lessons from a ghost

introduction: I wrote this story while taking a "creative nonfiction" writing class a few years ago. The assignment was to interview a friend. I thought it would be more interesting to completely make up the interview from scratch and see if i could pull off the realism. Apparently it worked. My teacher loved it. I was taking the class with one of my best friends who seemed just a little annoyed that I didn't find a "real" subject, and had my story presented by the teacher as an example of what he wanted. The subject was a real person who did indeed fall from a moving train and ended up living on the street, but the details are fictional. The city is real, but the walk with him is all fiction. There are a few parts that are not perfect, but I'm not editing it, just presenting it the way it was and still is.


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Lessons from a Ghost

I’ve known this kid Simon, a man now I suppose, since we were enrolled at the same high school. Enrolled because we attended sporadically, instead focusing on photography and music and the finer art of just hanging out. Looking back, I guess our friendship really only lasted a couple of months, if that, but felt longer in a high school sort of way.

He’s living on the streets now, and he says he’s hearing voices. He fell off of a train two years ago, and ended up bloody and stitched up in a hospital after some lady found him and dropped him in front of the ER doors. He says the voices started sometime last year. “They’re not like, solid voices telling to do things or anything,” he says to re-assure me, “They’re just, Voices with no source.” He tells me this and gets a panicky look in his eyes, like he’s afraid my opinion of him will change, but I keep listening and we continue walking.

I’ve met him downtown to walk around and see what his life is like for a profile I’m writing on him. I eventually have to abandon the profile at the last minute because I can’t find him for a second interview. We walk up to Northwest Portland, passing our old high school. It’s amazing the difference a little time can have on different lives: I’m going to college now, and Simon is living on the street.

We joke about a prostitute we used to call Tina Turner who turned tricks and smoked crack in the public bathroom outside our high school. We sit down on a bench in the park and smoke some cigarettes, talking about our lives. He tells me about his street family, and how much everyone takes care of each other. I tell him about school, what classes I’m taking, but I feel guilty, since he used to go to PSU also, dropping out when the voices grew too loud to concentrate.

He starts to speak, but stops abruptly and looks at the darkening sky. I notice for the first time that the lines surrounding his eyes are deep, almost etched into his pale skin. His eyes seem much hollower than I remember; dark circles that used to be a suggestion are now a statement. His pupils are tiny pinpricks of black against faded blue pools. I catch myself staring too long, and go back to smoking my cigarette.
He asks me if he can tell me something, something that’s been going on in his life. “Of course.” I tell him. “Okay, I’ve been doing a little bit of heroin. Not a lot, just enough to kind of dull the pain and quiet the voices.” He tells me this, quickly looks away, and then looks back, needing some kind of response.
I ask him how long, and he tells me a few months. Not long enough to get a habit, not that he has the money for one anyway. He tells me most of the kids on the street do it, tells me that it helps to pass the time and soften the edges of a life with an unknown future. He says it’s not what people tell you, it’s not as addictive, not as destructive as we’re taught about in school. “Sometimes it feels good to have a monkey on your back, you know? It gives you something to care about.”

I’m unsure of what reaction to have first. I want to tell him to just quit, get over it, move on, but what would he move on to? I want to ask him more about what it feels like, what it does. I tell him its okay; I tell him it’s not a big deal. I tell him if he needs any help or anyone to talk to that I’m here.
He seems relieved, and says that he needs to go pick some up from his dealer on Everett. He has the collected funds from a few other street kids, and they picked him to pick it up. I ask if I can come along, he uses my cell phone to call and ask if he can bring a friend, and we’re off.
It’s starting to rain a little, the kind of rain that coats the city in varying hues of grey and white. I feel like I’m walking with a ghost, floating upon the surface of the city but not really connecting with the ground. Simon has his head down, walking fast; the monkey’s holding his reins and driving him forward like he’s a race horse with blinders.

