L.A. Rotten Read Online Free Page A

living room furniture, isn’t much better than a room at an Offramp Inn, but at least it’s uncluttered. I drop the milk crate beside the door, grateful there’s no pet to feed or walk or to which attention must otherwise be paid. I know I should think about food myself, but suddenly unable to compete with the itch, I head straight for my bedroom and grab the wooden XAVA cigar box off the top of my dresser. Dropping down onto my full-sized bed, I mash a pillow between the small of my back and the wall and dig into my stash. That Popsicle gobbler at the motel, he was sick, a slave to the crack, poor bastard. Heroin is my drug of choice. It’s infinitely more expensive, so I’m just happy its hold on me is minor—more than I’d like, sure, but far more tolerable than the alternative. Aggressive, I kick off my work boot, just the one, and grab the tip of my sweat-wet sock to yank it free.
    Flipping the cedar cigar box lid open reveals the mechanicals of my bad habit: spoon, syringe, lighter, and baggie of eight pill capsules, each filled with clumpy brown dust. All told, two grams of Afghani powder. This probably means I’ve helped fund terrorism. I accept this only because, with not a single note of exaggeration or hyperbole, I can honestly say that heroin is the most delightful thing I have ever done in my life. If I could function on it, I would stay in its milky clutch all of my days. There is absolutely no finer way to forget your shit than with a needle-sized burst of injected H. Besides, heroin is all about equality—it comes in all the colors of people: yellow, brown, white, black. I’ve only ever done brown, but brown is all I need. Let the aristocrats experiment; I’m strictly blue collar.
    —
    Casting my sock into the abyss beyond the horizon line of my bed, I wriggle my toes, stimulating blood flow, and take an alcohol swab from my nightstand. Needle drugs should only be done by tidy people, and even then, only by those with a firm understanding of the circulatory system. Going subcutaneous can result in a “heroin blister,” which is an ugly, painful lump that swells up on your body for an unpleasant few hours. Besides, missing a vein dilutes good skag. Pretty much the worst place on the body to inject heroin, aside from your cock, is between your toes. This is the reason I keep alcohol swabs beside my bed. The risk of infection is high due to the natural buildup of sweat and bacterial fungus, so cleanliness is paramount. Also, you’ve got to worry about the veins—they’re tiny and easy to collapse, which can result in necrosis. No, if you’ve got any choice in the matter, stick that motherfucker in your arm or behind your thumb, where the veins are fat and easy to tap. Me, I don’t have a choice in the matter. If Duane, my parole officer, sees another “mosquito bite” on my arm, I’ll be right back in lockup. And I’m not going back to jail—it’s where I picked up this damned beautiful obsession in the first place.
    The one drawback to brown heroin is that it’s coarser than its refined China white sister, so much so that distilled water doesn’t make it soluble enough. This is why I also keep a bottle of lemon juice next to my bed: citric acid works wonders on my beloved brown. Crush open one of the pill capsules into the pit of my well-worn metal spoon, add a quick squirt of the lemon juice, and apply heat. Once you’ve got the beginnings of a boil, you’re ready. Early on, I would overcook my mix and waste a lot of good H in the process. My cellmate used to stir the pot with the plunger of the syringe, but on the outside you’ve got to stop and clean the tip of the plunger, or else you’re defeating the purpose of the cotton balls. Sticking a cotton ball into the thick of the spoon collects the liquid and keeps your veins from inheriting impurities that can lead to blocked veins and necrosis. Really, with a jones for intravenous heroin, overdosing is one of your smaller