Futureproof (15 page)

“So you're saying that we only got thirty dollars' worth of Heroin for sixty dollars?”

“Yeah, but you won't know the difference.”

“So, we'll still get high?”

“Definitely. God, I'd give anything to have zero tolerance again. I remember when I first started getting high I couldn't do more than half a bag.”

“So we're definitely gonna get high?”

As I speak, Sherri is climbing over the bench seat to sit in the back.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm fixing.”

“Now? Can't you wait until we get to my house?”

“No. God—damn, this is some good shit.”

 

Andie is sitting on the bed when we hurry in the door. Sherri is more shuffling than walking, and her voice sounds deep and slurred.

She has brand-new needles for all of us. Insulin syringes. She says you can get them downtown at the Eckerd on Ponce for $1.99 a ten-pack. If Eckerd isn't open you can buy them in the ghetto for three bucks apiece. “Not that you'd need to know that, 'cause you guys won't be doing this anymore after this,” she says.

Splinter, Jonas, and I crowd into the bedroom with Andie and Sherri as she stands at the dresser and begins a demonstration of proper Heroin injection.

“Here's whatcha do, guys,” she slurs. “Cut the tops off the baggies, cut the tops off.” She snips the zipper locks off the tiny baggies with Swiss Army Knife scissors. She dumps the contents of one into a spoon we have at the ready. The handle has been bent so as not to allow spillage of the precious brown powder.

“Step two: Draw water into the work, up to about the forty mark—that's what junkies call syringes. In junkie terms, syringes are called ‘works.'”

“We aren't planning on being junkies so we'll keep calling them syringes,” I say.

Ignoring me, she continues. “Slowly squirt the water into the spoon. You don't want to go too fast or else the water'll blow the dope right out of the spoon. Just go real slow, letting the water mix with the dope.”

She is relishing this lesson. She is reliving her romance with the junk. She takes her time, letting her adoration manifest itself. I am hungry just hearing her voice, how she loves what she's talking about.

“Take your lighter, hold it under the spoon, just until the liquid starts to bubble.”

She sets the spoon on the dresser.

“Then you pull the plunger out of the work and stir it all up with said plunger until there is nothing grainy left. All that should be left in the spoon is a dark, milky solution. God, I sound like I'm teaching a fucking science class. But look at how perfect that shit looks.”

We all lean in, stare at the teaspoon full of murky liquid.

Sherri drops a small wad of cotton in the spoon, slips the plunger back in the syringe, places the needle on top of the cottons and sucks up all the liquid. She is just going through the motions now, not talking. For a moment I wonder if she's going to shoot the bag herself.

She holds the syringe upside down, flicks it with her fingernail so the air bubbles will rise to the top. Then she pushes the plunger up slightly until the air is gone. “All that's left now is a full shot of liquid heaven,” she says. “Who's going first?”

“I am,” I say.

Sherri hands me the syringe.

I am sweating and scared. I move slowly backward until the bed hits my legs and then I sit down, still looking at the syringe, holding it in front of me, a sacred object. I can't stop staring at it. My fingers are quivering.

“Do you want me to hit you with it?” Sherri offers.

“Just stick it in me and I'll do the rest,” I say, offering my right arm to her.

She drops to one knee in front of me.

“Damn, you don't even need a tourniquet. Your veins are perfect for shooting dope. It took me months to get to that point. Veins popping out all over. A born junkie.”

“Just stick it in already.”

She holds the needle parallel with my outstretched forearm, slides it effortlessly into the vein. I'd prepared myself for a shock of pain but there is none.

“Let me do the rest.”

“You have to pull the plunger back first to make sure you're in the vein good,” Sherri says.

I pull the plunger out slightly and immediately a plume of red appears in the chamber, languidly mixing with the brown dope-water.

“Now push it in?”

“Just push it in. You'll be high as hell before you even get to the bottom.”

