Life of the Party (53 page)

I eyed the
nightstand eagerly as I crawled back into bed, satisfied when I saw
there was more than enough heroin in the little blue balloon to get
us through the rest of the day. Though it beyond sucked that I lost
my job, there were upsides to it. I didn’t have to go to work. I
was free to hang out with Grey all day long, to get high all day
long—nothing could make me leave my bedroom if I didn’t want to. I
lit a smoke and smiled with anticipation. It was like the most
perfect kind of holiday.

And I knew what
I was going to do for money. I’d keep looking for a job, for sure,
but in the meantime … well, my parents were loaded. And they were
never home. Surely they wouldn’t mind providing a little just to
help us out, until Grey started gigging again and I found a job, at
least. They probably wouldn’t even notice. It didn’t even occur to
me to feel guilty about robbing from my parents, it was all easily
justified. They’d given Marcy a car when she graduated. What was a
few hundred dollars for me?

By the time
Grey stirred I had already mixed us a batch. I lay behind him,
kissing his back and his shoulders and his neck until he was fully
awake, his blue eyes gazing up at me lustily. Then I handed him the
needle and held out my arm.

“Please?” I
smiled. He pulled me down until I was lying beneath him and kissed
me furiously, passionately, his warm hands all over my body until I
was at a frenzy, nearly frantic for him. Just when I was on the
brink of sheer pleasure, Grey paused a moment, a smirk curving his
lips as he placed the cold steel to my skin.

And it was like
nothing I’d ever known before. Nothing I’d ever thought possible. I
thought I might die from the euphoria. And all the while Grey’s
arms were wrapped around me, and he was kissing me, and he was
whispering in my ear how much he loved me. And I loved him, though
I couldn’t speak it at the time, my heart was nearly bursting with
how much I loved him. I’d never been happier.

Grey liked
heroin just as much as I did. I’d been banking on it, actually,
knowing that he’d cave that much more if he wanted the H as badly
as I did. It was all too easy for us to go from balloon to balloon,
justifying every one, calling each one our last and then finding
some reason to go and get another. It was lovely, my holiday—spent
almost entirely in my room with the man that I adored, smiling
smiles of pure, relentless joy and forgetting all about the world
surrounding us.

Charlie came
and went. Every now and then I’d hear a door close or her hairdryer
from the bathroom. She was spending more and more time with
Courtney. At times a female voice—not Charlie’s but still
recognizable—would float to me from beyond my bliss and I’d know
that it was Courtney, that she was over at our house. But nothing
could coax me from my room, the ultimate zenith of my happiness.
Nothing but the need for more heroin.

Once in awhile
when our supply was getting low, I’d rise from my sloth-like
existence and force myself into a shower, throw on some clothes and
go out into the world. My parents were never home. I’d go through
purses and jean pockets and bowls of change, always finding enough
to fuel our habit for another week. At times I’d try to picture the
conclusion my parents would come too when they found their money
missing. Would they suspect me? Or would they blame it on their
forgetfulness—just another side effect of the life-consuming
careers they had chosen? It didn’t matter. Sometimes I wondered if
they knew how badly I needed the money. The more I stole from them,
the more there seemed to be an overabundance of cash just lying
around their house next time I went. I’d shrug it off though,
chalking it up to mere coincidence so I wouldn’t have to feel
guilty for taking advantage of them.

When I got back
home, it was Grey’s turn. He’d dress and shower and take the money
I’d procured and leave the house. Sometimes this meant just a
simple trip to his house, where either Alex or Zack would be
holding and generous enough to sell us some. Other times it meant a
trip to the city, and the three of them would be gone for hours
while I waited at home, edgy and impatient for my next fix. I’d
take the time to straighten up my room and tidy up the house
somewhat … washing the week old food from the plates piling up,
shaking out my bedding, emptying the overflowing ashtrays,
disposing of the countless needles covering every flat surface in
my bedroom …. Basically, getting everything in order for our next
binge.

