So, my name. It was Geoffrey's choice; probably wouldn't have been mine if I'd have had any say in it, but my father is actually a fan of biology and evolution, and Charles Darwin is, like, his hero. I guess he was hoping that giving me that name would spark an interest in science. Supposedly, when I was a baby he would read to me from The Origin of the Species. What a cutie.
I'm solidly behind the whole evolution thing along with, you know, the Earth being more than 6,000 years old, not flat, etc., but ol' Charlie D had some pretty messed up ideas about races and women, so I can't say I'm one hundred percent behind sharing his name.
As a name though it's way better than, I don't know, Lily Lilley or Patricia the Second or Tammy Lynn or Bertha or Windsong or millions of others I could think of. I'm fine with it. Could have been worse.
Our drug of choice procured, we're in an alley behind a print shop in a sort of recessed area that's at least semi-hidden from curious onlookers. The building has no windows out the back and it seems like maybe business isn't very good cuz there's never anything happening back here. There are a couple piles of yellowing boxy, computerish things, printers and monitors, two broken office chairs and who knows what else, just abandoned along with piles of papers, some of them bundled and some just strewn around. Mixed in with all that are some stray used needles, signs that we aren't the only ones who've discovered the place.
After Switch's we went and found the others and we all came back here to share in the good times. It was Kodi's idea, of course, the sharing. There's P. L., Ty, Amiya, Jewels, Bryn, and a girl named Wicksy or Wiksi or something who I've never even seen before. So Neea's money is like, easy come, easy go and once again Kodi is the Candy Man sharing our teener with pretty much everyone in sight.
Now P. L. lets us all know that the new girl's name is spelled W-i-x-i-e because somehow that's important, then says "You wanna know why they call her Wixie?" and everyone's like "No, not really" and P. L. and Wixie look a little hurt but no one cares because we're watching Kodi load the pipe.
I always smoke it. I don't really like smoking stuff (probably because it reminds me of my mother when she still used to burn through a pack of du Maurier Extra Lights every single day) but it's what Kodi and the guys do, it's what I learned, and it's a habit now. Never IV'ed it though. Not once. Needles can be dirty, and slamming just seems so hardcore. The people who shoot up are the real addicts.
Kodi's an artist with a meth pipe. He knows the perfect way to position the little mesh filter thing, the perfect amount of rock to put in and, unlike Jewels for example, he never lets even a single shard fall to the ground. I, on the other hand, would make a total mess of itâprobably set everyone on fire or something so I'm fine leaving that stuff to Kodi.
He's carefully working the flame under the bowl now to melt the meth crystals. Kodi mods his Bic lighters so that they give out a longer, thinner flame that he can control more precisely. Now the meth crystals are starting to liquefy and, as he tilts the pipe slowly from side to side, the puddle starts to bubble and smoke. He keeps it up until there's a thick cloud of meth vapour in the pipe and then eases off the flame, puts his mouth to the pipe and draws the smoke deep. In a few seconds he lets it out then points the mouthpiece toward me for my turn.
It was always this way before. No matter who was there, Kodi would pass the pipe to me first. We never talked about it, but to me it signified something. My importance to him, my position in the group as part of the alpha couple, I don't know. But at this point, after all that's happened lately, I have no idea why I still rate going right after him. Is it because I'm still his girl? Because I'm usually the source of the meth money? Because he would have passed it to whoever was closest? I don't know, but I choose to believe it's the first one.
So, eight months as one of the volunteer homeless. It's been quite a ride. Days on the streets, nights wherever we can find a place to sleep. We stay in shelters sometimes, but mostly we stay with friends or with people we sort of know who might have a couch or cot or just space on the floor. Some nights we sleep on the street but that's a quick way to get unwanted attention from the VicPD. The shelters are usually too cramped. You're trying to sleep with a bunch of other people and they're coughing and sniffing and farting and generally making noise. On cold nights there might be a couple dozen people in there. It's pretty hard to sleep. Plus Kodi hates the shelter. He can't be himself, can't do drugs and make a lot of noise, can't do a lot of the other socially unacceptable things that he wants to do. Basically, Kodi hates any rules at all. So, we hit the shelters only when we absolutely need them. The last few nights there's been four or five of us staying at this guy Boyd's crappy little apartment while he's over in Vancouver. Smells bad but it'll do.
