Simultaneous Motor Vehicle Operation and Vomiting

He caught my gaze, when I stopped at the red light. My left hand full of vomit the texture and color of diarrhea. The dirty, tanned skin of his forehead didn’t move. No surprise registered in his eyes. A 30 year old woman, sitting in the driver's seat, puke and spittle dripping down her chin—must be a daily sight for this stoic urban-camper.

I had envisioned this scene only 15 minutes earlier while I choked down 20 kratom capsules. Their plastic shells pressed against my throat. Another sip of water was out of the question if I wanted to be on time.

Silently sliding up onto the highway from the street below, passing beneath the shoulder, up the ramp onto I-35. Those overpasses reminiscent of the highways of my childhood in NY.

That’s when I choked. A fine plume of kratom was now visible in the air. My gauge reflex, over sensitive from years of pharmaceutical & cocaine post-nasal drip, bucked as I suppressed the spasms. The violent heaving overcame any force of will I had been relying on.

A putrid mix of bile, kratom, and coffee was ejected into my lap. Tiny trails hanging from my lips.

I attempted to restrain the inevitable second round.

The cars hummed around me at 60mph, as I merged left. I imagined my will-power—always one to disappoint—could hold down the churning mix. Perhaps I could even get to the store, wipe off my face, dab water on my dress, and bury this memory in a grave of denial.

Instead, frantically realizing my body was about to eject more putrid slop, I veered back towards the off-ramp. I groped around for a receptacle other than my lap.

The next heave plopped onto my leggings. Rivulets of tears and snot clung to my nose and lips.

Stopped at the light, a final heave produces the remaining contents of my stomach. I instinctively moved my left hand to catch the last chunks erupt from my guts. My palm is now immobile, perhaps in shock, holding aloft the results of a lifetime made up of poor decisions.

Unable to decide on an appropriate course of action. (I was never taught in Driver’s-Ed the proper protocol for simultaneously operating a motor vehicle and vomiting.) I glance at my face in the rear view mirror. The brown flecked strings of vomit and snot are unmistakeable.

When I look up, he’s standing on the corner, flying a sign. His deep tan is actually a fine layer of dirt and dead skin. Our eyes meet. The embarrassment at my current state, coupled with the handful of vomit clearly visible in my raised palm, flushes my pallid face.

He doesn’t break eye contact. Whether shocked into catatonia by my predicament, inured to disgusting bodily functions, or empathically understanding  my plight, I do not know.

I wipe my hand on my dress. A layer of syrupy sickness is still on my skin as the light turns green. I pull a Uy and head for home. As I drive, I run my hand along the side of my seat to absorb the remnants. It will dry a chalky, brown.

Parked and alone with the smell of humiliation, bile, and kratom. Trepidation rushes in as I run from the car into the apartment—thankful none of my neighbors are outside to stand witness.

I strip off the dress and leggings in the bathroom, then wash my face and brush my teeth. Tears have smeared my eyeliner and mascara. I rub it off with a hand towel and study my reflection. My body glowing with that pallid, corpse-like complexion, only broken by the purple twisting scar in the crook of my left arm, emptied of all its contents at 11am on a Tuesday.

Nice People Take Drugs

The laughter would have felt real, if my head wasn’t being gripped by an unseen vice. I curled up on the bed and looked down at the electric-blue shirt stretching to contain my naked breasts—across them, in large, friendly letters, it read “NICE PEOPLE TAKE DRUGS.”

Quick flashes of light darted across the letters, until my eyes began to rattle. The end result of mixing drugs, alcohol, and a lack of sleep.

I resisted sleep as if it might stave off the sun’s fast approach.

I turned on “The Man with the Golden Arm.” The jazz beats picked up with the tempo of my pulse as I lusted after that deep euphoria—sipping on every sweet detail as if to conjure it into existence.

Without a sound my eyelids slowly fell, and then the room began to spin around me. I popped them open and the walls froze, before lowering them once more.

