On the Autumn Blows

Sometimes on the autumn blows, when it comes through like this, when the evening air has just a faint idea of chill about it and the first musty tangs whip up in the first of the fallen leaves, I remember a life entire and it makes me sad and ecstatic in turns. And on the autumn blows, when the colour of your greatest bruises are back in season, when the scars from old love re-open and weep, when childish tinklebells of happiness ring through from the lost of time, I am compelled to write because this is the parallel universe of which I inhabit and in which I see the flawed and tragic beauty of this world. It is on the autumn blows that I cry for life and all the pleasures and pain therein, thereof and theregone. It is on the autumn blows that death terrifies and offends me and remains something to avoid at all costs.

I dreamt of her again last night... And of her pharmacies. The neon green cross flickering on its last legs, a dying beacon of sickly light for the junkie to wash-up in before smashing into the rocks further on. Askew road. Opposite the public library. The chime of the bell as I enter. Standing there in that pharmaceutical smell of pomade, baby powder and surgical stockings; the evening dark and suspicious outside; the last of the days addicts blustering in with their sniffles, bad lungs and lack of time. And it ends the same: watching myself recede down Hadyn Park Road with my works, the street lights on but the sky not yet quite night above, my form becoming smaller and darker until finally I'm no longer there at all. That was London and that was the autumn there and it only exists in dreamscape now. On waking I am slow to emerge. I don't move. Just lie there. A profound longing weighing me to the bed; the dream fresh in me for some moments yet. I am weeping but it's not sadness. It's a base emotion not contrived at all. I rise and I dress and the day is fresh to the cold outside. October is in me then.

I spent the better part of the morning sat alone outside the L'étoile brasserie watching the carousel turn in the square. The sky was dull full of clouds above, stretching off into the forever. Out across was the river, running parallel to me, huge sycamore trees potted along its course, leaves faded for the change in season, balding and baring through. I topped my coffee up with my morning dose of methadone and stirred it in good. The bartender saw me, made out he hadn't, wiped his cloth across a couple of tables and then came and placed a round glass ashtray down in front of me. I thanked him a Merci and asked that he bring me another cafe au lait. He gave a nod, looking at me intently, determining if I was sober enough to stay, and if so, would I likely be topping up every coffee with controlled substances. I guess he ruled in my favour. Standing a way off to my left he took a long searing drag from his cigarette, inhaled, then blew the smoke out as he peered a painful look over towards the river and at something out there which only he could see. He seemed to ponder profoundly on life for a moment. Then he smirked and gently nodded, a sad despondency in him then, like he'd figured out that it was useless and nothing could be done about it anyway. I looked over to where he'd been focusing, at the same blankness. It was another day in our lives and the city rolled on, and in a thousand years time it'll still be the same and out there I spied the insignificance of our lives when faced with the infinite spectre of history.

The methadone was coming on. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, a warm hollowness stirring around, a sudden compulsion to be involved in life. I sat preoccupied by the carousel, lit up and turning around through the drabness of the morning, the wurlitzer music sounding so out of sorts with the yield of the day and yet so perfect in the discordant and contradictory spirit of the time. On the face of it the music was upbeat and carnival but drifting out in low tones, unfurling and seeping up through its heart was a timeless melancholy, some tragedy stewing away below. I watched the few people turning around the ride, the smiling faces, the waving and laughter as they passed their loved ones on the periphery, completely oblivious to the tragic spectacle they were making up a part of. And then it hit me, what that tragic spectacle was: it was what carouselled around the carousel: the timeless melancholy was life.

Morning the colour of cloud. A moistness in the air like very fine drizzle, but no rain to be had. I finished my second coffee and felt lonely but strangely suited for it. I imagined all the beautiful people I'd sat opposite to in cafés over the years, of the time I stole Mary's cup as I wanted a memento of where her lips had been. That was autumn too. In the hotel that night, as we lay kissing on the bed, her suddenly shoving her hand into my pocket to feel out my cock.

“What's that she cried?” Her face ruffled in surprise, looking ugly for the first time. I knew what it was and tried to squirm free. I gripped her wrist so as she couldn't remove her hand.

“It's nothing,” I said, looking ugly for the first time too. “Just a spoon!”

“A spoon??? What?”

She was laughing without laughter, her face frozen on the brink of it... Or on the brink of crying. I was angry, trying to mask it; trying to think. How dare someone go for for my cock, especially in my left pocket! I held her wrist tight and stared without blinking into her eyes. She looked deceived for the first time. Then she looked sad, but that had happened before. Sensing she was never going to get the spoon out my pocket she let go. I pulled her hand out and began licking and kissing her fingers, passionately, removing all trace of the black carbon from them before she saw, before this turned into a real tragedy. As I kissed the last black soot off her fingers I said: “It's your spoon... from the cafe. I stole it. I wanted to save the moment. I stole your cup too. Go look It's in my bag! I collect mementos... I never wanted the day to end.”

Hope returned in her for the first time. That quick all consuming hope that only lovers of addicts, gamblers and the consistently unfaithful are ready to buy into. For a moment a nightmare had nearly shattered all her new dreams, like had happened to her/to me/to the entire world before. But that autumn night would not be the one where her world would collapse. It would be another full month later before she would learn I was an addict and didn't really have gastro-digestive problems; that I was in the toilet so often and for so long as my needles and vit C and heroin were wrapped in a succession of plastic bags and stashed in the cistern.

I laughed now. It seemed sweet. I would live that again if I could, if it meant we could all be young and hopeful again. I looked out over past the carousel, past the river, over to the Fourviere Hill making up the backdrop of the city, the Basilica sat atop it, the huge gilded Virgin Mary looking out over us, breaking through the faint mist at just-past-eleven, protecting the city from pestilence. But the pestilence is here, thriving, only it looks nothing like the plague. It's hard to believe I'm here, making up the history of this foreign town, walking a part of my legend around streets so alien to where I'm from. It's hard to believe it's 2013 and we've mostly all made it this far and the world hasn't really changed at all.

