Pill Head: The Secret Life of a Painkiller Addict Read online

  “Oh, I don’t know, anything,” he said, shrugging. “It’s just something I’ve noticed about you through the years.”

  “Sometimes I think something might have happened at Playland, that old day-care center,” I said. I paused, debating whether or not to say what I had to say next. “Or at Bobby’s house,” I finally said. “I feel strange there, especially in the old room I always stay in.”

  He shook his head vigorously. “Playland was a foul place, but no one at our house ever would have done anything inappropriate,” he said.

  He was quiet for a minute, but I could see his eyes concentrating hard on the table in front of him as he struggled with what to say next.

  “There was always so much drinking going on,” he finally said. “So many different people around. It’s possible someone came up to your room while they were drunk, since the bathroom is right next to that room. Maybe someone sat on the bed with you. Maybe even tried to hug you because everyone loved you guys so much. Maybe their hands accidentally went somewhere they weren’t supposed to, by mistake, and you misinterpreted it.”

  That’s the last thing I remember him saying. I blacked out.

  I opened my eyes and I was on my bed at home, on top of the covers, naked except for my underwear. There was spare change covering my body—nickels, dimes, and quarters stuck on my skin.

  I looked around me, panicked. I had no idea how I’d gotten there. The last thing I remembered was being on the roof with my father, and then it was one thirty in the afternoon the next day.

  I searched around the room for my phone, finally finding it underneath a pile of clothes wadded up in front of my bathroom door. There were seven missed calls, all from my father’s and sister’s cell phones, and a few texts from Emily and Stephanie. I could see that there were voice mail messages, but I couldn’t bring myself to listen to them. I turned on my air conditioner because the room was swelteringly hot. I stood in front of it for a minute, cool air blowing over me, and tried to massage the red coin tattoos out of my skin. When the room cooled down I crawled under the covers and played back everything I could remember about the night before. No matter what, I still stopped blank after the last thing my father had said to me.

  It had sounded rehearsed, like an excuse he had been telling himself for years in order to forgive someone else.

  I fell back asleep, clutching Ollie close to me, feeling him purr against my chest.

  I woke up later to my phone vibrating on my nightstand. It was my sister.

  “Where have you been?” she asked. “We’ve been trying to reach you all day. We’re getting ready to leave Coney Island.”

  “Sorry, I’m hungover,” I mumbled. “I must have drank too much last night.”

  “Aww,” she said. “Do you feel okay enough to meet us for dinner? We’re going to Noodle Pudding,” she said, naming an Italian place in Brooklyn Heights.

  Noodle Pudding, I repeated in my head. That’s what I felt like.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said. It was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. I had the shakes. But I would go because of the children. I had to put on some sort of front for them, especially after ditching out on going to Coney Island with them. “What time?”

  “We have a six o’clock reservation,” she said. “I know it’s early but, you know, the kids.”

  I rolled out of bed, fished Clover out of my jeans pocket, swallowed two Oxys, and got in the shower.

  I arrived at the restaurant before any of them. I thought about smoking a cigarette, but I didn’t want the kids to suddenly turn a corner and bust me. I refuse to smoke in front of children, and I’d told my niece the year before that I’d already quit after Erica had told her that “Uncle Josh smokes sometimes.” I had been mortified. I think it had been a ploy on my sister’s part to guilt-trip me into quitting, since she knew my niece would bring it up in front of me. She’s out-spoken that way. It’s one of the things I love about her.

  I could see them coming from a few blocks away, a mob of children swarming around three adults. My niece was riding on my sister’s boyfriend’s shoulders. They looked like such a family. My heart ached.

  I tried to maneuver it so I would sit far away from my father, but the kids had specific people they wanted to sit next to so after four different rounds of chair switching I found him next to me. He put his hand on my shoulder.

  “You feeling okay?” he asked. “We missed you today.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I drank too much.”

  “Me too,” he said.

  “Do you know what time I left?” I asked him. “I don’t remember getting home.”

  He looked surprised. “You don’t? You left around 1:00 A.M. Remember? I tried to get you to take a cab, but you refused.”

