Authors: Joe Putignano
Acrobaddict (15 page)
Watching the screen, smoking cigarette after cigarette, and rocking back and forth while grabbing my knees, I heard the same mantra in my head over and over—“Everything is gonna be all right, everything is gonna be okay”—and for the very first time, I believed it. I believed it so much that it brought tears to my eyes. I couldn’t stop rocking back and forth. It felt so good, the sway, the motion, the sound. I saw Piper and hugged her as if she had just saved my life. In a way, she had.
She was in the same state of mind, and her hug made all the hair on my body stand up. I continued holding onto her and said over and over, “Thank you, I love you, thank you, I love you,” and she knew exactly what I meant. Touching her flesh sent an electric sexual tempest through my skin, and we hugged each other tight.
This was so different from what I’d felt when I took acid. It was greater; it was tasting God’s tears; it was drinking my friends’ souls, wearing their love and rolling in the oneness that created us all. I had stumbled upon Eden, and there was no greater love and peace than that moment. I was blessed. I was alive. I was a great fire burning bright.
I kept dancing, following the music’s orders, directing my body and spirit. I was breath and love. A man walked by who I wanted to get to know on a different level—on a physical and sexual level beyond what I had previously known. I wanted to get to know him sensually and intimately, something I hadn’t yet admitted to myself or the world around me. I was like a wolf seeing his pack for the first time. I finally knew where I belonged. But for that night I would go silently alone into the moonlight, letting that knowledge burn inside me. To my new friends, I was straight like them, but now that didn’t matter. I had fallen in love with “E,” and it erased ever having been teased, ever having been made fun of, or ever having been called a faggot. In that moment, I accepted who I was.
I continued dancing until the sun’s rays burst through the cracks. I didn’t want that feeling to stop or to ever see or know the prehistoric world again. I tried holding onto the feeling as if it were water in my hands, pleading with the liquid, “Please, don’t leave me . . . you can’t go . . . I need you . . . don’t go,” but the more time passed, the more the water trickled through my fingers.
The effects of the drug slowly faded, and I left the building a different being than when I had entered. I had changed. I was better, brighter, and more intelligent. As we walked into the morning it felt like we were victoriously leaving a sacred war and entering into a new chapter of history. I thought of the first hippies in the sixties who
were part of a movement before it was actually a movement. Kids passed flyers out for the next raves, and I took each one, collecting the pages of my new testament.
The residual effects of ecstasy rolled through my body, and I felt a small sense of shame, remembering it was Easter morning. I wondered if Jesus really did rise from the dead on that day. Good Catholic families were putting on their best Easter clothes and going to church to honor Christ’s resurrection, and on that day I honored myself: my body, his body, our bodies reborn.
Later that week an article ran in the newspaper about the rave I’d gone to, telling of how it was endangering the youth of Boston and was a gateway to a destructive lifestyle. My parents knew I had gone, but they didn’t say anything. They knew I drank a bit, but believed I would never take drugs since as an athlete I took great care of my body. There was a picture of Piper in the paper. I cut it out, put in on my wall, and crowned the first saint of my new sanctuary.
A
TRIANGULAR DEPRESSION ON THE DORSAL, RADIAL ASPECT OF THE HAND THAT FRAMES A FLOOR CREATED BY THE SCAPHOID AND TRAPEZIUM BONES, THIS SURFACE CAN BE USED FOR PLACING AND SNIFFING POWDERED TOBACCO, COCAINE, CRYSTAL, OR ANY OTHER SUBSTANCE THAT CAN BE SNIFFED
.
My mother drove me to the Staunton College campus for my first day of orientation. I brought all of my belongings in several large, black trash bags. Even though we were barely on speaking terms, she tried to be kind and supportive and gave me a twenty-dollar bill. I laughed at the absurdity of this since I had no money for textbooks, toiletries, or dorm necessities. My parents had no idea what a college student needed, and I felt like a poor vagabond. But I was out, and would never return home to live with my parents again. There was too much pain and resentment between us.
