La Vie En Rose

[smokingboot]

I hear other music in my head, and I'm up early, so some of the fatigue has gone. Friend is by now at his family's home on the coast courtesy of his sister, who is like some kind of Family Super Nurse. She's young for that job though, indeed I felt she was young for all this horrible affair.

Seems the bones of the business are still in doubt. I got some parts wrong; he drank the stuff then phoned our mutual mate in a panic, then went under. The sight of him in hospital was pretty sobering. He had massive stitches above his eyes and around one ear, his entire face swollen beyond recognition. Sleepy but attempting a moment's talk, he said 'Your face when you saw me! Do I look terrible?'

'You do right now,' I replied.

'Will it get better?'

'Of course!' I smiled at him; 'it's mainly swelling, and perhaps a couple of macho scars in time to come, nothing deep or serious.'

He went to sleep again. His body was covered in bruises, which, with the combination of deep cuts, had led the police to suspect an attack rather than an overdose. The story doesn't really add up. In any case, his sister and mother were to go to his flat and get some of his stuff, and his mother, quite ill with Parkinson's, decided she just couldn't do it. His sister is a strong capable woman but London transport makes her nervous, and she was also a little apprehensive of returning to the flat - one 'friend' of his sent her photos of the blood covered floor of the place with an explanatory caption along the lines of 'This is what I had to clean up because of your drugf*cked brother!' The sister sent back a polite little text saying that she had been perfectly ready to clean it up, that no-one asked the texter to do any such thing, and was she trying to imply something? The charmer did not reply. Still, it was not a scenario his sister looked forward to, so I said I would get her there and stay with her in case of potential drama.

The charmer had not done nearly as much as she claimed. One large spatter across the floor had been removed, but there was still blood everywhere. The glass coffee table was thick with it; here then might be the beginning of the issue; maybe he fell and struck his head on the glass which had not shattered. Quite how he cut his head on it to such an extent is a question, but then there are many questions. Looking at the timeline with more correct information, it seems the dealer/ex-boyfriend was in the flat the night before, left the G there, my friend went out to dinner, came back late or next morning, drank the stuff by mistake, and first contacted said dealer/ex-boyfriend then, on getting no reply, contacted our mutual mate in panic. She told him she would get someone to him, then she heard him make worrying noises, a couple of bangs and silence. Then she got the police there. They broke in to find him unconscious and bleeding, the ambulance took him away.

Ws he bleeding before he phoned her? The flat mate said that so much G would have taken him out very quickly, so if he phoned two people, then collapsed into the glass table, why was there blood in the bathroom? The bedroom was also smothered in it, a horrible sight and state, but this might have been because the bed was covered in blood stiffened rags, clothes he was presumably cut out of. We found his phone and keys but not his wallet. And here I am, already nauseated and tired again at the whole memory. The one good thing was that his mother wasn't here to see such carnage.

We learned a few things about his life we didn't want to know. His sister was valiant and I hung around til I could send her back across the city in a taxi, but it was good to be gone, out of this mess I thought he was leaving. The stench of the flat stayed with me all the way home.

Comments

[mallorys_camera]

You're a saint.

I participated in a few drug-related cleanup scenes myself throughout the 80s and the 90s.

The weirdest part for me was never the cleanup itself—though as you note it can be quite horrifying—but the afterwards in which the perps, accidentally injured/purposefully bashed/all of the above, changed the story into a picaresque dinner anecdote.

I always kept my mouth shut because busting someone's chops is generally a useless exercise, but wow.

[smokingboot]

This is exactly what I am afraid of happening; it becomes an anecdote, an adventure stripped of squalor and given amusement. Of course harping on about it does no good, but neither does ignoring reality.

Thank you for your kind words.