It was time to go. The morning had warned up and lost its bite and other phantoms of life now blew in over from the river and called me off to some place else. I left a note and more change on the table for the two coffees. As I passed the door of the Brasserie I signalled to the bartender that the money was on the table. Taking no chances he rushed out to check before I was gone, out of sight. Taking advantage of not having rung the order through the till the bartender picked the note out the litter and saucered the change into his pocket. When I next looked back he was gone. He had cleared the table and it was hard to believe I had been there at all.

It's true, sometimes when the sun breaks through, when great sheets of architectural yellow light escape between parting clouds, when the river gently laps on the turning tide, when a swan drifts by, we can disconnect from the dirt of living, from the epoch, from the constant fear of death, and for just a moment be equals in that wonder and awe; be equals in that fleeting understanding of mortality.

So once again the greatest season of all is breaking out across Europe. The light summerwear has been chucked back to the moths, the blithe fragrances replaced by scents much heavier and darker and obsessive. It's the time for taking sanctuary in someone, rip undressing as you clatter through the door, the desperate and breathless fuck in the low of the corridor, sperm shot up the inside of a thigh, across coutured lace and woven trims, tears of joy and horror at the realisation of how far you could lose yourself in someone, entire days spent in bed, holding and healing and catching up on a lifetime of good sleep as the wind and skies growl wild outside.

And on and on the autumn blows and winter will be here real soon, and fuck me if I'm not still enamoured with this ghastly fucking world.

The Dry Season

In far away places men were being killed. I watched it on the TV as I cooked up smack, fell asleep to journalists embedded in a war zone that was safer than their home streets. The biggest risk was friendly fire. It was 2001 and Afghanistan was smoking and choking on democracy.

In the streets of London there were marches every day. The mosques had become underground bunkers where rallies and demonstrations were organised. Inside, you could even keep your shoes on – that's how pissed off Islam was. As I wormed my way through the crowds, en route to meet a dealer, I would read the banners: “Stop The Afghan war!” “Troops Home NOW!” Sometimes I'd even shout a cliché myself. But I didn't really care, or had stopped. The Morning Star was then just a paper I held so as not to look too inconspicuous while standing at disused bus-stops. Politics had become a luxury, and came (if at all) at the end of a long line of other more pressing matters. Out of touch, my thoughts were not of black oil or corrupt foreign policy, but rather of a light brown rock that I knew only in 'theory' came from the same place.

During the first two weeks of bombing, as mighty Allied Forces took cities fighting back with catapults and stones, heroin on London's streets was rampant. It was so rife that it was actually easier to score junk than to buy the Vit C needed to cook it down with. And then one day, without warning, I received a call from a friend asking if I had any numbers, that she was having problems scoring. That call was the first hint that the war was actually going to effect me, and by seven o'clock I was half sick, frantically redialling the numbers of the twenty or so dealers I had, only to find every phone turned off. The single response I received beeped through in text: No Bisto bro. Gravy drowt. shld b bk on in day or 2. He never was.

In a dingy, one bedroom flat, dark forms sat huddled against the walls, jittering and waiting for time. Every so often I would rise and answer the knocking on the front door. From out of the cold, in would crawl another sweating junkie, eyes struck wide open and cursing. They'd all ask the same: “Anyone on? Anything?” Murmurs and “fucks” would rise up around the room, and then sniffling and groaning. As phones clipped shut, the latest corpse would flop down and join in the aching. But apart from Grace none of us lived there. It was a flat that had turned into our own bunker, the place we had gathered to rack our brains and kill our phones -  to try and find a score in London.

I never did get sick that night, though only thanks to two dirty tricks. One from me, and one from the person I scored from. It was another user, a user who hadn't yet got wind of any supply problems. I phoned him and asked if he had a bag he could sell me, that I'd pay double. Seeing a quick profit he said he had two bags he could sell. I met him and he sold me the last of his stuff, unaware that the money I had given him may just as well have been fake, that he would make no profit this time, that there was no-one to score off. His trick was when I opened the bags they were triple wrapped and a third the size. But it was gear, and it was enough, just, until the next day.

The next day I was ill. We all were. Twelve of us laying around in Grace's living room and kitchen, cursing the world and trying to find a comfortable second in the discomfort. There were junkies stripped naked and laying on the bathroom tiles, others wrapped up in blankets and huddled against the wall, Grace thrashing about on the bed, moaning and hurting and cursing how bad it was. The rooms were full of mucus, shit and tears... our disease was seeping out our bodies. We were all down with the same flu and the real fucker was this: our pockets were full of cash. It got so bad I even heard Portugese Jo praying, either that or cryng. There's not so much difference.

“There must be one fucking dealer on!” someone would moan. On that we'd all try our phones again. “It's ringing!!!... shssh!” another would start up excitedly. We'd all sit hushed, hanging on with bated breath. We'd hear: “What, just White? Ya got no B?” Then we'd all deflate and sink back into our own individual hells until a new thread of hope arrived. Ideas would come and fade and old names of old dealers would surface and become important for the first time in years. Even the rip-off merchants hawking light weights of God-knows-what were worth considering, but no one had anything, rainy old London was dry.

On the third day, three hundred mil of methadone between the lot of us, we got wind that there was smack knocking about in Ladbroke Grove. We put in together for a taxi and four of us hobbled into the back of a beaten up Ford Sierra, wiping our snot on our sleeves and pointing out the quickest way to get there. “It's just a fucking red light!” we'd scream, “ignore it!'

On the way we passed the usual scoring haunts down Uxbridge Road and around Shepherds Bush Green. Far from being empty the meeting points were chock full of addicts, hanging around, all as sick as dogs. They were not waiting for their man though, just standing there because somehow it felt less hopeless - in and out of phone boxes, living to the redial button and the “We're sorry but the mobile you have dialled is switched off.. please try ag.....” And then the receiver would be walloped into the cabinet as more money rattled down BT's throat and clinked into the belly of the beast.

In Ladbroke Grove we were served by a small west Indian dealer with a violent kind of beauty carved into the left side of his face. He came cycling into view with a whistle and we followed his back wheel as he carried on past us and turned off into a small alley. The bags he was selling were half size, half heroin and twice the price, but it was something. Anything to get well - get well and give us eight hours of health to track down something better. That was the deal.

