Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man

Uptown

How can he be here? How? I look back through the peephole again and again, and each time I am hoping that the paranoid fantasy that Noah is at the other side of the door has vanished and there is no one in the hall. But each time I look, there he is. And not alone. A large man in a heavy tan coat is standing behind him. He is talking into a cell phone and I’m sure he’s a cop or a DEA agent.

It’s okay, just let us in, Noah calls out. Don’t get upset, we’re here to help.

Jesse, the guy on the bed, tenses up and asks what’s going on. I whisper for him to get dressed as quickly as possible, that it’s my boyfriend. He moves like lightning and is up, fully dressed and with his coat on in seconds. He heads for the door and I tell him to wait. Wide-eyed and jumpy, he spits, Only a second, I’m not sticking around. As quickly as I can, I grab the ashtray on the nightstand and dump the remaining drugs in a plastic bag and stick it, along with the remaining stem, inside my jacket pocket in the closet. I grab a cloth and sloppily wipe down the crumbs and residue on the nightstand and scan the room for other evidence of what’s been going on. Jesse moves toward the door as I grab my sweater and jeans from the floor.

Jesse opens the door, does not look back to say good-bye, and pushes past Noah and the man in the tan coat. I’m sitting on the bed as Noah steps into the room. Let’s go, he says, without even mentioning the guy who has just fled.

The man in the tan coat is named John, and he tells me he is a former DEA agent, that he’s pulled a string and called into the agency to find out that there is a file on me. Noah then tells me the police have shown up at One Fifth, asking to question me. That my name came up in a drug bust. Mark? I wonder. Stephen? My heart, which is already beating wildly, begins to pound hard with new dread. I’m getting arrested, I think as I eye John, who looks no different from the Penneys.

How did you find this guy? I ask Noah. I’m convinced he’s lied to Noah about who he is and that he does not mean well. Noah says a lawyer recommended him and I ask who. I don’t know the name, and the more I look at John, the more I think he’s snared Noah in a complicated sting to haul me off to jail.

We have to go, John says. We have to get you out of here.

It takes over an hour for me to get ready and it still feels like we’re rushing. I ask for privacy and load and smoke two huge hits in the bathroom. I let the stem finally cool and put it in my jacket pocket and load the remaining drugs in the stem so I won’t have to pack it later should I be able to peel away and take a hit. The high pushes away some of the immediate dread, and I wash my face and hands and run my fingers through my hair. I put on my turtleneck sweater, realize the bathroom is filled with smoke, and switch on the fan. Noah knocks on the bathroom door and I tell him to hold on. The dread returns as the smoke rises up through the vent. I sit on the toilet and take a deep hit off the stem and pray for a heart attack.

We leave the hotel without checking out and jump into a cab on Gansevoort Street. John tells me I’m lucky I haven’t been arrested yet. I look up at the driver and the obscured photo on the panel behind him. Jesus, I think, of course. I explain to Noah that nearly every cab I’ve taken over the last weeks has had a strip of cardboard or paper over the driver’s ID photo. That I suspect the drivers are undercover cops or agents of some kind. I try to explain to him about the cabdrivers and the Penneys and that this John here is one of them and the driver, too, and he doesn’t know what he’s just done to me by putting me in their hands. You don’t know, I whisper desperately to him as he pats my hand.

I finger the stem in my pocket and know it’s good for at least a few more big hits. I also think it probably holds enough to get charged with Intent to Distribute and immediately start worrying about where I can stash it if it looks like they’re taking me to a police station. Then I remember the cabdriver is undercover, and as I watch the city streak by outside the window, I start to shake with panic.

Noah puts his arm around me and says we’re going somewhere safe to talk. I ask where and he and John signal each other. They don’t seem to know what the next beat is, so I ask if we can get something to eat, and by that I mean, though I do not say it, something to drink. I need alcohol in my system to calm down.

We end up in the Seventies off Third Avenue and find a Chinese restaurant with a basement dining room that is nearly empty. I immediately excuse myself to go to the bathroom and take a hard long pull on the stem. After several moments I think I hear full-blown conversations about when to haul him in outside the door. I still keep pulling on the stem. It broils in my hand and I dab the edges with cold water to cool it down.

When I return to the table I ask the waitress for a vodka and she says they only have wine and beer, so I ask for a bottle of cold white. Noah begins to object but John turns to the waitress and says fine. It comes and I drink it down like water. I order food of some kind but when it comes I don’t touch it.

