noise like he was biting down on rope.
Urrrrgghhhhh!
He drove me miles out of town that day to one of his small illegal businesses. He showed off the Games Room, bounced a ball around the pool table. He showed me his office, nothing but a rickety partition room with a dusty desk and phone. He walked me around the garage, showed me the empty oil stained pits and two engines hanging from hoists. Then he opened a door right out back to reveal a man in an empty room, bound to a chair, beaten and bleeding and dribbling blood. He allowed me just a peek, a warning to play it straight with him, even if he wasn't to play straight with me. After showing me what he wanted me to see of his life he gave me five grams of the best heroin I'd had in France and then left me stranded miles from nowhere, loaded, to make it back alone.
But that was then, before he had been baptised by the bullet… before he had finally became what he was to become.
So we're in the car, now, three years later. He's driving me to some third party dealer. He's got money, he's successful, has property, eats out, but he's gonna rob me. I know because he does nothing for nothing. The old adage: Time is Money. He only moves for profit even if it's just a gram he would not otherwise have had.
He believes in the dollar. He lives by the dollar. He's been wowed by the dollar. He worships the dollar. He drives by the dollar. He's driven by the dollar. He's been claimed by the dollar; chained by the dollar; bent over by the dollar; fucked by the dollar. He took seven bullets for the dollar, and he'll take seven more.
His foot slams on the brake peddle and the wound in his ankle seeps through his sock which is over his tracksuit bottoms. He's all twisted up with hate, barely keeping it inside. He screams something in Bulgarian, gives an offensive hand gesture to a car behind which has horned at us. He slows to let the car overtake and as it does, he picks up the same speed, keeps alongside and leaning across me he forms his fingers into a gun and starts unloading imaginary bullets into the drivers face. Then he slows and lets the culprit car slide on past. The car's tail lights go on, it signals and then takes the first turning off the motorway.
Emil rips the gearstick back, slides it sideways, pulls it back again then shoves it forward hard. The car makes an horrendous grating sound, jolts, then catches the road and rockets forward the momentum pinning us back. Emil's face is crazy, like he's on a fairground ride, caught between enjoyment and fear. I can see his bottom teeth. He's holding the steering wheel straight with both arms; the muscles tensed and prominent. It's like he's heading for a wall and he's made his mind up not to stop. I think this may be the last time I see him. I think all business is just about done here.
Somebody will pay for what happened. That's for sure. Somebody always pays. I paid today. Two grams short of five. Robbed. The debt of yesterday at my door today. When he was done, in profit, he dropped me off home. I shook his hand for old time sake, and maybe for tomorrow. I clapped him around the shoulder, like how you'd pat a fine dog or horse.
Merci, Emmy, I said... Merci.
He smiled and resembled a memory of the summer to come, something that won't be here in the future. He looked up and around and nodded to the clear blue sky. Then he moved his shades from his head and dropped them down over his eyes.
The future from here looks dark, he said.
That's not the future it's the distance, I replied, and if the distance is anything it’s the past.
Whatever it is it's fucking dark, he said. And those are maybe the final words to be had from a man sunk down deep in debt to himself.
.
When my manager sidled over to the director and muttered “...and he’s wearing a bra!” I knew I had lost my job. Bare-chested and smeared with blood I reclined in my office chair staring at my inbox as emails filtered through about despatch errors. On my desk besides me was a blackened spoon and a needle...a bra was hanging off my arm which I had used as a tourniquet. In pulling on a classic Burlington sock over a stabbed and needle marked foot I made a small attempt of gaining a modicum of self-respect. For some reason sitting there with only one sock on and a dirty foot was humiliating. GG entered the office with his director, both standing and looking down on me like the twin towers on the verge of collapse.
“We’ll need the keys, please Shane.”
“..and his phone,” said the director, no longer looking at me but out the window at a pile of rotting broken pallets. “We’ll contact you... Oh, and there’s also huge discrepancies in the accounts.”
“Yeah, I see where this is going,” I said, buttoning closed my shirt, “as long as I’m paid I don’t give a fuck. I’m suspended yeah? That’s the procedure, suspended on full pay?”
“Well, yes.. until you hear from us.”
“I’ll be contesting ANY decision, so just as long as I’m paid it’s no problem.”
“You’ll be paid. Now get dressed and leave before we call the police.” Then GG whispered something to the other tower who just shook his head and closed his eyes as if he just wanted that plane to hit him.
“Can I make one call before I leave?” I asked “It’s to my solicitor... I think I’ll be needing him.”
“Yes, but be quick,” GG said bluntly “You shouldn’t be here!”
Of course I had no solicitor, but I needed someone to bail me out and so I dialled one of the 20 or so eleven digit numbers I had relegated to memory.
“Trooper it’s me... are you about? I’ll be around soon... I want 3 and 3*.”
“Um's good. Phone me when you at Allieds. Laters”
“Ok, Laters T!”
And with that I half-slipped into my shoes and left as quickly as possible terrified that I might miss my meet. Well, that meeting with my most ancient heroin dealer led to a separate spate of bizarre happenings, but here I will stick to the former and how on Tuesday 25th January 2005 at 13h36 I was busted shooting heroin in my mothers bra. For that I need to take you back to the start...
The Start:November 2003
“Hmm, LEVENE, so you’re Jewish....one of The Tribe? Hmm. Well I’m not promising anything... I can’t you understand? It’s really not down to me, but I’ve a pretty hefty pull in such things, hmm.” GG said shaking my hand in both of his. “Oh, and could I borrow this?” he asked, holding up a copy of Tony Benn’s latest memoirs.
