Bone in the Throat - Anthony Bourdain [37]
"Mr. Ricard," he said, shaking the chef's hand like he was taking his pulse. "If you'd come with me, please."
They took the elevator to the second floor and walked down a long hall that smelled of disinfectant. The walls were painted institutional green. The floor was gray linoleum, worn through in spots. The chef noticed posters scotch-taped to the walls, saying things like DO NOT LOITER IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD and REMEMBER TO THOROUGHLY CLEAN AND STERILIZE YOUR WORKS.
They passed a long line of identical cubicles. The doors were open, and inside each one, the chef could see a bored counselor sitting at a desk, with maybe a potted plant and a file cabinet. In each room, an animated junkie sat in a chair on the other side of the desk, spinning a tale of woe. The chef heard one loud voice, protesting an injustice. "I was jus' standin there," said the voice. "I wasn't doin no drugs. I wasn't lookin for no drugs . . . They took my bottle off a me. Man said he was gonna put a cap in my ass! I said 'Whassup with that?' Now you tellin me I gotta go back to six-day? That's cold. Really cold . . ."
Mr. James led him down another hallway and into a large room, overlit with dirty fluorescent lights, where there were two badly formed lines of impatient and loudly complaining junkies waiting for the two bullnecked nurses at the counter to dispense methadone.
As each junkie reached the head of the line, the nurse put bright orange diskettes into a clear plastic cup, added hot water from a coffee urn, and handed it over. The person being medicated would add orange drink to the cup from the plastic pitchers on the counter and then stir the mixture with thin wooden stirrers. It was typically a swollen, puffy-fingered hand, covered with purple stripes and scar tissue, that would raise cup to mouth.
They drank greedily. Adding more orange drink to the cup, they would stir again, drink once more, the people on line behind them growing more impatient.
Mr. James led the chef back to a small office with a view of an air shaft. He motioned to a vinyl-backed chair, and the chef sat down. Mr. James took a clean file from his gray metal desk and sat down on the window sill. He started by asking the chef for his full name, current address, and age.
"Mr. Ricard, how long have you been using heroin?"
"A little over three years, regularly," answered the chef.
"By regularly, you mean every day?"
"Yes."
"And how much heroin do you use on a daily basis at present?"
"Don't know, it depends . . . Three, four, five, sometimes six dime bags. Depends we're talking downtown bags or midtown bags. Two or three midtown bags will get me through."
"You shoot it?"
"Only in the last like six months. I just started. That's why I'm in such a rush to get on the program. I think, I know I've crossed some sort of line. I used to snort it. I got my habit snorting."
"You share your works?"
"Never," said the chef proudly. "I buy a new set every time. I never share."
"You're addicted to heroin?"
"I'm addicted to heroin," said the chef.
"Because that's not a lot. That's not a lot of heroin. Have you considered seven-day detox?"
"I can't. I work. I still have a good job. I can't disappear for a week, a month. I got responsibilities. I've tried to kick on my own. It didn't work out."
"Three years is not a long time."
"Really?"
"Most of our patients have been using for much longer by the time they get here. Most of them ten years or more. Some have been using as long as thirty years."
The chef just nodded.
"Use heroin today?" asked Mr. James.
"Not yet," answered the chef. "But I'm sick now."
"Use any other drugs?"
"Today?"
"In general."
"Well," said the chef, hesitating.
"Cocaine?"
"Occasionally."
"What's occasionally?"
"One or two times a month."
"Crack or powder?"
"Powder. I've done the other thing, but mostly just powder."
"Depressants or hypnotics?"
"Not really. I'll score some Valium on the street sometimes if I