Polaroids in the Darkness

Before Cory had lost her place at the Hotel Heartbreak and before I had lost mine and moved
to Toronto to join her at the Roach Motel, was like a wonderful honeymoon period where we
became something less than lovers and something more than friends.
We bonded instantly and as the weeks went by we grew closer and closer.
That first night would have been enough.
What with New Years Eve, my bad trick, the introduction to the world of crack, and Patti
Smith, but over the next couple of weeks we became a virtually inseparable rock and roll
tag-team of terror who - so I imagined - could only continue to move upwards and onwards as time went on.
One night Cory scored big time - she was out working between Strachan and Parkdale and she
managed to land a date who had just gotten off the plane from Vancouver.He was ready to
spend and she'd gotten from him - before doing anything and independent of what he was
going to pay for a her to come back to his hotel room - 200 dollars worth of drugs- 140 in
heroin, most if which was for her, and a 60 piece of crack, which she came back to the
apartment with - him waiting in a cab downstairs on Queen Street, no less - just to give me
some crack to smoke before she got back.
Later when she returned for the night, she had hauled in even more and when she passed out
after a few hours and many drugs later, there was 400 dollars in cash, and about an equal
amount in drugs on the table.
She awoke a few hours later and was amazed to find it all still there.
This was when we started calling one another "sister", and Cory concluded I was the most trustworthy person on the planet.
To the average person, this may not seem like as big a thing as it is to an addict.
Because in a square's life, why would I have touched it? Neither the money nor the dope was
mine, but a junkie just doesn't live in that world.
A junkie knows that another junkie - even your best friend or your Mother will steal a five dollar bill from you while you're sleeping - even if they have money of their own and it's the last of yours. That's just how it is. And so I went up on that day in her estimation a thousandfold.

Cory's room, as I've said before, was a disgusting and cluttered mess. There was literally
2 feet deep of mixed clothing and papers and garbage and drug paraphernalia all mixed in a
jumble on the every square inch of the floor and covering the mattress that lay in the
center of the room.
Her fridge didn't work, and didn't close properly and still had rotten food in it from back when it had. The bathroom was so foul that we would usually try our best to avoid using it, and instead used the public washrooms in restaurants and coffee shops along the Queen West strip. This was mostly because of her cat, who having run out of fresh litter ages ago, now used the bathroom as one giant litter box. Which made the thought of several local girls occasionally bringing tricks up to use the bathroom for quick blowjobs or to hit up that much more unsettling.
Like most junkies, Cory had managed to lose control over pretty much every aspect of her
life that straight society said mattered - from family , to ID, to adequate cleanliness.
One area though she'd become a master of and that was in keeping the habit fed.
To that end, she would always make sure - as I was soon to learn all too painfully well, most junkies did, - to have something in the morning so as not to get sick.
And this isn't the "cravings" or "bitchiness" or irritability that non-addicts seem to think it is.
No, junk sickness is worse than anything a non-junkie could possibly imagine. It's like the worst flu you've ever had, complete with cold sweats, nausea, diarheah - the works - to the power of 20.
Once you feel the sickness coming on you'll do anything - even risk losing friends, family, your freedom or your life to avoid.
But like I say, Cory was a pro at this, and so it was surprising, both to me and her when one day she wasn't able to have her "pick me-up" in the morning and found herself in the unenviable position of having this sickness coming on far faster than she could do anything about. Soon she was much too sick to go out and work, and then soon after too sick to even get out of bed.
It was my first experience with someone in the throes of serious withdrawal and I felt powerless to help out my new "sister".
It was more too, than simply feeling shitty - someone in this stage of opioid addiction can very easily have a seizure or even stroke when in this acute withdrawal. that's why there are medical detox centres.
So by the time the sun had set, she was sweating and puking and had shit herself and I was trying to keep her comfortable and clean up, but it was clearly not getting any better before it got much, much worse.
So I started to put on make-up and get dressed, in the hopes that if I made the near hour walk up to the Tranny track i might be able to get enough money to get her out of this.
I wasn't hopeful. Even if I got enough to be of any help,and that was a big if at this point - it was still long before peak hours and I was still new at whoring, my biggest single trick being for 75 dollars a couple of weeks earlier. So off I set , walking in my sexiest outfit through the now thinning rush hour crowds to the corner of Homewood and Maitland to wait for who knew how long for a date.
But fate was in my favour and I wasn't on the stroll for more than 15 minutes when a cab pulled alongside me and the guy in the back said
"I've got 160 dollars, do you want to come back to my condo?"
and I practically leapt into the cab.
Much to my pleasant surprise, his condo was only one block south of the Hotel Heartbreak where I could in my mind picture Cory shivering and crying amidst the filth.
We went to his place, and he started jerking himself off.
"strip" he said curtly,
and as I did so, he started doing toke after toke in rapid fire succession on a popcan turned pipe.
By the time I'd gotten out of my dress, and started to go to work on his cock - he was seeming distant and more than a little sad.
"what the matter?" I asked,
hoping he wouldn't start freaking out -as I'd seen people do before when they were smoking
"nothing,"
he said unconvincingly as he melted then smoked another stone
"I'm not going to be able to get it up," he continued -crack often had that effect
"you can just go if you want,"
And in 2 seconds flat I was dressed and out the door, and running - as close to running as I could manage in 5" heels - up the street and back to Cory.
I came in to find her curled in a ball and shaking so hard I thought she was seizuring.
"did you get any money?" she asked weakly and desperately.
I threw the 160 onto the grey, stained pillow beside her and said "get your dealer on the phone"
Within an hour we were melting onto the floor of the Felafel Queen, picking at food we no longer seemed hungry for.
And for the next week I was to be introduced to Cory's friends simply as "Super Ho"