Reflect what you are, in case you don't know...
Ah, I hate to quote the Velvet Underground, as it seems so cliche, but it also seems pretty on point. Because that's what I've turned into, or at least what I'm attempting.
Everyday I ride the F train to and from the city, and its really my favorite time of the day, because I get to zone out, and sketch the different passengers. I like to draw middle age-old men and women, because I can really see all the muscles on their faces, which sort of limp down from their heightened skull matter. I also try to draw beautiful women, because that's worked for me in the past. Some people get laid because they're attractive, some because they're charismatic. I get layed because I can draw.
Today I boarded the F train at about 7pm, and as I stepped through the doors, my Nose was assaulted by an offensive, pungent stench, like that of a wet filthy dog on fire. As I clutched on to one of the poles, to keep myself from falling, I managed to come to my senses, and scan the car for the sign of the perpetrator, or perpetrator's I should say. Sure enough, about twenty feet from me sat two squatters with a wet dog. I turned back, as I didn't want to stare, but my curiosity got to me, as I had a pretty good chance of knowing these people, since I used to cop heroin over by Tompkins Square Park. So I took a second glance, and sure enough, I did recognize one of them, but they weren't at all who I had expected.
Three years ago I managed to get out of the seemingly endless cycle of detox-inpatient-extended care-halfway house, and back home to NYC. After more than half a year of dealing with bullshit institutions, I finally had decided to get clean, and I joined this recovery group for young people, ranging from teens to people in their mid 20's. I wasn't very popular there, and I think a lot of the people got the idea that I thought I was somehow better, more hardcore than the rest of them, because I was the only IV heroin/cocaine user. In some sense, there might have been some truth to that, but it was all a show really, as I had no other real accomplishments to be proud of.
So I managed to stay clean, which seemed like an impossible feat, but as the months went by, I really started getting into 12step programs, as well as this recovery group. I sort of gained some popularity within my peers for my art, as well as my "brutal honesty". The guys still didn't care much for me, but I was winning over some of the girls.
Its important to point out, that I have never been a "player". I'm probably the opposite of that, as I'm actually pretty intimidated by women, and terrified by sex. I've never initiated a relationship in my life, and it's miraculous that I've ever gotten laid in the first place.
Anyway, some of the girls in this group gained a little bit of interest in me, and one in particular, who happened to live close by the advertisement agency that I had an internship (paid), at the time. Though I didn't really have any real feelings for this girl, I felt some kind of strange pressure to persue her, though I can't tell even now, if that pressure was coming from myself, or from my "bro's".Eventually I hooked up with this chick, and I landed myself into a situation that I was really not to happy to be in. In all honesty, I don't think this girl was really that into me, because I had seen the types of guys she had been with in the past, very masculine, aggressive dude's with pierced septums. I think rather, that she was one of the types that need to be with someone (though I think everybody has been that type at one point or another), and since I was the "new hot thing", she picked me.
I actually tried to slow things down with her, because I knew the relationship was not one that I wanted to be involved in, but every time I tried to pull away, or sit further apart from her on the couch while watching a movie, she got really upset, and I'd hear about her complaints through mutual friends. I was at a real loss as to how to handle the situation, so like a coward, I slept with her, and when she asked if we were "together", I said "sure".
A couple weeks after the rather awkward intercourse that we had, I ended up relapsing, first on two vicodin, and then on a week long bender where I was shooting coke and heroin around the clock. This occurred during Christmas time however, and both my family, as well as hers, had gone on vacation, so my return to heroin, was a secret. When I got back to New York, I left my house early in the morning to cop some more heroin, and spent the whole day through evening, injecting dope with homeless people on the Bowery. In my warped state, I somehow had the idea that I could go to my recovery group and act like I was sober, despite the fact that I had broken my nose, was bleeding from my forehead, and barely breathing. So I stumbled into this group of young people in recovery, and basically passed the fuck out.
I came to several days later, and found that I still had a few bags of heroin left, so I shot them up, and them went back to this girls house, whe we had awkward sex once again, and then I watched her and a friend play basketball down on Houston, while I nodded out on a park bench.
When the heroin was gone, and I really realized that I fucked up my sobriety, I really took it hard, and the relationship I had with this girl just seemed like an added stressor that I couldn't deal with. Instead of discussing it with her like a human being however, I just decided to ignore her phone calls and text messages for about a month, while I scrambled money together to shoot more cocaine. Eventually I got the courage up to call her, but the damage was already done, because that phone call had been due months earlier. A few weeks later, I learned that she relapsed, and that was the last I heard of her.
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So when I looked back on the train, and focused my view on the two squatters, it dawned on me that one of them was this girl. It was obvious that she was strung out, there is just this physical manifestation that occurs when people inject drugs. Sometimes there bodies kind of eat away at themselves, and other times, they seem to puff out, with some kind of gross filmy gloss that hangs onto their skin. I don't know if she saw me, but I didn't wait to find out, I switched trains at the next stop, and cowered in a corner seat, trying to distract myself by drawing some middle aged geezer. The drawing turned out pretty well, but it didn't really make me feel better. I am a good person, I have to believe that, but part of me really is twisted, and unkind.
We went back to her house and spent the rest of the day looking through old family pictures and talking, I even talked to her husband a little(and I thought he didn't like me,I think he's alright with me now). The crystal really helped me get things out that I wanted to talk to my mom about. I'd explain it like; all my thoughts were easier to form into sentences then into projections from my voice-box . Normally I stutter and trip on my words a little. I also had the most exciting, happy, comforting feeling all day; when I'm on crystal I pick up on people's energy/mood a little better and I feel people get my positive or negative vibes quicker. I could tell my mom was just as happy as I was to hangout. I stayed over and had dinner till night I drove home.