After scoring we didn't return to Grace's flat. It would have been too cruel, and the junkies who had wanted no part in the risk of the deal would soon change their minds once they saw our illness recede and heard our voices start to draaaaawwwwl. But then there would not have been enough, and there was no more from that source. What we had just bought off Ritchie had put his phone out the game too. So we split up and went off on our own to escape heroin sickness and have at least half an hour relief before the panic started again.

That evening Mikey phoned me. Everyone knew Mikey but I had a good relationship with him and so enjoyed the privilege of knowing he was holding first. Thinking only of myself, I told him immediately I would buy every bag he had. I did. He turned his phone off as I stood with him and said he didn't know when he'd reload, that heroin into the country was not getting through. Other than that he didn't know why, just his man higher up the chain was also on the sidelines, also waiting for the call. We were all waiting for the call.... just it never really came.

The gear Mikey sold me was the worst I'd ever had. It cooked up red and left a weird furry black residue in the spoon. It had no effect, but stopped me getting ill and so the teeniest quantity of heroin must have been in it. It got me through the next three days and I was sure by then phones would start coming back on. They didn't.

Over the following days and weeks junkies and dealers interests were put into finding out the reason as to what was causing the heroin shortage on the streets. It turned out that US troops on the Iran and Pakistan borders had accidentally blocked off one of the main arteries of traffic, and so the smack due for England was kinda going through a heart bi-pass operation. There was heroin, tons of it, a 'bountiful crop', 'huge surpluses', but it was being rerouted around Asia and Europe and no-one really knew through where or how long it would take. It took more than three days, I know that, as on the fourth day I crawled home from work sick, found all my numbers off again and this time didn't even have the reserves to go and join the junkie coalition who had pooled their nothingness and sat moaning and wailing around Grace's. Instead, I crawled into bed and cried. I was ill and so out of sorts I just cried at the world, and for the first time really cursed the fucking war, and even more passionately than the humanitarians, I wanted an end to all the bombing and devastation. But my tears were not for humanity, they were for me. And personal tears are always more genuine than any others. All tears are personal. Really.

After discovering a possible cause of the drought and why my life had been so abruptly gatecrashed and turned over, I started paying much more attention to what was going on overseas – at least the part of overseas that affected me. I became a firm supporter to have the US troops out of Afghanistan... at least away from the fucking Pakistan border. These arseholes weren't even blowing up the poppy fields, they were just loitering, fucking everything up without even trying. That's how bad America had become: they could fuck the world up by just being in it.

During the proceeding month heroin was almost impossible to get. Now and again bits and pieces would filter through, but it was so inconsistent that one could not hang a proper habit on it. Sometimes the gear was rushed through and hit the streets at dangerous strengths, other times it got through cut with dangerous agents. But mostly gear got through because it was bash, no smack in it at all, and so was more or less legal traffic. It was a truly horrendous time. Junkies were scoring twenty four hours a day. Buying a bag here, finding it was shit, travelling there, making calls, receiving estimates, going to the next man: the same. The next: the same... and so on until we either found a gouch or bankruptcy. It was a time of huge frustrations and desperation, and was made even harder due to the hike in price that the fake dope was going for. Most dealers had tripled prices and cut the weights, and to top it all they were selling gear which we'd have returned at any other moment in history. But we couldn't just stop and wait, that's not an option when you're full on smack. Waiting is illness, that is why the addict is very vulnerable in many ways. He is always against the clock and if someone holds out long enough they'll get what they want for the price of a bag – because a bag can be worth as much as a man puts his health at. Bags are health. Bags are measures of life. That is a proper junkie fact.

Of course we tried to score methadone in that period, but that was hopeless also. All the addicts who usually sold theirs to fund heroin habits were now drinking it themselves. You could could buy green water or piss, but neither served any useful purpose, not even to cheat a urine test. We were all clean anyway. Some junkies tried desperately to harass the substitution clinics for methadone, but that was even more useless than phoning dealers. They'd fall in the clinics ill, cry, beg, vomit and shit themselves, but methadone maintenance clinics don't care for defecating or dying addicts, they want redemption. They want you to walk in and dump your rotten soul on the table and tell them you're giving up smack because it's killing you, not because there's none to kill yourself with. Even the most caring MMT nurse is unmoved by real junk sickness, unless it was brought on by their words – their sadistic means to have you proove you're serious about quitting by forcing you to turn up sick. But the real option of walking in sick and being treated is not an option at all – not even for those addicts who found God when their last tenner went up their arm. Even if you turn up at hospital, in a condition that would put anyone else in intensive care, you'll be kicked out. You would die before anyone in healthcare would give you so much as a fucking codeine pill. So you sit it out,  and the tragedy is this: the dealers will always get to you before the system. They are better organised and certainly more caring. At least they gain something from you, and so stand to lose if they don't kiss your pains better.

During the second month of serious drought the situation improved, though without ever returning to normal. Every other week there would be word of “drought.. drought” but at least one of my twenty or so dealers would then always be on, and holding half decent gear. There would be no more days spent laying around in Grace's squalid flat, pooling resources with the sick and dying and muttering prayers to a God which none of us believed in. Once again, We were all flying solo.

It was almost a year later when things finally returned to normal. Afghanistan had been set up with a new dummy government - which wasn't quite as westernized as everyone thought - and as military presence dropped in the area US forces accidentally unblocked old supply routes and once again Britain became swamped in smack. Prices returned to normal and then continued the pre-war trend and dropped to record lows. On the streets there were now more junkies than ever, and the bumper crop which the Foreign Office had told us about soon began arriving by air, sea and mail. Methadone maintenance clinics did not have any significant increase in enrollment, and the small rise which there was remained just a statistic, as once the streets were playing the correct tune again the addicts who had applied did not even turn up to their first initiation meeting.

And so it is, nothing ever really changes and certainly not by accident. Drug traffic and supply is a circle which turns and is just as monotonous and regular as heroin addiction itself. But it is in that habit, that monotonous revolution of the wheel, where lies its true strength. To stop anything we must change, and change is a very scary and destabilizing thing. When that change involves the loss of dollars and when the world is run by dollars, change is almost impossible. It's not the junkie who needs rehab; it's the world. A blue planet floating in an eternity of shit.

As you read this Britain and Ireland are once again in the midst of heroin drought, and this time there seems no end in sight. 2001 is horseplay in comparison. Have a thought for all the lost souls who are at this moment even further away from themselves than ever. Junkies or not, there's a heart behind the hand that holds the needle, and it's very often broken.

