Narcopolis

‘Smell me. Go on. You see? No bad odour. Why? Because I eat only pure vegetarian. Use both hands. Don’t touch my nipples,’ said Rumi.

The girl said, ‘Handshake left hand se hotha hai, right se khana katha hai, sir.’

‘Right, left, you think you’re Hindu? Use the other hand, use both hands.’

He stared at her in disbelief and when he finger-fucked her she cried, ma, ma, ma, like a small goat.

*

The Annexe was a big room with a high ceiling and folding chairs instead of pews. NA meetings were held there and so was the weekly old people’s meeting. It was a large space with nothing in it except faded red matting and a cross on the wall, just the cross, no figure. First there was an introduction by Father Fo, the man who had allowed Safer to open a centre in his church. He appeared in the press and on TV because of his work with addicts and the elderly. Each year, during the fair, his name appeared in letters that were only slightly smaller than the letters that announced the festivities. First, Father Fo got up to sing ‘Lead, Kindly Light’ in an unexpected baritone. The boys in camo joined him on harmony. When the hymn came to an end, Father Fo thanked the singers who went back to their seats. Then he said, It gives me great pleasure to introduce a young man who will grace us I hope with more occasions such as this. Soporo took his time going up to the stage. He waited until there was complete silence. Then he looked around at his audience and said, I have a question for you and a confession and, to end, a lament. There was some scattered applause from the row of Safer boys but Soporo looked down at his hands and it stopped.

He said he had come to the meeting with an outline in his head of a talk concerning music and time, but, as he looked around the room, he realized it was an irrelevant topic that would interest no one, or not for more than five minutes, and later, if they remembered it at all they would remember it as a kind of silly puzzle. Again he stopped and looked at his hands as if he’d forgotten something. I think we have more important things to talk about today, he said. And then he talked about what freedom meant, that is, the play of free will as opposed to habits of the body, like smoking or injecting heroin. At the word heroin there was a slight change in the room, as if each member of the audience had taken a deep breath or shifted in their seats. I want to start with a question. Is it true that taking heroin is an example of free will at its most powerful? I believe there is a good case for this argument. All users know how addictive the drug is, and dangerous. OD, infection, crime, we know we’re risking our lives and yet we choose to do it. Here Soporo paused and stared at the boys of Safer, or at a point just behind them, as if he was reading from a teleprompter, and his argument took a sidelong tangent. He mentioned a commentator who said it was the painkilling nature of the drug that made it so addictive, that if scientists were to isolate and neutralize its painkilling element it could be taken with no fear of addiction. But why hasn’t a scientist already done this thing, synthesize a version of the drug that would provide only pleasure, that is to say, pleasure with no payback? Because then the scientist would be entering into the realm of ethics, into God’s realm, he would remove evil and leave only good, or, to put it another way, he’d remove the devil and leave only God, and this is something no government or religious institution will condone, much less pay for. The system depends on the idea of consequences for one’s actions, and consequences, as most of us know, is simply another word for the devil. But I want to talk a little bit about God. I want to remind you of the shock and fear that God felt when he realized he was not the only God of the world. How do we know he knew? ‘I am a jealous God and there is no other God beside me,’ he told the angels, and by so doing indicated that there were indeed other gods, or why would he be jealous? And as long as there is jealousy, how can there be freedom? And if God is not free how can man expect to be? Excuse me, Soporo said, and walked slowly to his chair. He took a bottle of water out of his satchel and came back to the stage, which was a clear area in front of the room. There was no pulpit or microphone. He took a drink of water and swallowed carefully and placed the bottle on the ground by his feet. He said it was possible that some day a scientist would take up the good work, but until then heroin would remain utterly addictive. Then he said, The interesting thing is that we choose it, despite everything we choose it and continue to choose it. Is this an example of free will in action? That’s my question. And, secondly: are addicts free? Are they in fact the freest of men?

*