Free The Cocaine Chronicles by Gary Phillips

exception. Had I been in better health, the process may not have seemed so overwhelming, but soon after Tim leaves I feel the shakes coming on. I’m a real trooper, however, and instead of asking the head counselor if we could postpone these admission procedures until I can at least hold a pen steady enough to sign my name, I push forward. I follow the man down a long, wide hallway to his office where I take a seat across from him at his desk. He’s around my age with thick glasses and a bushy mustache, and while I sit there, sweating, I wonder what he thinks of me. I wonder if to him I’m just another casualty in that long procession of drunks and addicts who pass through his life, few probably ever staying sober for any real length of time. It has to be frustrating, and I wonder if he cares anymore. I wonder if it even matters. He glances down at my arms, which are both wrapped in white gauze from the burns I suffered in the accident.
    “What happened?”
    “I burned myself.”
    “How’d you do that?”
    “It’s a long story,” I tell him.
    Reaching into one of the drawers, he takes out some sort of form, or questionnaire, and lays it flat on his desk.
    “I have to ask you some questions,” he says, “and I need for you to be completely truthful. How long has it been since your last drink?”
    “About two days.”
    “How much, on average, would you say you’ve been drinking?”
    “About a quart a day.”
    “Of hard liquor?”
    “Vodka usually. Sometimes bourbon.”
    The mere mention of liquor triggers my thirst. I want a drink, I want it now, and I want it badly. My hands are shaking, so I hide them in my lap.
    “What about other drugs?”
    “Like what?”
    “Let’s start with heroin. Do you use it? Have you ever used it?”
    “I’ve done it a few times,” I tell him. “But not in the last few years.”
    “Intravenously?”
    Needle users always look the worst, and it’s a bum rap because it’s the most cost-efficient and expeditious way to get it into your system, offering the biggest bang for your buck. But I leave that part out, not wanting him to get the wrong impression.
    “Sometimes. Yes.”
    “How old were you when you first started?”
    “Heroin? I was fourteen. Drinking? I’d say ten or eleven.”
    “What about cocaine?”
    “I’ve used lots of it. Too much.”
    “How much is that?”
    “When I’m bingeing, I’d say three or four grams a day.”
    “And how often do you binge?”
    I shrug.
    “I don’t really keep count,” I say. “Maybe a couple times a month.”
    As we talk he is taking notes and checking off boxes on the form. He has on a sport coat and a red-and-white–striped tie that he likes to tug on now and again between questions. I’m starting to feel nauseated. I wipe sweat from my brow with the back of my hand.
    “How long is this going to take?” I ask.
    He smiles. “What’s the hurry?”
    But he knows damn well.
    “I need something to steady my nerves.”
    “That’ll be up to the doctor,” he says. “Tell me, when was the last time you used cocaine?”
    “On Christmas Eve.”
    “Any methamphetamines?”
    “Only when I can’t get coke.”
    “But you use them?”
    “Yes.”
    At first, when he started asking these questions, he struck me as nonjudgmental. But as the process continues, and I admit to more abuse, he appears to grow irritated. He looks at me and takes a deep breath.
    “Let’s try another approach,” he says, “and see if we can’t save us both a little time. What drugs, Mr. Lewis, haven’t you abused?”
    I have to think about this for a while.
    “Ecstasy,” I say. “I’ve never tried that but I’ve pretty much done everything else, from Percodan, OxyContin, and quaaludes to LSD. Marijuana, I don’t like, never have. To cut to the quick, my problems are with booze, coke, and speed. I’ve been using them all since I was a kid, but it didn’t really get out of control until around my late thirties.”
    Again he smiles.