  “I took the train?” I asked. I was mortified. I must have looked like a nut job to other passengers. I hoped I hadn’t puked. “I don’t really remember anything from shortly after Erica took the kids down,” I said.

  He looked really disturbed. “You don’t remember anything I told you?” he asked.

  “Some stuff,” I mumbled.

  “You don’t remember us hugging and lying down on the roof bank?” he asked.

  Erica and her boyfriend were giving us a funny look and laughing.

  “Jesus, no!” I said. “What are you talking about?”

  “I thought it was weird at the time, but you were really drunk,” he said. “You wanted a hug. It was really nice, you’ve never been that affectionate.”

  Closing my eyes does not make me invisible.

  “You really don’t remember anything I told you?” he asked, quietly, just to me, after everyone’s attention turned to something else.

  “Just the stuff about how I might have misinterpreted some stuff,” I said.

  He nodded. “Well, that was mainly the gist of it,” he said.

  I hadn’t touched any of the wine that had been ordered for the table because of my hangover. The pills were doing nothing to stop it, so I filled up my glass.

  I avoided them the rest of the holiday weekend as much as possible. I could feel myself going dark, shutting down. I knew I wasn’t running on logic anymore. Something had snapped inside my head, and whatever good feelings I had for the world had been replaced by a simple engine that ran on one thought only—to get through the day until tomorrow. It was as if my brain had blinders on and I was living in tunnel vision.

  Since there was no work that Monday I went swimming. I zoned out, meditating with the rhythm of lap after lap after lap. When I got to the locker room I showered quickly and changed. As I was zipping up my fly, a large, broad-shouldered man walked past me. There was no one else around. He maneuvered between my locker and me, suddenly grabbed my face with one hand, and pushed me up against the other wall of lockers.

  “I want to pull those pants off you,” he whispered.

  He let go of my face, caressed my cheek, winked, and walked off.

  I stood there, stunned. I was used to guys watching in the locker room, sometimes even pulling out their dick and waving it around. It goes with the territory in most male locker rooms in New York. But no one had ever grabbed me before. There was something so off about what he had said. It wasn’t like any other sort of come-on I’d heard. It was foul and it sounded young, like what a pedophilic teacher would say to a first-grader.

  I could feel tears welling up in my eyes as I finished getting dressed but I sucked them in and created a white wall in my head. I walked out fast, briefly considering reporting him to the staff but not willing to go back even ten minutes into my past to relive that moment. I went down into the subway, blinders on again, full force.

  The platform was empty except for a young woman in a skirt standing about ten feet away from me. I glanced at her as I leaned against a column.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of movement and I turned. The same woman was now lying on the cement floor, twitching violently, her skirt riding up around her thighs. I r
ushed over and knelt next to her, and she was suddenly still, her eyes focusing on me. She sat up.

  “Are you all right?” I asked. “Should I call someone?”

  She stood up and I handed her bag to her. “I’m fine,” she said brusquely.

  “Should I call an ambulance? Or one of your friends?” I asked.

  “I’m fine,” she snapped.

  “Okay,” I said, backing away. “But I’m going to just stand over here. I’ll be on the same subway car. If you need anything let me know.”

  She nodded but wouldn’t make eye contact with me. The train came and I kept my eye on her the whole time. She looked at the floor.

  My stop came before hers. I briefly considered staying on the train and following her home, but figured that would just creep her out. There were other people around now to help her if she needed.

  When I got home I sat on the edge of my bed. Ollie climbed into my lap and I stroked him absentmindedly. I stared at the wall for a while, and every time I could feel the shakes coming on I forced them back. I needed to get out of there. I called Joey. I knew he was always up for a drink. Or a vial of coke. He had always been a master of escapism, and I needed to crawl down in there with him. He was at dinner but told me to meet him at his house later.

