Blackfly Season

38

THE COMMON CONCEPTION of the addict is of a desperate person whose day is consumed with the laying of schemes to procure the next fix. Wild-eyed, hyperventilating and slick with perspiration, he curls up in some desperate corner. Under sweat-soaked sheets, a telephone clamped in hand, the junkie frantically dials the numbers of his connections. And when they won’t extend him any credit, he starts dialling friends with whom he’s lost touch years ago, to beg for a loan, repayable with interest, of course. Then come the lightning calculations of what to sell—the boom box? the CD collection?—assuming there is anything left to sell. When all the worldly goods are gone, and if the city is big enough and the addict attractive enough, it may come down to selling one’s body. Or if one lacks the kind of body for which there is a brisk market, then the addict’s fancy turns to theft. And so a spur-of-the-moment, just-happened-to-be-in-the-neighbourhood kind of visit might be bestowed upon a relative, an old friend or even an unlucky acquaintance. Then while the unwitting mark’s back is turned, the sudden scooping of a radio, a clock, a watch or some silvery memento into a starving backpack.

Many addicts do indeed find themselves driven to such measures. But the majority spend their time not thinking about how to procure the next fix. They’ve already worked out how to procure the next fix. Their lives, after all, revolve around the fix. They’ve worked the fix into their daily routines.

No, what the addict thinks about more than any other single subject is when and how he will quit. Such fantasies often involve mornings. Today, I will smoke that pipe, I will fill that vein, I will drain that bottle, and then tomorrow, first thing in the morning—or no, let’s make sure this recovery program is a sensible, workable affair this time, not like all the other attempts—next Monday. I’ll allow myself just this one more weekend, then first thing Monday morning I’ll head down to the twelve-step and get some of that beautiful, earthy wisdom they traffic in and get my head turned around. It won’t be easy, but I should be ready by Monday. Yes, that’s right. Shoot for Monday.

Thus the days and weeks go by. The addict sees himself as embarked on a course of moderation, leading to all-out cessation, followed for the rest of his life by the Zenlike clarity of abstinence. The rest of his life will unfold in a sweet—but not boring—desirelessness. There will even come a day when the sight of a little hillock of white powder will provoke no emotional response whatsoever—a needle will leave him unmoved.

So it was with Kevin Tait. His latest course of moderation had taken him from snorting to skin-popping and now back to mainlining as swiftly as if he had set his engines full speed ahead for personal obliteration. That had been the pattern with him pretty much since high school.

He knew where it came from, this hole in his being that only heroin seemed to fill. He had been orphaned at the age of ten and, even though the aunt and uncle who took him and his sister in tried their best, nothing was ever the same. It was as if the world had been pulled out from under his feet and he could never trust anything again.

It was okay for Terri; Terri had been fifteen. She had seemed to fit right in. But Kevin had become more and more unruly, and his new parents were always disciplining him: groundings, TV deprivation, docking his pocket money—it was always something. Terri was always interceding for him, trying to soften their aunt and uncle’s responses. And she was always trying to get him to behave better. It seemed like the whole pattern of their lives had been inscribed in some implacable book of fate the moment the plane carrying their parents had dived, nose first, into the ground.

Sometimes Kevin resented his older sister for apparently having come through this loss unscathed; her life looked easy and untroubled compared to his. Terri had made it through college and was gradually making her way in Vancouver’s theatre world; Kevin had dropped out, figuring a degree was irrelevant to a career in poetry. Besides, it was pretty hard to concentrate on Shakespeare and John Donne when you were panting after the next high. Shortly after he dropped out, Kevin had been arrested with enough heroin on him for ten people.

So far, he had managed to keep knowledge of his fullblown readdiction from Leon and from Red Bear. He always wore long sleeves, and he only injected himself in the middle of the night. Well, all right, sometimes he had to sneak off to the can and slip in a little booster, just to keep him compos for the rest of the day. But, except for the day Toof had been killed, he hadn’t allowed himself a fullblown fix until after midnight.

He’d done well, so far, to keep it from them—but then, dissembling is the first skill the addict learns. He knew he could not keep it up, and that meant he would have to vamoose, which he wanted to do anyway. Well, yes, that was his plan. Abstinence, not addiction, was the chart he had drawn up for the rest of his life. An abstinence that would bring with it a mental clarity he had not known since he was—what? Fourteen? Fifteen? That was what he was after. Not intoxication. He had no intention of spending the rest of his life hanging out at the Rosebud diner with the likes of Leon. Three or four months from now he’d be living on a Greek island, just like Leonard Cohen had done when he was a young poet. He’d live off souvlaki and goat’s milk while he worked on a book of poems that would capture everything he’d ever thought about and everything he knew about poetry.

