White Out (15 page)

Gratitude takes time. It’s the fruit of experience. It still feels new to me, I haven’t had it for that long. Gratitude came only after I’d passed through all the other feelings.

Actually I’ve only had two other major feelings worth mentioning. The first is the White Out. I met that on Chip’s roof. The second is Fun. I met Fun one year after the white out in SoHo. Eva and I had been traveling in Africa, celebrating our graduation from college. When we got back to the States, I moved to Baltimore to start grad school. Eva moved to New York. I missed her at first, but soon I met someone else. In Baltimore, I met someone who could really score. A connection. His name was Scott, but he insisted I call him Funboy.

“They call me Funboy,” he said, “’cause I get raw bags of fun.” He wasn’t being poetic. Dope was the only fun. And the best dope was “raw,” as opposed to “scramble,” which was cheaper and more heavily cut. “Raw bags of fun.”

Well, maybe he was being a little poetic. The raw fun came in vials, not bags. Funboy called them bags because the first time he did dope, in the distant past, it came in a little plastic baggie. He was twenty years old, three years younger than me.

“OK, I see him. Now slow down.” I slowed down. Funboy was in the passenger seat. He peered out the window at the knots of people leaning on walls, sitting on the row houses’ narrow porches, pacing the corners. Funboy didn’t sell any dope himself. He was a connector, one of the drug world’s many wires linking paranoid dealers with ravenous addicts. The street dealers all knew him. The addicts would give him a vial or two for taking them to cop. If you were new in the city, like I was, and tried to cop on your own, you’d get burned. Funboy made connections. Of course sometimes the wires got crossed. And if anyone along the connection got unhappy, the electricity went through Funboy. He looked like he was a little burned inside.

“What’s up, Red, you on?” Funboy stuck his head out the window. The heavyset black man on the corner shook his head.

“It’s hot right now. Ten minutes.” We rolled off. I gritted my teeth. Ten minutes could designate any length of time. I had no patience. And I didn’t even have a habit yet.

“You’ll be the worst dope fiend ever, Mike. No patience.”

“I’ll never be a dope fiend,” I said. His eyes kind of slid around.

“Just don’t do it three days in a row.” Three days, that was the magic number. Don’t do it three days in a row and you won’t get addicted. Ridiculous, with that white hole swelling in my memory. Suddenly Funboy yelled and turned up the radio all the way.

“Yeah! I like it raw too!” He raised his fist out the window. The popular rap tune was his theme song.

“You know, Mike,” he said thoughtfully. “I only get raw dope. That’s because raw dope is the best. Scramble dope is cheaper, but it’s got a lot of cut. Now how many dope fiends do you think only fuck with raw dope?” I shrugged. “Less than 10 percent? Probably less than five. That means I’m in the top 5 percent.” He stared out as street after street of standing, stumbling, stooping Baltimore junkies flew by.

“Look at these fucking scramble dope fiends.” We pulled up at a red light. A middle-aged woman stood on the curb next to our stopped car. Her mouth hung open.

“Fucking scramble dope fiend.” Funboy spoke it slowly into her face through the open window as the light turned green.

“All right, man, isn’t there anywhere else?” I was a little tired of driving around. I lit another cigarette. I don’t smoke anymore. In my diseased memory, the cigarette is as thick around as a baby’s arm. Its white skin is as deep and rich and full of the future as a baby’s. Funboy looked uncertainly at the sun.

“Well, there are other spots, but these red tops are really the best right now. Plus, I like to support that corner.” Ten minutes later we were back. Red shook his head.

“Too hot out here. We getting everybody together at the park.”

“All right,” Funboy said. “Make a right, then a quick left, Mike.”

“OK, Funboy.” It kind of felt good to be ordered around by Funboy. “Right! Left! Right! Left!”

“Yes, sir!” I was a soldier in the army of fun.

