Imagine My Surprise! (34)

In which Kurt takes back control…before the inevitable.

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34. Last Rite

Imagine my surprise when I found myself, one day, clean of heroin.

I couldn’t and didn’t say I wasn’t an addict anymore. But on Chris Feist’s birthday, January 22nd, I had no heroin in my veins and hadn’t for 21 days. I felt alert, alive, healthy and clear — which was always how Sober January went. And like previous, countless, Sober Januarys, I would soon grow bored of total sobriety. I didn’t hit the booze too hard, either, and had mostly even stayed off the blow. Brian’s suggestion that the crew had gotten sloppy during my absence had made up my mind that I was going to re-take the helm captaining the ship. A look at the books and Franks’ sloppy, amateurish attempt at keeping them straight, strengthened this decision.

So, there we were again — the gang — in the dining room, the crew command center, Franks, Poins, August and I sitting around the table, everyone with beers, music playing in the background, and no pile of coke. This was the first time Franks and Poindexter had seen me for a couple weeks and I’d put on over ten pounds of healthy weight. The color in my unsunken cheeks had returned.

Uncharacteristically, it was Poins, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with his protégé August, was first to comment: “Hey, Kurt, you look like your old self, man.” He said this with an expression that said, oh, great.

“You look better than ever, literally,” August commented.

I could tell Franks had rehearsed a number of reactions and responses that were ready depending on the context of the moment. He said, “You do look great, Kurt. Better than a long time. Let’s try to keep you healthy.” I interpreted this as, You may look better, but let’s take your recovery slowly and with a grain of salt. Please don’t take my power away.

But I was definitely there to take his power away.

“Let’s have a cheers to my full recovery.” I stood and extended my beer bottle, clinking it against theirs; they seemed not quite as enthusiastic as me.

“Excuse me,” Franks said. “What the fuck are we listening to?”

“Pretty chill, huh?” I replied.

“Iron and Wine,” August said. “My parents listen to this stuff.”

“It’s shite,” Franks said.

“Whatever,” I said, “I find it relaxing.”

“Okay, gramps,” he jeered.

“What the fuck?”

I looked at Poins. He shrugged. August was about to say something when Poins stopped him with a smack to the shoulder.

“I’m kidding, man,” Franks relented. “It’s fine. Just not like you. You’re usually more of a Rage-Against-the-Machine-Alice-in-Chains kinda guy.”

“I still am. I just thought this would be more soothing. Can we please stay on fucking topic?”

“Easy, man. By the way, what is the topic?”

“The topic is — I’m coming back and taking full reigns of the business again.”

Silence. Poins and August looked at Franks, who stared at me in what I think he supposed was sober acceptance but clearly read as suppressed frustration.

“Cool,” he responded carefully. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

“Well, ready or not, I think I need to. Now — Franks — I am very appreciative of you taking the wheel when we needed you, and for the most part I think you held it together. Sales are better than ever.” My voice sounded level and annoyingly corporate. “To that point, I think that’s where your strengths lie — in sales.”

August laughed. “Classic. You totally sound like HR right now.” His grin vanished when he saw Poins didn’t find it amusing.

“Well, in a way, August is onto something,” I continued. “I think the bookkeeping portion got away from you, Franks.”

“All the money is there, Kurt. And more. I don’t see the problem.”

“The expected ROI is indeed reflected in the bank account, but how we got there is poorly documented.”

Franks scoffed, “I don’t know what you mean. Can I get some whiskey?”

“Be my guest. Pour us all some.” I paused, then continued unemotionally, “And yes, it’s evident that you literally don’t know what I mean.”

“Look, I told you I have a hard time with all this bookkeeping stuff. What’s important is that all the money is back in the bank with a little bit extra.” He lifted his shot glass, “Here’s to the return of Kurt, the micromanager.” I was the last to lift my glass.

“Funny.” We clinked glasses and drank. “You can still run the sales crew, Franks.”

“Goddamn it, Kurt — you know I can’t show my face around town. They’re still looking for the Irishman!”

“I understand that you are a criminal superstar, Irish Guy. You should continue to keep your head low for another three months. That’s really not that long. And I want you to add another person. But I have to interview. August here was a perfect addition. Let’s stay in that vein.”

“Thanks for saying so, Kurt,” August said brightly.

