Needle Too: Junkies In Paradise Part 16

Leo is my dog, my son, my kemo sabe and at 20 pounds-a true GIANT among Pomeranians. I truly believe that was it not for Leo I might have offed myself already. In fact, given my reputation for bandying about brutal honestly, I know for certain that when his time comes-something I think about incessantly-I'll be reduced to a sniveling mound of mess for who-knows-how-long and will grieve the loss more thoroughly than any from the past, as well as any I might expect to in the future.

In early 2008 Leo accidentally fell into my lap, and given the enormity of the impact he would soon have on my life it was virtually the last, viable, moment for him to do so. Since that day he has taught me things I never knew and things I needed to know in order to do the things I think I have to do-and those things have nothing to do with writing. Indeed, writing-in and of itself-is merely the vehicle and environment in which I am most comfortable and, more importantly, most persuasive.

On January 12th in 2008-which was a Sat.u.r.day I'll never forget-I received a text message from Brent, a former coworker of Emily's who had an uncle in the navy that travelled around the world meeting interesting people from exotic places, and when he wasn't killing those people and incinerating their places he was exploring the local customs and fare. And, when the opportunity presented itself he would sample the local cannabis as well, and if it was something to write home about he'd send it instead and if he sent it he sent a lot of it in the safest way possible which, of course, meant stowing it away at the bottom of an 8000-ton destroyer.

As a result, Brent was enlisted as an occasional pot dealera very paranoid occasional pot dealer dealing what, ironically, would soon become among the most popular, heavily sought after and expensive smoke in Southwest Florida-at least while it lasted which was never very long. Unfortunately, Brent's occasional but extreme and rapidly increasing popularity among some of the area's most notorious, discriminating and committed cannabis connoisseurs only escalated his paranoia and as a result-cryptic text-message drug-dealing alerts like 'I'm ditching the dirt bike. Ready to ride?' or 'Delilah's in the gardenwanna let her out?' were hardly met with confusion or surprise. So, of course, on January 12th when I flipped open my phone and read 'I'm getting rid of Leo for a hundred bucksare you interested?' I was like 'f.u.c.k yeah, man!! I usually spend two-hundred on that s.h.i.+t!'

So I ended up spending 300.

42.

Dear Craig, Thanks for giving me the chance to read A NEEDLE IN THE PAYSTACK. I'm not sure that's the right t.i.tle for the book you've written, but I'd like to talk to you. Is there a good time on the weekend for me to call you? Sat.u.r.day or Sunday morning, perhaps?

The book is going to need some cutting, and in addition your technique (having a short comment or scene at the start of each chapter, followed by a break in the narrative) doesn't serve you well, and I found it somewhat confusing. Do you think you'd be able to keep the narrative more or less in a straight line? An occasional flashback or interruption might be okay, but we can judge that as we go along-if you decide you'd like to work with me on the ma.n.u.script before submitting it to a publisher. The good thing here is that you can write, and if you can take suggestions, then I believe I can sell the book. It's in a genre that's been getting a workout lately, so you need to be well prepared before you go into the marketplace.

Again, thanks for letting me read NEEDLE.

Yours sincerely, THERON RAINES.

So I got the dog I wanted and the literary agent I needed but I suppose it was really the other way around. Nonetheless, when a friend of a friend pa.s.sed Needle along to Theron Raines and the world's most accomplished literary agent offered to represent my work-it was clearly the s.h.i.+ning moment of my writing career. To think that my name was on a short list of authors that included the likes of James d.i.c.key, Winston Groom and Madeleine L'Engle-and that Needle could potentially follow in the footsteps of Deliverance, Forrest Gump and A Wrinkle in Time-made my head spin and become so INFLATED that I almost floated away. And of course, the fact that so many of the esteemed agent's projects were eventually adapted for successful screenplays wasn't lost on me either as Nothing Lasts Forever-another Raines project-ultimately became Die Hard in a franchise with seemingly no death in sight.

To suggest Raines' interest in Needle was met with complete elation would be an understatement difficult to describe the depth of, and in March when I handed Emily a copy of the agent's missive she actually cried. We'd been through so much during the past year and now there was finally something positive to embrace and look forward to. However, beyond that things remained bleak as jobs were scarcer than ever, and it was becoming nearly impossible to meet my obligations as a father. As a result, it wasn't long before we decided to leave Florida for greener employment pastures until the local economy recovered some.

But where would those pastures be?

