Chuck E's In Love

After the Christmas Where Everything Collapsed, I wound up back in Baltimore. It was 1989. The Orioles had a season of historical tragedy. I went to rehab for the first time and made my way into a little tribe of people trying to stay away from their demons and desires. Most of us did. Certainly, every now and again, someone would fall off and die. I know that sounds flippant and callous, but this is what life is like in the world of sobriety. People you love just up and die, and you feel shocked, weep, and you move on. Better them than me. It sounds horrible, I know, but it's real. Just staying alive one more day is a big deal.

I fell in love again. I met Trish, and on we went. I remember telling Leslie about her. We were in my car on some backwoods Harford County road just talking. She was home for Christmas. I told her about Trish and reflexively started crying. I'll never forget her reaction. She said something to the effect of, "Stop your fucking phony tears. I'm not buying it anymore." Wham! She just lit into me, and I knew she was absolutely right. I'd used tears to try and gain sympathy, but what sympathy could I expect? Jesus, the things we do to people we love. That Leslie is even in my life is a testament to her soul, certainly not mine. And, well, Trish didn't last so long anyway.

              I spent that year living a new clean life. I stopped getting high. I had a lot of sex and made a lot of pipe bombs with Paul. Paul was another newly sober friend and was a plumber by trade. We'd get PVC pipe and acetylene from his work and make cannons that shot 16oz glass soda bottles hundreds of yards into the night. We could punch a hole in a billboard from across the street. We'd laugh the laughs of adrenaline. Eventually, we moved up to black powder pipe bombs. We never wanted to destroy anything; we just wanted to feel the exhilaration of the BOOM! God, what a feeling. One night we got arrested. 8 felony counts. But they let us go. God knows why. We made one more bomb and set it out in the sticks. A long fuse that gave us a hundred yards or so of distance. I heard a massive BANG followed by an immediate ZINNNNNNGGG right next to my ear. It moved my hair. Shrapnel. One-half inch to the left, and I'd be dead. This marked the end of our bomb days. I got scared.

              I kept going. I kept going to meetings. I kept fucking Trish and feeding her dog, Jake. What a beautiful dog. Her Dad was in the CIA. The real deal. That's all I know. Very hush-hush. And we kept going. And as all things do in a junkies life, eventually, I got high. I remember driving through neighborhoods near North Avenue and listening to The Cowboy Junkies. That first record is so sublime. All recorded with just one microphone. So ethereal and so silky. You drive around and look for likely characters. Hopefully, some older Black guy. The young ones would always burn you.

I pulled over and asked him if he had dope. Sure enough. I bought a couple bags and an outfit and set out for a sea change in my world. I was doing this. No turning back. I got home to Trish's apartment, where I basically lived all the time and went into the bathroom after getting a spoon. I did the thing. The ritual. I poured the powder into the spoon and squirted some water from the outfit. Old hat by now. One minute later, and I'm back home. Wherever home is. Whatever my idea of home and happiness and love was. I was back. Once it starts, it doesn't end until everything collapses.

I could tell you all about the next couple of months and my slow but steady move back to LA. Eventually, Paul and Arron came out to drive back with me. They had no idea I was strung out. Paul found an outfit in my jacket pocket the very first night. We all just looked down in shame. But here we were, and we were going back. I left Trish with some idea of her coming later. To start some new life. She found some new guy to fuck, and who could blame her. I saw her once again as she was on her way to San Fransisco. She stopped in LA to check-in. I was decidedly checked out. I'm sorry, Trish. I'm just always saying I'm sorry. I should grow a pair and just stop being a fucking monster.

It's so hard to write about such long periods of time and distill the essence of each and every day. Surely things happened in that year in Baltimore that are worth talking about. All the people I met and all the little inroads to my heart they made. But I think I have to look at this life in fits and starts. Maybe everything will become apparent and clear in time, but now, now as I sit here and drink wine and wonder what's important, I have to be ruthless. I have to chop everything up and just put the pretty things, the ugly things, the things that stab and hug me on the platter.

