Digging the Vein by Tony O'Neill
Authors: Tony O'Neill
Tags: British, Literary Fiction, Los Angeles, Addiction, heroin, transgressive, britpop, offbeat generation, autobigrapical
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nothing but a useless West Coast rich kid party boy, with his too-perfect teeth and Hollywood tan. I finally snapped in the face of his idiocy.
“ What are you? A fucking hippy? I fucking hate juice! Do I look like the sort of person who drinks juice? Fuck Jamba Juice! Fuck it and everyone who works and drinks there, fucking assholes! Get inside and let’s do a line, there's some Colt 45 in the fridge.”
“ Hey, its not even noon,” laughed Kat, unsure of how serious this outburst was and hanging onto Jaz.
“ And your point is?” I shot back at her
“ I love this guy!” laughed Kris a little too loudly, attempting to break the tension in the air. “He's crazy.”
“ Oh go do some heroin, you fucking retard!”
I was left there, panting heavily after my outburst as everyone dispersed. They seemed a little stunned by my ranting. Shit, I needed a beer.
“ That was kind of harsh,” Joan told me after they'd fucked off to Jamba Juice, “with Kris, I mean.”
“ Nah” I said, “He knows I was ... joking.”
“ Where you?” she asked.
“ No.”
Sal laughed, and cut out lines for himself, Joan, Spencer and I.
“ Here's to Saturday night,” he said, snorting his.
SATURDAY, JOAN AND WHY I HATE THE ENGLISH IN LOS ANGELES
We hung out doing blow for the rest of the day, and when Kat, Jaz and Kris returned with their goddamned fruit smoothies Spencer disappeared into the garage with them to drum for their new band. Joan, Sal and myself listened to the noise vibrating through the windows for a while before Joan announced she had to go to sleep before tonight. I went back to the Bike Repair Shop where Sal lived, and we carried on doing lines until seven in the evening, listening to The Stooges and David Bowie until I started to zone out. I started to wish that I'd slept.
The plan was to go to Spaceland to see a friend of Kat's DJ a set before trying to gatecrash a party at Spot Studios on Santa Monica and Vine. It was some kind of private party, and we had two tickets to sneak seven or eight people in with. I was watching TV when Sal shook me. The faces of the overfed, orange-tanned anchors on the news looked distorted and even more ridiculous than usual, hysterical and grotesque. I couldn’t make sense of what they said, a garbled moron-monologue of celebrity gossip and idiotic punning between the soulless airbrushed newscasters. I almost missed the grey-clipped tones of British news – at least that didn’t make you feel as if your brain was rotting away as you watched it. It was Sal’s hand on my shoulder and his voice saying, “Hey, its 9:30, we have to pick up Joan and Kris,” which shook me out of my mental fog. I was momentarily confused, until I realized that I had fallen into a drugged half-sleep. I got to my feet unsteadily, muttering, “Let’s fucking go. Let’s do a line.”
By the time Sal, Kris, Joan and I had made it to the club I thought I was dying; my eyes were heavy and I was feeling incredibly jumpy. The coke had fucked me up completely, and I realized that I had been doing lines now pretty much every fifteen minutes since nine o'clock last night. Now it was 10:30, and there was no way I could stop at this point. The more I heard about the party at The Spot, the less I wanted to go; the words “hardcore techno” were being banded around, and I knew that the club had a 500-person capacity at most. I had an image of a small, dark, sweaty hole with thundering dance beats blaring out of a maxed-out PA system, sweaty clubbers bouncing up against me, my coked-out exhaustion and paranoia reaching new heights of insanity. I began to fear the consequences of putting myself in that situation, seeing a trip to the emergency room or a police precinct as definitely in the realms of possibility.
The more Kris started to hear about the party, the less sure he was that we could all sneak in. It was just the four of us, as it turned out, (Kat had gotten herself a ticket through
“ What are you? A fucking hippy? I fucking hate juice! Do I look like the sort of person who drinks juice? Fuck Jamba Juice! Fuck it and everyone who works and drinks there, fucking assholes! Get inside and let’s do a line, there's some Colt 45 in the fridge.”
“ Hey, its not even noon,” laughed Kat, unsure of how serious this outburst was and hanging onto Jaz.
“ And your point is?” I shot back at her
“ I love this guy!” laughed Kris a little too loudly, attempting to break the tension in the air. “He's crazy.”
“ Oh go do some heroin, you fucking retard!”
I was left there, panting heavily after my outburst as everyone dispersed. They seemed a little stunned by my ranting. Shit, I needed a beer.
“ That was kind of harsh,” Joan told me after they'd fucked off to Jamba Juice, “with Kris, I mean.”
“ Nah” I said, “He knows I was ... joking.”
“ Where you?” she asked.
“ No.”
Sal laughed, and cut out lines for himself, Joan, Spencer and I.
“ Here's to Saturday night,” he said, snorting his.
SATURDAY, JOAN AND WHY I HATE THE ENGLISH IN LOS ANGELES
We hung out doing blow for the rest of the day, and when Kat, Jaz and Kris returned with their goddamned fruit smoothies Spencer disappeared into the garage with them to drum for their new band. Joan, Sal and myself listened to the noise vibrating through the windows for a while before Joan announced she had to go to sleep before tonight. I went back to the Bike Repair Shop where Sal lived, and we carried on doing lines until seven in the evening, listening to The Stooges and David Bowie until I started to zone out. I started to wish that I'd slept.
The plan was to go to Spaceland to see a friend of Kat's DJ a set before trying to gatecrash a party at Spot Studios on Santa Monica and Vine. It was some kind of private party, and we had two tickets to sneak seven or eight people in with. I was watching TV when Sal shook me. The faces of the overfed, orange-tanned anchors on the news looked distorted and even more ridiculous than usual, hysterical and grotesque. I couldn’t make sense of what they said, a garbled moron-monologue of celebrity gossip and idiotic punning between the soulless airbrushed newscasters. I almost missed the grey-clipped tones of British news – at least that didn’t make you feel as if your brain was rotting away as you watched it. It was Sal’s hand on my shoulder and his voice saying, “Hey, its 9:30, we have to pick up Joan and Kris,” which shook me out of my mental fog. I was momentarily confused, until I realized that I had fallen into a drugged half-sleep. I got to my feet unsteadily, muttering, “Let’s fucking go. Let’s do a line.”
By the time Sal, Kris, Joan and I had made it to the club I thought I was dying; my eyes were heavy and I was feeling incredibly jumpy. The coke had fucked me up completely, and I realized that I had been doing lines now pretty much every fifteen minutes since nine o'clock last night. Now it was 10:30, and there was no way I could stop at this point. The more I heard about the party at The Spot, the less I wanted to go; the words “hardcore techno” were being banded around, and I knew that the club had a 500-person capacity at most. I had an image of a small, dark, sweaty hole with thundering dance beats blaring out of a maxed-out PA system, sweaty clubbers bouncing up against me, my coked-out exhaustion and paranoia reaching new heights of insanity. I began to fear the consequences of putting myself in that situation, seeing a trip to the emergency room or a police precinct as definitely in the realms of possibility.
The more Kris started to hear about the party, the less sure he was that we could all sneak in. It was just the four of us, as it turned out, (Kat had gotten herself a ticket through
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