John explains that I need to check into a psych ward immediately to avoid arrest. Noah nods as he speaks and I’m not sure what to believe. John goes on to say that there is a psychiatrist whom he knows and works with who has secured a bed in the psych ward at New York — Presbyterian Hospital. With these words an image of white sheets and kind nurses and locked doors flashes behind my eyes, and for the first time since Noah and John showed up at the hotel, I feel relief. I can imagine a long sleep there and drugs to calm me down, and without thinking anymore about it, I agree to see the psychiatrist.

A few blocks away we enter a building that looks like an abandoned elementary school. We walk down wide empty halls before arriving at a door straight out of a forties detective movie — frosted glass, stenciled letters. Again, the sense that John has rigged an elaborate sting operation to arrest me rises up like bile. The wine had calmed my panic but it’s now back, and at high volume. A frizzy-haired woman in jeans and paisley top comes to the door and greets John with a wide smile. Undercover cop, I think instantly. She gives my arm a tender squeeze and asks us to follow her. He’s just finishing up with someone now, she calls over her shoulder as she guides us past a room of empty desks and toward a corner office.

I ask if there is a bathroom and she offers to show me the way before John and Noah can say anything. I walk with her back into the hall and to a door marked MEN. It’s empty, and as fast as I can, I turn on the water in the sink and jump into a stall. The stem is still crammed with drugs so as soon as I find the lighter I fire up a hit, inhale as much smoke as will fit in my lungs, hold it there for as long as I can, and blow the thick cloud out the open window by the stall. Light comes in from outside and dapples the black-and-white tile floor, and for a moment I forget all the people waiting for me. There’s a knock on the bathroom door as it opens, and it’s Noah.

Everything okay? he asks, and his face registers the smell of smoke in the room. Have you been getting high? he asks, and I say, No, let’s go. He hugs me and tells me how relieved he is that I’m alive, and I’m tempted to fall into his arms, let him sweep all this mess away, but I suspect he is only pulling me close to pat down my jacket and jeans to find the stem and lighter. I wriggle away from him and head to the hall.

The psychiatrist looks like he’s from the eighties. Striped red-and-white shirt, suspenders, big horn-rim glasses, wide-wale cords, yellow socks, and tasseled loafers. His hair is curly, and from the half smile he uses with me, I get the feeling he’s done a fair bit of drugs himself. He tells me there’s a bed ready at the hospital but that it won’t be there for long. He signals Noah and John to leave his office and we sit there for a while without speaking. You high? he asks, and I tell him yes. Good, he says, enjoy it while it lasts. He asks what I do, he talks about the books he likes, and then cuts the meeting short and says, Take it or leave it.

I’ll leave it, I say as I get up from the chair. John and Noah jump up as I come through the door and ask what went on, and I tell them I’m done with this, that I’m leaving. John tells me that I can expect to be arrested before the day is over. His tone is severe, and at this point he genuinely seems alarmed. I shuffle in place and don’t know what to do. I’m panicked but I still have money in my account and think if I can just get a pile of sleeping pills and a gallon of vodka I can probably keep this going a few more days and then end it. I am in the waiting room of a psychiatrist’s office surrounded by people most of whom I don’t know and I begin to sway from the many nights without sleep, the hit I just took in the bathroom, and the wine from before. My head roars with the talk of cops at the apartment, DEA files, getting arrested. I freeze. I stand there and have no idea what to do. I want to run. I want to collapse. I don’t want to be arrested. I want Noah to hold me. I want to get high and wipe all this away. I want to be wiped away.

John finally says, Why don’t you just hang on, let’s slow down. I know a guy at the Carlyle Hotel a few blocks away who can secure a safe room for you to rest in and think about what to do. Let’s just dial this down a little and get you somewhere safe. Somewhere safe sounds good, and for the first time all day I trust John, have a new sense that he is who he says he is and that he’s just trying to keep me from taking off into the city and getting arrested. I agree.

Within an hour I’m in a large, old-fashioned-looking room at the Carlyle with John’s colleague, Brian. Brian is quiet and tall and in his midtwenties. John asks Noah to go rest at home and says we will all convene in the morning. Noah’s eyes are worried as he gets up from the bed where he’s been sitting. Call me if you need anything, he says, and leans in to give me a hug. I squeeze him lightly, with my body held away, careful not to let my jacket pocket, where the stem and lighter are, graze his hands. The second he and John walk out the door I am relieved. I walk over to the phone, call room service, and order a large bottle of Ketel One and a bucket of ice. I am crashing and it’s time for vodka. Brian says nothing, just sits in a chair and watches quietly.

