The Real Problem? I am stressed out a lot. I don’t have a steady deal- er, so three times a week I have to go into the seedi- est parts of the city. The places you see in movies are real but much worse. The whore with the dis- ease that is eating away her flesh from injecting bad junk into her muscles _is real, and the pimp beat- ing her up in the alley is really happening. I’m looking away because no one here cares, and I need junk. I am trying with all my strength to ignore what I’m seeing. Still, the tears well up in my eyes. I despise this place, that any .of "us are here. Sometimes it is not easy to score, so I get into strange predicaments, at times even dangerous, but it doesnot matter. I’m not going home empty-hand- ed. I’ll get sick. I’m doing things I would never do because it isn’t that I want heroin, I need it. ~There are two other people at home waiting that need it. I hate when it is my turn to come here. I’m watching the needle in her arm. I’m watching the dope slip in and mix with her blood; I see bruises. She pgulls the needle out of heri‘-‘arm, and I’m holding my breath waiting until she opens her eyes. And in that moment when 30 seconds feels like 30 years, her _ Drunks. eyes open ‘and she is alive and she is high. Her stepfather fucked her, tied her up in the basement as a.child and fucked her. And that isn’t even the worst part of it. Unspeakable ‘ things. Things that make you gag and cough and bring tears to your eyes. That pain will never go away. Maybe she shoots heroin to forget, to feel numb. I want to hold her and squeeze all that sadness out of her. And squeeze all the dope out of her veins and look into those beautiful bright eyes again. I sit here preparing my needle remembering us laughing. I shoot up. ‘ His mother is selfish ; his father is absent. He tries to hug his mother, but she will not hug him back. She rejects him a child. new man gals _living A there. Really —.:v‘.slt'range men. These men were not nice to him and were certainly not loving. They were there to help pay the bills. Maybe he shoots heroin to simulate that warm feeling you get from a hug. He shoots a lot of dope. When I was thirteen my mother tookme aside and told me that she was cheating on my father with a man she had met at work.’ I was instructed not to tell my father. He eventually found out, and I had to deal with the guilt of knowing all along and. not telling him. It was a strange predicament for a 13-year-old boy. On a Friday afternoon, my mother asked my father for a divorce. She___went away for the weekend and when she returned ho -e that Sunday sh “found Jesus Chris no longer want divorce. Through th was he] I was being e iterally physically rced, to attend a Pentecostal church. Born Again Christians. I remember my sister and myself on a Sunday morn- ing running through the woods, my father chasing us and screaming physical threats. We were not going to church and he was not going to make us. He never found us. There was all the -usual: a grueling church sched- ule, speaking in tongues, miracle working ministers slaying folks in the spirit, and plenty of sermo‘ about sodomites a that what they were either consciously was an abomination unto god, furthering their own selfish agenda. I doubt any parent hopes for a queer child, but to what ends are they willing to go to avoid that reality? My parents obviously saw no boundaries. It left mqwith a twisted base to start constructing my life. I shoot heroin for many reasons. I shoot Heroin because I don’t know how to be anything but self- destructive. I have spent so many years attempting to smother. rpy self hate, my homosexuality. _madness.‘ . and fears. july 2001 0”” ' 13 becomes Everything Everything mes heroin. Every ‘ is another dollar to abag of heroin. he minutes ‘are min- oser to shooting up ain. ....It is everywhere in ‘ thing. My eyes open on 5 new day, and it is heroin. It is in my dreams. It is my hopes It is on my mind all the time. It runs through my veins. It is part of me. I embrace it. I spit on it. I watch what it has done to friends. I see what it is doing to friends. I see what it has done to me. ' Is heroin a bandage for our sadness and self hate? What is the real problem? Why are we addicts? What is the propaganda? What is the rhetoric? Is this what I think or this a public service announce- ment being replayed in my mind? What are your thoughts? How do you feel? Do not dismiss peo- ple as two-dimensional beings. There are so many sides to a story. \ Sure we have all the latest in Apple computers and computer. peripherals you’ll need, but we also offer some of the best customer service and technical support in the business. Hey, what are friends for! ©2000 Apple Computer Inc. All rights reserved. The Apple logo is a registered trademark and iMac and 1'Mom'e are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inf.- Small Dog ElC(Ill'0lll€S Waitsfield, W 05673 USA Phone: 802-496-7171 ' I _. ‘ ‘ Online: smu||dog.¢om , ‘ A sma business owners’ best friend.