restSTOP JUNKies
by:
Travis Seewald
&
Brian Scipione


Nate is on the outskirts of Dallas on I-35 heading north to Plano when the veins in his left arm began to burn.  His eyes began to wander off of the road and onto his hands to his wrist into his veins in his forearm.  He knows this pain well and has been recovering from it for a couple of years now.  He needs to spike a vein.  This feeling was probably brought on by the nature of his trip back home to visit his parents…….
Three years ago Nate was in rehab for the duration of two years while he detoxed heroin out of his system.  He has now resumed his college career in the peaceful town of San Marcos where he has remained clean with the help of a support group at school for the last year.  Support groups can’t travel with you on the road, especially to the town where the addiction began.  Yes, it appears very hard for Nate to go back, especially since every schoolboy from Plano knows where he can score smack while on the road. 
This might be a coincidence for Nate but the next roadside rest stop is only 5 miles away.  Every schoolboy from Plano knows that all of the major shipments of smack stop at the rest stops out side of Dallas to divvy up the score from the distributors.  They basically are one big shipping and distribution system built into the whole highway.  With the popularity of pagers, cell phones, and GPS tracking systems the job has been made that much easier.  Shipments can either be dropped by a small airplane and located by a GPS tracking systems or they can be delivered by an eighteen-wheeler.  Anything is possible today for the independently wealthy consumer. 
After the longest four-and-a-half miles of Nate’s life he decides to enter the rest stop to piss and if fate was kind, maybe score a little smack.  He also knows if nobody is around dealing or picking up then he can always get a phone number off of the wall at the rest stop and easily hook up later.  Every distributor around town usually posts their pager number on the wall of the bathrooms at the rest stops.  That sounds a little unrealistic, but if you think about it there are several area codes thought the Dallas, Ft. Worth area.  You just have to pick the right area code for the phone number you want, and just remember it next time. 
Nate likes chance, they may not be there, who knows, the cops might be cracking down, forcing everyone to lay low.  As it turns out the cops weren’t cracking down on this particular day, which brings us to Carl. 
* * * * * * * * *
Carl is just one of many drivers who take the bulk shipments of heroin from the rest stops to the local distributors in the neighboring cities.  “The strategy being that the more and smaller the shipments there are, the better the chances are of more of them getting through to their locations.” As Carl would say, also, it reduces the amount of product that could be lost if a driver were to be caught, or is set-up.  This again brings us to Carl, who knows like every other driver that their days are numbered and sooner or later he will have to pay for his sins.  But who really cares when you can always spike a vein.
Carl was sitting in his customized off-road pickup taking in the sunset with a rig still in his vein.  He is halfway between consciousness and unconsciousness, nodding off.  Most all of the distributors drive high performance off-road pickups, just in case you can’t escape by road there is always off-road.  Carl isn’t the brightest of distributors to be shooting up right after picking up his share of the score.  This thought had occurred to him right before he left consciousness and knocked his truck into neutral causing it to slowly begin to roll.  Then again that’s Carl, and over the horizon entering the rest stop is Nate.  Nate is seeking out anyone like Carl and he knows exactly what to look for when the heroin shipments come in, lots of off-road trucks and 18-wheelers. 
Usually when the shipments arrive there are several 18-wheelers; and surrounding the semis, several mid-sized trucks would be unloading wooden crates or cardboard boxes.  Unfortunately, this sight is nowhere to be seen at the rest stop and Nate let’s out a sigh of relief, his clean streak will continue for the time being.  If there isn’t any heroin at the rest stop then he can’t buy any.  He will just have to settle for the feeling of relief he will get when he drains his bodily fluids.  Nate feels good about the hand that fate dealt him, here he is, a recovering junkie, on the verge of giving in if the opportunity permits it and bam!  Just like that there is no opportunity, someone is watching out for him, he can feel it, things are going to go his way for now on.
