An Unexpected End

So one day during the hazy summer of 2001, right after I dropped out of college, I was hanging out with my friend Sung in Flushing. We were completely tapped out, with only $40 between the two of us, but yearning for that next high just as much anyway.

I spent most of that day calling various people trying to get four ecstasy pills but as life often throws a curveball at us while snickering from the sidelines, everyone I knew was dry as well. We finally get a hold of this one guy Will, from Forest Hills and he tells me he doesn't have any pills but he has some Special K (no, not the cereal, ketamine, it's an animal tranquilizer used by vets).

Beggars can't be choosers (K was never my preferred drug), Sung and I, now joined by two other friends, Arturo and another Alex, trooped out to Forest Hills.

They waited at a corner while I was in the car. He gave me a jar of K for $40, then asked me if I wanted a second one.

"That's all the money I have."

And like any respectable drug dealer he replies, "Don't worry about it, I'll front you that, I know you're good for it."

Even knowing that he was doing me no favors, I was still happier than a pig in shit on a sweltering fly infested summer jungle day.

I told the others the good news and decided to go back to Main St., when Arturo realizes he has no more money on his Metrocard. As we're trying to solve this dilemma, he says, "Go on ahead I'll catch up with you guys."

"What? The bus goes on the highway. No way you'll get there anytime soon," I replied skeptically.

He insisted.

"Okay look, I'll give you ten minutes after we get there before we leave."

He agreed. Mind you, Arturo is in no way fit. A little on the chubbier side and not too physically active, he was one of the last people I'd to expect to pull this off.

We got back to Main St. and waited. Five minutes. Six. Then at either seven or eight minutes, my jaw almost dropped when I saw his out of shape ass panting down the street.

"I have to give it to you," I laughed, "you've earned your high."

We decided to go up to the LIRR platform nearby. It had those sheltered areas and was rather empty at that time.

We somehow had a CD case with us at the time (sadly, I'm pretty sure it wasn't carried around for the music), and I poured myself a line.

Ketamine in it's original form is a liquid, but when heated, it crystallizes. In the States, snorting it is the most common practice, as far as I know.

But my eyes were bigger than my stomach (or more accurately bigger than my nostrils) since I had been looking forward to this moment all day long. I was a little heavy handed and poured myself about a four inch line. Special K isn't like cocaine in terms of how much you take at a time or anything for that matter.

Sung was next. He was also heavy handed but instead of doing it all he left some for the next person. For some reason however, neither of them were willing to snort his "leftovers." They insisted that they wanted their own lines, as if it made a difference. Thinking it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard (sheesh, have I ever been right when thinking that?), I finished the excess powder, even before the first had kicked in.

What ensued wasn't quite a K-Hole, which is the equivalent of a bad trip but usually involves a sensation of falling into spiraling holes. But it was a bad trip alright.

I have a tendency to become very confused and lost on K. It's a dissociative drug which I've taken to mean that it disconnects you from reality.

I suddenly had no idea where I was. I kept asking my friends over and over.

"Where are we?"

"Flushing."

"No but like where are we?"

"Uh. Queens, New York City?"

"No but, WHERE are...l

You get the point. This extrapolated to the size of the universe before long. The next segment wasn't so innocent.

My brain decided it'd be interesting to pretend that I was a junkie since birth and that I had been living on the streets my entire life. Nineteen years straight of constant drugs and homelessness is some depressing shit.

In between these bouts of total helplessness and utter despair, I overheard Sung and Arturo saying, " Oh man, Alex thinks he's going to die."

They said it enough times to convince my dysfunctional mind that they thought, that I thought I was going to die. My legs felt like jello. No, I lied, I couldn't feel my legs. I was short of breath. The walls of my mind were collapsing on me, crushing me, head spinning, where am I? Who am I?

I started thinking I was going to die. I retched a little and gagged. I tried to stand only to find that my legs were completely useless. Numb. Limp. I sat there feeling worse than I had ever felt in my entire life, drained of any positive thought. I later found out that they were talking about the other Alex. FML.

