1992 Heartbeats a Second

August, 1992. I lay on the couch with my heart pounding like a jackhammer.  The last of the coke gone and no alcohol in my hovel, panic had me in its grip. Boom, boom, boom.  Teeth chattering, freezing cold sweat, eyes all pupil. Boom, boom, boom.  Where were my car keys?  My eyes darted around the room, out of focus.  It was Sunday night, I needed to find a bar with alcohol somewhere, take-out beer to slow my heart down.  Boom, boom, boom.  I was living just north of Wilmington in Delaware but had just moved into this apartment from Media, Pennsylvania 30 miles to the North.  I wasn't familiar with what might be open on a Sunday in the immediate surroundings - my mind could only conjure up the Media establishments.  Boom, boom, boom.

I drove shaking, sweating, jittering raw nerves up I-95 and I-476 to Media.  Jack's bar, open every Sunday.  All pupil and sweating, jittery I pulled into the bar's parking lot and looked in the rear view mirror.  Jesus!  Like something out of Night of the Living Dead.  Thank God Jack's interior is good and dark.  Still, I needed to clean myself up a bit, comb the hair, get my squinting down pat to hide the wild eyes.  Slow the heart palpitations.  God, did I really drive here?  It's drizzling rain and I'm so wired out of my skin I can barely see let alone operate heavy machinery.  The force multipliers adrenaline and fear bring to the table are nothing short of amazing.

Inside, Jack's is dead on a mid-summer Sunday evening.  I manage to maneuver to the take-out case, grab several six-packs of brew and pay for it with minimal social interaction: head down, pass the barkeep sufficient cash, let him bag the beer and keep the change and motor on out into the night.  A half hour of terrifying action southbound behind the wheel of my shitty little black Mazda 323 with heart beating wildly caught in my throat and I'm back into Delaware, to my apartment.  I didn't kill myself or anyone else on the road this time only through undeserved dumb luck.  Boom. Boom. Boom.  But relief from the pounding and palpitations is at hand, thanks to Adolf Coors - at least that''s how it's always worked in the past.

But this time the booze did not keep up its end of the bargain.  This time, no matter how much I drink my pulse just keeps racing.  Did my heart skip a beat?  Two beats?  Boom. Boom. Boom.  I pace my apartment, gulp for air.  Fuck!  The alcohol has no effect.  I lay down on the couch, stare up at the ceiling fan, sweating/dizzy.  How long have I been up?  Two days, three?  Shit.  Boom. Boom. Boom.  My heartbeat echoes through my sinuses, up into the frontal lobe.   Looking around the apartment - torn drapes, faded carpet, TV unwatched on some random channel, blue walls into the white light of the kitchen.  My toes feel tingly, numb.  Boom, boom, boom.  My heart is - if anything - racing faster.

I make the decision: I need to go to an emergency room.  Shaky / dizzy, I jump back in the car and head down south to Wilmington Memorial.   At this point I'm gasping for breath.  Perhaps this addiction thing isn't all it's cracked up to be?  Are we having fun yet?  Then it's twenty minutes of chilly sweats and my ticker doing double-time at the pump station before I'm finally led in to see a doctor.

I describe my symptoms and beat around the bush to the ER resident for just a few minutes before letting on that - funny coincidence - I just might have ingested a very small amount of cocaine that evening.  Think it's related?   The doctor in fact is pretty sure there's a strong causal relationship between my heart nearly exploding and the Bolivian Marching Powder coursing through my veins.  You see, it's a stimulant.  Condescending smirk.  But isn't alcohol a depressant? I deadpan, ignoring his snide bedside manner.  Booze didn't work this time, doc!   Long story short, the rest of the conversation boiled down to a variation on Doc, it hurts when I do this!  Well then - don't do that!

The doctor gives me some valium and sends me home with written instructions to "stay away from cocaine."  Of course I will, Herr Doktor.   I follow those instructions to the letter just a bit more than two years later.  After all, I'm a bit slow.  But Deja Vu is a bitch in this context and even the slowest among us eventually grow wise to the weary.  Or we simply grow weary and die.