Needles In The Haystack


Copyright (C) Will Kemp 1993


For reproduction rights see file sp001039.txt


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

     Well, i reckon it must be about time for me to come out of the 
closet. From here on, the story get a bit personal and i don't think 
i can keep writing it in the detached way i have so far.
     I'm Phil. And up to now the story has been mainly my 
observations of other people. But it's come to the point where i 
can't help getting much more personally involved. Everything that 
happened in the lives of Sally and Anton from when me and Sally 
started sleeping together had an effect on me, but a lot of things 
changed when sally got that last letter from Anton. Somehow, i was 
drawn more deeply into the events and circumstances which shaped 
Sally's life from that point. And although i realize we don't have 
any control over what happens to other people, i've never quite been 
able to escape from feeling responsible for the way things turned 
cut later. But this will all become clearer as the story goes on.
     Maybe i should say a bit about myself, before i carry on with 
the story of Anton and Sally - which at this point has become my 
story too.
     I was born in europe, not far from London, somewhere around 
thirty years ago. Thirty sometimes seems old to me, but it sort of 
crept up while my back was turned and grabbed me while i wasn't 
looking. At times, i still feel like i'm in my early twenties. Time 
has just gone so fast since those days.
     Part of the reason why thirty took me so much by surprise was 
probably because i was in australia. This gave me a lot of other 
things to occupy my mind with and allowed the new decade in my life 
to sneak up, apparently insignificantly.
     Most of those other things that were on my mind at that time 
weren't particularly pleasant. They mainly involved feelings like 
being lost, disorientated and not having anywhere in the world i 
could ever call home again. I think that period of your life around 
thirty is a time when a lot of people feel this sort of thing. And i 
know that area of the world known as australia is a place where 
almost everyone seems to feel it to so me degree at all ages.
     I never used heroin before i came to australia. That doesn't 
necessarily mean that coming to this country made me a heroin 
addict. But migrating did leave me with very little in my life other 
than that overwhelming feeling of global homelessness. A friend in 
Sydney, who had just been evicted from a squat for no good reason, 
once said: "Home comes in a Terumo lml disposable syringe!" And 
there is certainly something to that. Somehow, you don't feel so 
lost when you're stoned. That globally homeless sensation is 
replaced by the feeling that you're a citizen of the world. That 
"instant home" is probably the most addictive ingredient of heroin.

