Rock 99 - Chapter 5
By H.G. Miller
7:56 Post Meridian
The problem with most drug users, Zap thought, was that they didn't share his
schedule. He knew addicts. He wasn't trying to be one of those lonely losers
who holed up in an apartment for days at a time, running through every narcotic
substance in the abode until they finally died, puked, passed out or gave up.
Despite his somewhat abrasive personality, the morning show host genuinely
liked to be around people. Zap hated to be alone.
Alas, at eight in the evening, most drug users - the heavy ones anyway - were
still in bed, or working the kind of retail/food service jobs required to keep
the pollutants coming. So, while he certainly felt the need for human contact,
Zap was extremely high and didn't feel he could handle normal people at the
moment.
Slowly and steadily, every straight friend he'd known had faded away. They all
followed the same pattern once it became obvious that he was a user. From mild
to major concern, some sort of plea for sobriety, maybe an intervention, always
talk about how he should do it for himself, for his parents, for his girlfriend
at the time, for his cats, for the kids who idolized him (though he certainly
never mentioned how great drugs were while on the air), and finally defeat and
abandonment.
“I may be an addict,” Zap often thought. “But, at least I'm not a quitter.”
Over time, though, he'd begun to notice that fewer people were becoming his
friends in the first place. Even most of the other users he knew were the loner
types. And so, the empty pain in his chest grew and the only way he knew to
stop it was more drugs.
It hadn't always been that way, of course. He used to just enjoy hanging out
and entertaining friends with his wicked sense of humor. Chilling out at a
coffee shop with a few like-minded types and shooting the shit about whatever
happened to be on CNN before the trek to the coffee shop began.
More than anything, Zap missed those moments. Conversations were becoming
harder and harder to maintain these days. Talking with Andy over the airwaves
was all about the act. Never about an exchange of ideas. A constant game of
one-upmanship, driving Zap mad with envy for every witty thing Andy came up
with that he couldn't.
The competition was good for him, and he knew it. Andy's chiding always brought
out the best of Zap's humor, but he also knew that when the microphones went
away they weren't much more than two guys who hated each other.
That used to be different, too. Zap would probably blame the drugs for that,
but he wouldn't blame the drugs for anything. They were not the cause of his
problems, but simply a result of the pain the world had inflicted on him during
his course of living.
So what if he made a few mistakes while under the influence. The mistakes were
the fault of the world, not the drugs. Never the drugs…
Shit. Somebody out there understood what he was feeling right now.
Zap suddenly felt determined to find them, and he pulled on a shirt and slipped
into some sandals. He was coming down and needed to be proactive. Somewhere was
a moment to be had.
He went to turn off the radio out of habit, and remembered it was broken. Had
he done that?
“Aw, fuck it,” he said to himself. “If the radio's broken, it's broken. I can't
fix it now.”