Nate slowed down to a stop and looked around the interior of his car.  Ex-junkies are usually very fidgety and are always cleaning things in order to keep their minds off of the drug.  Nate is no different in this regard; his car is spotless on the inside and out.  Not just his car but also his dorm room, backpack, notebooks and the notes in them are all immaculately organized and clean.  He just likes to double and triple check the interior of the car to make sure there isn’t any trash he needs to dispose of or a thin layer of dust on the dashboard that needs wiping before he goes to the bathroom, anything to keep his mind off of the drugs and occupied.  Soon he will be home and back into the care of the people that made him want to shoot-up in the first place.  They are also the same people who forced him into rehab and saved his life.  It is a give and take relationship with his parents.  Most people only owe their parents one for bringing them into the world and providing for them until they could provide for themselves.  Not in Nate’s case he owed his parents his life more times than he could remember and they still love and care for him.  The parent child bond can be so strong sometimes, even between junkies and parents.  Nate even believes that his parents would save his ass again if he ever relapsed. 
While taking a piss, Nate looked around at some of the graffiti on the walls around the urinal to see if he recognized any of them from the old days.  None of the phone number seemed to ring any bells, but then again people change pager and cell phone numbers all of the time.  There is also the possibility that most of those drivers could be dead or retired by now.  Usually when a driver passes on someone covers the number up with R.I.P. or anything else to indicate that they have fallen. 
Not a single sign of the heroin trade in action or a single phone number or name that he recognizes.  Fate isn’t even going to give him the opportunity to screw up his sobriety streak, even if Nate is a very flawed individual.  For that reason, or maybe because he just finished urinating, a smile came over Nate’s face.  He felt that all of his important decisions in life already had a right answer placed in front of his face the whole time.  Being the clean freak that he is, Nate headed over to the sink to wash his hands clean from his own filth; when he saw something that brought back the memories of the old days.  Right next to the sink he should have seen that coming, he knew it would be there the name Squeaky.  Good old Squeaky, he always put his mark up by the sinks of the rest stops, he said it was because he was so clean that no one could catch him.  Good old Squeaky he always came through and Nate knew it.  Whipping out a pen from his back pocket Nate proceeded to write down Squeaky’s number and put it in his wallet just in case.  Not that he would really need the number or use it but for some reason it made him feel good knowing that the escape from reality is just a phone call away.  With that thought in mind Nate is on his way.
None of that really mattered on his way out of the bathroom as Nate witnessed Carl’s truck slowly rolling backwards into a tree.  Rest stops around this hour are usually vacant, during rush hour people are on the road pounding away the miles trying to get back to what they believe matters.  When Nate approached the truck wondering what was going on and laid eyes on the rig in Carl’s arm, he knew he had hit the mother load.  There was no mistaking it, this was a sign from whatever supernatural being beckoning Nate’s brotherhood.  He took it without question, without thought, as though a reflex had propelled him forward to these actions.  The same way he chose sobriety 30 seconds ago, he took it like any junkie would.  Once a junkie always a junkie.  Nate reached out for the needle still in Carl’s arm that lied there looking dead.  Nate didn’t want a lot, just a taste, just a sample of the goods before he headed home.  Just a little bit of home in every plunger full, he thinks to himself reaching for the needle which was only half full still in Carl’s dead arm.
“Soo’s everythang s’all right?”
The voice jars Nate out of his longing every.  Panicked, he whirls around to see a beyond old, old man slowly making his way towards the truck, the tree, and the pasty faced college boy with the slacked jaw.
“Everything’s fine, everything’s…” he blurts out while moving quickly to meet the intruder.  As the expanse, of the parking lot fell away between Nate and the old man they both slowed their pace. ‘What the hell am I doing?’ The question flashed through Nate’s hot mind, ‘Stopping him from helping?’
“We got everything under control.  Everything’s, uh, fine.  My brother’s a little.”
Nate tipped an imaginary bottle up in down in front of his mouth.  “I got it under control.” And as a feeble afterthought.  “Thanks though.” Moments pass.  ‘What the hell is he doing?’ Nate wondered feverishly, smiling non-chalantly, knowing full well the old man could see the truck, the obese Hispanic driver, and the tree creaking against the truck’s weight.  Knowing that the man in the truck looked no more like his brother than George Bush looked like Alfred E. Neuman.  Bad example.
Yet for some reason, just as suddenly as he appeared, the old man turned around and began inching back towards where ever he came.  Nate turned back towards the man in the truck; He looked at the open mouth shining slightly with drool, the torn blue over alls, and the arm with the rig.  The rig.  Suddenly Nate was on automatic.
He ran to the other side of the truck, hopped in, and slammed the door behind him.  First things first.  The rig securely stowed in his shirt’s top pocket, he moved on to finding the emergency brake.  The tree’s creaking stopped.  Silence flooded around Nate.  His heart’s pounding, sweaty palms, and racing mind was an absurd contrast to the man in the euphoric daze beside him. 