I compress the plunger slowly, watch the liquid disappear into my vein.

Sherri was right. I can feel it before the plunger makes it even halfway down. The Heroin rushes over me like a slow, warm wave. It starts in my legs and within moments my entire body is enveloped in a velvet warmth like I have never experienced. I am floating. Every part of me is separate and yet whole.

I am perfect and alive.

I lie back on the bed with the syringe still poking out of my arm but I haven't the energy or the care to remove it.

I am in love.

I am alive and I am in love.

I am home.

 

I can't imagine being so powerfully addicted to something that you'd blow a guy just so you can get more. Sherri says that these things happen, though.

So we've been extra cautious with our Heroin use, though Jonas hasn't been as careful as the rest of us. Jonas does the shit all the time, it seems. When we meet him at Lollapalooza he's already high on smack, sitting out on the lawn under the sun with his pupils pinned, listening to L7. He doesn't start puking his guts out until A Tribe Called Quest takes the stage.

Heroin has that nasty side effect when you first start using, but it isn't a bad kind of puke, if you can believe that. The puking actually
makes you feel higher than you did in the first place. Like you're exhaling all the bullshit in your life that might otherwise bring you down. It's all very symbolic and somehow contributes to the high. Out in public, though, it just looks bad. And it's for that very reason that Andie and I have decided to bypass the H and take a couple tabs of Ecstasy. We haven't done E since O.J. offed his wife and ran from the cops in slow motion.

“Do you think O.J.'s guilty?” I ask Corey during the Beastie Boys' set.

“What?”

“Do you think O.J. is guilty?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

I sigh, annoyed. The Ecstasy hasn't kicked in yet. “Do you think O.J. Fucking Simpson killed his wife or not?”

“I don't know, dude. Maybe.”

“What do you mean, maybe? Haven't you watched any of the news about it?”

“I was trying to watch the Beastie Boys.”

“Jesus, what is it with everybody? So fucking apathetic. Nobody has an opinion. And you weren't watching the Beastie Boys, anyway. You were fucking lying there with your eyes closed.”

“Whatever, dude. Fine. I was
listening
to the Beastie Boys.” Corey closes his eyes again, drapes his arm across his forehead.

Nearly everybody here is half dead and lifeless from sitting in the sun all day. Then the Ecstasy starts to kick in. The Beastie Boys are jumping all over the stage and they look like they're in another time zone, so far away. And then they're admonishing the audience for its lack of enthusiasm but, I mean, we've been sitting out in the sun for fucking five or six hours and it's ninety degrees out here.

“Come on, Cincinnati!” Ad Rock implores us, by way of insult, after a particularly weak round of audience participation in the
whole hand-waving, call-and-response thing that rap groups learn in Hip-Hop 101.

Jonas is sitting there with some hot little punk girl. Corey is drunk and passed out on the lawn.

“What's your name?” I ask the girl. Her hair is only about an inch long, spiked up and dyed pink. She's wearing a studded dog collar.

“I'm Karen. I'm your brother's girlfriend.”

“You're Jonas' girlfriend?” I say to her. “I've never seen her before, dude,” I say to him.

“I've never seen
you
before,” she says to me.

“How long have you been going out?” I ask Jonas.

“About—an hour and a half,” Jonas says.

 

It's dark outside and cool now. Andie and I are thoroughly fulfilled and just as thoroughly fucked up. During several of the Smashing Pumpkins' songs we even have a moment or two when our hands touch and our fingers snake themselves together. As one of the security guards looks the other way we sneak into the seated section under the pavilion and find a couple of empty seats. Everyone stands on their automatically folding plastic seats to get a better view, but when we try to do the same we quickly realize that our balance is totally screwed up by the Ecstasy. If the weight is even slightly disproportionate between the front and the back of the seat the goddam thing tries to fold up and dump you backward. It's really disconcerting and undermining to an otherwise good high.

