Temporary Split Personality

I don't exactly remember how this day started. To be honest, it probably doesn't matter in the slightest, it's not like anything important happened during those times anyway. Or anything different for that matter from a day-to-day basis.

Wake up, get high, hang out, get high, go out, sometimes eat (usually not), get higher, sleep (usually not), rinse and repeat.

And peppered throughout this stream of meaningless highs, this day managed to stand out from the rest. Why? Because I had the genius idea of taking four different drugs at the same time. Actually, I'm not even sure if this was a conscious idea that formed in my head, or if it kind of... just happened.

The latter sounds a lot more probable. Anyhow, between coke, K, ecstasy and weed, two were uppers and two were downers.

My body was never more confused. When the uppers kicked in, I was bouncing off the walls, wanting to go out, talking at the speed of light, jittery like a crackhead... and literally 30ish seconds later, the downers kicked in, I would crash to the ground or the nearest couch, an inch away from being comatose. I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me I drooled.

And another few seconds or a minute later, I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off. This kept up for awhile, I'm not sure how long in terms of actual time, but I know I had these spastic mood swings several times.

Needless to say, I was in no condition to step out the door, and luckily my friends were aware of that and didn't instigate.

By the time I was sober enough to stay in one high state, I was drained. Empty. In retrospect, I found it to be an interesting experience, but would I recommend it or do it again? Hell no lol.

But I guess that's the closest I'll ever come to having split personality or some light form of schizophrenia. I'm pretty sure I would have been considered legally insane by a medical professional that night.

And thinking back, why would I have done that to myself? Did I really think it'd be a good idea? Did I think it wouldn't have too bad of an effect on me? I can't quite figure out if I was consciously being destructive, subconsciously thought I was invincible, or if I really just didn't give a fuck as long as I would get high.

I find it hard to reminisce. It almost feels like I lack the analytical skills required to do so, but that's not true because I do have that skillset when it comes to other areas of life. A self-defense mechanism to prevent myself from uncovering the truth about myself? Denial has served me well (and poorly I must add), but a in small doses, it can go a long way.

Afterall, hope is but denial with a facelift.

Eleven Guys and a Lesbian

The house I crashed at back in 2001, Sung's house, almost always had ten to fifteen people there at any given time. This one particular day, most of my friends had to go on some type of run: drug run, food run, money run, etc.

We were left with five people. Jimmy (who had a broken hand in a soft cast, needles, the whole nine), Jen, Angelina (aka Gellie), and Sung. Sung and Gellie were in his room talking, Jen, Jimmy and I were in Sung's mom's room playing Chinese Poker. His mom was away on a business trip in Korea, she was gone for a month.

Wait hold on, I have to backtrack a little. A few days prior, almost the same group was here (replace Gellie with my friend Mary, add Steve my future co-defendant), most of us were high, but still bored. Steve suggests we play strip Chinese Poker, but considering there were two girls and four guys, I was positive they were going to decline.

Mary and Jen looked at each other, whispered something then surprisingly agreed. They lost the first four hands. But as soon as anything revealing was going to come off, they wrapped themselves in thick comforters. It obviously defeated the purpose, especially considering that the shirt/top they were wearing before was more revealing than a freaking comforter!

But whatever. I wasn't going to force them to strip lol. We kept on playing. Doorbell rang, turned out to be this guy Nick, who was friends with Mary's boyfriend. He was able to discern that she was in fact naked underneath the blanket, but he ended up leaving without saying much. I forgot what it was that he wanted to begin with. Probably drugs.

Okay so enough of that flashback. I'm sitting on Sung's mom's bed, playing cards, binging on coke, sleepless for days, foodless for over 20ish hours, when I see a couple guys walk past the mom's room into the guest room.

Thinking they were friends of a friend, I got up to greet them. They came back into the doorway, accompanied by another two guys.

"Hey," one of them said.

"What's good?" I replied.

"We got a question, you know who the two guys are that played strip poker with Mary?"

I turned to look at Jimmy who just stared right back at me. My eyes glanced at his broken hand. I turned back around and saw Sung (who's not a small fella) standing behind the four guys.

Okay, four on three, even though Jimmy's hand is broken, how bad can it be?

"Yeah," I finally answered.

"Oh yeah? Who?"

"Us."

I swear the guy flashed a quick smile. He turned around and shouted towards the kitchen.

"Yo! We found them!"

About a dozen people materialized out of nowhere, surrounding me.