“Yeah, take it. If you’ll only excuse the cigarette burns in the cover.” I replied, glad he’d seen it as I’d left it laying around specifically for his piggish eyes. Flicking through it at home he’d also discover a book mark from some North London Synagogue or other. Not that I’m Jewish; I’m not. I’m less Jewish than Saddam Hussein, but I needed the job, especially on £30,000 per year, company car and bonus. I escorted GG downstairs and watched him waddle over to his car. He strapped himself in, gave me a wide thin grin and then pulled away the car wobbling off the premises in the same manner as his large fat arse.
One week later, sufficiently doped up and with my sidelocks twisted into ringlets, I signed my new contract in front of GG and his director Mr. West.
“Well Shane, we’ve decided to take a chance and trust you. However, we do have one major reservation: you’ve never been in control of a budget before. So for the first 6 months all expenditure will be passed through GG. He will “Ok” them, and sign off all the invoices before sending them to accounts. But no, erhm yes, I think we’ve put a good man at the helm,” said Mr West, looking at GG for reassurance. And with that and one last “hmm” from GG I left with my new contract, 2 vans, the keys to a London warehouse and an annual budget of £750,000. In effect, I left with a huge amount of trouble. They might as well have given me the keys to the prison... It would have saved time.
I first officially opened the warehouse as manager two days later. I travelled in early and read through the company mails detailing my position, the role I was to play and the expectations they had of me. At 7am my colleagues/staff arrived. At 9 the phone was constantly ringing, and by lunchtime I’d received two enquiries about pay increases, had one boy go down with an epileptic fit, had a worker pull a knife on another, and felt the tremors when a 40ft lorry backed into the warehouse knocking all the downstairs windows through. And it never stopped... not for one moment. Whatever force had blown me into the managers chair was also wafting its curse all over the place. It was a strange mix of atrocious bad luck, bizarre occurrences, comical tragedy and shambolic paperwork. But I never lost direction, and my main agenda was to lessen peoples hours and physical exertions while simultaneously cutting costs and reorganising working procedures. “It will be like no other warehouse in the country,” I promised Samir. Then I gave him permission to have each Friday afternoon off to visit the mosque and he realised that I was quite unlike any kind of manager he had ever known.
And Samir wasn’t the only one to benefit; we all would. To most I gave free holidays, another the company car I couldn’t drive, another the van to use as he liked. Iuriy (recently evicted from his home) was given the warehouse keys and so lived there, and I also cut an hour off every working day and extended the breaks. Having stopped the need for most overtime we kept that to ourselves and I still marked down the workers with 20 or 30 supplementary hours per month. I raised as many salaries as I could. But it was all fine, offset by the savings that I made. In the first six months warehouse costs had been cut by £60,000. Everyone was delighted, not least my directors, who celebrated me and started inviting me down to board room meetings and business lunches. I was handed control of the budget and total freedom to negotiate all contracts and employment concerning the warehouse. Other warehouse managers from around the country were sent down to see what I was doing, and though at first slightly dumbfounded because of my appearance and attitude, they all left with a feeling that I was really treading new ground and taking management onto a new level with fresh ideas. I was, and it was a fresh idea that would be the start of the end. An idea that would involve me employing two non-existent South Africans, hiring my AWOL girlfriend as secretary and setting up a company that I subcontracted the toilet cleaning and lightbulb changing out to. It was an idea that at first was to get me through a hard month, and then as I got more and more used to the extra money something which I couldn’t stop and eventually relied upon. And not just me. The money was also keeping my mother and stepfather in a healthy supply of crack cocaine, and when the pyramid of cards eventually fell, my family would split into three.
Of course during this period I was right in the midst of a huge heroin and crack cocaine addiction myself. It had been that way for almost 3 years. I had joined the company as a box-packer after being paid off from my previous company when they found syringes in my bag. It wasn’t easy at first, the days were long and come finishing time I’d be snivelling and in the early stages of withdrawal. But as I gained more responsibility, and with it more freedom, it arrived that I could find reason to disappear for 15 or 20 minutes and slink off to the toilets and fix up. There was no suspicion. I was clean, happy, always first in and last out. I was never absent and always clear minded. I learnt every aspect of the business and took on extra responsibility unpaid. But it wasn’t for fun that I done those things, it was for the freedom. After a year I was promoted to supervisor which gave me the liberty to disappear at will. Being made manager just made life as a working addict even easier. I had the sole key to the spare toilet and would turn off the phones and lock myself in there for 30 minutes at a time, stripped naked and jabbing for working veins in the cubicle. As time passed and my veins began to seriously collapse, fixing became horrendously difficult. By the time I eventually left London it was taking on average two full hours to hit a vein. I would start in the toilets and after 45 mins reallocate to my office where I’d hang a “Do not disturb” sign on the door. Being unsuccessful I’d turn the phones on for five minutes, answer any urgent mails, and show my face in the warehouse. Then it was back to the toilet/office... toilet/office, until I finally managed to hit a vein. Once whilst cooking up a hit in the toilet one of the temporary staff entered shouting my name: “I’ll be with you in a minute!” I cursed.
