- - -
They say marijuana is a gateway drug. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't, but when Charlie was seventeen, doing a few bong hits and chasing them with cheap beer was a sure cure for stage fright. It made him cough at first, and there was something disturbing and organic about the burbling of the water in the bong when he took a big hit--like a death rattle or something. But stoned--he was relaxed, more in touch with the music, more able to jam and improvise.
The music worked better when he didn't think about it too hard. Being stoned made that easy.
Charlie tries, now, to sleep on the beach. He's got a picture in his mind of the baggie in his shoe. He knows exactly how much of the brown powder is in there. He knows by touch, by heft, could probably estimate its weight to the nearest gram, except that would drive him even crazier. It's been six hours, and he's got the feeling in the pit of his stomach--the black, falling feeling--the feeling that sober, baseline reality is too near, and too unsurvivable.
- - -
They called it laughing gas at the dentist, and he thought it was weird when he was a kid, and it didn't make him laugh, just made his brain fuzzy. But when he was an adult and someone handed him an elastic balloon full of nitrous oxide to huff, he was suddenly able to appreciate the finer aspects of oxygen deprivation.
His mate Tom said that when you were completely blitzed on nitrous--so messed up you couldn't move or talk--you suddenly knew the secrets to all the universe. "Problem is," he said, "When you come back down, you forget it all."
- - -
A gram will usually get him through a day or two. Three, if he's really stretching it. So he's got enough left for a few more days. He was being a real pig with it at first, because--no matter what the pilot said--he was certain they'd be rescued. Now he's not so sure, he is very much less than sure that he's going to make it. He shifts on the sand next to his own little fire, wrapped in an airline-logo blanket. It would be so much better if he could sleep for a few hours.
- - -
Cocaine was actually sort of a letdown, a bit anticlimactic, really. Especially if you'd already done meth, as he had. His hands shook a little as he fumbled with the straw, because this was cocaine, one of the big ones, he was in the bigtime now, yeah, and it was a little scary. One nostril went numb. It tasted bitter in the back of his throat, like chewing up an aspirin. He stayed up all night talking with these posh, big-city types the band met after the show, and the conversation was brilliant, and he knew so much about everything, he had all these opinions he hadn't even thought about before.
The cocaine itself was no big deal after all, he decided, although it was nice to be able to stay up all night so effortlessly.
- - -
Twitch. Shift. The nausea is kicking in hard now, and it hurts his muscles and bones just to lie on them. He thinks of the baggie, of the sanctuary it contains. Gotta wait. Gotta wait. Gotta make it last. Every stupid drug song he's ever heard is going through his head at once right now, Needle and the Damage Done, Under the Bridge, and all those bloody terrible Alice in Chains songs. Shouldn't be allowed to write songs about it afterwards, stupid wankers. Nothing worse than a reformed junkie. Images flash behind his eyeballs, mostly unpleasant: dead grunge singers, indistinct red and black splotches, and fucking polar bears.
- - -
After he tried the coke, he felt like death warmed over the next day and decided he'd stick with the booze and the weed from now on. But a few months later, after Driveshaft signed their first recording deal, he was at a party in someone's upscale flat, and a pretty girl with a pierced eyebrow passed him a little mirrored tray with three neat, chopped lines. Why not? It wasn't as though he were doing heroin. Not like he was sticking needles in his veins. Cocaine was a party drug. It was practically legal.
The pretty girl's name was Lila, and the two of them ended up in a guest bedroom, where they had sex all night long.
- - -
He starts to sweat a little; not the good sweat of the high, just a sickly sweat from the nausea and his overworked central nervous system. He kicks off the blanket, heaves himself over onto his back and looks up at the stars. Never seen so many stars, didn't know there were so many stars. It seems a terrible waste, all those stars, and all those people in London and New York and Orlando who can only see a few of them. And then suddenly he feels better. The night sky is really beautiful, and a cooling breeze blows across his face, and the sound of the waves helps relax his aching muscles. It's good to remember that things are beautiful sometimes even without the drug. The black feeling in his stomach eases. And for a moment, he's all right.