Billy Corgan is singing about how he and his lover are Siamese twins attached at the wrist and the lights are beautiful and I can feel my heart beating full of love for Andie and the rest of the world in general.

It is a rare moment and I'm staying in that moment for as long as possible. I have found my place and it is radiant and safe and good.

August

It's finally happened for my mom. After years of struggle and avoidance of real work, she and Victor are filthy rich. He hasn't worked in months because of his swimming pool accident (“I can't cut the grass—the insurance adjusters are always watching, Barbara!”) and now the insurance company has settled for a whopping $80,000. That's more money than either one of them has made in the entire twelve-year history of their relationship.

They call and invite me to dinner with the rest of the family. Mom tells me not to bring Andie. I bring her anyway. It's free steak, after all.

Victor is in the best mood I've ever seen him. He's laughing and joking with the waitresses.

“Did you see my new car out there?” he says.

“Which one was it?” I try to sound enthused. I don't know why. I've never seen the bastard happy before unless he was pulling a scam. And maybe this is just an extension of that: the most successful scam of his life.

“Red Porsche. 944. That little baby can take a corner faster than any car you've ever driven.”

“You bought a Porsche? Where're Mom and Adam and Aaron gonna sit?”

“They've got a car, too. Tell him what you've got, Barbara.”

I look at my mom. She can't stop smiling. She's covering her mouth with her hand so that the food she's chewing doesn't fall out. She throws back what's left in her wineglass, coughs a little, clears her throat.

“It's a BMW.”

“You have to see it, man,” Victor says. “Top of the line.”

“Do you guys have any money left?” I am incredulous for some reason. As though somehow they might've been more fiscally responsible.

Victor holds up his left hand. Handcuffed to him is a metallic silver briefcase. It looks like the kind of case they always show in the movies about the president having to push the Button from a secret location in case of nuclear war.

“You've got all the money in there?”

Victor nods his head and smiles, forks a piece of steak into his mouth.

“You're carrying around $80,000 handcuffed to your hand?”

“Less the price of the Beamer and the Porsche. It's not like they're brand-new or anything,” Victor says. “Oh, and look at this.”

He holds up his right hand, his fork hand, and waves his fingers in my and Andie's faces. There is a huge diamond ring gleaming on his pinky, set in yellow gold.

“Wow,” Andie says. I look at her for a moment and can't decide if she is actually impressed by this vulgar display or is just being the typical sarcastic bitch that I know and love.

“And this,” Victor says.

He looks around the restaurant a couple of times to make sure no one is watching, then pulls out a black pistol and sets it on the table in front of me. Aaron and Adam start oohing and aahing. Evidently this last piece of booty had not yet been revealed to them, either.

“Is that loaded?” I ask.

“Hell, yes, it's loaded. Do you think I'd carry around this much money without a way to make sure no one can take it from me?”

“Most people use banks for that very reason.”

“Fuck banks. If I carry the cash on me there's no way I can ever lose it.”

“Unless you spend it all.”

Victor regards me for a moment, glances away, then lets his eyes come up sharp. “I know what's eating you, Luke. You're wondering where your share is. But
every
body's getting paid tonight. We're all getting what we deserve,” Victor says.

“Yeah, look how much we have, Luke,” Adam says. He and Aaron both hold up crisp, new $100 bills.

“Let me have those, boys. You're going to lose them,” Mom says.

“Oh, they'll be all right, Barb. Just let them enjoy their money,” Victor says.

I look at Jonas. He isn't saying anything.

“What about the rest of your life? In a week you're not going to have anything left at this rate. Have you guys even thought about, I don't know, buying a fucking
house
?”

Victor stops smiling for the first time.

“I will discuss all of this with you—but I will not tolerate profanity.”

“You swear like a goddam sailor all the time.”

He looks at me sternly.

“You, alright. I learned it by watching you,” I say.

“We're already taking care of the house,” he says around a fresh mouthful of steak. “Your mother is about to close a deal.”