For food we use some of the money we get from my parents, and wherever else, to buy cheap food and when money runs out we have a whole list of schemes and connections to get food for free, from being buddies with a couple of dishwashers and busboys at downtown restaurants, to outright walking into stores and stealing what we need. We're definitely not proud when it comes to survival.
Well, a little proud maybe cuz not too many from our group have been known to bin-dive for food. You see them though. They're some of the "others" on the streets that we know but don't really hang out with. They're maybe too drunk or drugged or dumb or deranged to employ the tactics we use, so they just do the easiest thing: root through the trash for whatever scraps people have thrown away.
And there are definite levels of bin-diving prowess. You see the noobs, the ones who still have a little pride left and are hesitant. We call them "binginners." When they stop caring so much what others think of them and dive in there a little deeper for the good stuff, they've advanced to "bintermediate." And then the ones who just don't give a shit, who will stop at nothing, heads down and feet in the air, trying to reach that beautiful half-eaten cheeseburger right down there at the bottom, they're the "binternationals."
Kodi, still manning the lighter, works up a pipeful for me and I take a good rip.
I hold it in for just a quick count of three and let out a white cloud of smoke. You're not supposed to hold in meth smoke the way you do with weed. You hear kids talk sometimes about how the meth will recrystallize inside your lungs if you hold it in too long, but that's bull. The reason, Kodi says, is that your lungs absorb the drug so fast there's no point in holding it in any longer. Makes sense to me. The rush comes on quickly.
You know that one kind of firework, where there's a boom and streaks of gold-white light arc out from the center and start to fade and then just when you think it was kind of a boring firework each of those light streaks goes pop in its own mini version of the boom and all those pops make this cool fizzy sound? It's like BOOOMMM... fizzzzzzzzz! Well, with a good hit of meth, that BOOM is inside your skull and the fizzzz goes all through your body.
After all these months it might not be as incredible as the first few times, but it's still pure magic... a sense of total control, warm, perfect contentment and the feeling that I'm capable of anything. For someone who's been told all her life that she can't do things, that's pretty potent. I close my eyes and let the dried out sponge of my brain soak up all that sweet happiness. Aches and pains, worries, doubts and fears, all of 'em erased.
So... downsides to meth? There aren't any. At least not when you're high. If it made you feel shitty you wouldn't want to take it, right? When you're high, everything's perfect. All the downsides come later or are longer-term effects, and when the now is so amazing it's pretty easy to not give a crap about the later.
"This is really good shit," P. L. says.
"I told you!" says Kodi.
In eight months we've been through the end of a grey winter together, cold and wet enough to feel like an exciting challenge but not so frigid that it changed my mind about either street life or Kodi. Then there was a spring with such perfect weather that being on the street seemed like a luxury and Kodi and I would constantly sneak away to secret places to be alone, have crazy meth sex or just hang out.
Then came a hot late July when the sun was an evil ball of fire and finding shade was almost as important as finding food, when our "street tans" made it harder to blend in so we got extra attention from the police, and when it seemed like Kodi and I were comfortable enough as a couple that we didn't have to be together every minute.
Then came the autumn. Now the rain has come back, Kodi has drifted away from me, possibly toward Bryn, and the meth that used to lift me way, way up isn't quite getting me there anymore. Cold nights, damp and dirty rooms, garbage food, cheap alcohol, sex and love followed by rejection and doubt, many meth hits, too many cops, angry store owners, angry cooks and waiters, angry pedestrians, dirty looks and rude comments, and rain, rain and more rain.
But we've gotten through it together. It's just us.
Kodi says that sometimesâ"it's just us"âa kind of point-form pep-talk he uses when he thinks our merry band of fuck-ups needs a little motivation and he goes into spiritual-guide mode. "It's just us," like we're the only ones who see things as they really are, the ones smart enough to opt out, drop out of the fake life that everyone else is stuck in, spending so much of their time running on the hamster wheel of their jobs just to add to their collections of pointless, expensive crap, get their hands on this year's model of earth-destroying car that they need mainly just to get themselves from home back to the hamster-wheel job to make more money... And unlike the alkies and schizos we share the streets with, we know where we are and why we're here.
It's just us who see the bullshit for what it is and instead choose a real life, just us who are brave enough to be the crazy, amazing, fucked-up pioneers of a lifestyle that doesn't put a death-grip on the planet. Just us, like we've been chosen to start a sci-fi colony for humanity's future, to seed a new population that will steer the world away from the brink... Except I should probably stop taking birth control if that's the actual plan.
