Heroin Withdrawal, with Drawl

Today I returned from a 3-day trip to Atlanta, Ga. Like a celibate groupie, I accompanied � but did not make love to � famous writers/bon vivants/international romanticians Neal Pollack and Ben Brown, who performed in Athens (Neal) and at Atlanta's Criminal Records (Neal and Ben). Much of my trip experience involved battling the goblins of anxiety and low self-esteem, but I'll spare you that violence and cut to the funnier business.

The problem neighbor made his presence known to us at 2:30am Thursday morning. We had just returned from Neal�s reading in Athens to our hotel, the Highland Inn, and were walking down the hallway toward our rooms when all of a sudden the three of us heard a man yelling �AGHHHH!� like a torture victim from behind one of the closed doors.

Neal looked at Ben and me and winced. Then he turned his room key in the lock, twisted the doorknob, and pushed in the door. ��Night,� he said sleepily. Since his room was across the hall and several doors down from the noisy man's room, Neal would not have to endure the audio inferno to come.

Ben and I bid adieu and walked the few short paces to our room. Inside, we could hear the man�s moans and screams coming through loud and clear from across the wall. �NOOOO!� the man shrieked. �AAGHGHGH! I CAAAAN�TTTT! NOOOOO!

�They gave Jesus water,� he continued. �NOOOO!!!!� Then he made a puking noise.

�Sounds like a heroin addict going through withdrawal,� Ben said, removing his shoes for bed.

�How do you know?� I asked.

�I�ve seen Trainspotting and Sid and Nancy, and from what I recall in those two movies, junkies usually ask for water but you�re not supposed to give it to them, or something. The water affects them somehow.�

Ben�s explanation seemed plausible. What he couldn�t tell me was why a junkie would choose to detoxify at a moderately-priced hipster hotel. Mainstreaming, I suppose. Done up in half-Southern, half-French influences, the Highland�s whirring ceiling fans, carved oak, and floral accents seemed most suitable for Tennessee Williams wannabes needing a quiet place to finish those final two acts, not the drool-cup crowd. For much less money, a resourceful junkie could surely find a cheaper motel room with a more needle-friendly atmosphere. I'm thinking mouse holes in the walls, brown blankets, blood-stained carpets, that kind of thing.

Our noisy neighbor had taste, but he lacked manners � and common sense. If he knew beforehand that withdrawal involved lots of screaming and puking, then he should have chosen a more isolated place, where he wouldn't have woken up innocent strangers trying to sleep nearby. Junkies probably aren�t too worried about following basic rules of etiquette, or limiting their freak-outs to regular business hours, but still. And why stick around the big city, with its temptation-ridden alleyways and clubs? Forests and deserts, with their fresh air and open, dealer-free spaces, seem like more sensible places to cleanse oneself.

Ben regarded the chance to eavesdrop on the raucous action next-door as an �awesome!� bonus. Awesome, because he�s one of those fortunate people who can both recognize the literary potential derived from rooming next to an ex-addict in training and fall asleep immediately upon resting his head on the pillow. I am the former kind of person, but not the latter. Even with a six-pack of Bud Light coursing through my system and yellowing my perception of reality, I did not think our neighbor�s activities were awesome at all.

As Ben and I changed into our bedclothes and brushed our teeth, the man emitted several high-pitched wails. When this happened, the two of us would look at each other and make "what the hell?" faces. The junkie's drawl, thick and murky as Everglades swamp water, surprised me. It did not sound like the voice of the heroin addicts I�d ever imagined, who all spoke in English or Brooklyn accents (i.e. just like the characters in the two films mentioned above).

As Ben and I lay on the soft bed, sleeping beside each other but not with each other, the carnival of psychosis raged on next-door. For a while, I tried to block out the intermittent din by concentrating on the sound of Ben�s breathing, but then he began to snore. So I began to work through some of my nascent short story ideas, until the fear that I�d never get to them, or that I�d write them but they would suck, and I�d wake up at 50 and realize I�d failed in life, crept up and filled me with anxiety. And I couldn�t read myself to sleep: After six Buds on an empty stomach, it�s hard to pay attention to words on the page, even if the book you're reading (Please Kill Me) is about the glory days of punk rock. Besides, who cares about an obliterated Iggy Pop vomiting on his audience when you have your very own smacked-out, puking prick next-door?

Eventually the screams and retching subsided, and I fell asleep. At 7am, a familiar noise awoke me. Like a psychotic rooster, the neighbor had risen at the crack of dawn to wake me up with his screams. Despite a three-hour hiatus his pitch hadn�t lost that bowels-of-Satan�s-lair intensity.

Zombie-eyed and still a little drunk, I stumbled from the bed to the phone and rung up the front desk. �Hello. You�ve got a problem in 354,� I said to the man on the end of the line. �There�s a screaming man apparently going through heroin withdrawal. He just woke me up. He kept me up last night for at least an hour with his yelling and puking.�

�Oh, really,� the man on the phone replied. �Okay, we�ll check it out.�

�I hope so, for your sake. I�d be pretty worried about the condition of that room right now.�

�Gotcha,� he said. We hung up.

Rubbing my eyes for traces of �sleep� � which hadn�t had time to form � I put on my blue gym pants and trundled downstairs to the Highland�s official breakfast nook. Splayed on a table by the northern window was a lovingly crafted display of cereals in tiny boxes, fruit, donuts, muffins, and plastic and Styrofoam eating tools. Choosing Crispix over Corn Pops like the old woman I felt like, I poured milk on my cereal and coffee in my cup, grabbed a banana, and plopped down in the chair at the end of a long oak table. At the other end were two thirtysomething women. Discreetly I observed them for signs of distress. Did they know about the madman lodging in the room directly above our heads? Had they heard what I heard? Apparently not, for these women were entranced by a tourist brochure for the Coca-Cola Museum, and spoke of nothing else. And they did not look exhausted, but clear-eyed and fresher than the peach blossoms referenced all around us.

When I finished my morning comestibles, I returned upstairs to the room. Ben was still sleeping. The junkie was still screaming � and more. During my breakfast sojourn, he had enhanced his act with intense, knockabout masturbating against the wall. Groaning noises accompanied his rhythmic banging. This frightened me very much, so quickly I ran downstairs to file an update with the front desk.

Behind the counter stood a bald, bespectacled young man whose cotton-covered chest advertised Superchunk. His gaunt face and blank look were discouraging. Many indie rockers work like they dance. They just stand still and stare into space.

�Hi there,� I said. �I called around 7am about the guy in 354. He�s banging himself against the wall now, masturbating or something.�

�Really?�

I nodded. �My friend and I have seen Trainspotting and Sid and Nancy, and judging by what we learned from those films, we think this guy might be going through heroin withdrawal. You might consider getting medical treatment for him.�

�I�m waiting until the manager comes,� the guy said. �I'll call her to tell her about what's going on and stuff. We�re figuring things out, I guess.