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The Diary of Jane

Timothy Fenster

    Jane Bainter awoke in a motel bed with a pounding headache. She was confused and felt the sense of being lost. Such is a feeling that usually comes along with waking in an unfamiliar setting. But then again, she hadn’t had a familiar place to call home for over two years now.
    She thought hard about where she was or how she’d gotten there, but could hardly remember a thing from the night before and looked around the room to answer the mystery.
    She determined it was in a motel room, so she must have been with a customer last night. If she hadn’t spent the night with a customer, a back alley would have been her home that morning.
    She wondered where he’d gone, but didn’t care. It was better that he was gone. She never wanted to see the guy the morning after.
    She did, however, feel bad about passing-out after serving the guy. I suppose I wouldn’t have, had I been clean at the time. She wasn’t and as a matter of fact, rarely was.
    Jane looked over at the clock beside the bed. It read 11:32 am. They usually want you out of places like this by noon. She figured it was time to leave; if she stayed in bed she’d probably fall asleep and get kicked out. That had happened to her enough times.
    Jane leaned up in bed, feeling sore. He must have liked it rough, she thought. However, last night she couldn’t have known that he was going too hard. Her muscles were probably so numb that she couldn’t even have felt the man’s touch. That’s how it usually went.
    She brought a hand up to her face and rubbed her pale, cavernous cheeks. She then ran four lanky fingers over her long forehead and through her thinning brown hair.
    Jane crawled out from underneath the blue motel sheets. Stark naked, she first went to her ragged purse to make sure the customer hadn’t robbed her. She jumbled through the mess of dirty needles and partially-melted spoons before finding her wallet.
    He hadn’t robbed her; $150 — her exact price for a night — resided in the pocket of her faded, gray wallet.
    It was only then that she began to collect her clothes from around the room. She could tell, from how her clothes were strewn about, that he had been a wild one. She pulled a black leather jacket over her tube top, again feeling sore.
    This guy must have really tried to get his $150 worth, she thought.
    Once dressed, she slung the cracked strap of her purse — which held everything she owned or needed — over her bony shoulders. She left, closing the red motel door behind her, the room inside left soiled and untidy.
    The sunlight was blinding at first. She rubbed her eyes thoroughly, then looked across the parking lot and down the balcony at the vacant motel room doors. It felt strange to be able to think and see so clearly. Her brain always seemed to be shut off and her vision usually clouded.
    As she descended the stairs to the parking lot the cravings began, an inevitable effect of being sober. She ran her nails up along her arms, ridden with thick, blackened veins.
    Once on the sidewalk she headed off towards the only place she ever needed to be. Although tired and weak, the long walk didn’t bother her much. When sober only one thing bothered her and that was being sober. Not a full minute had passed that morning in which she hadn’t dreamed of the effects of letting smack loose in her veins. The buzz, the bliss, the dreams and the general feeling. She thought of nothing else.
    Finally, after walking for over an hour, the apartment building came within sight. As she approached the respectable housing complex, her thoughts briefly turned away from smack.
    I wish I could live in a place like that. If only it wasn’t for the damn smack, I could easily get a good job and live in a place like this.
    Words like quit, kick and clean passed through her mind, but she quickly forgot even the notion. Sometimes she thought about quitting, even tried a few times, but it never worked. By now, she tried to not even think about it. The realization that her life was based on dependence only depressed her and that was nothing she needed right now. She felt depressed enough, since opiates weren’t flowing through her system.
    Jane took a step to the side as she neared the stairs to the building. She pulled a track phone from her purse and dialed Tony’s number.
    Tony knew it was her immediately and the first words out of his mouth were, “You got my money or did it get lost in your veins?”
    “Yeah, I got it. I’m right outside your building.”
    “What, godamit, you stupid, junky, whore. How many fuckin times have I told you to keep your distance from my building?”
    “Sorry, I forgot, I’m walking away right now,” she said, taking small, quick steps away from the building’s stairs.
    “Like it matters now. My friends and neighbors have already seen you, a junky-whore, waiting for me outside my home.”
    Jane continued to apologize even though she knew he probably wasn’t listening. Tony told her to meet him down the street outside a café called “Pierre’s.”

