I knew as soon as I opened the bag that I got beat. I still had hope that there would be some dope mixed in with the powdered cleaning product that was used as a cut though. I guess it was a cleaning product. It could’ve just been the scare tactics that the D.A.R.E. program brain washed me with in elementary school. You know how they would say “You never know what these drug dealers are mixing in with that stuff. It could be bleach! Or they could be sprinkling rat poison on that marijuana to make it stronger. You just don’t know.”
I never bought into that, it must’ve just still been lurking around in my brain.
In any case, I wasn’t ill yet so I guess I wasn’t desperate enough. I even managed to wait until everyone went to bed. But you better believe as soon as that happened I made moves. I unzipped my pants and took the needle out of the cut on the inside of my zipper. I took the cap off. I poured the powder in. Drew the water into the tool. Squirted it in the bucket… and looked up for a second. I was in the bathroom and got lost staring at myself, but not in the “Damn I’m sexy” kinda way. It was one of those moments when you see your reflection, but you don’t see “you.”
Drug addicts often say “I didn’t even recognize myself in the mirror.” That doesn’t mean they think there’s somebody on the other side of the glass looking back at them like that bathroom scene in the Romeo & Juliet movie. Or at least I guess they don’t. Perhaps on certain drugs that makes sense, but what I mean is, I looked at myself and I saw the man I had become. It was terrible. My physical apperance was sad. Eyes sunken in, surrounded by darkness. Skin pale. Scruff on my face. Finger nails black. But what was more impactful was what I saw inside of me. I was tortured and beaten badly on the inside. My own flesh and blood was asleep in his bed, probably hoping that tomorrow would be different. Maybe tomorrow my daddy will be nice. Maybe tomorrow he’ll get my stuff back, maybe he’ll take me to the park or the movies or maybe he’ll love me. I can’t imagine what he must’ve thought. I was broken and to make matters worse, I was tortured and beaten by the only person that I would ever let do that…
…me.
I teared up. I continued to look at the reflection and everything went glassy and blurry through my tears. I couldn’t stop and I didn’t have a choice. When I’m in it that deep, I don’t have a fucking choice anymore. I drew the shit into the needle, tied off, took a deep breath and pushed that plunger.
My arm was on fire. Like, so on fire that the hospital became an option in about 20 seconds. But I felt the dope. There was just enough to satisfy me. The danger associated with shooting up ajax wasn’t big enough for me to blow my high. Fuck it.
I walked out of that bathroom and blew right past the mirror. It wasn’t even there anymore.
Right now as I type this, I have two sleeping children. Both with something going on in their chests and the baby stuffed up in his nose. My oldest soldier sounds like he has the voice of a 65 year old black man who’s having another go at puberty. (I’ll give you a minute to visualize that one)
My baby has woken up twice and he’s probably going to wake up 4 more times before the sun rises.
Tomorrow I will wake up and thank G-d for another day and ask Him what I need to do and then I’ll do that. And I’ll work hard and I’ll come home and do it again. And I will look in the mirror and be grateful. I will look in the mirror and see the man that I have become…
…and I will be pleased with that.
It’s a funny thing how today I can look in the mirror and see myself, but see a completely different person then I did before. I could never go back to being that man. And fuck all that “One day at a time” bullshit. I know I couldn’t. There is nothing imaginable that would deter me from being available to go in there and scoop that little soldier up when he’s crying and hold him and whisper to him that I love him.
Nothing.