And so, I settled back into life in LA. I lived with Paul in Frogtown. I don't know why it was called that, but it's an area near the river and next to Atwater Village. Working-class houses and Mexicans and kids in bands and junkies. I just kept getting loaded. It's not like you just stop. It's your job. I fell back into doing PA work and Art Department gigs. When I was low on money, I'd ask my parents for some. I'd come up with some half-baked catastrophe that required a few hundred bucks, and they'd send it. Jesus, the cost of that psychically is immense. The drugs help, but the drugs wear off, and there you are. Just some piece of shit who lied again to your parents to get dope money.

Jobs came and went. A good job was one in which there was enough petty cash to stay high throughout most of the days. Some jobs were awful, with me kicking and begging to go home, but you can't really let anyone know. I mean, they all know it's not a huge mystery why one guy is sweating and vomiting the whole day, but they never let on. And so, time passed.

I got a call to do a job in the desert. Earlier I wrote a story in which I confused "desert" with "dessert." It kills me. But I was going to the desert, the dry place in this story. The video was for Ricky Lee Jones. Surely I knew of her, but she wasn't some hero of mine. In fact, it felt like it had been some time since I'd even heard of her. Maybe this was her comeback. We were going to Death Valley to film God knows what. Lots of people spinning about in the heat and sand with her likely singing up front. I just knew it was a job, and that meant money, and that meant dope.

When these kinds of jobs happen, you have to prepare. You're going to someplace where there is simply no dope. You have to prepare. The night before we left, I bought whatever dope I could and had such a good plan about how to ration it and get back relatively unscathed. Junkies always pull this shit. We do junkie math. "I’ll do a ballon when we start and wait until lunchtime to do the next, and if I keep this 6-hour process going, I’ll be fine.”

We all met at Propaganda on Orange, or was it Citrus? It was in the new bigger building. I was driving the production cube truck. 7Am. We’re all there. We all have walkie talkies. It’s all very official and standard. I have a pocket full of dope, and I’ve already done my wakeup. I’m ready. Things are looking ok. We head out.

The convoy starts, and we head out towards wherever Death Valley is. North I guess. Somewhere out THERE. Some other world. At some point, we stop to get some drinks. The walkie-talkies buzz, and we pull over at that Bun Boy place. Some hamburger joint that you can’t miss if you find yourself out there. Now it’s hours before my next planned shot, but I figure, well, maybe if I do a little, this whole thing will be a little more pleasant. Maybe I can be nicer to people. Maybe I can be a better PA. And so I dip into the bathroom and Vroom! I do a big shot. Ahhhh. Such is the feeling. I’m in love with everyone. But, my supply is severely diminished. It’s ok, I’ll just wait a little longer until the next one.

I’ll spare you the details, but we arrive in Death Valley hours later, and it’s hot. It’s FUCKING HOT. It’s easily 120 degrees. It’s like the sun has landed on you and wrapped its tendrils around your heart to fry your soul. Fuck, it’s just fucking hot. And you know what? I got nothing left. I’ve shot all my dope, and I’m fucked.

And so it begins. We unload the trucks, set up the cameras, and get extras in swirling bright wisps of fabric ready to dance in the heat. Everyone is jumping in and out of the motorhomes to get just a taste of air conditioning, and we just get to it. And I’m getting sick. I’m getting very sick. Dopesick is bad enough without 120-degree sweltering heat enveloping you. And I am not asking for compassion. I brought this on myself. All the years of romanticizing Lou Reed and Nick Cave and William Burroughs got me to this point, and I am well and truly fucked. And I deserve it.

The rest of the day is a blur. It’s miserable. I keep wondering if maybe someone else there has dope, but that’s just a non-starter. I just go through it. Maybe one of the worst days I’ve ever endured and one I know I created and deserved. I know at some point, I started pretending I was sick, like flu sick. I tried to get some sort of compassion. The day continued, and the next thing I remember is lying on the motel room floor with all the other PAs in bed. All of them were partying and drinking, and I’m shriveled up and trying not to vomit.

