Heather's brother was now under heavy police suspicion because the informants had finally cracked and given him up in addition to Heather. They knew he was the supplier and the feds came in because it was now a major drug case. Seeking an exit from the hot seat, Heather's brother began peddling other drugs through intermediaries, removing himself from the actual process. Heather was still his best distributor so he kept sending her the H, just kind of playing middle man. It was an inverse of Nick's M.O. He was directing Heather to the drugs, but keeping the supply a secret for security reasons, and just funneling off a profit on it. But now she was getting much more than H. She now had a hefty stash of pot and coke and painkillers. I spent a day or two at her house, not sleeping, wired on coke, watching the business. I came to know all the traits of her customers.

An H user will either score while sick and shoot up there, or take his stuff and leave. The H addict doesn't want to stop and chat. There's no room for that. The only conversation possible is about the drugs and about others using the drugs. For example, a junkie will hate another junkie for no clear reason. Brian hated Tobias (Tobey) for no clear reason. Tobey ran this scam selling account numbers from banks to a computer hacker. He just got the bank statements out of mailboxes. Walked right up and opened a mailbox and if there were statements or a new batch of checks or whatever, he'd take them and sell them to this hacker that had just graduated from school. The hacker got caught and gave Tobey up but the police were unable to prosecute. The federal DA's abandoned the case for reason that the confession seemed to be coerced and full of holes. Tobey was caught by the confession but not in a tight enough case to actually prosecute him. The hacker's defense was that he was studying computer science and was greatly interested in secure internet communication and thus this was all part of research for his hobby and chosen profession. The state didn't buy that and he was sentenced to five to ten at a medium security prison. The DA backed out of his plea deal (giving up Tobey) after they were unable to prosecute Tobey and he got the book thrown at him.

During this legal fracas, things were very tense at Heather's because of the possibility of Tobey turning on her. She gently sent out feelers to discover if Tobey would turn. All signs came back inconclusive and Brian fed the hysteria by proclaiming daily, "I heard that Tobey's been working with a DEA task force. You can't sell to him anymore. He's gonna do us all in." I knew that Brian just hated Tobey but Heather took it seriously. His reasoning was flimsy in my mind ("I just want to protect you." often accompanied with an even cagier explanation "...because if you go to jail then I won't have a connection anymore and won't be able to score." which was certainly more plausible but contained that old junkie trick of tarnishing a silver lining so that the lie appears more truthful) and his antipathy was obvious from a hundred paces away. Heather almost really did herself in by cutting Tobey off out of fear. But then charges were dropped for lack of evidence and Tobey was free, so Heather opened the supply to him again. Tobey turned around on her and pulled a Nick, playing middleman to uncool people that couldn't score for whatever reason. Unlike Nick, Tobey was no longer addicted and did this possibly out of spite.

In contrast to this sort of backstabbing, a marijuana user will be very friendly and sidle up with a grin. They like to sit around for hours talking about nonsense, music being a particular favorite. Heather tried to set up a marijuana distribution system so she wouldn't have these people over to her house. The junkies hated the potheads because they killed a buzz. They would go on and on about how H is a bad drug and it'll just fuck up your life and kill you. Everyone at Heather's den of iniquity hated them, even me. They had the gall to come up and suggest something they had never done was something we couldn't control. It didn't matter if they were right or wrong, the situation was wrong. Had they had experience with H, we would have shrugged them off as one of those rehab converts that's been brainwashed because we were, after all, junkies. But we would have had a bit of respect for what they had to say. We would at least know that they had done it before and there was a chance they knew what they were talking about.

Another feature of the pothead that was in contrast to the H users in the place was their desire to share. For a pot smoker, it's just not a good high unless you can get everyone high. Imagine a bar where no one will drink unless they can buy you a drink too. No matter what the mood of the place was (I remember one time when Heather had fucked another guy in front of me while I was on the nod and only half understanding what was going on, the intense energy of the room; all of this coupled with Charlie just arriving from being stranded in Wichita with no drugs for 36 hours; one of the pot smokers wandered in and tried to get everyone to smoke a bowl with him and talk about Metallica. Needless to say, he was run out and cut off for good for his poor taste.) a 'head would try to get everyone happy and contemplative. A casual alcohol user to a hardcore addict is a bit of an enemy because they consider drinking a good time; the hardcore alcoholic considering it essential to survival and treating it as a very serious matter. It was much the same with the 'heads. They were universally looked down on by the inner circle and held in contempt even by the dealer. They had no place in our world and Heather was regretting getting started with them. She was ready to pack it in but the money was so great. You can sell $20 sacks of pot all day long because everyone wants one. Pot is less of a gateway drug than a halfway drug. It impairs ability and function, but it is more accepted by society, a second cousin to alcohol. H, on the other hand, is despised by humanity. In such a situation, the junkie is no longer a part of society. A pothead can just blend in with the right kind of larger crowd. A junkie has only one crowd to blend into and all of them are looking for an easy mark. Because of their affability and eager desire to have fun, as well as a lowered defense, 'heads were ripped off by us more than junkies were.