We parked at a lot adjoining a small city park and got out. We walked through a clump of trees and into an unbelievable scene. There were at least fifty or sixty junkies milling around in the green space between the park’s path and the busy street. As I stared, another junkie came up the path in a wheelchair. Two more came out of the bushes to my left. It seemed like all of Funboy’s top 5 percent were here. Some were wearing ratty jeans and faded Metallica T-shirts. Some were wearing ratty jeans and faded Bob Marley T-shirts. Some were wearing ratty jeans and faded “Baltimore Reads!” T-shirts. It was a diverse crowd.

“We can’t just wait here with all these junkies!” I whispered. “This is totally obvious. The cops will definitely see this from the street. It’ll probably be on the news.” Funboy shook his head.

“You sure don’t know Baltimore. This is why I moved back here from Seattle.” He wandered over and sat down next to a middle-aged black man in a suit, a woman in a faded Beatles T-shirt, and a sixteen-year-old white girl in a McDonald’s uniform.

“Oh hey, Funboy,” the girl said. “Waiting on that raw?”

“You know me, Melissa. I only fuck with raw,” he said. She smiled.

“Me too. Here’s a coupon for a free soft-serve cone,” she passed it to him and he took it.

“You know,” the Beatles fan said, “There’s nothing like raw dope. Maybe I’m funny. I could get scramble near where I live, but I take the bus all the way out here. I guess I gotta have that raw.”

“They better hurry,” the suited man said, checking his expensive watch, “I have to be in court in an hour and a half. I’d go downtown, but I really only mess with raw dope.”

“How’d Richie’s case come out, Louis?”

“Pretty good, Funboy,” the suited man replied, “when you consider what we had to work with. We were able to plead it down to manslaughter, but in the state of Maryland—” Louis was cut off by a sudden surge through the crowd. Everyone was standing up and moving. We pressed forward with the rest.

“Get over! Everyone get over quick or you won’t get served!” Members of the dealer’s crew, identifiable by their plain white T-shirts and confident alert movements, were directing the crowd across the street. Traffic stopped, honking, as a jerky stream of junkies walked, ran, trotted, biked, and wheeled across the busy street to the block of row houses. A hundred yards down the street to our left, I saw a stream of about thirty people crossing the road in the other direction, toward the park. I grabbed Funboy’s arm and pointed. He shot them a quick glance.

“That’s just the line for ready rock.” Ready rock was Baltimore slang for crack.

Across the street we were herded down a block and a half and into an alley. There must have been almost a hundred of us by now. The crowd spilled out one end of the alley into the street. “OK!” voices rang out. “Everyone just keep still or you won’t get served.” The pushing and moving ceased instantly, like the current had been shut off. I pushed three twenty-dollar bills into Funboy’s hands. We stood still for maybe five minutes until one of the crew came by and served Funboy. Then he turned to me.

“How many?”

“None,” I said. He looked startled.

“He’s with me,” Funboy explained.

“Man,” the dealer said, “if you’re not buying don’t be getting in line. These extra motherfuckers draw the heat.” We took off. I looked back as we crossed the street. The knot in the alley was coming apart as little threads of two or three furtive junkies peeled off and disappeared.

We climbed back into the car. I turned the air-conditioning on full blast and we pulled out, looking nervously for cop cars. Cop cars are white on the outside. On top they have big red and blue organs for sensing fear. You have to stay calm. That’s why Funboy insisted on fixing right there in the moving car. I hated that. But I admired his dexterity. When he was done, he sat back. Then he yelled and turned the radio all the way up.

“I only fuck with raw dope,” Funboy said. “Because. Raw. Dope. Is. The shit.” He called out the dope spots as we passed them. “White tops…green tops…ready rock…black tops…scramble…scramble…scramble.” We were getting into downtown. Mount Vernon Square, St. Paul Street. People drank tea under café umbrellas, strolled under sun hats, picked up change from the sidewalk. Outside the Atlantis, young broke junkies lined up to audition to be strippers. Outside the Walters, old rich junkies walked their poodles. The sun lit up fake and real jewels on old and young women. There were red awnings and blue awnings in the air, and red tops and blue tops on the ground. There were people climbing in and out of buildings with no windows. And the alleys were even more crowded than the streets.