                                   *

     Sally had been back in australia for a couple of months when 
she started using. She talked about it,quite a few times before she 
did it and i tried as hard as i could to convince her not to.
     "I've done it before, you know." she'd say. "I do know what 
it's like." But she did seem to listen to my arguments against it. 
At first, anyway.
     "It's like migration." i'd tell her. "Once you've migrated, 
that's it, you've done it and your life will never be the same 
again. You can't unmigrate. Going back is just migrating again - 
only in the other direction." She knew what i meant. "With smack, 
once you start using, you can't unstart. It's too late. You've done 
it.
     "There's nothing really wrong with either smack or migration. 
But i'd never recommend either of them to anyone. They can both fuck 
up your life for ever!" But, at the same time, i found it hard to 
tell someone they shouldn't do something i do. And in the end, she 
did it anyway.
     She started just asking me to get her some, or give her some of 
mine, but i refused. Eventually she said: "Right, i'm going down to 
the station to get some myself tomorrow!" So i went with her. I 
didn't stop her - and i know i couldn't have, even if i'd wanted to, 
but knowing that doesn't really help much. I still didn't.
     I asked her why she wanted to use smack and she replied: "Just 
to see what it's like."
     "But you know what it's like. You don't like it!"
     "Maybe ... But it's a long time since i tried it. I can't 
remember. I might like it now. Anyway, everyone else uses. I feel 
kind of left out, like i can't communicate properly with all of you. 
Specially when you're stoned."
     So it was weird watching Sally fumbling with the needle, trying 
to hit herself up for the first time (she'd never done it herself 
before). I offered to help her, but she wouldn't let me - she had to 
do the whole thing on her own. I remembered what it was like when i 
first did it - just the same. A bloody mess! But she eventually got 
the vein and she looked pleased with herself as she lay back on the 
bed, with the rush flooding over her.
     So, i thought, are you going to join the ranks of the Goonabah 
junkies now? Or will this one time be enough?
     But that one time wasn't enough - not by a long way. And Sally 
began to get quite serious about the stuff. She kept it really well 
under control in those days, but she was right into it just the 
same. She seemed to like it then as much as she'd hated it before. 
It was weird to see the change in her. She was still happy. If 
anything, she was happier - having conquered a major fear in her 
life, i suppose. But she was different.
     There goes another one ... I couldn't help thinking. Another 
european life lost in australia! That was how i was feeling at the 
time, about coming to this country. It's something i've felt 
strongly, on and off. And i reckon i've almost always felt it deep 
down. Stranded in a strange country, surrounded by people i don't 
like and can't understand.
     With the exception of a small minority of australians, i've 
never felt i had anything even vaguely in common with the people in 
this country - despite the commonly held myth that the cultures of 
australia and britain are the same. Although i've never been to 
either country, i'm sure i'd feel much less out of place in jamaica 
or india than i do in australia. I can't imagine anywhere that could 
have a culture more different to british culture than australia's 
is.
     I've been through periods of hating australia intensely. Not 
the land itself, but the people, and what they've done to the land 
out of their greed and fear. It's true, of course, that there's not 
much left of nature in britain - or the rest of europe. But i reckon 
it's down to population density and survival there, where here it's 
pure greed. The aboriginal band Coloured Stone sing a song called 
"Island of Greed", which i feel sums it up very nicely.
     The other thing i've always hated about australia is the racism. 
It's got to be one of the most racist countries in the world. 
Everywhere i go, some aussie wanker is whingeing about asians - how 
they're taking over the country. They're not. But what do they 
think THEIR ancestors did, anyway?
     Apartheid here might have been erased from the law books (in 
most states) but it's still as strongly ingrained in the lives of 
black and white australians as it ever has been.
     Multi-cultural australia: The aussies hate the asians and don't 
trust the poms. They don't mind blacks - so long as they're not 
aborigines. Wogs (southern europeans etc) hate 'anglos'. everyone 
hates the americans and the french. Whites hate blacks. Aborigines 
don't like migrant blacks - because they come here and "turn white". 
Everyone is at everyone else's throats all the time. It makes me 
sick!
     Anyway, it was in this sort of mood that i started thinking 
about going to live in Melbourne for a while. I just felt i'd had 
enough of australia. I had to get out before much longer , or i'd go 
crazy. But to do that, i'd have to get some money - and Goonabah is 
not the sort of place you can do that.
     For some reason, during a stay in Melbourne once, i got myself 
a taxi driver's licence. This was about the only thing i could thing 
i could think of to do to get enough money to escape from these 
cursed shores (as i saw them then!)
     It was only about a month after Sally got back to Mainline when 
i started thinking like this, and i was hesitant, back then, about 
doing anything. I talked about it with her - going to Melbourne, and 
leaving australia. But she'd only just arrived back in.Mainline and 
she didn't seem to be interested in travelling anywhere else for a a 
while. And although i would have liked it if we'd gone to Melbourne 
together, i knew she wasn't even remotely interested in leaving the 
country again. But as Sally was obviously going to stay in Mainline, 
and i rememvered that the last time i'd gone off south and left her 
there, i hadn't seen her again for a year, i didn't do anything 
about it. I preferred to spend time with her rather than work on my 
plans to escape from australia.
     At that time, Sally was still mainly happy most of the time. 
Occasionally she'd get depressed about Anton, but it wouldn't last 
long. It was strange for me in a way, having a relationship with a 
