tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74492872011-04-21T15:03:38.126-05:00Memories of my life with heroin.Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.comBlogger391100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-13417008266576008392007-07-03T22:52:00.001-05:002007-07-03T23:36:05.220-05:00

To those amazingly cool and awesome people who still unaccountably read this blog, which has not been updated in NEARLY TWO FRAKKIN' YEARS and what the hell have I been doing, anyway???: First: thanks for still being here. And if you're just now finding me, that's probably good luck for you, because:Second: I am--swear to Whomever--getting back to working on this project. It may be a while, yet--

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1122102312190049602005-07-23T01:57:00.000-05:002005-07-23T02:06:44.900-05:00

(That should be nominated for Most Prematurely Pretentious Title Ever.)I haven't forgotten you, nor have I given up on this project. My life has just been a little hectic lately--you can find out more about my hospital adventures, job-hunting endeavors, and stupid emotional ups and downs here, if you're even remotely interested. Things are starting to settle down a little, and I'm really trying

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1114305079123611832005-06-05T21:35:00.000-05:002005-06-06T12:47:16.953-05:00

IntroductionBefore: Coffee, April 22, 1994Before: Late Spring, 1994--Hickory HillsBefore: Summer 1994Flight, Part One: August 31, 1994Poem: October 1994Liberation: November 16, 1994Home: Late November 1994Starting: Late December, 1994JP and Gladys: Late December 1994The Brown Kind: February 1995First Shot: April 1995Oklahoma City/Wicker Park: April 19, 1995Dopesick: April 1995May 1995 (partial)

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1118022747346199552005-06-05T20:51:00.000-05:002005-06-05T21:26:29.006-05:00

It has been ninety degrees, it feels like, for about a month. Before we bought the window unit off one of our neighbors for fifty bucks, we’d had only the cross-breeze between the den and the bedroom and the open door to cool us. All through June we’d slept on a bare mattress dragged into the den, where the night breeze was strongest and we could reach up and change CDs, or the station on the

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1118022690975472592005-06-05T20:50:00.000-05:002005-06-05T21:32:45.140-05:00

“Lou, wake up,” I say through the window, through to where he is asleep on the sofa. I say it quietly the first time and then my dopesick nerves just snap and I scream it: “Lou, wake up! They got JP, they got him, let me in, dammit…”His face appears at the window, bleary, his hair tousled. “Got him? What? Who got him?”“The cops, the motherfucking cops, Lou, there was a sting and they got him and

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1118022608214477342005-06-05T20:48:00.000-05:002005-06-05T21:25:41.123-05:00

Once we move out of the apartment and back to JP’s mother’s place, the routine changes.We wake up in the morning full of good intentions and the need for dope. Fortunately we have provided for all contingencies and so we have a wake-up shot, held back from the previous night’s purchases. We shoot up and I get ready to take JP to work,.Sometimes I say it first: I wish you didn’t have to go to

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1118022533134509362005-06-05T20:47:00.000-05:002005-06-05T21:25:20.986-05:00

There is a grocery store on Ashland just south of Chicago Avenue where we go to buy meat. It’s cheaper than the Jewel at Milwaukee and Division, an important consideration, and less haunted by the faux-hipsters of Wicker Park.We walk out of the late-August heat through the automatic doors, Lou and JP and I, and into the cool bounty of the aisles. We have eleven dollars, or—more accurately—eleven

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1116738543685619642005-06-05T08:55:00.000-05:002005-06-05T21:24:41.023-05:00

The silver van stops on Wood and Division on Friday mornings.We have timed our existence to the movements of the silver van. If we miss the Friday stop at Wood and Division, the next time we can turn in our needles is on Tuesday at the Humboldt Park stop. That leaves us a whole four days with no new needles, and those points go dull so fast. So on Friday mornings we burst out the door, JP and Lou

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1116742032276321552005-05-22T00:17:00.000-05:002005-05-22T02:27:19.960-05:00

We are in my little red Dodge, Sofia and I, driving northbound on the Kennedy, a couple of junkies solving the world's problems on the way to get a fix."Standardized testing," I tell her. "That's the problem. When I was in North Carolina we spent two months getting the kids ready to take that test. Now when I was in school, it was just assumed--not only that we would be okay to take the test

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1116738582567723502005-05-22T00:09:00.000-05:002005-05-22T02:26:57.046-05:00

