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  Chapter 3: Lazy daze...

  Josh sat on the couch in the living room that he shared with two other men. He had just shot up and was feeling particularly woozy. If he hadn't sat down he would've surely fell on the floor and passed out. He was watching the news on the old school big screen box set TV. Something about some kid being hit by a car and only coming out with a few minor bruises or something. It was just something to pass the time while he nodded out.

  Next up after the commercial was a human interest story about some stupid high school football player who was making the ranks with an artificial left foot.

  Should of gotten some coke to go along with this shit, he thought. That would have made all this just THAT much more enjoyable.

  The news is awesome while you are high. Everyone just seems so serious.

  The first of his roommates wasn't expected for another three hours or so. He was all alone in his oblivion. The colors on the screen blurred together and the TV set had a white aura around it. It made Josh want to go up and hug it.

  After a few more minutes of idling he decided to give his girlfriend a call. Cindy was an amazing girl mainly because she had a car and liked to do dope with him on the weekends. She was very understanding of his habit and even loaned him money for it on occasion. The only thing she wasn't good for was support when he needed to actually go get the shit. That's where she drew the line. She had told him that she did not like the idea of going to jail any time soon so whatever he was doing downtown would be his fight and his fight alone.

  Still though, nothing's hotter than a chick who bangs with you.

  Bang...

  Josh was suddenly very horny which is also a great motivator and grabbed his phone from the coffee table. He looked into his contacts and found her, hit send, and listened to her Pink Floyd ringtone while he waited for her to answer.

  "Hello Josh." She sounded perturbed.

  "Hello lovely." Josh made a kissing sound into the phone. "How are you tonight?"

  "I'm good, almost done with work here." Josh could hear people in the background at the restaurant she was a server at, The Cheesecake Factory. Josh personally anything with a cream based sauce.

  "When you get off would you like to come over?"

  "I'm not really in the mood to stick anything in my arm."

  Josh sighed. "Well actually I have nothing right now. I was just wondering if I could see you?"

  There was a pause on the other line. "I'm also not really in the mood to be intimate with anyone right now."

  Josh's heart sank deep into his chest cavity, somewhere below his lungs. "We don't have to fuck you know."

  "Josh..." Cindy tried to find the right words. "I've had a super shitty day and I really need some time to myself." Cindy sighed loudly. "Fine Josh." She said. "I'll be over there when I get off in thirty minutes."

  It worked! Josh smiled. "I'll prepare us some microwave dinners."

  "Actually I've already eaten."

  "Oh..." Josh was disappointed. "Well alright. Maybe we can watch a movie?"

  "Sure Josh. Whatever. I need to get back to work now OK?"

  "OK." Josh hung up on her and placed his smart phone back onto the coffee table. Since he wasn't going to get any tonight (that he knew of) he might as well get more fucked up.

  He knew that he wasn’t the average junkie because Josh had been reading up on this. When you get an energy boost from downers (heroin, oxycodone, benzodiazepines) and fucking fall asleep while taking uppers (cocaine, meth, speed) then you had a paradoxical system. Meaning that what a drug is supposed to do doesn't happen. Instead you have the opposite effect and it's, well, it's pretty sweet if you asked him.

  Josh figured that he would do the last of his heroin before Cindy got there, although a stupid idea seeing as it was the last he would get for another day, it was a little white lie that harmed no one. She didn't want to do the shit anyways so why should he have offered it to her? Being a junky made you selfish most of the time, it not all of it.

  And still, he bought it. Why should he share?

  Selfish…

  Josh headed toward his bed room. Once there he closed and locked his door. The dresser over by the mattress on the floor (which took up most of the room) held his screwdriver. He took it out and went over to the heating vent on the floor. He unscrewed the nuts and took off the face, revealing a cavity where his works sat. They were in a brown cloth bag and included everything you needed to prep heroin and other drugs:

  1: Syringe - 1cc diabetic insulin needle

  2: Bic lighter - Other lighters are good for the purpose but for the best results you use a Bic. It's not too hot nor is the flame too low to do any good. It's just the right amount of volume to heat up the next article of works.

  3: Metal spoon - You use this to melt down the heroin. It can be a bitch if you are caught with a burnt spoon because, you can always say you are diabetic and get away with having a syringe, but having a blackened metal spoon on your person only pointed to one possiblity.

  4: Cotton - Q-tips are good for this purpose because they are not too fluffy where bits will come apart and give you cotton fever, which is where a bit of stray debris gets into the needle and goes into your blood stream, causing terrible chest pains and sometimes knocking you completely flat. As much as it hurts, it rarely causes anything more than great discomfort.