  I took three pills out of Clover and swallowed them with a glass of water that had been on my nightstand for at least a week. It had been almost a year since I’d moved back to New York City, so psyched to start my life over and get my career back on track. I’d taken care of the career, but I’d already given up on the life part. The only life that felt real or safe was the one on pills, the one where everywhere I moved, a warm bubble surrounded and followed me, protecting me. Outside of that bubble the world was cold and harsh, like a February wind whipping over my face. After about twenty minutes I felt the invisible force field start to rise up again around me. I sank into it and let its soothing heat thaw out my skin.

  I ordered my own coke that night so I wouldn’t have to rely on Joey’s. I asked the delivery guy for the twentieth time if he had any good pills to sell, but as usual he only had Xanax. I didn’t care about benzos, I had buckets of them left over from online deals. I rarely took them anymore. I found that it was always good to carry some around with me in Clover, though. I could use them as currency at parties or bars and trade for favors, drinks, or, if I got lucky, opiates. Plus I liked the way it made me feel to be able to flash Clover anytime someone I had just met complained about being stressed. I doled them out like Tic Tacs, and it made me feel needed.

  As I got ready to meet Joey I did a few lines while listening to Glass Candy. Fantastic Planet played on my TV with the sound off.

  I met Joey at a bar around 11:00 P.M. He was with a group of friends and the night was on, immediately. The entire group rotated from the bar to the wall to the bathroom. It was like a ballroom dance where we all switched partners. Everyone had their own blow, and we’d rotate who we brought to the bathroom with us. Stall door shut, keys out if someone had a bag, or thumb and forefinger curled together facing up to create a flat surface if someone had a vial (like me). I’d picked up Joey’s lingo, “Give me your paw,” when I needed to pour a pile of coke onto someone’s hand. I refused to pour lines on the backs of toilet tanks, like some people. There was something so disgusting about it. Forget the fact that there would be four of us crammed in a stall with piss covering the floor and scads of toilet paper stuck to the walls. I had my limits.

  We bar-hopped the entire night, whole conversations disappearing into the holes in my brain as soon as they were finished. The pills kept me steady. I could drink and do as much blow as I wanted, but I could always feel the protective bubble around me, keeping me on my feet, keeping my words from slurring. I’d see Joey pointing and laughing at me, and when I asked him what he was laughing at he would imitate my face, a dopey smile with my eyes always looking up somewhere toward the ceiling. He kept his arm propped up on my shoulder whenever he stood next to me.

  We ended up back at his house around four thirty and fell into bed. We fought—he kept trying to pin my arms down and I’d kick upward and slam him into his window, the bookshelf.

  When I woke the next day my body hurt worse than my head. I stumbled out of his room and into the bathroom, trying to stretch my arms. My legs were covered in bruises, and there was a huge bloody scrape on my right knee.

  When I got back to his room his eyes were open.

  “What the fuck did we do last night?” he asked. “I’m covered in bruises.”

  “Me too,” I said, sliding in next to him.

  He propped himself up on one elbow. “Joshua,” he said. “This isn’t cool. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “So don’t,” I said.

  We dozed off for a while, and I woke back up around five. He was still sleeping. I slipped into my clothes and left.

  I was done with processing events and information that weren’t work-related. I was ready to go on autopilot as far as real life was concerned. Books written by Dennis Cooper and Bret Easton Ellis had informed my entire adolescence, and I learned from them at an early age that when things got to be too much, the best way to deal was to simply not care.

  I checked out. I floated through work, starting my pills earlier each day, always still surprised at how much I was able to accomplish on them. Part of my job was to top-edit the display copy, meaning I was in charge of all the headlines, dek intros, and photo captions for the entire book. I liked this part of my job because it meant I got to work with every single editor on staff. I was also now top-editing all of the front-of-the-book fashion coverage, in addition to writing and editing features and cover stories. I was busy, and it was a good distraction, but at least once or twice every week I would show up to work still drunk, and every single weekend I would binge myself to the point of becoming nonverbal. Pills were always my base high, and coke was a steady constant, but suddenly I found myself doing Ecstasy and K as well. I was disgusted with myself—I wasn’t some fifteen-year-old kid. I’d find myself in giant lofts in Brooklyn, wandering around parties in nothing but my underwear. Or suddenly it would be 10:00 A.M. and I’d be lying in the sand on Long Beach, with no idea how I’d gotten there, head to head with three other people, all of us still snorting coke under our beach towels while families plopped down with coolers and lawn chairs around us.