“Yeah,OK!” He huffed. Two weeks later and after days of him coming in to work at any hour he pleased (if at all) he tried to blackmail me. I had called him upstairs to discipline him with a warning and it was just what he had been waiting for:
“Are you sure you want to give me that?” he asked, throwing the warning letter on the floor. “You was cooking up heroin in the toilets the other week!”
“Heroin? Are you crazy? Heroin??? What are you talking about!”
“I know! I know the smell. I’m not stupid. The other day when i came in the toilets I smelled heroin, you was in there cooking up. My brother does the same! Not only do I not want the warning I want a full-time job, AND be made supervisor. If not, well...”
Well, I was knocked off balance for a moment and in one instance I considered admiting it all and trying to come to some arrangement, but I knew it wasn’t possible. I had someone in front of me with a huge chip on his shoulder and who had already tried to use this to get his own way. And so rather than give in I stood tough and bluffed it out to the hilt. I went into managerial mode.
“What you’re saying is very, very serious and if you believe what you say to be true then you have a duty to report that to my superiors. I will give you my managers name and details and also the main directors and you can put an official complaint down. Though the dilemma is this: if you do decide to do that I’ll have no choice but to ask the agency to replace you as we cannot work together with disciplinary action between us. Now what’s it to be?”
“You can’t suspend my contract! It’s illegal... I’ve rights!”
“Yes, you’ve rights with your agency but not here. You’ve no contract with us and I can end your presence here without notice or justification. It is then up to your agency to find you other work.”
“Give me your fucking manager's name and details... I’m telling!I’m not taking this shit!” And with that he left, but not before making a tour of the warehouse screaming: “Shane’s a junkie! I caught him shooting up in the toilets!” Of course it was so unbelievable that no-one took any notice, though it did stick in peoples minds and a year or so later when I was finally booted out it all made a little more sense.
A complaint was duly filed and I responded with utter amazement refuting the accusations and almost laughing with my director as he read it out to me. After I told my director the lorry driver had also been accused of trafficking drugs in from Bulgaria, my director waved him off as some kind of confused and fantastic nut, dreaming up stories of drug traffic and usage. My refutation was passed back to Jamel, and we never heard anything else. But it was out. My life was overflowing into my work and for anyone with a sharp eye towards drug abuse it was evident.
“Where are all the fucking spoons!” I’d here the workers cry at tea-break, “They’ve all gone again!” or “Shane, I think the lorry drivers a junkie... there’s an empty syringe packet out here!”
“Fuck,” I’d say, “keep a good eye on him boys and don’t let him in the warehouse alone!” One evening I left at 6pm and laying in my bed at midnight I suddenly thought: “Did I clear my box of needles away after my ‘leaving fix’?” This was serious. The cleaner came in every morning at 5am and my office was one of the rooms she was contracted to clean. After an hours dilemma I decided I couldn’t risk it and took a 1am taxi ride into work. Lucky I did, as opening my office door the box was sitting opened on my chair with over 200 used and dirty needles poking from and through it. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” It was all getting very lapse, very open and very hot.
More often than not when my colleagues came to see me they’d have to nudge me awake. “Shane, are you ok???”
“Oh, just tired... was burning the midnight oil. We’re very busy at the moment”But no matter what I seemed to do noone ever thought of drugs. Meanwhile the warehouse was still running extremely efficiently and my name was more celebrated than ever.
What were once 45 minute imaginary meetings now escalated into two hour long conferences. I’d open the phone lines so they rung engaged, hang the “Do NOT disturb sign” on the office door and then strip down naked in my office probing for veins. Occasionally, if my director mailed, I’d answer that, just to show I was still there and still alive. But my colleagues were becoming frustrated. They had work to do, and very often they needed my advise. I would hear their footsteps come halfway up the stairs and then hear them descend and blowing to the waiting crowd, “No, he’s still in conference!” Once, my supervisor ignored all warnings and burst in the office anyhow. On two scores I was lucky. Firstly my pants were still on and the syringe was in a small vein in my wrist, and secondly he tried to enter by the locked door first, giving me just enough time to gather my wits and hatch an impulsive plan. .
“Yes, it was confirmed today,” I said tearily into the phone, “Mum’s got bowel cancer.” I lookd up at Marius and when he made to leave I lowered the phone against my chest and said, “There’s no need. What do you want?” He pointed to an old pile of despatch notes on my desk and I nodded him permission to take them. As he walked around to get them I could feel the syringe dangling perilously from my wrist and just prayed that it wouldn’t slide out and fall on the floor. With Marius gone I finished up and then reopened the business. In future I’d have to be more careful, I thought... much more careful.
The trouble is that once you acquire the confidence of getting away with something you eventually forget you are getting away with anything. And no matter how hard you try, you become more cocksure and ever more lax. And each time you bluff it out, it just makes you think how easy it is... how stupid people are, and that makes you go even further. And like many an idiot before me that is what I done. I thought I was invincible and at the point where I should have quit and left with my winnings I stayed and tripled the stakes.
I was now 10 months into my job and apart from a few minor hiccups was still flying high. The third quarterly budget showed savings in excess of £80,000, overtime had been cut by two thirds and morale was high. However, there was one concern: the burgeoning petrol costs for the vans. This I explained away by saying we had begun running our own deliveries and pick-ups rather than using expensive courier services. We had, but it was not account books or exam results that the vans were picking up and delivering: it was heroin and crack cocaine. In order to get gear into work I had friends and family score for me and when they phoned to say “all’s good” I’d send one of the drivers down to collect it. In a book sized box would be heroin and crack, clean needles and vitamin C. It would carry some phoney address and ‘IMPORTANT’ scrawled across it. Sometimes both drivers would be off at the same time collecting these boxes and then jumping red lights to be back in the warehouse before the post left. Very often when friends had trouble scoring I’d have to leave work and go to buy myself. In these instances I’d have a driver take me to Shepherds Bush and then park up while I disappeared. If they were suspicious they kept it to themselves, but I sincerely do not think they were suspicious... it was a world too far, yet so close to their existence for them to ever entertain such an idea.