Both of us were mesmerized by San Francisco and for a while we toyed with the idea of heading out west. Ultimately, however, given the precariousness of our situation we thought it best to go where at least one of us was familiar with the territory: New York.

Certainly, deciding to return to the belly of the beast may once again seem like flawed decision-making to some-but I knew better. I was older now, and after so many years had pa.s.sed it was clear that I'd left my fascination and obsession with heroin in the prior decade and it had since withered away because as I've already mentioned, distance lends perspective. Of course, had it been five years earlier I'm not sure such a move would have been prudent; however, by now the Romantic myth had long been dispelled while my addictive inclinations-like my musical aspirations-had completely disappeared. Besides, in New York I thought I might be able to parlay my agent's reputation and my experience as a copywriter into some sort of a position in, perhaps, the marketing department of a publis.h.i.+ng company. Regardless, we settled upon June 28th as the big departure date but for the next few months continued to work six-nights-a-week in Sanibel, while I also began editing Needle in accordance with the wishes of my famous agent.

As the day of the big move was fast approaching we made final preparations which included selling one of our cars. Certainly, throughout most of the city a car is a nonessential item, and as a result we decided to sell Emily's Nissan and take the roomier Accord which was a little larger but not nearly large enough to accommodate all of our belongings on a single trip. We also decided to temporarily leave Leo behind with Momma Marcott until the following month when we were settled in, at which point we would return to Florida to retrieve the Pomeranian and whatever else was left behind.

By the time June 28th finally rolled around in Cape Coral it seemed as though everybody but the owls was packing up and getting the f.u.c.k out. And though we too would be gone by noon that very day, Momma Marcott was relieved to know that at least Leo would be there when she returned home from work; however, once the car was packed to capacity with only a small s.p.a.ce remaining for a small television that had yet to be loaded, Leo realized exactly what was going on and couldn't be extracted from that same small s.p.a.ce.

So momma got the television instead.

43.

May 26th, 2010

Brooklyn, New York: 9:28 a.m.

It's almost 9:30 and I'm on that train. You know-the one that appears just after the main thrust of rush hour recedes but is still full of standing commuters hanging on to handrails, a large portion of who seem to be running a little late. Of course-most of us are seated, and appear to work beyond the 9 to 5 scope of things in places like gift shops, department stores and restaurants in positions dealing directly with the public-perhaps even with some of those who are standing up and a little behind schedule. Fortunately-though due to unfortunate circ.u.mstances-I am indeed among the seated, and for the past several minutes have born witness to an amazing transformation under very adverse conditions.

"That's a gift," I say to a woman standing up and ignoring me on a train that continues to pull in and out of stations as it accelerates and then slows to a sudden stop, and in the midst of a breathtaking balancing act she applies mascara with one hand while holding a compact mirror with the other-paying zero heed to her safety or the handrails and stripper polls strategically located around the subway car to help keep the upright upright. I am at once amazed by her impenetrable equilibriumnot to mention the length of her lashes. But I'm still not giving her my f.u.c.king seat.

"If you can do that on a skateboard I think we can make some money," I try again as she momentarily looks away from her mirror and peers at me from the corner of an eye-but then immediately resumes ignoring me because I think she's a little p.i.s.sed about the seat. But I'm gonna be standing all dayso f.u.c.k her.

I'd been back in New York for two years, and though I'd successfully avoided relapse, little else had turned out the way I expected. I had been sure that while my written words were being shopped around to powerful publishers by my powerful agent, I could somehow use our professional relations.h.i.+p as leverage to secure copywriting work within the industry, while simultaneously field the many lucrative offers his representation was sure to generate. But the recession seemed to have followed us up to New York and as a result, neither was the case and I was foolish to a.s.sume otherwise. Consequently I had no choice but to once again resume the restaurant career until something materialized.

"Gobledee goobledee gobledee goobledee gobledee goobledeegoo!" a female conductor's voice with a thick Indian accent is suddenly trumpeted through the train's typically discernable P.A. system as I'm rudely ripped from my reflections and I'm like What the f.u.c.k did she just say? to these two Mexican guys and they're like What the f.u.c.k did he just say? to each other.

Indeed, with overwhelmingly overcrowded and deplorably filthy subway conditions, a megalomaniac mayor and now amazingly-a never-ending parade of expensive but subpar pizza in Manhattan, New York is a very different place than it was when I left and though it's always had a proud and storied tradition of welcoming newcomers from faraway places, it seems as though things are finally becoming a bitconfused.