The jazz began to creep up. It ran through my arteries and veins until it gathered up in my chest. A wave of contentment hit me.

I never slept.

At 10am, I ripped myself off the damp sheets and checked my face in the mirror, before heading outside.

The first drag on my cigarette was delicious. I sucked the menthol smoke down, followed by another three. My self-indulgence knowing no bounds until all possible routes of pleasure have been exhausted.

Now it’s almost 10:26 and all I can feel is a deep seated loathing for the week ahead. To spend another hour behind the pharmacy counter, makes a lobotomy sound palatable.

Mosquitos are swarming my chair. As I study one attempting to land on my left leg, I see the scabs and deep scratches from the uncontrollable urge to tear off my own flesh. They dot my calf and spread across the tattoo on the top of my foot. Once more, my hand reflexively races to claw at my ankle and rips off a thick scab. 

As my neighbor walks by with her dog, and we nod politely, I realize how I must appear:

Last night’s makeup smeared on, with scabbed and bleeding legs, chain smoking, with a shirt that proclaims “NICE PEOPLE TAKE DRUGS.” The shirt’s writing is now unnecessary. I might as well walk up and introduce myself with a nice anecdote like: “Hi! One time I was shooting up, but I wasn’t fully in the vein, so I shot the mixture of water/blood/oxy back into the spoon, then I reheated it into a greenish ooze (not sure how that might help my aim), tried and failed to hit my veins multiple times, then finally gave up and shot the concoction of fetid blood and drugs down the back of my throat. Now, granted, I was 16 at the time. That’s how I got this scar,” as I unfurl my left arm. “It’s no wonder I developed that fucking abscess. There aren’t enough alcohol swabs in the world that could make that sterile. I used to lick the tips of my needle to get whatever residue clung to it. But I don’t do that shit anymore. Mostly due to the notoriously hard veins to hit on my right arm (ask any phlebotomist I’ve been to) and now the twisted mass of scar tissue running through my left one. No more needles for me! Anyway, I’m Lucy! What’s your name?”

Unlike one of our neighbors, who has loudly announced his deep abiding love for cocaine multiple times during our outdoor conversations, I prefer to keep my past and present habits to myself and a select group of friends. I mean, I love cocaine too, but I don’t think it’s necessarily what I want to let everyone in the building know.

Even at the party the other night, a fleeting trace of disgust would flicker across the faces of the drunken people opposite me. But I continued talking; Amphetamine and alcohol working together to spring my mouth so wide I couldn’t shut it. 

An overwhelming desire to sleep is moving in to overtake the receding traces of last night. And with it, maybe it can wash away the growing embarrassment over the night before.

Regardless, I stand by my shirt.

Lucy

P.S. If you’d like to leave me a comment, it would make my day. Who doesn’t love a little small talk with new friends?

Girl with the Golden Arm

Overwhelmed; under the freezing air chilling the sweat on my arms and the burning fire under the damp sheets, I can’t sleep. Again trapped in the rhythms of insomnia, wrapped in semiconsciousness. 

I pull myself off the bed, and trudge until folding down onto the sofa. How many time’s have I found myself in this position? Across years and states and continents, full of regret, self-loathing, and unbearable urge to tear out of my skin.

The pills are supposed to last a month. Each month, I plan to control myself. And each month, the bottle is empty within 5 to 6 days. My liver aches from processing a daily overdose of Tylenol.

An unknown number of hours  and 90mg of amphetamine later, daylight has crept up and left us. It’s nighttime and I’m in a friend’s house. At one moment, drinking down champagne, mixing with the stomach acid and pills. In another moment, talking about how I got this scar on my left arm. Even after 14 years, I never expect the grimaces staring back.

We were meant to be dressed as “what would make your 16 year old self proud.” If 16 year old me could witness this: alive (never even overdosed in 14 years), married to a sexy punk guy, still fucked up, and at a party. I’d be pleasantly shocked I think. I spout off the old line that I learned as a teenager “no one experiments with drugs, we’re not fucking scientists.”