My dorm room was covered in white paint, with a jail-cell, cinder-block motif. It resembled an ivory mausoleum. After my mother dropped off my things and left, I lit a Marlboro and watched the smoke fill the small space. Minutes later there was a large bang on my door and I opened it to see two campus police officers. They aggressively walked into my room and started searching through all my things because they smelled marijuana. Sadly, I didn’t even have any. I couldn’t believe that the first social interaction on my first day of
real
college was with the campus police. I guessed I had succeeded in my criminal-look aspiration.
As I walked through the dorm hallways, I noticed everyone looked the same—clean-cut, all-American, and sporty. Meanwhile, I appeared to have clawed myself out from the depths of hell. I had acquired even more body piercings and sported a bright-red Mohawk with large spikes stabbing the air. I clung to the hope that college kids would be mature and open-minded.
The campus was beautiful, as if they’d taken an apple orchard, added some grand buildings to it, and called it a university. It was a perfect New England autumn day as leaves changed to deep, dark, vibrant colors in harmony with a baby-blue sky. I laughed to myself,
This was my dream college
. Surrounded by that picturesque scene, I acknowledged the accomplishment of simply being there, and prayed for personal change like the change in the trees around me. I vowed to get serious about my education. I swore that I would not drink alcohol or smoke pot. I already knew how tripping and taking ecstasy would impede my education. The trees sighed in the gentle breeze and agreed with my spiritual decision.
I was happy to start back into gymnastics again, especially since people weren’t lining up to be my friend. I hadn’t trained for a year. Our gym was set in the back of a large athletic hall and it was covered with plaques and pictures of former Staunton College athletes who had placed in the top six in NCAA competitions. Near the entrance to the gymnastics area was Dan’s picture, a plaque, and several of his all-American awards. I loved that he was there, looking over me and protecting me. Maybe I could fight my way back and find my champion again.
The first day of practice went smoother than I expected, and I was amazed at how much I could still do. My muscle memory kicked in, and I knew I would be ready to compete in a few months. Even though I looked freakish, broken, and like an unorganized mess, my teammates were friendly and didn’t judge my exterior. They saw the strong gymnast within. I had to remove my piercings to avoid deductions during competition, but didn’t need to cover my tattoos or change my hair.
I got a job delivering pizza on campus, and one night at the shop I met two people who would become friends for life—Cloud and Darren. Cloud dressed in gothic-like doll clothes, smelled like patchouli mixed with pot, and wore mystery around her body that illuminated her spirit. She had curious, big blue eyes, pierced lip, a pouty smile, and a shy face hidden under dreadlocks. Darren was the kind of guy you didn’t want to see in a dark alley. He was tall and stocky like a football player, with tattoos and piercings. Despite his punishing look he had a friendly smile, and we shared a secret glance that said, “I want to know you better,” which made me both excited and afraid.
Cloud lived upstairs in the same dormitory as me, and immediately after meeting her I broke my “no smoking weed” vow. She reminded me of friends back home, and her company was comforting. We both hated the people at school and clung together like conjoined twins united through our freakishness.
Darren was a senior and lived off campus. A large shadow hovered over his apartment in the city of Holyoke, past broken train tracks under a burned-out streetlight. It was the last house on the block. I loved leaving campus to go visit him. I was intrigued by Darren. He had a very quiet demeanor. He looked at me differently, and I couldn’t figure out his interest. He was able to see past the person I was trying to be, and saw the man I was. I was sure he was straight, but more open-minded than the other students, and my sexual confusion didn’t faze him. Cloud and I smoked weed at his place almost every night.
One night Darren took out a small glass vial of white powder, pushed the magazines aside on the glass table, and poured it onto the table. Instantly Cloud’s eyes lit up like fireworks and she yelled, “Oh my God, can I have some? I’ve been looking since I got here!” Darren said proudly, “Yeah, that’s why I’m putting it on the table.”
I had never seen coke before and was scared of it. Once again, I thought of my mother.
Cloud held her dreads back as she leaned over the table, careful not to mess the white, powdery lines that were bigger than I imagined.
Darren handed her a plastic straw from his pocket and she sniffed the powder up loudly and passionately. She dabbed the small residue that didn’t make it into her nose with her finger and wiped it on her teeth and gums. She gave a huge smile, like a proud little girl who had just finished making a macaroni necklace for her parents. Darren leaned down and performed the same procedure.