Without the possibility of dope there doesn’t seem to be too much need to go to work. We are not going to score, we tell each other. We are going to get clean, once and for all and then maybe once we know we’re clean, maybe then we can do it again. But until then we are on the straight and narrow. Until then there will be no more talk of spots, no more talk of scores and shots and needles. Until

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1116738146289864762005-05-21T23:25:00.000-05:002005-05-22T02:26:37.246-05:00

"Are you sure you still want to go?" JP asks me."Yeah," I tell him. We are supposed to be at Isaiah's house already, not that anyone will miss us or comment on our lateness; Isaiah's place isn't like that. Crowds of people come and go as they please at Isaiah's; there's always someone sleeping on the sofa or staying on the floor in the back bedroom, and always something in a pot on the stove. We

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1116221121401265612005-05-16T00:24:00.000-05:002005-05-16T11:50:20.886-05:00

All right, where is he? It’s been almost two hours and it never takes this long and it looks like it’s gonna rain, besides; oh god, where is he?Okay. Shhh, babygirl, it’s okay. It’s always been okay so far, hasn’t it? I mean, he’s done this a million times at least, and he’s always been fine before so he’ll be okay this time, right?It never takes this long, though. He should be home by now. Maybe

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1116221019834629642005-05-16T00:23:00.000-05:002005-05-16T11:49:59.423-05:00

JP loves the apartment the moment he sees it.For nearly a month we have slept on the floor of his mother’s apartment, indignant and self-contained. My mother has put me out after another “discussion”, and his mother has taken me in because I seem like a nice girl. We sleep, smoke weed, call in sick to work. We fuck incessantly and fiercely and plan majestic conquests.But there is no way we are

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1116220971185144832005-05-16T00:22:00.000-05:002005-05-16T11:49:38.013-05:00

In my dream there is music.Having nothing else to do between fixes—no job, no artistic motivation, no television worth watching—I have taken to long naps in the afternoons. My dreams are strange and vivid, full of ephemeral dangers and memories of things that never happened.This afternoon there is some sort of crowd in my dream, some sort of willful looming mass of people in which I am only one

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1116220900899600142005-05-16T00:21:00.000-05:002005-05-16T11:49:18.383-05:00

Lou isn’t speaking to me anymore, not since he found out I am seeing CR. And Sofia is out of town, and I need a fix. I’m in trouble.I’ve been an addict for three years, nearly, and in all that time I’ve never once had to score for myself. JP had always done it, or Lou, or Sofia; it was a well-considered plan that took into account simple economic realities. Lou and Sofia already had criminal

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1116220824261535722005-05-16T00:19:00.000-05:002005-05-16T11:48:54.983-05:00

Lou and I storm into Chicago with a U-Haul and a little red Dodge full of cats and trappings. I know when I come home for Christmas, when Sofia and I go to the Tribe Called Quest concert on New Year’s Eve, when Roger flirts with me and buys me drinks as I sit in the bar in the building where Sam and Wendy used to live, a few blocks from the old apartment—I know then that I will come back to

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1116194839135670422005-05-15T17:05:00.000-05:002005-05-16T11:48:31.356-05:00

In My DefenseThe art, you seeis everything.I do not come hereto hide from my demons;they areat timesthe only voice I have.I am not here to flaunt my masteryover dark dominions;I only dare themone last timeto claim me.You do not seethe unholy visionthe moment when all is clearor if you do,you treat clarity as only a trifle.I know onlythat I need to know;what I need to knowI don't know. I only

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1115872159697280292005-05-11T23:26:00.000-05:002005-05-12T16:47:40.916-05:00

The phone rings, and for no reason I feel a little chill.It is late on a beautiful August night and I am watching Archie Bunker in the den of my mother-in-law’s house. I know I will be leaving here soon; I just don’t know when, exactly, and my brain and my body are both screaming, keyed up to the highest possible pitch. I have spent most of the night in the room at JP’s mother’s house, where we

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1115870076963386982005-05-11T22:54:00.000-05:002005-05-12T16:47:27.113-05:00

The center never holds for long. There is rent to pay and bills—cable and gas and electric and phone, along with my enormous debt payment left from my 18 months with David. But both JP and I are working, and so there is enough for bills and food and rent, with enough left over for CDs and books and heroin.All year our paydays are staggered and so there is always money, there is always something

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1115867212841094942005-05-11T22:01:00.000-05:002005-05-12T16:47:14.093-05:00