As far as the book was concerned, my famous agent continued to cite the recession as his primary obstacle to getting Needle published because times were still difficult in 2010, especially for an unknown writer, but he seemed confident that as the economic crisis eventually receded it would be replaced by a wave of good tidings in the not too distant future. Besides, the editing process wasn't even completed until the prior summer and even during prosperous times, unpublished writers could supposedly expect to wait at least a year regardless of whether they were being represented by Theron Raines or not. Nonetheless, after arriving in Brooklyn and trying to find copywriting work in a corporate climate that was compet.i.tive beyond anything I'd ever known, I realized I was just too old to compete with the horde of twenty-somethings from around the country with degrees from private universities and money from mommy and daddy to help feed the city's new and improved greed machine. Consequently, from almost the moment I returned to New York I found myself an overgrown starving artist once again looking for restaurant work; however, I was now a reluctant relic from the past, a ghost from long ago and an obsolete period piece from a period that ended the moment Bloomberg began and launched his campaign to attract cheap foreign labor for unscrupulous business owners interested in exploiting the city's most abundant international resource: "Can you speaka zee Spanish?" asked the French proprietor of a dingy-looking French bistro just south of SoHo that I happened upon while job hunting during my third week back in the city.

"Huh?"

Actually, in retrospect, this shouldn't have come as a complete surprise as I'd already stepped into over 200 restaurants by this point and been confronted almost exclusively by foreign employees working in all capacities.

"Spanis.h.!.+ You has to speaka zee Spanis.h.!.+" snapped the agitated bistro owner as he butchered English with a French accent and the reality of the situation became clear. I not only realized I probably wasn't getting the job, but that my inability to speak Spanish was now a barrier to getting one as if besides my advancing age and bad att.i.tude I needed another obstacle to overcome. So, of course, a little exasperated, I had to ask the obvious: "Why in the world would I have to speak Spanish to work in a s.h.i.+tty French restaurant two blocks from f.u.c.king Chinatown?"

"Because you has to communicate wit zee kitchen!!" he said angrily and in a tone that gave me the impression I definitely wasn't getting the job.

Indeed, a cherished New York City inst.i.tution had largely become extinct when at some point a drastic s.h.i.+ft in staffing occurred in restaurants throughout the city as so many aspiring artists, struggling actors and f.u.c.ked-up musicians were culled from their positions as waiters, waitresses and bartenders to accommodate cheap, undoc.u.mented, labor hailing mostly from Mexico and Latin America. But the dramatic s.h.i.+ft in staffing amongst the industry's least expensive employees was really just a measure intended to help facilitate a dramatic s.h.i.+ft in staffing amongst the industry's most expensive employees, and as a result kitchen pay rates at virtually every restaurant in the city were effectively slashed to levels not seen since the 1990's.

Alas, one of New York's most endearing and enduring traditions was thrown away in the interest of profit and a more cost-effective kitchen; however, it came at the expense of not only creative endeavor, but the quality of life as corrupt landlords also expanded their bottom lines by renting-out dilapidated apartments, ignoring occupancy limitations and illegally part.i.tioning their properties to accommodate greater numbers of low-wage workers. Obviously, it goes without saying that the melting-pot workforce that traditionally existed throughout the city's restaurant industry was dismantled, and the ethnic mosaic composed of newcomers and old-timers alike-in virtually every creed, color and aspiration-was no more. However, the undoc.u.mented replacements were hardly limited to restaurants, as tip cups suddenly began appearing on countertops well beyond that of the baristas' and in waiter-less establishments like pizza shops, delis and bagel stores as greedy business owners around the city decided that besides charging customers top dollar for their offerings, they also expected them to pad their below minimum-wage payrolls.

Although Emily had been able to find a bartending job at the b.l.o.o.d.y Ba.s.s in h.e.l.l's Kitchen within weeks of us landing in Brooklyn, my quest for work would require a Herculean effort that continued on through the end of 2008 with a resume comprised of piecemeal restaurant experience mostly in Florida, as my New York experience was not only ancient history-but tainted by the fallout from my addiction. Nonetheless, each day I pounded the pavement like a chicken scaloppini while looking for a job in Manhattan. I roamed the Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Chelsea and Murray Hill and when I made it to the East Village I was touched in a terrible way as I noticed a few older buildings, which at one time housed some of my musician friends, were transformed into luxury rentals and condominiums. Hence, modest Manhattan rental units that a decade ago cost only 30 to 50% more than similar s.p.a.ces in the outer boroughs-were at some point replaced by revamped properties now fetching roughly 200 to 300% more than their bridge and tunnel counterparts as the tiny island became less a hub of civilization, innovation and inspiration and more an amus.e.m.e.nt park for rich bankers and spoiled celebrities.