I knew this
couldn’t last indefinitely. I mean, this wasn’t really a way of
life. It was just a time out, an extended break before we
re-entered normal society again. It had been ages since I’d last
been to a club; months, it seemed, since I’d hung out with all of
my friends. And I needed to get a job soon. I couldn’t steal from
my parents forever. All this I knew, but the actual date to start
my new life again kept getting pushed back, further and further. It
loomed on the horizon, something I knew I needed to get back to—to
do—but it was so easy to procrastinate, so easy to justify the next
balloon of sticky black drugs.

Even so, when
Grey returned home after a trip to the city one weekend and held
only one rubber pouch in his hand, I was shocked, disappointed. I
gazed up at him in alarm.

“Are you
heading back again to the city this weekend? For more?” I wondered
hopefully.

“No.” He was
hesitant to begin. I knew he wouldn’t want to upset me, but at the
same time, he knew he had to be firm. “No, Mackenzie. This is it.
We’ve booked the Aurora again and we start playing next week. I
have to get serious; I can’t be strung out all the time. I can’t
even remember the last time I practiced my guitar.” He held his
hand out in front of him and stretched out his stiff fingers. “One
last weekend, okay? And then we quit, for good.”

I nodded. I
knew the truth in his words, but still I was sad, afraid for my
holiday to be over. I didn’t want it to be over. I wanted to argue
with him, but I had no argument. I tried to rationalize, to talk
some sense into my brain. This wasn’t living. This wasn’t life. I
needed to get straight too. When was the last time I’d talked to
Charlie? The last time I’d socialized with anyone? The last time
I’d eaten?

“You’re right.”
I admitted begrudgingly. “We need to quit.”

“One last
weekend.” Grey smirked at me. He set the supplies down on my
nightstand and began rolling up his shirtsleeve, revealing the
dark, hard muscle of his arm. “Let’s make it count.”

Monday morning
came too soon. Grey and I woke up about the same time,
uncomfortable and sweaty. He grabbed my hand, lacing his fingers
through mine, and kissed me encouragingly.

“We’re done.”
He proclaimed. “We’re done with heroin.”

I nodded.
“Yes.” I agreed. I tried not to be sad, I tried to be excited for a
fresh start. We’re done, we’re done with heroin, I repeated to
myself, over and over again. But even though that thought was
running foremost in my mind, nothing could prepare me for what we
were in for.

At first I was
merely … achy. Like I was coming down with the flu or something,
like my bones were sore in their very marrow. It was unpleasant,
but bearable. Grey and I lay back on my bed, smoking as our sweat
dampened the sheets beneath us, trying to talk to each other and
keep our minds from the withdrawal.

“The CD’s
almost finished.” He informed me. “It’s just being mastered now,
and then it will be ready for distribution.”

“So it’ll be in
music stores and stuff?” I wondered, amazed. My stomach churned
within me. I tried to ignore it.

“Uh … I think
so. I think it’ll be more for having at our concerts, for fans to
buy.” A wave of pain contorted his handsome features for a split
second, but he recovered quickly. “But Tom’s going to try and get
us some radio play.”

“What? That’s
awesome!” I started to smile, but a blistering stab of heat bore
into my guts. I panted around it. “Your songs are going to be on
the radio?”

“Yeah.” Grey
wiped his brow. “Cool huh?”

“Yeah.” I tried
smiling again. “I’m so proud of you. I can’t wait to just turn on
the radio in the car and hear your voice.” I imagined it
then—anything to take my mind off the churning—and beamed at him
through my sweat.

“It’ll be a
trip, that’s for sure.” He chuckled. “And … I didn’t want to tell
you until I knew more about it … but, there’s been talk of a summer
festival tour as well. Like with famous bands, like Green Day and
Moist ….” Grey put an arm around his stomach and winced. “It’s like
a ten-city tour.”

“Grey!” I
exclaimed. “That’s amazing. When do you find out?”

“Soon. Tom’s
been setting stuff up for us, like, more than the Aurora. I think
we may play a few times in the city. We’re going to have a meeting
soon and figure it all out.”

“Wow, I can’t
believe it. I’m so happy for you. You’re going to be so
famous.”

“I hope so.” He
tried to smile, but it was more like a grimace. I wondered if he
were subconsciously trying to talk himself out of wanting the
heroin. Like if telling me about all of his concerts was also a way
to list the reasons for staying clean. The pros. Because I could
tell it was getting harder for him—as it was for me—to ignore the
symptoms anymore. Pain was lashing through my stomach, making me
pant and lay weakly on my side. I drew my knees up to my chest.

