Bill Clegg - Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man

In the room at the Newark Airport Marriott, as in most rooms where there is crack, porn flickers on the television. This time it’s straight and soft and on Pay-per-view. I pay for all six movies and flip between them as one scene disappoints or dulls. I have drunk the small bottle of white wine, the two beers, and both small bottles of vodka from the minibar by the time I realize I need to get back to the airport and onto the plane. Since there is still a large pile of drugs left in the ashtray, I wonder whether I should go at all.

But I do. I let my stem cool and wrap it in a wad of tissue paper. I gather the two rocks and the remaining crumbs from the ashtray and put them back in the mini zip-lock they came in. I ditch the towel, scramble into my clothes, and shove the pipe, bag, and lighter into the front pocket of my jeans. I scan the room a dozen times. Clean every surface and pick up whatever crumbs I can from the floor. I unpack the bag and pipe and lighter at least three times to smoke just-one-more-hit before leaving, to get just the right high to face the lobby and the airport. I leave less than an hour to check in and get on the plane. Noah has called three or four times, but I have not picked up, nor have I listened to his messages.

I don’t bother checking out. I go straight to the taxi stand and get in the only cab there. The driver is a big black guy — fat but muscular, linebacker-style. Forty, maybe fifty. The stem, still hot from heavy use in the room minutes before, burns in my jeans pocket like a little oven. Of course I ask him if he parties. He says he does, and I ask him if he ever smokes rock. Sure do, he says, and right then, within the first minute of getting into the cab, I know that I am not getting on the plane. That I will probably never make it to Berlin.

So let’s hang out, I say to the linebacker behind the wheel, and he says, Sure thing . As we edge up to the Continental departures drop-off, I tell him to head back to the hotel, that I’ll catch a later flight. He doesn’t question or hesitate, just pulls away from the terminal and says, again, Sure thing . I call Continental’s 800 number and tell them I’m sick and can’t make the flight and could they transfer the ticket to the next night. Unbelievably, they can and they do. I am booked in a first-class seat the next night at eight. Acres of time, a bag of crack, company lined up, and a hotel less than a minute away. I’ve just missed two flights, e-mailed Kate and relinquished any say or stake in our agency, tossed my career down the chute, and stood up my beloved and no doubt frantic boyfriend. I’ve done all these things and I couldn’t be happier.

I leave a message on Noah’s cell phone saying they canceled the second flight and that I will be flying out tomorrow. I speak slowly and calmly, with just a little can-you-believe-it annoyance so as to seem normal and not high. Once I’ve left the message, I turn the phone off so that I don’t have to hear it ring when he calls back.

Later, the taxi driver and I sit in his cab behind a 7-Eleven somewhere in Newark. He’s anxious about being seen in the hotel because he picks people up and drops them off there every day. I pack his hit — small because there is precious little left — and as he lights up, I tell him how horny I get when I smoke. He nods in agreement as he exhales, and soon zippers come down — mine first, then his. I take a hit and he holds himself and talks about his wife, how she blows him but never wants to fuck. I inhale so hard that I burn my forefinger and thumb. I should be over the Atlantic right now, I think, but instead I’m behind a 7-Eleven, in the shadow of a Newark, New Jersey, overpass. What I want is the blurry oblivion of body-crashing sex, and instead I get a gloomy jerk-off session without enough drugs to get either of us high. As the bag empties, I start to feel shaky and it occurs to me that I’ve gone nearly a week without sleep. It’s ten thirty p.m. and my flight tomorrow evening isn’t until eight. I ask the taxi driver if he knows where to score more and of course he doesn’t. I hide one last rock in the small front pocket of my jeans so there will be something when I get to the hotel room. I start thinking about whether I should go back to the city — to Mark’s, or to a hotel somewhere in Manhattan where I can call Happy. But the city seems time zones away. And if I go there, I know there will be no turning back, no chance of making it to Berlin.

The taxi driver drops me off at the Marriott, and I call Happy the second I get to the room. After much haggling, he agrees to drive out to the hotel, but only if I will spend at least $800 to make it worthwhile. I say no problem.

It is just after eleven when Happy and I speak. At eleven fifty he calls me from the parking lot to say he’s there. I can’t remember his ever delivering this quickly in Manhattan. I leave the room, take the elevator down to get cash from the ATM in the empty lobby, walk as slowly and calmly as I can, past the check-in desk and out into the parking lot, where his red minivan idles. My heart slams in my chest and my throat is so thick with fear I can barely speak as I hop into the front seat. Happy, as usual, is wearing his white sweatpants and plain black hooded sweatshirt. The only thing missing are the large earphones that usually ring his neck. He’s Dominican, in his early thirties, and we never say much to each other beyond amounts, addresses, and number of stems. He is always calm, and even though he’s driven all the way out to an airport hotel from Manhattan, tonight he’s no different. His movements are slow and patient as he counts out the sixteen bags, and he asks no questions as he hands me two clean stems. I shove it all in my front two pockets, thank him for coming out so fast, and head back to the hotel.

If anyone had stopped to watch me go to the cash machine and withdraw stacks of bills, several times because of the $200 transaction limit, then head out to an idling van with tinted windows, and return minutes later with bulging pockets, it wouldn’t take much imagination to understand what had just transpired. As obvious and sloppy as I know the whole operation is, I know that once I get back to the room and take a big hit off one of the crystal-clear new stems, everything will be okay. That all the grim and alarming truths barking loudly around me will vanish in a blast of smoke.

And so they do. It’s one o’clock and I have a spectacular pile of crack in the little ashtray on the nightstand. This is the most I have ever had on my own, and I know I will smoke every last bit of it. I wonder if somewhere in that pile is the crumb that will bring on a heart attack or stroke or seizure. The cardiac event that will deliver all this to an abrupt and welcome halt. My chest pounds, my fingers are singed, I fill my lungs with smoke.

He’s six. Diminishing the value of the house. That’s what he’s being told. Bringing it down with piss-splattered heating vents in the bathroom coated with rust and stink. Making it more difficult to sell by scrubbing the pattern off the wallpaper next to the toilet each time he sprays there and tries to clean it up.

They are in the green Volkswagen, and it’s not the first time his father has told him these things. That his piss is costing the family thousands of dollars is a fact as old as memory. He is quiet, as always when his problem comes up. His father talks in sharp, lean bursts that usually end with C’mon, Willie. Just get it together, or Jesus, kid, fix it. And then long stretches of silence. The only sounds in the car are the low hum of 1010 WINS on the radio and the click of his father’s pipe against his teeth.