Finally, in January of 2009 I'd received a call from Trattoria Trecolori on 47th Street in the Theater District, where I'd dropped off a resume several months prior. Trattoria Trecolori was an Italian restaurant owned and operated by Marco, Phil and Victor-three brothers-all of whom looked and sounded like ginzos from Long Island but were really of Spanish descent, which of course was convenient as it enabled them to communicate with the undoc.u.mented staff. Although Marco-the oldest-ran the show, the three siblings inherited the restaurant and the small building it did business in from their deceased father, and with a fairly robust pre-theater rush it seemed to do pretty well. But pretty well wasn't pretty enough, and Marco was a maverick when it came to cutting payroll corners and getting around that pesky $3.85 an hour that the city so generously afforded its tipped employees: "I pay my waiters $10 a day," I remember he mentioned before handing me $50 in cash s.h.i.+ft-pay after my very first week before departing the dining room and heading downstairs to the kitchen.

This was a new low, even for a restaurateur, and if he was willing to skimp on the measly mandated s.h.i.+ft pay afforded the wait staff, Lord knows what he was paying those poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds slaving away in the dungeon-like kitchen carved out of the building's bas.e.m.e.nt.

"Man-in the 90's you couldn't get ANYONE to do ANYTHING in a Manhattan kitchen for less than ten bucks-an-hour," I said to Pablo who was standing nearby.

"Well you can now," he replied with absolute certainty and in virtually perfect English. "Even in the outer boroughs."

I really liked Pablo. He lived with his girlfriend and their two kids and was legally in the country and ent.i.tled to work. As such, he was frustrated by Marco's cash payments because demonstrating a paper trail of continued employment would help him in his quest for citizens.h.i.+p, which was the reason he was here to begin with. But legal or not, I liked ALL the staff at Trecoloriexcept Raul. Raul was a 24-year-old Ecuadorian who was hygienically-challenged, evidenced by the stink lines that seemed to follow him wherever he went. He was sort of tall and very skinny with greasy black locks of hair stuck to his head. But it wasn't only his aversion to water that I found disturbing, as Raul was one of the rare, undoc.u.mented waiters that had an att.i.tude about the sanct.i.ty of his position and considered me an interloper of sorts, as if I was taking a job that I hadn't a right to. He seemed to believe that restaurant work, at least in service capacities, should be reserved exclusively for immigrant labor as he felt the rest of us were too busy being overindulged with ent.i.tlement to have to compete for such lowly positions. He somehow also owned-of all things-a barber shop in Queens, and though he obviously wasn't making a fortune I was intrigued by the fact that he was able to own any business at all. But Raul wasn't the only revolting thing at Trattoria Trecolori, and one evening when we were standing in the server station while the busboys were busy collecting b.u.t.ter and olives from discarded plates by departed guests for others that had yet to arrive, he had a revelation of sorts.

"You know," he said to me. "If I was born in this country I would've never worked in a restaurant."

"If you were born in this country you would've run into a bar of soap."

A second announcement is made and from what I can gather, the train will be making local stops the rest of the way so I decide to seek out a more direct option before I'm late. I end up giving the woman my seat after all, and step off the train and onto a platform at Atlantic Avenue where posters bearing subway service alerts in every language except English are plastered everywhere as I rise up through the Tower of Babble on a quest for clarity as well as a completely different train that will bring me to essentially the same place.

I take a seat on the alternate option and suddenly realize its departure is being unofficially delayed. In a successful bid to prevent the train from leaving without her, a woman has selfishly wedged her foot between the sliding doors that were shut by a motorman who stubbornly refuses to reopen them. I decide they deserve each other. As always, though, the motorman eventually relents-but not before stoking the flames of pa.s.senger fury further by allowing the delay to continue for several angry moments because of course-they won't be able to get a hold of him.

The alternate train heads into Manhattan and when it arrives at the alternate stop I step off and leave the station as I immediately try to get my bearings and sense of direction. Of course, this has become a bit of a challenge with the pa.s.sing of the World Trade Center which for me, with respect to its geographical position in relation to the Empire State Building, had always been a compa.s.s of sorts. Indeed, so many things are different now Oh yeah-and Emily left me.