    Jane waited near the café feeling awkward and out of place.
    Tony didn’t arrive for fifteen minutes. His long black hair, which was usually well kept, was strewn about, as if he’d just waken from a long night with one his girls. He was wearing a tight white T-shirt that showed off his bulging biceps and thick chest. Rather than a nice pair of designer or dress pants, he wore blue jeans. He wasn’t even wearing his signature sunglasses. Jane thought his appearance seemed peculiar, since she was used to seeing him very well dressed.
    Tony strutted down the street with the stride of an important man. Nearing Jane, he acted as though he didn’t know her.
    “Come on,” he said quickly as he passed by. She followed him, trying to keep her distance. Tony immediately turned into an empty alley. Jane followed until he stopped, once out of sight from those on the street.
    “Alright, listen bitch. I’m in a good mood right now, so I’m not going to dock any of your pay for that fuck up you made, but tonight,” he said slowly. “I’m expecting you to make it up to me.”
    “Absolutely,” she said, her voice alluring. “I’m very sorry, I just forgot.” She hoped this would make Tony relax and forget about the whole thing.
    “Yeah, well, with a junky bitch like you I’m not surprised. You’re probably high as fuck right now. Am I wrong?”
    Fuck you, you goddamn hypocrite. You shoot up every day of your life. You’re not better than me just because you can support yourself by beating on and owning girls.
    Jane handed Tony his fifty dollars. He snatched it from her, still looking mad as a rabid dog. Aggravated, Tony reminded her to find more work and threatened to dock her pay if she couldn’t. Jane promised she would, then said goodbye in a seductive voice that made her want to vomit.
    Just as she turned her back on Tony, he grinned and said, “Enjoy the rush, bitch, you earned it.” Jane looked back, but Tony was already walking away. She didn’t mind, she was used to Tony. And there was only one thing she cared about right now anyway.
    She began walking back toward her part of town. The walk seemed to last an eternity, but within thirty minutes, she had neared the apartment building of a man named “Eight Ball.” She dialed his number as she approached the building.
    “What do ya want?” he asked once certain it was an old customer on the line.
    “Black tar,” Jane nearly blurted out. “Half a gram.”
    “I got some decent stuff. Come on up.”
    Jane entered the apartment building. The building had a smell that reminded her of an old man’s house. The walls were stained with dirt and grime. Jane was surprised that Eight Ball couldn’t afford any better. But then again, she thought, he’s only been dealing for a few months. Before that he was just another junky.
    Jane quickly ascended the steep staircase to the third floor. So close, she thought, I’m so close now. She knocked on the door of room 309 and waited until it cracked open. A large head that towered over her appeared through the crack in the doorway. She felt intimidated by his dark face coupled with a close-shaven scalp and wide neck.
    “Is it clear,” he asked quietly.
    Jane looked left and right down the hallway and nodded, glancing up at his thick, wolf eyes.
    “Ok, half a gram will be a hundred.” Jane handed him the money. He quickly counted the bills, then disappeared from the crack in the doorway, slamming the door shut behind him. Within a few seconds, he reopened the door as far as the chain-lock would allow. He handed her a small bag of black tar. She immediately shoved it into the pocket of her coat.
    “Enjoy,” he said just before closing and latching the door. She rushed through the halls and down the stairs.
    Once outside, she turned down the empty alley behind Eight Ball’s building. She stopped upon reaching a part of the alley where she was certain people on the street couldn’t see her.
    She set her ragged purse on the ground, produced the items she needed, and began the ritual. A slightly singed metal spoon, a dirty syringe, a butane lighter, and an 8 oz water bottle containing a mixture of lemon juice and water. Once everything she needed was out and in front of her, she removed a cracked leather belt from her denim skirt. She took the bag from the pocket of her black leather jacket, withdrew a small piece of the black tar, and placed it on the spoon. After carefully resealing the bag, she shoved what little was left back into her purse. She filled the syringe with some of the water-lemon juice mixture, added a small amount to the spoon, then squirted what was left out on the pavement.
    The lighter clicked feebly. Needs more lighter fluid. On her fourth try, it ignited, sending a stream of blue flame into the bottom of the spoon. She watched with hungry eyes as the tar began to dissolve in the spoon. Seconds seemed to last forever. Finally, the last of it dissolved in the water and the liquid began to bubble in the spoon. She held the spoon as if it contained microscopic alien life (the memory of one time when she spilled the spoon’s contents still haunted her). After placing the tip of the needle into the spoon, she pulled the plunger back until the heavenly black liquid filled the syringe.
    She didn’t even bother looking for a vein in her arms and instead searched her legs for a vein that wasn’t yet black and collapsing. After finding a healthy vein on the inside of her left thigh, she injected the needle to what seemed to be the right depth. She hardly noticed the pain as she pulled the plunger back until blood began to mix with the brown substance in the syringe. Bingo. The needle was left standing erect in her leg as she wrapped the belt tightly around her inner thigh.
    She pushed on the plunger but the rush didn’t hit her in full force until after loosening the belt’s grip on her inner leg. She couldn’t help but lay back on the now-comforting pavement, not even bothering to remove the needle from her thigh. Everything began to grow dark, although she was certain she hadn’t fallen asleep. Just before the alley disappeared, it occurred to her that the black tar had worked its magic on her.

