Needle (53 page)

Several hours later, at some point between dusk and dawn of the following day, Perry returned to remove me from my stall. I don’t recall much of his arrival besides being drenched in piss at the time,
and him calling me a cotwetter. I also have no idea how I made it down the steps, nor do I have any recollection of leaving the Whitehouse Hotel. I wish I could remember but I can’t, and I suppose that on some level my unresolved youth still lingers there tainted, toxic, and without closure—like a resentful ghost trapped in a cemetery.

Memories following my departure from the hotel are marked by flashes of disparate scenery: a cab ride in the middle of the night, a grand slip and fall in a public area, Perry, a grassy hill, another public area. By this point, the sum total of my parts amounted to nothing more than a closed pair of eyes that would only occasionally feed information to a brain that didn’t know what to do with it.

At some point I became aware of the fact that I was on a moving bus seated next to Perry, but it would be a while before I was able to put things together. When I did, it was like waking up from a nightmare and realizing it wasn’t a nightmare. As I opened my eyes, I noticed a newspaper resting on Perry’s lap. I don’t recall the headline, but the front page featured a picture of Troy’s father sitting alone on a folding chair at the memorial. He held himself tightly and wore an expression of pure anguish. As I gazed at the picture I became conspicuous by my absence from it. I should have been there weeping with him. It was photographic evidence of what an asshole I was.

“Where are we?” I groggily whispered, as the overly air-conditioned bus continued on through the darkness.

“I think we’re in Virginia,” Perry said.

“Why?”

“Places to go and people to see.”

“Where are we going, Perry?” I asked, growing somewhat agitated.

“Florida!” he said with a big, bright, smile.

“I don’t want to go to Florida.”

“Really??? You were all about it last night.”

“No I was not fucking all about it!!!”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Here…drink this.”

He then once again pulled a bottle of methadone out of his magic hat and handed it to me.

“Here’s to a new start,” he said as I opened the seal. “Bottom’s up!”

“I don’t want a new start.”

“That’s fine—just drink it anyway,” he said with a smile and a
twinkle in his eyes. “Just drink it anyway, Craigie.”

The Aftermath

Initially, when I completed the first draft of NEEDLE, I intended to take this moment to discuss what became a very surreal recovery, which—like purgatory—is a realm of existence that lingers somewhere between two distinctly different worlds. However, whereas addiction is only one degree of separation removed from the chemically independent, recovery is at least two; therefore, it’s impossible to accurately retell the experience in just a few paragraphs. But to be honest, I’m not even sure I ever truly recovered…at least in the clinical sense. In fact, I’m not sure
anyone
can ever truly recover from such a consuming and debilitating affliction—self-imposed or otherwise—and though I’ve managed to mostly abstain from indulging in any further opiate abuse, in a very specific way I believe I’ll miss it for the rest of my life.

When I returned to New York in 2008, so many years after just barely escaping with my life, I confronted my demons in a city that had changed dramatically under an elitist mayor with a hidden agenda; and what was once a place that inspired and supported starving artists as passionately as it did the corporate conquerors that invaded it, had somehow become a platform for avarice and arrogance as Manhattan was finally transformed into its own terrible stereotype. This urban metamorphosis inspired my own transformation, and as the self-installed mayor continued to provide safe harbor and fertile ground for the greedy to exploit the most vulnerable among us, I was consumed by an overwhelming passion to help improve the plight of abused and homeless animals which has become, along with my daughter, the focus of my life.

In 2013, a follow-up to NEEDLE will be available for purchase at
www.NeedleUser.com
, along with some of the music that was so much a part of the story. The sequel will examine the fallout from a
decade of opiate abuse as well as the resulting revelations as I eventually made sense of it all in a city that lost its soul. To be notified when this, the music, or any other future publications become available please visit the website, join us on Facebook (
Craig Jordan Goodman
), follow us on Twitter (
@CraigJGoodman
) or simply send a request to
[email protected]
. And of course, profits from NEEDLE as well as any companion pieces will be used to eliminate animal cruelty and improve the lives of homeless pets, so if you enjoyed the book, please—help spread the word!