3.21 The Itch

Smoking yaba till the wee hours of the night with Jean and Nori on Ko Samui would have made a fitting epilogue for my experience with stimulant drugs, one that had until then been rather positive in many respects. Regrettably, it would prove to have only been the prologue.

Not long after returning to Fukuoka, Jean was made an offer the businessman in him couldn’t easily refuse: several hundred grams of crystal meth at a price that tickled to his animal spirits. No sooner had the deal gone through than he was parceling speed out to anyone he could contact, unloading as much of the drug as possible, save a hefty stash for himself and his girlfriend Nori.

I, too, was foisted into buying some twenty g’s.

“Shinji will be in town,” Jean murmured cryptically over the phone. “If you want to meet up, it’ll have to be at ‘twenty o’clock’.”

Twenty g’s! Good god, that was enough to keep me twisted around Shinji’s little finger for the rest of the 2001. I didn’t know if I could be trusted around that much speed.

“Twenty? Can’t we meet earlier? At, say, five?” I offered. Five grams would have been more manageable.

“No. It’s twenty or never. And so you know, our friend won’t be as generous with his time next time.”

“Twenty, huh?”

If only I had said “no thanks” to Jean, the next few years might have turned out differently. I probably wouldn’t be facing jail time today. But, I couldn’t. Something within me just wasn’t capable of saying “no“ to my friend.

*

At first I managed to keep the habit at a minimum, smoking only on weekends, but it didn’t take long for those weekends to start including Thursday and then Wednesday nights, and the occasional Tuesday night, as well. By the time Sunday night would zip around my body would be screaming for sleep. Four or five days speeding, with the pedal to the metal and only nominal catnaps on the sofa, would finally catch up with me and utter exhaustion would drag my listless body into a groggy tomb.

By Monday morning, I would be feeling much better than I had the right to be. My appetite would have returned, too, so I would make a breakfast of miso soup,asazuke pickles and rice. I’d drink several glasses of vegetable juice for the health in it. Today I would eat healthily, I’d declare, and rejuvenate. Yes, rejuvenate! Lots of fruits and vegetables for Rémy’s poor body. And vitamins, yes, vitamins!

I would put the lighter and rolled up 1000-yen note away in my sock drawer and tell myself I won't be needing the paraphernalia today, that I'll be able to get through the day just fine without it.

My confidence would be unshakable: I would get through the day without lighting up, end of story. The itch, after all, is gone. I'm rested and the furthest thing from my mind is smoking.

I would have to remind myself, of course, that this is the case, that I'm okay, that I'm above it, that smoking even a little . . . Nah, I don't need it. I just don’t need it . . . Besides, there are so many other things to fill my mind: my dissertation, the errands I’ve got to run today, the calls I have to make, the dinner I want to prepare, and the date I'd like to arrange.

But, Shinji would be back in no time pestering me, peeking over my shoulder to see what I'm up to. I tell him to shoo.

I would busy myself with work and even make some progress on my dissertation. I’d have a nice lunch, more vegetables, and be feeling pretty damn good considering all the abuse I’d put my body through recently. And yet, I wouldn’t be able to shake the feeling that wherever I went, whatever I did, Shinji was shadowing me.

As the day progressed, my thoughts would turn increasingly to Shinji, and I would have to convince myself that I neither need nor want to smoke.

Why, I could smoke whenever I wanted to, especially when you consider how much meth I have tucked away in my sock drawer. There’s no reason to smoke up on today of all days, when the weekend, well not quite the weekend, but Thursday night was only three short days away, and I'd be able to smoke myself silly then. Just think how good it will feel to smoke again after having not smoked for a few days. This argument seems to have gained traction: my head is thoroughly convinced of the benefits of waiting; my body is beginning to understand. I go out to run errands.

All the same, by the time I come home, there would be an itch I’d give my eyeteeth to scratch. And so, straight to the sock drawer I would go and remove the rolled up 1000-yen note and one of the many small Ziploc bags of meth stashed there. I would sprinkle the crystalline shards onto a fresh sheet of foil, light up and inhale.

*

© Aonghas Crowe, 2010. All rights reserved. No unauthorized duplication of any kind.

注意：この作品はフィクションです。登場人物、団体等、実在のモノとは一切関係ありません。

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No. 6 is now available on Kindle.