party
There was a party on Saturday night, down at this loft on Milwaukee and Wood. All neighborhood folks, artists, musicians, people that are good at looking good.
I struck up a conversation with a young guy with great tattoos named Patrick. We talked about his new tat, some of our new projects, complained about the weather. But he was edgy, nervous, hyper-alert. In mid-sentence he asked me if I had any medical training, which I don't. He said he needed someone to help him "slam", which is what people call injecting themselves with crystal meth. He said that he had difficult veins, and that he couldn't inject it himself. I said that I couldn't help him, but I was intrigued... here was this guy, about 22, good looking, an up and coming artist, and he was so nonchalant about it, like he was just asking me for, I don't know, something normal. Like a light for his cigarette, or a kleenex.
He took out his sleek, silver cellphone and called up a friend of his, supposedly a doctor. The blue light from the phone's display glowed on the side of his face. He wanted his doctor friend to stop by the party and "facilitate a situation"... to help him inject his dose. The ease with which he handled all this was unnerving.
Ten minutes later the doctor arrives, a
smartly-dressed man in his mid-40's. Patrick excuses himself, and they go into a bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, they come out, and the doctor, all apologetic, says that he's terribly sorry, that Patrick's veins were rather difficult and that he needed to go out to his car to get some fresh, sharper hypodermic needles. The doctor leaves, and Patrick laughs and tells me how funny it is that the doctor couldn't find a decent vein, that he'd overused the veins in his arms so he couldn't use them anymore, that he had an exploded vein in his right leg so he couldn't do it there, and so on.
The doctor comes back in with some fresh needles, and they go back into the bathroom. Ten minutes later they come out again, and Patrick has obviously slammed. He wears a euphoric mask of intense pleasure, his jaw clenched, his right hand ever so slightly trembling around his glass of Stoli and cranberry . The doctor wishes him a good evening and leaves.
Friends of Patrick come up, and ask him if he has any tina or g. They want to bump some tina, down some g, slam some crystal, they have slammed, they were slamming, they've bumped up against the ceiling of their youth and they're down and grinning and it's happy and euphoric and I'm suddenly indescribably weary and I have to leave. Patrick gives me his number, says we should hang sometime, but I wonder how long he'll be around.
Everyone has something that could kill them if they let it, if they open the door and invite it in to curl up on the hearth and sing them to sleep.