“You wouldn't believe this house, Luke,” Mom chimes in. “It is so beautiful. It's an antebellum mansion with columns out front and everything! We're putting a down payment on it this Monday.”

“What about the rest of the payments? How are you guys going to afford paying for a mansion for the next thirty years?”

“You don't need to worry about that, son.”

I hate it when Victor calls me “son.”

I take a bite of my baked potato. Everyone is chewing.

Nobody says much of anything for the rest of the meal. By the time Victor asks for the check I figure it's a safe time to make an exit without creating a scene. People usually walk out of restaurants after they finish eating. This is completely normal.

“I guess we're gonna go.” I slide out of the booth and stand in front of the table.

“It was good to see you again,” my mother says to me, ignoring Andie.

“You, too, Ma. You guys started school already?” I say in Adam and Aaron's direction.

“No. We're going to after we move.”

“You're not enrolling them in school until you
move
? How much more school are they going to miss, Ma?”

“That's what I keep asking her,” Victor says.

I look at my mother for a minute while she downs the rest of her wine. She finishes and doesn't look at me.

I extend my hand to Victor.

He squeezes hard.

“Thanks for coming out,” he says.

“Thanks for having us,” I say. Then, to Jonas, “Are you gonna come over tonight and drive me and Splinter to Andersonville?”

“No. I'm going over to Karen's mom's house for a while.”

“I'll see you on set, then. Be good, you guys.”

Andie and I hurry out to the parking lot. There's somebody right behind us, I can hear footsteps echoing ours.

I turn around and it's Victor, the briefcase still fastened to his wrist. For a moment I wonder if he's going to shoot me and then tell the cops that I tried to steal his money. But he doesn't draw his gun. He's asking me to wait and then he's walking us over to a red Porsche. He gently sets the briefcase on the hood and fingers the combination.

“I forgot to give you the money I owe you,” he says.

He opens the case and there are bundles and bundles of money and for a split second I actually contemplate grabbing a handful and running. It's not like it isn't owed me. But that's probably what he wants me to do, what he
expects
me to do. He's probably itching to blow somebody's brains out.

He flips through a small stack of hundreds and hands me three of them. Three $100 bills as repayment for years of embezzling my paltry after-school paychecks. Three hundred bucks for taking my entire savings in tenth grade. I had $843 that time, nearly my goal for a car. And now he's offering me $300. I take it and don't say anything.

Then he says, “Oh, what the hell,” and hands me two more hundreds.

“What about the eight hundred bucks you took from me back when we lived on Housitonic Street?”

“I don't remember that.”

“Sure you do. That fight when you almost cut your toe off on my bed frame?”

His face darkens. Aside from the beer bottle incident, the bed frame debacle was his lowest moment in the ongoing battle of My Childhood. He'd tried to kick my ass and I was just ducking and covering to keep him from getting the money out of my hands, and then we were wrestling around on the floor and he somehow cut the fuck out of his pinky toe.

“That money was to help out our family. You were a part of this family, weren't you?”

“Yeah, regrettably I was. But what the fuck right does that give you to take my money? It's the parents' responsibility to get a goddam job and support the kids, not the other way around.”

“Let's just go,” Andie says.

I stare at Victor and he stares back at me and then at Andie. I start walking back to the T-Bird, sure that he's aiming that black pistol at my back, that my head's going to explode and I'm going to crumple to the ground any second, dead.

But we make it to the car. Andie crawls across the seat and puts her head on my shoulder. I whip the T-Bird out of the parking lot and can see Victor walking back into the restaurant as we drive off.

“You wanna go get high?” I ask Andie.

“You mean…”

“Yeah. I just want to smooth out a little.”

“OK. Yeah. I've been hoping that you'd say that.”

 

The
Andersonville
set has reached serious tedium levels. I don't know if it's the inescapable need for change that chases me around at all times or my semi-frequent Heroin use, but I now dread driving all the way down to this goddam set every day and I swear to God—if I have to look at mud and ratty fucking tents another day, I'm going to lose it.

