A few things have happened since I last sat down to tap away.
On Tuesday night, I received a call from D up in Rocky. "M has just swallowed 500 bucks of gear, and thinks he's dying. I don't know why he rang me, what can I do?"
Confused first stories, the initial misinformation and speculation that accompanies bad news. We thought there'd been some raid and M had swallowed his score, we though everything. I promised to head out to Hamilton to pick him up and take him to a hospital. I started to gather my things together. It was day three without gabo, and I'd had some vals to help hang on to my placid world view, so it took a few minutes to collect my extremities.
I then received another call from Rocky. "His brother's picking him up and taking him to hospital."
I said I'd chase it up in an hour by ringing M and checking he was okay, and after a few pleasantries "I've been meaning to call you..." we disconnected.
An hour later, I had just run over S's foot with my big car, and was busy administering platitudes when the phone rang. M.
"I don't wanna go to hospital, I feel fine."
Two minutes later, his brother, a non-user (but amazingly understanding) rang me - "I'm bringing him to your place, is this okay?"
I said that was fine. Hadn't talked to M since a spat a month ago when I repaid him some borrowed dosh two days late. Although a small amount and not very late, it would have been enough to help him shop, so the sickness he experienced he attributed to myself (I imagine) and things had deteriorated between us. Relationships between junkies are often on a knife-edge, like any relationship in a stressful situation, and more often than not financial affairs are the trigger to full-scale hostilities.
Nothing like a life-threatening incident to wash away the shallow reef between us.
He came over, I played nursemaid, walking with him down to the shop when he started to get droopy, always with a view to doing a ten minute dash to the PA if he became unconscious. But we did the maths, taking into account the gut-barrier's reduction on the efficacy of gear (I use a 2/3 figure - if you swallow $100 of gear, 2/3 of it gets lost passing through the blood-gut barrier so it's like banging up $33).And M had added his own math in, to say that this special brew of gear he'd swallowed would have acetylated (?) to morphine immediately so that was another 50% reduction.
So on a $500 swallow we came up with him getting $80 of effect, roughly ($500 X 1/2 X 1/3). And that's what it seemed like. Droopy and noddy, but nothing amazing. I think it may have lasted longer as there would have been a percolating effect. Although the gear was swallowed as a powder so there was no packaging to slow dispersal. Maybe it was just wishful thinking on our behalf, so we didn't see M wasting his entire paypacket for a middling shot.
It was his birthday that Friday, hence the big buy. No junkie worth their salt could stand the thought of going through a birthday straight. I mean, it's taken me seven hard years to reconcile to the thought of going through a perfectly normal day without a shot, so birthdays are an essential. Followed closely by Christmas and other family-oriented events (Just saw my sis last night, had 2 shots instead of the usual one, and the gear had improved, so I was quite happy.
I talked to them like a fool for hours on the marvels of the Rustock.C rootkit and the McColo C&C centre shutdown's effect on world spam levels. Riveting stuff.)
It all turned out okay with M in the end, I stayed up till around one half dozing and his brother kept in contact by phone. I know to me it was not such an amazing event, but it does highlight the side-effects of making a substance that people are dependent upon illegal - a person will risk their life to avoid arrest. If gear was treated purely as a health issue, M would not have been placed in the dangerous situation he was paced in, and the risk to his life would not have .happened,
***
Anyway it's a few days later. Another weekend has ended and I have spent every cent I had, again. This is despite me having gone into the weekend with a plan/desire/hopeless wish to use on payday but not on Saturday. Instead I used on Friday, again on Friday (when I was at the family), again on Saturday and again on Sunday.
My 'new' car just bunny-hopped out of petrol a couple of kilometres short of the point I thought I'd run out at. Looks like I am back on the bus this week. A fortnight ago I train-travelled for a week as I had a flat battery. No matter how good people are to you (buying you cars etc), if you're a junkie you fall over the most insignificant obstacles. You can't run a car with no cash - sure the lack of maintenance and services will kill it in a year, but you don't go a week when you have no petrol.
My last shot at 2pm also used up any grocery money I had, which isn't so bad as it forces me to be a little inventive with my cooking. Who'd have thought you could make a meal from artichoke hearts and water chestnuts? All the accessory type foodstuffs when added together turn into just as much food as spaghetti if you're determined enough.
So, I haven't much to say , have I. Just the usual misery diary. "I'm broke, I'm a junkie, wah wah wah"
I guess I have slowly realised I have two choices in life. Walk around the rest of my life saying "Hey I have all this potential inside me, anytime I want I could become an awesome person." And use that as my excuse to do nothing, to meander. Or to accept that the only moment I have in my life is this moment, and that all the imagined potential in my head is chaff in the wind.
But as usual, so easy for me to philosophise whilst stoned, and another thing to act when I'm straight, cashed up, and in easy reach of more gear.