IN MY SHOES: What It’s Like To Be A Crack Addict
The New York Times Sunday Magazine published an excerpt from “The Night of the Gun,” a book written by the paper’s own media columnist, David Carr, that will be published in August. The book details Carr’s transformation – rather, as much of it as he can remember or piece together with the help of friends, family and acquaintances - from That Guy (a crackhead who “deserved: hepatitis C, federal prison time, H.I.V., a cold park bench, an early, addled death”) to This Guy (the recovered addict who instead got “the smart, pretty wife, the three lovely children, the job that impresses”):
Where does a junkie’s time go? Mostly in 15-minute increments, like a bug-eyed Tarzan, swinging from hit to hit. For months on end in 1988, I sat inside a house in north Minneapolis, doing coke and listening to Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” and finding my own pathetic resonance in the lyrics. “Any place is better,” she sang. “Starting from zero, got nothing to lose.”
After shooting or smoking a large dose, there would be the tweaking and a vigil at the front window, pulling up the corner of the blinds to look for the squads I was always convinced were on their way. All day. All night. A frantic kind of boring. End-stage addiction is mostly about waiting for the police, or someone, to come and bury you in your shame. …
The house belonged to Anna, my girlfriend and dope dealer, who had two kids of her own and newborn twins by me. …
Trapped in drug-induced paranoia, I began to think of the police as G-d’s emissaries, arriving not to seek vengeance but a cease-fire, a truce that would put me up against a wall of well-deserved consequences, and the noncombatants, the children, out of harm’s way. …
If the cops were coming - Any. Minute. Now. - I should be sitting out in front of the house. That way I could tell them that yes, there were drugs and paraphernalia in the house, but no guns. And there were four blameless children. They could put the bracelets on me, and, head bowed, I would solemnly lead them to the drugs, to the needles, to the pipes, to what was left of the money. And then some sweet-faced matrons would magically appear and scoop up those babies and take them to that safe, happy place. I had it all planned out.
I took another hit ... and I walked out and sat on the steps. … And then they came. Six unmarked cars riding in formation with lights off, no cherries, just like I pictured. It’s on.
A mix of uniforms and plainclothes got out, and in the weak light of the street, I could see long guns held at 45-degree angles. I was oddly proud that I was on the steps, that I now stood between my children and the dark fruits of the life I had chosen. I had made the right move after endless wrong ones. And then they turned and went to the house across the street. …
It wasn’t my turn.
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