030 POV arrive at drug spot 1885

'Take this left, but slow down, we want to park close enough to see the intersection, but not for anyone there to see us.'

I do as I'm told. I turn the car onto a dark quiet side street then find a park about fifty yards from the intersection at the end of the street. I look ahead at it. I know it well. Only too well. This is where I used to come to score. I don't recognise any of the faces, but I don't imagine the game has changed much in the year I've been out. Two wiry teens sit on a waist high decaying brick fence outside an abandoned warehouse. A car driving on the perpendicular cross street slows then pulls up next to the teens. The driver signals something to them, words are exchanged, then the driver passes a fist full of dollars to the smaller of the two teens. The taller teen signals to a third teen who sits on a stoop on the other side of the intersection. The driver pulls across the road to him where he discreetly collects something. The driver then pulls out, mission accomplished, he drives off to get high. 

The man turns to me and says, 'Do you know what just happened?'

I answer that by rolling my sleeve up and showing him my fading track marks. I don't know how long they'll be there. Part of me wants them gone immediately, another part of me wants them to never go away, to remain a permanent scar, a permanent reminder of how low I sunk in my life, a reminder of a time I never want to revisit. 

The man looks at them for a moment then says. 'So you know what a G-pack is?' I nod, I do. It's a thousand dollars worth of heroin, or coke, your call, what ever flips your switch. 

'So when I tell you that you're going to go to those kids and ask for a G-pack of H, you know what to do?' 

Technically speaking, yes. It's not very hard. I'll be asking for a thousand dollars worth of heroin, then, assuming they have that much on them you give them the money for the product and walk away. But what I don't understand is, 'Why? Why do we need a G-pack?' I ask.

The man stares at me for a moment, outwardly irritated by my question. 'I can do what you ask, but I don't get, this, why are we here? Why do you need me here?' The man stares blankly at the kids slinging drugs at the intersection for a moment, then he says, 'The briefcase, I mentioned earlier.' 

'You said you wanted me to help you replace its contents. What was in it?'

'Heroin. A lot of heroin.' The man sniffs, then scratches his forehead as he continues, 'It was my task to collect it and deliver it somewhere. But it burned up in the crash. Now I've got until sunrise to replace it, or...'

The man abandons his sentence right there. I watch him, waiting for him to finish what he was saying, and I notice that there's a tear at the base of one of his eyes.

'They have my son.' He says, almost in a whisper. 

The penny drops. This explains the phone call and why he was so scared of who was calling. It also explains what he was saying, the way he was pleading with them.

The cogs in my mind start turning. This sheds a whole new light on who this man is and why he's doing this. This changes everything. Or does it? The man has still kidnapped me. I'm here against my will. He's threatened my life multiple times. But I begin to wonder, what would I do if someone had my Lucy? No, I mustn't justify his actions. 

'You're a cop, right?' I ask and this time the man nods straight away, seemingly no longer intent on trying to hide that part of who he is. 

'So, don't you have cop friends who can help? I mean, if your son has been kidnapped and someone if forcing you to do all this, then...'

The man casts me a look that reads: Oh, to be so naive.

'I don't get it? This situation is exactly what cops do. Don't they have a whole unit devoted to this kind of situation?'

The man nods. 'They do.' 

'Then why not call it in?'

The man considers that a beat before saying, 'I can't phone it in because of the paradox effect.' 

I stare blankly at him, waiting for him to continue.

'I'm going to assume you've never heard of that before?' He says and I nod. 

'It's funny, you've lived it, but you don't even know you know it.' 

'How's that?'

'You said you use. Or used, right?' 

I nod. Part of the twelve steps is acceptance that you're an addict. It's been a year since I've acknowledged that I am, but it still doesn't sit well with me. I don't think it ever will. I know people, people in my support groups who wear their addiction as a badge of pride. But to me, any time it's brought up I feel nothing but shame. 

'Why'd you do it?' The man asks. 'Why did you use?'

I think on that for a moment before saying, 'I've been asking myself that same question for a long time. I honestly don't know. I had a whole pile of bullshit explanations that I told myself at the time while I was using, like... it's just recreational, it helps me unwind, I know what I'm doing, I could quit at anytime, but I know now all that's nonsense. Honestly, I don't know why I did it.'