 I planned my outfit days before: wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt—he’s high on heroin, needle hanging limply from his arm, a spoon by his feet. It was from Trash and Vaudeville when it was in its original location on St. Marks. It’s the short sleeves that bring me back, as I look over at my arm. Proudly showing it to them all, pointing out I was doing this shit before all those followers of my generation, popping pills with their friends—I found the pills, the needle all by myself. And I knew at that age it was not a truth to be shared freely. That I was a “shande”—a shame, even if my parents didn’t know. But now I can wear it like a badge around them. I tell them that the only person allowed to call me a “junky” is me—recalling the one time someone else bestowed that title upon me while 18 and living in Paris.

The conversation keeps rolling back around. The amphetamine and alcohol are chugging along. I would kill for a line, and I’m tempted to ask someone. Coke would really keep me going. Right now, I’m dragging and don’t want the high to end.

Uppers. What a bad idea. At least with opiates I’m asleep by the time it’s fading out. But right now I’m wide awake, but it’s wearing off fast.

Somehow it’s 2:26am and we’re all needing to leave. Someone in the house has to be at work in 3 hours. R and I speed out in the night. He doesn’t  drink now—the angel to my demon.

We get home, pop another 30mg of amphetamine, and put on Rocknrolla. Then we fuck in as many ways as man knows how. By 5am, the amphetamine begins to wear off but I don’t want it to quit. I want to speed along forever. This is the fucking vicious circle. 

Goddamn I wish I had some coke. Or pills. Or h.

Another 30mg of amphetamine will suffice for now.

But I’m the fucking girl with the golden arm. The only come down I’ll have from this mess is kratom. A fucking lowly high compared to the ones I’ve had, but it’ll have to do for now. I’d tongue fuck the inside of my old pill crusher if I thought I could get more than a false hope out of it. But the plastic in there is barely dusted.

Another 30mg later and I’m once more in love with the night. It’s a velvet blanket that wraps us in its smooth, dark embrace. If only I could steal myself away in it forever.

The pill crusher is lost in the apartment (i do a cursory search). Licking my old 2$ bill, mirror, and razor blade is what I get instead. My tongue goes numb from the birthday gift a friend gave me 4 months ago for my 30th, still enough dust left to do that. She’s given me that same fluffy white gift for the past 2 years. It’s one of the few gifts I’m never disappointed to get again.

But now R is back from smoking his cig. We’ve put on Snatch. He falls back on the bed and I crawl on to him. I run my fingers through his short, bleached hair stamped with leopard spots. We fuck again until we collapse in a sweaty pile of limp limbs. 

The impending hangover is coming over my head—teasing at my temples before tightening the vice around my skull. Only two pills left—at least one needed for the drug test in 2 weeks—so I could take one pill to promote the false hope of a high or swallow 35 grams of kratom and some tizanidine. I’ll go for the latter and save my pills for the drug test. Without them, there won’t be anymore.

Perusing my medical chart online, I read over the diagnosis section. In clear letters it said “opioid use disorder,” neatly in line with my other conditions. Yet they still write me scripts. They barely touch the pain or scratch my itch, but I’m terrified of losing it entirely. Those chalky little fuckers do perpetuate my habit, mixed with kratom, amphetamine, and nicotine. Sometimes, it seems pointless to keep it up, when the kratom gets me more fucked up than they do. But they’re cheaper and I don’t have to gulp down 40 at a time.

I miss the days of Oxymorphone and oxycodone, but I’ll take hydrocodone if I have to. I’ve looked into methadone clinics because I’m so tired of this merry go round. For right now, this is easier. And I know what I am, even if I put up a good front. Now it’s time to slug some of those big capsules down and maybe tumble into sleep.

Your girl with the golden arm,

Lucy