Swinging Baltimore in the late nineteen-nineties! There was no place like it. I’ve taken Ecstasy in Dublin, been clubbing in London, seen art shows in New York, talked with Charlie in Cleveland, gone shopping in Tokyo, overdosed in Amsterdam. But there was no place like Baltimore in the late nineties. Everyone knew everyone. You felt like you could walk in any door and find someone who was selling what you wanted. There were beautiful parks. There were liquor stores and ice cream trucks. There were no Nazis. It was my kind of city. Well, there was one Nazi.

“I’m a Nazi, Mike,” Funboy admitted, as we rolled up Charles.

“Really,” I said.

“Yeah, I hate niggers.”

“What about Jews?”

“I don’t know any Jews.” I thought about this. It didn’t make sense.

“How can you be a Nazi if you don’t hate Jews?”

“Because the niggers rule the world. They keep us down. They stick together. They’re smart and crafty and they run shit. It’s a nigger conspiracy out here. I mean, you’re not blind. Look around. What color are the dealers?”

“Black,” I said.

“And you saw that crowd of fiends out in the park. White and Asian and Mexican. But the dealers? Every one was black.”

“Wait,” I said. “There were lots of black fiends too. What about Louis? He’s black.”

“Yeah,” Funboy said, “But he’s a lawyer. An Oreo. Black on the outside, white on the inside.” He pondered. “Most black fiends,” he said, “are white inside.”

I decided to try a different approach.

“You know, Funboy, most people see it differently. If you look at the country as a whole, you’ll find that black people don’t actually dominate it. In fact, on average they tend to be poorer than whites. Because of a history of racism, many blacks are forced to live in inner-city areas infested by drugs. They don’t have access to the education that would enable them to get good jobs. And because of this lack of opportunity,” I concluded, “some of the smartest and most ambitious are forced to become drug dealers.”

Funboy snorted. “Forced to become drug dealers.” He looked disgusted with me. “Forced to drive Mercedes and fuck hot bitches and get all the money and all the dope. And what do you mean, black people have to live in the part of the city where there’s drugs? I’d do anything to live in that part of the city! A dope spot within walking distance? Are you kidding? But I can’t live there. The niggers would kill me. They’re forced to live there, yeah right. You just try moving to Edmondson Avenue!”

“But I wouldn’t want to move there.”

“That’s ’cause you’re stupid. People come from all over to visit that place. Best dope in the state for sure. But they won’t let no white people move in there. They wouldn’t give white people the opportunity. That’s why I hate niggers. White people work all day in some shitty suburb, then take their paycheck down to Edmondson or Druid Hill or Greenmount. Like slaves. Niggers run the world. You’re blind.”

“But they really don’t, Funboy. You’re not being—”

“And all the rappers are black!” he yelled. “How do you explain that? Practically every fucking one of the rappers is black! DMX, Jay-Z, Master P. Sure, they let Eminem in. One. A token.”

“What about the president, Funboy?”

“A token,” he said, “like Eminem. You just keep talking that shit the niggers teach you in grad school, Mike, while you stand in line waiting for Red’s dope.” He imitated my voice. “‘Niggers are poor and oppressed! Please let me get one, Red! I’ll do anything!’”

He resumed his normal Funboy voice. “But one day there will be a revolution.” He looked dreamily out the window. “A Nazi revolution. Then the slums will be filled with white people. And I’ll be right there.”

Although Funboy was a Nazi, some of his best friends were black. Tony, for instance. Tony Rolls, or Tony K., or Carey Street Tony.

“Cool,” Tony said. He was looking at a poster for some shitty band Funboy was in.

“Yeah,” Funboy said. “We’re playing at the Otto Bar next Sunday.”

“How much do you get?” Tony asked.

“Almost nothing.” Funboy set down the guitar he’d been strumming. “Pretty much nothing. Enough to get high. Kind of.” Tony let the poster fall.