You couldn't really blame her, but in October of 2009-a little more than a year after we left Florida and landed in Sunset Park, Brooklyn-Emily finally wised-up and headed-out for greener pastures of which I'm certain there were many, though now that I think about it I'm not sure she ever provided a specific reason for leaving. But nonetheless, I don't believe I will ever again be so completely loved by another human being, and part of me is truly heartbroken about that and part of me couldn't care less. It was like that the day she left, and has continued to be like that ever since.

I remember once when I was 14, sitting in home room and waiting for the bell to ring and the school day to officially begin, Bryan Grayson began discussing his intentions of getting married by the time he was 23 and having three kids by 30. Though no one else within earshot of the discussion seemed particularly offended by it-I was absolutely aghast. Of course, judging from the way it seemed to work I a.s.sumed marriage and children were things that just sort of happenedlike the chicken pox. But the popular notion that such aspirations were sp.a.w.ned by an innate or natural need or desire was completely foreign to me, so I always a.s.sumed I was born without it or that perhaps my mother had simply beaten it out of me. Now, that's certainly not to suggest that I don't absolutely adore my daughter because I do, and consider her nothing short of an incredible miracle because I wrapped it up twice. But to say that I ever harbored a desire to be a father or husband would be false, and without getting too self-a.n.a.lytical it would seem likely that my disastrous childhood, as well as the feuding family dynamic that was such a significant part of it, greatly contributed to the person I have become. After all, recession or not, not every father would be able to move thousands of miles away from their one and only child for an extended length of time for any reason, but I somehow found the strength because in the end-on paper-with the help of some unemotional reasoning, cold calculations and perhaps the undue influence of a flawed, familial, frame of reference it seemed like the most logical decision. Of course, that's not to suggest I didn't have my regrets because I did and still do. However, regardless of how others may feel, I don't hate myself for leaving Florida. Indeed, I hate myself for many, many, things-but that's not one of them.

Of course, for Savannah, to whom Emily was-without question-a second mother, I was concerned that the split might affect her more profoundly and for the briefest moment it did when I first mentioned it to her a couple of months later during the Christmas visit. But she almost immediately recovered from the news, and perhaps that's because she too may have a flawed frame of reference for certain things and if that's the case then I may indeed have something new to hate myself for-though I'm not sure I can be sure.

For the most part, Savannah seemed to take the demise of my relations.h.i.+p with Emily in stride. That, however, wasn't the case for Leo who had a harder time adjusting to the single-parent household as it meant having to spend more time alone-something he had little experience with. In fact, while we were living with Momma he was NEVER alone due to the drastic disparity in work schedules; but even when we moved to Brooklyn, Emily and I would usually come and go at different enough times that he was never alone for too long a period and therefore didn't suffer too badly in the process. Unfortunately, though, when Emily left for good things would dramatically change for both of us as Leo's separation anxiety would soon find itself on a collision course with my obsessive-compulsive disorder.

About a week after she flew the coop, Leo-challenging commonly held beliefs about the canine conception of time-seemed to realize the duration he typically spent alone, which was never more than two to four hours, had dramatically increased to as many as ten and though I wasn't happy about the situation there wasn't a lot I could do about it. Regardless, however, each day when I attempted to exit the apartment the Pomeranian would go into crisis-mode and systematically attempt to tear off my clothes. Starting with my shoes and then painfully proceeding to my socks, he'd continue onward and upward until I would literally have to pry him off before scooping him up and sticking him behind a closed door in the bedroom where he'd complain about it for hours-much to the displeasure of my neighbors.

In order to combat the problem I began conditioning him to expect a treat whenever I departed the abode and he almost immediately got with the program. In fact, in no time at all, the moment he realized I was preparing for my departure he would a.s.sume a sitting position by the door and quietly wait to receive his reward as I readied the apartment before heading out. Of course, 'readying the apartment' was no easy task, especially given the depth of my O.C.D. and the blossoming love I had for Leo as I had to ensure that: The windows were shut or open

The door was closed

The door was locked

Nothing was lit

Nothing was on

The garbage was secure

The refrigerator was sealed

Water was in the bowl

Food was in the dish

The night light was on

Occasionally the list would be amended but it steadily continued to grow while heading off to work continued to be a complicated and time-consuming affair as I had to be certain that Leo wouldn't: Jump out the window or suffocate

Run away

Get stolen