The Madness Continues

I come back from the store at about 8:30 last night. I go to the dining area and eat my gelato. So, i am floating. That shit is so good I feel high. I head out to the smoking area for a post-gelato smoke, then go back into my room.

The light is out. I have three roommates. Two are sleeping in their beds, which is where they were when I left. One of them does an incredible amount of drugs and works the night shift, the other is Just depressed. There is a string of clothes from the lockers to my bed. I sleep on the top bunk. The guy who sleeps on the bottom bunk is kneeling on the floor, no shoes or socks, shirtless, face first on the bunk. His face is lying in a pile of Xanax bars and cigarettes. There is an empty cigarette pack and various papers there as well. He is making snoring/gurgling sounds, so I know he isn't dead.

"This is going to be exciting," I think to myself.

How to go about this? What to do? Luckily, this is my forte. I have almost as much experience as a trauma doctor in a hospital in a low income neighborhood when it comes to overdoses, near overdoses, and just plain old over-consumption. I have been here many times.

"Blank," I say. (Name omitted)

Nothing happens.

Off topic. A little side question here, because I just stepped outside to smoke a cigarette. I have noticed the little skater boys wearing these pants lately, which are skin tight in the legs, but saggy in the ass. How do they accomplish this? Do they put extra material there, or do they have no ass? Note to my old school skaters out there, if I see you wearing these I am going to laugh so hard, humiliate you any way I can, maybe want to kick your saggy ass. Back to the story.

"Blank," I say again, this time adding a kick in the ass, hard enough to rouse, but hopefully not to inspire violence.

"Ooommmphahagrdgdgdgsgsgseedsaahhhhh," he says. He moves a bit, slowly, scattering pills, papers, and cigarettes.

"Blank," I say. "Get the fuck up and clean this shit up before someone sees you. Get into your fucking bed."

There is no door on our room. There used to be but people were smoking after hours, so the doors were removed. Any staff member walking down the hall could clearly see the half naked, half on his bed dope fiend. This is a serious violation of the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy regarding drug use at the shelter. They breathalyze use once a night, at the same time every night. If you want to drink, you wait until after 9:00 pm. Drug use is a little different. Nearly everyone there is fucked up. As long as you don't stumble around causing problems, or openly display drugs or paraphernalia, you are in the clear. This scene was too blatant for even the loose policing to ignore.

"Blank," I say louder. "Get the fuck up!"

He stands up and stumbles around. Bounces from foot to foot. I don't even know if  he sees me. His eyes are glassed over like he just got hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat. I step back to give his wobbles some space.

He kneels back down and starts going through the pile of shit on his bed, all with the slow, deliberate, unsure movements of the overly indulgent. "Fuck," he says. "Where the fuck is it?"

I don't know exactly what he is looking for, but I can guess. Blank is an opiate addict. Suboxone and heroin when he can't get the cheaper, longer lasting Suboxone. I have known him for years. We have shot dope together, back before all this other stuff came around, back when we were all heroin purists. I remember when he overdosed in the bathroom of the ice cream parlor across the street from the park, and everyone got mad at him because the owner started locking the bathroom and it was the closes place to the park, where you scored, to shoot your dope. I figure he has lost a Suboxone strip or a bag of heroin.

"What the fuck," he says. He starts patting his pockets and searching through them. He walks past, bumping into me. He starts digging through the clothes scattered on the floor. "Come on. What the fuck," he says.

I decide to just step back and watch. He is breathing and moving. He isn't going to die any time soon. This could be entertaining.

He's on his knees now, going through socks and shirts. "Come the fuck on," he says. The anger, which was previously in his voice is changing to desperation. I expect at any moment he will be like the guy in the movie, on his knees, fists clenched, looking skyward, wailing, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO..................." I expect him to start crying at any second. Flailing on the ground, speaking in tongues.

He stands up, stumbles to the lockers, bounces his head off one, steps back, and straightens up. He shakes it off and opens his locker. By now, he has woken up the two other guys in the room.

"This is going to get good," is what I am thinking.

He starts digging through his locker. "Where the hell is it? Come on, Jesus," he says.

I know I am not the most civilized, religious person, but I am pretty sure Jesus has better things he could be doing than help some junky find his misplaced drugs. I could be wrong here.

His phone rings. It takes him a minute to find it, and another minute to look at the number and figure out how to answer it. "Hello," he says. "I don't fucking know. I am looking for it right now. I had three quarters. Had a half I was going to hook you up with and now it is fucking gone."

This has narrowed down the mystery. It isn't a bag of dope. Must be a Suboxone strip.

"I don't fucking know. I gave Blank a quarter, and that was the last time I saw it. I'm going to call him right now and see if he held on to it. I don't fucking know. I have to go," he says. He hangs up, wipes his nose, scratches his arm, starts dialing.

Anyone who knows anything about this knows it is over with. Nobody has ever given anyone more drugs than they intended and had them returned. What is this guy going to say? "OH yeah, I was hoping you would call. I wanted to give the rest of this back. You gave me an unfair amount." No. He is going to say, "I don't know what you did with it. You gave me mine, then you put the rest in your pocket and left."