So yeah. It's just us.
We leave the print shop back alley and set out across Victoria's tidy, well-behaved downtown. It's a weekday mid-afternoon and the worker bees are out in large numbers. They move with purpose, always on the clock, while we, on the other hand, flow along at an easy pace, free of obligation, oblivious of time... You don't have to be a scientist to see that friction is inevitable between these opposing forces.
Except for panhandling, we generally ignore the citizenry, but now, as we're walking down Blanshard Street, the widest, busiest street in town, P. L. is flipping off this guy we just passed. Next thing I know the two of them are doing their best impressions of Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver. I have no idea what happened so I just take a cautious step or two away from the commotion while Kodi, who apparently saw it all, moves in ready to tag-team if P. L. falters in the slightest.
Don't think that'll be necessary though. The guy has done some reassessing, accounting for Kodi, Jewels, Ty and the rest of us. He's pretty big but he's, like, late-thirties or so and doesn't look like a fighter in the least. Clearly, the guy'd prefer it if things didn't turn violent, but, having at least a trace of pride, he can't just say sorry, shake hands and tell P. L. to have a good day. You can see on his face that he wishes he could rewind time, just pass the homeless kids without incident, get that goddamn latte and maybe a date square and get back to the safe and comfortable boredom of his workday.
However, P. L. is pretty amped.
"You wanna fuckin' try me?" he says, smacking his chest with his hand.
He's kind of overdoing it with the aggression now, a mix of meth and adrenaline working on his brain and making him look pretty demented, like a crazed koala. I sure wouldn't want to fight him.
"Maybe just don't be an asshole," the office guy says.
This is the kind of trouble we don't need. The others are yelling at P. L. to destroy the guy, but I shout, "Leave it, P. L.! It isn't worth it!"
My pacifistic ways are well known in the group and are generally perceived as just me being weak-ass, part of the whole "Mouse" thing that Kodi's always going on about. So, needless to say, no one pays any attention to me.
P. L. senses fear in his opponent and nimbly slips in closer to give the dude a shove while Bryn, who's been inching steadily toward the battle, gets a boost from P. L.'s aggression and yells "Fuck off, loser!" pushing the guy sideways.
The guy puts both arms out and pushes off both P. L. and Bryn to give himself a little space. That's enough for Kodi. One of the females has been threatened, so the proud silverback must take action. Kodi is instantly in the guy's face and raging at him.
"Yeah, you're in it now, you piece of shit!"
Office guy is indeed way over his head and knows it. He's milliseconds away from getting knuckles to the face when Amiya says, more quietly than the situation would seem to call for, "Um, there's a cop over there looking at us."
We look across Blanshard Street and, sure enough, there's one cop coming our way and another one getting out of a police car. It's a busy downtown street after all, so no surprise really. That was kinda the point I was trying to make earlier.
Without another word we all bolt away and up a side street, Kodi laughing like a lunatic. At some point Jewels, Wixie, Ty and Amiya peel off down an alley while P. L., Kodi and I head for Douglas Street. There are enough people there that we can blend in. When it doesn't appear that the cops are anywhere near us, we stop running. Kodi and P. L. are still laughing it up while they catch their breath.
"I was just about to fuck that guy up!" says Kodi.
"What did he do?" I ask. "I didn't even see."
"I think he fucking pissed himself he was so scared!" says P. L.
We turn onto Fisgard and walk a block to the big Chinese arch to wait for the others. We've been hanging out together long enough to have contingency plans that don't even need to be spoken.
I should say "The Gate of Harmonious Interest." That is actually the official name of the decorated arch that spans the entrance to Victoria's Chinatown and if there's a better name for anything, anywhere, I'd like to hear it.
At this point I'm feeling pretty harmonious just because we managed to avoid a run-in with VicPD. There's still a chance they recognized us so we might be in for some harassment soon enough, but for now we're in the clear.
"What did he do?" I ask again.
"He walked right into me!" says P. L. indignantly. "Hard!"
Now it's my turn to laugh. "You mean he didn't get out of the way when you walked into him, right?"
Guys can be such idiots. We already have enough problems with cops. Why risk more over something so stupid?
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â D.B.