Acrobaddict (42 page)

When I was finished with my rewrite, I would send the blurb over to one of the editors, Anna, to check for errors. At first I was terrified that she would make fun of me when I handed her my work, but even though she always found mistakes, she never belittled me. She was professional and kind, and I wanted to be able to thank her for that. In fact, I came to love her; she reminded me of my own mother when I was younger. Her approach was loving and nurturing even though my palpable distress must have been obvious to her.

This was serious work, so I couldn’t have my usual three-course heroin lunch. I had to be alert and clear-headed. At almost every shift I would freak out in fear that I wouldn’t be able to meet the deadline; I was afraid I would be humiliated in front of all the influential people at the newspaper. The more overwrought I became, the more I needed heroin to function. In my torn and dirty backpack, I had my bent spoon, syringe, lighter, rubbing alcohol patch, and brown powder in a wax paper bag, with its marketing brand like “undead” or “nightwalker” printed on the outside. I had to use or else I couldn’t concentrate on the work.

Like most addicts who try to hide their using, I tried not to bring my backpack with me into the bathroom. It’s the same thing as
alcoholics hiding their bottles by wrapping them in newspapers to prevent a clanging sound in the trash. I was paranoid someone would be watching and question me as to why I always brought my backpack with me. Instead, I took a large manila envelope printed with the
New York Times
stamp, opened my backpack, and prepared my mobile pharmacy kit.

With my large, drug-filled envelope in hand, I walked past all the high-ranking people on my way to the bathroom, feeling like I was getting away with something. I don’t know why I found great pleasure in doing that, but I did.

“Heroin . . . brought to you by the
New York Times
.” The slogan I made up in my head always made me silently laugh, and in a way it was like saying “Fuck you; fuck you!” to the corporation that was basically giving me a chance in life. Addicts will always turn the rope that saved them into a noose to hang themselves. I would go in the stall, with coworkers right next to me; get rip-roaring high; return to the news desk; and get back to work.

Now that I was good and wrecked, I would be able to concentrate. When I was loaded, I had no barriers between myself and reality, no boundaries between right and wrong, and I would try to write those simple weather forecasts, as poetically and creatively as possible. However, the weather ears didn’t need my creativity; they just needed accuracy with perfect grammar, and I was far away from being able to do that.

Now that I worked at night, my lunchtime break changed, and while most employees went out to eat their dinner, I escaped as fast as possible to Forty-ninth Street. Even though I had done this hundreds of times, each time still held its own mystery and enchantment. I would get to Forty-ninth Street and Eleventh Avenue and stand before the parallel rows of apartments. In my delirium, reality and make-believe began to blend. Many addicts still lived on this street and it mimicked the destruction in their lives, as any good junkie street does. There’s a bridge that goes over the train tracks, full of broken glass and usually some homeless people camped out by the spray-painted, cracked wall. I knew I was crossing into the darkness. Passing by the
homeless man, I saw another version of me—a broken bike and his trash were simply other versions of my things—as I entered Kimi’s apartment, a place I imagined to be engulfed by flames.

I imagined her place to be a castle of sand sitting up high on a cloud, with this mystical dimension visible only to those who knew of its secret and power, for those foolish enough to drink the bottles that say “POISON: Do Not Ingest.” It gave me such relief that Kimi was always there for me, the only ravishing woman who helped me dig my own grave, rusty shovel and syringes in hand, with a large, sweaty smile, forever challenging my dignity. I had been in her apartment more than in my own, and I always stood in the kitchen, afraid to touch anything for fear that I would become like the thing touched, dusty, sticky, and dirty. It was an odd reassurance that the apartment never changed and always looked like an old flea market, smelling like old vodka, stale cigarettes, sweat, rubbing alcohol, and regret—years and years of regret.

Once the demon handed me my bags, I would run into the bathroom, tear open the wax paper, and put the heroin onto the bent spoon. I hated this part, because it took too long and I wanted my shot ready at that moment, even though it only took about two minutes in real time to prepare. My addiction was urgent, and I was constantly fearful that I was going to have a moment of regret. I didn’t want to have time to think about “right and wrong”; I just wanted to get high and eliminate any lucid thoughts that still lingered in my mind. Each new high meant that I was hurting someone in my life, and the new person now was Jonathan. However, those people didn’t understand that this was the only way for me to continue to exist. I needed this, and nobody besides other junkies could understand my fate.

After mainlining, it was six seconds to oblivion. I reached my destination, then watched my pupils shrink from big to small, and the bliss washed over me like an internal fleece blanket.

I returned to work as quickly as possible, repeating that sacrament daily. Year after year, Kimi answered the door, waiting for my money, and I believed she loved me, that she cared for me, and that she understood the true pain that I bore. Everyone else, including my
coworkers at the
Times
and the Metropolitan Opera House, could not reach me, though they could hear my cries, see the pain splattered on my face, the look in my eyes that I was screaming inside my body like a tortured prisoner.

I started my performances for
Turandot
and my
Times
coworkers were glad for me, honoring my new schedule restraints. I never stopped using for opening night, which meant I couldn’t stop using until we finished the season of shows. It pained me to be performing and using at the same time. I had abandoned gymnastics many years ago, and it was because of recovery that I ever dared to go back. I knew recovery was a gift, and here I was, returning it. I couldn’t believe what a hypocrite I had become.

In my heart I wanted to perform drug-free, and I tried many times, but failed because my body was in too much pain from the withdrawals and there was no way I could flip onstage while detoxing. I needed to get high in order not to be sick. Ironically, my life seemed designed for me never to get into recovery again.