He speaks into his phone. "What did I give you? Did I give you a half or a quarter? Blank says I gave you a half," he says. Pauses to listen. "What did I do with the rest?" Pauses again. "Well it's fucking gone. No I don't know where the fuck it is. The last time I saw it was with you." He listens for a minute. "Just look around there. Maybe I dropped it. I gotta go look for it," he says, then hangs up.

He starts digging trough his stuff again. First his locker, then the pile of shit on the bed, then his backpack. He finally cleans up all the pills, stuffs them into his cigarette pack, and puts the pack into his pocket. Then he pulls the pack out and checks his pockets again.

Another resident comes to our doorway. "Blank," he says. "Someone is out in the parking lot looking for you."

"Fuck. Shit. Goddamn," Blank says. He stumbles down the hallway and out the front door.

I get up on my bed, put a DVD in my laptop, "Untold American History" or something like that, an Oliver Stone documentary. I put my headphones on. After about ten unfocused minutes, I go outside to have a cigarette.

Blank is off to the side of the parking lot. I can see him and another guy talking under the streetlamp. There is another person sitting behind the wheel of a brand new Nissan. Blank is wearing a coat that is not his and he didn't have on when he left. He had only a T-shirt on. It is below freezing at this point. Blank is making animated gestures, waving his hands around, trying to smoke a cigarette. His little girlfriend has come out to witness the scene. Blank leaves the guy he is talking to, and the guy goes to the passenger side of the Nissan and gets in. Blank talks to his girlfriend. The guy comes running out of the Nissan. "Blank," he says. "My coat."

"Oh yeah," Blank says. He takes of the coat, hands it to the guy. He kisses his girlfriend and stumbles in the front door.

I put my cigarette out and head back in. Nothing has changed. Blank is frantically searching and cursing. "This fucking guy got my shit and we're going to have a big problem," he says, to no one in particular. "I'm going to kick his ass."

I get back up on my bed, put my ear buds back in, and hit play. Oliver continues his conspiratorial narration.

Blank stumbles around some more. Curses some more. He has turned the light on and everyone in the room is fully awake. Another person comes to our door. "Blank, there is someone in the parking lot for you," he says.

"What the fuck? Again. Are you fucking kidding me?" Blank says.

"I'm just the messenger, brother," the guy says, and walks away.

"What the fuck. Leave me alone. I'm going to fucking kill somebody," Blank says, and heads out the room. This time he remembers his coat.

I'm watching Oliver Stone tell the real story about World War Two, or what he perceives to be the real story. Who knows for sure? There is a lot of years and room for ambiguity there. I can't take it any longer. I have to see what Blank is up to. I pause Oliver and head outside for another cigarette.

He is off to the side of the parking lot again, this time with a different person. He is as animated as before, maybe more so. I catch bits and pieces. "Was going to hook you up.............Mother fucker robbed me..................Kill that son of a bitch...............Go find him." I get bored, head back to Oliver.

I am on my bed. Blank comes in. He grabs his backpack, puts it on, and leaves. "This mother fucker robbed me and I'm gonna find him." is the last thing I hear him say. This is at 11:00 pm. The latest you are allowed to enter the shelter is 10:00 pm. I don't think Blank can stand any more AWOL's, and is probably going to be kicked out.

I settled back with Oliver, content the madness was over for the night.

I was wrong.

I notice that one of my other roommates is standing up by the doorway of our room. The light is out. No one else is around. I don't know what he is doing. He comes over by my bed, and I take out one of my ear buds. "This old mother fucker is talking about me back there. Thinks I can't hear him. Wants to talk shit. Tonight isn't the night."

He goes back to the door. I put my ear bud back in. He yells, "That dude isn't in here. He went AWOL looking for some dope. Get the fuck out of the hallway and go to sleep."

Obviously Blank's girlfriend is at the end of the hallway. The women aren't allowed in the men's section.

He said this loud enough so everyone, including the staff member on duty, could hear it. Someone from the backroom says, "Listen to him fucking snitching now."

My roommate runs back. "You got something to fucking say, say it to my face."

"You're going to get your ass fucked up," the voice in the back says.

"We can take this outside right now," my roommate says.

They are both getting louder and louder.

"You're going to get your ass stabbed," the voice from the back says.

"Bring it on. Let's go outside," my roommate says.

"HEY YOU TWO," the staff member yells. "Knock it off. I'll kick you both out."

They continue to yell. The staff member yells. My other roommate jumps up and joins the yelling. The staff member gets them both into the office, tells my other roommate to go to bed, and closes the office door, but the yelling doesn't stop.

I shut off Oliver, pack up my laptop, and put it in my locker. I have had enough excitement for one day. Just another night at the homeless shelter, chillin' with my peeps, while my cozy, warm apartment sits empty in North Tonawanda.

Good time to double steal a quote. Originally a Warren Zevon lyric, but Hunter S. Thompson used to use it often. "Send lawyers, guns, and money. Dad,get me out of this."