- - -
When he was a teenager, England was in a state of panic about the scourge of Ecstasy, outlawing raves left and right and putting up billboards with the faces of poor, dead kids who'd necked one too many happy pills and danced too long with not enough water. And so he'd always been a little leery of E, and when Lila took him to a house party where everyone was rolling--as he found out too late--he wanted to leave. But she persuaded him otherwise, and after sharing a few beers and a joint with some very friendly partiers in a back room, he swallowed the little yellow pill with the happy-face logo on it. And it was amazing.There were no words for it. He watched Lila making out with another girl, while a third girl he didn't know massaged his shoulders and his back, and he was pretty sure he was in love with all three of them and that Ecstasy was the best drug in the entire world.
If everyone tried Ecstasy, there would be no wars.
- - -
He dozes for a while, but wakes up when he hears something, a noise he can't really recall once he's fully awake. This island, there's something on it, everyone knows and no one is talking about it. It's enough to make a person go insane. And he knows more than most of them; he saw what happened to the pilot, he saw the bear, he heard that terrible, repeating transmission. He has to wait just a bit longer, and then he can get his baggie out. And he can go back to feeling like everything will be all right, believing that is just a truly amazing adventure, and that he'll be rescued, and that the resulting publicity will propel Driveshaft straight to the top again. Maybe even a solo career for him. He's always fancied himself a singer anyway.
Just a little longer.
- - -
Ecstasy was amazing, but heroin was something else entirely. It was just like they'd said in Trainspotting: "Take the best orgasm you ever had, multiply it by a thousand and you're still nowhere near it." It had been Lila's idea again, and she and the others had convinced him that it was no big deal, just another new thing to try, backstage after a gig. But he snorted a tiny bit, and as it turned out it was a very big deal, even though he tried to act casual about it.
For the first time in his life, he understood the phrase 'drug of choice'.
He'd found his.
- - -
He sleeps some more, has vivid dreams of nothing much. Once he is awakened by the sound of a dog barking, and panics until he hears the kid tell the dog to hush. He drifts back to sleep, doesn't wake up again until his bladder finally forces him to. They haven't really established a latrine per se, but there's a general direction everyone tends to wander when they need to take care of business. Not far from the beach, shielded enough for privacy, but not distant enough to be threatening. His hands are shaking badly as he unzips his fly to relieve himself. Now would be the perfect time, he's out of sight, everyone's asleep, and there's enough moonlight that he can see what he's doing. Just enough to get back to sleep...
But:
Tomorrow, he tells himself. I can make it till tomorrow.
- - -
They had terrible rows when Lila started shooting up. Charlie still didn't like needles, and doing it that way crossed some sort of line for him. Or so he said to her; deep inside, he knew he was in it just as bad as she was. But he pretended otherwise, and they fought, and she told him to piss off. Soon after, he left on their first U.S. tour, one of the big summer festivals, and he lost touch with Lila after that. Sometimes he still wondered how things had turned out for her. But there'd been so many girls after her, and other times he forgot what she'd even looked like. Except for the tiny needle marks on her arms; he never forgot those.
And it became a mantra after a while, the ultimate rationalization: At least I don't shoot up, like Lila.
- - -
Charlie awakens with his face in the sand; he'd worked his way off the makeshift pillow sometime in the night. He's achy all over, but he sits up shakily. The sun isn't quite up yet, but people are stirring around already in the early dusk. Sayid walks by and tosses him a package of nuts, but he nearly vomits at the thought of food. He tucks the package into his jacket pocket for later. He pulls himself to his feet, wanders off to a stand of trees. He double-checks to make sure no one is around, and pulls the baggie from his sneaker. It is depressingly light. He's heard withdrawal horror stories, he knows if he was smart he'd give the rest of his stash to the doctor guy and try to work out some sort of ramp-down to save himself some of the the cramps and the sickness--and the screaming.
Maybe he'll do that tomorrow.
For now, he dumps a pile the size of a blueberry into his palm, snorts it and rubs the dregs into his gums. He feels better immediately; his bad night is forgotten. He's confident in his plan to ask for help to wean himself off the drug. Tomorrow. And they'll be rescued, and he'll be clean. He can write a book about his experience on the island.
He wanders back down to the shore. He sees Claire, awake down by the surf, and they smile at each other. He goes to greet her, and they sit on the beach together.
The sunrise is beautiful.
