Some Weird Sin

Eventually, it all had to end.  There are stories from before the final Christmas, and I suppose I’ll get to them, but it seems like at this point, you all need me to experience some pain, some suffering from all the selfishness I’ve been sharing with you.

              Every Christmas, Propaganda had a huge party for anyone even remotely involved in what we did there.  From the lowliest PA to the top directors like David Fincher and the robot hack, Michael Bay.  I shouldn’t say that.  Who am I to judge someone like Michael Bay?  What the hell have I done which puts me in any position to judge him?  And yet, those movies he made were, well, they weren’t Apocalypse Now, Magnolia, or A Serious Man, but people sure did seem to like them.  I judge music the same way; I never take into account that the stuff I consider as unlistenable brings millions of people a lot of happiness.  It’s not a sound metric.

               This final party.  My final party was downtown in one of those beautiful old theatres.  I can’t remember the name, but it was cavernous and had opulence cascading from the painted ceilings to the lush, if not garish, carpeting covering every conceivable step.  It was like playing hopscotch where you simply couldn’t land on some thread of blue and red and woven brown and green carpeting.  Acres of the stuff.  Leslie and I went, and I think Marion and maybe Arron went as well.  Limousines regularly pulled up outside, disgorging STARS and DIRECTORS and MODELS and LAWYERS.

              I was dressed up.  I can’t remember what that meant, but it surely wasn’t the suits I wear now.  I waited a lifetime to lose enough weight to wear a suit.  It’s one of the few things I dreamed about.  Get skinny enough to wear real men’s clothes.  Wear suits.  It’s happened now as if by magic, but even dope didn’t make me thin enough to have a beautiful suit back then.  But I was respectable.  We all entered and dispersed into the crowd.  In the theatre, I think they were showing ‘Koyaanisqatsi.’ Phillip Glass music wafted over the crowds and seeped into the foyer where people stood with drinks and plans on getting laid.  And where was I?

              I found the downstairs men’s room which is still the most massive and impressive bathroom I’ve ever been in.  It was titanic!  Tuxedo-clad servants offer everything from cigarettes to cologne and with the hope of a tip.  I dig these guys.  Takes a lot of balls to do that.  Make yourself answer for the hope of a couple bucks.  I needed nothing from them, but I always tipped.  It felt awful not to.  But the real magic was how much space there was to hide and do my thing.  I was surely high on dope.  Like I’ve said, I had to be.  But I also knew that within twenty or so steps from the front entrance was a cadre of old Black dudes selling crack.  Never trust the young Black guys.  But the old ones, well fuck, you can set your clock to them.  They survived long enough to know it was just easier and safer to just sell what people wanted.  The young ones thought they’d get over, and ultimately they caught one in the dome or a slice along the neck.  So yeah, trust the ones that survive.

              The night is just a vague memory of snapshots of moments here and there.  I don’t remember seeing Leslie or Marion or really anyone.  I just remember constantly going outside, finding crack, coming back dressed to the nines and heading down to the Grand Canyon of men’s rooms.  Always a stall open.  No one gave a shit.  Everyone else there was on their own sad, lonely trip to regret.  We gave each other space.  We respected each other’s self-destruction.  “I didn’t see a thing, my man.  Carry on.  And can I borrow your lighter?”

At one point, I went back out to cop some more rock.  I guess I had endless money.  I have no memory of feeling in any way constrained.  I just smoked and went back for more.  I don’t even remember trying to dodge anyone I knew.  I was an automaton.  I went out, and this old black guy said, “Hey!  You’re that Michael J Fox guy, huh?” He was excited!  I felt some odd thrill that at least I passed for a real person.  Minutes later, someone else thought I was Ozzy Osbourne.  Jesus!  How bad could I be?  I must be doing fine.  Let’s buy it all!  Let’s just go crazy with this stuff because clearly, the world didn’t see me like I saw me.  I had some breathing room.  But, you know, it always ends there.  They left, and I bought more drugs and shuffled back inside to hide in my men’s room stall.

I’d break off a little piece and place it carefully on the upturned glass pipe right on the copper Choreboy mesh.  I’d light the lighter and watch it melt, and then I’d tilt it down after I was sure it wouldn’t drip out, and I inhaled.  I’d inhale as long as I could.  And I’d wait.  Nothing happens with crack until you exhale.  Eventually, I couldn’t hold my breath anymore, and I let a lungful of smoke gush out of my mouth and then I was God, if only for a minute.  The euphoria can not be described.  There’s a reason people trade their entire lives for this feeling.  It’s as indescribable as it is all-encompassing.  When cocaine hits you, whether it’s smoked or injected (snorting is for pussies.  I’m sorry, I  know that sounds awful and judgemental, but, well, it’s just true), every single aspect of your entire life makes sense.  Everything you’ve ever done was exactly the right thing to do.  The birth of a child pales in comparison (not that I’d know).  You are simply wrapped in a blanket of pure perfection.  No one should ever feel this good.  It’s unnatural.  It’s an abomination to feel such pleasure, and yet, once it happens, you chase it forever.  You feel your soul catch fire and warm the entire universe, and you hear the screams of gratitude from a million planets.  A billion stars.

But it fades.  You keep smoking more and more and trying to recapture that original high.  And sometimes you do.  People like to say you can never recapture that first high, but that’s bullshit.  You just get more and more, and you’ll get there.  But crack only lasts for a few minutes.  And then it’s replaced by such a soul-crushing depression that you either do whatever it takes to get more or do some dope.  Crack is why God made heroin.  Together or in the form of a speedball, you can keep this going for days.  You can keep this going until you die.  And most of us do.  I didn’t die.  I came close plenty of times.  I felt my heart slam its way out of my chest and onto the bed, and I saw darkness overtake everything as too much dope pulled me under.  But here I am.  I’m lucky.  I have so many, so, very many friends who didn’t make it.  They chased this feeling of believing they were good until it killed them.  And that’s all they wanted; they just wanted to believe that they mattered and that they hadn’t been so horribly abused that they’d become rotten.  And they went too far.  I’ve lost track of all of them.  But I remember so many, and I know they died trying to believe they were good.  Just that.  They just wanted to feel like they were worth a life.  So very few of us die out of some narcissistic and arrogant view of ourselves.  Junkies die believing that maybe, just maybe, they’re worth a damn.  I hope that’s the last thought they had.  I hope they at least felt that at the end.  Johnny, and Carl and Tim and Nate and Fred and Richie, and so many more; God, I hope your last thought was, “I guess I’m not so bad after all.” No one dies from drugs in an effort to cause heartbreak to the people that love them.  And I’m not giving anyone a pass; we cause so much pain, but know this, junkies die with one thought in their mind.  “I think maybe I’m good enough.  Maybe I’m just not so hateable.  Maybe I’m not the monster after all.” And that’s it.  The lights flicker out.  The heart stops beating.

I can’t get to Christmas yet.  This is all I have for tonight.