'The paradox effect in a nutshell translates to: the worse something is for us the more we want to do it. Drinking, drugs, gambling. All these things kill us, ruin lives, destroys families, careers, we know it, but still we do them. It's life's greatest paradox.'

I consider that for a moment. The man is right. They do kill us, yet I honestly don't know one family that doesn't have at least one family member that has been affected by one of them. Every family has a story. I discovered that when I first started going to support groups, when I first started reaching out for help. Just acknowledging I have a problem and learning to be comfortable talking about it was a game changer for me. Until then I thought I was alone. I thought it was just something I was going through, I felt this deep shame when I thought about it, what's wrong with me? I'm ruining my life but I can't stop. 

The first time I confessed to being an addict outside of a support group was when I was late to one such meeting. I hailed a cab and the driver asked me where to? I gave the address of the church where the meetings were held, then he gave me a look, like perhaps he understood why I was going there. I volunteered the fact that I was late to an NA support group meeting. He then confessed to me that he'd been dry for five years and counting. There was something incredibly cathartic about talking to someone who understood. Someone outside the group itself. Just an ordinary citizen. After that encounter I found myself volunteering the information more and more to people who I met along the way, and every time I did almost without exception they had a similar experience to share, if not directly their own, then a close friend or family member who had been afflicted.

'I still don't get why you can't call it in, why you can't get professionals who are trained in dealing with this to help?' I say. 

'Do you know how many cops drink?'

'No idea, but I'd guess a lot.'

'You'd guess right. I must know over two hundred police officers and not one would turn down an opportunity to drink. Do you know how many are gamblers?'

I stare at the man blankly, sure that he's going to tell me anyway and he does, 'About half of 'em. And I'm not talking five dollars once a year on the office lottery sweepstakes. I'm talking full on, risk-the-rent-money-every-week gambling.'

The man looks at me like he's just clearly explained his point, but I'm still at a loss. He continues, 'What do you think happens when a cop’s in debt up to his eyeballs, no chance of paying it back, he stands to lose the house, the job, the wife, then their bookie tells them their debt’s wiped clean, all they have to do is feed him some information now and then.'

Okay, now I see where he's going with this. 

'You did that?' I prompt.

'No, I've never gambled in my life, seen it ruin too many lives. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no saint, I’ve drunk more than my fair share and played with drugs when I was younger, but what I’m sayin’ is that the man who has my son likely has a dozen cops on his books feeding him information. If I tried to get a team together he’d know before we had our first meet, and I can't take that risk. Not with my son's life on the line.' 

I consider that for a moment as I watch yet another car drive up to the teen gangbangers at the intersection, score, then drive away. There must have been at least five cars since we've been here. Business is booming.

'Why do you want me to buy a G-pack of H? Surely there would have been a lot more than a thousand dollars worth of heroin in the suitcase?' 

'There was, about a hundred thousand dollars to be precise.'

'A thousand isn't even gonna begin to cut it then. Why bother?' 

'These kids rarely carry more than a G-pack at a time. You've no idea how many of them I've run in over the years, mostly they have a few hundred in cash and a few hundred in powder. I'm counting on them not having a G-pack.'

My mind spins, I don't get this guy, 'Why try and get something you know they don't have?' 

The man looks at me like that's the dumbest question he's heard all week.

'If they don't have it on them they'll have to re-up, in which case they'll send a runner to get more.'

His plan suddenly dawns on me, 'Riiiight. And you follow the runner to the stash-house. You want their whole supply, not the G-pack.' 

The man nods then fishes two cell phones from his pocket, his and mine. He dials my cell from his, again it plays the Mares Eat Oates and Does Eat Oates ringtone that Lucy set as a joke last time she was staying with me. He answers it then hands me my cell, wired earphones still connected to it. 

'Put one earphone in your ear. If the call disconnects for any reason, or if I hear you try and signal anything to the kids I'll drop you. From this distance I could put a piece of lead between your eyeballs. Do you understand?'

I don't acknowledge his rhetorical, I just get out of the car and start walking towards the wiry teenagers slinging cane.