Down and Out on Murder Mile (8 page)

The regime under
Dr. Stein was pretty good. I was back at my old pharmacy and once a day we went to Shepherds Bush Green to pick up our eighty-milliliter bottles of methadone. The methadone itself was luminous green and sickly sweet. Once the methadone kicked in I would be filled with good-natured cheer and get an insatiable appetite for sweets. At a bakery nearby, I would eat cream buns and custard tarts. I existed on a diet of methadone, Coca-Cola, chocolate bars, and pastries.

 

Over the next few months Susan and I met with Dr. Stein weekly. He would ask how we were doing. We would tell him that we were fine. Once in a while he would send one or both of us to the bathroom with a plastic bottle to take a urine test. While not actually curing the mental yearning to shoot heroin, the high doses of methadone we
were being prescribed took away the physical need to do it. Without the relentless pressure of withdrawal gnawing at us we actually stopped doing heroin for a few months. However, once things were relatively stable for a while, I started to get bored. A junkie friend of mine used to remark how he would inject water whenever he didn't have heroin, and somehow it would make him feel better. Methadone did nothing for either the Pavlovian craving for the needle or for my need not to
feel
. Life was as ugly and as meaningless on methadone as on heroin, except now I didn't have my routine of scoring drugs and fixing to look forward to. I knew that there had to be a way to get around the urine tests, so I went to an Internet café and did a search on heroin's half-life in the bloodstream. It revealed that heroin tends to leave the system quite quickly, and you could give a clean urine test seventy-two hours after your last dose. So I resumed, regulating my use of heroin to the beginning of the week and weekends.

 

Once a week I attended the job center. Susan was ineligible for the dole, and I was eligible for only fifty-seven pounds a week. I was using at least a hundred pounds a week in heroin alone, so as unsavory as the prospect was I knew that I needed to find some kind of work again. After the experience with
Traditional Country Music Monthly,
I had vowed to stay away from regular employment. But, of course, cold hard reality intruded. In the job center, I sat across from an old woman with a pursed mouth who seemed to really resent her job. I told her of my work history: keyboardist in the Catsuits, then music video writing. It
seemed so small and unimpressive when I tried to explain it to the woman.

 

“So…,” she monotoned, “would you be interested in doing something with music again?”

 

“Oh yeah. Do you have something?”

 

She tapped into her computer for a moment. She said, “Here we go,” and half-turned the monitor toward me. On screen it said: “VIRGIN MEGASTORE, OXFORD STREET. SALES ASSISTANTS RQD (IMMEDIATE).”

 

“I'll set you up an interview, then, shall I?”

 

Well, Jesus. I was desperate. The night before I had flicked on the television and saw none other than my old band mate, Laura, presenting a TV show on Channel 5. She looked exactly the same. I sat watching her, with a snoring junkie wife on the bed next to me. I had less than a hundred pounds in the bank and was shooting up into my legs. I didn't look exactly the same. I looked like the portrait in the fucking attic. Part of me wanted to stand up and tell the old whore to fuck off, that I'd eat dog shit before I'd work in a Virgin Megastore, but I fought the urge. I needed something straight away, or there'd be no more drugs.

 

“Yes,” I said quietly. “Set up the interview.”

 

My first day on the job I wandered around the shop floor in an ill-fitting T-shirt, trying to avoid talking to people until my lunch break. I was working
five days a week, my schedule changing every week. Once a month I'd have a weekend off. I was paid seven pounds an hour to restock the shelves and work the tills. It was mind-numbingly boring work, made worse by the giant video screens that looked down upon us everywhere we went, blaring out terrible songs every fifteen minutes. That was the gimmick—every fifteen minutes there would be a great sound like the whole shop was about to take off. And then these huge video screens would flicker into life and a song would come on. The second or third time this happened I realized that it was the same fucking song. The same video. I found myself inadvertently singing along. Oh Jesus, I thought.

 

I walked over to the supervisor, a large Jamaican girl who seemed ruthlessly efficient and far too dedicated to a job that was the non-food equivalent to working in a McDonald's. Her name was Jenna.

 

“Jenna,” I yelled over the music, “are they gonna play the same song all day long?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“On the big screen. They've played the same song three times already!”

 

“Oh yeah. The record company buys the screen for a block of time. Usually a month or so.”

 

“A month! I'm gonna be hearing this shit for a month?”

 

“Oh, don't worry. After a while you stop noticing it. I didn't even realize it was on.”

 

After two weeks I was ready to lose my mind. On my early shifts I'd be in there at 8:30
A.M.
to endure a start-of-day pep talk from one of the managers. Usually some meaningless nonsense about how well the store was doing, what a great guy Richard Branson was, and how to watch out for shoplifters. Then, even before the store was open to the public, I'd hear the sound.

