These Crooked Veins

"Just one more hit. That will make it all right." But 'just one more' is never the last. There is always something that tells you to have one final shot of the poison. We are never free. You tell yourself that you are going to move onto something smaller, some Weed, some Ket or even some Coke. Anything is better than the Smack. But it never lets you go. It's always there, in the front of your mind, every second of every day, ordering you just one simple thing;

"GET SOME FUCKING SMACK!!"

Good afternoon. I'm called Richie. Not my birth name, but Richie is what they called me so Richie is who I became. I am one of them; the damned, the addicts, the scum. My life ended properly at the ripe age of twenty two, when I first felt the warmth creeping up the vein on my left arm. The slow movement, spreading quickly, traveling into the heart and back around the body, going astonishingly quick was the last thing that I can remember before my new life began. I was reborn; as a junkie. The fingertips were always the last to feel the warmth, just before you put your head back and experience the greatest experience.

Back then I had ambition, prospects. A future. Now my future is as bleak as my present, nothing but concrete jungle to guide me from here to the cold grave. I cry sometimes at night. Curse the liquid, pray to it. You go through a period every month, sometimes every week of saying you are going to give up. All your junkie mates congratulate and wish you luck, despite the fact that they won't say a word when you are back with them the next day, shooting up on death. I hate them, but they hate me too. Everyone hates everyone, especially themselves. The stench of the hives that we habit grows daily, to the point at which we are unable to detect the smell of rotting, feces and piss.

I stayed with four others, three girls and another guy. They were hot, except for the semi rotting teeth and the breath like the devils arse. But still, we couldn't really have an option to ever fuck anyone else. We spent most of the week robbing, mugging or the like, and the weekends were spent at home or at a bar, either scoring or shooting up. The system worked, in its own self loathing kind of fashion.

There was always an odd occasion when me and Gus (that was the other guys name in case you are too thick to realize) would get laid outside of the group, but that was rare. It was usually drunk bitches that we partially raped and stole from, in order to of course pay for more of the Smack. But it was usually me, Gus, Gretch, Fran and Sersa. Sersa was the better looking out of the three, the H having shown little noticeable effect on her, but then again, she had been a user for less than a year. Given time she would no doubt look like the rest of them; toothless, soulless scumbags. We had lost count how many times they had all got pregnant. Gretch had been up the most, with about five times, the others not far behind. And this was life, bathed in squalor and filth. And we loved it. And by God we hated it. We wished we were elsewhere, anywhere else, and we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together in the small, three roomed flat that we were squatting in. It was nothing else than home.

I went away for a few months. Tried to find my family, my parents who loved me so, my parents who I had disappointed so. I never found them. That was the longest time I had ever spent without a hit in as long as I can remember. One and a half months. And I know that I will never manage that again. The Smack calls to me, tells me to obey. And I must.

This is our poison, nobody else is fit for it. It absorbs the pain instantly, but when it has gone you are sad because of the return of pain, and it is known, mixed with a sense of self-hatred and overwhelming bitterness as the Smack is now gone. So you go and get more.

This is it. I have said my goodbyes. I have fucked the girls one last time. Gus even joined in. a way of saying thanks and goodbye I guess. But they don't care really. They would tell me not to if they did. Gus is going to administer the dose, as the girls look onwards, the feigning of tears creeping around their faces. I sit on the floor, the belt already tied around my arm, veins swelling to burst. I nod. Gus picks up the two needles and prepares them; the brown murk blackens my world. Gus puts them over the vein, and presses them into the flesh just right. He was always the perfect one for shooting up. He presses the plunger in, and then works on the other one.

I am gone before the second dosage is finished. Pure bliss. I put my head back, groan in an endearing way. Smack was so much better than sex. I imagine the world lightening, the sky visible through the stains on the roof. Life was always such a shit hole. It just took on final hit. One final hit. As it turned out, this one did make it all right.