    Suddenly, Jane seemed to be someplace else. She looked around and knew she’d seen this place before. It was the living room of Kevin Pozlowski’s house. His parents weren’t home that night, she could remember. At least fifty other people near her age were in the house. Most of them were packed in the kitchen or living room, drinking cans of cheap light beer, stumbling about and slurring their words.
    She could remember the night perfectly. She was sitting on the couch next to a boy named Brad Perry. His short blond hair was the perfect match for those bright blue eyes. She couldn’t remember much else about the boy; both her memory and the dream seemed fuzzy and unclear.
    She watched disappointed as he stood up and stumbled to the back door. She remembered that they had been making out for some time. They had stopped because he felt vomit working its way up. She wasn’t quite hammered, although she had a heavy buzz after maybe two beers that night.
    She knew perfectly well what would happen next. She wandered outside to find Brad, but instead found a familiar face in a large girl with a purple nose-ring that somehow matched her long brown hair. It didn’t take Jane long to realize that she was her old friend Kim.
    The images and feelings seemed so real, it truly felt as though she were reliving the experience.
    Kim had just lit a blunt and after a long drag, passed it on to Jane. Jane watched Kim slowly exhale the smoke, and then took a light hit from it herself. She chose to stay in the circle for awhile, forgetting about Brad and everyone else at the party for a time. She took a longer puff and breathed in deeper when the blunt made its way back to her. Each of the three users around her gave suggestions.
    “Inhale and hold the smoke down in your lungs for awhile.”
    “Suck it down real deep.” (a brief chorus of laughter)
     “Hold it in longer. You have to smoke this right if ya wanna feel anything.”
    Jane watched herself and the others take hit after hit until the blunt had burned down to a tiny roach.
    Someone promptly declared that they should “rip the second blunt.” The girl she didn’t recognize reached into her purse and produced a blunt, slightly shorter and thicker than your typical no. 2 pencil.
    “Aw, two blunts and all that beer, I’m gonna be fucked. Goodbye planet Earth,” someone said, it may have even been herself, Jane couldn’t tell.
    When asked if she wanted to smoke a second blunt, Jane heard herself reply, “Yeah.” She vaguely recalled the virgin pleasure THC had given her that night.
    “Woa, someone’s just discovered their stoner side,” the only guy in the circle said.
    Kim said she would have to pay five dollars to smoke anymore. “First smoke is on me, but the second one will cost you,” she said. It seemed fair at the time; after all, she was smoking weed that they had paid for. Jane watched as she handed Kim a five dollar bill, not caring about the money, only wanting to see what it felt like to have more THC in her system.

    Jane returned to absolute darkness and felt a sensation much like flying or floating through space. Her eyes were closed yet she could almost feel the pavement beneath her back, so she couldn’t have been asleep, she knew.