Take Care All,
My Thoughts and Wishes, Shane. X

Online Independent - Heroin Drought 2011 (with Yours Truly)

Hopping the Wagon: Day 5

Tomorrow arrives so slowly when you want the world to end. I think that dying must be like time torture. But I don't want the world to end, just this brief part of it to pass. Though I suppose picking and choosing what I like best and what I want to ignore got me here in the first place.

I'm sweating. For the second time in four days heroin is coming out my body. It's too much. It's too exhausting. Heroin cannot be a halfway house. One must either do it all the time or not at all. Trying to straddle some middle road is eternal damnation. No junkie can be happy having to economise like that, it's the worst thing in the world.

My friend Katy once told her imaginary drug counsellor that the thing that would make her better was two £20 baggies a day. If the system could give her that she'd be fine. Her reasoning was correct but two bags would only have helped her for a time and then she'd have needed three. But what she was saying was that she wanted some kind of predictability, some insurance policy that allowed her to plan and regain her proper self and emotions. Living for the giro cheque and begging to maybe get a bag every two or three days was tearing her apart.

A week later, she was tracked down and bashed up by some embittered ex-lover, her face smashed open on the sink in her bedsit. I found her wandering down Uxbridge Road with glazed black eyes and a split lip. People were veering and staggering out her way. It was like she was war and famine and disease and was there for the kids. She told me that she wanted to die, that she needed a fix. I said "I'll put you in for a fix." She hugged me and cried and then she was the happiest girl in town.

Katy died the next day - heroin overdose. That's what the street corner said anyway. I didn't really mourn her, I didn't know how to mourn someone like that. I suppose you do it with a tourniquet and a spoon and an extra strong hit. I don't know. Anyway, as usual,  when street corners speak they speak a load of bollocks. A year later I found Katy sitting outside a courthouse rolling a cigarette and making little sketches. She was up on heroin possession and supply charges. That's how she took what she needed from the system. And then they took it back. She got two years and I never saw her again.

All these people that pass by are history. I remember them like that, like their faces represent a certain amount of time or a season or a sky. Their words and clothes and actions define a time. We're all history, that's for sure.

Tomorrow is Day 6. Not really but for us it is. I must catch up on my emails and mop the floor. Nothing too exciting there, but once when I was mopping the floor I found a small chunk of heroin. It must have shot off from a larger rock and sat there for god knows how long. Since then I don't mind soaping the tiles... the dishes, though, forget it... there's absolutely no future in washing dishes.

X

Hopping the Wagon: Day 4

Day 4 followed in pretty much the same manner as the second half of Day 3. It's nothing serious. I have got a black-eye though. I nodded out in the bathroom and slipped and caught my eye on the corner of the little shelf which holds the shower products. I'll put up a photo tomorow.

No poetry today, so if you need a daily dose of that go here:

Chemical Addictions & Revelations

Heftman boasts that his words aren't brilliant. Heftman is a liar.

Until tomorrow (even though it's tomorrow already!), Love & Thoughts, Shane. x

Hopping the Wagon, Day 3: I think this means I've relapsed

Still, it wasn't bad and and two days is better than no days...

XXX

Hopping the Wagon: Day 3

Imagine skies of pink candy floss stretching out into forever. The city is bathed in a strange warm light, which feels like some peculiar weather pattern is on its way. Over there, great industrial chimneys bellow smoke, and down there, men are hosing down the streets and sweeping cola tins and empty packets of Gauloises cigarettes into the gutter. That's what Lyon was like this morning as I sat looking out the window at the bar owner on the corner as he set out his tables for another day of business. I know the old saying, that we'll reap havoc for the beauty of a pink morning, but as of now the day has remained unspoiled by nature or desire.

I actually feel surprisingly well. I only slept three hours because I kept having these vivid nightmarish dreams, and rather than close my eyes on visions of my body dying I sat typing random words into Google and seeing what it came up with. Mostly it was just porn, then I disabled 'safe search' and it was all porn. Then I took care of the hard on that had been irritating me all day. It felt like the greatest wank of my life... certainly of the last two weeks.

It's strange, but I always masturbate when I'm ill or in pain. It's nothing to do with pleasure and pain, but more about creating a sensation greater than the one I am suffering from. It's a kind of momentary and pleasurable escape. When I'm depressed my dick is very rarely out my hand, and when I've got toothache, well, I'm just a public nuisance.

Right now I'm off to buy some methadone. As it's from the same girl I score smack from I think there's probably a 90% chance that I end the evening tying my wrist off with a tourniquet. What even more makes me think that is today while I was out shopping I mysteriously decided to check my bank balance. When I do that, there is only one reason behind it: I'm thinking of scoring. I kid myself it's not... but it is. It's like when I draw out money I don't need. I tell myself Oh, it's just to be safe... just in case there's a n unexpected problem with the card or something. Before I've even finished the transaction, my dealers phone is ringing and I'm willing her to answer. Addicts may lie to others, but it's nothing compared to the bullshit they tell themselves. I'm no different. Constantly having internal dialogues with myself convincing the junkie in me that this will happen and I can do that, and if I use it like this and save on that  it'll be fine - that I can afford another 5 grams. But it's all bollocks. Once you even begin to think like that it means you cannot afford it, that something or someone else is going to suffer for your excess.

Hopping the Wagon, Day 2: 13h21

Just woke up.

Someone once lovingly referred to me as the "hunchback of eternal pain" and that's what I feel like.

Swallowed  40ml of methadone. No coffee so had heavily sugared tea. Checked my emails and letter box. No death threats or court orders.

Outside still looks like winter skies. The season is definately on the turn.

Rubbish piled up near the door and fruit flies in the bathroom. I feel like I did the first time love gave me a low blow and disappeared down the road with her things: nostalgic, sad and happy. Two futures going off in different directions, and for the better or worse, things will never be the same again.

France is not a romantic place to be - it's not even a nice place to be. People say it is, but the daily details are the same and the lonliness is the same and the people are the same only they make no sense. I'd much rather be back in some West London ghetto, watching the rain extinguish burning cars and people punching phone booths because their dole cheque never arrived. That's beauty to me. Not really, but from a safe distance it is.