I slowly sobered up, after... honestly, I have no idea how much time had passed. But my body was still weak. The stairs down from the LIRR station were long. Real long. And not just because I just came back from a bad trip. Go see for yourself, them fuckers are LONG!

I wobbled my way down. I would have bet a grand that I was going to face-plant just by walking. Luckily made it down safely, sat down on a bench, and called a friend of mine I was hanging out with a lot at the time.

"Hey Mary, where are you?"

"Dinner in Flushing with some friends, what's up?"

I filled her in on what happened. Concerned, she came by to make sure I was okay, and I eventually went back to Sung's house.

The other Alex went home, so it was just the three of us. Sung made me some food that I barely ate although it was pretty damn good. I tried to sleep. After a few seconds of having my eyes closed, my body suddenly cramped up. My entire body. And it hurt. I moved a little and it went away. Shrugging it off, I tried to go back to sleep. And again, every muscle fiber in my body locked up and extreme, indescribable pain shot through me until I would move my body.

Then it would all go away.

"What the fuck..."

It's mind over matter I told myself. There's no way my entire body is cramping, it's unheard of. So I closed my eyes again, determined to not give in to the pain. The cramping came. I winced but didn't move. My body, more tense than the seconds before OJ's verdict, screamed at me.

Fucking idiot, move your fucking ass, NOW!

I resisted. And resisted. It wouldn't fucking go away. I waited until I couldn't take it anymore, then waited some more. I struggled uselessly. I caved and moved, then the relief of being pain-free washed over me in a breath of fresh air.

How the hell was I going to sleep? I had no idea. This night couldn't get any worse. But my body was probably abused to the point it was on the brink of exhaustion, and I slipped into sleep without even realizing it.

The next morning my phone woke me up. It said "Home." Still groggy, I answered, expecting to hear my mom. It was my step father.

"Alex, where are you?"

I was taken aback by the sudden question. During this phase of my life, home rarely called. And if they did call, it was always my mom.

"Queens."

"You just wake up?"

I rolled my eyes, already knowing where this was going. Since I had recently dropped out of college, and I was supposed to be out looking for work instead of partying like a rockstar.

"Yeah," I answered, resigned.

And what I thought to be the most unexpected thing he could say:

"Good, stay there."

Boy, I've never been more wrong about anything since. Before my mind could even formulate my short, one word question (What...?), he continues, "They blew up the World Trade."

My mind was done playing catch up, and uttered that one word. The wrong one came out.

"Who?"

Dumbest question of the century for sure.

"Uhh... Terrorists." (lol thinking back, he must have thought I was retarded)

My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach as reality bitch slapped the shit out of me. I staggered out of the bedroom, still on the phone, the TV was on, Sung and Arturo in front, and I literally thought it was a movie, until my eyes saw "CNN" in the bottom right.

"Holy shit..." I said under my breath. Then frantically, "Are you okay? What about mom and Ethan?"

Ethan's my little half brother, he was four at the time. My family lives in Tribeca, so we were a matter of blocks away from Ground Zero. My stepdad worked in the World Financial building, right next to the twin towers. My little brother went to school a few blocks away.

And know that I'm not religious, but at times like these, I sometimes wonder if I really don't have a guardian angel watching over me. My family was untouched and safe.

In the end, I couldn't go home for a couple weeks, not like I was planning to anyway. On my way back, they asked me to buy some face masks because of the asbestos, and when I got back to Tribeca, I had a glimpse of what third world countries must experience, seeing military vehicles driving down the street, everyone panicky, the fear and confusion so thick you suffocate in it.

I walked in through the door of my apartment, and at the sight of me, my mom burst into tears. We hugged fiercely and I cried too. This hit too close to home. Literally. The gravity and immediacy of the situation was overwhelming, I was barely able to comprehend how lucky I was, but we all knew just how close we came to losing what we loved most.

My stepdad's friends lived in Battery Park, and their apartment was destroyed. They had to flee, one shoe on, ashy and disheveled all the way to my mom's place. They crashed in my room. I stayed until nightfall, but the transition from one extreme to the other, from artificial highs to such a depressing low was jarring. I couldn't take it.

I called up some friends and left; I went to drown out reality with drug-induced fantasies and emotions.