Caught Stealing - Charlie Huston [6]
The days I spent in the hospital got me through the worst of the shakes and nausea of coming off a binge, but I had a little help from the morphine they gave me. Before I checked out, the doctor set me up with a bottle of Vicodin, but I don’t like pills, they make me feel stupid. The bag Tim is bringing over should bridge the gap.
Tim is a regular from Paul’s. He’s a forty-four-year-old jazz head and boozer who got lucky. A few years ago, Tim was a junkie living off welfare and the aluminum cans he picked out of other people’s trash. Then he fell into a great job and got himself off junk. The job: deliveryman for a dealer. Every morning, Tim goes to his boss’s office, where he and the other delivery guys pick up a list of clients and the product. They handle pot, hash, mushrooms, acid, and coke, and they will deliver to your home or office for no additional fee. Tim wanders all over the city, receiving a per-delivery commission and carefully saving his taxi receipts so he can get reimbursed at the end of the day. He carries a little extra grass so he can make impromptu deals on the side. He will also, in the course of the day, consume at least a fifth of Irish whiskey and some beer. Let’s face it, you don’t kick junk without filling that hole with something else. Everyone has to figure out a way to get through the day and booze is a very popular strategy. Tim is what we call a functioning alcoholic.
I let him into the apartment and he flops on the couch. Tim was at the bar when I got worked over. He holds his backpack in his lap and looks me over.
—Hey, man, how you feel?
I tell him I feel OK. We chat about folks from the bar while I slip Kind of Blue into the CD player and Tim rolls a joint. We light up. Tim is a professional and informs me in detail about the weed we are smoking: it is a Virginian crossbreed of a classic skunk and a very potent Thai stick.
—Most importantly, this shit was raised in the wild, not in a hydroponics tank by some mad scientist. Hold the smoke. Hold the smoke, man, you can taste the mountain air.
I cannot, in fact, taste the mountain air, but I am getting high and, as I do, I start to think less about having a drink.
—Hey, you got anything to drink around here?
So much for that.
Tim takes off a short while later. He’s a true boozer; if he doesn’t have a belt soon, his hands will start to shake. On his way out, I give him some cash for the bag and he waves as he goes down the hall, then stops for a moment.
—Hey, did you ever find out what was up with those assholes, why they had it in for you?
I tell him it beats me and he says so did they and gives a lame laugh, realizing it’s a bad joke. Then he leaves. It is a bad joke, but it’s a great question, and as soon as I can think straight, I’ll deal with it.
You can only smoke so much pot. I have smoked a great deal already and it’s time for a break. I really just want to have it around to smooth out the edges for the next week or so. I figure after that I should be in good shape. This is not the first time I’ve stopped drinking. I’ve hopped on the wagon a couple of times to see how it would go and, the fact is, with the kind of motivation I have, I don’t expect to have much trouble. Just as soon as I get the system all flushed out. But right now I’m just sitting here alone in my apartment with someone else’s cat in my lap, listening to the Clash’s Combat Rock, being unemployed