It was immediately after the 2004 audit that I first got a whiff that certain persons in the company were beginning to scrutinize warehouse operations. The audit was all in order, but the final quarterly budget, although confirming huge savings also showed up some abnormal expenditure and rising costs... especially in “temporary staff”. According to the books I had employed three agency staff for 11 months solid. That wasn’t the problem though, the question first raised was: “Why employ three agency staff for a year when you could have employed five permanent staff for the same amount?” Still, I talked my way out of that one and was just relieved that no-one asked to actually see these “temps” as only one existed, and she was in France, suicidal and not talking to me. That was January and as I faxed the time sheets through to the agency I promised myself: “This is the LAST time... it really has to stop.”
I remember the day well. It had been snowing and the 15 minute walk from the underground to the warehouse was an arduous journey. London whistled out a barrier of wind that froze through the cold and penetrated the bones. The gale was so ferocious that walking up hill it was almost impossible to breath and one had to turn around to catch ones breath. The freeze stung the face and ears and then ran cold out the eyes. Though the weather records don’t support this, it was the coldest day there had ever been. My fingers were so frozen that I had trouble opening the padlock to the large galvanized security gate and even more trouble fingring the code for the alarm. After warming myself up I turned on the computer, opened my mail and began running orders off the printer. One email was from the director of accounts and was red-flagged with importance.
Shane, There are some abnormalities with certain warehouse expenditure and we would like to meet and clear this matter up as soon as possible. Therefore we request your attendance in a fourway meeting to discuss this. Besides myself, GG & Mr Pennington will be in attendance. Please confirm that you are available and will be attending.
Kind Regards
Rachel Simmons
“Fuck, that sounds serious!” I thought. And though a thousand things crossed my mind, and though I knew I had been busted, I convinced myself otherwise, reckoning: “no, if it was that they’d sack me immediately... they certainly wouldn’t warn me and leave me still sitting in charge of operations”. One other final thing that convinced me otherwise was a second mail that I opened from the main shareholder of the business. It was a company wide mail raving on about the wonderful work I had been doing and how I should serve as an inspiration to all. That mail would be one of his last, as in response to the stupidity he felt when I was finally revealed he had no option but to swallow the cum and resign.
January was always a traditionally slow period for the company so we were working lates. At 9 am staff arrived as usual. Iuriy, our main driver came straight to the office and closed the door behind him. This was the same Iuriy who I had let live in the warehouse for three months and had also illegally employed his son for a small period when he had first moved to England from Bulgaria.
“Shane... there was yesterday a big meeting talking about the warehouse. Did you know about that? GG asked me some questions yesterday afternoon and asked me not to let you know, but what to do? What to do??? I’m telling you... don’t forget that.”
“A meeting???” I repeated agape, “no, I didn’t know. Thanks for telling me. I won’t forget, you know that. Oh, and here...” I sat down at my computer and quickly typed of a letter giving Iuriy a £1000 annual payrise. “And you, don’t forget that,” I said, signing and giving him the letter. As Iuriy skipped down the stairs his keys jangling and whistling, I looked around the office and cried. The place had became corrupted, and the saddest song in the world was drifting up the stairs.
It was during lunchtime that I closed my office door, unwrapped my dope and cooked up a fix in my office draw. Outside the winds had calmed but the snow was still petalling down and staring out for long enough it seemed almost like an hallucination. Sucking up a needle full of smack I rolled up my trouser legs, removed my shoes and sock and started jabbing for veins. With no luck I took off my jumper and shirt, feeling softly all over my arms for any springy tissue that often means a concealed vein. As the time passed and as each attempt proved fruitless I became bloodier and bloodier. I would try wiping it away but it just smeared and bled more and so I just left it. At some point I went into my bag and removed my tourniquet. It was actually one of my mother's old bras which she had given me because she was tired of me using her scarfs and tights and towels. The bra with it’s elasticated band worked pretty well and I strapped it around my left bicep and began tensing and flexing my hand in an attempt to raise the dead.
I did not hear the car pull into the forecourt, nor the footsteps coming up the stairs. I do not remember what vein I eventually hit, but I did hit one as when the door opened I was in heroin slumber with the very top of my head almost flush on top of my keyboard. At first I saw just a pair of polished shoes and black trousers and thought it was the police, but as I jolted to a start and reclined back into full vision it was the cold rubberish face of GG that I saw. He was peering in at me like a doctor announcing the time of death.
“Err Gabriel...” I said. That’s all I said... nothing else would come and I suppose there was really nothing more to say. Sometimes the situation says it all. Caught in the toilets with a porn mag and your dick in your hand... what more can words explain? And when the eye sees the truth, not even a conniving junkie can wriggle his way free. And that was my situation.... worse, because although being caught wanking is very embarrassing it does not amount to gross misconduct and so theoretically once you’ve pulled your pants up you can go back to work. That option wasn’t available to me... or was it??? Ok, I’d been caught half naked and fixing up heroin, but this was Gabriel, ...alone. Fellow Jew... always supported me... gave me the job and wouldn’t want this embarrassment leaking out??? Hmm, my thoughts started to clear. That’s when Mr Pennington stepped in holding my ‘Do NOT disturb sign’ up to GG before balling and dropping it into the bin. “A word please Gabriel... outside.” was all he said.