The last time I heard an accordian was in London. A gypsy wedding reception that spilled over into violence once the bar tab ran dry. The bride got glassed and the men stripped down to their vests and headed over to the park for some bare knuckle bonding. Gypsy weddings always end like that, it's half their fun. Divorces are even better.

I'm getting divorced, did I tell you? My wife of three days (Mythical Darts & Broken Darts), after ten years of quiet,  surprises me with an email (a divorce petition). But that's another story...

x

Hopping the Wagon: Day 1 - Why?

Kympton:
shane

Where are you going, and what is your motivation for your actions..Is someone going with you, I truly hope you succeed..But...and be honest now....do you really want to stop or do you feel you need to stop...I,d love to know

Reply:
Kympton, no, no-one is going with me... there is no-one to go with me. I'm alone here. i've no friends and the only people I know are junkies from the needle exchange or dealers. That's nothing new, even in London I wasn't one to have rooms full of friends. I prefer to be alone or with one person.

My motivation... I'm not really motivated, but the reason is writing. I've been writing a lot (away from here) these past few months. I've been scratching out ideas and getting on with a couple of books. I had planned Christmas as a deadline I could have something ready by, and 2011 set aside for publishers or agents to post my work back with "fuck off" scrawled on it.

Over the last month, getting pregressively worse, my writing has fallen with increased drug use. My schedule is falling behind and it's something I'm passionate about. If I don't tide that flow now it wilI spiral out of control and everything will turn to shit.

One of my other writings consist of  a persons wait for somebody. He is waiting for the return of someone/something he once had. That is written daily and stops making any sense when posts are missed, or important events hurried over because I was stoned and missed the day. And that keeps happening. That book is three quarters finished and if i carry on with heroin at this time it will remain like that, as another work that almost materialised but burnt out.

Also, I don't think living life as an addict is any worth on it's own. It can be interesting and useful and insightful only if one's observations from within it are gotten down and out.  Apart from a heroin addiction I also have an urge to pass on my observations of the world, to write the things that no-one ever wrote for me. To explain from a strange place what I saw and why I saw it. To never have my books finished, ideas down would be a tragedy. Death is nothing. Death by heroin is no more tragic than death by old age. What is tragic is if that drug use consumes you to the point that you miss your own life. that it passes you by and only when death is sucking in at the cheeks do you realize that maybe you should have lived a bit... done something else.

If that sounds like regret, it's not. It's just saying that being a junkie is as hopeless as not being a junkie and having no dreams or ambitions or wants or desires.

So, I feel I need to stop for other passions in my life. Do I want to stop? Not really, no. If I could write and create and not quit I'd do that, but it doesn't work like that for me. Sure, I can scribble the odd poem under the influence or write a small post, but to invest the time to do something a little better, no, I can't on heroin. That's not a mental can't, it's a physical thing. I'm not awake long enough and have to spend far too much time searching veins and scoring and picking up needles, etc, etc. So, for 10 years (17 if we take into account my subutex addiction) I've given my days to opiates. Apart from this blog I've never given anything back from that.  17 years to get over 17 years, that's fair. But now it's time for something else.

Oh, and I'm skint.

That's it Kympton. Figure out for yourself what is the important sentence in that lot and if it holds good tidings for a successful break. I doubt it.

Shane. x

Hopping the Wagon: Day 1, 15h55

It is a cold day. It feels like there's ice outside. The sky is bright blue but fragile. It always feels like this when junk is seeping out your body. It's as if all the evils of all the world are hanging about outside waiting to descend upon you. Wind, noises, rain, smell, light. It is all there and all intrusive, like the the unwelcome touch of an unwanted lover. Coming off heroin feels like rape.

I haven't cleaned up yet, but I did scoop all my needles and little aluminium cups into a box. Not because they tempt me, more, if I'm truthful so as the filters don't get soiled and I can reuse them if I'm ever really desperate. I tried to ignore the mess as I stumbled around but I couldn't help thinking I'd never get my deposit back on the apartment. I think in eight months I've caused so much damage as it will need to be completely renovated. I've not tried to do that, door handles and shower curtains just fall off when I touch them. Since I've been here there's been one fire, one flood, an explosion, broken door, two sparking radiators, the shower unit has ripped out the wall and the light above the hob has melted. The bathroom units are all burnt where I've left cigarettes burn down as I either struggled to find veins or stood gouched over the sink thinking of removing the needle. What was a few months ago a fresh start is now just as stale as any other end in history. The place reeks of heroin, it is everywhere. I don't think it can  be cleaned up.

Physically I feel better than this morning. Methadone takes about two days to get completely in the system and to work away all the little aches and pains. Those two days are not horrendous but uncomfortable. Make no mistake about it, what I will be describing in these posts is not heroin withdrawal, it is about the transition from two drugs to one. I am stopping heroin for a moment and sticking solely to my methadone script. If this were cold turkey or proper withdrawal there would not be a post for weeks. Any addict who says they wrote under withdrawal (as it happened) I don't believe. It is a crippling condition and does not leave you the luxury or poetry to describe your own dying.  Imagine laying in some war zone with your guts spilled out and the good side of your head ripped off. How ridiculous would it be to ask for a pen and piece of paper?  Not even the most narcissistic person in the world could get away with that... not even an Englishman.

Hopping the Wagon: Day 1

The morning has just ticked past five. I feel like shit. Like I am going to survive my own death.

My legs hurt, and both sides of my body - from the hip bone and running up under each arm - are bruised and swollen. For the past three days, with needles so blunt you couldn't pierce an ear with them, I've been injecting in the long veins that run up along the torso. I've hit nerves, tender muscle, cartilidge and bone. I feel down and beaten and I haven't even turned the light on yet.

Except from the glow of my laptop and a muted Harry Potter film (which has been looping away in the background for two days now) the room is dark. I can just see shapes - a tap, a fan, a doorhandle. There are things on the floor, probably clothes, probably shot through with blood. In my bed there are cigarette ends and ash and tobacco. The ashtray is piled high like some weird game of Jenga. (A moth has just flown by - it'll be dead soon. The heat of summer is already on the turn.)