Nate took a deep breath and gazed out at the darkening parking lot around him.  ‘Night already.  Night is good.  Secrecy.  Safety in secrecy.’ An old user’s credo.  How quickly it came back to him.  ‘This guy right next to me, however, is a total fucking idiot.  Probably has his whole stash on him or in the truck.’ The lights over at the rest-room building flipped on.  A glow of yellow in the distance. 
Nate absent-mindedly fingered the needle through his shirt’s thin material.  And like a junkie with an inch he wondered feverishly where the mile was stashed.  On sleeping beauty, in the trunk, the glove box?  How stupid was this guy?  How stupid was he?  Shouldn’t he accept his small victory and get out of there.  Why press his luck? 
Where to look first.  Back in Nate’s day, he didn’t have a car and furthermore he wasn’t ever worried about stashing it.  He had to stash himself away.  Nice and hidden.  Where no one would bother him while he tapped that sweet spot in his black and blue arm.  Course in his day, the park was a good enough place for that too.
Nate began searching the complex interior of the custom pick-up.  There seemed to be an infinite amount of nooks, crannies, sunglasses, beverage, and map holders, drawers, doors, and compartments to search though. Nothing.  The floor was a heap of half-empty fast-food wrappers and bags.  Nate patiently tore through them all.  Nate then felt over every square inch he could reach: looking for loose fabric, a loose dash panel, a fake floor, anything.  But again nothing. Perhaps in the trunk or on this guy’s behemoth person.  Carl’s blue over-alls and yellowed wife beater weren’t exactly an inviting place to visit.  Course they weren’t exactly rife with pockets either.  Nate eyed the key-less ignition.  ‘Must be some way into the trunk.  A switch by the driver’s door.  Can’t get out.  What if some one where to come over.’
A seeming opportune-less Nate decides to cross Carl’s lap, sweaty palm out-stretched, seeking the plastic latch.  With the smallest of slapping sounds, Carl’s fatty forearm drops on the back of Nate’s neck, pinning him. 
Perhaps if Nate was already using again at this point, he would have exercised more aplomb and control.  If the need for the junk was a burning one, an all encompassing passion for the slightest buzz, a beacon of flickering relief in a sea of agonizing craving, then perhaps he may have just quickly, quietly pulled away from the man’s sweaty form.  Maybe if Nate had been a med student and had spent the week dissecting corpses in the cold sterility of the lab all week, and not smoking bong hits in his dorm room, watching the Simpson’s, eating Chinese take out, in between shamelessly hitting on the red-head Freshman from down the hall and talking to his girl friend who calls from work every chance she gets, he would of just scoffed at the beefy smell of Carl’s torso.  And just possibly if Nate hadn’t gorged himself on fast food tacos, Jolt cola, and cherry-flavored Tijuana Smalls cigars, he may have been able to finish reaching for the plastic latch of the truck.  If, maybe, possibly.  What Nate did do was react worse than an adolescent girl who gets a bat caught in hair during a camping trip. 
His feet kicked wildly behind him, sliding about in the fast food refuse, his body fell from the seat and his head slid, face first, in between Carl’s doughy thigh and the hard plastic steering wheel.  Nate began jerking his head back as hard as he could, spewing every word of disgust and venom that he knew.  Carl roared to life.  Screaming, “Wha’ da ‘ell!  Wha’ de ‘ell!” over and over as he tried to open his eyes and somehow, sits up in his seat. 
A stabbing pain rifled through Nate’s chest and he knew instantly what had happened.  A dull feeling exploded in his chest and despite his location, Nate couldn’t help getting excited at the prospect of H again, running wild through his system.  Like the return of the prodigal son.  An angry, bitter, son, that is, one that secretly anticipates the moment he will say the magic words that ruin Christmas dinner.  And in an instant his joy was transformed sickness.  The smell the position, and the poison in his blood were too much for a shallow anticipation of a pleasure he certainly wasn’t feeling.