But sometimes miracles happen. The next day when we all woke up and got ready to go back to set, Nina, the production manager, asked me if I still felt sick. To this day, I think she must have known what was really going on with me, but she didn’t let on. Ricky Lee was done with her parts and needed to be driven back to her home in Ojai. Since I was sick, Nina asked me to drive her. God knows what kind of logic was at play here, but I just said Yes! And I was out of there. I was no less sick, but at least there was some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. I’d take Ricky home in one of the production vans, drop her off and head back to LA and we’d all wrap the job in a couple of days.

I remember sitting behind the wheel of the white Galpin van with Ricky Lee Jones in the passenger seat. Of course, I wanted to talk with her, but all that was on my mind was how dope sick I was. I remember thinking, she must have some experience with this, but I dared not ask her. We just drove. We drove through hours of flat, dry desert headed, I guess, to her house in Ojai. I thought of her as a rock star. I knew really nothing about her, but I knew she was a big deal. Somehow.

At one point, we pulled off to some little café/gas station to get something to drink or at least break up the trip. When we walked in, we saw two kids playing Pong on a quarter arcade game. Pong! They were so into it. This is all they had, and they were mesmerized by it. I remember asking her if she ever felt this excited by Pong. She said no, but she got it. She said she loved these kids for making do with what they had. I fell in love with her there for a minute. We got drinks or whatever, and we left. And those kids never looked up. They had no idea that some rockstar and shitbird junkie had just fallen in love with them. They just kept spinning their knobs up and down to bounce one more square white ball towards each other’s hopeful demise. Just miss! Just miss my shot! We left.

We drove on. At one point, I put on the first NWA record. Maybe I was testing her. Maybe I just liked it. I truly did love it. All I know is that we got into a big fight. She hated it, and I just told her she had no idea what the hell she was talking about. Back and forth, we fought. There’s something so intimate about fighting with someone you see as a rockstar or at least someone better than you. We fought and argued and eventually just became friends. I think we even laughed at how preposterous the whole day was. I grew to like her. A lot. She was one of the good ones. And one we drove, getting closer to Ojai.

We pulled into her driveway at some point. It seemed like we’d been driving for hours and hours. We likely were. God knows where Death Valley is, but when we got to her house, it was so much nicer. Shade. Trees, Plants. No Suns landing on our backs.

We walked in. She had a beautiful house. All rustic and beautiful art and nice little things here and there. And a beautiful girl who turned out to be her babysitter. Or Housesitter. Or something. I didn’t see any kids, but I was told I had to drive this girl home to LA. She was gorgeous. But, dope sick precludes a lot of that, and I was surely not one to seduce anyone. She was just a nice girl I had to drive home. We drank some water, and I asked to use the bathroom.

Well, you know what junkies do in bathrooms. It was upstairs at the top of the stairs. I walked in and reflexively did what I did in every bathroom I'd ever been in. I saw myself in the medicine cabinet mirror and reached and pulled it open.

A choir of angels sings. Pure light from Heaven reigns down upon my seeking eyes. There, in the middle of the center shelf, rests a prescription of Percodan. 5mg Percodan. I don’t hesitate for a second. I just reach out, twist the top and empty all of them into my mouth. I bend over to scoop up water to wash them down. How many did I take? Who cares. Hopefully enough. Seemed like a lot. I’ve never felt such an injection of pure relief as I did then. Consequences be damned. I just swallowed every Goddamn Percodan that Ricky Lee Jones had. Later, maybe I felt guilty. But it was much later.

I walked downstairs, told Ricky it was very nice getting to know her and gathered up this hot Mexican chick and headed out. We drove for a while, and just before we hit the 101, I felt them coming on. I was going to be alright. I was going to make it. The beautiful girl and I talked all the way home, and I just felt the oxycodone swell up inside of me. And I’d made it one more day.

That’s what being a junkie is. Just making it one more day. I never heard anything about it. I never really cared. I bought more dope when I got home, and I settled into my futon in Paul’s house, waiting for the next opportunity to cut a little more out of my soul. Junkies destroy themselves by using extreme pleasure to carve away parts of themselves. None of it is good. None of it is romantic. None of it doesn’t break everyone’s hearts.

I think of you a lot Ricky. I wish you could read this someday.