We get to the house, one that I passed hundreds of time when I used to walk downtown from high school. It’s strange thinking about all of the lives behind every one of the doors on this street, how many illegal things are going on, how many stories are behind the closed shutters. The door is set back from the street a few feet, enough that it seems anonymous and almost unmemorable were it not for the graffiti covering it’s surface. He uses my phone again, and the door opens to let us inside.
We’re standing in a basement, low lights and exposed beams. It’s amazingly clean, quite the opposite of the cinematic shooting gallery I had pictured. The guy who let us in asks me my name, and if I want to make any purchases. I tell him I’m just hanging out, I don’t need any today, and he seems fine with the answer. He takes us further back, and up some stairs into the main part of the house and again, I’m surprised by how comfortable the whole place is, with plants and a cat sharing space with simple couches and chairs.

Simon takes out a wad of one and five dollar bills, counts it twice, and hands it to the guy who let us in. The guy counts it again. “40. Hold on, I’ll be right back.” He walks out of the room, returning a few minutes later to hand Simon his purchase. “You can set up in here, but you can only stay for a couple of minutes. We can’t have this place be a fucking junkie house, alright?” The guy says this in an amazingly pleasant way, he seems to understand some of the humor in what he is saying.
“You don’t have to watch.” Simon tells me, but I say that I’m interested, which gets a strange look from the guy as he walks out of the room. Simon takes out a dirty canvas bag and pulls out a syringe and a spoon. He tells me the needle is clean, he doesn’t want make a stupid choice a deadly one.
I used to work at the pharmacy up the street, where I sold needles to junkies all day long. I remember this girl came to the door just after we closed, wanting a needle, but the pharmacist wouldn’t let her in so I stole two of them to give to her when I left. I don’t want anyone to die from something they can prevent. I can’t imagine getting clean after years of using, feeling so alive and new, and then finding out you have Hepatitis or HIV.

Simon has finished cooking up his stuff in the spoon, and is pulling it into the syringe. He had to use a cigarette filter to strain out the particles. He tells me that if any solid pieces get into your vein it can kill you. “It’s like building a dam on a river, but your heart is the delta.”
He pulls up his sleeve, and I see for the first time that these short few months have left nasty looking bruises on his arms. His skin is translucent, probably from eating shit for months, and the blue veins seem like a road map. He puts a well worn necktie around his upper arm and watches as the vein balloons up with backed up blood. He flexes his hand a few times, to get the blood flowing more, feels around for a solid place to inject, and slowly slides the tip of the syringe under his pale skin. He pulls back on the stopper and the red blood mixes with the dirty brown of the heroin. He holds it there for a split second, almost as though he’s contemplating his decision, takes a deep breath, and slowly shoots the junk straight into his vein, straight to his heart.

Like most people, I’ve always been a little frightened by needles. I always had to look away when I was getting shots as a child, so keeping my focus on this single injection was a struggle for me. He loosened the tie to let the blood flow again, pulled out the needle and set it down beside him. “It sometime takes a little… Oh fuck.” He smiles. This is the smile of a child at their birthday party opening presents. The smile of an Olympian winning the gold, The smile that a man and woman share when they are married, the smile before their first kiss as Husband and Wife. His eyes become a strange combination of dullness and light, life and death intertwined.
He tells me that his head doesn’t hurt anymore, that the voices are only whispers. He opens his eyes wide with a clarity I haven’t seen in years and grabs my hand. “Brian, this is like being touched by the hand of god. It’s like kissing an angel. This is like the best orgasm you’ve ever had, but better. Please don’t ever, ever try it. Promise me.” The luster fades from his eyes, and his entire being seems to slow down. His life is here for now, slowed to a crawl in an opiate stupor. These hands that used to delicately hold a camera and play a guitar are now used to plead for spare change and stealthily conceal drugs for his new family. As I let myself out, I find myself dreaming that I’ll see Simon again someday, healthy and alive. I want to believe that I can help him through this so much, but it’s hard to bring down the sky with dreams, and I can’t try to save him.
I’m in the rain again, just another ghost against the grey dusk. I will live his life on paper, but never again will it be my own, even from a distance. These are the lessons I’ve learned from a ghost who I used to know.