Janessa had a date. She had a date, and I had to bring her to the hotel to meet her date. Janessa and I had been awake for going on five days in a row. She had now set up a date, several of them as a matter of fact, putting the ad up on Backpage, the 30-Something, Down to Earth Green-Eyed Beauty was making commitments with certain parties about meeting at certain times and places. Setting up these dates required careful pharmaceutical control of her mood. Janessa smoked cocaine to motivate her and give her the energy to make the arrangements. And the most important thing before a date is a carefully calibrated shot of heroin. With the down, Janessa didn’t mind the job. It’s possible she enjoyed it. When she was down she was destroyed, in general. Didn’t have to think about anything too carefully. Cash up front, avoid talking a lot of detail about the encounter. Janessa will take care of you. She’s gotchu. At her best Jan was a tender, reassuring, and helpful provider.
The obvious issue arises, about this hit of down. So many things can go wrong. Shower, hair, makeup, shoes, everything taken care of. Then the shot. A half hour later, somewhat visibly impaired, only bleeding a little from her wrist, she said let’s go, and we drove to the Westbrook end of town, meeting her date at his motel room. I dropped her off, parked. She entered the motel, then came back out. “OMG, I can’t even believe it, this isn’t the right place! Hahaha… go to the Mall in SoPo. You know those round hotels there? That’s where my guy is.”
About this time, I started to understand how floridly impaired our poor Janessa is. I yelled at her sharply just to keep her awake. She wanted to stop to buy beer. I refused. The hotel in SoPo wasn’t the right one either, and now Janessa was semi-hysterical and semi-comatose. I was furious; she was defensive. I was yelling, we were on Warren Avenue, having driven around uselessly for over an hour, it was now about 2:30 am, we were no closer to meeting her date, and Janessa felt I was being unfair (she was right), was attacking her (right again), and she experienced an overwhelming need to get out of the car and walk home (it was about 5½ miles; there were passing showers). I let her out, and drove off, leaving her hoisting her two bags over one shoulder and walking up the road. It only took a short drive for me to realize how exposed I had left Jan, incoherent and obviously unable to take care of herself, as well as combative, probably carrying, and out on bail with “no-drugs” bail conditions. I turned around and drove back to pick her up.
She’d walked over to the corner of the Happy Wheels roller rink, which had closed for the night hours before, and was stooping to sort things from one ho bag to the other, so I drove in and pulled right up to her, opened the windows, shut off the engine and headlights. She yowled like a cat, wanting me to leave, but I explained to her slowly and rationally how exposed she was out here. She got into the car finally, but not until I had turned the headlights on her full-on bright, highlighting her pupils dilated to pin-points, reflecting red like a cat in a snapshot. I may have blinked the high-beams on and off, and definitely laid on the horn to scare her into the car. It worked. The fact we weren’t arrested can only stem from a deity’s sense of humor, no doubt saving me for worse depredations later. Janessa had screamed at me as I honked the horn, that her family was somehow related to the roller rink, and it was fear of family turmoil and shame that brought her back into the car. I carefully noted to myself this new scruple.
I don’t remember the rest of the night, but I know without a doubt, it continued unpleasantly for days and weeks and months. I never found out what happened with the date. The information was supposedly on her phone, but she wouldn’t let me look at her phone. One night soon after, I took her phone, held it in two hands, and smashed it over the sharp wooden post that stuck up from the back of the wooden chair beside my bed. When the screen stayed lit, I flipped it over, turned it 90 degrees, and repeated the impalement move. That did the trick—broke the back of that little Samsung J3 I had bought for her just a couple of months before, and which I would replace again in 18 hours. Janessa attempted to punish me, taunting me that her phone had all our dealers’ phone numbers. Hahahaha! I bellowed. It’s fucking backed up, you witch.
Bitchez 