Ah, fuck.

I tried to talk my way out of it.

"Look, this has nothing to do with us. For one, this is between Mary and her boyfriend. For two, there was no harm done, she was wrapped in a blanket the whole time."

"It's a question of principle dude, that shit's fucked up."

I continued trying to convince them, and mid-sentence, one of them said:

"I'm sick of hearing you talk."

And punched me square in the face.

I fell to the bed and bounced right back up. I only felt the first punch, everything else was numbed by all the coke. From the corner of my eye I saw Jimmy attempt to do something but the guy next to him simply slapped his hand and I saw him fold over in pain. I didn't expect him to be able to do anything, I could barely even imagine the excruciating pain he must have been in.

As soon as I got back to my feet, four of them wailed on me. I kept bouncing back from the bed, impervious to the pain, but I didn't stand a chance.

Jimmy finally jumped on me and held my head down.

"Stay down Alex, stay down."

"Fuck that shit."

I struggled against him. If I get my ass handed to me, fine. But no way in hell I'm going to just lay here and take it like a bitch. Or so I thought.

"They pulled out a razor."

I calmed down almost immediately. These fuckers meant to cut me. I don't mind getting beat, but disfigured? Nah chills lol.

So I just laid there, curled up in a ball, pounded over and over. They tried to take my wallet, which I desperately gripped until my knuckles were drained of blood. That earned another dozen punches.

But that wasn't the worst. I felt one of their boots accidentally rest right by my crotch. I could feel the cool outside air wafting off of the suede, I could imagine the hardened boot blasting my balls to Kingdom No-More-Cum, and I prayed.

God, I know that you know that I don't believe in you, but if you're there, please, please don't let him kick.

You would think I'd be a fervent Christian crusader by now. My heart slowed its pulse when I felt the boot withdraw from the danger zone.

"Do you have any pills?"

I was just fronted fifty pills and they were in my left pocket, that I was laying on. But if I lost those pills, I would have been in some shit. I would have had to figure out a way to come up with $500 to pay it back. I had nowhere near $500.

I shook my head no, expecting they would kick my ass some more, unhappy with my answer. But instead one of them said to let me be, and they left.

I almost immediately got up. The puddle of blood on the bed was quite impressive actually. Close to two feet in diameter. I went straight to the bathroom to check my nose. Like I said, the coke numbed all the pain, and I thought they broke my nose.

Washing all the blood off my face, I fidget with my nose, and feel nothing. No, not nothing as in, numbness. I felt no pain, no brokeness, nothing. I didn't even have a black eye. I had a slightly fat lip, a couple bruises on my back, and that's it. Only conclusion? They punch like bitches.

As soon as I'm done, I snapped at Sung.

"How the fuck do you let twelve guys walk into your house like that?"

"My friend just left, I thought it was him coming back because he forgot something so I didn't check before I opened the door."

Sung talked ridiculously fast. To the point you can't understand him. I'll spare you all the "what?" and "huh?" for brevity's sake.

"And what, you can't close the door after you realized it wasn't him?"

"Well, they shoved their foot in the door and said if I didn't let them in, they'd kick the door down."

I just shook my head.

"You're a fucking idiot. Close the fucking door. If they kick that shit down, call the cops. And worse comes to worst, if they do somehow make it in, don't just let them wander around your house freely! Come tell me so I can get ready! They're obviously not here to party with us!"

I was pissed. I couldn't believe someone could be that stupid.

"And on top of that, you didn't do shit!"

"What was I supposed to do? There were so many of them!"

Now his tone became defensive.

I sighed and shook my head.

"Look, I thought we were boys. And what that means to me is, I rather get my ass whooped with you than watch you get your ass handed to you by yourself. Jimmy has a broken hand and he tried to do something. The fuck..."

The conversation ended there. Mary eventually came over, pissed as hell, apologizing, and she eventually broke up w/ the guy. Apparently he claims to have had nothing to do with it, his story goes like this. He was home, and his boys came through saying they were going to go cop some pills. He agreed, hopped in the car, and they went to Sung's house. What they meant by copping pills was, jumping my ass and robbing me.

For the rest of the night, I kept thinking I got jumped by twelve guys, until Jen said, "It was only eleven guys. The other one is a dyke." (no offense to readers, she was bisexual at the time, I'm just transliterating or whatever that word is)

Great, so I got jumped by eleven guys and a lesbian.

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.