It's So Easy - Duff Mckagan [47]
Slash and I were not exactly looking forward to going through this stack of proofs for Robert. It wasn’t a very rock-and-roll thing to do, but we grudgingly acknowledged that it was part of the deal for a working band. Now we saw there were hundreds of individual shots that we had to approve or deny. Right at that moment Phillipe offered me some crack.
Crack cocaine was one of those drugs I had always passed on when it was around. Between Seattle and then Hollywood, I saw a lot of people get addicted to the stuff and crack addiction wasn’t a pretty sight. But on this day, I decided to try it. I’m not sure why. I had been drinking; maybe I needed something to get me over the edge so I could look at this heap of photos. My first experiences with most drugs were the result of something as dumb as that. In the sixth grade I dropped acid for the first time because an older kid, one I looked up to, offered it to me on the way home from school. I didn’t want to embarrass myself, so I did it.
The crackling sound from the torched rock in its receptacle and the sight of the glass tube filling up with smoke that smelled both sweet and acidic was mesmerizing. I inhaled. The high I experienced from that first hit of crack was one of the most euphoric sixty seconds I had ever felt. My senses sharpened and I felt stronger than fucking Atlas. I found myself horny. I was filled with a powerful feeling that I could accomplish anything.
The resultant crash was just as extreme. It seized my whole body in an acute and all-encompassing craving.
“Hey, Phillipe! Set me up again, okay?”
He gave me a sizable rock and I dove headfirst into another hit. Ahhhhh, I thought, this shit is good!
Crack accentuated everything in a good way. The features of the girl’s drab, cookie-cutter apartment suddenly became beautiful. The Formica-topped island that separated the kitchen from the living room suddenly took on architectural perfection, a use of space so logical and brilliant its beauty blew me away. What had at first glance looked like an ugly orange shag carpet was now as magnificent as a priceless Persian masterpiece in the window of an expensive Beverly Hills rug shop. The traffic I could hear outside on Hollywood Boulevard transformed from a noisy nuisance to a source of enchantment: I wondered where these people might be headed. Maybe some of them were on crack, too, and as happy and elated as I was!
I started to come down again but had another rock at the ready. No worries.
Slash was doing the same thing as me, and now we fought over the loupe to start the process of approving individual shots among the reams of photo sheets. We raced through the images, somehow doing it in tandem so that neither of us would have to wait around with nothing to do. God forbid. But alas, our rocks started to dwindle and finally disappear. Phillipe now wanted money if we chose to continue. Oh fuck, I didn’t have any money!
I bolted from the apartment. The impossibly hot sun singed my whole being as a ridiculous crash almost doubled me over with despair. All my muscles seemed to contract at once. I felt dark and used and stupid. The ten-block walk back to our Gardner storage space was one of the hardest physical challenges I had ever endured. Sluggish. Jonesing. Lonely. Depressed. Ugh.
For some reason, I stopped at a pay phone and did something really stupid—I called my mom. I tried to act cool and just see how she was doing, see what was going on with the family in Seattle. The truth was I wanted to hear the voice that always made me feel better as a small boy when I was sick with the flu or when jocks beat me up for being a “punk-rock faggot.” I knew she could tell something was wrong with me. The stench from the ghetto phone booth was making me dry-heave and it was impossible to see out of it because of graffiti that blackened the glass. Claustrophobia washed over me. I couldn’t breathe. I tried to keep my cool on the phone.
“No, Mom, I’m okay, just a little tired,” I said. “I might be coming down with something.” Yeah,