Last night I saw a friend I had not seen in over five years. The last time we saw each other, him and his partner and me and my partner were up for four days smoking and slamming meth. Since that time, his partner died, and I left my partner in my struggle to get meth-free. He has moved back to his (relatively small) hometown from the big city to get away from temptation. It has found him.
I knew him and we were good friends for several years before we did meth together, and it was the first and only controlled substance we ever used together. Unlike everyone else that I used with, I can honestly say he is a friend. (My ex fits into some special category. That’s a different post.)
My visit to my friend was precipitated by my visit to a doctor in the town where he lives (and, as it happens, his doctor). I was in an exam room, getting off the phone with him, making plans to see him later, when the doctor walked in, and as I said goodbye, he told me to tell her hello, and we hung up. She said “Tell him to give me a call. I’ve been trying to get in touch with him and he hasn’t returned my calls.”
Long story short, as I found out later: He was shooting up meth two days before he went in to get some bloodwork done recently, so his liver function came back crazy, etc. He’s covered in tweakerpox (scabs). His un-air conditioned (and sweltering) house is fetid, most of the smell originating from his bedroom, where there are clothes stacked in piles four or five feet tall, and the general, random debris of a meth addict in the final stages of active addiction. Wrappers. Tissue. Straws. Porn.
If I had to describe the smell in a single phrase, it would be dirty sweatsock in a bowl of crusty buttermilk, piss and used condoms sitting in the desert sun for three days, with a hint of battery acid and stale cigarettes. If I had to describe the smell in a single word, it would be decay. I would say death, but that makes it sound like the smell has ended, that its possibilities are over. This smell has a sense of growth and purpose to it, like it isn’t going away. It is not just a marker of loneliness and depravity, of fear and shame, it is also an incubator of them. It stops hope dead in its tracks. I know that smell because I used to live in it.
It made me so sad to see him alone and in those conditions.
When we first met in 1998, we had lunch every Tuesday. Bacon cheeseburgers and fries with secret seasoning—it was Mrs. Dash. We never dated or anything. Even though I had a big crush on him for a while, I think just because we got each other’s morbid (juvenile) sense of humor and appreciated each other’s approach to the world. He was (and is) so smart, and so funny, and so talented. And I am so scared that he is going to die the death I came so close to.
The thing that kills me the most about this (and it really does), is that if this is making me feel this way, what must my mother have felt like seeing me in the same condition—or worse, showing up on her doorstep barely able to speak after an accidental (and enormous) meth overdose? We have always been really, very close. I thought she wanted me to stop using drugs because she was tired of dealing with me, or embarrassed of me, or didn’t want me to go to jail, or lose my job, or die. I didn’t realize she could just walk into my house and look at me, and see and smell and know my misery.
And to know her powerlessness over me, over my condition, my addiction.
I have so much to be grateful for today. But mostly, I’m happy I can be here for my friend. He said in an email earlier today that I was “proof there is life after that bitch.” I am, but I am not alone, and I didn’t get here alone. Thanks, mom. Thanks, rooms.