    Jane felt as though she were waking up in bed. She squint her eyes open to a crack and scanned the familiar room. People who she recognized sat strung out beside the bed while silently staring at the TV. Below the TV, the clock on the DVD player read 4:09 pm.
    She closed her eyes again, but wasn’t allowed to fall back asleep. Someone was shaking her awake.
    “Jane, wake up! What are you doing?” It was her old friend Pam. She spoke with a sense of urgency, although her voice sounded soft and distant.
    Jane didn’t respond, but instead grunted and turned over on the couch which had the callous, jagged feel of concrete.
    Pam rolled her over and shoved a black digital clock in her face.
    “It’ll be four-twenty in less than ten minutes,” she said. “We gotta smoke at four-twenty on four-twenty.”
    Jane dragged herself up off the couch. Once on her feet, she stumbled and nearly fell backwards. “Damn, I’m torn,” she exclaimed.
    “You should be,” said a boy whose name she couldn’t remember. “This’ll be the fourth smoke of the day.” There was almost an air of accomplishment to his tone.
    In a haze, Jane couldn’t see herself tapping the screen of her iPhone, but the message read, Yea eatin out with friends be home in a few hours, before sending it to mommy.
    Someone else in the car was talking. It took Jane a moment to understand just what they were saying. “Four Twenty is the best day ever. Skipping school and just smokin’ all fuckin’ day long.”
    “I know,” someone else said. Jane thought it was Pam, but wasn’t quite sure. “Why can’t we do this every day? Never work or go to school and just get torn all the time.”
    At 4:17, Pam pulled a plastic green bong from her purse. A part of her recalled that this particular pipe held some significance to them back in those days. She knew that it had a name, but couldn’t remember what it was.
    Shrek, was that it?
    Pam reached in her pocket and carefully removed a bag loaded with several grams of fluffy hydroponic weed. Pam opened the bag, delicately broke up two small nuggets, both of which nearly white with THC crystals, and proceeded to pack the bowl. Jane sat eagerly, watching the clock and waiting.
    Finally, the car’s digital clock turned over to 4:20. A light cheer went up around the car. Pam held the lighter to the bowl and placed her mouth at the end of the tube. Jane watched as the bong filled with so much smoke that it looked like it was filled with white stone. Pam opened the carb and the smoke vanished inside her. Jane felt a smile spread across her face as bong was passed on to her.
    Wow, I can’t believe I used to get so excited over just weed, she thought.

    Jane soon felt as though she were elsewhere. It was a different memory that came back to her now. She was in Kim’s old black Camaro. The car sat in a vacant parking lot in what she thought was the old Greenwood Park. Her friend Brian sat beside her, while a boy named Alan sat shotgun to Kim. Brian pulled out a baggie filled with perhaps a dozen white pills. He took three out and downed them with a half empty bottle of Mountain Dew. He pulled three more pills from the bag and handed them to Jane.
    “Here, this is for smoking me up the last two days,” he said. Jane watched distantly as she accepted the pills and downed them with a half-empty bottle of warm Mountain Dew. Jane couldn’t feel the pills or the soda, but knew she’d taken them, partly because she could vaguely remember taking Vicodin that day.
    A few minutes passed, although she knew nothing about time in her state. Brian and Jane relaxed in the back of the car waiting to feel the pill’s effects. Up front, Alan and Kim seemed mesmerized by something in a small plastic bag.
    Jane could remember asking what it was.
    “It’s coke. You ever done coke before?” Kim asked.
    “No, I’ve done a lotta shit, but never coke,” Jane replied. Kim suggested that Jane and Brian give it a try. Brian liked the idea, but at the time, Jane didn’t feel as though she were ready for coke.
    Still, Kim insisted. “Come on,” she said. “You’re the one who’s been bitchin that weed and pills aren’t doin it anymore.”
    Kim had a point. After all, Jane could remember taking five tabs that day and still not feeling the high that she wanted.
    Kim emptied the bag’s contents on a school folder. She spread it into six thin lines. Jane watched anxiously as Brian rolled a five dollar bill into a tight straw, slowly set it beside the nearest line and lowered his head until the straw was just inside his nose, and snorted. He pulled himself back after the first line and leaned down in his seat. Jane watched intently to how Brian reacted to the effects of the drug.
    “What’s it like?” Jane heard herself ask.
    “It makes you like really energized and concentrated,” Kim replied.
    “Yeah,” Alan agreed. “And you feel like you’re invincible. You feel like you could take on the whole world.”
    Jane then remembered a thought she had at the time; maybe it’ll give me confidence for that AP Bio test I’ve been studying for. Kim handed her a one dollar bill. Jane watched herself roll the dollar into a tight straw while Kim cut a few small lines with her high school I.D.

    Jane again seemed to be lost in a deep blackness. It was then, lost in endless darkness, that her dream seemed to change shape. In a way she couldn’t describe or understand when sober, she felt her dream was taking a sudden dark turn.