He couldn’t see his way clear to actually breaking free of Red Bear and the camp until Monday. The problem was, just now he was so wired he wouldn’t be able to write a couplet, let alone the kind of complex, multi-layered works he had in mind. Come Monday, he’d be out of here. He’d already phoned the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto and booked himself an appointment for Monday afternoon.

But this called for careful steering. He had the money—Red Bear’s entrepreneurial skills had definitely put cash in his bank account. But first, he had to get through the next few days. He had to make sure he had enough smack to get him safely through the next few nights and then down to Toronto.

Kevin’s personal reserve of heroin had run out. So had Leon’s, he happened to know. And yet, despite the dearth of competition in the area, he had managed to score himself a few crumbs downtown, just enough to see him through the afternoon, the effects of which had long worn off. He was still in good shape—actual withdrawal symptoms were a good twelve hours away—but it was definitely time to get proactive.

He had turned his light out an hour ago, and had been watching out the window ever since. There was nothing going on at the camp. Activity reached a peak when a soggy raccoon waddled past the leaning volleyball posts. Leon’s light had gone out over half an hour ago, and Red Bear’s cabin had gone dark soon after. Kevin put his Adidas on and opened the cabin door.

The rain showed no sign of letting up any time soon. Just as well, really. It would keep the blackflies away. Now came the easy part. He dashed round to Leon’s cabin, making a circle around back of the camp in about twenty seconds. The bush was thick here, but full of trails. A puddle disgorged its contents into his running shoe.

Now came Leon’s door. He moved silently round to the front of the cabin, and here Kevin was in luck, because he had been the one assigned to putting locks on the cabins, and he had had the foresight to have extra keys made. The only ones he didn’t have keys for were the motherlode and the stinking cabin out back where Red Bear killed his goats and chickens and what have you. Red Bear had had Leon take care of those locks, and then he’d put Leon in charge of the dope. Not that they kept all of it at the camp. The main stash was hidden somewhere Kevin didn’t know about. “For your own protection,” Red Bear had assured him, “it’s better you don’t know.” All they kept on hand were a few ounces, for medium-sized transactions between big shipments.

Kevin knew exactly what he had to do next, knew exactly where he had to go. There’s no one more observant than a junkie scoping out his supply. He knew where Leon kept the key. It was on a chain strung from a belt loop near the right front pocket of his jeans, along with all his other keys. He also knew where Leon kept his jeans at night. He always hung them over the back of a chair, and half the time the keys were dangling right out in full view.

Kevin stood for a few minutes, listening. His heart was pounding, and suddenly he very much needed to pee. There was no sound from inside. The rain had already soaked through the hood and shoulders of his sweatshirt. He had thought about wearing his leather, but he was afraid it would make too much noise. Craft, craft, saves the day.

“Your poetic ancestors, it has been suggested, are Coleridge and Baudelaire.” Martin Amis was back, his handsome, sarcastic face hovering among the pines. “How often do you suppose those literary giants found themselves pilfering narcotics from their sleeping associates?”

Not now, Martin, not now.

“True, Coleridge owned to a taste for laudanum—he even gave it the credit for ‘Kubla Khan.’ But one can’t quite see him sneaking around the woods of northern Ontario in a desperate search for smack, as you call it.”

Well, of course not. Laudanum was perfectly legal.

“Nor can one imagine him associating with known murderers. Can you spell out for your readers exactly how this is necessary for your art?”

Beat it, Martin. Maybe I’m not a poet, okay? Maybe I’m just a stone junkie.

Amis and his sardonic smile faded into the rain and pine.

Kevin prayed that Leon’s door would be unlocked. He turned the knob ever so gently, an eighth of an inch every second or so, until it would turn no further. Locked.

Kevin had the key with him. It went into the slot without a sound. Really, there was nothing to worry about if you didn’t turn it quite the whole way: far enough that it would clear the door frame, but not so far that it would spring open with a clack. He leaned against the door, and it opened half an inch. So far, so good.

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him without latching it. He pressed his back against the wall. If Leon woke now, Kevin was a dead man. Every muscle in his body tensed as he listened for Leon’s breathing. It was hard to hear over the pulse beating in his own ears, but it was there, slow and rhythmic. He could see Leon’s outline: curled up, facing the wall.