person who was obviously much more deeply in love with someone else 
than with me, and whose thoughts seemed to be with him so much of 
the time. But it didn't really bother me too drastically.We both 
knew what the score was - we were together when we were together, 
but there were to be no painful emotional ties.
     Then, of course, Anton's letter came and everything seemed to 
turn upside down. Sally sort of gave up on her relationship with him 
and this had an unexpected effect on her relationship with me. It 
was as if she channelled the emotions she kept for Anton towards me. 
It was a surprise, but it was a pleasant one, and in some ways it 
had the same effect on me. I seemed to unconsciously let go of the 
emotions i was holding back - emotions that were out of place in our 
relationship as it had been, and also which would have left me 
defenceless in the face of Sally's much stronger love for someone 
else.
     Then, of course, Sally started using, and the whole thing was 
thrown into turmoil again.
     So, in a way, after all this, i wasn't too surprised when she 
said: "Do you still want to go to Melbourne? Because if you do, i 
want to come too."
     Of course, right at that moment, i was going through a period 
of feeling ok about where i was. I wasn't desperate like i'd been 
before. So i didn't jump up and pack my bag straight away.
     It's like that usually - up and down. Like being glued to a 
pendulum which swings between two points marked "happy and content" 
and "depressed and deranged". You can't unstick yourself, so you're 
left swinging up and down, backwards and forwards with some mystical 
unfathomable rhythm. It seems to be possible to slow this rhythm 
down by dragging your feet along the ground. But of course you can 
only do this when the pendulum is at the bottom of its swing - 
halfway between happy and depressed. It's also possible to speed it 
up - just start using smack. This sometimes helps accentuate the 
mood swings and make them come faster - specially if you don't use 
every day.
     Using every day pretty well gets you off the pendulum 
altogether. Particularly if you're smart enough - and lucky enough - 
to keep the cash flow up so you never end up hanging out. But it 
doesn't last forever. Not very long at all, usually, which is 
unfortunate.
     I wasn't using smack every day at that time, so it didn't take 
long for my mood to change again. And within a week we were on our 
way south.
     Sally didn't want to go via Sydney, so we hitched down the 
inland route. It wasn't much fun - but then it's been a long time 
since i enjoyed hitching - although it didn't really take very long. 
Not much more than twenty four hours after we left, we watched the 
giant office blocks in Melbourne's centre appear over a hill in the 
Hume Highway. Then, before we knew it, we were driving down Sydney 
Road, through Coburg and then Brunswick. And into Royal Parade.
     The driver dropped us off at that crazy, enormous roundabout at 
the top of Elizabeth Street, where six roads and two tram lines meet 
in a deranged and dangerous jumble. This was exactly where we wanted 
to be. Right outside the front door, in fact.
     Bang on the edge of the roundabout, almost in the shadow of the 
ridiculously large flag pole - erected in phallic symbolism of the 
mentality of our mindless rulers, and flying a stupidly gigantic 
australian flag - stood the Lost City. A squat named by some 
grafitti which had been scrawled on one of its walls long before the 
squatters moved in. This was our destination.
     It had been a long time since i'd been to Melbourne, and i'd 
never been to this house before. But i knew all about it - where it 
was, when it was squatted and who lived there. The intelligence 
network that links the south eastern corner of australia is very 
efficient. Nothing happens - among our mob, anyway - in Melbourne, 
Sydney or Northern New South Wales, without everyone else hearing 
all about it very quickly. The network covers two thousand 
kilometres and four or five main points on that route.
     It's like a tightly-knit community, despite the vast ammount Of 
space separating each little segment from the others. Everyone knows 
everyone else. And everyone fits in to the scene wherever they are, 
instantly. The faces are all interchangeable - you might see them 
here one week and a thousand kilometres away the next. In a squat in 
Melbourne or Sydney or in some beaten-up old shack in the bush out 
in the wilds of Mainline. And they'll seem just as much at home 
wherever it is.
     There's a large nomadic tribe that seems to be constantly on 
the move up and down the southern half of the east coast of 
australia. Their territory stops just short of Brisbane - at the 
queensland border, in fact. Queensland is alien and hostile country. 
A police state where most of this mob don't dare set foot. They look 
too weird. They'd get arrested crossing the border. They'd have dope 
planted on them. They'd be bashed by the cops. Anyway, they don't 
know anyone there, so why bother?
     Gaz and Sheena were at home in the Lost City when we arrived. 
The other Lost Citizens were all out, but they reappeared gradually 
over the course of the afternoon. There were five people living 
there, although the house was big enough for four or five more. It 
had been offices once, but that was a while ago. Then it stood empty 
for a year or so, the windows getting. smashed and the place just 
generally falling into disrepair. Then the squatters moved in. 
Homeless and sickened by the waste of good housing space, they did 
it up. The electrics needed fixing, and the water. Doors, locks and 
windows. But still there were no railings on the stairs and night 
time drunks ran the risk of crashing to the floor below.
     In the kitchen a sign said: "Smak free house!"
     "What's this all about?" i asked, laughing, pointing to the 
sign .
     "We got sick of people coming round and using this place as a 
shooting gallery!" Sheena said. "It was the only way we could think 
of to stop it. It's a bit of a drag sometimes, when one of us wants 
a hit, but it's still better this way."
     We stayed at the Lost City for a while. Spending the evenings 
with the rest of the residents, sitting on the long first floor 
balcony, drinking stubbies and watching the cars crashing on the 
roundabout below.

