The Sun Burns Cold

People can say what they want about drugs. I got high for about twenty five years, eleven of them devoted to heroin. Didn’t do me much good. I guess I’d still be at it if it did, you know? Destitution, prison time, washing up in he nut bin. Not exactly fun stuff. I should have died, numerous times.

Many of my friends died. Died young. Not because the dope was illegal, or because of the unfairness of a society touting abstinence from injecting narcotics as a worthwhile aim. No, cause they wanted to get loaded. Thats why they died.

Sure it was their right. Sure if I slit my own throat with a kitchen knife it would be within my rights. It’s my life and all. Just like it was thiers. To waste if they wanted.

Doesn’t make it a good thing. People being dependent on mind altering chemicals that fuck up their livelihood and liberty isn’t really that good of a thing. No matter how much money the State might make off taxing the shit.

I had this friend. This kid Jeremy. We were upstate together for some years. He was my “walkie”, we used to walk the big yard all the time talking about punk rock, situationist politics, movies and books. By the time we met I was already in the stage where my head had been uninstalled from my sphincter ani regarding smack. Prison was enough, I knew by then I was done with that shit. He wasn’t. It was his big dream to go move to Mexico and shoot dope forever. It was a bone of contention between us. I tried to talk sense into him about it. I mean, my personal philosophy is of the anarchic variety, and I do believe people can do whatever the fuck they want because they will anyway. But that doesn’t mean I believe in ontological permissiveness, you know? You see someone and they’re talking about throwing their life away, you give them an argument against it. Obviously. Otherwise you’re just an asshole.

But, you know, we both got out of prison and wound up in Erie. He got out about a year after me. I sorta kept my shit together being on parole and all. I had a bit of a run with booze and cocaine for awhile, but I saw the error of my ways and chilled the fuck out.

He got out and started shooting dope again. Like right away, pretty much. We still talked and hung out now and then. Went to some punk shows together.

Wound up he scored some Fentanyl patches one night. Looked up on the internet how to cook them up and shoot the shit.

Fuckin died.

His girlfriend woke up next to his corpse. They were in his room at his parents house. Bad scene all around.

When he died I was already out here on the other side of the state. Took the Greyhound back out to Erie for his funeral. It was hard. You know, he was my road dog. We were good friends who made it out of the joint alive. You do time with people, and it’s like being in a war together. It just means some thing more. So yeah, it was hard. Seeing him in his coffin. Dead. 35 years old. He didn’t look “at peace” or any of that shit. He looked dead.

That was four years ago this week.

I’m still clean from dope since ’98. He’s still dead.

I didn’t forget Jeremy. I know I won’t. Of all the friends I’ve had to add to the Marble index, thinking of those years we spent walking the big yard track counter clockwise-to take back the time, you see-it just kills me that we made it out, and then that shit knocked him off so easily like that.

So yeah, you know. Say what you want about drugs. Go ahead and give your eloquent libertarian speechifying about how everything should be legal. I’m not going to argue with you about your bitchen radical viewpoint. But I’m going to fucking tell you that getting high is a stupid waste of life and it kills motherfuckers dead.

And just cause if some shit was legal don’t make it right.