 

WHUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRGHHHHHHH.

 

That was the sound of the screens fading into life. The song started with a drum intro that turned my blood cold. I couldn't block it out. I tried everything. I brought drugs to work and got high in the bathroom. I even walked around with earplugs in, but when I walked right past Jenna, ears plugged and oblivious one day as she called for me, I got busted, receiving an official reprimand. So no more earplugs. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night with that same fucking drumbeat playing in my head. I felt like I was being subjected to some intricate form of psychological terrorization.

 

And the customers. Jesus. If you made the mistake of making eye contact with any of them then you'd be stuck for an hour.

 

“Excuse me, where would I find Mariah Carey's new album?”

 

“Excuse me, do you have a bossa nova section?”

 

“Excuse me, are things filed by first name or surname?”

 

I learned to perfect the art of walking purposefully with a bunch of random CDs in my hand. If anybody stopped me to ask anything I'd tell them, “I'm terribly sorry, I'm assisting another customer at the moment. Somebody else will be happy to help you” before cutting out. The building was so big that I could pass entire days going from one floor to the next, picking up a CD from the storeroom, carrying it to the next floor, taking a break, walking through the jazz section flicking through CDs. Anything but doing actual work. And, of course, stealing.

 

Everybody stole. But nobody stole as ruthlessly and efficiently as I did. The process was simple. Staff got searched when leaving for the day, but not on lunch breaks. Wandering around the West End on a break, I stumbled upon a Japanese language college. I entered and located an empty locker on the third floor. Sensing an opportunity, I bought a padlock and fitted it. Then on lunch breaks I would make the journey with my jeans stuffed full of stolen CDs and store them in the locker for collection at the end of the day. I wasn't the only one stealing, but I was the only one with such a well-thought-out system. I took home approximately twenty to twenty-five CDs
a day. Sometimes RJ would take CDs in exchange for heroin, and I started stealing to order. For the three months that I worked there, up until the time they let me go rather than renew my contract, I had all of the heroin I wanted. I was a king, I suppose. But unbeknownst to me, this rare moment of serenity would be fleeting. Life was about to take another turn.

The living arrangement
with Jack was the beginning of the end in many ways. The first problem was the fact that I moved out of Dr. Stein's catchment area. A catchment area is the area immediately surrounding a doctor's surgery. Dr. Stein had drilled into both Susan and I the importance of telling him if we moved, as he could legally prescribe methadone to us only so long as we remained in his area. Of course, the move from White City all the way north to Tottenham was bound to cause us big problems. So we simply never mentioned it. After all, what he didn't know couldn't hurt him, right?

 

The hammer started to fall three weeks after moving in with Jack. Susan and I slept on mattresses in the large bedroom at the back. Despite taking two weeks to prepare the flat, all that
Michael had managed to do was put his clothes into messy piles and stick them in the corner of the room. Jack was ensconced in the smaller bedroom down the hall.

 

Now keeping our methadone prescriptions under wraps from the others in NA was even harder. Jack suddenly decided that we should all be friends since we were living in the same place, and he kept inviting us out to pubs and clubs with him. I went once. I thought that when Jack invited me to a club, that surely all bets must have been off in regards to his supposed sobriety. After all, what on earth would one do in a nightclub in Brixton without even a few beers?

 

The answer came soon enough. One would stand around, sipping tonic water or Coca-Cola, watching everybody else have a good time, listening to jungle music, stone-cold sober. Jack was immediately on the floor dancing, leaving me to watch him in increasing disbelief. I started to wonder if in fact Jack was not some kind of mental subnormal.

 

The day that everything fell apart started off like any other. Susan and I had our weekly meeting with Dr. Stein at the surgery in Shepherds Bush. I was already wondering about the possibility of finding somewhere else to live. Living with a genuine NA'er was tiring, especially as Susan and I were now both expected to attend meetings with Jack. We would have to come up with continuous cover stories to avoid getting roped into attending three meetings per week. I could sense that
Jack was getting suspicious. When I gave in and went to a meeting with him one day, he told me as much. We were hanging around in a nearby McDonald's waiting for the meeting to start and he said, “I'm worried about you.”

 

“Why?” I laughed, trying to sound casual but knowing what was coming.

 

“You barely attend meetings anymore. You never share when you do. You've been coming around for ages and you still don't have a sponsor. I know that you two are clean, but, you know, my sponsor, David, says that sobriety isn't enough!”

 

“Oh yeah? It's enough for me. What else am I supposed to do? Do a fuckin' song and dance?”

