Control Freakery

Outside Tooting Bec’s best non-corner corner-shop last night at 1am. I think the guy said ‘Do you want any ganja bro?’ Yeah, that was it. ‘No thanks mate’ I said. He gave me a friendly eyebrow raise to be sure. I waved him off and went in to buy water.

It was a friendly exchange considering. I have a cowardly policy when it comes to drugs of any kind. I’m a control freak, I think, something that only occurred to me as I wandered off to find a taxi. I don’t like drugs at all. And being a control freak means an insular world. Probably due to bad experiences and bad memories. Ironic really. Hunter Thompson was a hero of mine and he used to start the day with a bowl of cocaine and two quarts of Chives Regal. At a distance this is fine, or was fine. But too close to home and I freak out.

Not having had a drink in over six years, and not touching what Paul McCartney once described as the ‘Herbal Jazz Cigarettes’ for about the same time, meant my escapade in Las Vegas had doom written all over it.

Coming off a 14 hour shift, a short day, the plan was to ‘relax’ and then head out for dinner. Part of the relaxing involved four short drags on a cigarette that seemed to do little for me at the time. So, I handed it back, happy that I’d made an effort to shut my friend up who had effectively become the pusher. It seemed the only way to move the night forward. This, in hindsight, was a mistake.

In the lift from the 14th floor to the lobby I noticed that things seemed quieter in my head and a permanent smile had formed on my face. I also noticed my friend Ed looking at me and laughing back, like he’d told me a funny story and thought I was laughing at it.

That was the last of any sense of well-being. On the casino floor of the Rio there’s a show every hour or so. Dancers, clowns, singing, that sort of thing. I missed the dancers but a clown got in my face and stayed there waving his arms. A few more steps and I realised my head and chest were moving forward quicker than my legs. I stopped to let them catch up but this had the effect of encouraging the blood in my limbs pick up speed, making a whirring sound in my head.

“Ed, I have to go back to the room.”

After his laughter died and he realised I wasn’t joking he snapped into serious friend mode and we headed back to the lift, him leading the way, me picking up my feet a little higher than was really necessary to take a step.

Back in the room I managed to lean my head against the window. By now the only thing I could grasp was that this had been a terrible idea. Then I decided sitting down would be better. Laying down I meant. So I got into the corner of the couch and tried not to move.

Moving did all sorts of weird things. First of all my body went fizzy. Wiggling my toes sent strange waves to the top of my head and back again. My eyes wouldn’t keep still. I wanted to throw up.

Things were getting worse by the second. ‘Best crawl to the toilet and throw up now’ I thought ‘there’s no telling how little I’ll be able to move ten minutes from now’. I made it. But we’d been heading out to dinner because we hadn’t eaten. So I couldn’t throw anything up, except a little more dignity. And the wall paper was a confusing pattern which screwed with my head just a little more.

Back on the sofa. Ed put on the TV as a means to getting me to quiet the fuck down. He didn’t use these words, but my constant asking for reassurance had by now gotten to him. I felt like I was dying. I could feel the lining of my brain getting hot. My heart was beating twice as fast as normal. I got scared. ‘I’m going to die in Vegas’ I thought. This seemed sad. Then… ‘I’m going to die in Vegas’ I thought. This didn’t seem so bad after all.

I took to focusing on one minute at a time. My original room mate came and went, ignoring cries for help, and got on with his night, barking an order for Ed to stay with me as he headed towards a party I would never know and didn’t want to hear about later.

I got into a steady rhythm of watching the news. The funny thing was that even the breaking news seemed to be something I’d already seen. Déjà vu for a solid hour and a half.

Half an hour later things seemed to have returned to some sense of normal. I was hungry. This, it turns out, is what mini-bars are for. Then I got into bed, found a position that didn’t make things worse, and left Ed to go out for food and home.

It took me another day to get it out of my system. And I hated myself for it. I freaked. And I knew other people would freak too. And I hate the whole culture around whatever chemical of substance people use to block out stuff. Because as a control freak that’s what it looks like. Altering your sense of reality. Then, anything can happen - regardless. That frightens me. There’s cowardice in my genes that I’ll have to get used to for the rest of my life.