Sitting alone I was mortified. And though a million thoughts and worries should have been passing through my head they didn’t, I was almost completely blank. Instead I laid back in my chair and stared at my inbox withholding a sad impulse to open and respond to my new mails: ‘Despatch error 069875’... ‘Despatch error 102875... Despatch error...
And that as it, and I knew it. There was no escape, no worming my way out. These were serious people with serious glares and even if sometimes their hardness crumpled in the face of historic blood ties, they didn’t get to be driving Mercedes and wearing solid gold watches for nothing. Their hearts cannot be melted with doe eyes or sob stories... they cannot be penetrated by everyday emotions. They only card I had left to play was of no use. And it was in that thought that I looked down at my bare and stabbed and dirty foot and felt myself shrinking in humiliation. Not only was I only half their size sitting in my chair, but I was totally exposed. Because that foot, the marks and the tracks down it’s inner and across it’s upper. The jammy dirt that covered and blackened my sole, the picked and cut skin on the heel, and the weeks old blood dry and flaky on my ankle, it revealed another soul.... gave away the secrets of a life that I was covering with clean ironed shirts and sleek Burlington socks.
Of course, that humiliation didn’t last long, something more pressing entered the agenda: my need to score, and how to arrange that with no phone and two ‘would-be’ policemen towering above me. Well, once again addiction has no shame or face and when desperation stakes are low you fall with it and abandon yourself to that level. And so I made some pleading excuse to get the company phone in my hands and with no care if GG or Mr. Pennington understood what I was really doing or not I openly arranged to score. Then I felt better and looking up from the wreckage I suddenly saw the light and had my own good reason to leave. “Well if we’re done here I’ll be going?” I motioned.
And like many a junkie before me I left hurriedly dressing on the move. I was still trying to tuck my shirt in and fit into my shoes as I hit the air and snow and was buttoning up my jacket and pulling the collar around my neck as I walked at double pace out the industrial estate and towards the underground station. And every twenty strides or so, or when the vile winds let up enough I’d slip my wrist an inch out my pocket and eye my watch. “Fuck, I'll never make it!” I cursed “unless the tube is straight there and then I get a bus immediately. Yeah, that could work... or a cab. Could be... could very well be. Straight down the A40 and I’m there ...20 mins max. Just hope the snow hasn’t blocked the route!” And I passed the walk like that, making rash and improbable calculations on how I could possibly get back home to score quicker than was physically possible.
And as the cab pulled out and cut across three lanes of beeping traffic and then passed through one red light then another, I knew I had the correct driver... that hell was postponed for at least another day. And as I gave him a 20 pound note for a £12 fare I made my way hurriedly down the road and of to the phone box across from Allieds. And as I dialled the number and waited anxiously through each ring I looked up at the falling snow and started reciting the Junkies Prayer: “Answer the phone T... just please, please, PLEASE answer the fucking phone! ”
Somewhere lost in the autumn of 2002 the 4th dead body of my life hammered upon and then fell through my door. Once again, death in all it’s shameless and humiliating glory was laying on the floor by my feet... this time floating hideous fumes into my face.
* * * *
James Tullock was a retired London Underground worker. He had emigrated to Britain from St.Lucia in the 1960’s and had killed himself repairing signal boxes in carbonated tunnels for a petty pension and a free buspass. He wore undersized suits and Trilby hats and cooked fish every Friday. He moved in below us 2 months after the body of the previous tenant had been stretchered out after succumbing to a toiletbowl heart attack whilst trying to rid his bowels of constipated constipation. No-one mourned that passing, we were just relieved that the BNP* posters that littered the downstairs window would finally be removed and that we could sleep without the worry of bricks or petrol bombs being thrown or put through our door. The arrival of Mr Tullock was a very welcome relief, but his stay didn’t last too long. It was barely two years before he too would be carried away, and not in too dissimilar circumstances as that of the last.
It all unfolded one early afternoon on my first day off on a week break from work. I cannot remember the exact month or date, but I know it was in the autumn, maybe early October or November of 2002. I know it was between 12 and 1pm as the children from the nearby school were screaming and hurling to whistles and play. It was one of those low sedated afternoons when sound and smells merge into a sweet tranquility and eyelids drift heavy on lazy days. I was sitting in the living room, needle in mouth and feeling for veins... my mother was bent double on the edge of her bed - daytime TV invading her brain. At first I heard a door, and then a bang and then the commotion of voices. I pulled back the yellowed net curtains and watched as a delivery van moved off down the street.I took it they had just dropped something off for Mr Tullock and had banged the wall whilst manoeuvering it into his flat. I left the curtain slide back across the window and returned to my business in hand. But once again I heard it, only this time it was a scuffling and rapping on the wall.
“Mum... did you hear the noises? I think someone’s in the hallway.”
My mum wandered half dazed from the bedroom and peered down the stairs at the little square of glass that topped the door. “Nah, there’s no-one there, Shane... You can see a shadow if anyone’s in the hallway.” But then it happened again, and this time we both heard it. We looked at each other worriedly but before we had time to speak a heavy rap ran down the door.