  5: Bottle of water - You need water to as a medium in which to melt down the heroin and turn it into liquid form. It's preferable to use bottled water since it's been filtered but Josh has been so desperate before that he's used toilet water from said bathroom he was fixing up in. It's really not as bad as you think since you heat the stuff until it boils, effectively killing off any pathogens that may be present.

  Last but not least...

  6: The heroin - Almost always found wrapped in black trash bag plastic in a tightly wound ball (at least in Denver). These are called balloons. There are generally three to five layers and it takes a skilled hand / sometimes mouth, to open them quickly.

  Heroin can come in three different forms.

  a: black tar - As the name suggests, the heroin is in the form of a sticky pliable black ball. Generally it can be stuck to the spoon and melted by adding water and heating it. It dissolves well but it's never recommended to load up a syringe with the stuff without filtering it through a cotton, seeing as this type of opiate has the most cut (additives that turn it from its source material INTO the black ball that you get.).

  b: black, brown, grey powder mix - This form is generally called "Shotgun Powder". It's far more potent than the black tar and is easy to overdose on, seeing as the potency varies more widely with this kind than with the black tar (unless the tar is from a pager connect, in which case all bets are off. Might as well have your will signed and notarized if you want to go overboard with that stuff.) and can burn when injected. You also don't really need to cook this type, you can generally get it melted with room temperature water. But it's still a good idea to heat it up seeing as it becomes a liquid a lot faster that way.

  c: white powder - Also known as "China White". As the name suggests it is a white powder form of heroin, although the case is out on whether it is opium or fentanyl based. Fentanyl is a man made class of opioid and is about one hundred times more potent than morphine, although the half-life for maximum potency for this about fifteen / thirty minutes instead of the normal three to six hours.

  All things Josh had learned in rehab. Just like going to jail makes you a better criminal, going to rehab generally makes you into a better, wiser junky.

  He took out his small brown cloth bag and took out his works, laying them on the wooden floor before him. Methodically he set the spoon to his right and took out the balloons that he had and opened it, putting the use wrapper in the bag. He placed the heroin ball on the spoon and smooshed it into the metal. Then he took off the cap of the bottled water and poured a little bit of H20 into it and sat both down next to the spoon. He then drew up about
sixty units of said water and squirted it into the spoon. He raised it to eye level and took the lighter and lit the bottom part of the utensil. After about four seconds the water began to boil and he let it do so for about another two seconds before letting go of the gas valve on the Bic. Putting the spoon back onto the floor he took out the plunger of the needle and stirred the contents of the spoon until it was all black liquid. Once completely dissolved he put it back into the syringe and tore a piece of cotton off of a Q-Tip and placed it in the heroin soup, it soaked it up like a sponge. He stuck the needle into the middle of the cotton and drew it up.

  Next came the fun part.

  He put the needle down and took off his belt. Taking off his black zip hoodie, he revealed his track marked left arm and wrapped the belt around itself just above his elbow. He squeezed his fists until veins started to pop out. Really he didn't need to do this anymore, the scars on his arm showed where to shoot, but it was just easier when they were out and about and full of blood. He then took the needle and traced along a vein until he found an untouched spot. From there he stuck the needle in and winced at the poke. He drew back and was pleasantly surprised to have drawn blood on the first try.

  Then he depressed the plunger. Josh took out the needle and put it on the floor before him. He began counting to five on his fingers until it hit him.

  And it hit him hard.

  His whole body tensed up like a coaxial cable and it felt as if all body processes (breathing, heartbeat, digestion, etc.) had stopped for one split second. His head spun around for almost a full second before the world came back to and he felt everything just release and his body let go and the euphoria set in. Josh sat there for a few moments, unable to move, a shocked expression plastered all over his face like he was gasping for air, until he finally came to and started to put his things away. Before he put the needle back into the brown cloth bag he drew up another eighty units of water and sprayed it into the air, cleaning out the blood and any other substances that could clog it up, effectively rinsing it out.

  He put everything back into the vent and put the face back on, screwing it tightly. It was a good thing that they really couldn't afford to turn on the heat because things would probably melt down there if they did so. It was a safe hiding place for now.

  Josh looked at the tiny red spot where he shot up and started to tear up. Was this is life?

  What good is a junkie?

  What good was a stupid person like him?

  He wished he would of gone to college and never have started this whole mess.

  Josh closed his eyes and breathed hard until the feeling passed.

