The Morphine Story

OK -i'll continue my amateur sleuthing next time. Meanwhile....

In an earlier post -i forget which, but I was talking about how super-safe manhattan is- I made an allusion to how I once walked across Manhattan at 4am “high as a kite on morphine”

Due to popular request (well, 2 people have now asked -at least I know i'm not wanking into the void here!) I'll tell the whole story

This is a classic piece of “spencer sketchiness” in that

a) it involves drugs, and

b) it involves me being a total idiot

it could have come right out of the 2000-2001 sketchyspencer scrapbook!

So without further ado, here it is: The Morphine Story

OK.

Before I got my job at Jazz, in order to save money, I lived at a hostel in brooklyn for a little while.

There, I befriended an American guy

(I normally only use real names in this blog, but because there is a certain amount of illegality involved, and I wouldn't want him to get in trouble, no matter how unlikely, let's call him... “Ira”¹)

Ira's an interesting dude -he's ex-army; has served in iraq

Not during the invasion, but he did a tour as part of the occupation

He was in the artillery, ha ha

Y'know those big missle launcher things you saw on the news during the invasion that fire salvo after salvo of rockets?

He operated one of those bad boys

But there's not exactly much use for those in a counter-insurgency conflict, is there?

(we had many, many conversations about the idiocy of the US high command -and Donald Rumsfeld and the so-called “Commander-in-Chief” in particular)

So Ira wasn't exactly called on to do much in his stint in iraq

He and his buddies spent most of the time on a base in the middle of the desert bored out of their minds

One of the things they used to do to kill the time was raid the pharmacy on the base for codeine, gobble down the pills and watch DVDs in a kind of doped up daze

Ira waxed lyrical about how good this was, and one night when we'd been drinking (I think we'd had some blow too) I agreed to do this with him

I thought no more of it, but a few days later Ira calls me up² and says his cousin (a drug dealer in queens) has sorted him out with some morphine pills -do I still want to do the movie thing?

Now I had some reservations about doing this

But I didn't want to seem like a pussy either

So that friday night we arrange to go see a film

We go to a theater off times square

We were going to see Saw IV, but it had sold out

So we got tickets to see Blade Runner: The Final Cut instead (a suitably “visual” movie)

Now Ira had no idea how strong these pills were

So we agreed to do quarters -he goes to the restroom to do his quarter; I go to the restroom to do mine

Then we settle down to watch the movie

Pretty soon, almost as soon as the trailers are done, Ira tells me he's feeling pretty spaced

I don't really feel anything

Just a bit of a tingle, could be “drugs anticipation”³

Halfway through the movie, Ira leans over and tells me he's fucked

I'm still not getting anything!

So I ask him if I can have some more

He asks me if i'm sure; I tell him I'm sure and he hands me the baggie and I go to the restroom

There, I give myself a generous quarter -more like a third

By the time the movie is reaching it's climax (“I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...”) I was feeling pretty good

How has my life come to this? (I was thinking) I'm sitting in a cinema in New York City, off times square no less, with an Iraq war veteran, high on morphine

How utterly, utterly absurd

When the lights come up, Ira doesn't look so good

His eyes are kind of puffy

Me, I'm feeling great

We go for a drink in Greenwich Village

On the subway, Ira looks worse

I ask if he's OK -he says he's feeling nauseous

His head keeps going down

I wonder -in a detached kind of way⁴- what i'll do if he collapses on the subway. There's no way I can carry him; he's twice my weight at least. Authorities would have to be called. And Ira still has the bag of pills about his person somewhere

ah ha ha

But we manage to get off the subway without Ira puking or fainting, and i get him sat in a bus shelter while i buy some water from a drugstore.

It's well past midnight by now.

And I'm feeling like a bit of a bigshot.

I took twice his dose, and he's twice my size! I can take my drugs! I'm hardcore!

MAN-CHEST-TORRRRRR!

After i give Ira some water he feels better.

Then i take him to a mcdonalds and after he's had a burger he feels better still. He's OK.

And it's then, as he's finishing off his burger, that i learn something important about the pills we've taken.

I hadn't been listening to Ira properly when he told me how you're supposed to do them.

They're slow-release morphine pills.

In order to get the proper hit you have to chew them up in your mouth.

I hadn't done that; i'd taken mine like, well, pills.⁵

Ah ha ha ha

But what the hell, i thought. I'm good!

So we go for a beer and then decide to call it a night.

Ira has to work the next day, i'm supposed to be seeing somebody about a job.⁶

As we part at the subway, I realize I'm starting to feel rather “floaty”

(Looking back, this was probably the second dose starting to take effect)
The next couple of hours are pretty hazy.

Basically, i was out of it. I mean, totally fucked.

I got lost on the subway!

(A proper “lost-it”, as sarahfriend says)

At the weekends they do maintenance work on the subway, and loads of services don't run or don't stop at certain stations.

It's hard enough to work out sober.

Fucked up, it was a nightmare!

I was riding the subway all over the city.

At one point i thought i was gonna seriously freak out.

The walls were closing in man!

And it was hot as hell down there too.

Somewhere in there, I end up at columbus circle.

It's nowhere near my hostel, but i'm confident i could find my way back from there: all i have to do is keep central park to my right. It's a 50 block journey.

So i start walking.

Walking-cum-floating.

At 4am.

In the light New York rain.
(If this was an Irvine Welsh story something horrible would have happened to me on the way home. But i float through this life like a carefree angel on a cloud, remember, and nothing happened)

Also Manhattan, as i've said numerous times, is the safest place I've ever lived.

It took me a couple of days to get over the pills.

I got the nausea Ira had, and bad.

But on the Sunday I slept all day in Central Park.

It was a beautiful sunny day. The sun felt so good on my skin!I had the most amazing dreams, and every time i opened my eyes I was surrounded by shimmering green grass and reassuring sounds; birdsong, children playing, laughing.

It was how you imagine heaven must be like

(Gave me an insight into the lure of opiates, I can tell you).

Anyhow, that's the story of how I came to be walking across manhattan at 4 in the morning high as kite on morphine.

S-K-E-T-C-H-Y

(well, this is the NY Sketch, after all)

Believe it or not those are the only narcotics i've ingested since i've been over here.

However, a guy has just moved into the hostel who puts on raves in New York

The kind of drugs he can get hold of would make your hair stand on end (or salivate like a hungry dog, depending on your preference)

But I don't do that stuff anymore, do I?

Or do I...?

;-)

1As well as being a good “American” name, those in the know (and lateral thinkers) will be able to work out his real name from this.

2I'd moved back to manhattan by this point. The brooklyn hostel sucked; zero atmosphere.

3Anyone who's ever done pills/acid will know exactly what I mean by this.

4That'll be the morphine then.

5I know this now sounds like something Irvine Welsh would write, and that I am a so-called writer of fictions, but this is 100% truth. I swear it by all that is sacred to me!

6My little cafe bar job at Jazz!