The Big Fix by Tracey Helton Mitchell Read Free Book Online Page A

had given me a clean one, a new one in fact. I was embarrassed to admit I didn’t know how to inject myself. Over a year of IV use and I still hadn’t learned. It had never been hard to find someone to inject me, as long as I was willing to share. I had always been afraid of needles (once when I needed a vaccination it had taken five medical staff people to hold down my hysterical body). Now here I was, blindly holding out my arm to be injected with this strange drug known as black tar heroin.
    He turned to me as the drugs hit him. He could see I needed him to inject me. This was such a strange scene. Ithought I had tried to save him once. Now he was helping me. He had everything while I was out on the street.
    â€œYou can’t hit yourself?” he said. He shook his head in disbelief as he grabbed a shoelace to wrap around my arm.
    â€œGet out,” he told me. “Get out of this city. Go back home. Forget this place.”
    I laughed to myself. What did he know? He had been here only a few months longer than I had. Everything had seemed fine so far. I felt like I was on an extended vacation.
    The great adventure came to a screeching halt when I realized soon after that I was strung out. For years before that, I had truly believed that being strung out was all psychological. I remember remarking on how weak-minded someone must be to get dependent on some little substance. It is different when you are the one who is strung out. I got to experience that pain firsthand. This wasn’t just the “junkie flu.” This was an all-encompassing feeling that took over my body, my mind, and my soul. We used to have a saying: “Are you dedicated to the cause?” Except this wasn’t religion or politics—this was something far more serious. You could separate the casual user from what we called a “dope fiend” by the things one was willing to do to get money for drugs. When I became strung out, I was dedicated to the cause. I was willing to go to any length to keep from feeling that terrible sensation that came with withdrawal. The twitching legs, the snot dripping from my nose, the feeling of desperation. Heroin became the love of my life. I would do anything to be together just one more time.
    â€œFuck, I’m getting sick,” one of my new friends told me.
    She was a young woman who had just left her house in Marin. She told me she was twenty-one, but I suspected she was younger. Eighteen? Nineteen? I found out later she was just out of high school. She had started mixing with the “wrong crowd” during her senior year. We were thrown together through a mixture of poor choices and desperation. I had been educated by a few more seasoned female users while we sat around and waited for the dope man. They would explain that a young woman alone in the city was not safe if she chose to use drugs. One of a few things would happen. She would overdose, only to be put out on the sidewalk. She would end up stripping. She would be supporting not just her own habit but also that of her “musician” boyfriend. He’d call himself a musician—all his equipment went to the pawn shop long, long ago. Finally, a young woman might get “turned out” by a pimp to prostitution. Men see women as dollar signs. There is an untapped gold mine in her pants. Everyone wants a piece of women like us. Those more experienced women learned the hard way; they were trying to impart their wisdom. I listened to the best of my ability. I got with my new friend so we could pool our money, but now this relationship was about to come to an end.
    She was complaining about being sick. I hated to see her like this. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I had developed some feelings for her. I had a crush on this girl. She liked me, too. I could never be myself in Ohio; my being attracted to women would have been too much for my conservative community. Our relationship wasn’t