  Josh wasn't very close with either of his roommates and he suspected that they knew something was up, although it was hard to differentiate when he was high and when he wasn't seeing as he was seemingly always under the influence. Josh liked it this way, even if it meant that he had formed a crippling addiction to the shit.

  Josh stumbled back out of his room and methodically found his way back to the couch, where he sat down and pretended to have an air of complacency just in case one of his roommates just happened to show up and question his sobriety. He was ready to counter any inquiries that may come his way.

  He turned the TV onto the history channel, where it was showing a program on how the universe was made. He marveled at the intricacy in which the Milky Way was formed. The way that the cosmic dust had combined into a cluster of particles that had formed the basis of this great galaxy...

  Josh lost it.

  His train of thought slipped when he realized that there was somebody knocking at his door. Could it have been twenty minutes already?

  Josh got up to answer. In the time he had been out to then, his bare feet had adjusted to not walking on a cold hardwood floor and it caused him to moan and dance like as if he were jogging down a row of hot coals. The only relief came from the blue shag place mat at the foot of his front door.

  When he opened it he was at first struck by Cindy's Asian beauty, her slanted and narrow eyelids, he small five foot two stature, her tiny, tiny feet.

  God, two of those would fit in my shoe, Josh thought to himself.

  Cindy was holding a white paper bag to the side of her white and black Cheesecake Factory uniform. She smiled. "Can I come in?"

  "Depends." Josh grinned. "What's in the bag and how much will this cost me later?"

  "Nothing as long as you don't overdose and die on me." She said seriously and without empathy as she passed him through the door and sat on the black velvet couch. The food was placed on the coffee table and she raised one foot and took off her shoe, she repeated this with the other and threw them Josh's way.

  "Watch it!" Josh laughed. He walked over to the couch and sat besides Cindy. His arm stretched out to give her a hug but she pushed it back. "Josh," she said and then paused. "Let's just eat."

  Josh felt his standing with her was slipping. If he was to get any tonight he had better bring out the big guns.

  "You want some H?" He asked as he went through the white paper bag on the coffee table before him.

  "I thought you didn't have any." Cindy's tone was dark.

  "Well." Josh took out a Styrofoam container and opened it, there was a breast of duck meat in it. "I just had the shit delivered."

  Cindy threw up her arms. "I don't come over here every time just to get high! Aren't we more than that?"

  Josh took a piece with his free hand and took a bite out of the meat. "Come on!" He said with a mouthful of protean. "You are on the wagon one day and off the next. I get sick from twirling on this ride every time we get together!"

  Josh's tone scared Cindy a little so she retreated into herself and told him in a small voice that she was sorry, she would be more considerate next time. To make amends she scooted closer to Josh and put her hand up his shirt. To her utter shock there was less of him than there normally was. She only felt his rib bones so prominently when he had been using a lot. She wanted to say something to him but he seemed to be enjoying her grope him. She did not want to make him upset like that last time he went off on her not even two months ago. She didn’t think she could handle him being depressed at the moment. She had had a long day.

  After you bought him a gram with the tips you were saving for rent, she told herself in a devil like voice. You had to ask your parents for the money, you said you had a medical emergency and needed a growth cut off...

  Josh kissed her head and wondered what she was thinking about. He too assumed that the yelling he just did somehow triggered memories. He hoped not. That was an accident. He had told her not to push him. Literally push him, that's not how you attack an intervention. You don't start growling at the person and threatening them. She fucking used the stuff herself for Christ's sake! How can you be so hypocritical?

  Josh lost whatever lust he had and let himself fall into Cindy's side. He was seven inches taller than she was so she had to put extra effort into not buckling under his weight. This was appreciated and Josh wrapped his arms around her, she did not push him away this time however. She felt that the situation called for it and that he wouldn't of asked her to come over if he didn't like her.

  At least this was the hope.

  She decided that lying on her back for five minutes was worth a happy Josh. When she looked up at his stubbly face she saw that he was in a somber mood. She reached for his belt buckle and undid it.

  Josh looked down in amazement. "I thought not tonight?"

  "I take it back." She said as she got up.

  Josh had lost the feeling though. He motioned for her to come into his arms and just be with him. This worried Cindy because the act of sex seemed as important to him as any guy. But tonight he just wanted to be held.

  “Are you alright?” She asked.

  “I’m fine.” Josh replied as she got back on the couch and sat with him. She let his arms wrap around her as he laid his head on top of hers.

  “I love you.” He said in a small scared voice.


  “I love you too.” She said, although she was worried that she may not.