I Wanted Drugs Like a Baby Wants Candy.
With therapy included, my weeks now looked something like this:
MONDAY: Get up, kill hangover with a liter of Diet Coke, shower, and put on khakis. Go to a temp job. Drink with Gregg after work until the bars close, have sex and/or pass out.
TUESDAY: Drink a liter of Diet Coke, maybe shower, put on yesterday’s clothes. Go to temp job. Leave at 1:45 for therapy (pre-authorized by the temp job); drive back to work by 3:15. Drink after work with Gregg….
WEDNESDAY-FRIDAY: Same schedule, different day. Drink even more on Friday because, well, it’s Friday.
SATURDAY: Wake up at 10 a.m. and turn on Pee Wee’s Playhouse. Wait patiently for the Penny cartoon. After Gregg rolls a joint and we smoke it, gaze like an insane person at the nuances and brilliance that has been created just for my enjoyment. When My Little Pony comes on afterward, watch it as though it details the deepest secrets of the universe. (It probably does.) After watching TV, take a two-hour nap. Get up and get/do acid, if possible. Do cocaine, if possible. Stay high until well past sunrise on Sunday. (Backup plan if no drugs: drink copious amounts of alcohol until puking/passing out is inevitable.)
SUNDAY: Sleep until well past noon. Send Gregg to 7-11 for Sunday paper with weekly classifieds. Send out cover letters for anything related to television (exceedingly rare). Then go to the bar and drink until it closes.
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Obviously, Saturday was my clear favorite day. I had my own version of a cartoon party, then – on a good day – did acid or cocaine or drank until I dropped.
Some days, there was no acid to be found. Given that it is completely illegal and was incredibly dangerous, it could be hard to find.
But if there was no acid, I would whine like a toddler in the grocery store who’s not allowed to buy a candy bar at checkout.
I wanted drugs like a baby wants candy. And I did whatever I could to get them.
Sometimes Gregg would disappear for a couple of hours, coming back with nothing.
Sometimes we would go together to get drugs by hanging out at the gas station.
Based on Gregg’s latest information, we would walk together to the other side of Swissvale – a mile, maybe two. Then we would stand next to the phone booth at the gas station and wait for whichever drug dealer happened to be “on his way.”
Sometimes we were waiting for LSD, sometimes cocaine, sometimes pot.
We would stand there and watch the cars go by. We’d wait and wait and wait and wait and wait. Sometimes we waited for two, three, even four hours. We’d smoke cigarettes and lean on the phone booth and stare at the cars.
I was like a heroin addict in desperate need of a fix. I’d wait forever, just wishing for the drugs to appear. The only difference between me and any other homeless street junkie is that I still had a place to live.
Sometimes we’d be there for an hour and I’d give up. I’d go to the bar – and Gregg would always tag along. It never occurred to me that Gregg didn’t have an actual deal in place.
Gregg would use the phone on occasion to call the drug dealer. I never talked to the dealers myself, so maybe there was no one on the other end of the phone.
Then, one day, a long black sedan pulled up and a rail-thin, dark-eyed man stepped out to sell us some cocaine.