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?