July 1997

It was sunny and hot, the middle of summer. I steered the Camaro up the cracked cement streets that switch-backed their way up the east side of Queen Anne Hill. Cars sat parallel parked on each side of the street, baking in the sun. I pulled up outside Layne’s and stubbed out my cigarette. His old red Pontiac Bonneville and a new Harley Springer were parked outside. He was expecting me so he opened the door when I knocked. I made my way to the living room and sat down on the floor. His apartment was nice, but not really a home, half lived in or half moved out of. A leather couch sat crookedly in the center of the living room, the only piece of furniture. A collection of spoons, syringes, glass pipes and plastic hoses were strewn around on smudged newspapers in front of it. The blinds were closed as usual, shutting out the light and with it the panoramic view of Puget Sound.

Layne had stopped touring with Alice in Chains a few years before. After that he’d done a few things, the Mad Season album, a couple of shows, but he hadn’t left Seattle except for the Alice in Chains Unplugged show in New York. His girlfriend had died of endocarditis, a heart infection at Harborview last October. She’d always wanted him to quit, and he’d always wanted her to quit, and neither of them had ever been able to. I’d seen that before, junkies had lots of good ideas, they just never seemed to be able to use them on themselves.  

We sat down on the living room floor and did the deal. I didn’t have anyone else to meet that day so I hung out while Layne shot up and smoked crack. We talked a little but, as usual, there was not much to say. Despite that there was an odd comfort level, more than the basic junkie comrade thing.

I’d cut down on my customers more than ever, and was only meeting about six or eight people every day, people who had money, or at least didn’t have to steal or scam, customers who bought a lot and I could be pretty sure were safe. Every day I would wake up around 11AM, shoot up, go to The B&O Café, have a warm croissant with butter and jam and some coffee, then make my rounds until around four. I would start work after the morning rush hour and quit before the evening rush. If I worked later than I planned, I would wait until seven or so, when the rush was over, before going home.

I’d lost a lot of weight, probably about thirty pounds. I only worked for a few hours every day, rarely leaving my car, then after I went to Monica’s apartment, did shots, stared at the TV and nodded out. I wasn’t making as much money as I used to, but I still had about thirty-five grand stashed out at my mom’s. I could have worked more, made more money, bought a bunch of things, nice clothes, but there was no reason to. In fact, I never bought anything except another used car when the one I was driving broke down. I could have bought a nice mask of respectability, a cool outlaw drug dealer mask, I could have worn trendy clothes and driven expensive cars, I probably could even have bought a house if I’d wanted. But it would have been a lie. And despite everything, I still hated lies more than anything else. This was where I belonged. These were my people, the outcasts, the losers, the misfits. The ones who had not. The ones God forgot.

Sufficiently high, Layne decided we should take a ride on his new bike, the Harley outside. Having nothing better to do I said sure. It was starting to get dark, and I hung on as he steered the bike down the skinny streets, coming close to the cars on each side, the beam of the headlight sweeping back and forth across the road. The bike felt huge and powerful, and the way it was weaving it seemed like it had a mind of its own and could suddenly go out of control and crash at any second and there was nothing either one of us could do about it. We made it to the bottom of Queen Anne, rode through Belltown and stopped at Bad Animals recording studio on 4th. I wasn’t sure why Layne wanted to stop there, but I didn’t ask. It wasn’t my deal, I was just along for the ride. The place was empty except for one guy running around, a watchman maybe, although he didn’t look like one. We went into one of the sound booths and Layne spread out his pipes and hoses and contraptions on the leather padding of the soundboard, the glass and plastic parts all stained dark brown with coke residue. He put the Mad Season album on the sound system. I’d heard it before but I suddenly realized that Layne’s voice seemed better, sharper than on the Alice in Chains albums, where the producers had made the mistake of drowning his naturally gifted voice under layers and layers of overdubs. I don’t know anything, I don’t know anything, I don’t know anything, I don’t know who I am….

Layne assembled his latest gadget and demonstrated it for me, a crack pipe attached to a long flexible plastic hose designed to snake up the inside of his sleeve. I hadn’t done coke since the OD in Dick’s bathroom, for some strange reason I hadn’t felt like it, but when Layne offered I did some anyway. I wasn’t sure if I was doing it wrong, or if shooting had spoiled me, but like every other time I had smoked crack I couldn’t feel it. After Layne smoked for a while we headed up to see Mark Lanegan. The sun had gone down all the way and the lights of the city had come on. It was still warm, and the breeze that funneled through the downtown buildings felt good. Layne weaved the Harley down Fourth Avenue, then turned up Pike toward First Hill.

