Array Slash - Slash

After another three or four days, that was it; I decided, FUCK THIS . I was sick of rehab on every level, from the staff encouraging me into group sharing and whatever might come from that to the too-fast friends I met while smoking that wanted to meet up on the outside to score drugs together when they got out in a few weeks.

When it came down to it, I wasn’t at all prepared to surrender in any way, shape, or form. I was in the middle of the desert, it was fucking hot, and I saw no productive way to spend my next twenty-two days there. I told the head nurse that I needed to check out immediately, and she did everything she could to stop me. The founder of the place even came down to talk me into staying.

He was the type of New Age cowboy that can only exist in the American Southwest: he wore a ten-gallon hat and lots of turquoise jewelry and cowboy boots, and spoke at length about his personal journey to sobriety. He was commanding and insisted that I hadn’t yet begun to do the real work. He wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t give a shit—nor did I care to buy into his road to cleaning up whatsoever.

“Look,” I said, just pissed. “You can’t keep me here, man. You can’t. So give me a phone and get me my stuff, because I’m leaving. I’m leaving right now.”

“You are making a big mistake,” he said. “You are giving in. You are being weak, you need to think about this. Just come to a meeting with me.”

“I am not going anywhere with you,” I said. “That is not happening. Thank you very much for your help. But fuck that, I am out of here.”

I ordered myself a stretch limo to take me to the airport, as the owner continued to try to talk me into staying until the moment I got inside. I lowered the window and looked him in the eye.

“I can’t stop you but you are making a big mistake,” he said.

“ See ya. ”

A few miles down the road I saw a liquor store.

“Pull over,” I told the driver.

I bought a liter of Stoli. I opened it and threw the cap out the window. My anger at what I’d just been through grew as I progressed through the bottle on the way to the airport. I was insulted that my circle had thought that the ridiculous circus they’d sent me to would teach me now to control myself better than I already knew how. It was rude. I can’t imagine what my limo driver was thinking that afternoon: he’d picked me up from rehab and watched me down half a liter of vodka in under an hour.

At the airport, while I waited for my plane, I called a high-end heroin dealer who was a friend of Mark Mansfield and Matt Cassel from high school. I made arrangements to meet up with him the moment I landed; I knew that the first hit of heroin after a detox would be the finest, so I intended for it to be of the best quality. After I’d copped, I went home, I got high, and then I called my manager, Doug Goldstein.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Doug, it’s Slash,” I said. “I’m baaaaaack.” And then I hung up.

I’ve always had to do things my way.

I SETTLED IN TO THINGS WITH MEGAN again and everything was fine. I also started partying by myself again after she went to bed. She had no idea that I’d just kicked or been to rehab. The thing was, because detox had been forced, I refused to get clean… though I knew I had to. I didn’t intend to get back into heroin—I just wasn’t going to kick it on their terms.

I planned a trip for Megan and me to Hawaii, and I got myself enough dope to allow me to take my use to a certain point, after which I’d kick on my terms. She and I checked in to a villa on Kauai, and the moment we got there, I started the detoxing process. I was feverish, sweaty, jittery, and altogether miserable. I told Megan that I had the flu and she believed me; she was happy enough to go shopping and sightsee on her own.

I didn’t expect this kick to be as bad as it was, because I thought I’d gotten through the worst of it back in Tucson. Well… I hadn’t; it wasn’t easy at all. I hoped that I could drink it off, but I couldn’t: everything tasted bad and everything felt bad. The symptoms were way more violent than usual: the dry heaves, the stomach cramps, the profuse sweating, the anxiety, and the creepy-crawling sensations were such horrible unpleasant company. I couldn’t watch TV, I couldn’t relax, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep. I’m sure Megan purposely stayed away most of the time.

Suffice to say, I was miserable. I was in that state for a week or so while Megan and I just chilled in Kauai. The thing is, for as much effort as I’d put into getting drugs to feed my habit, every time I’d kicked, I never invested the necessary time to obtain the appropriate medicine to ease the process. It always seemed like a pain in the ass to get a bunch of prescriptions from my doctor; it always seemed like too much planning before the day that I decided to do it. Besides, I always have to do everything the hard way, so it had always been cold turkey for me.

After a week I got to the point where I could move around and I finally started feeling better. I could see that I was almost out of the woods; and I started to make plans with Megan to do the usual things tourists do in Hawaii. At the same time, I also got the wise idea to call my dealer and have him FedEx me some smack.

All in all this was a really dumb plan, because at that point I was halfway through the detox process; I would have made it if I’d been able to hold on for a few more days. But I refused to, plain and simple. In any case, my dealer could only send me a finite amount, so it was no more than a short-term solution. Looking back, I must say that it was a particularly stupid decision.

The dealer in question was the most high-end of the guys that sold me heroin; and he convinced me that my yearning could be fulfilled safely, via first-class mail, with very little chance of being caught.

I agreed to it, and the moment after I did, I remembered something: Mark, the guy from Faster Pussycat, the guy we’d duct-taped and sent to the lobby in the elevator, had recently been busted for having someone send him drugs through the mail. What the fuck was I thinking ?

The next morning I was all jumpy, as junkies will be, anticipating the arrival of drugs. I still worried that I’d be busted picking them up. I weighed the pros and cons back and forth all morning until the phone rang.

“Hello, sir, this is the front desk; you have a package here.”

“Huh?” I said. “I have a package ? I’m not expecting a package.”

“Yes, sir, you have a package from the mainland. I believe it was sent from Los Angeles, California.”

I decided to take extra precautions; I took the service elevator to the first floor. It let me out in a concealed corner where I could sneak into the lobby maintaining a sniper’s perspective. Nobody in the area seemed obviously suspicious, but I wasn’t sure whether some of the hangers-about were cops or not.

I was sure, however, that whatever it was that I was wearing was totally unpresentable. I slunk up to the desk, from the alley by the service elevator, and just went for it, keeping one eye peeled, so to speak.

“You know, I got a phone call saying that someone sent me a package,” I said, to the entirely innocent-looking-but-maybe-she-knows-about-this-thing girl at the front desk. “It’s totally funny because I’m not expecting anything at all.” I smiled… at least I think I did.

She fetched the package, which turned out to be an envelope full of CDs hiding the dope. When she put it down on the counter in front of me, I froze; I looked at it but didn’t touch it.

“Here’s your package, sir.”

“Is this it?” I asked. “That’s so crazy, I wasn’t expecting anything.” I looked all around the lobby, my eyes prying the corners, searching for cops or feds moving in for the kill. “That’s really odd, I’m totally surprised. I did not expect to get a package sent to me here at all.”