There is also a smell. It smells like sickness - like everything does when one is down with the flu. It seems to be coming from my fingers, my hair, my nose, my skin. Cold water seems like the worst thing in the world. I am ill. I know it, but cannot feel it. If it wasn't for the methadone I would not even be writing. Sometimes I want to die - just for ten minutes, until the world rearranges itself into a better looking shit.

Cigarettes taste like death too. I've just lit one. Now I want a coffee. A coffee would be great. But the energy used in getting that coffee would take the pleasure away of having it. I would only suffer more. Also, I'd have to turn the light on and then I'd see the mess: needles and cups and blood and half eaten things and bread in the sink and rancid bowls of cereal and me...

#

When I am better I am going to enjoy life. I'm going to go to the park and watch things and feel all the little pulls and annoyances of nature on my skin. If it's cold, good! I need it. I want to smell and breathe and get exhausted and have some natural kind of calmants. To sleep because the day was so long and the ride home so hypnotic, like that day trip I once had to Brighton, where the motorway lights sent me to sleep on the coach. I want that and the sea and the world and the stars. But more, more than anything else, at 5.44am on Tuesday 31st August 2010, I want a clean bed. Light fresh sheets, proper pillows and a soft crumpled blanket that is cold at first and then warm and then unimaginably comfortable. To wake up in a new world where all those old songs no longer exist...


Won't you help to sing
This songs of freedom-
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Redemption songs....

 Tomorrow I am going on a three month break from this/heroin. That's my intention, anyhow. I will document each of those days in little posts. Whether it lasts one, two or ten, who can tell??? Going by previous records and my lack of resolve, I'll give myself three days before I'm back here again. Back fearing the morning light, cursing the first metro and dreading the sound of the bin men. Those who want to suffer or laugh along, feel free to pull up a chair....

(Posts will be written instantaneously. There will be no redrafting or spelling or comma checks. All faults are mine. Shane. X)

Customs & Excise

Today I met a Goddess. She had no teeth, skin the colour of boiled and beaten fish, hepatitis A, B & C and probably HIV. She came all the way across town to rob me of 55 euros – I'm a lucky man. Normally she won't get off the toilet for less than a hundred, but today she must have been feeling extra charitable.

The Goddesses name is Sonia. That's her real name, no fucking around with her. She gives it straight. She tells you “You pay double and get half!” All I ask is that she don't dip into the 'half'. Nine times out of ten she does.

If it wasn't for Sonia I'd either be dead or sober. For the last two years, ever since David was sentenced to 4 and a half years in St. Joseph's prison, she has been supplying me in methadone and heroin. Only once has she ever let me down.

When I see Sonia, I see beauty. I'm blind to all her tricks and scams and cons. It's like I'm in love. I sit waiting for her for hours, send her desperate texts asking where she is and convince myself that she will stand me up. And then I see her. And she looks so wonderful and I suddenly feel whole again.

In france it is the custom to greet one another with a kiss on either cheek. Sonia and I don't care a fuck for customs. We do it with an old-fashioned hand shake. Sometimes we even say “hello.” Mostly though she just says “It's really small but strong!” Then she turns her back and is gone.

For the next 12 hours she is no longer a goddess, but rather a “fucking robbing junkie whore!” and someone “I'll never see again! Nah, that's it, I'm sick of that bitch... really, I'm fucking serious this time!!!” Come morning the smacks all gone and to feel only slightly shitty I swallow three times as much methadone as usual. Before I know it I am withdrawing money I don't have and paying my rent with a cheque that will bounce into orbit when the landlord tries to cash it. But so what, I've just hit the redial button and Sonia's phone is ringing. In just under an hour my Goddess will come, rob me again, and then I'll feel a whole lot better.

My fondest Wishes to All and a huge thanks to those who have sent mails and continued supporting Memoires through the rainy season. Something beautiful will surely be posted soon...


Until then, All My Thoughts, Shane. X

Just Another Day at the Office.

.
Today I awoke to a glorious sky. It was 6am, the sun was halfway up and the feint hum of traffic was a constant below. I opened the apartment window and the delights of the city wafted in on a breeze. All the flowers from all the gardens from all of Lyon had released their scents.The café on the corner opened it’s shutters and set out its chairs for another day of business. I was up for business myself.

For the last four days I’ve been solely on methadone... not out of choice, but because this city is dry. 4 days is the longest I have been without dope in three and a half years. I don’t feel bad for that... I just feel bad for the wait. It’s been 4 days of piss-stained stairwells, broken promises, unanswered phones and last trains home. Where I come from this doesn’t happen. Where I come from heroin is a 24/7 shop with no shutters. In London, if you’ve got the money and you want to kill yourself, you can. There’s little wait and there’s rarely disappointment. I would hate to be suicidal anywhere else.

Anyhow, I was up with the sun this morning as I was on a promised promise... “Get your arse to Croix Rousse for 10am sharp... it’s sure, sure SURE!!” Normally when I receive a message like this it is genuine... it means the dealer has the gear in his pocket. I hoped so, because not only had I no gear, but due to this little drought I had almost drunk up my entire supply of methadone. Apart from the dose I swallowed early yesterday evening, I had just one left and after that.... well, I didn’t even want to think of it. So my meeting today was more important than usual... It was to score methadone and heroin, to buy my well-being.

I arrived at Croix Rouse just before ten and made the short walk to a pre-arranged spot. On arriving I was horrified... there must have been 15 or 20 junkies circling or lurking around the block of flats where the meet was... half of them dope sick. This is a residential area... people live here with their children and they quickly notice a strange group of sniffling, filthy and poorly dressed adults hanging around. What’s worse is, as no-one is sure from where the dealer will appear, we are all constantly up and down, searching in every direction imaginable for a sight of him. Whilst tyring to act inconspicuous we do ourselves no favours. The only direction we don’t look is up... God has yet to drop a bag out the sky. I distanced myself from this bunch and went and sat alone at a nearby bus stop.