- - -
END
They say marijuana is a gateway drug. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't, but when Charlie was seventeen, doing a few bong hits and chasing them with cheap beer was a sure cure for stage fright. It made him cough at first, and there was something disturbing and organic about the burbling of the water in the bong when he took a big hit--like a death rattle or something. But stoned--he was relaxed, more in touch with the music, more able to jam and improvise.
The music worked better when he didn't think about it too hard. Being stoned made that easy.
Charlie tries, now, to sleep on the beach. He's got a picture in his mind of the baggie in his shoe. He knows exactly how much of the brown powder is in there. He knows by touch, by heft, could probably estimate its weight to the nearest gram, except that would drive him even crazier. It's been six hours, and he's got the feeling in the pit of his stomach--the black, falling feeling--the feeling that sober, baseline reality is too near, and too unsurvivable.
- - -
They called it laughing gas at the dentist, and he thought it was weird when he was a kid, and it didn't make him laugh, just made his brain fuzzy. But when he was an adult and someone handed him an elastic balloon full of nitrous oxide to huff, he was suddenly able to appreciate the finer aspects of oxygen deprivation.
His mate Tom said that when you were completely blitzed on nitrous--so messed up you couldn't move or talk--you suddenly knew the secrets to all the universe. "Problem is," he said, "When you come back down, you forget it all."
- - -
A gram will usually get him through a day or two. Three, if he's really stretching it. So he's got enough left for a few more days. He was being a real pig with it at first, because--no matter what the pilot said--he was certain they'd be rescued. Now he's not so sure, he is very much less than sure that he's going to make it. He shifts on the sand next to his own little fire, wrapped in an airline-logo blanket. It would be so much better if he could sleep for a few hours.
- - -
Cocaine was actually sort of a letdown, a bit anticlimactic, really. Especially if you'd already done meth, as he had. His hands shook a little as he fumbled with the straw, because this was cocaine, one of the big ones, he was in the bigtime now, yeah, and it was a little scary. One nostril went numb. It tasted bitter in the back of his throat, like chewing up an aspirin. He stayed up all night talking with these posh, big-city types the band met after the show, and the conversation was brilliant, and he knew so much about everything, he had all these opinions he hadn't even thought about before.
The cocaine itself was no big deal after all, he decided, although it was nice to be able to stay up all night so effortlessly.
- - -
Twitch. Shift. The nausea is kicking in hard now, and it hurts his muscles and bones just to lie on them. He thinks of the baggie, of the sanctuary it contains. Gotta wait. Gotta wait. Gotta make it last. Every stupid drug song he's ever heard is going through his head at once right now, Needle and the Damage Done, Under the Bridge, and all those bloody terrible Alice in Chains songs. Shouldn't be allowed to write songs about it afterwards, stupid wankers. Nothing worse than a reformed junkie. Images flash behind his eyeballs, mostly unpleasant: dead grunge singers, indistinct red and black splotches, and fucking polar bears.
- - -
After he tried the coke, he felt like death warmed over the next day and decided he'd stick with the booze and the weed from now on. But a few months later, after Driveshaft signed their first recording deal, he was at a party in someone's upscale flat, and a pretty girl with a pierced eyebrow passed him a little mirrored tray with three neat, chopped lines. Why not? It wasn't as though he were doing heroin. Not like he was sticking needles in his veins. Cocaine was a party drug. It was practically legal.
The pretty girl's name was Lila, and the two of them ended up in a guest bedroom, where they had sex all night long.
- - -
He starts to sweat a little; not the good sweat of the high, just a sickly sweat from the nausea and his overworked central nervous system. He kicks off the blanket, heaves himself over onto his back and looks up at the stars. Never seen so many stars, didn't know there were so many stars. It seems a terrible waste, all those stars, and all those people in London and New York and Orlando who can only see a few of them. And then suddenly he feels better. The night sky is really beautiful, and a cooling breeze blows across his face, and the sound of the waves helps relax his aching muscles. It's good to remember that things are beautiful sometimes even without the drug. The black feeling in his stomach eases. And for a moment, he's all right.
