Addiction

Chapter 11
I Want A New Drug

One Month Ago. Late Afternoon. Just Before Sunset

11. I want a new drug

One that won’t go away

One that won’t keep me up all night

One that won’t make me sleep all day

One that won’t make me nervous

Wondering what to do

One that makes me feel like I feel when I’m with you

When I’m alone with you

I’m alone with you, baby

- Huey Lewis and the News; “I Want A New Drug”.

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“What do you mean no?” Damien asked indignantly.

“I mean, no, newbie.” Levi told him, flatly. “I’m cutting you off. You can’t handle it.”

“You can’t do that!” Damien practically shouted.

Levi smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile though. If anything, Damien would have preferred the man to frown. This was a warning smile, the smile that said, “Look, I’m humoring you just by talking to you, but you’re dangerously close to crossing the line.”

“Ha!” he barked. “Listen to this guy, Gary,” Levi looked over his shoulder to the man mountain that guarded the entrance to Eden. “He comes into my club, hat in hand, and he tells me what I can and cannot do!” Gary didn’t move or show any sign that he had heard at all.

They were in Eden; the upstairs part, specifically. While the outside and the receiving area of the former bank had been lavishly redecorated and the downstairs party area had been relatively minimalist but stimulating, the upstairs offices of Mr. Levi Athan, proprietor and drug dealer, hadn’t been touched in the slightest, Damien guessed.

Floral wallpaper peeled from the walls, and the floorboards creaked with every step. They were both sitting in overstuffed chairs that a cat had clawed three-too-many times. Paintings of old, balding men hung the walls with eyes that Damien swore were following his every move. The only light in the room came from the setting sun. Other than the two beat up chairs that Damien and Levi sat across from each other in, there was no other furniture in the room.

Damien hadn’t had much in the way of a plan when he came to Eden, today. He just parked the car a couple of blocks away, and walked up to the entrance. No line had formed, the club wasn’t supposed to be operating for another few hours, but there was Gary, standing in front of the large wooden doors to the old bank.

“I…I need to see Mr. Athan.” Damien said to the big ogre standing silently in front of the door. There had been no sign of recognition from Gary’s ugly, pock marked face. “If he has the time, I mean.” Damien corrected himself. “Please.” Damien felt like he might have had better luck talking to club doors instead.

Feeling like he was out of ideas, Damien reached into his pocket and pulled out the little red pill. He held it in between. “See? Mr. Athan said I was cool.” Gary still stood motionless. Damien really didn’t want to pop the pill as he had the other two times to get into the club, he was hoping to talk to Levi sober, but if that’s all that this gargoyle responded to, then:

“This is just my last one so..” Damien moved to pop the pill into his mouth and found the way blocked as one of Gary’s gigantic mitts enveloped Damien’s entire hand. As if on cue, the doors opened for Damien, and he found himself led into Eden’s less glamorous parts.

Now, he sat in an extra, and more depressing than spooky set piece for Disney’s Haunted Mansion, begging for drugs, with Gary blocking the way out. Right of the door that Damien had been led through was another door with a wooden plaque on it that read “Changing Room”. That must be where Levi kept all of his costumes.

Even now, before the club’s opening hours, Levi was in a costume. It had to be a costume, nobody dressed like that anymore. With a green fedora, green three piece suit, and a green trench coat, the owner of Eden looked more like a pulp comic book mobster than someone living in the real world. Even his hair had been taken out of cornrows and was now slicked back like a used car salesman.

Dressed like that, Levi should have been fighting Batman or Dick Tracy; not sitting across from Damien in a beat up old easy chair. The only piece of clothing that Damien had seen before just now were the snake skin shoes that Levi had been wearing when he was doing the James Franco drug dealer look.

“But…why are you cutting me off? Will you at least tell me that much?” Damien implored.

“First off,” Levi said standing up, “I am under no obligation to supply you with Re-Lease for free. The little bottle I left in your shoes said ‘Free Sample’, not ‘Free Subscription.’ Nothing in this world is for free.” He closed the short distance between them and leaned into Damien’s face, wagging his finger.

