the truth in the lie

“There comes a time when every kid peeks behind the curtain and sees she’s not the only one putting on a show. Fathers, mothers, cops and robbers… every member of the PTA, all playing dress-up… all in their masks: The constant Halloween. That first peek behind the curtain… the lifting of the mask, it’s a disorienting moment. The solid ground beneath you slips away to quicksand. Along with all you thought you knew. But you realize, as days and nights go by, that there’s a kind of truth in the lie… that the mask is often more revealing than the face that lies beneath… that because the person that you pretended to be (the mother, the father, the sister, the cop) became, somehow, the person that you are.” -In Plain Sight

It’s not that straight-forward… it’s not as discontinuous as a mask can provide. But it applies. I remember being obsessed with the notion that no one could ever really know any one else. …that no one could ever see all sides of another person and that the lens used to view would always have a neutral density subjective filter placed upon it. In fact, I wrote my first screenplay based on moments witnessed… pieces of the puzzle of who a person may or may not be. Put it together… figure it out. Or not.

I’m sure this isn’t a unique experience by any means, but at that time (and for years following), I felt the invincibility of my person. But more importantly, no obligation to “be something”. It is personal freedom to the highest caliber. Left with no burden to even exist at all. I can’t be sure why I felt so safe sticking needles with stimulants in my veins. But that’s not true, either. I guess that I believed nothing certain about myself except for my invincibility. My ability to, for lack of a better term, stand outside of all experience and observe. Rendering all of my actions, merely actions. Needles and coke and meth and ecstacy and dilaudid… anything, by this definition became things that couldn’t touch me because it was impossible.

And somehow, everyone else was so subjective that everything that they did affected them. They were fully-formed human beings with very strong views on character and people. …fully-formed human beings, unchangeable but affect-able.

And in this manner, as well, I was not a drug addict. I was a person that performed an action. Buying and doing drugs is the same as going to Rite Aid for eyeliner and walking across 23rd Street to work. Even, level… the same.

This is why I hold this time in such high regard. I created a way in which I could do anything. And I did. The error in this manner of thinking is that one is not invincible. And though it makes it completely possible to do everything and chalk it up to an “action”; though there may be no burden to exist or be something, every action will and does affect the person that you are. As under-developed it is or as much as one has created a mechanism wherein they can deny the existence of it at all. Everything affects one… you… something, because, like the rest of the human race, you are a person.

I didn’t think of myself a drug addict for a very long time. And then, I secretly (or not) reveled in the idea that I might be one. And then, I held onto the definition for dear life as one of the most important components of who I, as a person, am. Basically, I accepted a certain version of day-to-day reality. Age, evolution and the fact that to “be something” is now an obligation. And though it took that “decade under the influence” and longer, even… it feels more like a swift, half pirouette. Where my head has snapped, more quickly than the eye could detect, to a position exactly opposite of where it was half a second ago.

And though I’ve always been able to hide it well… I felt that I was internally, somehow (and inconsistent with everything I’ve said here) inherently, a drug user. Furthermore, I was a person… subject to all the personal consequences of action and experience.

And there you go.

Now what?

This is the grey zone. Because I was always a functional this or that and because I didn’t technically make a statement to the effect of “I’m not doing drugs anymore”… because I’m not in recovery… because I still drink; I felt things hadn’t changed enough. Fuck, who even knew that I was a heavy drug user to begin with to know that I stopped using drugs at all?

Furthermore, I didn’t make this decision.

In a way, you could say that my actions made the decision and I carried-out my actions. But, it’s not that simple. Even a month or so prior to this time, if my dealer had up-and-disappeared (as was the case), I would have gone scouring Los Angeles for meth. And I would have found some. I had, I believe 5 separate meth dealers as detailed in The Bus Ramblings… in Los Angeles in roughly 2 years. Only Frank in NY (and he wasn’t just meth… and that spanned atleast double the aforementioned time). But this time, in LA, I was just over it, somehow. But also, I can probably also attribute maybe 75% of the “just over it” to the quality of crap-ass meth that I was getting.

None of this matters, of course. And though I finally felt a pathetic-ness of being a drug addict, there was a HUGE-ass part of me that reveled in drug culture, drug experience, drug everything. I was just now aware of just how much I couldn’t talk about it. And without the drugs to make me forget about this whole thing, felt exceedingly stifled. And not only this… but because I had krazy-glued this notion of myself as a drug person into my fiber… I felt like a fraud; a liar. …and a bit digressively, empty.*

*to be addressed in a future post.

But this is where the quote comes in, one might see themselves as a definitive thing and thereby fraudulent by acting in seemingly unnatural ways… I suppose this would be the mask they speak of, but:

“…you realize, as days and nights go by, that there’s a kind of truth in the lie… that the mask is often more revealing than the face that lies beneath… that because the person that you pretended to be… became, somehow, the person that you are.”

