The Arch Above

Joseph. He found himself in Paris again. He was lying on a very old cemetery wall staring up at the cool blue Parisian sky laughing hysterically at God & existence. Literally, hysterically crying with laughter at the Universe and that he had any role in it. It could have been an episode of mania, and surely the passers-by widened their birth as they passed on the sidewalk across from the Seine. Eventually that intoxicating levity subsided, and whatever resentments he may have caught along the way about it all crept back to the periphery. He had been criticised about being "flippant" before, and not knowing what the word meant definitively he interpreted it loosely as not giving a fuck. After all, that was when he got into trouble. In actuality, he very much gave a fuck.

The separation between comedy & tragedy he thought to himself as he walked, was a very much mundane thing. Something that humans deal in. He thought about this as he passed Notre Dame and saw that the two doors were under an arch. The arch was complete in its hemisphere, unbroken & undivided. The doors completed a divided lower hemisphere of a circle with a total of three parts with their handles and that, he thought, represented the duality of the mundane: the division between positive & negative, good & bad, and the elaborate host of relative polarisations of our experience. The purity of geometrical completion above represented the divine. What he struggled with was the line at the top of the doors, and by extension that there were doors at all. Surely that must be funny, or the consequences would be unbearable to Joseph. Along with the comedy in the mundane, he was equally sensitive to the tragedy. The only way he knew to bring this ship to an even keel was heroin.

He walked along the Seine, eventually allowing himself to be drawn into the plaza at the center of the Louvre's entrance, then walking along considering how he should phrase in his limited French his desperate need for opiates to survive. Sitting under a tree was a grimy punk-rock looking man with a very pale complexion that matched his bald head. The man was sitting on a tattered old blanket asking for money. Joseph approached and asked in very young French if the man spoke English or Spanish. The man replied in a German accent 'ja' and nodded his head with a quick and short enthusiasm that was welcoming. They had a very short exchange in English, where Joseph explained that he was a heroin addict from NYC and needed a fix. The man stood up, and Joseph offered him 10 euros to show him where to satisfy this need and establish a working relationship with a supplier on the condition that he be paid when confidence was of accord. Without delay, the two men had hopped the turnstile to the Metro and were on their way to a place that Joseph had never been to, didn't know the name of, and was very much eager to reach. The man introduced himself as 'Gogol', and disclosed that heroin was harder to find than morphine. Morphine would be perfect.

They arrived at the Metro station Chateau Rouge in north Paris and emerged to the street to find a KFC. For some reason, the KFC reassured Joseph that this mission was legitimate, that he would soon be high. They walked just a block east and the neighborhood turned into some sort of north african open air market, with carts presenting fruits, vegetables, fish, meat and other colors. Suspicious vendors were selling obviously stolen cameras along the market. Gogol explained in broken English how he had recently been beaten and robbed. This made the walking pass more quickly. When a junkie is on the mission to cop, to get what he needs to feel better and encounters the usual obstacles: police, delays, thieves, scams, weather, traffic, marathons, parades, terrorist attacks, whatever..., the time creeps to a stop. Minutes seem to stretch on for hours, hours for days, and any communication with a supplier isn't entirely reassuring as "I'm on my way" or even "10 minutes" are -not- reliable. In fact, they prove all too often to be lies the supplier has made to keep the sick junkie on ice waiting for the man. Joseph knew that the best way to avoid this was to cultivate a relationship with a dealer, where they were in their little sick way accountable to each other. That scale of accountability or expectation was always weighed in the supplier's favor, but in some cases evened out so that the sickness of 'Waiting for the Man' wasn't entirely taken for granted. In this case, Joseph had no such luxury. Gogol's broken, spitten speech was the only thing pushing the seconds along.

Even when a junkie isn't physically dependent, but particularly so when they have a habit, the wait and the anticipation of the alleviation of the sickness, the relief and the calm that wash through the body of the addict who has just fixed as his stomach settles and his appetite returns, that anticipation exaggerates and antagonizes the sense the addict has of dysphoria, nausea, and anxiety. Sometimes, it can feel as though you can't breathe, that standing on two legs is a herculean task, and that the ground is too cold and unforgiving to offer any rest. The only thing, not even death, that will still the addict's skeleton and soul is the beautiful sight of the man coming down the block or ringing on the phone, the exchange, and the injection of narcotics. Gravity then tunes itself down, the cold night ceases to sting and the stark streetlights assume a warm glow. The addict, still sliding through the metamorphosis from Sick to Well, begins to bounce along the sidewalk with the grateful levity that the narcotics have given. Joseph was sick, and his patience for walking in circles through a north african neighborhood in search of an unknown person with a stringy, unclear hired junkie was wearing thin.

Soon enough Gogol stopped as a north african man with a backpack uttered 'Skenan' under his breath. He and the man spoke in a French that Joseph understood none of. Gogol indicated with a hand gesture to produce money and Joseph made a mental photograph of the man. Then Gogol took a small flat box from the man, opened the end, slid out a foil sheet of 7 capsules, nodded, and closed the box back up. Joseph handed the man 20 euros and he walked off. The German seemed frustrated by something and admonished Joseph, "It's 15 euros for 7, not 20." They had bought 7 100mg capsules of Morphine Sulfate extended release, branded "Skenan". Gogol kept the box and they walked back to the Metro. When they reached a safer station, closer to the quarter where they had met, they disembarked but did not leave the station. Leading Joseph over the handrail of an escalator, Gogol showed Joseph to a secretive spot in the station protected by metallic boxes shielding some utility or mechanics. It was like a very small locker room, but instead of lockers, they were solid metal cabinets.

There was a wooden spool on its side, the kind used for wires but this one was bare and on its end being used as a table. Gogol produced from his bag a strange and very French kit for Joseph, which Joseph would later learn are available at French chemists for 1 euro. It contained a sealed syringe, a thin flat aluminum cooker with a handle like a measuring spoon with a flat cup, water, and cotton filters. He then removed one of the capsules from the foil pack, and twisted apart the two halves of the capsule, carefully emptying the little beads of candied morphine into a folded piece of paper. The paper was folded around the small, hard bits and he used a lighter to crush them into a powder, which he emptied into his cooker. He drew from his own water, made a solution which he cooked for better solubility and sterility, then with the urgency of the sick addict drew his solution up.

By this point, Joseph had imitated the steps and was crushing the tiny pellets into a powder, and with the same urgency completed his draw, lowered his arm, found his flag, and carefully emptied most of the syringe into his arm. He did not do the whole shot, as he felt pins & needles creep from the base of his heels up his calves, through his legs, up his back and neck and over the top of his head, settling on the tops of his ears. This frightened him, but as he began to panick the morphine began its comforting caress and the same frightening swarm of tiny vampiric bats became loving and flirtatious pixies, upon which he exhaled the most complete sense of relief and warmth. He emptied the rest of the barrel and calmly packed his works up. He gave Gogol two of the capsules and a 10 euro note and they emerged to a bright and intoxicated Paris, parting ways with the dismissive chalance of long-time employees at some brave factory where they had completed a shift. They weren't concerned with the politics or ambitions anymore. They were on their way home, though both of them were homeless.