The vodka comes right away and I stuff a big water glass with ice and fill it to the brim. I ask Brian if he wants any and he laughs and says, No, thank you. I swallow down two drinks swiftly and pour a third. I tell Brian I need to take a shower and he says to go right ahead. I bring the drink into the bathroom, lock the door, and turn the shower on. The bathroom is tiny and there is no switch for a fan. But there is a small square window above the shower and I’m soon in the shower, naked and smoking what I think will be a smallish hit, but it turns out there are two or three big hits still left. I suddenly wish I’d brought the bottle of vodka in with me. I pack hits, blow the smoke out the little window into an airshaft, let the steam rise, and soon I am loose. Brian comes to the door once and asks if I am good and I say, Just unwinding in the shower. A few minutes pass and, as in the bathroom at the psychiatrist’s office, the panic of the day melts away. I decide to save a hit in the stem for later and begin to towel off. I am humming with good energy by this point and the vodka has balanced out the jittery side of the high. Fuck it, I think as I walk out into the room with just the towel cinched low on my hips. I put my coat and jeans next to the bed and bring the vodka and the ice bucket to the nightstand. I fix another drink, find the remote control, and lie down.

Brian, who I now notice is curly-haired and green-eyed and has a heavy five-o’clock shadow that reminds me of Noah, seems unfazed as I flip through the channels and drink. I ask him some questions about his job (mostly fishing professional athletes and celebrities out of hotel rooms and getting them into rehab) and what he did before (cop) and find out he has a girlfriend (nice girl, a nurse) and a small house upstate where he goes on weekends. I scooch the towel a little lower on my hips and ask if he minds if I look at porn. He says, Be my guest, and I find the Pay-per-view and hit Play. He sits there for a few minutes, laughs at my ridiculous gestures to seduce him, and says he needs to make a phone call.

As he leaves the room it occurs to me that I can get Happy up here and score a bag or two. I need cash but I don’t worry about that part as I dig the cell phone out of my coat and dial Happy’s number as fast as I can. He picks up, I say Three hundred and two stems, the name of the hotel and address, and for him to call me when he’s downstairs. Happy sounds unfazed, and I wonder if he’s delivered here before. When I hang up, I begin pacing the room, worrying about Brian coming back. Now or never, I think or say, and quickly get dressed, leave the room, get in the elevator, and step out into the lobby of the hotel. I know I have only a few minutes to score the cash and get back to the room before Brian returns. How I’ll make the exchange of money and drugs with Happy I can’t yet imagine. As the elevator doors open I panic. I think Brian must be somewhere in the lobby and is sure to see me. I head over into Bemelmans Bar and up a flight of steps into a bathroom. It’s empty, and I duck into a stall and quickly light a hit off a pipe that is charred from so much use and finally running thin on drugs. But still I pull a decent hit and decide to smash the glass in a fistful of toilet paper and flush it. I take one more big, oily burnt-tasting hit before I crush the thing under my shoe and throw it in the toilet.

The Carlyle’s dark bars and various ante-lobbies are a tricky maze, and I cross and recross the sitting area near a bank of phones several times and can’t find the exit. This goes on for a while, and as it does, my panic rises. I finally break out onto Madison Avenue and ask a nicely dressed woman if she knows where an ATM is. I worry she’ll think I’m mugging her or that she can tell I’m high, but she casually points to a Chase Bank across the street. I take out $800 and run back into the hotel and up to the room.

Brian is still out when Happy calls, and not knowing any other way, and dreading the prospect of leaving the room again, I tell him to come up but that it’s going to have to be fast. A minute later he’s in the little foyer — white sweatpants, huge earphones, wordless — and though I called for $300, I ask him if he has six and he says he has four and hands me eight bags and two stems.

The tide of relief that passes over me when the door shuts is almost as powerful as the enormous hit I pack in the shiny, clean new stem. I shove the extra stem and bags into my coat pocket, get undressed, wrap the towel around my waist, hop back on the bed, and fix a new drink. By the time Brian returns I am smoking openly and the porn is flickering on the TV screen. You scored, didn’t you? he asks, and I nod with a wicked smile on my face. Do you have any idea how close to being arrested you are? he asks, and I tell him to please relax. That I have one more night of freedom and I promise to stay put if he kicks back and lays off the talk of psych wards and cops. He agrees and sits in the chair next to the dresser.

I go through two liters of vodka and almost three bags of crack as I lie on that bed and talk to Brian and watch porn. I steer the discussion to his girlfriend, sex, and porn, and, for hours, he will manage to keep it clean on his end without disengaging.

At some point in the early morning he falls asleep. I oh-so-gently get off the bed and into my clothes, pack up my few things — phone, stem, drugs, lighter — and tiptoe out of the room, into the hall, and back to the world.