                                   * 

     It was spring, a great time to arrive in Melbourne. Unlike 
further north, they have pretty hard winters there and you can 
almost feel the relief in the air when the cold weather begins to go 
away and people start coming out of hibernation. After the weather 
in northern new south wales, it was still a bit chilly for us, but 
to the people who'd spent the winter here, it was heaven.
     Sally didn't seem like she was in heaven but. She was really 
spun out by being in the city again after so long in the bush. The 
first two or three days, she spent most of her time in bed, only 
getting up in the evenings to sit on the balcony and drink beer. She 
kept on saying she wanted a taste, but i didn't have any contacts in 
Melbourne and the other people in the house deemed to be trying not 
to use, so i didn't really feel like hassling them about it. Anyway, 
we didn't have any money.
     But about the fourth or fifth day in Melbourne, it was Sally's 
dole day and she disappeared before i got up that morning. I was 
really surprised when she arrived back in the early afternoon 
stoned. She had some for me too, already mixed up in a fit. 
Conscious of the house no-smack rule, i thought about going out to 
have it. But in the end, i broke the rule and hit it up then and 
there. I couldn't see what difference it would make anyway.
     The dope was really good, and i asked Sally where she'd got it 
from, but she wouldn't tell me. She just tapped the side of her nose 
and said:"That's for me to know and you to find out!"
     "Considering how recently you started using," i said, "you're 
getting pretty bloody good at being a junkie! I don't reckon i could 
just go out in Melbourne and score like that."
     "I might've only just started using myself," she replied, "But 
i've spent a lot of time hanging around with junkies, don't forget. 
It sort of rubs off on you!"
     My dole day was a couple of days after Sally's, so i could feel 
a binge coming on. "I'd better go and get meself a taxi job." i 
said, "Before we run out of money completely."
     "Yeah. I'm going to get some sort of work too." Sally told me 
after a while. "I'm fucked if i know what though. Maybe i should go 
and work in a brothel. Then i could be stoned all the time! I think 
i'm going to need to be if i'm goina to stay in the city very long."
     "Oh yeah?" I was vaauely shocked at Sally talking like that. 
She really seemed to have changed a lot recently. But i still 
couldn't imagine her as a prostitute. The effect it had on me was 
strange thinking about her fucking other men for money - it made me 
feel a bit nervous in some way. Even through the smack haze.
     The Lost Citizens didn't appear to be too impressed with our 
stoned condition, when we eventually emerged from our room.
     "I didn't have it in the house." Sally said to one of them. I 
just kept my mouth shut.
     The next morning i went out and managed to line myself up a cab 
driving job starting in a couple of days. When i got home, Sally was 
stoned again. She handed me a loaded fit without saying anything 
much. You really are getting into this junkie game in a big way! i 
thought, but i didn't say anything.
     It was weird in a way. Or at least, i had trouble understanding 
it, anyway. How Sally seemed to have suddenly become so intent on 
being a junkie. I shouldn't have found it hard to understand really, 
but it just didn't fit with what i'd known of her before. It was 
almost as if the side of her that was coming out was something she'd 
kept suppressed up to now. Something that, now she had an excuse, 
she was letting come out and take over. I suppose i've noticed that 
about people before, when they start using smack. But it had maybe 
never been quite so close to me as it was with Sally.
     I've always been aware that heroin doesn't really change 
people's personality. They're still the same person after they start 
using as they were before. Why a lot of people do change is because 
they've got an excuse to. They can burgle houses and say "I'm a 
junkie!" They can rip off their mates and say "I'm a junkie, i can't 
help it!" They can be complete arseholes, just like they've always 
wanted to be and blame it all on the smack. In reality, half the 
time they probably wouldn't have bothered using at all if they 
hadn't wanted an excuse to let their real personality out. But not 
all junkies are like that, fortunately!
     And this isn't what Sally was like. She didn't change in those 
fundamental ways. But she did become more relaxed with herself less 
inhibited in some ways. As if she'd broken out of a prison she 
hadn't really known she'd been in. Suddenly her perspective had 
changed. Maybe she'd seen a different world when she was stoned one 
time. Or maybe she reckoned if she could stick needles in her arm 
she could do anything. You break one fear - or one heavy element of 
conditioning - and all the rest tend to begin to weaken and crumble.
     So she started working. Just as taking smack is often known 
just as "using", so prostitution is known simply as "working". And 
she was amazed at herself for being able to do it.

                                ***