The History of Bones by John Lurie

Author:John Lurie [Lurie, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2021-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

21

Fifty Million Junkies Are Probably Wrong

I get back to New York and Liz is getting high every day. I go back to my struggle. Try to do it only once or twice a week. But now that I have been really strung out, I get sick every time after I get high once or twice. I am determined not to fall back into taking it every day, so I am kicking all the time.

When we were trying to quit, sometimes, on Fridays, I would go with Liz and wait on Third Avenue in the East Twenties, while she would go and buy Herbert Huncke’s methadone. I didn’t really know who he was at the time, but I did know he was a respected beat poet. Liz might have been in and out of there in ten minutes, but it seemed like hours. I would stand on the corner, shivering and looking into the coffee shop window. The people looking out at me knew that I was a shameful and terrible person.

Anyone who glanced at me knew in an instant that I was a loathsome creature to be avoided at any cost.

The methadone worked in a way. I didn’t like it, but it worked. It made me incredibly hyper. I would become Mr. Gregarious. I noticed that people would back away from me while I was talking.

Liz had a truly inspired suggestion, that we take LSD to kick. That would help us transcend the addiction. She claimed that she had done it before. It seemed like a brilliant idea.

We were back living on Third Street and I had mice. For a little while we used normal traps using peanut butter as bait. You’d be sleeping and hear this sklakity racket. A mouse in the trap but not dead. Sputtering and twisting like mad. I’d jump out of bed and throw the trap out the window.

This was too gruesome and cruel. If the trap killed them straight out, I was okay with it. But this maiming was unacceptable. We tried balancing a ruler on the edge of the bathtub, with a bit of peanut butter on the end. The mouse was supposed to travel out on the ruler and then when it got past the middle, the mouse’s weight would make it, and the ruler, fall into the tub. The mouse would be trapped and I presume then I would catch it in a towel or something and let it go outside. Every morning we’d find the ruler in the bathtub with no peanut butter on it.

So fuck it, we’ll live with the mice because I can’t maim them in these traps. But the thing is that the mice get braver. They start doing outlandish things. Running across the bed while you’re still awake. Walk out into the middle of the floor and just plunk down like your dog would and then rest there for a spell. Just stare at you like it was their place and you were only a bit of a nuisance.

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