  But the most significant part of that summer was an accidental introduction to someone with access to Candyman.

  I’d always thought Candyman was a rumor, a myth. Supposedly, if you had an in, there was a man who would show up at your apartment with a briefcase full of every kind of pill you could imagine for sale. I’d begged strangers who mentioned him for his number, but I was always told he wasn’t taking on new clients. I needed to befriend a current client if I had any hope of becoming a customer.

  It finally happened one night when I was out at a club with Joey. I ended up sitting next to a girl named Kelly on a banquette. She had short blond hair and was wearing high-waisted jeans, boots, and a tank top with no bra and one strap that kept sliding off of her left shoulder. We started talking about pills and before I knew it I was trading four of my Valium for two generic hydrocodones that she pulled out of a small Comme des Garçons pouch. I swallowed them immediately with vodka from the giant bottle sitting in front of us. This was the other great thing about hanging out with Joey and his friends: I never ever had to pay for a drink. Somehow they could just show up at pretty much any bar or club and get free bottle service and drink tickets

  “What’s your source?” I asked.

  “Candyman,” she said.

  “Really?” I yelled. “You have to give me his number!”

  “He’s not taking on new clients,” she said shaking her head. “He does fine with the ones he’s got.”

  “Please,” I begged. “You’ve got to let me order with you next time you call him. I’ll pay you a service fee.”

  She laughed. “You don’t have
to do that. Let’s trade numbers.”

  I got hers and then called her phone so she’d have mine, just as Joey came and flopped down next to me.

  “Make me a drink!” he demanded. “Who’s that?” he asked, pointing at Kelly.

  “This is our bottle, but you can have some.” He was wasted.

  “It’s cool, she’s with me,” I said, and poured him a drink.

  I texted Kelly the next day, determined not to let this opportunity go by. I was sick of always having to scramble for my next source. Even though MySpace and just asking around had given me a relatively steady supply, I was desperate for a regular, solid source so I’d never have to worry again.

  She texted back around 7:00 P.M.: “Going to call tomorrow at 8. Meet me at my place. $100 minimum.” She gave me her address, about ten blocks away from me.

  The next night I left work early. Before stopping at her house I went to the bank and took out $600, and then picked up a few beers to bring with me, just to be polite.

  It was a little awkward at first since she was pretty much a total stranger and we were both still hungover from two nights before. But we watched episodes of The Simpsons while waiting for the delivery guy to show up. I pictured Christian Bale from American Psycho, impeccably dressed in a suit with a luxurious briefcase.

  But it wasn’t the actual Candyman who came, just one of his runners. He looked like any other dreadlocked drug delivery kid.

  The runner pulled off his backpack, pulled out a metal briefcase, and opened it up to reveal hundreds of tiny plastic baggies in neat rows. He handed us a menu, with a complete list of everything he had that day. There was no Vicodin, but plenty of Dilaudid, Oxy, and morphine. He also sold weed, mushrooms, Ecstasy, MDMA, Adder all, Valium, and Xanax. I was in heaven.

  I thought I was some sort of big shot, whipping out my $600, but the runner just shrugged. “I’ve got dudes in the West Village who drop several thousand at a time,” he told me.

  Clearly I’d been hanging out with the wrong people.

  I settled on thirteen 4-milligram Dilaudids, two 80-milligram morphine pills, one 100-milligram morphine pill, and one 80-milligram Oxy. I’d spent enough money to qualify for their special, which meant I got to roll a ten-sided Dungeons and Dragons die and call two numbers. If I got one of them right, I got my pick of anything I wanted out of the box. I called 7 and 9, and 7 came up. I cheered, maybe a little too loudly, and asked for an extra Oxy. After Kelly made her deal and the runner left, I sat and drank a beer with her.