Franks said, “Well, I still don’t think it’s a good idea for you to have a shitload of heroin in the house.” He was stalling about the heroin, which made me nervous. But he also had a point. Was I ready?

“Give me a few days to make sure my head is on straight. Say, Saturday. I won’t give you hell if the supply is in shambles. You did your best and … well, the money is all there.”

Poins was a hard one to read, but watching him, I could definitely tell there was turbulence under his stony facade. August didn’t give a shit; he actually seemed genuinely happy to have this new Kurt in charge. Franks was doing his best to roll with it. He sighed and poured us another round.

“Alright, well, what’s most important is that Kurt is off the horse and back in business. Slainté!”

The ease with which this transition occurred was unsettling. I had the feeling my sobriety was getting in the way of their scheming. Their acquiescence was forced, reluctant. I let it all roll, but with my eyes wide open.

~~•~~

On January 25th, the day before my birthday, Franks came to the door with a backpack loosely slung over his shoulder. He was alone.

He took off his yellow sunglasses. “Here I am, as promised.”

I ushered him inside, glancing around the stoop outside for Poins before closing the door. Joplin, seeing Franks, followed us back to my study. He brought out a gray lockbox and set it on my desk.

He sunk into the teal accent chair across from the desk. A digital scale waited there next to my laptop, spreadsheet ready. I think somewhere in my subconscious, the fact that I treated my criminal activity like a business made it somehow less sinful. I opened the gray lockbox, taking account.

I put the heroin on the scale and eyed it. And eyed it. I sat down. It was a shimmering, sexy white pile. It was a thing of beauty. The heroin was as pretty and inviting as a cunt in a skin magazine. Glancing up, I saw Frank was watching my face, my wanton face.

He tried not to smile as he said, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah…well,” I licked my lips. “You did some good business. We’ll have to re-up. Can you at least give me the shorthand of how it was distributed?” I sat at my desk, ready to input his account. But the heroin was a porn star with her legs spread asking me to fuck it, fuck it hard it was so horny oh please just give it to me stick it in I need your cock so bad please fuck me hard.

Franks said, “So…I divided it up between Poins and August, two ounces a week each to start. I think that was near the beginning of January…” It was hard to concentrate on Franks’ words because the heroin was talking dirty to me.

C’mon, Kurt, how can you just let me lie here like this with my pussy so wet? You’ll just slide right in, no one has to know. I’m in fucking heat and need to feel you inside me. You can do me any way you want…I swear if you even fucking touch me I’m going to cum, I’m going to squirt all over the place you’re so fucking hot, please.

“…And that was all in one lump, see, because he was going to Reno for a convention and he knew some people up there…Kurt?”

I snapped back. “Well, shit. Look, we can’t do business like that, Franks. That’s why I’m taking it back.” I stood up and scooped the heroin back into its plastic bag, careful to scrape every grain of dust back in, then I sealed it, put it in the gray box, locked it, opened the safe, put it in, shut and locked the heavy iron door…but I could still hear the heroin’s muffled, agonized need for sexual release groaning from inside the safe.

I composed myself. Or so I thought.

“Hey, man, you look a little … I dunno … you okay?”

“Yeah…hey, look, I got some stuff to take care of…you need to re-up or anything?”

“No, I think we’re good.”

I walked him hurriedly to the door. He said, “So…isn’t your birthday tomorrow?”

I had totally forgotten. For exactly the length of time since the heroin had arrived.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Whatcha gonna do?”

“Hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Maybe I’ll drop by with a bottle or something.”

This in itself was an odd thing for him to offer, but I said, “Um, sure, okay.”

When Franks left, I went straight for the whiskey. I was strong enough — just — to not go for that slutty heroin. What I did was smoke through a pack of cigarettes and finish the whiskey. When I woke up, it was my birthday.

~~•~~

In the morning, Joplin, her bad fluffy self, was curled up on the wedge of the pillow next to me, purring low in her sleep. I sunk my nose into her fur; she had this delicious smell. I can smell it now in my memory as I record this. Etched indelibly in my brain, along with my mom’s, and Dolly’s. Limbic memories followed me across plains of the living.

