TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 102

[Tobie Shapiro]

December 27, 200000000006


Dear Tree Dwellers,

	Because I've been writing so much, I 
started getting afraid that during some crash, 
I'd lose it all.  I've never had a major system 
crash, but it could always happen.  You never 
know.  So I asked my technology/Macintosh 
consultant, Dale Walker of Farwalker Consulting 
(Remember that name.  She is terrific) what to 
do.  She suggested I get a back up system that 
would automatically back up my data at chosen 
intervals.  I chose daily.  I paid my money and I 
stood in line.  She set up the system, and it's 
been trouble ever since.  She would have been 
back here to fix it immediately, but she and her 
husband, who is her partner, went on vacation, so 
she's been unavailable.  The back up program 
doesn't register that it's copied any data.  You 
have to have the computer on at the time of day 
it is set to back up data, but if I'm reading my 
alert notices correctly, the computer can't be 
asleep.  So you have to be sitting here working 
at the thing while the back up system takes over. 
Then, as it's working, nothing else functions. 
Just a lot of pauses and little pinwheels 
spinning to let you know the computer is working 
on it.  IT IS VERY FRUSTRATING!  I've written to 
Dale.  She'll call and come by.  I know she will.

	I know she will.



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                           ‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘


The last of the red hot bindles

	I was into the cocaine pretty far.  It 
had been ruling my life for two years. There are 
two kinds of cocaine users.  The first can take a 
couple of lines of the stuff once in a while, get 
high, get low and not come back for more.  You 
could offer these people some coke, and they 
might take you up on it, or they might not.  Just 
depends upon how they're feeling.  They rarely 
buy any.  They just don't use it couple of lines 
of coke and when it starts to wear off will take 
another couple of lines, and when that begins to 
wear off will chop up some more.  A whole gram 
can go away in this fashion.  And when the gram 
is gone, if there is not another handy, it would 
be time to lick the mirror on which the coke was 
chopped up fine, and after that, put some water 
in the straw to eke out the powder stuck to its 
sides, then look everywhere for crumbs: in the 
fibres of the rug, on the razor blade, in the 
corner of the little box where the cocaine is 
stored, and then the thoughts of where to get 
more overwhelm all other conscious thoughts.  It 
would not be unusual to call the dealer in the 
middle of the night asking for another gram. 
When a gram is purchased the panic subsides, and 
where to find some more doesn't plague the mind 
until halfway through the new gram.  Time is 
spent either doing the coke or contemplating 
doing it.  Always: where will I get my next 
stash?  If the evening starts out with a session 
at the coke machine, the evening will end the 
next morning, and it may be that sleep will have 
to be stolen by force, with tranquilizers or from 
sheer exhaustion, the system not being able to 
stay up another minute.  It is a drugged life, a 
never ending cycle.  It would be a miracle if 
this kind of person passed up an offer of 
cocaine, even if he or she were on a recent high. 
These are the two kinds of coke users.

	And before you take your first few snorts 
of the substance, there is absolutely no way of 
knowing to which group you belong: Group A, or 
Group B.  It is something biological, 
biochemical, neurochemical, not psychological. 
It has nothing to do with brains or foresight, 
wisdom or judgment.  You will belong to one group 
or the other.  It is therefore a very dangerous 
drug, and an expensive one.

	Unfortunately, I belonged to Group B, and 
there was no way for me to have known that. 
There was no way for me to have known about the 
division of souls, and I had no strategy to 
combat it.  In fact, under the influence, there 
is no thought of combatting it.  You are plenty 
too much fine until you run out of the stuff, and 
then there is big time trouble, oh boy and yes, 
sir.  I had my routine all polished up and well 
rehearsed by the time I was two years into it.  I 
could do a gram a day, which is no record, so I 
hear, but for me, it was ruinous, and it seemed 
like it would go on forever.  I began to dread 
the sound of the morning birds cranking up their 
twitters, because it meant that I'd been up all 
night again, and would probably need some coke to 
revive me after I'd slept for a few hours.  I 
thought I was acting normally.  But in truth, I 
have no idea how I acted.  Rational insight is 
not a hallmark of cocaine abuse.

	I had a dealer, John Egan, who lived near 
my parents' house, which is where I was living. 
John was up all night every night, but he was in 
the habit quite a bit more heavily than I was. 
He went through grams at twice the rate.  When 
we'd test out a new batch that I was going to 
buy, he'd set out two lines for me and four lines 
for himself, because he had a high tolerance. 
That's how he put it, unapologetically.  Where he 
got the stuff I don't know.  I never asked.  John 
Egan was a slimy character.  He worked nights at 
Herrick Hospital in the psychiatric ward.  He was 
such a good nurse to those poor deluded wackos. 
He had keys to the pharmaceutical closet and he 
used those keys with great enthusiasm.  There was 
always a handful of pills in his pocket.  Big 
ones, little ones, flat ones, tablets and 
capsules, coated or sublingual  --  he had it all.

	John Egan and I were having a round about 
affair.  I say round about because we never 
actually could have sex as John was too stoned, 
and couldn't achieve an erection.  One time, I 
was over there, and we were in his bed.  Behold! 
He had an erection.

	I said, "It looks like a rocket."  He 
said, "It is heat seeking," and wiggled his 
eyebrows at me.  Then he said, "Watch this."  He 
took a puff on a pipe.  He was freebasing, 
something I'd never done.  He pointed to his 
erect penis.  A few seconds later, the little 
rocket wavered, curled over to the ground and lay 
still on the launching pad among the prairie 
grasses.  "Happens every time, " he smiled. 
There was a bit of the sadist in John.

	That night, he called me and said I 
should come over.  He was having a little party. 
I got in my car and delivered myself to his 
house.  I was directed to the back room.  When I 
opened the door, I saw a crowd of people, 
reclining, sitting lying down, in various states 
of alertness.  John was reducing some powder to a 
gooey liquid by holding a fire under it.  Then he 
put the liquid into a special pipe and lit it. 
He took a big suck off the pipe.  Then he handed 
it to me.  I backed away.  I looked out at the 
people and I asked in a loud voice, "I want 
someone here who has done this, and who is now 
sober to tell me that it's safe and fine, and I 
should go ahead and do this.  Can anyone vouch 
for it?"

	And a voice came from the couch.  "Go 
ahead.  Do it."  A few voices chimed in.  "Do 
it."  "It's fine."   "You'll like it."  So I let 
John hold the flame to the substance and I drew 
in a breath of smoke.  A half minute later, my 
heart started pounding and my head began to make 
an internal noise, a high pitched hum.  My heart 
was leaping out of my chest.

	"I don't like this," I told John.  "It's 
making my heart race.  Do you have an antidote?"

	John said calmly, "Just do a little more.  That always helps."

	When he said that, something snapped in 
my head.  Either something came into focus or I 
was hit on the head with a tome of facts.  I 
reeled.  "I'm out of here," I told everyone.

	I drove home, my heart jumping, and when 
I got home, I went directly to my stash of 
cocaine.  I grabbed the little bindles and took 
them to the toilet.  I opened up the tiny 
envelopes and emptied them all out into the 
water, and flushed them away.  Some poor fish was 
going to get delusions of grandeur.  I took a 
valium, and waited for it to calm me.  I never 
did cocaine again.  Never touched it, never went 
near it.  I was done.



                         ÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅ
 
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                           ‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘
-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net