Needle (44 page)

Yeah, but you’ve been living like a crackhead for years
.

“It doesn’t matter, we’re gonna be famous.”

But you fucked up Catherine’s promotional plans
.

“It doesn’t matter, the cream always rises to the top and besides—we’re gonna be famous.”

One of the best examples of my ability to ignore the gravity of it all occurred in mid-April, when I blew off the community service I was ordered to complete as a result of my arrest on March 1
^st
. To this day, I can’t explain what I was thinking. Perry—of course—warned me, and somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that if I didn’t report to the park they’d eventually come looking for me. But even as a fugitive from justice, I simply spiked a vein and was magically able to look the other way as I reasoned that the police had bigger fish to fry. Within a week, however, a knock at the door was heard, and I was carted away for an impromptu get-together with an irate judge who was floored by what she interpreted as my blatant disregard for the city’s judicial system.

“Alright Mr. Goodman, I don’t know who you
think
you are exactly—but drug addicts are not afforded any special privileges in this courtroom. So let me make this perfectly clear to you: You are hereby sentenced to appear in Central Park on the morning of May 5
^th
to begin three days of community service. This is
not
an option. I strongly suggest you make an appearance because if you don’t, when I see you again you’ll be with us for an extended stay.”

On May 5
^th
I reported to the park where I, along with a crew of mostly addicts, was ordered to “help relocate the park’s homeless campers.” Essentially, this was a euphemism for gathering up their belongings, carting them off to dumpsters, and then re-directing the “campers” to city shelters while they tried to kill you. In order to complete the sentence I had taken three days off from Bella Luna, an Italian restaurant on the Upper West Side, where I was somehow hired immediately following my dismissal from Texas Grill.

After my final hour of executing park evictions, I decided to take advantage of the night off and pay Jeff a visit since I was in the area and hadn’t seen him in months. When I arrived at his building he buzzed me upstairs, and as I entered the apartment I could see he was in the midst of entertaining a very young, very beautiful, Asian woman.

“Hey brother,” Jeff said as I sat down on the couch. “This is Li.”

Li said “Hi” which seemed to be the extent of her English.

“OK, now baby,” Jeff said with more affection than I thought him capable off. “I’ll see you later.”

He then gave her a very tender kiss, walked her out, and then turned to me.

“She is such a cutie, isn’t she?” he asked me.

“Yeah. Why don’t you leave her alone?”

“Why? She really digs me and I think she wants us to spend some time together.”

“Because you ruined Denise’s life and all
she
ever wanted to do was fuck you.”

“Listen,” he said. “Denise is cool and everything and I’m always up for a party and shit, but if I get into a serious relationship there’s only one thing I expect from the other person and
she
just doesn’t have it.”

“Oh, and what’s that, Jeff? A dick?”

“A little self control!” he answered. “You leave to cat-sit and I no sooner get rid of one fucking junky—I’ve got another one on my hands. Only this one can’t even score for herself. Every few days she came over here asking me to cop for her, and then she actually started showing up with her friends! Eventually,
they
all realized what they were getting themselves into and stopped bothering me, but not Denise. I actually had to yell at her and tell her never to come back again. Nothing personal, Craig, but I just can’t have this crazy shit in my life anymore. And besides, you know, I’m more into Asian
chicks.”

“Well, the last time I saw her she was a mess.”

“Hey, man—look, I know,” he said with a sad reflection. “And what’s fucked up about it is that the day you left, I actually decided it was good time to quit using. But about a week after that Denise and I got drunk, and she caught me snorting my leftover stash in the bathroom… And she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Incidentally, a
real
junky would never have “leftover stash in the bathroom,” especially after quitting, which further supported my theory about Jeff’s superhuman immunity to
real
addiction.

“So you gave her a bag of dope?!”

“Not that it’s any of your fucking business, junky, but no—
I didn’t give her a bag of dope!
” he said sounding somewhat offended. “She snatched it out of my hand…which fucking pissed me off because I only had two left and wanted them both for myself.”