Even though I was strung out, I was always on time for my rehearsals and performances, attentive, and courteous and respectful to everyone. I considered the other acrobats in the show my family members. Performing at the Met was one of the good graces in my life, and the stage had an amazing power to it. It was one of the hopeful things I looked forward to, and I always thought that somehow either the music or the applause of 3,800 audience members could cure me.

One day Anna handed me an article from our Arts section featuring Andrea Gruber, who was the soprano in Puccini’s
Turandot
. The article spoke of how Andrea used to sing at the Metropolitan Opera House while high on painkillers and how she overcame her addiction. It was an honest story of her triumph over drugs. Some prescription painkillers, in a sense, contain the same substance as heroin; it’s the opiate-based chemical that gives one the sense of euphoria. It was an odd coincidence—even before I knew of Andrea’s struggle with drugs, her strong presence and amazing voice pulled me in during rehearsals. Her voice carried her past, rising from the depths of the Earth with a rich, strong, and powerful tone, moving everyone. There
was definitely some strange irony here with me, the addict, reading an article at work written by my colleague about a woman in the same show in which I was performing who was also an addict.

After I read the article, I wanted to talk to Andrea during rehearsals. She seemed to glisten and shine—I desperately wanted what she had. How could I approach her, and what would I say? Her story portrayed hope, but it made me feel even worse about my actions. Shooting up in order to flip disrespected everyone who had ever helped me train when I was younger—but my body was already too far gone, and I needed the high to perform.

I always arrived early to the Met to warm up and stretch, still aiming for the goal of becoming a contortionist, and just before I put on my costume, the demon would strike. I would shoot up, get dressed in the costume, and wait for the cue to come out flipping in a scene with the other acrobats. Costumed as homeless people, we tumbled through a choreographed fight scene and then rioted with the guards. After that, we did a few random stage moves, giving us the best seats in the house: onstage.

After the tumbling fight scene, I lay onstage as Andrea sang, trying to catch my breath, dressed in my tattered costume as a sick, dying beggar. Between the power of the music, the massive stage space, and my drug-induced euphoria, I came close to believing I was living that scene. It felt as though we were inside a giant box, and although the audience was difficult to see through the darkness, I could feel them watching.

Emanating from Andrea that night was the most beautiful, rich voice I had ever heard; her voice came from a place of pain, sorrow, and redemption, and I knew if any voice could cure me, hers could. Her voice was a powerful instrument that pushed away the darkness within me. At that moment I begged for transformation, as if the sonic shapes could cast the spell that would turn me into a butterfly. It brought tears to my eyes, and I would suffer there onstage in my own silence, listening to her metamorphosis instead of mine. While she was singing for her life, I was listening for my death, and the audience bore witness to that but knew nothing of the truth or the
irony of real stories before their eyes, concealed by the darkness, sounds, and stage lighting.

Act Two, Scene Two ends with one of the most famous arias of the opera, the first five notes and three words of which Andrea had tattooed on her lower back. Walking up to the edge of her platform, she began and her breath rose and fell, as if she was slightly unsure of the power of the words, feeling her voice fill the cavernous space. She quickly gained confidence with her striking stare, eyes focused straight ahead. Her voice gained the momentum of a cyclone, ready to tear through stillness and silence, and then rising to the aria’s climax—a song to the gods, to all women who have played Turandot before and will play Turandot after this moment, proclaiming her inner meaning and declaring her anthem. She sang with perfection.

Was Andrea singing to her addiction as my addiction sang to me? For me, her voice was a guide of redemption, ringing into the air and crying out for all souls tortured by this disease to break through into a sobering stillness. As the audience took in an amazing performance, I felt only I could hear and take in her true story and the intention behind those words—no great performance can come from a place without experience and compassion. Those words were not for Puccini, the press, or the rich, critical audience in front of her; I was convinced they were for Andrea, and for me.

Andrea graciously took her bow to the audience’s standing ovation, and her recovery beamed through her skin. If only I could have touched her robe, maybe I could have stolen a molecule of her strength. I went back to the dressing room, but first stopped in the bathroom to shoot that memory away, because it was too painful. I lived that pattern for a long time and had to use more during future shows, because you can’t keep a hungry lion starving for long.

The Met hired me for two more productions. I wasn’t sure how I had managed that, but even though I was using, my acrobatics were still solid. Through some innate muscle memory, I could do gymnastics on any drug without falling, and my body was conditioned to flip on its own while my mind went somewhere else. It felt like driving heavy machinery through quicksand, but I always managed to land
on my feet, and I was fortunate to not make any mistakes onstage—until later that year in an afternoon performance of Verdi’s
Un Ballo in Maschera
.

I did a simple front flip, and was so strung out that I landed short and fell on my ass. I stayed there for a minute onstage, in shock. Again, my addiction infiltrated my art, my God, and everything that I had thought was mine.

Gymnastics, the last thing that made me human and gave me a reason to live, was now pulled out from under me and dragged to the underworld. I didn’t see the Devil or hear his laugh, but I felt him. I was his now, in completeness, the two of us, forever and ever in his hell of misery and pain. My disease had won, and I knew it.

I told the other acrobats I slipped on something, which neither they nor I believed. I went home fuming and rueing the day I had invited this destruction into my life. Neither the music, the prayers, nor the wishing could fix the reality of me. Again, as I had always done to battle my addiction, I stood by my window, thinking, pleading, urging God to take physical form and to send a bolt down with some sort of power to remove me from this insanity. And I said, bitterly, “Well . . . all right now . . . just swallow me whole . . . but take me fast.” As usual, my prayers were met with silence.