21
ANDY
The man stood, brushed by Andy, and disappeared behind him for about a minute. When he returned, he was holding a spoon, two needles, a length of rubber cord, and a lighter. He set all five on the table beside Andy and settled back in his chair.
“Do you recognize those things?”
Andy shook his head.
“Let me rephrase. I know you’ve never seen those particular items before, but do you know what they are?”
A clammy sweat broke out on Andy’s skin.
He was no stranger to a heroin kit; he had lived on the streets for a good portion of his life.
He hadn’t expected to see one here. Wherever here was.
Although his mouth and throat were both horribly dry, he felt saliva form in the back of his throat, thick and warm. Andy swallowed and nearly choked on it.
The recognition must have been visible in his face because the man went on before Andy could respond, disdain entering his voice.
“I must admit, I cheated a bit. One of those needles contains pharmaceutical grade heroin. I was a little squeamish about heating raw powder in the spoon and drawing the dose the old-fashioned way. The way most likely familiar to you. It seemed too easy to get the dosage wrong with such an archaic method, and in my profession, it’s best to be precise.
It’s surprisingly easy to obtain pharmaceutical grade products when you know who to call. ”
Andy was confused. “You said ‘one of the needles’ contains pharmaceutical grade. What’s in the other one?”
The man went quiet at that. There was only a brief grin before that, too, was gone. He settled back in his chair and appeared to study Andy. He looked at him like some kind of exhibit in the museum. But he didn’t answer the question.
To Andy, the contents of both needles appeared the same.
The liquid was tan in color, not brown. Neither looked like some of the sludge Andy had seen on the streets.
The plastic of the needles was this flawless white.
No smudge marks from dirty fingers. No nicks or scratches from years of repeated use.
Both looked unused, as if removed from their packaging with gloved hands. Clean. Fresh.
Inviting.
Tasty.
The words popped into Andy’s head from some unknown place, just a whisper, and with them came a thump in his chest. The stir of a craving, a need, a want.
“Interesting . . .” the man said before scribbling something on his pad.
“What?”
“The Pavlovian reaction.” He looked up at Andy with this smug face, like Andy should know what that meant. Then he said, “When was the last time you did heroin?”
Andy nearly told him he’d never done heroin.
Never ever. He was practiced in saying exactly that whenever asked by a doctor, counselor, cop, or even Stash.
He didn’t lie to Stash about nothing else, but before the words could come from his mouth, he pulled them back.
This guy didn’t seem to ask questions unless he already knew the answer, and Andy was quickly beginning to understand that lying was akin to digging a deeper hole.
“About two weeks ago. Ruddy, Lisco, and me scored a bindle. We partied in an abandoned house off Reid for a couple of days. No big deal.”
“No big deal,” the man repeated, nodding at this. His pen flicked on the paper with what looked like a check mark. “Aside from heroin, what other drugs have you done?”
“None.”
Andy spat out the word quickly, and it wasn’t a lie.
He was kinda proud of that fact. He’d been around coke, pot, uppers, downers, and just about everything in between, and he never did one of them.
Not once. Even that time Ebby had those tabs of molly.
He might’ve gotten a hand job out of her if he’d done it, but he hadn’t. Boy, was she pissed.
From inside its bowl, the rabbit’s curious face was pressed to the glass as it tried to get a good sniff of the new items on the table.
“Prior to this time with Ruddy and Lisco, how many other times have you used heroin?”
“That was my first time.”
Again, the man nodded knowingly, retrieved another folder from his desk, and opened it on his knee. “Two weeks ago. And you’re fifteen years old, right?”
Andy nodded.
“Would it interest you to learn the first time your mother used heroin, she was also fifteen?”
Andy had never heard that before, but it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing you talked to your Moms about around the dinner table. He knew Moms grew up rough, no different than him.
The man continued, “At fifteen years old, your mother was brought into the MUSC emergency room at a little after midnight on a Saturday with an apparent overdose. Well, I’m using the term ‘brought in’ rather loosely.
She was left on a bench outside the ER door.
Nobody got a look at the person or persons who dropped her there.
It was a good thing they did, though, because according to the attending physician, the heroin she’d injected was laced with fentanyl—a rather new compound back then, much more powerful.
She was unconscious, unresponsive, with shallow breathing.
One of the notes here says her skin had turned blue.
Once she was stabilized and identified, her caseworker tried to speak to her.
