Just out., October 17, 2003, Page 26, Image 26

17.2ÛÛ3
26
net* in a while* doesn’t hurt, I told
myself.”
C harles has his head down;
h e ’s shifting in his chair. T h ere’s
nothing in his dem eanor that says
drug addict. In fact, he seems to he your aver­
age guy: gay, nice-looking, your best buddy
from down the block.
“I allow myself to do things, it it is not dan­
gerous," Charles says. “I snorted coke in L.A.
one night, so I figured it was the same thing. To
snort something sounded OK, since I was not
into that all the time.”
Charles is not his real name. A telephone
operator from downtown Portland, he wishes to
remain anonymous, fearing repercussions in the
workplace and among friends and family who
know nothing of his habit.
“I was just h(X)king up as usual," he says, rub­
bing his thumb against his computer keyboard.
“I had not hixiked up in a while, hut my ex had
left me and I was out there trying to find some­
one to come home with me."
Charles fidgets with a notepad on his desk
anil smiles grimly. “This guy wanted to come
over to my place. He did sound like a gentle­
man. He brought wine and some white pow­
dered stuff. It was meth. I snorted it.
“I felt a rush and a hang. It burned like a
hitch. Suddenly 1 was not thinking about why
my ex left me. All there was to think about was
the moment. The moment before me and n o th ­
ing else. T he world belonged to me. I was want­
ed and everyone around me looked gixxi I had
self-confidence. My kxly was energized. My
mind focused on anything else hut me and my
own fuckups.
“I fucked for hours,” he continues. “1 was
having a lot of fun connecting with my part­
ner— well, the trick of the night, anyway.”
Charles smiles a beautiful, flawed smile. “I
am one of those guys who thinks about every­
thing. O n meth I did not care to think any­
more. M eth was a relief from my own
thoughts.”
Meth is on a run
as the ‘queen of drugs’
in Portland’s gay community
by Glenn Scofield Williams
eth makes you edgy and you clench
your jaw and nothing is real,” says Neil,
a gay Portlander working in marketing
and public relations who also prefers anonymity.
“You are stuck in this other world with people.
N othing is authentic.
“1 did it because I was curious. And my
friends, whom I trusted, were doing it,” he
admits. “I snorted it. It makes you feel really
wired. It made me very edgy and anxious— of
which I am neither, when sober.”
Neil used meth occasionally with a boyfriend
whom he refers to as his first love. His boyfriend’s
downward-spiraling meth habit wreaked havix:
in their relatioaship and inevitably led to their
breakup. “I used it only on a few ixzcasions with
friends. 1 didn’t use very much and, yes, I have
stopped. Fortunately, meth didn’t affect me
that much. But my ex has been affected horri-
I bly. There was a point at which he was literal-
| ly shitting and puking bltxxJ and still didn’t
realize he needed help.”
he most amazing thing about meth is
the sexual drive," says Wade. “1 spend
hours in my apartment naked, watch­
ing pom, searching the Internet and phone
dating lines lixiking for sex partners. There’s
this almost immediate desire for pom, to be
touched, played with, fucked.”
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Wade is a hanker from Portland who is also
using a pseudonym to protect his identity.
“In May 2 0 0 1 ,1 met a very cute meth user—
let’s call him Dustin.” Wade looks out the win­
dow wistfully. “I watched Dustin shexit it for two
weeks. Needles excite me. My heart raced every
time he shot up. The liquid drug pushing into
what he calls his ‘river of life.’
“O n a Friday night, just after midnight, he
shot me up.” He points to the crcxik of his arm;
his voice is unflinchingly direct. “1 watched the
needle go in. He withdrew the plunger until he
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A small grey bird lands on his windowsill;
Wade is not distracted by it. “My scalp tingled for
several minutes. The clothes came off. The desire
to he caressed. The feeling was very, very gixxl."
Wade licks his lower lip mindlessly. “I’ve
used m eth a couple of times a m onth since. I
have not yet stopped.”
There is silence in the room. Tire bird has
flown away.
“Dustin was a dealer. He always had it,”
Wade says. “W hen he went to jail, I got it from
his scary roommate. Now 1 can get it from a
friend of his that I have become close to.”
Wade mns his fingers through his hair, then
ltxiks at his fingertips. “1 haven’t used for three
weeks. But I have not given it up yet.”
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