April 16th 1998: Macao, Withdrawals, the Kiss
We packed our bags and we were off. I went to Macao for a short vacation with my mother, sister, Janice and my sister’s friend, Sarah. It’s been enjoyable enough; we’ve been Shopping, Sightseeing and Swimming, the three S’s of what people are supposed to do on a vacation.
Well enjoyable for everyone else I guess, but not me. It had totally slipped my mind that we were even going, so on the morning that we left, I found that I only had a little smack to last me the entire weekend. Now this was a dire situation, this residual stash, it would maybe last me through the day but it sure as hell wasn’t going to cut it for three!
The first day there was no big deal, we left, checked into our hotel, settled and went to eat. About halfway through the day, I went to fix and surprise, surprise, I only had enough for one. What was I to do? I had planned to make this last for at least two days. It was already the early evening and I was starting to feel lethargic from not using all day, I held my breath and I fixed… I was going to feel this in the morning, oh God, I going to feel this in the morning.
And did I! We all started off the morning with a nice little swim and sunbathing session, I of course didn’t swim. And that’s when it started. Just a little lethargy, the little aches and pains would sort of creep up on you and you could shake them off, a little disorientation but nothing much more than really ‘uncomfortable.’
The trip continued. We all ventured around Macao seeing the sights going here, there etceteras, etceteras and then it hit, like an explosion, BOOM! Wrecking havoc throughout my entire body. The pain was creeping and crawling through every single muscle in my entire body. They say there are 205 bones in the human body and believe you me; I could feel every single one of them as pain started seeping into them. And there was not a single thing that I could do about it.
I was at least 50 miles away from anywhere where I could possibly cop, it might as well have been a million because there was no way that I was leaving this island before tomorrow. As our troop waddled along the streets, I ducked into every single pharmacy that crossed our path, seeing if maybe they had something… anything, for the pain, maybe some panadeine or maybe even some old school paregoric, anything with some form of opiate in it. But no such luck seems that you need a prescription for anything that contains any kind of opiate in this city, backward ass, motherfucking place.
The rest of the little entourage forged onwards to dinner, I instead opted to head back to the hotel, leaving my mom, Pilar, Janice and Sarah for a ‘girls night out.’
During the cab ride home, I passed out in the back seat, leaving the cab driver to yell and prod at me back to consciousness when we reached our destination. And as I stumbled back up to the hotel room, I crashed once again as I caught sight of the bed, not bothering to remove any of my clothing but instead focusing on drowning out all of the heroin induced pain that ravaged my body, with sleep.
When I woke I found myself feeling better, not a whole lot, but at least I could move without anguishing pain. Also, my mother has left Macao to head back home, leaving just ‘the kids’ alone. With the parental supervision, gone, the rest of the group began to cut loose. We headed out to a bar across the way from the hotel, a quaint little dive, trying to be more than it really was. As soon as we got there I tried to pump in as many drinks as possible, to try and relax, note the emphasis on the word ‘try.’ When the first of the drinks went down, I started to ease up a little; I started to forget about the pain that was burrowing its way into the deepest recesses of my body. I sat down with yet another drink, whiskey if I recall, and just listened to this blues band play.
The girls were playfully flirting with the bass player, this gargantuan of a black man, an oddity out here in China in general and especially over here in Macao. Graciously acknowledging the girls’ playfulness, the bass player kindly paid for all our drinks. I, of course not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, ordered up, adding more drinks to my increasingly high tally.
Finishing up our drinks, we all headed outside to the beach. There, Pilar and Sarah started setting off fire works, leaving Janice and I to sit in the sand, talking with each other. That’s when it happened…the two of us were just sitting there, talking, nothing special, and nothing out of the ordinary. I looked at her and she looked at me, she moved in, she kissed me. I was shocked, what was I to do? The only thing I could do, kiss her back, relishing in the thought of my dreams coming true as we made out together. After only a short while, a motorcycle passing by interrupted us. As our lips parted all I could do was let out a “What was that?” immediately, she turned away apologetically, letting out a number of “I’m sorry-s.” She got up and ran over to the other two girls, leaving me to sit there, contemplating what just took place. I was happy, actually I think ecstatic is a better word, because “maybe she did have feelings for me after all?” but at the same time I couldn’t help but feel angry about it. I mean here I was, I had practically spent the whole last year trying to get over her and think of her as just a friend, like the way she says she feels for me. But if her feelings were stronger than that, I had to do something about it. Now here I was, all locked up in this dark cell of confusion, with shards of anger and joy shedding light, periodically. Worst of all, I was really starting to feel sick now!
Back at our hotel room they all decided to call it a night at around 3 AM, I though, couldn’t sleep, this pain which now controlled my body, rendered me unable to sleep. Leaving me alone in the darkness with this God-awful pain and this shitty fucking Asian MTV as my only company.
The sweat was practically pouring off my body by the bucket-load, my sheets got so wet that I just threw them off the bed, bad move on my part, cause now the mattress was wet. Every muscle in my body was exploding in exquisite, excruciating pain. I was freezing, wrapped in a sweat drenched blanket in my best impression of a fetal pose, my whole body was shaking, I, going along with it as if trying to shake out the pain… it didn’t work. I smothered my face in the mattress, trying to distract myself from this agony, which has full control over my every muscle movement. I felt like I had been lying there all night, but each minute passed as if hours if not days. I knew that time hadn’t passed that quickly though, for the damn Asian MTV had only gone through about their fifth God-damned Backstreet Boys song.
“I can’t stay here any longer” I get up, trying to walk, or at least hobble, off this pain. I go to the bathroom, I repeatedly masturbate, my own ejaculation, one of the only things that took away from this suffering, if only for a few brief seconds… and at this point, every second counted.
Between each ‘session’ I crawled backed to the bed and tried to get some sort of rest, all in vain. Each time I closed my eyes, I honed in on every single burst of pain rampaging through my entire body. I tried, I desperately tried to sleep for I was painfully tired but the pain would not let up, not even for just a second, neither would these mother-fucking Backstreet Boys!
I continued to toss and turn in my bed; nothing was the slightest bit comfortable, until I gave up at about 6AM. At that time I knew that every single one of my efforts to try and get some sleep were completely futile. I threw on my sweaty three-day old clothes and wandered upstairs to the Sports Club. There, I made a useless attempt at breakfast, after poking at a piece of French toast, I pushed away my plate in complete disgust. I proceeded to the Men’s changing room, where I spent an hour in the hot tub, where the steaming hot water slowly relieved some of my torturing pain. As much as I was enjoying the hot tub, I left after I accidentally threw up in it.
The whole time, when I was trying to sleep, in the hot tub, bathroom, throwing up, I was still thinking about the kiss, still in this utter state of confusion. I didn’t have the slightest idea of what I was going to do. I was insanely confused and dope sick. There was only one thing left for me to take comfort in, we were already on a bus, making our way to the ferry back to Hong Kong. And back in Hong Kong, I could put an end to this horrifying misery.
So as the sounds of Operation Ivy’s “Sound System” slightly calmed my nerves, my face drew a sickly smile… only five hours to go.