From: pez@manhattan.com (Gizmo) Subject: The Adventures Of Smacks Past (Part 32) More Rituals & Rites Date: 1996/10/25 newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard THE ADVENTURES OF SMACKS PAST (PART 32) MORE RITUALS & RITES This goes back to the days when many dope fiends would share a set or works. There was always a guy who had to go first. And not only did he have to go first, but he had to boot his dope until god came back from Chicago, i.e., for fucking ever. This was the kind of dude that would sit there and get his hit and then he would draw the blood in and out of the syringe over and over and over and over and over again. For sometimes as long as twenty minutes. If you asked someone like this to please hurry up, usually all you would get is some stoned garbled response like, "yo man, chill out. I ain't done yet, I can still feel it coming on." This had to be one of the most annoying things to deal with back then in the pre-AIDS days, before diabetic syringes were a dime a dozen. And of course there was absolutely no physiological basis for it. Let's be real. Once you finally injected all the dope in the syringe, you were not going to enhance the high by pulling blood in and out of your vein. The only logic to drawing blood back into the syringe once or twice was to get all the dope that was in there. Once that was done, the rest was ritual. I remember this one street urchin named Manny, who would not only do this, but he would make the most incoherent mumblings you could ever imagine. There are no words in the dictionary to describe the sounds he would make. He would make sounds something like, "blobloblohawwoobogoaos," etc., dribbling saliva all over himself with blood dripping down his arm, as he went into a deep nod. What a sales pitch for becoming a junkie. It was fucking. It was sex. In and out, in and out. You got it, right? Another ritual some of us engaged in was saving cottons, and leaving corners. This was a so called "trick" you played with yourself. You reasoned with yourself that if you left a drop or two in the cotton, or you left a corner in the bag and then saved them, that one day when you were really sick, you could take the edge off by throwing water on all those cottons, or by tearing apart those old bags. And it did actually work. Hell, if you had twenty or so cottons, each with a drop or two of dope on them, you had the equivalent of a full bag or two of dope! Of course, then you were really out and you had to go get more, thank god. Then there was the ritual of cutting your dope. This only applied if you were a dealer and you were putting a package on the street. For a few months back in the late sixties, I would buy half ounces from this non using Italian guy down in "Little Italy" in "The Bronx." The stuff was maybe 25% to 30% pure when you got it. You had to cut it down to about 5% strength to put it on the street. So this involved the then common cuts of Quinine and Milk Sugar or Manittal. The Quinine was great because it tasted just like Heroin. The Milk Sugar added bulk as well. We had all the strainers and silk stockings and mirrors to cut it on. We would sit there for hours, gradually getting fucked up, while running the mixture through the strainers and silk stockings over and over again until it was completely mixed. And of course we had to try it out every so often. Tough life eh? Another aside. There were always a group of addicts that never called Heroin by it's name, as if this too was part of their personal ritual. They would refer to it as dope, horse, shit, duggee, product, smack, junk, stuff, but never Heroin. It was like, not using the name Heroin made the whole thing seem a little more like you weren't doing anything too weird! The whole thing was one big ritual. You comforted yourself by taking a shot before you went to bed. Just to make sure you "slept well." Then you started your day with a shot if you had any left. And unless you had a wad of bucks, your whole day was spent "chasing the bag." Often times it was a whole days work just to get the money to cop this stuff. Next day, you did it all over again. You were self medicating your metabolism. What could have been a more or less even flow of well being, was turned into a fucking roller coaster ride of alternating bliss and suffering. Extreme behavior patterns? You think? Maybe? And least we forget, let's not fail to mention the ritual of "getting sick!" Yup, that's right, this was a ritual too. No matter how much a junkie will bitch and complain about the withdrawal syndrome, the bottom line is that we all accepted it as our membership badge. It proved you were "one of the gang." It gave you the excuse to keep using. And you could "get behind" that illness in a big way. You would sit there, and say shit like, "Oh man, I'm hurtin. God, I need some stuff," as you sat doubled over, clutching your stomach, feeling that nausea, dealing with the hot and cold flashes. It was your once and forever indelible mark that set you apart from the rest of the human race. Now you were a junkie. Now you hurt. Now you were entitled to get high even more. Hell, you had to, in order to keep that monster away. Rites of Passage. Each step along the road to hard drug use, was like a rite of passage. Your first joint, your first LSD trip, your first pills, your first shot of cocaine. Your first shot of heroin. The second shot. The third one. Initiating yourself as you go. The first time, you went directly to a dealer. The first risks you took. The first time you got popped. The first time you ripped someone off or had someone rip you off. The first time you noticed that you were getting a little ill, without dope. The first time you got beat shit! The first lies, the first bout of hepatitis. Your first real habit. You got the picture now? Rites and rituals, rituals and rites. And no guarantee of ever making it back alive. It's not a job, it's an adventure, right? Ain't it pretty? If only I had joined the Navy instead. If only. Copyright Gizmo 1996