The Buzz Manager, Or, The Fire Next Time
Grievous Angel
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: The Old Line State
Posts: 53
The Buzz Manager, Or, The Fire Next Time The Buzz Manager, Or, The Fire Next Time
My next boyfriend, Vladimir Fishman, was the son of a wealthy doctors. His parents ran their medical practice, complete with pharmacy, out of their house. His father was a GP, his mother, a pharmacist. Vlad worked for them, and could get hold of anything.
Like his parents, Vlad had a lot of faith in medication; he believed that a properly managed buzz was both achievable and sustainable. He was not particularly attractive, but he was very bright and had a wicked, dark sense of humor. He had a beach house. He also had an endless supply of pharmaceuticals.
I drifted into his crowd over summer break from college. A week at the beach with a mutual friend turned into a whole summer with Vlad. That first weekend’s bender left me hungover, bleary and ravenous. Vlad was the only one up. He handed me a concoction from the blender, and soon a welcome warmth edged out the hangover and the anxiety that always followed. This was my first brush with opiates.
And so the week flowed into another, a month. Vlad had a Cadillac, and we shuttled between his parent’s house and the beach. I put off looking for a job; the summer became an agreeable blur. I began sleeping with Vlad. The term friends with benefits comes to mind.
He was a horrible lover. Physically, he was pudgy, with pasty skin and soft, womanly hands. Our youthful hormones shone through his carefully managed buzz, so we had desire, but we were often so numb that we could not finish what we started. Had I not been so wrapped up in the warm embrace of Papaver somniferum I would have terribly frustrated. I learned to find quick relief during my morning shower, before I got back on the Merry Go Round.
Vlad’s house was huge, he had his own suite, which opened out onto the pool. His parents were eccentrics who read The Daily Worker and often walked around nude, something that no amount of drugs could render less revolting. I liked both the pool and the hot tub, but soon learned to keep my bathing suit on. I was careful to memorize their hours so as to avoid running into them.
Despite this, I enjoyed the summer. I did not always go back to city with Vlad, I would sometimes stay at the beach house with a varying collection of friends. There seemed to be no day of reckoning on the horizon, Vlad saw to that. I think the reason we are always at risk of relapse is that often good times are mixed in with addictive behavior. When you are 20, you can absorb a lot with little effect.
The end came swiftly, and for me, just in time. I had not registered for fall semester; I had vague plans to go back, but had done nothing to make it happen. Vlad’s father was arrested for prescribing steroids for several football players at the high school. As the investigation unfolded, Vlad panicked, and sent everyone away from the beach house, including me. He drove me back to school, where I succeeded in talking my way into enough classes to continue. He left me with six gallons of water. He’d loaded each with diminishing amounts of elixir. “You’ll have to taper, the longer you can stretch it out, the better.”
I spent the next week or so working my way through an ocean of water, peeing, and hating life. Vlad called and wrote constantly. Once I began to think clearly again I saw that he was, and had been, deeply in love with me. Now the thought of him repulsed me, but I was angry at myself more than anything.
Unlike Lenny Bruce, I kissed God, but did not die.
-GA
My next boyfriend, Vladimir Fishman, was the son of a wealthy doctors. His parents ran their medical practice, complete with pharmacy, out of their house. His father was a GP, his mother, a pharmacist. Vlad worked for them, and could get hold of anything.
Like his parents, Vlad had a lot of faith in medication; he believed that a properly managed buzz was both achievable and sustainable. He was not particularly attractive, but he was very bright and had a wicked, dark sense of humor. He had a beach house. He also had an endless supply of pharmaceuticals.
I drifted into his crowd over summer break from college. A week at the beach with a mutual friend turned into a whole summer with Vlad. That first weekend’s bender left me hungover, bleary and ravenous. Vlad was the only one up. He handed me a concoction from the blender, and soon a welcome warmth edged out the hangover and the anxiety that always followed. This was my first brush with opiates.
And so the week flowed into another, a month. Vlad had a Cadillac, and we shuttled between his parent’s house and the beach. I put off looking for a job; the summer became an agreeable blur. I began sleeping with Vlad. The term friends with benefits comes to mind.
He was a horrible lover. Physically, he was pudgy, with pasty skin and soft, womanly hands. Our youthful hormones shone through his carefully managed buzz, so we had desire, but we were often so numb that we could not finish what we started. Had I not been so wrapped up in the warm embrace of Papaver somniferum I would have terribly frustrated. I learned to find quick relief during my morning shower, before I got back on the Merry Go Round.
Vlad’s house was huge, he had his own suite, which opened out onto the pool. His parents were eccentrics who read The Daily Worker and often walked around nude, something that no amount of drugs could render less revolting. I liked both the pool and the hot tub, but soon learned to keep my bathing suit on. I was careful to memorize their hours so as to avoid running into them.
Despite this, I enjoyed the summer. I did not always go back to city with Vlad, I would sometimes stay at the beach house with a varying collection of friends. There seemed to be no day of reckoning on the horizon, Vlad saw to that. I think the reason we are always at risk of relapse is that often good times are mixed in with addictive behavior. When you are 20, you can absorb a lot with little effect.
The end came swiftly, and for me, just in time. I had not registered for fall semester; I had vague plans to go back, but had done nothing to make it happen. Vlad’s father was arrested for prescribing steroids for several football players at the high school. As the investigation unfolded, Vlad panicked, and sent everyone away from the beach house, including me. He drove me back to school, where I succeeded in talking my way into enough classes to continue. He left me with six gallons of water. He’d loaded each with diminishing amounts of elixir. “You’ll have to taper, the longer you can stretch it out, the better.”
I spent the next week or so working my way through an ocean of water, peeing, and hating life. Vlad called and wrote constantly. Once I began to think clearly again I saw that he was, and had been, deeply in love with me. Now the thought of him repulsed me, but I was angry at myself more than anything.
Unlike Lenny Bruce, I kissed God, but did not die.
-GA
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