“Fuck, it’s the police that is...” my mother whispered “That sounds right like the fucking police!” My needles and heroin were laying on the table and foil and pipes were in the bedroom. For one horrible moment I thought she was right. I had visions of chucking the lot... the gear at least, but then reality hit.
“It can’t be the police... no, it can’t be. What reason would they have to be here? Who would be calling the police to us?” And then the door knocked again, only this time lighter and with a chesty groan. That was it, someing was not right, I was opening the door.
I tried to unlock the door but it wouldn’t release. Something was jamming the deadbolt in the catch... I could barely even turn the knob to release it. When I finally succeeded the door burst open.. Mr Tullock falling in on his side and flapping about like a fish on the floor. His eyes were bulged and going northeast and west and he lay there like that flapping and heaving and looking terrified. I tried to speak to him, but from his mouth the most horrendous smell was being released... it was as if a bag of crabs had been left to rot in his stomach. It was a nauseating smell, and one that was almost unbearable... it was the smell of his death.
My mother came hurtling down the stairs, “JAMES... can you hear me? CAN YOU HEAR ME?” And he seemed to, there was something in his eyes that still moved to attention... that still recognized human voice and his own need for help. And then the smell hit my mother, and she gagged and holding her mouth run back up stairs.
It’s strange that in a panic nobody knows what to do... we run from place to place not even sure if we should phone an ambulance or comfort the dead. I had to shout instructions up at my mother, step by step, guiding her to the phone and explaining what to say. At least twice she returned to the top of the stairs with some irrelevant question or concern.... looking down in the hope that Mr Tullock had made a miraculous tap-dancing recovery. Finally she did call the emergency services, and while she did I comforted James, touching his head and holding his hand. He had stopped flapping and seemed to be calmed by my words and presence, but his eyes were still all askew and all of hells rottenness still poured out from his mouth. I listened to my mothers hysterical voice on the phone... her tears that somehow didn’t seem genuine, and at the same time I felt James relax and calm further, his eyes now settled on me.
“MUM... I think he’s going!” I yelled out “He’s stopped moving... tell the emergency services he’s not breathing... he’s unconscious!” I heard my mother repeat what I had said and then hang up. She came back to the stairs and looked down. “Mum, take over here for a while... just hold his hand, I’ve got to clear the table” . Actually, the table wasn’t my concern, I needed some time... the eye’s of James and the smells had hit me hard, and I needed to be free of my mothers eyes to release my emotions. Since being 8 years old and begging her not to leave home, I’ve never allowed my mother the privilege of seeing me cry. In many ways I’d feel a pathetic weakness weeping in front of her... or maybe more than that I am petrified that she may try to comfort me. Maybe I am scared she may throw caring arms around me, for in an instance like that I would be completely and utterly lost.
My mother held the fort and I rushed upstairs and sitting in the living room I cried. I tried not to, I tried to keep my tears behind my lids, but they just came... like spasms of orgasm there was no holding back, no plugging the dam, and in silent streams my emotions ran their course.
That I even cried surprised me... I was not extremely close to Mr Tullock and only really saw him on the weekends. The closest we came to friendship was him giving me bottles of West Indian muscle rub after seeing me hobbling off to work in the mornings, sore and swollen from missed injections. Apart from that I had nothing much to do with him. I think the tears were because of death... because of the closeness of it and my inability to help a man with eyes shock wide with terror. I imagined all the things his paralysed mouth wanted to say, all the fears that rushed through his short-circuiting brain... I remembered his light grip on my hand and his crusty lips as they breathed out vile and rancid body fluids. And then I remembered his legs and his undressed lower... it was the first time I realised he was laying there half naked, and that brought tears again. The terror that someone must be in to flee their house in that state must be horrendous... to stagger naked and gasping out into public, well... what else but death could chase a man that far... especially a man who cooked fish every Friday?
I never went back downstairs, instead I tidied away the needles and cleared the room of any paraphernalia. About 10 minutes after our call an ambulance and three paramedics arrived. My mother left the scene and came running up with eyes full of water... but not tears, they were burning from the stench that James had released her way and which were now a drifting presence throughout the flat. After about 15 minutes a paramedic joined us and said that James was dead and that it appeared as if he had suffered an enormous stroke. He said that even if they had been able to resuscitate him he would surely have been brain dead and was probably that even by the time he fell through the door. He asked for the name and address of any of Mr Tullock's relatives and we gave him that of his sister. James was taken away, and once again I was left stunned and sitting in shocked silence at a world that only half an hour ago had wafted by like a hypnotic scent. I watched as the ambulance pulled off and then reached in the draw for my needle and the fix that I hadn’t earlier had the time to take. My mother returned from the bedroom with a square of aluminium foil and a tube in her mouth, and as I calmed myself with a prick and and a push, so she did the same with a crackle and a suck.... both of us escaping the sights and scents that this day had brought.