“Second off,” he continued, “I gave you enough pills to last for at least three months, and yet this is only the third time you’ve been at my club. Those were meant as incentives for you to return, not to go and get high somewhere else.” Levi turned his back to Damien.

“Third off,” he went on, “like I said, those pills were supposed to last you for three months, and yet here you are, hat in hand, asking for more a mere two months later. That tells me that you’re taking more than one a night. This stuff is like any drug; if you take too much at once it’ll fuck you up.” He walked to the door and Gary stepped aside for him.

Levi swung it open and said, “So to sum it up, I made no promises and I’m cutting you off for the good of my business and the good of your health.” He made a sweeping gesture directing Damien to leave. “Now get out. I’ve got a club to run.”

Damien didn’t budge. Hearing that he wouldn’t get any more of that sweet Re-Lease was causing him to hyperventilate. His heart was pounding against his ribcage. He couldn’t leave empty handed. Delilah was waiting for him in the car, and other than begging people in line, Levi was his only remaining hope. When they realized that they had had less than a week of Re-Lease between the two of them, they had spent the last several days at Damien’s apartment, trying to research where they could get more.

Either Delilah hadn’t noticed the huge mess that Damien’s apartment had become, or she didn’t care. Making sure that neither of them ran out of Re-Lease was the priority, not cleanliness. They had spent the last few nights, the glow of her tablet and his computer screen being the only thing illuminating their faces as they both searched for something, anything, any little piece of information that might let them know more about this stuff and where they could acquire it besides from Levi. The thing is, as far as the internet seemed to be concerned, the drug didn’t exist. No such street name or any drug with Re-Lease’s effects, be they illegal or pharmaceutical, could be found. Coming back to Levi had literally been the last option for the two junkies.

“YOU’RE WRONG!” he shouted hysterically, his voice cracking like a teenager’s.

“Excuse me?” Levi’s gaze bore into Damien. “What did you just say?”

“I said, ‘you’re wrong,” Damien replied, a little less loudly this time. “I haven’t been overdosing. I’ve just been sharing it.”

“With who?” Levi’s eyes narrowed under his fedora.

“My girlfriend,” Damien told him. “Delilah.”

A void of silence filled the room. Levi shifted his weight slightly, staring Damien dead in the eyes. Strangely, the floorboards didn’t creak under his feet as he did so.

“Heh,” Levi chuckled briefly. “heh heh. Hehehehe,” the laughter built. “BWAH-ha-ha-ha-HA-HA-HA-HA!” Levi bent over, cackling at the top of his lungs. “You think…heh-heh,” Levi wiped a tear away from his eye, “heh-heh, that that little pill rat is your girlfriend? HA-HAHAHAHA-HA! And you’ve been sharing your Re-Lease with her?” he kept laughing through his words.

“I knew she fucked ya that one night, kid,” Levi said, his cheeks tightened into a smile, “But I didn’t think she was trying to screw ya, too.”

“What?” Damien demanded to know. He felt like he was on the outside of an inside joke. He was feeling more than slightly defensive.

“That first night you both came,” Levi explained, “she was trollin’ around the dance floor, shaking her thing. That part’s par for the course,” he added, “but she kept bugging my staff about where she could find more Re-Lease. She racked up a pretty big bill on using my private rooms too.” Damien must have looked hurt. “What? Do you think you were the first person she wrote her phone number on their palm that night? You weren’t. Don’t ask me how she snuck that sharpie marker in here, either.”

“An addict shows their true colors the moment they get their buzz,” Levi lectured. “And hers were all red-and-yellow-kill-a-fellow the moment she got in the club.” Damien’s heart felt like it was breaking. How could this be true?

“Lemme guess, kid. You called her, took her out to dinner and things got awkward.”

Damien nodded, the bewilderment plain on his face.

“Then, desperate to make that connection you made in the club, you suggested you come back here.”

Once again, Damien nodded. How could Levi know this?

“Then she’s like, ‘But I can’t get into the club.’” Levi did a mocking, prissy imitation. “Then you mention that you’ve still got some extra pills and you’re the white knight coming to her rescue.” It was like Levi was reading his mind.

