A Carrie Story.

It has gotten to the stage where everything I use puts me straight to sleep. I saw this thing on Oprah, brain scans of drug users, they were full of holes. The 'expert' stated that once addicts have been using for awhile they'll start exhibiting classic signs of dementia and Alzheimer's. People always warn you that if you try drugs just once then you will become addicted. At the time you look at this 'grown-up' (inevitably it will be an adult imparting their wisdom) and think 'what the hell do you know?' Things have changed in the decades between your youth and mine.

The first time I tried speed I pretended that I knew what I was doing. In my high school I had ignored the rumours of me that floated around, about my promiscuity and my supposed drug addicted state. Which of course led to more being spread and then believed.

When I first tried speed I was a virgin and as innocent as a babe. I cut it out onto an ornate hand mirror in my friend's stylish bathroom. She (being inexperienced she confessed shyly) wanted to see herself in the mirror while it was happening. We used my blue bank card to spread the granular powder into a rough line. I rolled up a fifty dollar note (of course at that stage I still had money) and pressed it against the mirror. It really was a pretty mirror, it looked like something you would label 'shabby-chic.' I was stalling. I glanced at my friend who was so excited she hadn't noticed my hesitation. I took two deep breaths and thought 'oh God, oh God, oh God.' I put the other end of the fifty into my virgin nose. I inhaled. An immediate effect. I felt high. The back of my throat felt incredibly sour and granular. She did it to and we stood there looking at ourselves and each other in the mirror grinning like shiny, happy people. She said "does it always feel like this?" More grinning.

We went into the Fremantle that night, the harbour city, full of friends and good fortune. We stayed until people started weaving their way out of their beds and into the cafes for breakfast. We danced in the streets, we sang love songs and we learned how to breathe and juggle fire from a busker named Frank.

And really, that was it. I was addicted, to the feelings of dear friendship, of excitement, adventure and confidence. I had escaped my boring and miserable reality; I had not fallen but leaped into the rabbit hole. So my life began as a part-time party goer which led to being a full blown junkie where my friends were dropping off like flies. That was my first time.

~

It was Australia day and I was high. I was sitting on the Perth foreshore, waiting for the dusk to turn to night, hoping that the whole of Perth weren't looking at my underpants sticking out of the top of my jeans. I was with old friends, who were part time party people - the kind who steadily drink beer during the week and take small amounts of speed on weekends if they go out. They didn't know it, but I was already going down the spiral to my addiction.

We were high, we were young, and we were ready to party.

It was during the fireworks that I met Chris. He told me gorgeous things, things that every girl would want to hear. If he was anything, he was smooth. We exchanged phone numbers that night, and after the sky show had finished we parted ways, him to a party with friends and me to go to the circus-type goings on at the other end of the foreshore.

It is often the simple, childlike activities that attract most junkies - things that are bright and simple and feel good.

I won a tiny stuffed creature, and was kissed by one of my friends, whom I kissed back, because lets face it - saying 'no' was certainly not one of my stronger points.
A few days later my phone rang and it was Chris inviting me to a party. I went. It turns out that Chris' father was a 'pick-up' - he went and picked up either people or packages containing imported narcotics from the international airport. For this reason, Chris had a seemingly endless supply of all things drug related. It was with Chris that I first tried ecstasy, and received the nickname 'cheeseburger' due to the big stupid grin on my face. The constant supply quickly changed me from 'part-timer' to 'almost addicted.' I say 'almost addicted' because I didn't realise at the time that I was addicted. I could go for days without anything, but if it was there I wouldn't feel good unless I had it.

We were the golden couple, or so it seemed to me. Things changed in my eyes though, when Chris' father hit full blown junkie status, and the powers that be decided that he was too much of a risk - they pulled the pin. Chris and I made ends meet for awhile, but without that continuous easy flow things between us became strained. It wasn't long before we were over, and I was making different friends in different circles.

~

For a couple of years I was clean, and I think that this was due to the support of my friends. But, like flies attracted to sweet honey, it wasn't long before I was tempted again and fell onto the relief of the nothingness that drugs provide.

~

For my seventh birthday my parents bought me a piano. It was a beautiful creature - positively ancient, made before the onset of iron frames. It was black, and the keys were worn and creamy. It was often tuned, but it always retained that mellow timbre of a slightly off-key voice. I saw it and thought 'that is what I want to do.' From that moment onwards, all I ever wanted was to play the piano.