As happened after the passing of Ewan, death doesn’t hold us reflective for long, and there is always one junkie who is distanced enough and cold enough to profit from tragedy. When Geoff, my stepfather, returned home and was told the news, he suggested that we use the spare keys James had given to my mother and search his flat for prescription drugs and money. yes, unbelievably Geoff wanted to rob him!!! Of course, we never done that but it was close. All it would have taken, from either my mother or I, would have been a slight nod or a moments hesitation and Mr Tullocks door would have been opened and the possessions of a dead man ransacked and stolen. Rather, in light of our shock, Geoff pretended it was a joke and talked endlessly throughout the evening of how he wouldn’t do something like that but that he knew many a scoundrel that would. Two days later he was kicking himself, because it was revealed that under James mattress £12,000 had been found along with another £5,000 hidden in a shoebox in the loft . I later overheard a furious Geoff say to my mum: “We could’ve fucking had that!! It shuld’ve been ours!” And he’s right we could have had it, we could have robbed the dead... who would have ever known? And then this question came to me and it is one which I am embarrassed to answer here: “If I had have been aware about the money, would I have opened the door, sneaked in with Geoff and took it? And the answer is yes... yes I probably would have.
Take care readers & keep hope, Shane. x
*BNP: British Nationalist Party.. a political (joke) party on the extreme right.
Yes I do requests... hows a Heroinhead to survive if he doesn’t turn a few tricks now and again? This one’s for Lou over at http://brokenheartedmom.blogspot.com/ .
The Heroin Addict Vs The Junkie*
Within heroin culture there are myriads of different people one will encounter, and as with many other parts of society these groups tend to stick together. There are smokers, snorters and shooters, those that snowball and those who wash their smack down with downers and booze. There are the depressed, the oppressed and the repressed, the mentally ill and the mentally sane. There are the young, the old, the dead and the dying. We are all in one house and we are all junkheads. We all crave the same drug and we all double up in illness when it comes a knockin'. But some of us accept that illness before others. Some of us do not break certain rules, and some of us are lucky enough not to need to. We are all dope fiends but we are not all junkies. In this post I will try to explain the difference.
I will start by saying that I am a heroin addict. I am not a junkie and never have been. I have crossed that road and I’ve assisted in it, but I have never taken it. There are many things I am just not willing to do for a bag. In contrast, my father was and many of my friends are junkies... out and out. When you’re in their company you’d do well to glue your shoes to your feet and padlock your trouser closed, because if there’s anything that can be stolen and sold, it will be.
A junkie is noticeable. He/she is the visible side of heroin addiction. The junkies habit is out of control and has led to a certain lifestyle. This lifestyle is of cheating, lying and stealing to get their dope money. A junkie scores on a day to day basis and from waking up doesn't quite know where that days drug money is coming from. He is open to most ideas, starting small and getting progressively more desperate as the day wears on. The point when he retires and accepts withdrawal is when he is sick. Until that point almost anything goes. The junkie is the scruffy, unkempt jack-the-lad that will wish you well as you leave on a shopping trip and then scramble up your drainpipe and in your window as soon as you turn off the street. He will ask you for money and if you refuse he will steal it. If you do lend it to him you can be sure you’ll never see it again. If you do it will be a symbolic gesture: “I have your money... but can I borrow it again until next Tuesday?” Next Tuesday? Well, we all know Tuesday never comes.
But junkies are not bad people, they are the creation of an addiction that has gotten out of control. Being a junkie is an economic problem, not a fashion statement. Not one junkie I know enjoys thieving, and all have a conscience. If they could fund their addictions without resorting to theft or underhand activities they would. No-one enjoys that kind of pressure and the last thing a heroin addict needs for a bad day is an arrest, or the police knocking down their door. When people talk of losing a loved one to heroin they are in fact referring to the junkie lifestyle.
In contrast to the junkie is his cousin: the 'stable heroin addict'. Stable heroin addicts are almost undetectable (unless you live with one). As long as they have their drugs they will perform and remain a valuable asset to society. They will work and pay taxes, do their shopping and pay their rent. They will hold intelligent conversation and will give you their undivided attention. The heroin addicts priority is in planning their addiction, in making sure they have their dope well in advance and not scored on a faily basis. They are able to buy bulk and ration properly. If funds are tight they will adapt their usage to that. Your Director, bank-manager or author of your favourite blog may be a stable heroin addict... you just wouldn’t know.
I am sometimes guilty of joking around this subject, but there is a real serious side to this distinction. Because junkies have a hard time supplying their habits they will often be using other opiates or downers and alcohol. Downers, anti-depressants and booze on top of heroin are lethal. Between 90-95% of all fatal overdoses are due to a concoction of drugs. The junkie runs a much higher risk of heroin death than the stable addict. Junkies also run an increased risk of contracting HIV and/or hepatitis. They are often in the position where they have to share equipment. Not so much needles, but spoons and water and citric and filters. The reason why heroin is shared in the spoon and not divided by hand is that former is an exact division (sucked up in milligrams) and the latter a division by eye. When done by sight, each party always thinks they’ve had the bad deal. So for peace of mind, its all into the spoon and then everyone draws up equal amounts of equally diluted smack. That's how it works. But in that draw, all it takes is one infected needle, one microscopic bacteria, and everyone is playing Russian Roulette. The junkie walks a fine line each day, and it is one that I couldn’t keep my balance on.
As this post was from a request by Lou, it is only fair the last paragraph is about her.
Lou has a junkie son. He is called Andrew. Unfortunately Andrew is ‘out of bounds’ at the moment. Lou has experienced the lot: the lies, the scams, the stolen money and missing jewellery. She’s had her car stolen, her bedroom ransacked and probably her video recorder pinched. She’s had the early morning police calls and the bail charges. Her son Andrew made a road trip of US prisons and then went back for more. He has been in and out of rehab and jail for a long time. Lou loves Andrew, but Lou thinks she has lost her son. She has, but not forever. I tell Lou this whenever I can. I have to, because if Andrew is lost then so am I.