At 10.30 I received a text. “I’m there... I’m there.. 10 minutes...” At 11.00 I was still waiting... at 11.15 the same. Finally, at 11.20 there was some movement. I watched as one be one the circling junkies slid out from nowhere and filed slowly into the flats. Someone must have gotten the call... our man must be here. I crossed over and went in with the rabble, past the elevator and through the door to the fire escape. Imagine the scene: 20 junkies sitting hushed in a stairwell, the dark only lit up by burning cigarettes and the screens of our cell phones. Suddenly my own screen lit up: ‘30 secs’. I let everyone know and we got our money ready. After 8 minutes and 3 unanswered calls the bottom door opened, the light flicked on and someone came running up the stairs. We all stood up ready... but it wasn’t him! Rather, it was a motorcycle courier using the backstairs instead of the lift. He slipped through us suspiciously. “That’s police!" I said to one of the junkies... "That was the police!” He just shook his head... “Calm down... it’s just a courier. We’ll be gone soon!” Well, courier or not I was not comfortable with this... it was just too hot. And not even for us... we were clean... it was the dealer who arranged this that would have all the problems...it’s he who would be in possession of the gear.

I tried to phone the dealer twice more and then I made my decision to up and leave. One other addict decided to part with me. On the way back down the stairs I mentioned Methadone. By pure chance this guy had two bottles of 100ml in his pocket. I bought them both. We left the darkened stairwell and headed out. Just as we were leaving someone was coming in... he stopped us. “What are you doing here?” I didn’t answer. The addict alongside me said something about waiting for a friend. “Who? What floor?” From that question and the way my entrance from the building had been blocked I knew this was more than just a nosey neighbour. “Do you know who I am?” the man asked raising his head slightly “I am the police” he finished, now poking at his chest and grinning. With that he had his ID produced and then strapped an orange police band across his left bicep. Four others entered in behind him and rushed into the stairwell.

We were led outside where there were two more policemen... standing either side of our dealer! I could only imagine they had caught him in full possession... his sullen face and drooped head told me that. Out in the forecourt we were soon joined by the rest of the rotten bunch and just as 15 minutes ago junkies had slid from nowhere out the shadows, now the police done the same. There was soon at least one policier to each addict. We were made to strip down to the waist and remove our hats, shoes and socks. Whilst doing this another police man walked the sorry line of jaundiced, hollow cheeked, scarred and bruised junkies and left with a handful of ragged ID cards and passports. We were told to empty our pockets and lay the contents on the little wall where we were standing. It was here that I remembered I had just bought 2 bottles of methadone. Fuck! I seriously considered just ripping them open and swallowing the contents. I was going to be arrested (it’s a class A drug) so I might as well make sure I’m not ill as well. But I didn’t do that... instead I took them from my trousers and laid them on the wall... the wall that had just turned into a chemists top-shelf! Along it now was a booty of drug paraphernalia and every possible prescribeable drug . There were bottles and strips of pills, amps of morphine, packets and boxes of syringes. There were tourniquets, blackened spoons, pen-knives and razor blades. In fact, there was everything EXCEPT heroin.

After a moment a policier confronted me. “Where did you get this from?” he demanded holding up the two little bottles of methadone
“It’s mine... I get it on prescription.” I replied.
“Where’s your prescription? Can I see it?”
“I don’t have it on me.”
“You do know that this is a class A stupifiant without a prescription, don’t you?”
I nodded, “Yes, excuse me.”
“Who is your doctor?” he asked. I gave my GP’s name, address and number. The policeman went away.

We were all properly searched and then ordered to get dressed. On being questioned everyone said they were “waiting for a friend” though no-one could remember this friends name, address or telephone number. When they asked me I told them what they already knew: I was here to score heroin. They asked me off whom and I said I only know him as ‘D’ (this wasn’t true).“Is that “D”” a policeman asked pointing at the dealer. “No... that’s not him.” I replied. I can only imagine that my broken french and little bit of honesty had helped me, because after a moment of conferring I was suddenly hit in the stomach by my passport, handed back my two bottles of methadone and told to “Fuck off!” I left at a quick trot with about ten others. Our dealer was kept behind.

We were all in shock... me especially. How I left & with the methadone was unbelievable. The other addicts all agreed I had been extremely fortunate. We walked on quickly... we just wanted to get away from this place. 5 mins down the road my phone rings: “It’s me... I’m ready!” Well, we couldn’t believe it... only minutes ago 'D' was being held by police and now he was ready to serve us!? We were sure it was a police set-up to catch us in possession. Even thinking this, not one of us backed out of the deal... we all still took our chances. We met 'D' five minutes from the same block of flats we had just been searched in and we all left untroubled with our orders. As we made our way back down to the Metro the other half of the rag-tag junkie army were making their way up, joking and laughing about the police. We let them know that ‘D’ was waiting and everything seemed in order. By now we were laughing and joking too.

And it is a joke... because 20 police men had been surveying us. They had watched us circle about for nearly 2 hours and had probably listened to our phone calls. They knew who our dealer was and had followed him. If they would have waited five minutes longer they would have got us all on possession charges & the dealer on trafficking... bang to rights. Instead they busted us with nothing to bust... and how they never caught the dealer in possession remains a mystery! So it’s a joke... it’s a waste of junkie time, a waste of police time and a waste of god knows how much public money. What the neighbours must have thought as they saw us refill our pockets and bags with drugs and needles and then be set free I cannot even imagine. I wonder if they saw it as effective community policing or not?

And so it was, I arrived home a little before 1pm, though a little later than planned. I was still half expecting the police to jump out and nab me as I exited the metro... but no, their brains couldn’t follow a smacked-up drug dealer through a block of flats, so there’s no way they’d be able to organise an arrest through the maze of the underground system. Instead, I was once again left to my own devices... to enjoy the tranquillity of the afternoon. I did what I had to do and I laid down on the sofa. I closed my eyes and opened my ears to the noises of the day. I listened to distant sounds and voices... to the chipping away and shouts of workmen. I listened to the afternoon screams of school children and to the echoes of high heeled shoes . I let this day wash over me as I sunk in & out of a self-induced sleep. Today I had been lucky - it had been a close one, but I had made it home with my gear, my methadone and free of any drug convictions. This means I can still get a US visa... that I can continue to dream New York dreams. It means that I can still make good on certain promises.... that I can still one day visit my homie sKILLz and kiss the Brooklyn Dogs.

Best wishes everyone & stay safe, Shane.

