The junkie

The small room was very messy. There were some food leftovers on the table, ashes on the floor, ashtrays filled to the brim, clothes all over the couch. The sun would soon set and only few beams of light could now penetrate the thick city air and shed some light on the room from the window. There was a rancid smell as well coming from the street below, but now it was combined with the smell of the melting heroin, during the fix preparation ritual that kept Jake busy for the time being. It was not long ago that he had wakened up, and the craving for that next fix was so strong that as withal junkies, was the only thing that kept him going. It was ages before he had last cleaned his room. Jake was not your ordinary junkie though. No, he was different in every respect. For starters, he was not filled with remorse for what he was doing as all considerate junkies with some reason left to judge how brutally their habit has mutilated them. Nor was he filled with the usual “I will die anyways, I will enjoy myself till then” motto. Jake knew exactly what he was doing. Then Jake was ready to shoot the dope, and as he usually did he let it go in his veins slowly so he could judge how strong the shit was so that he did not overdose as so many of his friends have done before. He was careful. Jake knew very well that no matter how destructive can be the effects of heroin, its nothing irreversible if you don’t O.D. The rush kicked in and as he felt the heavenly grace come upon him he couldn’t resist to consider that if you throw away the bad parts of your life and remember the good ones, no one could disclaim that heroin was the best thing it could ever happen to him. To his mind it was all about the deal. You get something and you give something. And the rush he felt right now was totally worth it. However it was the dope that kept him going. And now was the beginning of another night. Quickly, he reached for his cigarettes and lit up one slowly inhaling the smoke into his greedy lungs. Jake lived on no time schedule. All he did was chasing the dragon and getting the next amount of heroin. That was what he was getting ready for. Soon he would get dressed and hit the streets in another night.The streets of downtown Athens were narrow and packed with people. It had rained the other days and now the ground was wet too. A filthy smell emanated from the garbage tanks that were filled with garbage. In the distance Jake could hear some guys having a nasty fight and swearing at each other. But he did not care. Jake minded his own business. Then he reached Omonoia, the center of Athens, and he took a road heading east, to the place he had been so many times before. The dealers’ place. When he got there, Jake stood still somewhere and started carefully examining the people around him. There were some junkies harassing the normal people passing by and asking them for money barely tottering up to their feet. There were also some people doing the same thing he was doing, just standing there. Good, thought Jake. One of them must be the dealer. He carefully probed each one them and after a while he was sure who was it. He had suspicious give and take with some junkies so there was no doubt what it was that he gave to them. Jake walked up to him and and said ‘ Do you have any smack?’ The dealer smiled at this. ‘ Sure friend, as much as you want.’ ‘ Ok gimme 10 grams’ Jake said. The dealer fumbled in his bag for a while and then he was ready. They switched money and dope with the same hand, doing something like a handshake. Jake was happy. He had got what he needed.
The place where he usually shoot the smack was his place, but tonight Jake felt otherwise. He went to the first place he had ever shoot dope, a derelict building in down town Athens. He started walking towards that direction and in the meanwhile he was thinking on the inside. He thought of Lizzie. His former sweetheart the girl that was his girlfriend at the time he started shooting smack and the girl he took with him down hill. Last time he heard of her, the news were bad. She had lost control of her habit, unlike Jake, and her life had been destroyed. All of her fortune was sold in order to support her habit and many times she came close to dying from O.D. Usually Jake was looking down on junkies that unlike him could not maintain their dignity. She had surely lost it. The last step towards the bottom was that she had become a prostitute. But with Lizzie it was different. He could feel only pity for her, and he blamed him for what had happened to her. Yes, sometimes he wished he could turn back time and never take her with him to the other side of the world. The world of the junkies.
Now he reached the derelict building and as he looked up to it the sensation was unmistakable. This place was a palace of death proper. Yet for some peculiar reason it felt like home. He walked in. At the stairs, some junkies with no smack have gone paranoid. One of them looked at him suspiciously and then he started raving as a mad man. ‘You boy! Give me all your money right now or I am going to fucking kill you’ He started walking towards Jake in a hostile way, but when Jake realized the threat he pushed him back so hard that the junkie fell down the stairs. Now he didn’t seem so hostile as he let a pitiful groan come out of his lungs. ‘Oh man you broke my ribs’ he said and started sobbing. ‘Filthy junkie maggots he thought’ Jake knew that guys like him was all it took to give all junkies a bad name. Then he started climbing the stairs. He went on and on until he reached the top floor. He couldn’t resist the view that the top windows offered. It was a magnificent view of down town Athens and he cherished the moment. It was fantastic. But as he started walking towards the other chambers of the top floor, it struck him how quiet the place was. There were no junkies up here he thought. And there were probably not, but as he heard more carefully, he heard a woman crying. It was a well known sob. He had heard it before. And it was causing him sympathy for her. Who could this be? He walked towards the chamber where the noise was coming from and when he got in he saw a woman lying there with her clothes ripped off. ‘ Oh my god’ he thought. ‘ The jumkies must have raped her.’ He swiftly approached her in order to help her and he got her in her arms. The woman seeking help she hugged him and when the moonlight lit her face, Jake couldn’t help uttering a sound of amazement. It was her. It was Lizzie.
‘Oh my god Lizzie! What this bastards have done to you?’ Lizzie for a moment because of the shock she was into didn’t recognize him, but as he looked better a torrent of memories struck. It was Jake. Once again, she was with him. ‘ Jake?’ she said with a trembling voice. ‘ Could this be you?’
‘yeah its me allright, you are safe now!tellme what happened to you?’ ‘ I …I.. cant tell exactly it all went down too fast. I came here to find some smack because mine was over and I came across some junkies down stairs. Without knowing it they dragged me up here and they started beating me.’ At this point Jake noticed she was indeed bruised. He felt waves of wrath coming upon him as he thought that the guys that did this could still be downstairs. ‘jake,’ Lizzie mumbled on, ‘oh Jake I was raped.’ She started sobbing while Jake let go of the hold he had on her. He knew what to do. He was going to head downstairs, find whoever did this and beat his face in. ‘Im going down right now!’ he bellowed. ‘ The bastards are gonna pay!’ Lizzie was now looking frightened. ‘ No Jake please, I implore you don’t go downstairs.’ ‘ no more fights and trouble for tonight.’ Only one thing could make everything right right now and they both knew what this was. ‘ Do you have any?’ Lizzie asked imploringly. For a moment Jake was disgusted by this proposition, let the guys that did this get away with it, but after all he was a junkie too. He felt the craving. ‘ Yes, I do’ Lizzie uttered a sigh of relief as Jake started fumbling in his pocket.
Now they were ready to shoot the dope. They both inserted the needles to the skin at the same time, and as they did so they both smiled The feeling was unmistakable. It was like entering heaven while being still alive. It was the feeling of shooting smack. As they started mellowing out, they both lied down next to each other. Jake had just caught a glimpse of her naked breasts. ‘ Oh my god’ he thought.’She is so beautiful.’ Lizzie was attracted to him as well. After all his years, his masculinity hasn’t been breached. He was her protector. Without realizing, Jake started caressing her nipples. ‘ Oh my god ‘ he said. ‘ You have so nice tits.’ Lizzie laughed. ‘yeah I know. I have been told that.But when you touch them it feels so nice. It feels like home.’ Lizzie started touching his dick. She could tell it was getting harder. ‘Oh yeah’ Jake said. ‘Grab my bishop sweetie.’ They both undressed, and they had the best sex they ever had.