But then, Divine Providence! The crew chief announces that we extras will be a major and integral part of the shots over the next few days. They are going to be shooting this massive execution scene, when five or six guys are all “hanged” simultaneously from a scaffold. The way they do this, he explains, is by running metal cables down through the nooses that connect to harnesses the “condemned” actors will be wearing under their costumes. If anything goes wrong and the cable doesn't catch or something, the nooses are all rigged so that one end will immediately pop free the moment any pressure is applied to them.

Splinter, Jonas, and I decide that we'll have to take Acid for this shit. The believability level of a six-man hanging will be increased nearly a thousand percent while under the influence of psychotropic chemicals. This will be an experience nobody in America gets to have in our modern era. We will take drugs and convince ourselves that we are witnessing the real thing. The director will yell “Action!” and then somebody'll pull a lever that will drop them all at one time and we will watch them die for their sins, their bodies twisting in the wind. It sounds morbid but what the hell, you have to take advantage of the opportunities given to you.

The day of the hanging we are all stoked. The sun is just rising and the sky is pink at the edges.

We gorge on a breakfast of chewy, untoasted bagels and cream cheese. I eat a couple of danishes and a bowl of oatmeal, too. I have to stock up on energy because once I'm tripping I can't stand eating anything. Food tastes like Play-Doh when I'm tripping.

As we trudge down the dirt road to the set, I hand everybody their hits.

“We should probably wait until we get down there before we take it,” Splinter says.

“Yeah. Who knows how long it'll take them to get everything ready.”

The hanging scaffold is set up in the center of the compound. We duck inside a tent to take our drugs and then come out feeling ready to watch people (pretend to) die. The Acid won't kick in for another forty-five minutes or so. Hopefully they won't do the actual hanging scenes right away because we'll still be stone-fucking sober, watching people
filming
other people being executed, cameras everywhere, with no hope of make-believe to enhance the experience.

But, of course, in true unceasing filming fashion, there are all kinds of preliminary shots to be done:

First, the scaffold in all its menacing grandeur; then the crowd of people gathering around to watch and talking among ourselves (they tell us all to say “Gobba gobba gobba” in hushed tones so that it sounds like we're discussing the events about to take place). And then they shoot the scenes leading up to the execution, where they bring the condemned men up to the scaffold and get shots of their reactions as they struggle to maintain composure in the face of death.

It takes at least two hours to do all of this, so I'm tripping really hard even by that point. And then they're filming the shot of Larry from
Newhart
who wouldn't say his trademark goddam line during the night shoot. He's playing the guy who has to freak out when it truly hits him that he's only got a few minutes left to live (there's always one of them). He's begging them to let him go. He's saying he'll be good, he'll do better if they just give him one more chance. He's too young to die, he screams, as he's wrestled to the ground and blindfolded.

By the time they get all of them on the scaffold, it's well after noon and we're at the peak of our trips. I am more in character now than I've ever been while working on this movie. I imagine the actors as having really committed the acts of treachery and murder that have been depicted earlier in the shoot. My insistence on the gravity of the situation seems to rub off on Splinter and Jonas.

The Acid is doing its job.

We
live
in this world. The cameras have disappeared. It is 1864. We are bedraggled and oppressed prisoners in the shittiest prison ever built. Those assholes on the scaffold have bills to pay. We are, all of us—even the condemned—Union soldiers, and those sons of bitches up there took advantage of the rest of us, killed some of us for the good shoes we had, the salt pork we carried on us when we came through the gates of this godforsaken place. And now they are going to pay for their transgressions with their lives.

The appointed executioner asks them if they have any last words. Only one of them speaks, the ringleader. He's a large man, missing a front tooth. He laughs in the face of death. His laugh sounds just like Victor's. He says he'll see us all in hell.