“Have you seen her recently?”

“She took-off two weeks ago,” he said as he looked away.

“Where to?”

“Back home to Maryland.”

“Did she get fired from the hospital?”

“I don’t know, man,” he said. “God, I hope not. Everybody already wants to kill me as it is.”

83

On May 10
^th
, Nick was able to secure a freebee at the studio in order for us to finish mixdown. Remarkably, during the previous session and in one of those extremely rare instances of productivity, we managed to mix seven of nine tracks. However, time ran out before we could fully complete “Valentines” and “Living in the Land of the Lilies,” and this next session would clearly be our last opportunity to finish the project. The budget was spent, and Catherine had already scheduled manufacturing processes to begin as the tapes and artwork were due at a company called Ballistic Communications by the following day. Apparently, Catherine was still determined to
have things ready for a promotional campaign, at which point she would attempt to convince college radio stations to include the CD on their playlists. The campaign would commence on June 1
^st
, which was just in the nick-of-time for the CD to be heard by no one as the campuses, dorms, and student unions would already be abandoned for the summer.

Since the session would be complimentary, it would have to occur on a Sunday at midnight. It would also have to forge ahead without the help of Nick, who would be there only long enough to unlock the door and let us in as the graveyard session wouldn’t conclude until well passed his bedtime. Though
I
was free for the evening, Perry was scheduled to work the dinner shift at The Boulevard. Nonetheless, he agreed to meet me at Fast Trax by no later than 12:30 a.m.

I had initially planned on scoring at The Laundromat; however, I was still smarting from the downtown arrest of two months prior, and the recent stint of community service only helped freshen the memory. As a result, at around 7 p.m. I decided to take advantage of the lingering daylight and venture up to Harlem. When I arrived at 125
^th
Street, however, addicts were in the process of going to jail, and with the unexpected police presence I decided to take my chances further south.

I walked over to 111
^th
Street, and the abandoned brownstone looked the same as it did when Perry first introduced me to the location back in October. Unfortunately, after stepping inside the building it didn’t take long to realize that for some reason, the dealer was nowhere to be found. Soon enough, however, a baton-wielding reason came strolling in.

“What the fuck are you doing in here,” the cop said to me and then immediately called for backup.

Think fast, Craig, think fast… But don’t look like your thinking fast
.

“Oh…I’m, uh—looking for maintenance work,” I said as I pretended to peruse several official-looking documents plastered to a wall. “But I can’t find the landlord’s contact information.”

“It’s right there,” the officer said with some suspicion.

“Right where?”

“Right where you’re pretending to look.”

At that precise moment we were interrupted by a very obvious-looking crackhead who was now on a hunt for dope, and happened to have wandered in through a back entrance. His
appearance alone was enough for the cop to pounce, and the moment the wretch was searched, four rocks were quickly uncovered. Even though crack wasn’t sold out of that location, the discovery was sufficient enough to send
both
of us to jail.

“You almost had me fooled there for a minute,” the cop said to me as backup arrived.

I was charged with
trespassing
; however, in order to better justify an arrest he tacked on
intent to purchase illegal narcotics
. Although he was, of course, correct in his assumption, I was offended by the circumstances under which the added allegation was made, which enabled him to send me to jail on a trumped-up charge without a stitch of evidence to support it. There were no dealers in the vicinity, no drugs or needles in my possession, and I’d never been arrested in Harlem before—so why should he automatically assume that my reason for being there was to score? Regardless of the lack of evidence, I was going to jail and as a result would once again be absent from the studio.

Within a few minutes a van loaded with junkies, crackheads, and drug dealers arrived to collect us. As I stepped inside the vehicle, I was surprised to find Crackhead Jim chained to the other “passengers” and sitting on one of the benches that lined either side of the van.

“Dude!” he exclaimed the moment he saw me, and before I could even acknowledge his presence he suddenly spilled his guts with some very disturbing news.