    When the blur of images took shape, Jane found herself walking along the sidewalk of a familiar street. She knew she wasn’t far from the community college which she had somehow been enrolled in for a year.
    Her heart was pounding. She saw herself try to wipe coke residue away from her nose every few minutes, although she doubted that there was even anything there. Her nerves were shocked and jittery. She worried that everyone would look at her and see nothing but a tormented coke junky.
    Jane approached a man who she recognized and exchanged a quick hello. Jane couldn’t remember the man, but referred to him by the name “Arnold.” Their greeting wasn’t purely business, giving her the sense that she’d once known this man on a more personal level.
    “Anything I could get for ya?” he asked.
    Jane was stunned with her response. “I don’t know. I feel like blow hasn’t been treating me right. It’s been making me paranoid and it’s fuckin up my nose.”
    “So you’re just gonna up and quit like that?”
    “No way, blow always gets me up for class and it helps me focus on studying. I just want something a little more mellow. For when I’m just chillen ya know.”
    He scratched his chin, looked around for a second and asked, “You ever used heroin?” “Yeah, I’ve tried it twice.”
    “You like it?”
    “Hell yeah. Best high I’ve ever had.” She said, again reaching up to wipe her nose. “Way better than coke or anything else I’ve done.”
    “It’s the fuckin bomb baby. I’m picking up an ounce later today. I’ll give you a call when I got it. Should be sometime this evening.”
    “Thanks Arnold. I gotta run, I’ll see ya.” She began to turn away from him, but was again lost in between time and place.

    Suddenly, she was back in her apartment. She watched hungrily as a yellow Bic lighter burned beneath a spoon as the heroin inside slowly dissolved. She felt as though it was the day she’d just seen, but couldn’t quite tell. So many times she had watched herself perform the same ritual, that it could have been any day she stayed in that apartment.
    She opened her eyes later and the clock gave her the idea that it was an hour or two since the rush. She heard her father’s voice and remembered the moment from her life. Her father was speaking into the answering machine. She remembered the message because it was one of the last times she heard her father’s voice.
    “Jane, I haven’t heard from you in weeks. If your mother was alive, she’d be worried sick and would probably blame it on the drugs. Don’t think that I think you’re sober just because we haven’t caught you with anything since you’ve left home. Anyway, just give me a call whenever you can. Please honey.”
    Her father’s voice faded until it became inaudible as yet another dream vanished into darkness.

    Jane opened her eyes. She was back in the alley, lying on her back, staring up at the sky. Her mind drifted back to all the experiences and memories she’d relived in her trip. She thought of that little girl who used to go to parties, smoke chronic with her friends, and spend the night with guys she was attracted to. She thought of that first semester at community college when she was able to pull about a 2.9.
    Never in her whole life had she felt so low and depressed. She wanted to kill herself, but more than that, she wanted to go back to one of the first flashbacks. And tell that little girl to steer clear from words like blow and smack.
    How much longer will I even live, she wondered. Another year, maybe two. No, probably longer. Probably much longer. I hope not. I can’t do this much longer.
    She rolled over on the pavement. The guilt ceased as she became overwhelmed with an ecstasy as great as anything she’d ever known. Nothing could be better than this.
    The pleasure was short-lived as the guilt quickly returned, her conscious overpowering physical pleasure.
    Eventually, she decided she would need another hit to relax herself so she could let go of the pain and enjoy the high. She performed the ritual perfectly even though in her state, she could hardly feel the spoon and syringe in her hands. Must be from experience, she thought.
    Only seconds after releasing the belt’s grip on her leg, she slid down on her back and fell asleep before even removing the needles from her thigh. It was a sleep that was heavier and deeper than any she’d ever known.
    In her dream, she saw a bright white light and in a way difficult to describe, she felt young again — the way she felt before substances ruled her life. She felt perfectly at peace, even more than when on what she called, totally bomb smack.

    Officer Black pinched the skin between his eyes and shook his head.
    Sergeant Jones only glanced over at his partner and sighed. “Dumb rookie,” he uttered. Black was only a few weeks out of the academy and hadn’t dealt with anything above a traffic ticket or party bust yet. Jones could remember a time, years ago, when he too was bothered by common occurrences such as this one.
     “It’s just another dead junkie, nothing to worry about Steve,” Jones said.
    “From overdose right?” Black asked, his voice slightly choked.
    “Of course, you can see the needle there, sticking out of her leg. Don’t worry about it; we see these all the time. Only people that’ll miss her are the john’s she’d suck-off for twenty bucks.”
    “Yeah, you’re right,” Black said. He turned and left the alley to meet the mortician, who was just arriving.

    Black never forgot seeing the young woman’s body, but he soon learned to handle the dead, arrested and sick addicts in the same calm and uncaring manner as his partner. He soon forgot that they were people too.

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