at $50000 a week it was an expensive proposition but when your fucked up on narcotics and haven't slept in weeks, your eye's hanging from their own sockets bloodshot and lifeless because your living like a vampire and dying like a modern tragedy in cheap hotels every morning chances are desperation will push you towards desperate propositions. i can't remember checking in, it may or may not have been voluntary but i recall waking up in an unfamiliar room, someone standing over me talking about group work, breakfast and some kind of appointment with the social worker.
i dragged myself, more dead than alive through the motions.
anyways breakfast was some fruit i couldn't eat, not my normal cigarettes, coffee and a couple of lines, no this reeked of nutrition and my guts didn't like it. i must have eaten a quarter of a banana and taken a sip of some awful bright drink that must have been fresh orange juice when i looked around and noticed about six or seven others at the table, all equally dishevelled and unhealthy, all looking somewhat like they had better places to be.
some one mumbled something and i mumbled back, it was a strange language half recognisable.
i scanned the room to see who would be carrying but this place was run by professionals. my eye's met a another set of eye's and for a moment we read one another, yeah two bad seeds looking for a quick fix.desperation meets desperation, a glimmer of hope met with the probability of failure cancelling each other out and somehow there is an strange attraction, an silent equilibrium.
we had about 30 mins before the group session so i made a mental calculation, weighed up the options on an invisible internal scale of justice, where i was the defence, prosecutor and magistrate, sneaked out the door past the nurse and crept along a corridor past a poster advertising condoms, past a plush expensive desk and good looking blonde receptionist with soft make up who was on the phone talking about her two timing boyfriend. 'i'd never two time you baby,' i thought or maybe whispered.
my hands were shaking, i had the jones bad. i needed a cigarette if i were to attend group therapy i'd need a fucking strong coffee and a smoke, anything, whatever you have, just to feel something instead of this numbness, this fucking horrific pain that crept along my life like an evil shadow waiting for me to slip away.
i was almost near the exit when they came along, two staff members talking about where they should have lunch, i dived into the nearest open door and waited, they moved out through the double doors marked exit and as i peered out catching a glimpse of myself in a mirror, looking like a train wreck, half my face covered in a big purple bruise and my front tooth missing, i had bad skin, bad hair and a bad feeling in my guts, i could see the doors swing open and get ready to swing back. i jumped out as they disappeared and quickly followed them, waiting a few seconds until the coast was clear, then moved through and found myself outside being blinded by the sun.
it was crippling, photons had disabled me as i staggered forwards with my hands covering my face, jesus fucking christ i screamed, and this time i did scream.
some one grabbed my head and slipped some glasses on. 'try these,' a feminine voice said.
instant calm, the panic over i gazed at her, she was smoking a marlborough and drinking what looked to be a whiskey, she was wearing a cowboy hat and looking like a cross between marilynn monroe in the misfits and an evil angel, sitting back on her chair she tossed me a pack of smokes and a bottle of pills, 'take the edge off,' she sucked down some smoke and blew a few smoke rings.
lighting up, i unscrewed the bottle and swallowed a handful of the pills, 'thanks.' i threw them back, she caught them and slipped them into her handbag.
'your new huh?'
'yeah i just woke up here, can't remember anything, how i got here. they say i have to go to group therapy, what the fucks that mean?'
'it means you get to share your demons with your comrades.'
'oh shit.'
'yeah, better get used to it, every day twice a day you will be naked before seven or eight strangers who will be staring at your soul.'
'sounds fucking awful, i'm going to need something stronger than valium.'
she reached into her purse and pulled out a foil.
i leaned forwards to take it but she dropped it into her bag.
'maybe if you do good in group.'
'fuck it.' i move over to the balcony, past the steps leading down onto the street, ' where the fuck is this place?'
'la. it's on the map.'
'mmm, your a smart one huh?'
she looks at me and passes me her glass. it's whiskey, single malt, straight. 'cheers' i say and down it like a shot.
when i breath out i feel different, the edge smoothed over, 'yeah i'm ready for group. thank you...'
she smiles and we walk back together down the corridor, past the receptionist, past the dining room, into the therapy room, where my peers sit around in chairs in a circle, and the two vacant seats are filled.
thee's a moment of silence, the bad seeds look at one another, then my friend with the drugs and booze says, 'thank you for coming here, we should begin. i'm azr your social worker...'
my jaw would have dropped but it's got a permanent grin stretched across it.