At 17 my plans of becoming a concert pianist were well on track. I played the piano in the schools stage band, I had played the teachers part in the school musical, and I had also started playing percussion - I was a member of the West Australian Youth Orchestra. I had been told that I was the best piano player in the school, and my piano teacher was in the process of organising an audition for the London School of Music and the Julliard School in New York.

I was having troubles with my wrists; they were hurting after about half an hour of play, which was highly unusual - I normally played for about eight hours a day, more in school holidays. I tried to ignore the pain, I tried to block it and just keep playing through it. It soon became obvious that something needed to be done.

I visited several doctors, all of whom thought I had varying degrees of hypochondria. I finally saw an orthopaedic surgeon, who sent me off for every test under the sun. I had blood tests, ultrasounds, bone scans and x-rays. The last test - the MRI - was the one which showed the ganglion. A common lump of excess fluid that used to be cured (in the olden days) by banging the wrist with a heavy book "like a bible." A simple operation would fix this, I would have a week or so of being unable to use my wrist and then I would be back to normal.

It was my first operation. My first time in a hospital (apart from being born of course). My parents bought me a sick teddy bear called 'Stitches.' I was really excited - I would be able to play the piano again in just a few short days!

The operation went well, apart from a slight problem waking - my oxygen levels were too low. I went back to the doctor's office to have my wrist checked out and to be told that I could use it again. The doctor was pleased with the scarring but concerned with the limited range of movement that my wrist could do. He told me to start slowly exercising it; I could play the piano gently for a few minutes at a time. I was thrilled.

I went home and the first thing that I did was sit down at my beloved upright and breathe in the aroma of its keys. "I missed you," I whispered. I played for exactly five minutes. I stood up and immediately collapsed sobbing. "It feels so wrong," I wailed to my parents, who were watching me in shock. They tried to tell me that I was still healing, and that I was to take it easier. I knew though. At that moment I knew it was all over.

A few weeks later I went to the doctor's office again. He asked how my wrist was. I said nothing - by this point I was talking to no one. He stretched my wrists in a series of movements and looked me in the eyes. "I can count on one hand the amount of these that have come back after I have operated. But I'd say yours is back. I'll book you in for another surgery."

A month or so later, I was back in his office - still not talking, still no real movement in my wrist. The doctor told me that the ganglion was wrapped around my muscles and bones. He had actually had to remove a tendon. He started talking to me about scholarships for people with disabilities, computers that I could talk into, benefits I could receive. I think I just stared in disbelief. He pulled his chair closer to me and stared into my expressionless face.
"You aren't coping with this are you?" He asked quietly. "In fact, I'd say you are on the verge of tears right now, am I right?"
My façade cracked and I wept uncontrollably. My life was over. No more music? No more lifting of any kind? No more writing? It was inconceivable.

I was sent to a psychologist, whom I tested by saying that I wanted to kill myself and then not showing up to my next appointment. When no one called to see if I was okay I thought 'they don't care, how can they help me?'

I started doing whatever I could think of as a cry for help. I cut shallow slices into the skin from my wrists to my inner elbows until I looked like a butcher's leg of ham. I got drunk during the day at school. I told anyone who would listen that my life was over, that I wanted to die. It was a lie; I wanted my dreams back instead.

I was given a prescription for codeine for my wrists, a long supply of it because the doctor was popular and hard to see. I started taking more than I was supposed to, to try and dull the pain in my wrists and in my heart. I very quickly realised that no matter how much codeine I could take, the pain in my wrists remained elusive to treatment. The pain in my head however, could be dulled if I ingested copious amounts of this heavy pain killer. I walked around my high school completely obliterated for around a month before I ran out of this numbing substance. For a month my codeine intake was equal to the feeling after the high on heroin. My supply was gone and I panicked. I needed something to help me through the hard times.

I turned to the only person I knew with access to something harder than marijuana. I was back on drugs without a backwards glance. I started on speed again, because it was so familiar to me - like an old ratty doona, it was warm and comforting. I quickly upgraded to a more emotional high, I started taking ecstasy on at least a daily basis. As soon as I was able to feel, I would swallow another. And another, and another.

Although I had been clean for seemingly so long, I wasn't really. In the same way that an alcoholic can never have just 'one more drink,' I had one too many pain killers and was hooked as easily as that. I was still tainted from that very first time.


