CHAPTER TWENTY

PAST

The telephone blasted me awake feeling as if I was inside an egg with the shell peeled away and only the membranous sac holding it intact. Ugg! The membranous sac was my head, and the right side of my head was on the pillow, and the yolk was as heavy as mercury, and it rolled like mercury and was pressing down on my right temple. It I tried to get up to answer the phone, the yolk, the mercury, the poisoned mass, would shift and roll and rupture the sac, and my brain would fall out.

I paraphrased and plagiarized my way into consciousness. It was Monday morning, correction – Monday afternoon. It should’ve been Monday morning and I should’ve been at the office. The fact that I wasn’t there was the reason Ruby was calling me on the iPhone with the 200dB ringtone.

Ecstasy has a very mild comedown, so mild that for me there are usually no effects. However, yesterday Angel had produced a small bag of Pico, meth and declared it was a “pick me up” for the after effects of the ecstasy. I didn’t know if she really needed a pick me up or was just wanting to continue the party. Either way, it was a beautiful sunny day and we had a bag of meth so there was no questioning the direction the day was heading.

We didn’t have enough to be partying but we had a pleasant day which allowed me to enjoy drinking more of the Domain Boyar Platinum Reserve Wine that I was still enjoying thanks to Angel. Meth cancels out the effect of alcohol. It doesn’t, however, cancel out the hangover the next day and boy did I have a hangover.

I scraped myself of the bed and into the bathroom to shower and get ready for work. Shower on, face in water. I opened my mouth and let it fill with the warm water of the shower, it tasted foul so I reached for the Braun Oral B 7000 electric toothbrush and the tube of toothpaste. I squirted a dollop on the bristles and switched the brush on, the tooth brush loudly buzzed into life and flung the toothpaste all over me and the shower walls. I had forgotten to put it IN my mouth before switching it on.

Now performing the ritual, the proper way, more toothpaste, brush in mouth and switch on; the buzzing was telegraphed directly to my injured brain from my teeth, through the jaw and up past the sinuses via my skull and the pain was intense.

I pulled the brush out, threw it into the sink and allowed more water to fill my mouth and attempted to swill the remaining toothpaste around as a make shift mouthwash. I spat and dribbled while foamy water rolled down my chest and I made the morning after pledge for the six hundredth time in my life ‘Never Again!’ and for the five hundred and ninety ninth time the follow up pledge ‘And THIS time I mean It!’

A full 15 minutes of showering in alternatively hot and cold water had partially resurrected me and I wandered into the bedroom with a large bath towel wrapped around my waist. Dolce & Gabanna spelled out in pale blue embroidery ran down the tucked in edge. If I had been asked I would have to confess to having absolutely no recollection of ever buying this towel; I wasn’t asked however as Angel was busy racking up two lines of Pico on the screen of her LG Smartphone.

“I thought we used the whole bag yesterday?” I asked. It was a genuine question, but the real question, the one that was only spoken in the confinements of my mind was – ‘Do you ever STOP?’

“Oh it’s another one, I got a spare G in case we needed it today,” she said casually. For me drugs were a weekend play thing, it was incredible unusual for me to have taken something on a Sunday, in fact if Angel had not had some I would never have thought about it; but Angel did have some and as a result I had a hangover on a workday.

And Angel had some NOW as well. The some that she had was glistening off white in a line on the surface of her phone and now it was being tantalizingly placed directly in front of my face.

“Here you are,” she said lovingly as if spoon feeding chicken soup to a sick child, “this will help you, your hangover will be gone in 2 minutes.” I knew she was right, I knew the hangover would vanish almost instantly, but I also knew it was wrong to take it mid-day on a Monday; my head throbbed with indecision.

I caved in and my hangover vanished.

It was however, replaced with a worry about the condition of my heart. I was walking briskly down the street to the office and it was pounding in my chest from the effects of the Meth. I had been careful not to take enough to be high. I had, after all, work to do. But this bag was stronger than yesterdays and my heart was pounding like the pistons on a runaway steam locomotive.

I entered the office and said a bright hello to Ruby and R2; realizing I must look absolutely drugged and partially crazy I made an immediate 180 and brightly said “goodbye” as I exited the door ignoring my name being called after me.

I walked slowly back home trying to check my pulse on my wrist as I walked, which was an entirely pointless thing to do. First you cannot keep looking at your watch, holding your wrist still and walking at the same time, but on top of that my heartbeat was pounding in my ears as clearly as a Harley Davidson on tick-over, I could simply count the thuds.

I carefully walked back up the stairs, holding my chest as if that would slow the heart rate. Sweat was running down my face as I pressed the 1/0 button on the Aircon remote control and forced it into cooling life. I flopped on the bed not even bothering to remove my clothes or even my shoes.

I lay there slowly coming down from the semi high and it hit me – I have had drugs in my system now for days straight and I was growing accustomed to the feeling. I didn’t know it then but that ‘for days straight’ use was to become exactly 1,000 days straight of using Meth without any breaks. Drugs were moving slowly from being a casual and occasional pastime to becoming something I was completely and utterly dependent on. What I once did for fun I was being forced to do as a vital necessity.