I have never seen JP in a suit before. Just the very fact of it is an amazement, even though it’s not a suit-and-tie suit and even though he looks flat-out miserable and out of his element.We drive out to some far suburb for the wedding of one of my college friends. Adele had been a bridesmaid at my wedding to David, but we’d fallen out of touch til I got the invitation, sent to my mother’s

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1115866859671641712005-05-11T21:57:00.000-05:002005-05-12T16:46:59.283-05:00

I wake up the next morning and I can feel the flutter of panic just beneath the surface, the quiver in my stomach, the nerves jumping in my body, and JP does not believe me when I tell him I AM GOING SICK. JP is not going sick. Lou is not going sick, or at least Lou hasn’t said anything—he is in the den, on the sofa under the window, sprawled on his back and fast asleep. So I am the only one

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1115780540577453322005-05-10T21:13:00.000-05:002005-05-12T16:46:43.323-05:00

I have seen him do it before.I have seen him cut the powder into lines, seen him roll up a dollar bill, seen him breathe the lines back into his nostrils, eyes watering. He does not understand why, exactly, I am afraid. Nothing bad has ever happened; he has done this before, he tells me, and I have even seen him do it. This was part of the plan, he says. He is only telling me what I already know.

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1115567175042837042005-05-08T10:12:00.000-05:002005-05-08T10:59:21.813-05:00

David sits at the computer desk and ignores everything around him. He surrounds himself with bits and pieces of wire and hardware, ashtrays overflowing with Marlboro Light butts and dozens of dirty dishes--cups crusted with dried milk, plates with ends and remnants, empty soda cans. I get up in the morning and he is sitting at the desk as I leave for work; I come home in the early evening and he

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1114746076610500002005-04-28T22:40:00.000-05:002005-05-08T10:47:27.796-05:00

We spend the summer nights with heroin and sex and music. We stay up til all hours with all the lights on, cutting pictures from magazines to hang on the wall, all our talismans of hope and fame. And we roam the neighborhood, JP and I, in the middle of the night.We walk down Ashland, past Augusta down to Chicago and beyond, across the bridge over the expressway. We walk past an abandoned church,

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1114746316577933182005-04-28T20:41:00.000-05:002005-04-28T22:45:34.710-05:00

I turn on to Maplewood from North Avenue and think this is probably not a good idea. The corners are populated with young Hispanic men who shout out “Park! Rocks! Park!” when they see me in my little gray Escort. I creep down the street watching the street numbers and my rearview mirror at the same time.I pull up in front of the house and think Oh, this is definitely not a good idea. Just inside

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1114746002178058582005-04-28T20:14:00.000-05:002005-05-08T10:53:47.116-05:00

It is dark and in the middle of the darkness there is only a pinpoint. In the middle of the darkness is a pinpoint and it is in the far dark distance and only the dark and the pinpoint are the things that matter. And I am in the dark and I can stay in the dark and be happy forever, floating nearer to the pinpoint and the distance and through the warm and comforting dark.“GLADYS!!” I have never

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1114737269620002092005-04-28T20:12:00.000-05:002005-04-28T20:14:29.620-05:00

Holograms float behind my eyes when he is inside me. The heroin does not enhance sex, exactly, but it puts us in a space where anything is possible, all inhibitions are gone, time stretches and twists and there are no barriers between us. We fuse and melt together and he rides me, I straddle him, we thrash and writhe together and hours pass. We tear each other’s skin and leave bruises. We kiss,

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1114737130692804692005-04-28T20:11:00.000-05:002005-04-28T20:12:10.696-05:00

We sit in the car and wait.On the corner of Drake and Iowa time is not just elastic; it is liquid. On the corner the language of waiting is understood blood-deep by the passing legions. If the security man, standing near the alley, tells you “make the block”, you’ve got at least five minutes of making yourself scarce before the spot opens up again. If he tells you “one minute”, it’s probably

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1114737050282798372005-04-28T20:09:00.000-05:002005-04-28T20:10:50.283-05:00

I sit on the bed and he puts the needle into my arm again.For someone as pale as I am, with veins so visible just under her skin, it has been remarkably difficult to pierce them. My terror of the needle does nothing to ease the process, and so my forearms are spotted with the beginnings of bruises, perfectly round with a pinpoint at their center. We have been working at this for nearly an hour.

