Free Needle Too by Craig Goodman Page A

they are and why they’re singing but I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be out there with them and not in here, but it’s sooo comfy in here. It’s warm, it’s cozy and there’s only room for me. And I’m so far down…down, down, down… deep into it. Deep into a dark, warm, humid, chasm where I feel safe and secure. This must be what the womb feels like…and past experience dictates that it’s much safer in here than out there, so I think I’m just gonna sit tight until I get squeezed out. But then there’s that goddamned singing…
    “Happy birthday to you…”
    If I keep ignoring it it’ll probably go away, but deep down inside I know it won’t and for some reason I don’t even care and I’ve already forgotten what I’m trying to ignore
.
    “Happy birthday dear Toni—happy birthday to you.”
    Oh yeah—that’s right! It’s Toni’s birthday. They’re singing Happy Birthday to Toni because it’s Toni’s birthday party and I’m supposed to be out there singing with them…because it’s a party…for Toni…but I’m sooo fucked up…and why the fuck arethey singing?
    “CRAIG!” Megan screamed at me as she was suddenly standing by the door wearing a shocked and somewhat horrified expression.
    “WHAT?!” I screamed back while my heart was pounding in my chest just as Recollection, Realization and Consequence finally came waltzing in WAY PAST CURFEW.
    “Whaddaya mean,
‘What?’
What the hell’s going on?! We’re all out there celebrating and you’re all fucked-up in here! Now get up and get the fuck out of there before I kick your ass you stupid douche!”
    “Nice, Megan! Is this how you treat your fucking guests?!”
    “NO—but my guests don’t usually decide to take a bath in the middle of Happy Fucking Birthday! What the fuck is wrong with you?! Are you high or something? God—I thought you OD’d!”
    “I just drank too much,” I said as I rose to my feet with all of my dripping wet nakedness and shut the running water while battling to keep my eyes open.
    “Oh, well that’s odd because I didn’t see you drink a fucking thing all night!”
    “WELL THEN YOU WEREN’T LOOKING CLOSELY ENOUGH!!!” I absolutely bellowed at her. But it was so much more than that. It was a straight-up but partially incoherent roar from a dark voice in a dark place—that same, infinitely selfish, desperate and tainted voice that knows no wrong, owes nothing to anyone, and when exposed or even threatened with exposure will become a disingenuous, scornful and belligerent voice to mislead and frighten away the light.
Technically
, though, I suppose I did OD but as far as I was concerned, getting fucked-up without losing consciousness and calling it an overdose was like taking yourcousin to the prom and calling it a date. So as far as I was concerned, I didn’t overdose—I simply
overdid
, and although it was foolish to get high in the bathroom during Toni’s birthday party I really had no choice in the matter because I simply refused to be dopesick. Earlier that evening, after my last table paid the check but before I had a chance to take a preemptive snort, Megan dragged me out of the restaurant and over to Calloway’s along with Toni as a smokescreen before we headed over to her apartment for a very well-planned and well-attended surprise party. And given the fact that my mother had a proclivity for snooping, I now carried my stash and works on my person along with an ever impending dopesickness that was actually getting the better of me by 3 a.m. when I finally decided to throw caution to the wind and boot a bag in the bathroom.
    Of course, being in front of my coworkers while obviously under an opiated influence was a seriously bad idea as word could eventually get back to Randy and Jack though thankfully, they’d come down with mutual throat infections and as a result were absent from the party. But to be honest, after booting a single bag of heroin, a two-bag-a-day dope fiend wouldn’t