“My girlfriend’s dead,” he told me.

“What do you mean?!?

“What did I just say?!”

“So you’re in here for murder?”

“No, I got busted on 125
^th
.”

“Oh,” I said. “Sorry to hear that—I mean, about your girlfriend. What the fuck happened?”

“She OD’d!” he said as if I should’ve known.

“When?”

“I don’t know,” he said looking at his Swatch. “But I found her about an hour before I got busted.”

Apparently, Crackhead Jim was so grief stricken by the tragic loss of his girlfriend, that he immediately sought comfort in the arms of two rocks and a bag of dope. And rather than first informing the proper authorities about her passing, he instead headed out to score while her body now grew colder and stiffer as he told the tale. Of
course, I’m sure he had some completely fucked up reason for letting her death remain a secret, but I didn’t have the courage to ask.

After checking in at the local precinct, we were then re-loaded onto a van headed for Central Booking. I sat there next to Crackhead Jim, silently cursing the fact that I would be unable to attend mixdown, and noticed a dirty, white, addict sitting across from us and nodding—
and I was jealous as hell
.

“I wish
I
had a chance to tap a vein before
I
got busted,” I mentioned to Crackhead Jim while gesturing to the dope fiend.

“He isn’t nodding,” Jim informed me. “He’s passing out. His mother died last week and he’s been up for five days blowing his inheritance on crack.”

Even so, I thought that unconscious was definitely the way to go.

As the crackhead drifted off, his neck began to slowly bend to the right until his head bobbed just above the shoulder of an already miffed Hispanic drug dealer seated next to him. Fortunately, at the last possible moment before any head-to-shoulder contact was made, an internal alarm would sound and the crackhead’s neck straightened out—but only to begin the sequence anew. After about three or four minutes, however, his warning system began to fail as his neck finally gave way and permitted his head to land gently on the drug dealer’s shoulder. It was actually a very tender moment, especially in a police van, though not everyone seemed to agree.

“Yo—get the fuck offa me muthafucka!” the drug dealer said as he jerked his shoulder upward.

“Oh, shit—I’m sorry,” the roused crackhead said, but within 20 seconds his head was back on the same shoulder.

“I’m not playin’ around witchoo, man!” the dealer warned him. “Get the fuck off me!”

“Oh shit! I’m really sorry, man,
really
sorry,” was again the reply.

Unfortunately, the same thing happened again. This time, however, as contact was made the drug dealer sprung to his feet, and even though our wrists were shackled together he still managed to get off several solid shots to the sleepy crackhead’s face.

My jealousy evaporated.

The sleepy crackhead was now fully revived, as blood started oozing out of several gashes in his cheek and forehead. Though he did his best to minimize the injuries and stop the flow of blood, he met with little success.

After we arrived at Central Booking, a cop opened the back door
of the van and was confronted by a significant amount of blood and the crackhead’s extensive injuries.

“Who did this to you?” the cop asked.

“Nobody.”

“I
know
somebody in there hit you.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

The crackhead knew better than to snitch because even though the cops wouldn’t hesitate to slap the drug dealer with an assault charge, they also wouldn’t hesitate to let him loose in the jail’s general population after doing so.

I was in police custody for about 20 hours before I met my attorney. He was fresh out of law school, principled, and under the misconception that providing me with a competent defense would actually make a difference.

“We shouldn’t plead guilty to any of this,” he said. “They’ve got nothing.”

“Forget about it,” I said with disgust. “It’s not gonna change anything and they’re gonna do what they want anyway. Let me just plead guilty and get this shit over with as quickly as possible.”

“Plead guilty to what?” he asked incredulously. “There were no signs prohibiting anyone from entering the building, there were no drugs or paraphernalia in your possession, and there wasn’t even a dealer on the premises.”

“And your point?”

“My point is that they can’t
prove
anything. We’ll go in there and plead
not guilty
. They’ll schedule a hearing, release you, and then I’ll take care of everything else. Just make sure you show up for court.”