Saturday, July 10, 2010

My own funeral

MY ALARM shrilled me awake at 7am; I was up by 7:20. Did all the bits I had to e.g. picking up methadone.
At 10:30 my dealer rang me but I ignored him. At 11:00 I rang the dealer using my harshest voice to demand "a decent one, coz they've been getting smaller and smaller" (dealers like to try it on ~ they wanna see how much they can get away with. I had been punishing him by going elsewhere.)
He said yeah yeah and he would be "fifteen minutes" (ie ages), so I took my time getting to the place. At 11:15 I was at da place. Then I sat on a lawn reading my 1943 Kathleen Speight edition Teach Yourself Italian, which I so wasn't in the mood for, but I'd left my German book at home. (I can actually enjoy this German book without constant recourse to a dictionary (though I'm not claiming to know every word) ~ what a wonder that is! I was knocking back white cyder and puffing on cigarettes as I learned to conjugate my verbs. At about 11:45 the dealer showed.
Home by midday. I had one hour clear.
I checked on my clothes, hanging dry from my windows on coathangers (I've nowhere else to dry them). Then I rushed to cook up my hit.
The my first attempt was far too pale in my opinion, though a goodly chunk of "brown" had gone in. The dealer had made good on his promise and sold about six or seven "points", as we say, for £20. (Those are points of a gram ~ five points being half a gram.) Well as I say it looked too pale, so I added more and re-fried. I'd put about a third of a gram into the spoon. With vitamin C it dissolved into half a millilitre of tapwater. The resulting hit was midnight black.
I took this half-millilitre of death-black liquid, dropped my clothes (which also gave relief from the oppressive heat ~ only 31, 32 degrees C but this morning so humid, I looked like I'd showered with my clothes on.)
Afterwards I was trying to remember where I'd banged the hit in, but I couldn't. But it went in directly...
... and knocked me out cold.
Next thing I knew it was 1:45 hours. FIFTEEN MINUTES TO GO. There was absolutely no way I was gonna make this event on time, and crematoria will not put funerals on hold just because some stupid junkie took too much gear to get there on time.
I rushed to the shower and washed my hair. This only took three minutes but when I next checked the clock it was two o'clock.
Knowing I'd missed it I slumped back in my chair of living death and was instantly unconscious. I woke up at 2am.
Y'all can have a go at me if you like. I feel the weight of your disappointment already.
My second thought, after "what the hell have I done to Pinky?" was "what will I say on my blog?"! You see your opinions matter very much.
As I saw it I could:
1: obfuscate ~ give an oblique account of the day. Not lying, but making it seem to the uninformed reader that I'd actually been, even though I hadn't.
2: lie. But the day I start telling lies on my blog is the day I should give up blogging
3: tell the stark truth
So I'm sorry, but this is the truth.
I missed the funeral because I was too stoned on heroin to get there. And there you have it.
Trust me, you won't be any more disappointed in me than I am in myself.

20 comments:

  1. Sorry Gled, but I am disappointed. I thought you were doing better than this?

    Try again. Baby steps. some times the first couple of times are just practice. No loss. Just try again.

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  2. All too predictable Gleds. I could have told you yesterday that you wouldn't have turned up. You didn't NEED the hit after morning meth but took it anyway. As for Pinky, she knows you're a hopeless junkie so probably expected it too. Definitely disappointed but not surprised and pleased you opted for the truth.

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  3. Hi Gled, having relied on mind-altering substances for most of my life I know only too well the lure of temptation. Today is a new day and don't be too hard on yourself.

    I'm aware of your interest in all things German..... there's a mention of Sophie Scholl in my latest blog post if you'd like to have a look.

    Have a good weekend. :)

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  4. U know it's bad so I won't dig the knife in further. I wish you could stop, too much to offer the world. Someone told me a long time ago that one could never depend on an addict. The world is waiting for you...life could be so much better than this.

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  5. Lesley: thank you. Thank you for your sympathy.I'll drop right over & have a peep or a peak, the latter being American. All the best 2 ya :-)

    Elaine: ".... you can never depend on an addicct"..? If so I'm glad I'm an addict but I wish people would make it clearer they barely expect anything of me, it would make certain situations FAR less stressful know what I mean?
    Yeah I know I got more to give and all that. It's a cliche you can say about any addict.
    Then I realized perhaps I really AM special, in my own special way. And I started to realize recently that far from saving my life, heroin is ruining my life...
    :-(

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  6. I also thought that you wouldn't make it, now be furious with you (but without your so said vitamin C) ! Pinky probably hasn't believed either that you would come. She would have done the same as you. Get stoned and stay home. That's much easier.
    I thought for a while you were better, but now I have the feeling that you are back to the future !
    The only person who can get you out of this shit is yourself. But that you know.

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  7. I guess when the easy fix is another hit, then there is no easy fix. What is done is done. You can't kill Perky twice by missing her funeral. You will just have to suck it up and do what you have to do to make it right with Pinky. A face to face apology might be a good start and if that doesn't work then oh well check the box that says I fucked up again and move on. Look the Earth is only going to spin around the sun so many times before it spins no more and none of this will have made a damn bit of difference in the end. We're all just digging in the dirt until we become dirt. How you dig is up to you. Peace.

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  8. Gattina: hmmm. I don't know what Pinky was expecting. I don't think Pinky was too bothered about me or whether I came, she was in such a state before. That's why i want to write her a letter

    Molson: I was going to write Pinky a letter anyway... not so much a letter of apology, but one eulogizing Perky's life, if that's the right expression, and their relationship. And I think that letter will say more than my quiet attendence at a funeral ever could...

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  9. i'm not disappointed in you, i understand fully gleds.

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  10. I am sorry. If you keep this up, though, you are going to be early to your own funeral..... I am paying for you!!!!
    JAN

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  11. I'm sure you'll do a fine job writing the letter to Pinky so it won't be all bad after all. There really isn't much else to be done. Poor Pinky will be all alone regardless and I know what that feels like.

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  12. eeh Gleds you do make life hard fer yersen.

    Write that letter and perhaps hand delivering it to Pinky will give you some peace of mind.

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  13. yes... the letter isn't a letter of apology it's a letter expressing sadness and regret at everything else... I don't know what reason I'm going to give for not going, I might say that I got myself into such a state that I made myself ill, which IS kinda true.... I mean I wouldn't have taken such an enormous hit under ordinary circumstances

    I was gonna use that one about late for mz own funeral meself but you got there 1st Jan ;-)

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  14. ... no, I know it's not a letter of apology, you'll know what to say, but if she's close enough for you to hand deliver it then do so.

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  15. I am sorry that you shot up. Whether you missed the funeral or not doesn't really bother me. It's the near death stuff that you are playing with by shooting up. My hope is for you to live. I don't want to come here some day and see the clock stopped with no more posts. That's my concern.

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  16. It is what it is. It's what junkies do. In the end, that's all that it is. Not that I'm some shining beacon of druggy excellence, but I've found that heroin seems to make impressively great at fucking up important shit. My ex missed his own sister's wedding because he was high.

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  17. I can't be disappointed in anybody who is honest. You may have disappointed yourself, but you did not disappoint me. You can't change the past, only do better in the future.

    You are loved.

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  18. I'm not disappointed as well. It's not like you passed out on purpose for that long. And i can relate to having to shoot up right the fuck now, even if it's not really necessary. Especially before a sad event like a funeral of a dear friend. I guess it sounds crazy for a person that doesn't know about addiction for him/herself.

    Writing the letter is a great idea btw.

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