 

“He says that people like you are…what did he say now? Yeah—
dry drunks
. You're not drinking, but you're still exhibiting all the symptoms of being sick.”

 

“Jack,” I said patiently, “for one, I'm not a fucking drunk. I never have been. Two, I don't know David and David doesn't know me—or Susan—so really his opinion is of no interest to me. If coming to meetings as often as I feel I need to and staying off drugs isn't enough, then, you know, fuck it. Maybe I shouldn't come. Why don't you go to meetings with David, since you find him so utterly fucking fascinating?”

 

Jack backed off, startled a little by my outburst.

 

“Wait! Look, of course staying clean is what's important. It's just…I don't want to see you…go back on it, right?”

 

“You don't know nothing about it,” I snapped. “You've never done gear. You don't know what it's like. You can't fucking judge me! Anyway, it's time for our precious fucking meeting, okay?”

 

“Shit. Okay, man. Chill the fuck out.”

 

So I knew that this situation couldn't carry on indefinitely. I was pondering this as the nurse called Susan and me into Dr. Stein's office. Walking in and closing the door behind us, I noticed that Stein looked even more glum-faced than usual.

 

“Sit down.”

 

We did.

 

Saying nothing, Stein took out the pink prescription pads that they use for narcotics and scribbled down our weekly prescription. This was unusual. He usually asked a bunch of questions, asked for a piss test, something. But today there was nothing, just Stein writing, stonily silent, pressing down so hard that I thought his pen might tear a whole through the paper.

 

“There you go,” he said, tossing the prescriptions at us, “your final prescriptions. Now don't come back, either of you.”

 

Susan and I just sat there in silence. Stein glared at us. I started racking my brain. I knew that I couldn't have given dirty urine the last time. I hadn't used heroin in a while. Since getting the heave-ho from Virgin, heroin was temporarily a luxury item.

 

“I don't understand,” Susan began.

 

“Where do you live?”

 

“One-oh-nine Batman Close—” I began.

 

“
Bullshit!
I sent you a standard letter, because your last urine test proved inconclusive. It wasn't positive, probably some over-the-counter medication you have been taking, but it was enough to render the test inconclusive. I sent you a standard letter to inform you of this, as the rules dictate. The letter was returned to me with the notice that you
no longer live
at that address.”

 

“Look, Dr. Stein,” I stammered, in full damage control mode, “I was going to tell you! The lease came up on the flat and we had to vacate. We're somewhere temporary—only for a few weeks, and we're looking for a new place right in the area. That's why we didn't tell you!”

 

“Oh yes, I'm sure. You people are always so fucking innocent! You probably have four or five doctors prescribing to you, right? You don't give a shit whether I lose my license! I've been nothing but good to the pair of you!”

 

I was stunned. Dr. Stein was genuinely hurt by our deception. Although, I must admit, when he mentioned his suspicion that we had more than one doctor prescribing methadone to us, my first thought was:
That's possible? I gotta try that.

 

Susan chimed in. “Dr. Stein, it's true! We didn't want to fuck up our prescriptions, that's all! We're only out of White City for a month, tops, until we can find a local flat again! We're sleeping on a friend's floor at the moment. Please…please, don't kick us out. Things have been going really well recently! We're getting it together…. Oh Jesus…please don't kick us out…. It's not fair!”

 

Susan was about to go into her crying and wailing routine again. Stein cut her off with a wave of his hand.

 

“It's too late. The wheels have been set in motion. You must give me your new address, and another doctor has to take over your care. It's expressly prohibited for me to prescribe to patients outside of my catchment area. I'm sorry, but I can't help you anymore.”

 

We returned to Tottenham in silence. We drank our methadone from the bottles on the train ride home. Everything was wrong. Ascending in the pissy elevator to the seventeenth floor of our block of flats, the situation was about to deteriorate further. There were people in the flat. Usually Jack would fuck off during the daytime, but he was here and so was Michael. The cunts were both sitting around in our bedroom.

 

I opened the door and saw them, huddled in conversation.

 

“Oi!” I yelled at the pair of them, “What you doing on our room?”

 

Michael looked up. He just said: “Can you come in here a minute?”

 

Susan and I walked in silence toward them. Michael and Jack were sitting on the only two chairs in the room. Michael pointed toward the mattresses and said, “Sit down.” We did. Michael and even dumb, eighteen-year-old Jack were now towering over us. I started to feel anger rise in my chest. Susan kept her mouth shut and looked at the floor.

 

“Fucking problem?” I asked.

