Two years ago, I was a methamphetamine addict. I averaged about a day's worth of sleep per week and I had a job where I set my own hours. It facillitated my addiction quite well, as the pay was spectacular and accelerated thinking gave me an edge over my fellow salesmen.

Late at night on September 10, I decided I would take the next day off. I had recently recieved my Dubya tax rebate check, just in time to pay my rent. I resolved that cashing this check and paying my rent with it would be all I did on September 11. The rest of the day would be spent smoking cigarettes and watching cable television.

So I called up my tweaker friends and told them not to come around that night, as I also meant to sleep. A day or so had passed since my last dose of crank so I felt confident that I would at least be able to doze awhile and rest up. At the time, I wasn't sleeping in my bed due to my severe depression over having to sleep in it alone. So I lay down on the couch, pulled a blanket over me and faded out.

I awoke round about 8:00 - 9:00 in the morning and groped about for my remote control. Before I dealt with anything that day, I wanted to deal with some motherfuckin Looney Tunes on the Cartoon Network. So I punched on the TV and the cable box. I didn't see Bugs and Daffy like I planned. I saw Dan Rather.

" - the same protocols they would use in case of a nuclear attack." Dan said.

What the hell? Something horrible had happened and it was on every channel. I sucked a cigarette and flipped between all the news channels. Slowly, the paticulars started surfacing. Whatever happened, it happened in New York. They kept talking about a plane crash. A plane crash on every channel? Planes crash all the time and they hold the film til eleven. A building collapsed. No, two buildings collapsed. Oh, those buildings. The Twin Towers. The planes crashed into the Twin Towers. Oh, that's what happened.

Oh. Oh no.

I made some phone calls. A lot of people weren't home or were working or were sleeping. I woke my friend Britney up and told her the first she heard of the whole thing. She didn't buy it at first. My dad was very solemn and said they were all in heaven now, all those people that died.

Later, my friend Brian came by. Brian was one of the first people I ever tweaked with and one of the very few people I actually liked to tweak with. He hadn't been to sleep in a couple days and had all kinds of theories. He was the first one to mention al Quaeda to me. I didn't know who that was.

As Brian cut us a couple lines, he said he planned to be very careful about who he bought from now so he could be sure he wasn't gonna sniff anthrax. At the time, this seemed sane. I remembered looking at the lines he cut and being a little terrified for myself. When we first started, the lines he cut seemed totally reasonable. Since then, I'd fallen in with a crowd that cut finger-thick rails. Brian's were thin and short and very, very cute.

We went for a drive, smoking cigarettes and looking for a place to cash my check. I tried to force the iced coffee we bought down but my stomach didn't want anything in it. The first bank we went to wanted my check to cover my negative balance. I needed the check for rent so we left. All the grocery stores we went to wanted me to spend half of it on groceries, except for the ones who said they couldn't cash government checks. We went all over town, getting shot down, listening to the radio and the latest from New York as we went.

In the end, I grew so spun and frazeled that I decided I would just fucking OPEN AN ACCOUNT at a bank so I could get my money. USBank, appropriately enough. Inside, the manager who was supposed to help me open my account was watching the news. He asked if I felt like watching it awhile before opening my account. I was almost five. I wanted my fucking cash.

On September 11th, my cranked-out, desperate ass pulled someone away from the news of the tragedy to cash my tax refund check.

All day long, I remembered being half sick and half excited. Brian I discussed how insulated we Americans usually are and how much more frequently other nations had to cope with such horror. We did a couple more lines, smoked a couple cigarettes, turned off the news and listened to music. When Brian left, I thought that I was largely unaffected by the horror in New York. Being spun alone and not moving is never fun, so I went for a drive.

"Proud to be an American" was playing on the radio. I hate this song. It's impossibly corny and I don't believe the "men who died" over communist paranoia gave any kind of "right to me".

I turned it up. I don't understand my reasons for this anymore than my next action. Instead of driving past the McDonald's, I pulled into the drive-through.

Suddenly, having a quarter pounder with cheese from McDonald's seemed really, really important.

This entry was written with a September 11 weblog project in mind. Check the link out to see who's signed on to chronical who they were back then.