BUTCHER’S BILL

Roger Teague was 42 when he died of AIDS in 1990.

Emily Remler was 32 when she died of heart failure in 1990.

Jay Murphy was 43 when he died of a heroin overdose in 1998.

Eva Kemeny Rausing was 48 when she died of a cocaine overdose in 2012.

I may not have had AIDS, but I looked and felt like I had something bad. I had no energy, and could barely get myself together each morning to get my dose of methadone and sit through an hour of therapy. I’d crash as soon as I got home and sleep most of the day. I slowly started to feel stronger, and started going to movies during the day.

I completed my two weeks in the Breakthrough Program, which was an accomplishment in itself; I hadn’t actually finished anything in years. I spent some more time with Roger, and became more comfortable around him.

I stayed clean for almost 90 days after I left the hospital, purely out of spite. I went to NA meetings every day and avoided all the places that might make me use again. I think Laverne felt guilty about what had happened with Vinnie, because he offered to act as my temporary sponsor and put me under his wing.

I needed time to figure out my next move, but a dope habit doesn’t afford a junkie the luxury of time. I couldn’t handle working at another club, or going out on the road, and I felt unmotivated and unmoored.

I was disillusioned and wasted when I got back from Europe. I hadn’t felt that burned out since my American University days, and I had had enough Lionel Hampton to last a lifetime. As soon as I got back, Mel from Fat Tuesday’s continued the discussion about buying the club, which I still found ridiculous. I had no money to buy a club, but he said he could put me in touch with some investors who might be interested.

Sitting in an office with Pete and a secretary every day was dull and repetitive, and I started to feel like an order taker. I moved further into the suburbs of Virginia, started playing golf, and spent less and less time in Georgetown. I enjoyed the stability for a while—the novelty of it, I guess—and being perceived as a success. But there was no action, or danger, and I was antsy; it all started to feel too normal.

A new jazz club had just opened across the street from the Bayou, and Stan, a bartender who left the Bayou when I did, was working there. It was a supper club called Charlie's Georgetown and was co-owned by the guitarist, Charlie Byrd.

Right before I left American I had been to a concert at a rock club in Georgetown called the Bayou, and I’d thought about applying for a part-time job there even before everything went south and I actually needed a job. I walked into the club one afternoon, and up to a guy that was standing in the middle of the dance floor facing the stage.

One morning, having just fallen asleep after a multi-day coke binge, I answered a knock on the door of my dorm room at American University to find three plainclothes detectives shoving their badges in my face. This is it, I thought, I’m finally fucked.