 

“I think so,” said Michael, “Jack here…and me too actually…we're worried that you aren't really a part of the program anymore. I mean, I know that you sometimes show up to the odd meeting, but…well, it's been a long time you've been coming around. A long time. Neither of you have a sponsor, which to me…well, I just don't get it.”

 

“What don't you get?” I demanded. “I don't want a sponsor. When I bump into someone at one of these meetings who I think will have the first clue about where I'm coming from, then sure, then I'll have a sponsor. Until then, I'll do it myself.”

 

“That's not the way the program works!” Jack laughed.

“Don't tell me about the fucking program, Jack. I went to my first meeting five years ago in LA, remember? You were thirteen fucking years old Jack. I'm not listening to any fucking lectures from you, mate. I show up. That's where I'm at right now.”

 

“Anyway,” Susan interjected, “how is any of this your business? What, you sublet a flat to us and suddenly you're monitoring our recovery? Where do you get off, Michael?”

 

“Look, love,” Michael shot back, “for all intents and purposes, I'm your fucking landlord, okay? And there's some shit I can't tolerate in my flat these days.”

 

“Oh, so we can't live here unless we start showing up to more meetings and being good little patients? So you're the king of recovery now? What? If I don't get a sponsor are you going to revoke my ex-junkie license?”

 

He ignored me. He looked at his hands for a long time. Then he looked up.

 

Michael said: “You're still using. The pair of you.”

“Bullshit,” I hissed. “I might not buy into all of this fucking twelve-step stuff, but you can't just accuse us of…”

 

Jack had his moment of triumph. He reached down to the floor and picked up the evidence. One of my empty, brown medicine bottles labeled “Methadone linctus. 80 mls.”

“You wanna tell me just what the fuck you were doing snooping around in my fucking room, cunt?” I spat.

 

“Fuck off! I was looking for that book you borrowed off me!”

 

Ah, the book. About a week before Jack had been telling me about a book he had just read,
A Sense of Freedom
by Jimmy Boyle. Apparently he was Scotland's most dangerous prisoner, and then he became a sculptor. It sounded quite mindless, but I had made the mistake of feigning interest. Jack had insisted that I borrow it. I declined. “But I'm done with it! You can hang on to it for as long as you'd like.” For a quiet life I had taken the tattered paperback, put it on the desk in my room, and promptly forgotten all about it.

 

I sat there, quiet for a moment. I didn't like sitting in front of the pair of them like a naughty schoolboy anymore. I stood up, so I was now looking down on them.

 

“Look. I relapsed. I'm a junkie. Michael, you know what I'm talking about…”

 

Jack went to chip in, but I dismissed him with my hand.

 

“Listen, between you and me, Michael, the boy wonder here doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. You know this. He's a moron!
You
know. How many times did you fuck up before you got clean this time? And how long has it been, huh? Less than a year, right? So you don't know what's around the corner any more than I did. I fucked up! I got a habit again. I got on a methadone program. Are you seriously telling me that you are shocked that a fucking heroin addict relapsed? Is this news to you?”

 

“You lied to me. You lied to the fellowship. You stood up there and took key chains for being clean for thirty days, sixty days, six months—”

 

“Who did I hurt, Michael?”

 

“You led us on! You
lied
.”

 

“And you've never lied when you've been using?”

 

“But he isn't using now!” Jack piped up.

 

“Shut up, cunt!”
I screamed at him. He kept his ass on the chair. I looked back to Michael.

 

“So what are you saying?”

 

“I want you both out of here.”

 

“You fucking serious?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

I ran my fingers through my hair. I looked down at Susan. We had separately, and together, been evicted so many times, from apartments, from motel rooms, from other people's homes, that she just shrugged and looked at me as if to say “c'est la vie.”

 

“Fine. We'll be out by the end of the week.”

 

“I want you out tonight.”

 

“No way.”

 

Now it was Michael's turn to stand. He had a few inches on me, and meat on his bones.

 

“I want you both out tonight.”

 

“I just paid you rent for the week.”

 

“You'll get it back.”

 

“Now?”

 

“Not now. When I have it. Now fuck off. If you don't wanna leave, I'll come back with some mates and I'll chuck you out. You know that I ain't fucking around, right?”

 

I knew. I looked down at Susan. “Pack our shit up,” I told her. “I'm gonna go find us a place.” I left her there with Michael and Jack. I didn't want her coming with me. I didn't need to hear her fucking voice on top of the chatter in my own
head. I cursed and punched the elevator doors as it brought me down to the ground floor. Outside the rain was pissing down. The gutters were filling up with filthy water, and I was racking my brain about where to go. I remembered the hooker motels around Kings Cross and decided to hit there. Any motels that rent rooms by the hour had to be cheap.