Eating Worm

Page 6 of 6

Decisions, decisions. I had to make some choice, after I left the hospital the next morning. I made my way back to the Island, and back to Crash. It turned out he had OD’d at just about the same time that I was picked up off the street. It kind of freaked me out, because in the haze of the morphine drip, I had a dream where Crush told me that he was dead. Weird, huh?

I was there to bury him; although, I was whacked out of my skull at the time. His mother was in hysterics throughout the wake and funeral. She blames me for what happened to him. Poor Willard. I kind of think he was put on this earth just as a wake-up call for me. I checked into rehab about a week after he was put down.

It’s a county thing, so it isn’t the best, but I’ve been clean for three months now. On methadone, I don’t dream as often as I used to, and that’s something that I miss the most. I used to have vivid dreams.

I can’t wait to get off this stuff, but it takes a year and a half, they say. Some people have been on treatment for years, and even though they’re only in their thirties, they look like sixty, with their teeth yellowing and falling out, thinner than most dope addicts, and wrinkled, paper-thin skin. The treatment is worse than the dope if you don’t get off of it. The worst thing about it is you can stay alive for years on methadone. It’s hard to stay alive for years on heroine, easier to leave a beautiful corpse.

But I don’t want that anymore. Right now, my life is just starting over. I got a cheap place to live, and a cheap job to pay for it. I thank God I have no children. In little more than a year, I’ll be off the program and finally free. And then, I’ll be able to dream again.