Keep heart Lou... It was never your fault.
Shane. X
Ps: Andrew's release date is in 239 days 1 hour and 10 minutes. If that doesn't seem long imagine being Lou, and if it still doesn't seem long try being Andrew.
*The word 'junky' was coined at the beginning of the 20th century and used to describe New York addicts who scoured the rubbish dumps and vacant lots looking for scrap metal they could sell in order to get the money for their next shot.
This is my first post on my addiction to crack cocaine. In contrast to my heroin addiction, crack was a habit I never enjoyed and didn’t want. It never made me feel good, only anxious and uncomfortable. Nevertheless, it was dragging on my heels for almost 3 years and I only shook it off on my arrival in France.
I came into contact with crack cocaine during my teen years growing up on the White City Estate in West London. First as an observer, then as a casual user and finally as an addict. I was 17 the first time I ashed a Coca-Cola can and sucked in the sickly fumes of this expensive rock.... 8 years later I would be a hardcore Crackhead, scouring the floor for crumbs of rock I knew I never dropped.
White City Estate is a huge housing complex tucked in the pants of Shepherds Bush – it is notorious for housing problem families. It is where the worst of the worst are banished.... full of drug addicts, travellers and thieves. In White city the telephone boxes are burnt out, the lifts are public toilets and rats and roaches scurry around huge metal dustbins. It is a place from which everyone dreams of escape, but escape is rare... for in White City, the cars have no wheels.
It is there, in that pre-war maze of red brick low rise flats, that one will come across walking shrapnel... people indelibly wounded by domestic atrocities. Imagine stepping on a landmine, having a limb blown off and your head opened up... and then staggering around concussed in the aftermath of the blast... this is what exists in White city.
Paul X was one of these walking wounded... he was also a crackhead. He spent his days crouched near the lift shaft, smoking coke crystals and hiding from police that weren’t there. He was paranoid and dangerous. It was with Paul X that I first licked the rock.
My first encounter with this type was not a pleasant experience. He had taken me at knifepoint and forced me to burgle houses to fund his addiction. My way out of this was a stroke of youthful genius: on gaining entry to a chosen property, I phoned the police on myself. I was arrested and I informed on him. I spent the next 8 months in hiding, petrified of retribution. By the time we saw one another again, Paul X was in no state to be settling old scores... he was on the verge of tears, begging me to lend him 50p so as he could page his dealer. It was in exchange for this that I was given my first hit of crack.
From the age of 17 – 23 I only smoked crack on about 10 separate occasions... it was a drug that didn’t seem to affect me. I was more into buprenorphine (a heroin substitute) which I bought from a friend whose mother was dying from cancer. By the time I started smoking crack professionally, Paul X was dead, White City had been renovated into one of Londons more respectable housing estates and I was taking 5 injections of heroin per day. And I wasn’t the only victim... I wasn’t alone scouring the floor for crumbs. No, my mother and her partner had also fallen prey to this vicious drug. Mum was no longer using acetone to remove cheap nail varnish... now she used it for washing out her and her lovers crack pipes. The 3 of us, wired at 2am in the morning, burning then scraping recycle of enamel tiles. This is where crack eventually leads... well, here and prostitution.
Crack cocaine is very different to heroin. It has a different history and a different image. If heroin is thought of as an artists or musicians drug, crack is a street drug. Although it is cocaine, it has nothing to do with rich Hollywood types, fashion or high living... Crack is from the ghetto and the crackhead is a species apart.
As I mentioned earlier, I never enjoyed my crack habit. I carried on smoking it daily for 3 years due to addiction – nothing else. I just couldn’t stop. I tried... I would make it to the evening and then at the very last moment, just before the dealers turned their phones off, I succombed... I made the call. I think that my battle with white is the reason why I can always understand the heroin addict who wants to quit but can’t. In that way it served me well.
You may be thinking that it is a huge thing to be addicted to both crack and heroin, but it is more common than you’d imagine. 7 out of 10 heroin addicts I know also have a crack habit. In fact, it is often crack that leads to heroin. The crack user is left saucer-eyed and anxous after use, and often takes a little heroin to come down, or to get rid of 'the jitters' (as we say in the trade). Because crack is more expensive and doesn’t last long, the crack addict normally ends up using heroin whilst funds are low... and before they know it they have a double whammy... a twofold addiction. This wasn’t the case for me, but I’m sure there will be some readers that will identify with this.
So, how and why did my crack habit stop? And why am I not buying 'white' in France?
My crack habit stopped the day I moved to Lyon. It wasn’t difficult as I had no choice and crack, unlike heroin, is not a physical addiction. Also, and certainly the deciding factor, crack does not exist in France... you cannot get it! One can free-base coke but one cannot score crack. Still, it took me almost a full year to get over the cravings of the psychological addiction. There were times in that first year when all I wanted was to return to London. Not for a break, not to be back home, not even to see my family... no, my sole reason for wanting to return was to score some crack... to construct a little plastic pipe and to smoke myself into a fidgety paranoia.
Today as I write this, I have not touched a rock in nearly four years. I never will again either... my head is over that. When I think of crack I feel nauseous... just the thought of its sweet, sickly perfume turns my stomach. Maybe one day heroin will also turn my stomach... maybe one day I'll be writing about my third year clean of that - who knows? Like everyones, my future is undetermined... what the the wild dogs will bring to my door, I just don't know.
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