The Contradictions of this Heroin Life

“I am full of a million contradictions... I’m aware of this. I just try to gradually work my way through them. Hopefully, by the time my death arrives I will have figured out who I am. “
Heroinhead to his drug counsellor

====================================================

In the annuls of time, what difference does it make if I die at thirty five, fifty or ninety? What does it really matter? It’s just a snap of the fingers. Contrary to popular belief I’m not dead yet, but already it seems that my personal history is being erased.  It’s like there is a crusade to wipe me from the face of the earth. The three schools I attended no longer exist, the hospital I was born in is now a homeless shelter, the road I grew up on has been renovated beyond recognition, my father is dead, and my friends and family don’t know me. I almost don’t exist already. I will fade into a generation, an epoch, a century. I will go from modern man to prehistoric heroin and media addict. My size 10 footsteps will be swept away, my blogs deleted, my ugly mug removed from Facebook. It will be neither here nor there, if I lived a healthy clean life, or if I accelerated towards an early end. It is impossible to die healthy, no matter how one lives their life. Death treats low cholesterol fat free diets the same as twenty-five years of junk abuse: it kills you. There's no escape... there’s just postponement.

I’ve never really bought into this life. I’ve never accepted it’s ethics or its prejudices. I’ve never been part of the populace. This feeling of detachment was one of a thousand differing reasons that I first began using heroin. It was the ultimate rebellion, a complete rejection of society and its values. I mentioned in an earlier post that heroin is also a statement... well that's what I meant.

But rebelling with heroin brings its own set of problems & contradictions. The addict will always abandon his principles for heroin. I certainly do. Firstly, heroin renders the user passive. The addict spends so much time controlling his habit that he doesn’t have the energy for serious rebellion. If there is a choice between scoring dope or attending some demonstration or other the dope comes first. Secondly, the heroin addict, whilst rebelling against society is a part of the worst side of capitalism: he helps to fund war and death and hushed government trade. So while I reject and rebel I have also bought wholesale into the drugs market (which makes McDonald's seem moral). I also eat Big Macs, because when you're scoring on the run you need fast food.

It is here and nowhere else where I come unstuck with heroin. We do not part, but we argue. If I have regrets it is in the principles I have abandoned, in the causes I have let down. It is in the contradictions of this heroin life. I cannot argue these cases either, they are all true. I cannot worm my way into a good light. My saving grace is that I see no other life where the contradictions aren’t worse, or at least the same. At least with heroin these contradictions are bearable and at least they are my contradictions.


****************************************************

It was to the doctors on friday. I never go to see my doctor because I am ill. I am not ill, though if I were, he is the last person I would go to see. No, I see my GP for methadone.. that's all. I also enjoy sitting there and acting completely blasé about death. I boast and laugh of everything one should never do in life, but which I constantly do. My doctor seems to like this in me. Maybe I am his relief from the daily bodies of depression that come blustering in, squabbling on about the tiniest little thing and how the downstairs neighbour with the undeclared cats is the cause of their poor health. At Christmas, my doctor is one of the rare people I give a card to.

On this visit he shocked me by asking for a urine test. By law, he should ask for one every three months, but this is the first time he has asked in almost three years. I told him that it will certainly be dirty. Maybe the Christmas cards paid off, or maybe he is just a terrible GP, but he told me to come back on wednesday. I started to explain that it will still be dirty, but he stopped me. He just raised his hands and looked at me. I understood what he meant: FIX IT! Well, I’m never one to turn down someone else’s kindness, so I will try and buy a clean urine sample of someone at the clinic. It's a very common solution to get around testing. I’m sure most addicts, at some time or other, have begged their friends or family for piss.

Romanticism & French Smack

The first hint of spring came today. It arrived on the breeze like a welcome kiss. Oh, its too early to celebrate the warmer seasons, I know, but this afternoon brought just the tiniest hint of romance. Some things transport me back to magical times, times that never really existed, and the changing seasons are always one of those things. I remember afew years ago, renting the upstairs flat of a Victorian maisonette in Fulham, and on warm spring or summer mornings I would flush and scrub the wooden floorboards with cold soapy water. The sun would heat the wood and the most wonderful scents would rise up. I would sit, bare-footed at my writing desk, smoking and reading... drifting in and out of fantastic and obsessive daydreams. That is what spring is to me... it’s the doorway to unrequited sensations. Spring offers it all. I think this romanticism is one of my biggest problems.

Heroin is also a romance... a distorted, depraved and narcissistic romance. Heroin has a history, an image. It has literary and artistic connotations... it is all glorious until one IS heroin, then things rapidly change. Romance turns to reality and reality is a solitary, introverted chase for the drug. Heroin is also a statement... it is a silent scream... a subliminal advertisement for help. But above all, heroin is a slow death - it is the way non-suicidal people choose to kill themselves. Heroin is how I will kill myself... I've known this for many years. I think I’ve already done it.

But for all this, I cannot come to criticise the drug. I honestly believe that if it were not for heroin I would already be dead. This is something that someone who has never had this addiction can never understand – the addicts lack of regret. I have seen junkies riddled by HIV or bloated and jaundiced by hepatitis singing the drugs praises. Their regret is not the drug, it is getting turned onto the needle. You must understand, death gets in the way of one’s habit... it is a permanent detour from the next shot... a permanent release from the pain. Death is neither welcome nor wanted. It is not suicidal depression that troubles the heroin addict... it is something else, something that I cannot yet explain.

* * * *

Today I will have to leave Lyon to score. This place is not like London with 10 or 20 dealers to each square mile. No, here you’ll be lucky if there are 10 dealers in trhe entire city.... it is very often that one cannot find anything. The only time this happened in London was during the war in Afghanistan. American troops on the border interrupted the usual drug routes and there was nothing on the streets for nearly two weeks. As you can imagine most junkies were anti-war! That drought went on in different manifestations for months – either low quality gear, or increased prices and smaller bags. In Lyon it is always like that. The other difference here is the wait. It can take up to six hours to score. In London you are doing badly if it takes 30 minutes. In France, the addict learns very quickly the importance of methodone as a backup. The rehabilitation rules are very lax here, so almost every junkie has their own script. That includes me... my problem is I need twice as much as what i'm prescribed, so I have to buy the rest on the street. Anyway, for now I have a good backup supply so the fear of junk illness is not a worry - that allows life to flow smoothly.