West bound and down pt.1

Have you ever kicked heroin on a cross country Greyhound bus? I have, twice.

The first time was when I robbed my Grandmother blind of all her jewelry, and hocked it for about $900 at the pawn shop. I had lived in Los Angeles a few years prior and had come running home with my tail between my legs, and a small heroin habit. My hustle in NYC was short lived, and I had nowhere else to go... again. My best idea was to buy a bunch of heroin and cocaine, a few fresh rigs, a hot dog, and a bus ticket at the Port Authority so I could go back to the glamorous lifestyle I had been missing out on in Hollywood. I said goodbye to the last 2 running partners I had that would talk to me, filled a brown shopping bag with some bleach spotted long sleeve shirts, some shitty cd's, and my Yamaha bb300 bass with no case. I found myself a spot in the back of the bus where I wouldn't be noticed shooting speedballs in that tiny little bathroom that splashes blue shitwater out of the hole every time the bus rocks.
I remember wrapping the shopping bag with silver duct tape just in case it ripped, I had a long journey ahead of me and I couldn't afford to lose the last of my belongings, which really didn't amount to dick anyway. The bus ended up filling up with people, but I was so out of my mind I didn't give a fuck, and proceeded to climb over the guy sitting next to me every 15 minutes to get high. Every time I came back to my seat I was a little sweatier than the last. He eventually told me that he was in Alcoholics Anonymous and attempted to give me his number. Thank God that fucking rain cloud got off the bus somewhere in Jersey. It was the last bus out of the city that night, so it was around midnight. After a few stops here and there I was eventually left with the back of the bus all to myself, and by the time the sun came up somewhere towards the end of Pennsylvania, I was almost out of coke.
I should have been a little smarter about spacing my shots out. That trip across country is exactly 2 days and 23 hours long, and I had bought just enough dope to last me the full ride, and a day or so in Los Angeles until I was able to figure out some sort of nickel and dime hustle out there. Buying the coke was my biggest mistake, a speedball only lasts about 20 minutes until the need for that rush through your body again becomes so over powering, that you are forced to do it over and over, until it's finally all gone... and even then you're not even close to being done. I could have brought a barrel full of each and it still would have been gone by the time I got to Texas. It's just never enough... ever.

I had a couple of bundles of dope left, but by the time we got to Ohio, my rigs were all worn down or jammed. Trying to play Mcgyver with your rigs isn't really do-able on a bus half full of people in the middle of the day, so I had to resort to snorting what I had left, which meant having to double up on my dosage since I couldn't inject anymore. By the time the bus had gotten to New Mexico, I was out of everything.
I hadn't eaten in days, so my body was already beaten down and weak. It didn't take long for the heroin to drain out of my system and leave me sprawled out across the three back seats, which are equivalent in size to the length of a small pitbull. With no comfort in site for the next 24 hours or so, I had no choice but to just sit there staring out the window at the passing dirt. The worms that had been asleep in my stomach were now fully awake and body slamming each other inside my intestine wall. Tears rolled down my face every 2 minutes, followed by sneezes that would leave dark green slugs all over the back of the seat in front of me. I was to sick to crawl to the bathroom that was right next to me to piss, but you wouldn't have been able to tell by the way my leg was bouncing up and down from the panic energy that was surging through every pore in my body. My only thought was that I had again, made the biggest mistake of my life. I started thinking about all the shit I had shot into my veins on the first night of the ride, and how I would have been fine if I had just.... paced.... myself. Luckily I was still very young so the kick wasn't going to last more than a few days.
I don't remember the rest of that ride, all I remember is the bus finally pulling up to the station at Cahuenga and Hollywood blvd. I had already gone through one full day without heroin and was right in the middle of the kick, but like I said... I was young, I was still able to walk if I had to. Not like these days where the kick takes three months and you have to have someone wiping your Mr. Magoo ass the entire time. It was early morning, so early that it was still dark out. I don't know if it was really that cold or if I was just sick as fuck. The bag had been thrown out of the bay of the bus by one of the attendants, and had ripped completely open, so everything that I had left in the world was now sprawled out all over the parking lot of the bus station. I was so sick, I just picked my bass up by the strap, swung it over my shoulder, and started walking east down Hollywood blvd. It was damp everywhere, it had obviously been raining at some point, thankfully I was spared of a soaking wet walk to the middle of nowhere... for a little while anyway.
I had absolutely no game plan, and nowhere to go. I could go west a few miles and sit in front of the Viper Room until someone got there around noon, and try to not act sick, or I could head east to my old guitar players house who I hadn't seen since she threw me out of her apartment a few years prior for shooting dope in her bedroom. Either way was a lose lose situation, but east to my guitar players house was closer, and less challenging than dealing with my cousin who owned the Viper room,and had been sober for many many years. She always had a soft spot for me and I could most likely manipulate her into letting me stay there for a few days till I could get somehow get some money for dope, kick all together, or ummm... I don't know, those were really the only two things I had left in my bag of hustle. Jenn (my guitar player) lived on Lyman place, that was all I could remember at the time. I didn't know what apartment building she lived in, and it was about 2 miles from where I was. My legs were like two unpeeled bananas, mushing their way down Hollywood blvd. The bass felt like a huge boulder on my back, and if my Mother didn't buy it for me for my 18th birthday, I would have just leaned it against a garbage can for a homeless musician to maybe start a new life with.