Carol Got Quiet.
Sometime after we started living with Larry’s brother, Danny started dating Carol, so our minuscule apartment housed four people. Danny and Carol slept together in the kitchen on the fold-out chair that was barely big enough for one person, while Larry and I continued to sleep on the twin bed. All four of us shared the doorless bathroom and the rusty sinks and the dorm-sized fridge. Since it was cold outside and there was no apparent heat inside, I guess we kept each other warm.
Carol was a husky type who never once smiled, her voice loud, low and angry. Her eyes were big and glassy and she always pulled back her stringy hair into a ponytail, making her face seem harsher than it needed to be. She was taller and wider than me, and a little intimidating. But Danny liked her and he was a kind man, so I decided to be grateful for female companionship.
One day Danny and Larry went out to get food or cigarettes or beer, leaving Carol and me alone in the apartment. We hung out on the fold-out chair, which was still folded out like a bed. She was angrily spewing venom about some guys she’d met earlier in the day.
“I don’t have to take none of their shit,” she spat. I didn’t know what she was talking about; I just kept nodding and grunting my agreement.
While still rambling on, Carol casually reached into her purse and pulled out a tiny baggie of something black.
“Ya want some?” she asked.
I had given up marijuana in high school and I sure didn’t want to do opium again. “No thanks,” I said, swigging my drug of choice.
Carol pulled out a small rubber hose from her purse, still talking about the guys she’d met down the street. Then she pulled out a hypodermic needle, a lighter, some foil … I don’t know what all she had in there. But while she talked as casually as could be, she liquified the black stuff and sucked it into the needle.
“Don’t tell Danny,” she said. “He doesn’t like me doin’ this stuff.”
“Okay.” I had no idea what I was not telling him. “What is it?” My voice shook a little.
“Just some H,” she said. “Ya sure you don’t want some?”
“I’m sure, thanks,” I said, scared to death and trying to remain cool.
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” she said, and she plunged the needle into her arm.
I watched her shoot heroin from twelve inches away. There was nowhere for me to go. I had nothing else to do.
Carol got quiet very quickly. There was no more talk about the guys.
“You have no fuckin’ idea what you’re missing,” she said. “You have no ….” And then she stopped talking. She swung her head from side to side slowly, like she was singing some very mellow song inside her brain.
Then she reached for a cigarette. She lit it after 12 tries, then just held it while it burned. She stared at the wall for a very long time.
I wanted so badly to leave.
If this is heroin, I thought, I never, ever want to do heroin.
Carol dated Danny for a very long time, so we lived together for the rest of my college career. I never saw her shoot up again and I never told Danny.
After they broke up, I only saw Carol once, in a bar; she didn’t acknowledge me. I assume she died young.