HOW STRANGE

“Michael, please don’t pinch our shit.”, Thomas said with more than a hint of uncertainty. “I promise.”, I chattered through my teeth, biting a balloon open with the phone squeezed against my shoulder.

(Side note: Heroin comes packaged in balloons that my drug dealer keeps in his mouth when I go to pick up.)

In a few hours I’d be in San Fransisco where Thomas and Stephen would pick me up after the bus ride, but for now I was in the bathroom trying to get well before the 8 hour trip. “If I’m lucky maybe I’ll just knock the fuck out.”, I thought with some optimism.

I knew Thomas would know I stole some of their shit, but I also knew he’d still just be happy to see me.

It’s more than likely I’ll just have to deal with quick accusations and a hard, heated, “God-fucking-damnit Michael.”, but that’s nothing a little bit of complete and adamant denial won’t solve.

It’s been a few months since I saw him, when he and Stephen, his boyfriend, came down to Pomona to get some of Stephen’s stuff out of the pawn shop. Since then it’s pretty much been a groundhog day for me. The only people I have contact with are Silent, aka Sal, a very nice older gentleman also down on his luck for the time being. And Moses, my good ol’ trusty connect, and our daily interaction goes as follows.

Bright and early, I’ll blow up his phone until he finally answers, and greet him with a sigh of relief followed by a quick, “Hey, do you got any?”, trying to sound as calm as possible.

He’ll hold his breath after puffing on a cigarette and gasp, “Yeah, where you at?”, and just like
that my sense of constant distress is broken, temporarily.

I supply him with my location and shortly after he meets me to supply me with my elixir of life. Oh fucking joy.

This recurring situation, along with panhandling, walking for miles, and finding places to sleep are about all that make up my daily existence. I feel like a shadow being dragged along day after day by someone I don’t recognize.

When I was younger I would have described myself as an outgoing, confident person, but now I’m quite different. I can’t look people in the eye, I shake uncontrollably from anxiety, I stutter when trying to speak, and I can’t ever seem to figure out what to do with my hands in public places. People scare the living shit out of me.

I arrive in San Fransisco finally after a ride surrounded by blurry faces and the lingering stench wafting off of my filthy clothes and body.

Thomas and Stephen meet me at a CVS across the street from the bus depot. For the first time in months I feel my face contort into something unfamiliar, I’m smiling. How strange.

We all pile into Stephen’s silver Chevy Malibu and divvy up the dope I brought with me. After getting past the predicted onslaught of bitching for taking some of the dope for myself, we all fix our shots. During the ritual of mixing the dope with water, filling the syringe, tying off my arm to increase my vascularity, and digging through my skin until the moment when the needle punctures a vein, I think about how happy I am. Strangely, not because I’m sticking a rig filled with heroin in my arm, but because I’m with my best friend.

I’m not alone right now. I’m Michael Diaz again, not just the homeless junkie who sleeps behind the car wash, and nods off at the freeway off-ramp while begging for money to supply my drug addiction.

Sometimes I think about how my future might play out. The most realistic outcome is that I’ll be dead before I’m 30. Fuck maybe I won’t make it to 21. I honestly picture myself dying silently somewhere after shooting a little too much dope. Sounds pleasant enough, no pain, just that familiar lovely feeling and then poof, lights out. What a way to go.

Spending time with Thomas makes me think about our childhood. The time we spent at our house where we lived with our parents. When we did drugs for fun, not for necessity. When I could simply walk into another room and be sure to find someone I knew and loved close by. The place I took for granted, I was a stupid kid back then.

One time a counselor at the first rehab I went to asked a group I was in, “What’s a memory that makes you happy?”. At first I thought of the epiphany I experienced the first time I shot up. The tidal wave of pure bliss. But when I spent some time really thinking about moments of true
happiness in my life all that came to mind were moments spent with Thomas as a kid.

I remember staying up late at night watching “Nick at Nite” with him, we must have been around 3
years old. We would spend hours in our own little world illuminated by the t.v., laughing and
playing around trying to fight off sleep until my mom would come home from work, returning from the
great beyond. Everything was so simple then. Home was our planet and life was so far away.

Now here I am 17 years later in my own little world again with Thomas. Only now I’m not a little
baby waiting for his mom to come home. I’m a 20 year old baby finding solace in this piece-of-shit
car escaping from the outside universe for as long as I can. I have no home, not anymore, but when
I’m with Thomas I feel closer to it. Closer to being human, closer to comfort, I wish it could last
like this forever, but that’s not how shit works. Maybe one day things will be okay, things change
that’s for sure. Life’s a fucking trip.