With huge, violent, spasms of his upper body, Nate commenced to vomit his entire stomach’s contents.  The sudden down pouring of liquid, horrified the semi-conscious Carl.  He had no idea what was happening but it had to be the worst thing that ever happened to him.  The puking made the near impossible task of Nate’s head removal into a Herculean task.  Desperate times, they say.  And with Nate’s first stroke of luck since spotting the rig, his hand found the emergency hand brake.  With all his might Nate pulled away from his own ordeal expulsions. In the process, he clicked the brake off and the now-rocking truck lunged back into the small tree, cracking in one fell swoop, before proceeding to roll over its remains. Nate is thrown to a sitting position and though his hair is soaked with the vomit that rolls down his face, he smiles through it because the H has begun to kick in and it feels so good, so good, so very good, that it’s all almost worth. 
That is until Carl smacks him with an unsteady open hand. A flurry of mumbled but obviously angry Spanish follows Carl’s opening assault.  Nate decides to leave but his stomach thinks not.  It would rather eject more contents so it does.  And thus Carl and Nate exchange vomits and blows for a bit, like a particularly tasteless piece of performance art.  Two infants battling in a mentally addled haze with whatever weapon that comes to hand.  Nate is certainly losing as his nose has begun to bleed, sending red rivulets through the sticky beige slime on his chin.  Carl, being a sensualist, has a particular fondness for the aroma of fresh brewed coffee.  Yet the smell in his $22,000 Custom pick-up has reached the ninth circle of Olfactory Hell. 
So it’s no surprise that both combatants decide to flee the arena at the same time.  It is also not much of a surprise that they also both immediately spilled unto the ground into two separate foul smelling piles of drugged flesh.  Both are certainly thankful for the respite from the Customized Coliseum.  Carl wonders what this guy was trying to do (or worse was doing) to him.  Nate is trying to feel high, no, not feel high, to stop dry-heaving, and basically, get himself in a position to flee back to his car.  Without the added weight, the custom pick up has stopped grinding against the broken tree wedged underneath it.  Silence and darkness envelops the scene, bringing calm and unease to Nate and Carl.  ‘What’s he doing now?’ they think simultaneously.
Over in the golden light of the red brick rest stop, an old man gazes into the darkness.  ‘What the hell are they doing?’ he wonders as he lazily inhales some of his Durals.  A few minutes pass and the lump by the open driver’s side door remains idle.  The old man takes on last pull on his cigarette. ‘Weird-os!’ he concludes and returns to the small convenience store on the other side of the building.
Nate has gotten up and begins stumbling in a zigzag fashion towards his car.  Barely progressing more than ten feet a minute he is thankful to reach some parked cars to which he can cling to for balance.  Unknown to him, the lumbering form of Carl has arisen behind him and also begins a zombie-like, sprawling, pursuit.  Had the old man stayed he may have got a good laugh from this drunken race: these two infant children who’ve just discovered the game of chase for the first time tumbling about a shag carpeted living room.
Nate crashed into the driver seat of his car slamming his door securely beside him.  Safe.  He breathed deep and began looking for his keys.  The first thing he discovered was that the needle sticking out of his chest still had, what looked like, almost of a quarter needle full of junk left in it.  Should he stick it back into his chest?  That worked the first time.  No one he was just being silly now.  Gleefully, Nate began stripping his belt off.  Just as he arranged the Calvin Klein brown leather belt in a tight noose around his arm, the passenger side door leapt open and a sweat and vomit smelling Karl plopped into the seat beside him.
“Whaaaii dyuhuhnigghhf?” Karl demanded before swinging a massive paw at Nate’s aghast, screaming face.  The blow was relatively feeble, really nothing more than a swat that pushed Nate backwards.  This didn’t matter to Nate whose surprise was only surmounted by his fear.  He struck back with only weapon he had already clutched in his right hand.  After sticking Carl in the arm, including reflexively pushing the plunger in, Nate fled his car as fast as possible.  His face stung slightly but the belt around his arm was worse and looked worse to.  Having no idea what to he began to stumble-run back to the custom pick-up.  Again he didn’t look back but this time he was sure, Carl was right behind him.  So when he reached the truck he quickly locked every door before removing the belt from his arm. 
Across the parking lot sat Nate’s car with the driver door open and the looming form of the man pursuing him in the front seat.  ‘What the hell is he doing in there?  Planning to steal the car?  Searching for my name in the glove box?  Planting a bomb?’ Nate’s mind raced drunkenly.  In the pick up’s glove box he found Karl’s name and home address on the insurance papers. ‘Ha. Ha!’ he thought, ‘Now I have some information on you.  Which really does me no good as long as you’re in my car!  Get out of my car!  Damn it.  What the hell is he doing?’
