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The Sweetest Sound


 

The sweetest sound I ever heard. Not a “flick” or a “click” but more of a “blick” as Mark’s thumb moved across the spark wheel, igniting the butane lighter. All my senses came alive. I felt the warmth of the flame as he held it under the spoon, saw the pea-sized rock melt and bubble, smelled the precious vapour that ensued.

The ritual sparked a seductive muscle memory: the roughness of the spark wheel, the way time stood still until rock transformed to liquid. I imagined myself inhaling the cloud, moving my face over it, hungrily, capturing as much of the drug as I could take in. Instinctively I moved forward. Despite his whole-body shakes, Mark deftly drew the liquid into a syringe and plunged it into his arm.

I knew I should do something, anything other than watch and crave. I should call my husband. I should call an ambulance. I hesitated. Wanting. Remembering.

I’d had two more stints in rehab in the past year and a half – although it was a stretch to call that spa in Switzerland a rehabilitation centre. Going for three to five days without heroin – getting it out of my bloodstream – was easy. Yes, agonizing shakes, muscle pain, fevers, and the constant vomiting, but then it was over. Three to five days. Done. But the want. The want never left.

I’d found Mark by accident, slumped on the pavement behind a store on Yonge Street. Alive and not well. Pale, panting and vibrating with need.

“Willa! Are you carrying?”

“Oh, Mark …”  I’d tried to help him stand. “I’m clean and I’m going to get you some help.” It sounded hollow.

“Don’t want fucking help.  I want … I need a hit.”

I’d looked at the track marks on his arm, the rivulets of sweat that ran from his face and neck, pooling in the hollow of his sternum.

“Please let me …”

“Please Willa, you gotta help me score.  I’m gonna die.”

I’d managed to get him up and helped him walk to a nearby park where I’d handed over twenty bucks and found a tin foil packet in my palm. I told myself it was for Mark. His dingy apartment above a shoe store overlooked the alley where open cans of garbage reeked, and rats scuttled. Unmade bed. Dirty dishes. Clumps of stinking, stiff socks and T-shirts. 

He'd stumbled to the floor, leaning back against the bed.

“Mark, honey. I got clean and you can too. I know a place…”

“Not fucking going to rehab. Just need a fix, Willa. Please. PLEASE.”  He hadn’t even looked me in the eye but kept his gaze at my left pocket where I’d put the packet from the park.

“You think you’re the only one who feels this way, but you’re not. Everyone on this planet is fucked up, just in different ways. This place, can help you get the drugs out of your system and start to…” 

When had I turned into a celebrity pitchman for a rehab centre?

“Fuck you!  Fuck you, Willa!  I don’t need a fucking pep talk. I’m gonna DIE. I need my FUCKING FIX!”

Only after he flicked his Bic, wrapped the belt around his arm and plunged the needle in his vein did I call my husband – an expert by now on arranging urgent trips to rehab centres. I found a cloth that looked cleanish, wet it and started to wipe Mark’s face where I noticed an odd-shaped open wound.

When he wasn’t looking, I palmed what was left of his stash. Later, I made the sweetest sound I ever heard, my thumb on the spark wheel, the flame against the spoon…

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