Stoned out of my mind, all I heard for the next four hours were the annoying sounds of people sniffing, snorting, and talking absolute insanity. We were on two different planes, and I couldn’t connect. I was not going to touch it, afraid I would kill myself by combining a speed substance with my asthma medicines. I thought about all the horror stories I’d heard in health class about doing coke, which made me laugh since all the lessons about the drugs I had already taken had clearly failed. Still, I was not going to do coke.
Cloud and I constantly hung out at Darren’s apartment, but I made it a rule not to smoke pot until after practice. It would be way too dangerous to do gymnastics stoned; even I knew that. Training was Monday through Friday from four to seven and then I went home, ate, showered, and went to Darren’s and got stoned. Cloud and I would leave his apartment completely wrecked out of our minds, watching the moon as we snuck back to our pretty, safe campus. I thanked the heavens for connecting me to my new friends.
Darren and I secretly got together, which made me feel a little better about my sexuality. I still didn’t think I was gay, but being with Darren felt natural. He looked so tough, mean, and dangerous that I never thought he was gay either. Maybe we were just getting high, and knocking down and exploring our boundaries. For the first time someone was attracted to me for who I was, but I absolutely had to keep our liaison a secret. I didn’t think I could deal with more ridicule from others. In truth, Darren could have been a serial killer and I would have still been attracted to him and looked up to him, because no one had ever treated me as kindly as he did. I had never experienced that kind of friendship, closeness, and sense of being respected with any person before, besides with Tara. He and the pot
erased the negative feelings I had toward myself as we laughed and fell into our illusory world.
I slowly broke all the rules I had made to keep up both my grades and gymnastics skills. I became another fixture on Darren’s street, alongside the broken lights, the crackheads, and the dirty lies. The three of us were inseparable, and the nights were ours. Darren started dealing coke, mushrooms, and pot. I wasn’t part of it, but thought it was cool and gave him an even more attractive, broken, and elusive quality. He was a soul so strong he risked going to jail for his beliefs, which eventually he did. His arrest for possession made us all rethink our roles in that story, but our dedication, friendship, and desire to laugh kept us together through those challenges.
Tons of coke surrounded me for months, and I still hadn’t tried it; however, it was inescapable, and by the second semester of my freshman year I had tried it three times. I was going to a gymnastics party that had heavy drinkers, but no drugs. I did a line of coke and jumped into the shower. The steam from the hot water mixed with the cocaine and it hit my brain the way it was intended to. I immediately felt powerful, sexy, and brilliant—filled with an intense energy vibrating through my bloodstream. I was Zeus, ruler of all gods, and all the other elements orbited around my body. I had complete control of my body and felt like perfection, as though made of porcelain, or of perfect smooth glass created from a powerful lightning bolt striking the white sands of a beach. After I finished my shower I needed another line to keep the feeling going. I couldn’t let it slip through my hands. If one line felt that good, then two would feel even better.
I had the best time ever with the gymnastics team that night. I snuck a couple more lines in the bathroom, played pool, and got shit-faced. It was fun, but I couldn’t sleep from all the coke. My throat and nose were sore, and my heartbeat sped up as the sun rose. I tried to enjoy the last remnants of the feeling, but it gave way to pure anxiety. A new monster was born in me that night. Cocaine electrified me, and once again, I was excited and terrified.
Despite my ongoing destructive path, my gymnastics improved. I worked hard and valued my time in practice. But each day that I passed Dan’s picture on the wall of all-Americans, I stopped and wondered,
What would Dan think if he saw me doing what I was doing to myself? Would he approve? Did he do the same thing when he was in college?
I tried to connect the memory from his picture to the little boy who knew him, a little boy so determined to achieve his dreams that he would have battled the galaxies. I was more of a man when I was nine years old than I was now. I tried to find the strength of that young boy, the champion and warrior, but it was too far away. Even a photograph of the man I admired most and considered my only role model couldn’t knock me off my broken path. I had gone past the event horizon and was crossing over into the void.