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1114736986586851102005-04-28T20:08:00.000-05:002005-04-28T20:09:46.586-05:00

Humboldt Park: The Summer BeforeI sneak away every day to see him. At night I sleep in the day’s t-shirt, to smell his scent. My husband, enmeshed in a pipe-dream business venture, notices nothing. He does not listen when I tell him that we need to change things. He barely listens when I tell him I am unhappy enough that I might leave,.My arms are marked with bruises, blue and black fading to

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1114736894090081462005-04-28T20:07:00.000-05:002005-04-28T20:08:14.090-05:00

We count the money again. Not because we need to; we know what we have, down to the penny, and what bills we have to pay. $400 for the rent, $60 for the phone, $50 for the gas and $30 for the electric. That leaves us almost $600 for food, for music, for our own amusement. Our own amusement has narrowed down considerably since December. “You ready?” I ask JP. He walks to the door, chceking for the

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1114736829788277732005-04-28T20:06:00.000-05:002005-04-28T20:07:09.790-05:00

The House: mid-summerTiger and Foof, the two cats, sit outside our bedroom door like the lions at the Art Institute. Inside the sanctuary of the pin-striped curtain, the window unit has cooled the air to a chilly 85 degrees. The city is in the grip of the worst heat wave in its history;It’s four in the morning, and JP and I are in the grip of something else entirely.JP is sprawled on the orange

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1114306092728860622005-04-23T20:26:00.000-05:002005-04-23T20:28:12.730-05:00

I watch the disaster at the Murrah Federal Building with a syringe in my arm.It is the first day of our spring break, JP and I, and I’ve been paid the Friday before. Free from work and flush with cash, we have spent the weekend in our eternal pursuits—planning and scoring and shooting and fucking, again and again. It is April and spring is in full gear in Wicker Park, and JP has his guitar and I

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1105673833424176452005-01-13T21:14:00.000-06:002005-01-13T21:37:13.426-06:00

We never buy for ourselves. Only addicts buy it for themselves, and we're not addicts. We're just....experimenting. We just want to see. So every Friday afternoon, every Saturday morning, every Saturday afternoon, every Sunday morning, every Sunday afternoon--we call Cam. Cam lived in the building next door to where JP lived when we first got together. His brother Chris was the one who used to

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1088656655059384792004-06-30T23:09:00.000-05:002005-04-23T19:36:31.310-05:00

We have been apart too long, JP and I. After our long summer of sneaking trysts, rage and poetry, it has been two months since we had seen each other; it was either that or homelessness for me. My mother had laid down her "one condition" for me to live at home during my separation from Dave: I was not to see JP, period. I have violated that rule exactly once--I drove to Palatine to pay a bill,

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1088396312390469162004-06-27T22:43:00.000-05:002004-06-27T23:18:32.390-05:00

They leave me at home. Not that I minded; I don't particularly like the notion of Lou driving my car, maniac that he is, but a fix is a fix and a fact is a fact, and the fact is, we need a fix, all three of us. And honestly, I'm tired of the ride. We've been out to the spot at least three times this day, in varying permutations: me and Lou, me and JP, me and JP and Lou and Sophia...I really

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1088309197434180462004-06-26T23:04:00.000-05:002004-06-26T23:06:37.433-05:00

It is a Friday afternoon in mid-May. All the long ride home from the south suburbs I have been thinking about this weekend and what it holds, all the promise, all the things work does not give me. I have been sitting for the past two hours on buses and trains, headphones blasting, waiting for my rewards. In my pocket is my paycheck; I will cash it at the currency exchange when I get off the

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1088309049829766902004-06-26T23:01:00.000-05:002004-06-26T23:04:09.830-05:00

I am lying on the bed in the back bedroom of the apartment at 1460. In the morning I have to go to work, and it's after midnight, and though we've been snorting it for a few days, I'm not dopesick, of course not--I just have a cold, that's all. And cramps. In my hands. And if my mind is racing...well, that's just how my mind always is. And even though it's a huuuuge coincidence, JP has a cold too

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7449287.post-1088307508496633142004-06-26T22:14:00.000-05:002004-06-26T22:38:28.496-05:00

The first time I quit heroin and meant it, I switched to vodka and orange juice. The vodka was filched from my mother's liquor cabinet, late at night after she had passed out and would no longer remember how full the bottle was when she'd fixed her last drink of the night. After two or three drinks, I felt sufficiently competent to face the facts of my existence, to wit: I was 25, divorced,

Gladyshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01088785537045114419noreply@blogger.com1