Sylvia, Catrina, and Victor: Continued 05/16/06

Pleased, I asked Rick about Catrina. How often did she have pills? How much did she charge? When could I meet her myself? I was so incredibly excited. I knew that, where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and if I could make contact with whoever Catrina was, then surely that connection could lead to further connections, which in turn would lead to further connections, and so on. Perhaps, I would hit the mother lode. Like the purveyors of multi-level marketing who schlep everything from soap, to cosmetics, to vitamins, I would soon learn that drugs of all kinds are marketed similarly. By the time the oxycodone hit the palm of my hand, it had been palmed by many others before me, acquiring value with each pass. With Catrina’s introduction, maybe I could tap into the heart of the highest levels in the pyramid, assured of a steady supply of the little compacted biscuits that made life so hospitable.

Rick assured me that I had no need for his cousin Catrina’s phone number. Any time I was suffering from my “back problems,” I could just call him and he’d take care of the problem, he said. My guess is that Rick didn’t want to miss out on the rebate he was earning. By putting me in direct contact with Catrina, he would be taking himself out of the lowest rung in the multi-level marketing druggie ladder, and who in their right mind would do that? As we passed each other in the office that day, we’d smile, an acknowledgement of the high we shared.

My tolerance for oxycodone was fairly high at the time. I have spoken with addicts (only a very small few) who were gulping, snorting and firing as much as 640 milligrams of oxy per day, which needs to be pointed out to the uninitiated or naïve, as an extremely gluttonous and dangerous amount. At the time I met Catrina, my trips to Mexico every three or four days were netting between six and eight 80 milligram Oxycontin tablets. So, it is no surprise that Rick was shocked to learn that I was already looking to make another connection with Catrina the day following our initial score. Typically, 20 Percocet tablets contain 100 milligrams of the nectar known as oxycodone. In contrast, two Oxycontin “80’s” contain almost twice that amount of juice. So, the haul from Catrina didn’t last me very long. Even still, it was one less day that I would have to drive to Mexico.

Despite his shock at my appetite, Rick obliged. He made the call. Thirty minutes later we were off again to the Southside, my new happy hunting ground, and back to our desks in time to enjoy the pleasant stream of oxy-consciousness. However, for me, it was more of a trickle than a stream. At 5 milligrams per hit, Percocet just wasn’t much of a replacement for Oxycontin, but it did keep the withdrawals away, and really, that is all I needed.

Withdrawal is such a painful experience, that addicts who have been clean for many years experience anxiety from any physical sensations that remind them of withdrawal. Some addicts I have known will slide into a full-blown anxiety attack at the first sign of a fever, the sensation of low blood sugar, or an unexplained hot flash. The fear of withdrawal is nearly as bad as withdrawal itself. It is this fear that keeps an addict in search of a continual, uninterrupted supply. Although the physical symptoms of withdrawal may outwardly appear to resemble the flu, they are merely an announcement of the mental torture to be encountered in withdrawal, and it is this fear of a mental hell that drives an addict to maintain their usage, usually at any cost.

The secondary benefit of Percocet over Oxycontin, from my addicted point of view, was a matter of simple economics: Percocet was cheaper on the street than Oxycontin.

Syvia, Catrina, and Victor - Continued

“That was easy,” I thought. My paranoid, White, middle-class instincts were tempered by how quickly everything went down. Contrary to my Wonderbread perception of the hood, I did not die in a hail of gang gunfire. I was not threatened with my life, as my ideas of the Southside led me to believe would happen. It was over quicker than losing my virginity. I was quite pleased, and as we drove away I felt that perhaps there was now a possibility I could feed The Beast indefinitely, given enough money and hard work. The fact that The Beast itself made work all the more pleasant, was reason enough to believe that such a fantasy could exist forever.

When I have listened to addicts in the past, it seems like everyone passes through a period where they honestly believe that the care and feeding of the monkey can actually be accomplished indefinitely. I can’t tell you how many times I told myself, “If I just maintain, if I just keep the cash flowing, if I keep it all under wraps, there’s no reason why I can’t just stay high…forever.”

After all, I was raised on the American Dream: If I work hard enough, long enough, and make sacrifices, I can do anything. If I am determined, and put my mind toward it, there isn’t anything I can’t accomplish. Whenever I was high, the American Dream was always closer to my grasp. Anything could be accomplished, and I believed so, with all my heart and soul. However, when I was high, I also believed that the American Dream could wait, at least until later. I would think, “No need to rush anything. Right now, all is possible. That doesn’t mean that I need to do it all right now…” Unseen to me was the fact that ‘right now’ turned into tomorrow, which turned into the day after, which turned into the day after that, and so on. Maybe eventually I would reach for the stars, but never today. Today I was high and everything else could wait. What couldn’t wait, I would fake my way through.

Knowing that there were resources like Catrina, gave me hope that my dependency could become immortal. Rick was more than happy to give me her phone number, and provide me with an introduction, which are the two minimum requirements for any dealer-user relationship. In exchange for his referral, Rick would earn a type of frequent-flyer bonus, which consisted of the four free Percocet Catrina gave him in exchange for coordinating my buy.

We rolled back toward the business district, where drugs are given a less gansta distinction, and under the right circumstances can even be passed off as medically necessary. Pleased, I asked Rick about Catrina. How often did she have dope? How much did she charge? When could I meet her myself? What was her number?