It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... Yeah, wrong story. I wonder how much that phrase applies to the story I am about to share though.
A couple notes before I dive in. I am a little wary about sharing this story. I mentioned in my last blog that I have learned a lot from eavesdropping. This story is entirely composed of things I heard while eavesdropping during a long public transit commute. The moral grounds for navigation in this story is a little less clear. I don't know the names of the people, which may protect their identities, but may serve as proof that I have no right to share the story either.
The conversation happened in a public place, and it wasn't a hush-hush conversation. I feel that this story is valuable to share because this is a world most of us have no access to. I don't know if this constitutes me being given access or me taking it. I hope that the way I tell this story does not diminish the character of the two people in this story. If it does, I have failed just what I set out to do. With anything else, you can have access to this world or you can deny it. It takes a certain disposition, an openness, to enter. If you continue to read, please keep that in mind and reserve judgement.
Also, I will be analyzing bits posing responsive questions to the story afterwards.
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Like two of my previous stories, I was on my way home from classes at my college. I had an hour commute on one bus. The 82. It usually took exactly 56 minutes, sometimes 57, unless there was a major setback. I knew this bus, I knew the route, and I even recognized some commuters who traveled with me (probably unknowingly) on a regular basis.
On one particular day, a girl on the bus who appeared to be just a little older than me sat down a few rows up. She looked to me like a girl in a punk-rock music video with her short, spiky platinum-blonde hair. Her clothing was fashionable and fit the persona she also wore.
A few stops later, a man that was probably in his mid-40s stepped onto the bus. He had tan skin with deep wrinkles in his worn face and he wore non-descript clothes. As he made his way up the main aisle he said "hi" to someone he knew. I was always fascinated when people just randomly ran into people they knew in such a big city. I knew of a few regular commuters and he wasn't one of them. But he knew people. I wondered how. My mind was blown when I saw his reaction upon spotting the blonde as he continued making his way up the center aisle.
His face lit up and once he was standing beside her, he reached forward to ruffle her hair. He sat down and began talking to her. "Ok," I think. "Things just got more interesting and bizarre." I listened to their conversation as best as I could, but I couldn't understand them. I was used to hearing multiple languages spoken in a single day at this point, but their conversation sounded different. Familiar, yet inaccessible. After trying to identify the language, I realized they were speaking English. They spoke faster than I had ever heard English spoken. I'm talking, they put the Gilmore Girls to shame. On top of that, the older man seemed to have speech difficulties. Not an impediment, perse, and certainly not a stutter, but his words never seemed fully formed.
I adapted to what I was hearing and finally made out some of what they were saying. From their conversation, I gathered that they were comfortable acquaintances. They shared details that true friends would have known about each other already, and details that no stranger would tell another stranger.
They were talking about their heroine addictions.
She told him that people always asked her, "Why don't you just stop?" She said, "I tell them to take a hit and see why they can't stop." She said that once you've found something you want to do more than anything else, it's sadistic not to do it. But with drugs, it's sadistic to keep doing it too.
Her addiction began in high school. She said she shot up so much that she started locating veins in her hands and feet because the other veins had become too difficult to locate. She talked about how good the highs felt and the man agreed with her. She told him about one of her friends who took an exceedingly large hit and the man just said, "He didn't want to get high. He just wanted to die. There's a difference. I just do it to get high. I just wanna get a good buzz." She agreed, conceding that sometimes she "overdoes it". He admitted the same.
Easily and matter-of-factly she said, "You know, my friend died last week."
He asked who it was, how, etc. She said, "You don't know her." Through more conversation, he determined that he did know the woman who died. Well, not the woman. But he knew the woman's husband. She went on to explain that she died from a blood infection. He asked her how she got it and what it was. She explained once. He asked again. She answered. Three times this repeated. She asked, "Are you high right now?" He didn't reply. She told him again that it was a bad needle that poisoned her blood. He asked who could get this blood infection. She said that anyone who happened upon a bad needle could.
"Why haven't I gotten it?" He asked.
"Why haven't I?" She echoed.
He reminded her that he'd been using for much longer than she had, implying that it was more shocking that he was still alive.
She nodded and continued. "My mom's a nurse. She keeps telling me to be careful so I don't get it."
Just that abruptly she had to leave. She frantically told him to pull the string to alert the bus that it needed to stop. As she scrambled to leave, she told him that she would probably see him in a few days, and she exited the bus.
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I don't know who this story is about, really. I also don't know who this story isn't about.
Is it about the man who, without an addiction would have been middle-aged, but who was far outliving the life expectancy for someone with his addiction?
Is it about the young woman who, in her young 20s, was a veteran heroine user?
Or perhaps her mother who, as a nurse, knew the risks and inevitable effects of heroine but could only plead with her daughter to "be careful" because she was otherwise unable to help her?
Was it about the gravity of addiction and the rift between the life addicts want and the life they can't have?
Was it about the woman who died from a bad needle? Or perhaps the husband she left behind?
Or was it about the semblance of community that addicts naturally form?
Wasn't it about all of those things? I guess the story is about addiction. It's easy to disassociate from statistics and to be weirdly fascinated by those health class images of "before and after" addiction, all while removing humanity from the topic. But here was a girl, not much older than me. And here was a man. They themselves did a fair share of associating with and disassociating from their own stories. But their humanity and their struggle through their stories could not be denied.
"When you can stop, you don't want to. When you want to stop, you can't." -- Candy (2006)
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