I’d been selling to Mark regularly for about a year, since Screaming Trees split up. I would usually stop by his apartment once a day, then he’d burn through what I sold him and call me late at night after I’d closed for more. Eventually I began hiding pieces of heroin in his apartment when he wasn’t looking, and when he called me in the middle of the night I would tell him where they were, and just collect the money the next day. His apartment was a wreck. In the living room a path snaked its way through mountains of books and records that were piled everywhere. I gave Mark some dope, then sat down on the floor and flipped through stacks of records looking for old Stranglers albums. Mark disappeared into the bedroom and I stashed a half-gram inside a CD and put it back on the shelf.

On our way back to Layne’s we rode through downtown. It was fully dark now, around midnight. The lights of the city seemed to stretch as we rode past them, like my eyes couldn’t quite keep up. At First and Pike we came to a red light. The Donut Hole, the porno theatres and the crummy bars were all gone. New buildings were being put up in their place, shiny glass and steel, but something had been lost in the transition. They were trying to clean up this part of town, make it safe for tourists.

The Champ Arcade sign drew my eye, with its hundreds of flashing yellow and white light bulbs. It and The Showbox were all that remained of the old world. The stoplight changed to green, Layne gunned the engine and we were off again, weaving all over the road. I resigned myself to just hang on and closed my eyes. Whatever was going to happen would happen. It was out of my hands.



December 13, 1993.

See the Nirvana Live & Loud concert in Seattle - 12.13.1993

I was parked under the Alaskan Way Viaduct. The driver's side window was open a crack and smoke from my cigarette trailed up, then took a bend near the roof like it had a mind of its own and disappeared out the window. The whooshing sound of cars and the clack clack of tires came down from the viaduct overhead. The sun was about to set and it beamed in from the west, reflecting off the Sound.

I’d been making a lot of money. After expenses and what I was shooting I was pulling in close to a thousand dollars a day. It was way too much to safely have lying around, so for the last few months I’d been meeting my mom once a week, usually in a grocery store parking lot. She knew about my drug use and the dealing, I’d never tried to hide it from her. There was no use pretending anymore, never had been, really. At first she was worried that the cops would come after her, but I convinced her it was safe. No one would suspect my mom, a typical sweet church going old lady, of being in cahoots with a drug dealer. And besides, she didn’t have a choice. It was the only time she got to see me. I didn’t have a choice either. She was the only person I trusted. I certainly wasn’t going to put my money in a goddamned bank.

I’d never been able to do anything for very long. But I had made this last, for seven years now, like I had finally found out who I was and what I was supposed to be doing in this life. I had found a level of existence where I could function and thrive. I had found stability in a world where there was none. I didn’t feel smug, and I didn’t run around flaunting my new wealth, it was simply that for the first time since working on my uncle’s farm, I felt useful. I knew what I was doing. The ground was solid, not always shifting.

I knew it was against the law. But the laws regarding drugs were inconsistent and arbitrary. I had seen much more mayhem, pain and suffering come from booze, and if they were going to keep saying that drinking was just fine, even encourage it, I was going to make up my own rules. I also knew that I was destroying myself, and that it would probably end badly. But I was willing to pay that price. It was better than being nothing.

I enjoyed it, having people need you and count on you and coming through for them. At the very least it kept me busy, and it inspired in me less despair than anything else I’d done for a living. I loved the driving around town all day, never in a hurry, but always with a destination, completely outside the madness of the rat race. This must have been how things used to be, I thought, in my dad’s day. You left home, kicked around for a bit, then found a job, something you were good at, a simple job where you could make a decent living. This must be what people meant when they talked about ‘financial security.’

Kurt and Dylan stood across Alaskan Way waiting for a break in traffic. The cars finally let up, they started across and I stubbed out my cigarette. I’d been giving my customers nicknames, there were so many it was just easier that way, but with these two, Kurt in particular, it was impossible. Everyone in the world knew who Kurt Cobain was. He’d established a name so big that it was impossible to call him anything else.

They got into the car, Kurt in front. He was wearing a plaid coat and ripped jeans, his hair was greasy and he had big sunglasses on. I hadn’t seen him for a while, and asked him how he was doing. He looked tired, and mumbled something about those fuckers in New York, then looked at me for a second, smiled a bit, and then stared out the window. Dylan explained. Nirvana had played Saturday Night Live the week before and when they’d arrived in NYC, there were limos waiting, hordes of music and TV people everywhere, photographers, fans, cameras, all rolling out the red carpet, fawning all over them. Kurt had ditched everyone, taken off in a cab and split, throwing the music and TV people into a panic that went on all day until he walked into the studio for the show that night.

I handed Kurt a piece of heroin and he handed me some money. It was a shame that the only times we met were under these conditions. I didn’t feel much solidarity for most people, even junkies, but I had the feeling we could have been friends given half a chance. The times we’d met before, in a hotel or one of his houses, he’d often sit and talk to me, most of the time about nothing, but obviously trying to keep the conversation going as if he didn’t want me to leave, like it was an immense relief for him to just sit and talk with someone who didn’t want something from him. It was very strange, he was one of the most visible people on Earth and I was the most invisible, and yet I had something he needed. Sometimes, I had to awkwardly tell him I had to go, and then extract myself.