Leon’s jeans were hung, as usual, on the back of a chair, but Kevin had to cross the room to get there. He knew a couple of the floorboards creaked, the one with the large knothole and the one that was directly in line with the bottom corner of the window—but there might be others. That Red Bear would kill him, he had no doubt. The only question was whether he would do it himself or ask Leon to do it for him. See, this is exactly why I’m quitting dope. It gets me into untenable positions.

A floorboard creaked. Leon stirred but didn’t roll over. Kevin was one yard from the chair. He wouldn’t risk any more floorboards. Instead, he bent from the waist and reached out. It was a painful position, but he could just touch Leon’s pocket. Straining to stretch even further, Kevin was now balanced on his toes. Then he had the chain in his hand and tugged it upward to extract the keys from the pocket.

He wasn’t even halfway home. He had to silently separate the keys from the chain, get over to the supply cabin, remove some dope and then—even when he had successfully completed all that business—he would have to return the keys to Leon’s pocket without waking him up.

Using the chain, Kevin managed to pull the jeans close enough that he could unclip it. Then, he pivoted on one foot and took a giant step toward the door. No creak. Leon’s breathing remained slow and steady. One more giant step. No creak. He was at the door and out in a flash. He pressed it closed silently, but didn’t lock it.

He jumped down from the stoop and darted around the back of the cabin.

Now, I just have to get myself enough smack to see me through until Monday, and then I’m clean and sober. For the rest of my life. None of this one-day-at-a-time crap. I’m done. I’m through. My mind is so all over this I can feel I’m already recovering.

Where Kevin actually was, a moment later, was on the porch of the supply cabin, inserting Leon’s key into the lock. He glanced over at Red Bear’s place. Still dark. He had a sudden image of Red Bear leaping out of his front door, carving knife in hand, chanting the way he had done that night of the pig.

The motherlode cabin smelled different from the other cabins. It was constructed of concrete and smelled like a basement. Even the windows had been filled in with concrete blocks. They kept it looking like a tool shed. There was a rake, a lawn mower, a bucket and pail. And over in the far corner there was an open bag of cement. Nothing to excite the interest of the casual break-and-enter artist.

Kevin went straight for the cement bag and reached inside. There was more dope than he had expected. Red Bear must have added to the product without mentioning it, because there were three one-ounce bags of smack—and there was no way Kevin could have forgotten that. It was a golden opportunity. Suppose I take all three bags? Just light out of here now and sell the stuff down in Toronto? Make a little extra, shoot a little extra, get me through the transition period.

Don’t go crazy, he told himself. Just cover the weekend. He opened all three bags and took a spoonful from each. Oh, hell, he took one more just for good luck. Then he opened the little container of cornstarch he had brought with him, and added a spoonful to each bag. He resealed the bags, shook them to mix the powders and put them back in the cement bag.

A sound from behind.

Kevin whirled around. Red Bear was standing behind him, a pitchfork aimed at Kevin’s back.

“Oh, Christ,” Kevin said. “You scared the shit out of me. I thought I heard someone in the stash and I came to—”

Red Bear smiled.

“Where did you get the key, Kevin?”

“The key? Oh, these are Leon’s keys. I went over to wake him up and found them still in his door. He must’ve gone to bed drunk or something. I couldn’t wake him up.”

“No, I said good night to him and he was quite sober.”

Kevin shrugged. “Well, anyways. Dope’s all present and accounted for.”

“I could push this pitchfork right through your throat. Watch you drown in your own blood.”

“Uh, you don’t want to do that.”

“No, I do want to do that, Kevin. Very much. But I’m going to control myself.”

“Okay, cool,” Kevin said. “Maybe I should just move out, huh?”

“The reason I’m going to control myself is that it is time for another sacrifice.”

“Oh, no. I don’t think we need to go into that, man. I’ll just leave now, okay?”

“You are going to be that sacrifice, Kevin. Then I will be sure that you are working for us, not against us. You will be firmly on our side. Just like Wombat Guthrie.”

Kevin made a run for it. Red Bear lunged at him with the pitchfork, and Kevin felt a searing pain in his side. He kept running for the door, though. Got outside. And was just about to leap off the stoop when something crashed onto the back of his skull, and then his mouth was full of sand and everything went black as if the world had blown a fuse.