Better than love...

Saw a very strange thing today.

I was taling to Mr Wormwood, a gaunt, long-haired man recently discharged from prison. He was remarkably tall and thin, a tangle of acute angles, hunched uncomfortably in his too-small chair, with home-made tattoos on his hands and face, and a home detention bracelet around his ankle. He was here for fortnightly "script review", which means we check how he's going on the buprenorphine (a medication for drug dependence), see how he's handling the cravings, see how everything else is going... "having a friendly chat" as my boss said.

Or we would be if the bugger would tell us.

"So, how's it going on the bupe?" I said.

"Alright"

"Are you getting any cravings?"

"Nope."

"How's the sleep? Any sleep disturbances?"

"Nope"

"Some people who use bupe finds it makes them sweat. Any trouble with the sweating? Course, it's been pretty hot the last few days..."

"Nope."

"And the stress levels? Adjusting to stuff on the outside?"

"Yep."

"Mood alright?"

"'salright."

I noticed I was starting to speak in shorter sentences too, as if language was an ability we were both gradually losing. In a few minutes we'd be huddled on our chairs like not-so-great apes, grunting at each other and chewing on sticks.

I stared at him for a moment, and he stared at the floor. Outside an ambulance keened by, the summer sun shone, a bird muttered threats in a tree. I'd asked everything on the list and he'd answered it and we'd got all the right answers and we'd got pretty much nowhere. I decided to try something different.

"You mind if I ask you a personal question?"

He looked up at me.

"The home detention thing, the whole 'three times a week' urine tests. You've been drug-free for ... three months now."

"Yep".

I paused, wondering how to frame the question, then deciding to be honest about what I was asking.

"Do you miss it?"

And his face lit up. The hard angles around his mouth and eyes softened, he grinned, a great, slow, gap toothed grin. He leant back in his chair, as if reminiscing, then leant forward.

"Like nothing else" he said. His voice was soft and low, almost conspiratorial. "Like nothing fuckin' else. Especially days like this, paydays. We used to go out first thing, score some gear... get a couple of grey nurses*, maybe a great white**... we'd be off our fuckin' faces by lunchtime. Go round to me mate's house, he'd have a carton of Victoria Bitter... Jesus."

He paused for a moment, savouring the idea, and gazed off over my shoulder with such intensity I almost turned around to look at what I could not see, had never seen. From whaere I sat, the tightness in his neck and shoulders had dissolved, his pupils were large and dark.

Honestly, that sounds unbelievable, but.... It's a look I've only ever seen on someone cradling a child.

"Right" I said, slowly. The switch was flicked, the light inside him went out. "I might bring your next appointment closer."

And I suggested an increase in the dose, which he grudgingly agreed to consider, and after a few more pleasantries he was on his way. To call in next fortnight, and the fortnight after that, and every single appointment we make, and answer all our questions, and piss in a pot for us... until the bracelet comes off in about three hundred days time, and he can get back to what he was really doing before we interrupted him, back to his real life.

Thanks,
John

* a tablet of morphine sulphate 100mg

** don't know what this was, neither did he. Some bloody big white tablet, apparently.