She didn’t say much, wouldn’t even admit to doing the drug, even though it was right there in her tox screen.
You’d think finding yourself in the emergency room on your deathbed would be enough to scare her from ever considering the use of that drug, but she was brought back into the same emergency room not two weeks later for her second overdose.
That time, it had happened while she was entertaining a ‘male friend,’ and while that male friend made no mention of the exchange of funds while talking to the police, the facts were obvious to everyone.
He told the police she had brought the drugs; he insisted he didn’t even know she had them until she shot up.
Whether or not that was true is anyone’s guess.
The point of all this is quite clear—once she had her first taste, she was hooked. ”
“Well, I’m not,” Andy insisted. “Just because I did it once doesn’t mean I’ll do it again. I was just experimenting.”
“Let’s be clear—the instance you’ve described was not your first taste. Your first taste came through your mother’s breast milk as an infant. What I’m honestly curious about is how you managed to stay clean from the age of two through fifteen. That is, if you in fact did stay clean.”
“I never touched the stuff before that time, honest.”
The man licked his lips. “I believe you, Andy. I believe you never touched the stuff prior to that time. What I don’t believe is that you didn’t want to.”
“I didn’t—”
“You’ve somehow found it within yourself to be honest with me, Andy. Honest up until now. Let’s not backpedal on that. When you injected yourself, did you find a vein in your arm or did you insert the needle between your toes? That was your mother’s preferred location.”
Andy mumbled a reply.
“Speak up, please . . .”
“Toes.”
“Because, like your mother, you sell your body for sex and visible needle marks are bad for business, correct?”
“Yeah.”
Andy’s gaze had drifted back to the two needles.
What he felt inside couldn’t be described as a craving; that was too soft a word.
The liquid looked so pure. He didn’t see a single particle floating in it, and Ruddy had told him no matter how much you heat it up, it was nearly impossible to get it to liquefy completely.
Pharmaceutical grade meant it was created in a lab by people in white coats with degrees covering their walls, using the best equipment under the most ideal circumstances.
He knew from friends that medical marijuana was far better than what could be found on the street.
He could only imagine what pharmaceutical grade heroin was like.
The man clapped his hands together. One time. Hard. Loud.
Clap!
Andy’s head twisted back around in one quick motion, and he instantly regretted it.
The headache from lack of water had only grown worse, and the sudden movement felt like a brick slamming into his temple.
The pain behind his eyes was even worse.
He pinched them shut and waited for it to return to a dull throb before opening them again.
“Dehydration appears to have gotten a strong foothold. Are you hallucinating yet?” He glanced at the monitor over Andy’s shoulder.
“Your heart rate is one-thirteen, and blood pressure has dropped off further.” He stood and checked the ropes securing Andy to the chair, tightening up each of them.
“It’s important you remain immobile. I’d hate to see you injure yourself when the seizures start. ”
Andy’s tongue rolled over his dry, cracked lips. “Let me have a little bit of water. Just a little.”
The man eyed him for a moment before reaching for the glass. “This water?”
Condensation had formed on the sides. It dripped and puddled on the man’s hand. His skin glistened.
Andy nodded. Slow this time, mindful of the headache.
The man returned the glass to the table. Closer to Andy than it had been before, but still out of reach. “Not yet.”
“You fucking bastard.”
He took a moment to slide his fingertip down the length of each needle. He repositioned them so they were aligned perfectly straight with the bit of the drill, then returned to his chair. “You asked what was in the second needle.”
“I don’t give a shit what’s in either needle. I’m done with your little game until you let me have some water!”
“As I told you, one needle contains pharmaceutical grade heroin. No doubt the best high you will ever experience. The second needle contains a lethal dose of fentanyl, the drug I mentioned with respect to your mother.” He said all this calmly, his voice clinical in its flatness.
“Obviously, I won’t tell you which is which.
There’s no fun in that. You may have that entire glass of water after you select which needle I will inject into your vein.
Your arm this time. No need to hide this one. ”
“I won’t do that.”
“No? The sweat on your brow says otherwise. The way your eyes keep dancing over those needles and the water says otherwise.” He nodded at the display behind Andy’s shoulder.
“Even your vitals betray you. Every time I say the words heroin or water, there’s a visible spike in your heart rate.
You can claim abstinence as long as you’d like, but we both know how bad you want the items on that table.
We both know you’ll eventually give in to your urges.
When is the real question. But even there, we have all the time. ”