“You okay?”
Grey wondered, placing a sweaty hand on my slick arm.

“Yeah.” I lied.
Another spasm clutched me. “You?”

“Yeah.” He lay
back and shut his eyes though, his lips a hard, tight line.

“Grey?”

“Yes?”

“Keep talking
to me, okay? It helps.”

It seemed like
he tried to laugh, but the sound never made it to his lips. “What
do you want to hear?”

“Anything.
Something about you, something I don’t know about.”

“Something you
don’t know … hmmm ….” He inhaled sharply, and then his face
relaxed. “Well, this isn’t … the first time that I’ve had to get
off … heroin.”

“It’s not?” I
couldn’t hide my surprise. “When did you?”

“When I was
younger. Like, fifteen, sixteen.”

“Really? I had
no idea.” I couldn’t form a tight enough ball to keep the pain at
bay. I grit my teeth and felt the sweat pouring from my brow. “Was
it hard to quit?”

“Nah.” He shook
his head. “I barely got into it. We smoked it then, you know, tin
foil, plastic pen tube. I was such a punk kid, into all kinds of
shit.”

I listened
quietly, shutting my eyes and focusing on Grey’s low, velvet voice
instead of the gnawing in my stomach. “Things were bad before.” He
explained. “I dropped out of school. We were stealing stereos and
stuff to pay for drugs. One of my friends nearly got beat to death
by a dealer.” He paused for a moment, talking a breath. “I saw some
messed up things go down. When I tried heroin … it was such
freedom. I didn’t have to think about my past and my parents, or my
present and all the shit I’d seen and done, the little shit-hole
apartment that was my home, my frail old grandma who was waiting
for me there.”

I nodded
encouragingly. I loved it when Grey opened up like this to me. Most
of his emotions he expressed in his songs—I had to listen to them,
read the lyrics there to really understand what he’d been through,
what was going through his head. He had my attention now, my rapt
attention, overshadowing the sick, achy blood racing through my
body. I would listen to whatever he had to say.

His eyes were
shut, in remembrance or in pain, I couldn’t tell. His voice shook
ever so slightly. “It was my grandma that made me change. I could
see her, wasting away, her hands worn with worry in her lap. I was
leaving, it was late one night, and I needed a fix. She refused to
let me leave. She begged me not to go, but I wouldn’t listen.
Finally, she lost it on me. I can still see her eyes, they were so
wide, so furious. ‘Go ahead and die then, and see if anyone cares!
You’re just like your parents, Grey Lewis. You’re a loser! A screw
up!’”

“That’s the
last thing she ever said to me. Of course I didn’t listen to her, I
needed to get high. And when I came back the next morning, she was
dead.”

“Oh, Grey.” I
gasped. I tried to sit up, to comfort him, but I was too weak.
“That’s horrible! I’m so sorry.”

He cringed. “It
was enough to clean me up. I had to prove her wrong, you know, to
show her that I wasn’t a screw up. To maybe make her proud of me …
some day. She was all the family I had in the world, and I just ….”
He shook his head.

“How did you do
it though? If it’d been me, I would’ve seen that as an excuse to do
more, you know, to forget it all. How did you quit?”

“It was
tempting to keep going, don’t get me wrong. But that would have
been … too easy. I would’ve been lost. I had to show her … I owed
it to her to make something of myself. She gave me everything. So I
threw myself into music, it became my drug, my heroin. Through it,
I found some measure … of … peace ….”

I grasped his
hand; I didn’t know what else to say. The pain was rocketing
through me now, quickly tearing through my muscles. I moaned and
pressed my face against the pillow.

“I’m sorry,
Mackenzie. I’m sorry I let this get so far.” The pain was evident
in Grey’s face as he watched me suffering. He blue eyes burned. “It
wasn’t like this before, I didn’t realize … I mean, I felt vaguely
nauseous … but it was nothing like this ….”

“It’s not your
fault.” I shook my head. It was mine; I had manipulated him into
it, pulled him down deeper into the addiction with me. I choked
back the guilt and squeezed his fingers. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.
I’m with you.”