Saturday, April 14, 2007

A Spoon


Goddamn it.

When we went to the psychiatric emergency clinic, there was some horrible true crime show on in the background in the waiting room. I wasn't listening to it, but one line from the episode made my ears perk up:

Junkies lie all the time.

He called me a few minutes ago and asked me to bring him a few things. First, he wanted a pair of shorts, and also his sketch pad, a soda, and something to eat. He made a big deal, however, about how I wasn't supposed to look in the shorts and I wasn't supposed to look in the sketch pad because there is some wonderful secret surprise that would be spoiled if I looked.

I was immediately skeptical, and I said, "Is this something that I would be pissed off if I knew what it was?" And he responded, "No. It's really good, and you'll be excited tonight when you see."

I told him that I wasn't sure, and that if there was something that I wouldn't like, he shouldn't ask me to bring it for him. He assured me that it was all ok, and so I agreed.

I couldn't find the shorts, and I had to dig around in his drawer to find them. They were buried underneath some t-shirts, and when I found them, I saw the top of a spoon sticking out of the pocket. I pulled it out, and it was burned on the bottom.

For those of you not in the know about junky accoutrements, it's one of the essential components of any good junky collection.

Also in the shorts was the plastic wrapper from a syringe and a bloody paper towel.

He was first pissed off that I looked in the shorts and refused to believe that the top of the spoon was sticking out of the pocket. I am pissed that I'd begun to engage in this shit--there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to look in his shorts. It's not as if he has bought something that he would have hidden there. He has no money. There's no great surprise...no special thing.

And how dare he attack my honesty? I'm not the liar here.

He then swore that these things do not belong to him. He says they belong to his little shithead junky friend, the one who was always accompanying him during the week of insanity prior to my finding his needles, when he'd come to my work and take my ATM card, withdraw some outrageous amount of money to purchase something that was an outrageous lie. This kid's parents just sent him to rehab, and my husband says he helped him hook up one last time before leaving.

I don't believe him. It all makes too much sense to believe him. His fits of petulance and outrage and feeling like a victim, which of course I'd been excusing for him and blaming myself for, all fit too properly into his psychological profile when he's been using. I was out of town for the weekend.

And why should I believe him?

And even if his story is true, I can't imagine why he would do any of these things that seem so unconscionably stupid. There is no reason why he should be fucking with his Mexican heroin dealer any more. There is no reason to be around heroin, ever, and particularly right now. There is no reason to bring the shit home--if its his works or someone else's, why bring it into the house for me to see?

And WHY ask me to bring it to him?

He must know that transporting class A narcotic paraphernalia counts as a thing that I wouldn't want to do.

I want this shit out of my life. I don't want to fear his death, fear he's going to steal from me, feel a constant need to separate myself from him because I'm afraid of the consequences of being too close.

As soon as it seems like things are going to be ok, there is always this shit. Last night was nice. I built him a website for his artwork. He cleaned the kitchen. We enjoyed each other.

And then today, this...

And I had such great plans for myself for today. I was going to clean the house, get a haircut, go to a meeting. All I want to do now is take a pill and sleep.

I think I'm going to take a pill and sleep. I'll sleep until it's time for a meeting.

3 comments:

joy said...

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/friends-family-substance-abusers/120987-spoon.html

That's the comments from my Soberrecovery friends about my spoon sitch.

Anonymous said...

You don't want it to end. You need the drama. Face it.

joy said...

Oh anonymous. You are an asshole.