“That explains it,” Levi nodded to himself. “Don’t feel so bad, kid,” he clapped Damien on the shoulder lightly, “you’re not the first that she’s tricked into giving away your buzz, but you’re definitely the longest con she’s pulled. Most of the other guys got tired of her after a week. ”

Damien slumped in his chair. Other guys. If Levi was telling the truth, he’d been duped. That must be the reason why Delilah didn’t want to come here and why even now she was waiting in the car instead of coming with him.

“Delilah must have gotten you good,” Levi commented, “You must be hooked on her if you’re sharing your stuff with her and not even coming to the club to get the most out of it. She better be giving you some good pussy for what you’re sharing with her.”

“Actually,” Damien mumbled, “we haven’t had…y’know…since our first night together.” They had started to, to be sure, but every time they had begun, a hauntingly familiar, mocking, motherly, voice echoed in Damien’s subconscious. “You’re supposed to make cummies in your diaper! Not outside it!” and Damien had lost the desire. Delilah, who had been patient, (but probably not actually interested in him that way, the more he now thought about it) contented herself with cuddling Damien and his ever expanding collection of stuffed animals.

Levi practically fell over laughing. “You mean,” he gasped between laughter, “she’s not even….? And you’re giving her….? You’re not getting anything outta…? Oh good God in Heaven kid, you are too fuckin’ naive. Isn’t that hilarious Gary?”

If Gary thought it was funny, Damien couldn’t tell.

Damien sat there and took the mocking and the abuse; letting it absorb into him like a sponge. He felt like a fool. His vision became blurred as tears of humiliation welled up in his eyes. Had he really been played that badly? Was he really such a patsy?

Damien felt Levi’s hand land back on his shoulder and he looked up through teary, heartbroken eyes.

“Hey, you got played, kid.” Levi told Damien. “The way I see it. You’ve got two choices: You can one, start over from scratch with this girl and see if she likes you for who you really are. Maybe I’m wrong. Who knows? Or,” he reached into his breast pocket and took out a pill bottle filled to the brim, “you can cut all ties with her, go into Eden and be innocent again for a night.”

“How much?” Damien asked, his eyes fixated on the pills.

“The price is you cut off all ties with that little pill rat. Right now.”

“But she’s in my car, waiting for me.”

“Those are my conditions,” Levi said firmly. “You either go back to your car empty handed, or you go into my club with a new bottle of Re-Lease. There is no in between. That’s how the Great Game was played in the original Eden, that’s how I play it here.”

Damien didn’t know what Levi was talking about, and didn’t care. He took the pill bottle from Levi and started to walk out of the old office and downstairs towards the receiving area on the main floor. Then he thought for a second.

“Hey Levi?” Damien called back.

“What, newbie?” the club owner called back, poking his head out of the doorway.

“What’s with all the costumes?

Levi shrugged. “A leopard can’t change its spots, but a snake can always shed its skin.” He smiled and gave Damien a knowing wink.

“And where’s that huge dick you wear when you do the satyr bit?” Damien pressed.

Levi looked puzzled for a second, and then his eyes sparkled with recognition. “Hah! Kid, that dick stays in my pants wherever I walk.”

“You mean?”

“That’s the only thing I’ve got that’s not part of the costume.”

“You got a lot of costumes?” Damien asked, still descending back down to Eden.

“Yeah, why?”

“Then how come I’ve only seen you wear those snake skin shoes?”

Levi paused for a beat. “I like to remember where I came from, newbie. They keep me humble.”

Damien also didn’t know what that meant, but he accepted the answer and proceeded back down the stairs.

“Hey, newbie,” Levi called out. Damien turned back around. “Everyone notices the dick, but nobody asks about the shoes. Tell the girl that signs you in that everything is comped tonight, just cuz I like ya.”

The phone in Damien’s locker at the club rang later that night. The following voicemail was left for him to discover the next morning:

“Hey Damien, fuck you, you, like, abandoned me,” Delilah screamed at Damien’s voicemail. “I was waiting in your car for hours. I took a cab and made it back home. Thanks for worrying about me, asshole.”

Best. Night. Ever.