That last morning, I was alone in the house. Or so I thought. But actually, I could hear someone else — something else — downstairs, coming from my study, moaning for release. It was that whore, heroin. So, I turned on the stereo and pumped heavy metal at high volume all through the house. It was almost noon, so I made a massive egg scramble and popped open a beer.

My phone buzzed with birthday texts that I didn’t answer. I walked listlessly from room to room, the music volume obliterating everything. Joplin followed me around, like she knew I needed company. Oh, Joplin.

After a while, I switched from the beer to making fancy cocktails, a stalling technique to avoid going into straight whiskey drinking. I made a margarita on the rocks. I kept a burning cigarette nearby, whether I smoked it or not. It was clearly time to bust out the cocaine. Fortunately, I didn’t have to go to the drug safe to do that as I had returned to the habit of having the house stash in the wooden box in the middle of the dining table. As I cut myself a line, it was only then that I finally realized that the music was too fucking loud and had been blasting for hours. I turned it off.

The silence was alarming.

I remember this rant, this dialectic fugue I had with myself, and I understand now that I’d kind of flipped my lid under the influence of coke, alcohol and the still-firm grip of heroin’s slutty ghost; also, that landmark 50th birthday, also how stuck I was, also the subconscious knowledge of my epic failure as a human — all haunting me into the rambling speech I made to no one as I lurched from room to room.

I got my biggest suitcase from the garage and brought it upstairs. I remember Joplin following me, and I think I was responding to questions or accusations the cat was having of me. I was speaking loudly, to drown out the orgasmic wails coming from my drug safe.

I’ll try to recreate the rant, which is oddly clear in my head.

It started as though I was already in conversation:

“I’m not guilty of shit. What I am is awake…for the first time in a while. It’s all bullshit. Bloody bullshit.” I threw socks and boxers into the open suitcase on my bed. I trudged downstairs to hit the blow and the bourbon again. I was taking the bourbon straight now. “Your despair?! You die, you fucking bitch!” The cat stood her ground and rubbed against my leg. Why was I packing? Where was I going?

“Yeah, maybe I’m running from myself, so what? I’m out of here. If I don’t, I will take revenge upon myself.” Then I was in my bathroom loading up my old leather shaving kit. Excedrin PMs, Q-Tips, and expired contact lens packs, as I ranted at the mirror.

“God, I love myself. This is my problem. I love myself too much. But I’ve created a life that is loathsome. How can I love myself in a world I hate? I did this all to myself.”

In the bedroom, Joplin lay on the pillow, accusing me with one eye. Somebody was downstairs. Somebody was fucking in my study? Dolly?

“It’s not love. It’s not love — it’s hate. Because I’ve always said this: you can’t truly hate something you haven’t loved. Hate is a power of emotional investment that inhabits the same space as love. How can I love my hateful deeds? How can I do such hateful things if I truly love myself?”

I packed my green retro sharkskin suit, the one with the crotch ripped out and repaired. I wore that outfit in Amsterdam, during a 24-layover fiasco, replete with Arab grifters, and the British whore and her daughter; I almost dumped their pimp off the bridge. Was I going to Amsterdam?

“I’m the bad guy. I’m the villain. Hero? But that’s a lie. Villain or hero, both are flattery.

“My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,

“And every tongue brings in a several tale,

“And every tale condemns me for a villain.”

A-ha! During my detox, I read Shakespeare’s Richard III. I was Richard the Third, King of England, and Joplin was all the ghosts haunting me.

I looked at her and said, “I shall despair.”

That’s when the doorbell rang. And rang.

I looked over and Joplin was gone. All was quiet in the house except the echo of the doorbell in my head. There was a glass of water on the nightstand. Somewhere in that psychotic episode I had switched to water in a moment of harm-reduction clarity. The doorbell rang again. I went to the window and looked down at the front stoop, and there was Franks, looking up and waving at me with flowers in one hand and a bottle of expensive bourbon in the other.

Goddamn. What had I been doing? On the way downstairs, I looked in the mirror and saw that I’d changed into something semi-formal: dark gray Armani slacks and a rich, buff-satiny blue Brunello Cucinelli button-down. When had I changed? When had I shaved my week’s beard growth into a fucking goatee? Why would I even do that?

Everything looked in order as I crossed through the house on the way to the door. I had tidied up.

“Happy birthday, motherfucker!” Franks said when I answered the door.