~
My heart raced, I hadn't had a dream like this in a while.  I wasn't a part of the dream, I was merely an observer.  It wasn't very clear, just flashes of images slamming into my brain.  Ashley was in a car driving.  There were the typical sounds associated with crashing - the screeching brakes, the crumpling of metal, and the shattering glass.    I woke up sweating and I could smell burned rubber.  I rolled over to look at the LED lights of the alarm clock.  I figured it was a decent hour for phone calls - considering the person I was calling was never asleep at a reasonable hour anyway.  "Adam, I just dreamed that Ash was in a car crash, it was so real and I'm scared!" 
Adam consoled me, promised to visit me soon, and then we hung up and I tossed and turned for the rest of the night.

~

I was finally feeling cabin fever.  Seventeen weeks after my last narcotic, seventeen weeks of glandular fever; rehab and home nursing care.  A week since I'd been able to manage moving by myself from the stale dark bedroom to the bright freshness of the couch and another rerun of Oprah. 

My parents decided to take advantage of this fresh faced optimism and we left my cocoon for the local cinema. 
I remember the sun creating fluorescent halos of blue and green before I rapidly bandaged them with dark glasses.  I remember my mother's banal chatter about how I could use my 'illness' to take a new life path.  How I could go back to school or find something that I enjoyed and wanted to pursue.  Thoughts of metal arose as I bit my tongue until I could taste the blood.  Of course I wanted more from life than what I had!  I wanted to make music and nothing else compared.  I loved the brain cell killing highs of my addiction - the more cells I destroyed the less I would care about my problems.  I suppose that's why every junkie does what they do.

I have no idea what movie we saw.  I don't remember the trip home.  I have a vague sensation of longing, but I don't recall what for. 

We arrived home and as usual our social efforts dissipated as we all went our separate ways to do something we each enjoyed.  I moved towards the computer room and checked my phone for messages.  I had a solitary text:
         "Just thought u should no. Ash died last nite."
I screamed, with more energy than I had used for seventeen weeks.  My parents joined in their panic raced to me to discover me sobbing shipwrecked in a corner.  Mum asked me what happened and I broke.  I hysterically told her I hated her, that she knew nothing of my life or my loves.  I swore fiercely before running to my room in blind grief.  Funny how in moments of absolute terror you can gather energy lying quietly dormant in your body hidden from normal thought. 

Adam drove for 90 minutes to see me, and we sat in my room quietly.  Every now and then one of us would say something about Ash that we remembered, something funny or something we wished we could take back.  Adam told of when they were 'E'ing' and walking through the bush near Cockburn, and they got stopped and questioned by bush fire officers.  They had no idea they'd stumbled into the path of a deliberately lit bush fire!  When the officers asked what they were doing they replied simultaneously - "we're going for a walk."  The officers then asked incredulously "in a fire?"  To which Ash replied "Yeah, a HOT walk!"  Somehow with Ash's magnetism and charm (and with Adam wisely silent) they were released.  I spoke of the limestone manor, and how I'd become closer and closer to the man I'd idolised, until he became more than friend, he became a brother to me. 

We were devastated.  Channel seven news that night showed the crash, just north of Leonora.  The clip was brief.  A brief mention of the state's road toll, a quick pan of the expansive crash site showing Ash's car and a road train in pieces, and then it was back to the news room for a fluff piece on the price of grocery's.  I stood up slowly and threw my phone at a wall smashing it into nearly as many pieces as I'd seen on the television. 

It was several months later we realised it wasn't just Ash falling asleep at the wheel.  The forensics showed he was probably asleep at the wheel, woke up to find himself heading towards an articulated truck, he swerved out of the way.  He swerved out of the way.  Then he put his car back into the path of the oncoming road train.  He killed himself.

~

I did it.  I released Ashley. Maybe now I can move on. 
The white cross on the side of the road had the date of his birth on and the date of his death.  What a short life for all he accomplished.  There was a rusted mans bracelet hanging off the cross' arm.  I put the red glasses at the base of the cross and said a prayer to what I don't know.  I stood up and backed away towards the miners travelling home from work along red dirt caked bitumen roads.  I climbed into the Nissan Patrol and Michael said "there, that wasn't so bad; it's easy to get over people if you know how."  We drove back to Kalgoorlie in silence.  Michael was pleased; it was another thing he wanted under his control.