Crystal Meth Sunday Morning

One Sunday morning I found a vial of drugs in front of my apartment door. Right there in the hallway. I knew it was illicit by the way it stared back at me. Torn and crumbled pornography pages would beckon me the same way when I was in junior high school. I just knew within those folds of paper might be a penis or a vagina, or even better, both. I developed a sixth sense for all things illicit. I knew this vial at my door signaled me the same way. Whatever it was, my spidey sense tingled. I shouldn't have this. I did though. The dog inspected it first. I grabbed it from his mouth. Last thing I needed was shih tzu on meth, or crack, or whatever it was. I've heard those stories. In the 90's I had a friend who had a cat who acidently did coke and boucned off the walls for several days before landing face down in its tender vitles. Even more recently I heard a story from friends on Fire Island who had a sharemate who's chiunaa had become addicted to cocaine after licking the residue of the table and floors from his owenr's use. This is serious shit. I've listened to it daily for years. My social work job sees to it that I hear stories of the worst of the addictions. Crystal Meth stories are never pretty and I was pretty sure that crystal meth was staring up at me from this tiny vial on the ground.
I wasn't even sure if I truly had a drug in my possession. Maybe it was crack cocaine. Maybe it was Meth. How do you know? I grew envious of the common drug dealer who I'd bet my left testicle could tell from a across a football field if I was holding was crystal meth, crack or organic carmelized sea salt from Whole Foods.
But me? Crystal Meth? Crack cocaine? Flintstone chew-ables? How would I know? I've never touched the stuff, never wanted to. The extent of my drug taking has been one toke of pot in 2000 at a New Year's Eve celebration. I say toke like I'm a 60 year old stoner. I "smoked" with a a local news anchor and promptly passed out in his guest bedroom. The next day I watched as he downed a bag of Doritos for breakfast, fascinated with the way the orange crop dusting of powder over took his finger tips and corners of his mouth. The only other time I smoked pot was in 2006 when a friend tipped my head back like a PEZ dispenser and blew smoke into my mouth because I was too timid to actually hold the little smoldering joint in my own hands. This is not A Million Little Pieces.
But I did have an illegal substance in my house and I loved it. I felt dirty and excited, like I'd just found condoms and porn in the back of my Dad's underwear drawer. I was the good kid doing something unexpected and wrong. This was better than tapping on blind peoples windows at The Jewish Home for the Blind and yelling "look!" How would those blind jewish people ever know if it really was Jesus if he came to town? I was doing a test. Because I suspected at least some of them had partial vision.
I uncapped the vial and smelled the acrid little rocks. The odor permeated the room for hours after and it disgusted and intrigued me in equal measure. The smell reminded of the way addicts smell -- a little meth, a little bad breath, a little few days too long with the same clothes on.
I called and told a bunch of friends. Several suggested I drop the vial down the garbage chute and be done with it. They were afraid I'd get arrested because I had an illegal substance in my possession. One even sited the Patriot Act. As far as I'd known I wasn't under surveillance or part of a drug ring. Part of me enjoyed making my friends a little nervous. Another part of me enjoyed listening to their own paranoia unfold. These are the same friends who don't step on a crack or reveal a few days too soon their pregnancy news. Other friends revealed their own meth snorting experiences, which did not surprise me in the least, as I've also known them to fuck random Jamaican men on the beach and fashion bongs out of Barbie doll heads.
Since I've been looking for a hobby, I figured I'd try to smoke some. And holy shit that was a rush. I'd never felt anything like it. It was like a perpetual orgasm. But the smell -- Pine Sol, baby farts, and armpits of the homeless -- is what kept me from smoking the entire vial.
Kidding. I didn't smoke the drugs. I did begin my own exhaustive Internet DEA-like search of meth making sites, looking for images that would verify that I had meth and not crack. Crack is so passe. And then I got bored. Which is something I imagine the addict in the throws of binge doesn't do. I placed it on my kitchen table and went about my business. By the end of the day, I'd forgotten about it. The meth had become part of the table. The red topped vial fit in snuggly next to my Easter chocolates and over ripe bananas. It just was.
I always wonder how that could be. When does the drug, with it's taboo and shame, just co-exist with the toilet paper and the coke cans and the Brita water filers? I'm not sure if there's an easy answer. Part of the problem seems to be that after a while, it just does fit in. One day it's there and one day you're not.
This morning I took the vial out with the recyclables. Then I took the dog for a walk and battled her leg lock. When I came back inside, I looked for another vial. I wondered where it came from and who it was intended for. My middle easterner neighbors with their four children and one bedroom? Or the gay couple next door who I thanked for holding the door minutes ago? Neither fit the profile of the drug addict. I may fit it the most. And for a moment on Sunday, if an stranger walked in and looked on the kitchen table, it would be true.