“Uh, hey…did you phone?” I was a little glad to see him actually, but it was weird. Him and I hadn’t hung out one-on-one for years.

“I called and texted you like five times. But I said I was gonna come over yesterday. Is it okay? Look!” He brandished his bottle of bourbon. “And I brought you these!” He pushed forward a bouquet of wilting drugstore flowers. That was actually funny.

“Okay. Get in here, you fucking Mick.”

So, he came inside and took note of the place appreciatively, and also the broken pile of coke on the dining table. “I see you started without me.” He put the bourbon on the table and turned to me. “Let me see you.” He grabbed my elbow and confronted me, giving me the up-and-down. “Are you going somewhere? You look all…you look cleaned up.”

“It’s my birthday,” was all that came out.

He continued to study me. “Well, you’re half-loaded but I see you haven’t got into the smack. Good man! I won my bet with PD. You have a vase?”

We sat at the table pouring this extraordinary bourbon for each other. The cheap daisies graced the centerpiece. We did some lines. I felt the clearest I had all day. We talked.

Franks began, “My Da used to fancy himself a hardcore republican, member of Sinn Fein, knew fellas in the ‘RA. Of course we were like two hours from the border and we didn’t even have family in the North, so it always seemed like a bit of fantasy that he was so patriotic about Ireland. But on that fiftieth birthday of his, he and the boys got very drunk and decided that they were going to start some shit up at the border near Monaghan. They got themselves so worked up. They piled into the car and sang football hymns — soccer songs — all the way to Monaghan. And they ran out of gas.”

“Sounds like good luck to me.”

“Well, you see, back then, all the roads in Ireland, even the biggest ones, were just wide two-lane roads. It’s different than out here. You overtake, er…pass, people on the shoulder. So, these boys ran out of gas about two kilometers short of the border, dead in the street, and Dad jumped out of the car and was immediately hit by a bakery truck and killed. I was ten years old.”

I was so used to Franks joking around — he was never serious — that I waited for the punchline. But that was it. I said, “Well, that’s a fucking sad story.”

“It’s the only turning-fifty story I know.” He smiled and lit two cigarettes, one for me. “So, I’m going to let you go to wherever you were off to, but I have this last present that you can do whatever you want with.”

Franks dug into his coat on the back of the chair and came out with a small zippered works kit, one much like I used to have. A kit for shooting dope.

“I got this back in December before you decided to kick, but it’s so good that I didn’t want to not give it to you. You seem like you can at least safely keep it and get rid of it.” He unzipped the bag and broke it open showing two sealed syringes, spoon, cotton, rubber, water bottle, lighter, alcohol swab and vile of white powder. “You can probably sell it. It’s only a gram but it cost me $300. Afghani Khost Blond. They call it Ghost Blonde. You know I’m not on the shit, but I gave it a little blast and it was pretty unbelievable. If you want me to take it with me, it’s cool. Just thought I’d give you the choice.”

I looked at it and immediately said, “Nah.”

He started to zip it up again when Ghost Blond screamed at me, “NO PLEASE FUCK ME FUCK ME FUCK ME!!!”

As casually as possible, I said, “Well, hold it. I know a guy who’d love this. I’ll give it to him as a present.”

Franks looked at me. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re going to be okay?”

“Yeah, man. I’m good. I just made it all night with an ounce of the shit in my safe. Never touched it.”

“Fair enough.”

He slid it over and put on his coat. “Well, I must be off, sir. I’ll leave the bottle for you to finish. Happy Birthday.”

I walked Franks to the door and he turned one last time, started to say something then said, “Never mind. See you, big man. Happy birthday.”

So, I closed the door and locked it.

I got the bourbon and the leather kit bag and went into the living room with its big bay window overlooking downtown San Francisco. The sun was just going down and was shooting molten rays off the skyscraper windows like a broken disco ball, scattering and shifting sharp diamonds as the sun fell below the horizon. The building lights blinked awake one by one at the coming darkness.

Joplin was on the arm of the sofa, kneading it. That spot was hers and the black leather was long ruined by her claws. Punctured away, like a thousand needles stabbing into skin for a decade.

She meowed her scratchy meow at me. I gazed at the heroin kit on the coffee table, reached over and unzipped it.

Fuck me.

I looked over at Joplin and said, “One more time around the block. Whadaya say, Jops?”