A coke user is the most functional member of the drug family until the habit truly takes over. A coke user can function for years with much energy and passion and kindness. Coke boosts self esteem and pride, it makes you more energetic and commited to projects. It's possible to make more money on coke than you ever did without it, all while feeding your habit. As someone that was never terribly into coke (most of the C I ever did was in the form of speedballs, heroin mixed with cocaine and then injected) I never learned for sure how bad the habit can be. I measure a habit, as all junkies do, by the severity of the withdrawal. The effect I got from snorting C was that you immediately wanted more. The high lasted a matter of minutes and then you were doling out another line until it was all gone. After these incidents, I never had any period of withdrawal and only craved C, not needed it. It was easy to walk away from C because H was always more my style. H is a painkiller on several levels. In the immediate sense of the way that you can not really feel injuries while on it. I was using it primarily, I convinced myself, to control a bleeding ulcer I had developed around the age of 17. It did help a lot and whenever I was off H, I would become violently ill at random times, vomiting and shitting for hours. It came to the point where I was force-feeding myself because I knew I had to have something and armed with the knowledge that I would likely puke it back up. It is a wholely demoralizing situation to be in and heroin was a comfort for me. It glued my bowels shut and took the burning flame out of my stomach. I think there may have been a couple of minor habits picked up in two years based purely on the fact that my stomach hurt too much to stay away from H. Seeing danger in every direction, I would quit H quite a bit over this year long period of unemployment. I tried to turn to it only to ease my stomach ailment because I was really feeling the heat now.

People were turning against me for using after so long. The only ones that accepted me anymore were the others at Heather's. Nick G. had laid down an ultimatum that I was not to show up high on H anymore. I had to take my habits underground. And also, part of me really wanted to stay clean. But I felt it was life, my great depression and unemployment and stomach pain, that was pushing me back to the drug. I had one thing in my favor, really. Heather was the dealer and she was hung up on me so the other users treated me with much respect because it couldn't hurt to be seen as friendly with the one that the dealer loved. That was my only advantage. I remember once laying down some trip about H being bad and needing to be cut off from us. Brian just stood up and walked upstairs without saying a word. I knew I had gone too far. I was turning into a pothead in a way, though I didn't smoke all that much. It was my philosophy more than anything else. No junkie wants to hear a rap about how bad H is from anyone, former junkie or otherwise. I had stepped over that line because I had bought into this false respect. Needless to say, I was clean at the time I said this.

In these clean periods, I found myself using other drugs more. I was more social and would go to Nick G.'s more often to smoke pot. Heather also kept me supplied with painkillers and I took these liberally but never growing any noticeable habit. Something was clearly wrong in my life but I was unable to pinpoint what. When I grew tired of doing heroin and began to feel the monkey on my back, I would go off and smoke pot and do Percocets, Percodans, Codeine, Vicodin, all manner of pills, and become deeply disappointed with who I was associating with. I missed Heather but could not spend time with her because this would lead me back to using. I barely noticed my withdrawals at all because they were shorter and less intense, because I was so fucked on other drugs, because my stomach made me vomit every day regardless. Pepto Bismal became my unwanted friend.

Heather's possession charge came to trial and her lawyer got a continuance that delayed it further. The whole act seemed to be an attempt to buy time for Heather. The lawyer was researching so many things and running up such amazing totals that Heather's fortune, which should have been outstanding, was dwindling faster than it was coming in. But that's the price you pay for a good lawyer. A good lawyer is the only person in the world that sells you their luck. This lawyer had been very lucky, he'd even gotten Heather out of jail when she was clearly guilty and had been found so by a jury. His luck was good and Heather was paying a lot for it. She was brought in again on a trumped up loitering charge and she said the law was just trying to rattle her. They were pressing her for information on Nick's death and all the crew. She gave them nothing, mentioning only people that had left or were in jail or were in rehabs. The cops seemed satisfied with that. A lot of cops, they're happy just to get something. It doesn't matter if the information's worthless. It's a power trip. They get angry that you don't give them anything so you feed them nothing and they're like a pig in shit.

Finally Heather's court date came and there was no more getting around it. The cops had taken great pains to preserve the chain of evidence this time. They didn't want her getting away again. As her second offense, this was likely to be a tough sentence. She'd lost the luxury of the "innocent suburban girl led astray" defense. Looking at long odds, her lawyer advised her to accept a plea bargain. She did. She accepted the possession and intent to sale charges in exchange for a recommendation of a lighter sentence. And the most amazing thing happened. The judge suspended the sentence on the grounds that she be on house arrest for six months and enter a rehab center immediately. He said if she ever came before him again then she was going away for the maximum, whatever the charge. Heather had, once again, cheated the law. Her lawyer tried to explain it. "That judge is the best in the city for our thing," he told her. "Believes in rehabilitation, not punishment. We're lucky this time because he's meeting us halfway on account of the fact that you accepted the charges. I think that got to him. He thinks you're responsible for your actions because you accepted. Now you've gotta stay away from him from now on." He never said it out loud, but it was quite clear to Heather and I that he would be happy to go on defending her for years. In a way, the lawyer wanted her to stay using and selling to pad his wallet. He was a shit of a human, real scum. But damn if he didn't have some luck to sell.

Next.