The sun was setting over the Sound, and people had started gathering on the pier. Kurt’s face was kind of haunted, but he managed a smile. Then he broke my gaze and stared out the window again. Dylan and I finished doing a deal, and Kurt handed me a backstage pass to the show that night, something MTV was filming called Live and Loud. He extracted his lanky body out of the car, and flipped up the back seat. Dylan climbed out, shut the door, leaned in the window, “You should come back down for the show,” he said. I told him I probably would. They would probably want more heroin by then anyway. Kurt hunched up his coat, like a turtle retreating into his shell. They waved, and walked back across Alaskan Way, disappearing into the glare.

My beeper had been vibrating in my pocket for a few minutes. I turned on the car, lit a cigarette and got on First, turned left, then up Cherry Street to the freeway entrance and got on Interstate Five going north. Cars sped past me doing about eighty, tailgating and changing lanes like madmen. The irony hit me. I was the only polite and considerate person on the road, the only one observing certain laws of society. The only one not in a hurry.

A couple of exits later I got off and drove down to the Eastlake Deli-Grocery. The sun had just gone down but the city still glowed a little like it does at twilight. The streetlights had come on but it wasn’t really dark yet. I looked out at the shimmering surface of Lake Union and then at downtown on the other side. It was my town now. I knew it like the back of my hand. I was in my element. There were no complications, glitches, or surprises. If my car broke down or I nodded off and crashed, which had happened a few times now, I just left it there and got my backup, or bought another. I had money stashed to get me over any rough patches. If Beto or another supplier went away I had more. I was a businessman, and my business wasn’t that much more dangerous and risky than many others. It was odd, when I thought about it, that I’d found a measure of security selling heroin. It didn’t make sense, but as I was finally discovering, in this world not very much did. At least it was stable, not many people worked the same job for ten years anymore. Everyone else was just sitting around being entertained, giggling along with canned laughter as they were all reduced to underpaid temp workers. After using the pay phone to set up some deals, I crossed The University Bridge and followed the winding road along the north shore of Lake Union past Gas Works Park toward Fremont, a neighborhood of old hippies, nudist sun worshippers and hemp-wearing weirdos.

Humpty Dumpty got his name because he was shaped like an egg. He had fallen off the wall and right into the arms of heroin. His girlfriend answered the door, a gorgeous girl who sold lingerie downtown at Nordstorm’s or someplace. Humpty and his girlfriend were one of the great mysteries of the western world. After, I headed down Aurora Avenue to meet Pumpkinhead by Tower Records. He got his nickname because he had a huge head of red hair. I had been trying to weed out the customers like him. He ran around town all day every day stealing whatever he could from one place and then selling it somewhere else. He always wanted to meet on the street, and his huge red hair stood out like a beacon. Most of the time I ignored him and didn’t call back, but I had decided to go back to the show and figured what the hell, he was on the way. Of course he only wanted a fifty, the smallest amount I sold. And more often than not, he would act surprised when he only had forty-two dollars and some change and then make up some story about a hole in his pocket or the dog ate it or something. He was a bad actor.

My last stop was in Belltown to see The Prez. The President of The United States of America was a good customer, one of the best. He shared a name with one of the first US Presidents and lived in an old brown and white apartment building. He and his girlfriend Steff had moved up here from Atlanta. The Prez had a regular job and a regular habit, he was reliable and trustworthy, and was never short with the dough. He was well groomed, humble, and seemed like a guy with some integrity and self-respect. How he could have a regular job and a heroin habit at the same time I didn’t know, but whatever. Some people could do that. Not many, and none for very long that I’d ever seen.

I got back to the waterfront and parked under the Viaduct. A cold breeze was blowing in off The Sound. I wasn’t used to being out working this late. There was a large crowd of people milling around on the pier. When I got to the door, I flashed the backstage pass. Inside I wandered around the crowd for a while. Something had changed the last few years. I used to know half the people at shows, but now I didn’t recognize anyone, not one person. It’d happened in a moment it seemed, like I’d taken a nap, woken up and everything had changed, suddenly instead of ten bands in town there were five hundred, and instead of two clubs in town there were two hundred. It made me feel a little old and out of place.

Nirvana eventually started playing and I wandered out front, then through the crowd to the back of the hall. Pat Smear, the old guitar player from The Germs was playing with them. I listened for a few songs, hoping they would play Something In The Way. That had always been my favorite Nirvana song. Something in the way…mmhh…hmmm, Something in the way, yeah…mmhh…hmmm. There was definitely something in my way. Probably me. Shouting into Dylan’s ear, I told him I was leaving. There wasn’t any point in staying, this wasn’t my world anymore. It probably never had been. As I walked out I looked up at Kurt, on stage. It would be the last time I saw him. In a few months he would be dead.









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