- - -
When he was a teenager, England was in a state of panic about the scourge of Ecstasy, outlawing raves left and right and putting up billboards with the faces of poor, dead kids who'd necked one too many happy pills and danced too long with not enough water. And so he'd always been a little leery of E, and when Lila took him to a house party where everyone was rolling--as he found out too late--he wanted to leave. But she persuaded him otherwise, and after sharing a few beers and a joint with some very friendly partiers in a back room, he swallowed the little yellow pill with the happy-face logo on it. And it was amazing.There were no words for it. He watched Lila making out with another girl, while a third girl he didn't know massaged his shoulders and his back, and he was pretty sure he was in love with all three of them and that Ecstasy was the best drug in the entire world.
If everyone tried Ecstasy, there would be no wars.
- - -
He dozes for a while, but wakes up when he hears something, a noise he can't really recall once he's fully awake. This island, there's something on it, everyone knows and no one is talking about it. It's enough to make a person go insane. And he knows more than most of them; he saw what happened to the pilot, he saw the bear, he heard that terrible, repeating transmission. He has to wait just a bit longer, and then he can get his baggie out. And he can go back to feeling like everything will be all right, believing that is just a truly amazing adventure, and that he'll be rescued, and that the resulting publicity will propel Driveshaft straight to the top again. Maybe even a solo career for him. He's always fancied himself a singer anyway.
Just a little longer.
- - -
Ecstasy was amazing, but heroin was something else entirely. It was just like they'd said in Trainspotting: "Take the best orgasm you ever had, multiply it by a thousand and you're still nowhere near it." It had been Lila's idea again, and she and the others had convinced him that it was no big deal, just another new thing to try, backstage after a gig. But he snorted a tiny bit, and as it turned out it was a very big deal, even though he tried to act casual about it.
For the first time in his life, he understood the phrase 'drug of choice'.
He'd found his.
- - -
He sleeps some more, has vivid dreams of nothing much. Once he is awakened by the sound of a dog barking, and panics until he hears the kid tell the dog to hush. He drifts back to sleep, doesn't wake up again until his bladder finally forces him to. They haven't really established a latrine per se, but there's a general direction everyone tends to wander when they need to take care of business. Not far from the beach, shielded enough for privacy, but not distant enough to be threatening. His hands are shaking badly as he unzips his fly to relieve himself. Now would be the perfect time, he's out of sight, everyone's asleep, and there's enough moonlight that he can see what he's doing. Just enough to get back to sleep...
But:
Tomorrow, he tells himself. I can make it till tomorrow.
- - -
They had terrible rows when Lila started shooting up. Charlie still didn't like needles, and doing it that way crossed some sort of line for him. Or so he said to her; deep inside, he knew he was in it just as bad as she was. But he pretended otherwise, and they fought, and she told him to piss off. Soon after, he left on their first U.S. tour, one of the big summer festivals, and he lost touch with Lila after that. Sometimes he still wondered how things had turned out for her. But there'd been so many girls after her, and other times he forgot what she'd even looked like. Except for the tiny needle marks on her arms; he never forgot those.
And it became a mantra after a while, the ultimate rationalization: At least I don't shoot up, like Lila.
- - -
Charlie awakens with his face in the sand; he'd worked his way off the makeshift pillow sometime in the night. He's achy all over, but he sits up shakily. The sun isn't quite up yet, but people are stirring around already in the early dusk. Sayid walks by and tosses him a package of nuts, but he nearly vomits at the thought of food. He tucks the package into his jacket pocket for later. He pulls himself to his feet, wanders off to a stand of trees. He double-checks to make sure no one is around, and pulls the baggie from his sneaker. It is depressingly light. He's heard withdrawal horror stories, he knows if he was smart he'd give the rest of his stash to the doctor guy and try to work out some sort of ramp-down to save himself some of the the cramps and the sickness--and the screaming.
Maybe he'll do that tomorrow.
For now, he dumps a pile the size of a blueberry into his palm, snorts it and rubs the dregs into his gums. He feels better immediately; his bad night is forgotten. He's confident in his plan to ask for help to wean himself off the drug. Tomorrow. And they'll be rescued, and he'll be clean. He can write a book about his experience on the island.
He wanders back down to the shore. He sees Claire, awake down by the surf, and they smile at each other. He goes to greet her, and they sit on the beach together.
The sunrise is beautiful.
- - -
END