As Nate worried and sweated the smell of the vomit on his person and in the car rose.  Soon it blurred out his thoughts.  His high was nothing more than nausea and paranoia at this point.  His quickest nod off ever.  What was the point of it all?  Should have just gone home.  That’s what was going to happen all along.  Whether or not I stopped to get myself in all this trouble first.  No matter how long you nod off you still have to go home and face your parents.  No matter how long you stay in school, in support groups, or going to the movies.  Everything sucked, Nate concluded.
It made no difference if he was nodding off all the time or was thinking about not thinking about nodding off all the time.  Nothing in his life since his junkie days offered him the temporary euphoria or anything even comparable that nodding off gave him.  It was like a baptism in a spoon.  After every time one was new again.  Ready to start the search for the same grail all over again.  Outside of that what was there besides his parents.  Friends were like inter-locking Lego’s: they all fit the same and could be replaced as easily as un-clicking.
His parents were different.  They had expectations.  They had a clear worldview.  Though blatantly flawed from his young eyes, they at least were sure of themselves.  Marriage was good.  Drugs were bad.  Competition and greed are the same.  Work is the eternal evil and equalizer of all people.  Children were the end goal.  The means were justified by the family arguments.  Yes, one always had to return to one’s parents, that is, until one became parent’s one self.  What else was there?  He’d rather nod off longer.  Put it off farther.  Have more fun.  It was his right.  The right of the youth.  Why not. 
The stench caused Nate to dry heave.  As he hacked away with his head down the old man approached the truck.  As the night had worn away, his bones ached more.  His snail like pace was stunted.  A few steps, then rest, a few more steps, rest.  Nate looked out at him between his coughs.  He should have expected this return.  He was used to the old man now.  How odd that just this man’s presence was so terrifying earlier.  He’s a harmless old.  Can barely move.  Probably, on junk himself.  Probably just wants to beg for the dregs of a needle.  ‘The whole world is a junkie,’ Nate thought, ‘Young and old, need is the primary law of the nature.  I got to get out of this shit-hole truck.’
Nate jumped out of the truck, leaving the door open behind him.  Why break pattern.  He was walking remarkably straighter but was far from functioning at full capabilities.  Nate ambled away from the old man who stopped dead, unsure if he should continue to investigate the pick-up sitting on the tree or attempt to stop the punk-kid swaggering towards the parking lot.  Deciding neither was worth further arthritic knee pain, he began to shout at Nate to stop, to come back, straighten up and be a man, to take responsibility for himself.
Nate was aware from about fifteen feet away that Carl was still in his car but this time he reacted markedly better.  He put two and two together and realized Carl had nodded off again.  He was not a threat until the latest dose of junk wore off.  When reached the car he calmed got in the open door and started the car.  Sure enough Carl’s chin ground into his chest and drool rolled from his mouth staining the stained wife beater.  Blood had rolled freely down his arm from the needle still jabbed into his arm. 
The sound of the old man’s voice had changed and Nate astutely reasoned that he had turned to his direction and was approaching the car.  He threw the car into gear and began to drive towards the exit.  By necessity he had to turn around and drive right by the old, old man who stood futilely in the middle of the empty concrete.  As they made eye contact, Nate again made his earlier gesture with the imaginary bottle, as if alcohol still could explain the whole situation.  The tree, the puke, the blood, the lying on the ground and the fighting.  Actually that all sounded about right.
As Nate approached the highway he turned back South on I-35.  He recalled from Carl’s address that he lived in the town south of this one.  He had no intention of bringing his formidable foe all the way home, but some streak of good will in his heart inspired him to bring him to his neighborhood.  Maybe one of Carl’s family members will find him at the rest stop, Nate intended to drop him off at.  Who knows maybe Carl didn’t have any family.  Nate did though and now he was super late in getting to their place.  He was a total, odorous mess on top of it but he didn’t care.  He had to go there any way.  Had to listen to his father lecture him about drinking, drinking and driving, drinking till you puke, being late, being responsible, and showing respect to those people who have sacrificed their lives for him.  The imaginary lecture in Nate’s head fell into rhythm with Carl’s bear-like snoring and with this duet serenading him he drove on down the road.
THE END