It feels unbelievable… incorrect, even. But time… small increments of moments and then; the whole thing… I mean, if you stick around long enough… it sounds retarded, I know, but it starts to feel possible. …And sometimes, when one takes stock… if one’s privy to that sort of thing, one realizes that, in one’s own continuous manner, it’s been happening the whole time, maybe? Slowly; molasses-ass slowly, but happening none-the-less. I don’t fuckin’ know. I just know that I’m different now than when I started this whole thing (when I thought that I’d never really be able to do the adult thing; do the responsible-thing… I’m a great actor. I could pretend tremedously, but would also only ever be excited by what I really am: a drug addict)… I just know that it is possible to change while still remaining the same… if that makes any sense to anyone. And I do believe all of this rests on time… the passage of time.

The 6th Time’s the Charm!

I can’t sleep.

needlemania!

I don’t judge…. I’ve gone far past 6. Double-digits, even. But was always excited for a new rig.

The Evolution of the Pill-Popper

 

“I can see you totally being a pill-popper in the future.“

“…really?!”

This is T and me in Chelsea. My crackshack. Circa 2001 or 2-ish?

I don’t know what we are doing… I don’t believe that there is a needle in my arm. It’s before that… well, before and after, I suppose. If we are in the crackshack, it means that I’ve already stuck a needle in my arm… in my life, I mean… previously.

But as chronology goes, I spiked by myself for the first time in my place on 25th and 1st, not Chelsea… which lasted all of, maybe a month and a half… maybe less. My cute little training-wheeled dance with the devil. I stopped everything. For a bit. Moved into the Chelsea crackshack. Then found myself back in Washington Heights… this time sans spike to procure coke. [but this is another story].

So, it was around this time. Despite the needle, still pretty novice. And certainly broke. Intermittent coke… here and there. We could have been doing anything. Whatever we may have been doing, apparently T is very confident that I will, one day,  join the ranks of the pill-poppers.

I take this as an insult, somehow. I’m much more interesting and artistic and sophisticated… well, maybe not more sophisticated, but, evolutionarily moreso than a pill-popper.

This string of thought made sense at the time. You know, I was a psychonaut. And youth trumped age in the image of the pill popper.

Though the image of the UES or UWS, high-society, adult pill-popper was truly a lovely future image… what, with the martini in hand at noon and the largest pharmacopeia one could ever wish for, it was really something, indeed, to strive for.

This being said, however, there was something about this statement that felt off.

I was never really a ‘pill-person’. Statistically-speaking, given a cross section of drug users, I would fall under the non-pill-person category.*

*pills with minimal to no binders, ie Dilaudid, that could be crushed, dissolved and sucked into a barrel and unleashed into my veins to cross the blood/brain barrier excluded.

Now, that being said, at that time… the specifics weren’t so specific. We really weren’t at liberty to choose the type of drug-person that we were. I mean, I’m pretty sure we theorized [dreamed] our preferences in all their fantastical glory in a world where everything was obtainable.

Coming down now… we were more than ecstatic with anything resembling anything that came our way… especially in the early days. Still, as with everything else, I was relatively selective about everything I ingested… though to balance this, I was up for experiencing everything that I’ve never experienced at least once… still am.

So Now:

• T is partially correct. I do have a small but veritable pharmacopeia at my disposal. Pills. …that I take. …for reasons that span from recreation to post-recreational illegal drug use pseudo-necessity.This could be described in some circles as pill-popping. Not the fantasy image we all dreamed about in our youth-youth. But, I have pills… I “pop” them. And, for around, just under two years, these and alcohol are the only ‘drugs’ I’ve injested… give or take a week in Raph’s Ballfield** or so…. rendering T correct in this sort of superficial vein… capillary, even.

**my own pet name for methamphetamine in non-pill form. More specifically, California meth… good enough to be insufflated, cut enough that it really does not go well with the needle. For more info, watch a few episodes of the first season of USA’s “In Plain Sight” [enough to understand the thread of the A-line story that runs through until the season finale]. Or watch the entire season sequentially, whatever. …this is sooo not a plug, seriously.

• As much as I may be a pill-popper or not, with the current epidemic of over-prescribing quick-fixes “we have a pill for all that ails thee!”, the lovely aforementioned pill-popper of yester-year somehow ceases to exist. Well, I mean, I’m sure that they still exist [I’ll take you bathroom-cabinet-spelunking on the UES one day]…. but psychiatry and society’s need to categorize… take symptoms and create syndromes, semantic disorders, then diagnose because [“now that I’ve created this disorder that doesn’t really exist… we know what’s wrong!”] then treat, has rendered everyone a pill-popper. Muddying the waters of the true, aristocratic pill-popper and crushing many a dream.

The conclusion: yes, T is correct in a certain light. But the world of the pill has evolved to a place where… a shift has occured and the definition of a pill-popper has shifted along with it. T can’t be right…. isn’t right. Not yet anyway. My pill usage right now falls within this shift and my recognition and exploitation of the current situation.

The true, aristocratic pill-popper still exists out there. And yeah, maybe one day, as T said, I “will totally be a pill-popper”. And, then, hats off, T will be right… but don’t count on it. 😛