“It’s lazy, and it’s clean, and it’s unpolluted, and that’s all there is, nothing else, just you alone in this world where there’s not a thing to worry about, where you don’t have to think about clothes, or cars, or where your next gig is coming from, or who’s going to tell you not to do this or that, or who’s going to chase you, or who’s going to not chase you, none of these goddamn worries, Bud, none of them at all. You can’t imagine what it’s like, Bud, unless you’ve been on it — didn’t I give you a stick of M once? Sure I did, don’t you remember what it was like?”
“I didn’t feel anything at all,” Bud said.
“No, not from M, maybe, and besides it was the first time, the first time you always have ideas it’s going to blow the top of your skull off. M doesn’t do that, the big stuff does, though, in the beginning. I took an opium ride once, Bud, and, man, it was the end, but opium is a trip to the graveyard, I know guys who are on opium and, Jesus, even their skin looks yellow, as if they have jaundice or something. But it was really the end, that time with opium. I only took it once and this was when I was on the Jerralds band, when I was first beginning to piddle with the big stuff, you know. Oh, man, I felt like I was on the back of a great big swan, an enormous swan, do you know, and that old swan was away up there in the sky, and I could feel the clouds against my face, wispy like, and cottony, and a little damp and moist but warm-moist, like a woman, and I could see the houses down below, like little toy houses in a toy village, like you could squash them in your hand, and I was way up there far away from it all, with the people just crawling around like tiny ants, and these warm-moist clouds licking my face, and the sound of the swan’s wings, a whir, whir, whir, up and down, just flapping those big wings, whir, whir, lazy, lazy without a care in the world. That was the time on opium, I’ll never forget that time, but I never went back to that stuff, it’s funny how you get channeled onto one thing, isn’t it, like the way I got channeled onto heroin and then stayed with it, even though I’ve had them all — cocaine, opium, even morphine once or twice, that’s another mean habit to kick, Barney Ross was on morph, do you know that?”
“Yes,” Bud said.
“He kicked it, though, look at the comeback he made. And don’t think it’s easy. And heroin is worse, you know. Heroin is four to eight times as potent as morphine — that’s a fact. Oh, sure. Most of the hop-heads you run across are on H. When I was down Lexington, they told me about sixty per cent of all the addicts use heroin, how’s that for news? It gets you, the goddamn stuff. The habit is right in your guts, right down there hooked into your guts. I don’t get the pains any more, but last week I thought I’d die from them. Worse than labor pains, I swear it, I’ll bet no goddamn woman ever had labor pains like the pains I had last week. They start in your stomach and they twist and they roil until you think you’ve got appendicitis. And they hit you in the back and the arms and the neck, and at the same time you’re sweating like a son-of-a-bitch, and then when the sweating stops, you’re freezing to death, and you got goose flesh all over you, and you look like a plucked turkey. That’s where the expression comes from, you know. Cold turkey. The goose flesh when you drop the junk without a substitute drug. Cold turkey. And all the while that rotten pain is knifing up your insides and you’re heaving and twitching and sweating and freezing and yawning, oh, Jesus, you yawn like a bastard, it’s like you can never stop yawning, and that’s when you wonder most if it’s worth it all, because you know there’s no one in the wide world who gives a damn but you yourself. Sure, everybody says kick it, kick it, like taking off a dirty pair of undershorts. But they don’t know what it’s like, trying to kick it. Only you know, because it’s right there inside your own goddamn stomach, and inside your blood, and inside your head. It’s still inside my head. You think I’ll ever kick it from my head? Do you think Helen kicked it from her head? It’ll always be there, always, the way it’s there now, the memory of it, the memory of what it does. It’s like a disease, Bud, I swear to God. Right now, just talking to you, just talking about the junk, I can feel that itch start inside my skull. I feel like rushing out of here and finding the Man and saying, ‘Daddy, lay it on me, I’m sick.’ That’s just how I feel. I can almost taste the stuff, just sitting here and talking to you.”
“Well, then let’s talk about something else,” Bud suggested.
“No, what good will that do? I’ve got to live with it, don’t I? Am I supposed to pretend there’s no such thing as drugs in the world? What’ll that get me? I’ve got to live with the idea, and I’ve just got to stick to what I’m trying to do, that’s the only way. I’ve got to say the hell with it, I’ve got to. Otherwise, well, Jesus, there’s no end in sight, is there? You see, after a while you need it to feel normal, do you know what I mean? You forget about that when the itch starts. You remember only how great it was in the beginning, when the high was the end, when you got a big charge on a small dose, and when your skull hit the ceiling every time you popped off. But after a while, after you’ve been on the stuff, you need more, and then more, and then you need it to feel normal. Oh, there’s still a boot, I mean you still get a boot, but not like in the beginning. You wake up in the morning, and you’re subnormal, I guess. Then you take the fix, and you’re normal again. You get your small charge, and you’re normal. Just normal. If you don’t get the fix, you begin to claw the damn walls down, but once you get it, once you get that quick boot, and once you begin to nod, you’re just normal, until it’s time for the next fix. You forget that. You remember only the good part, and the good part is the best thing in the world, Bud, better than a woman, you don’t even think of women when you’re on drugs, do you know that? Ah, the good part. That’s what you remember. Not the things you had to do, not those, no, not those, and not that deadline all the time, where’s the next fix coming from, where, where, where? Always scrounging for the buck, not giving a good goddamn about anything but hoss any more, not caring about the horn, or Carol, or anything. The way you start with a world of your own, the world you’re in when you’re high, well that world spreads out until it’s the only world there is. Everybody vanishes. Everybody walking the streets, their problems are nothing. I am great, you are gornischt, you know. Who said that, a friend of yours, wasn’t it, I don’t even remember any more, a guy on the band, Reen? I am great, you are gornischt, my problems are everything, and my problem is the monkey on my back, weighing twenty-five pounds and scratching the hell out of me, and where will I get the loot for my next fix, or do I have enough, or will I score, or, Jesus, suppose the Man isn’t on the scene, or can I grub from Tom, Dick, or Harry, or who has some of the jive, and what can I do to get a fix, what can I sell, what can I hock, what can I steal? That’s your world. It’s all wrapped up in H, a pretty white package, pure H cut with sugar, and it’s wrapped up in a tablespoon, and a match under the bowl of the spoon, that little flame, and a glistening goddamn syringe with a sharp needle, I’m beginning to feel the itch talking about it, would you believe it, I can almost feel that goddamn spike going into my vein. I was mainlining it, you know, even though I started with simple skin pops, mainlining it is the only way, the drug goes straight into your blood stream. There’s a way to build the high, you know, after a while when you’ve built a tolerance. You shoot it into the vein, and then you draw it back into the syringe, mixed with blood, that’s called kicking it, not like kicking the habit, it’s funny both terms should apply to two different things, isn’t it? You kick the stuff, and the more you kick it, the bigger the pop, oh, I can tell you things about drugs, all right, Helen too, Helen knows the score all right, Helen was hooked through the bag and back again. A hell of a wonderful girl, Helen, you could always depend on her. Call Helen, and Helen came. If you needed her, she came. Whenever you needed her. I shouldn’t have got her hooked on the junk, I guess, but I suppose she wanted to, a strange girl, Helen, in a lot of ways. But you could always depend on her, Jesus, what a girl. And she kicked it, by Christ, and if she could do it, I can do it!