Jade Sharma - Problems

In the morning he tries to put it in your butt but you refuse, so instead he jerks off into your butt crack and then leaves five hundred bucks in cash on a dresser. He says he is in a hurry, but you can stay as long as you want to. The room is rented for another day. You put on the softest robe ever. You stuff all the toiletries into your purse.

It seems like kind of a shame to leave a beautiful hotel room, but you are out of drugs and there is nothing on TV.

When you leave you can’t wipe the smirk off your face. Five hundred bucks. Five hundred.

Sometimes if you leave your fate to people, they don’t disappoint you. When no one’s looking and it doesn’t matter, a stranger can change your whole life for a little while.

Then you have three bad dates in a row.

A sad man takes you to a shitty Indian restaurant. He is so lonely, he tells you.

You stare at his wrinkled shirt. You wonder if his wife is dead.

An asshole who yells at waiters and is abrupt starts grabbing at you and then takes you to a hotel room. When you go down on him and his dick falls out of your mouth, he smacks you, hard. He laughs. You try to laugh, trying to play it off like you’re both enjoying this game. Sick, weird fuck. He says he is forty-five, but he has to be pushing sixty. You stop and say you want to leave. He surprises you by paying you in full and then sharing a cab with you. He jokes around with you like you are best pals.

Then one night you go to Brooklyn. You think it’s funny because for you, this is a desperate move. You imagine all these junkies at NA sharing their rock bottom story, and yours would be, “I knew I wasn’t myself when the train left Jay Street and plunged deeper into Brooklyn.” The date consists of talking to a British guy. He ends up walking you back to the station. By then you kind of hate him. On the way back to the apartment, you talk to your mother, and she bothers you about seeing a dentist. You turn the corner down the alley toward the back entrance of your building. You feel your hair being pulled. Your mind is trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. Who could it be? You think, This is not funny! and then you are being thrown onto the cement. As you fall, you catch the eye of your assailant, a crazy-eyed young woman with a red bandanna. There are two fuzzy figures behind her. You are completely vulnerable lying there on the ground. You see cash has fallen out of your purse. Your mind tries to put together what is happening. This can’t be rape because it’s a woman. This can’t be a robbery because no one is interested in the money. They are surrounding you. In slow motion, you see her big boot draw back to kick you, and you think, This is going to hurt . You know by the impact that this is serious. Your vision dims. You think about how in cartoons stars appear when someone is hit in the head. You wait for the pain, but there isn’t any. Your hearing isn’t working right. You see their mouths moving. Nothing. Then the murmurs fade in and out. “Oh shit!” you hear one of them yell. Something is wrong. The other two kick you, one in the gut, which makes you curl over, which sets you up to get kicked again in the head, and then you hear noise and register it as laughter. They run off. You stand up, and you are missing a platform shoe. Do you take off your other shoe, or do you look for the missing one? You hold one shoe and your bag, and they didn’t even take the fucking cash, so you have to pick it up. Your phone is probably fucked, and the battery is lying on the concrete. Now the pain hits you. Your stomach feels like it’s bleeding. Your hand touches a swelling eyelid. Now the fear hits you; they could come back. You can’t stop shaking. They could come back. You have never felt so vulnerable. Blood pours out of your knee where the stocking has ripped. You make it to the back gate, about ten feet from where you were attacked, and you call “help” through the gate, but there is no one around. It can’t be past nine. Where are the dog walkers and the parents with their kids coming back from the grocery store or play dates? You are shaking, but you manage to put the battery back into your phone. You thank fucking Christ as the word “Sprint” swirls around. Douglass picks up after one ring. Once inside, you try to lie down and discover you can’t. Douglass wants to go out and look for them. “They ran,” you tell him, hoping he will stop being a dude, put away his figurative cock that wants to protect you, and just be comforting instead.

Your vision is snowy, like the reception is all fucked-up. You touch the back of your head. The blood is cartoon red.

Douglass watched the news. “It’s that knockout game. From the back you were wearing all black, so they thought you were Jewish. These young, stupid teenagers, mostly black kids, hit Jewish people in the head.”

“Shit, that’s why they ran when they saw my face.” The fact did not bring any of the relief I would have expected. It only made me think, If I were Jewish, would I be dead? What would they do to an actual Jewish person? This then led to an uncomfortable quandary. “Should we call the police?”

“I don’t know.”

I slept for the next two days, awakening only to snort a few lines. My stomach hurt. It felt like my ribs were broken, but if they truly were, I probably wouldn’t have been able to stand it. The hardest thing to deal with was how ugly and stupid people could be. My attackers were sadistic and cruel. I wasn’t a real person to them, but like an extra in Grand Theft Auto . All I could do was lie there. Sometimes I thought about taking a shower, but sitting up was a nightmare.

“You’re so lucky you’re a writer,” Elizabeth said as she lifted up a part of the floor. Like a piece of the fucking floor. One of the wood planks was cut in half, and she lifted it up. She pulled out a dusty antique box and started going through the stuff in it, putting the occasional empty bag to the side.

“I haven’t written in forever,” I said. “I don’t even think of myself as a writer.” I was thinking, How did she do that? Could I just make a hole in my floor? That was so cool .

“But you can write, you have a place where you can put everything. I don’t know where to put things. You can make something out of all the ugliness.” She looked up at me. She had tears in her eyes. “What am I supposed to do with all the shit that happens to me?”

There isn’t much you can maintain when you have to worry about scoring every day so you don’t get sick. My life was a waiting room, a TV room, and then back to a waiting room.

When you’re around other junkies, no one speaks while everyone is waiting. Come back after the dope arrives and no one can stop talking and laughing. Everyone talks excitedly about their plans, and no one talks about how addicted we all know we’ve become.

You could turn to another junkie and say, “I really need to stop.” And you will be met with a knowing nod and the words, “Yeah, me too.” Everyone always says it. Everyone probably means it.

Only one of my johns knew about my drug use. He talked to me about NA, and once when I snorted a bag in front of him, he said, “C’mon. Please don’t do that. I don’t want to take your ass to the hospital.”

There were no track marks to hide.

I got cash from dudes and then gave my cash to dudes who sold me drugs.

I wanted regulars. Every time I saw a guy, he talked about seeing me again, but I got used to not hearing back from them. I got used to never believing anyone. They wanted variety. That’s why they contacted me to begin with.

Also, I wasn’t thin and blond. I could have cleaned up if I was.

Men hate when you talk about your body. This guy Kevin said, “Shut up. I don’t care at all.”