Needle Too: Junkies In Paradise Part 19

"Okay!" I said as I finally relented and turned my attention to the gentlemen as he sat and continued to stare at the baby in a carriage that was wedged between the now, chair-less side of the table and suddenly stool-less side of the bar. "Listen, sir-you can't move all the furniture around. If we get a little bit of a rush in here it's gonna be chaos."

"Hey-give the guy a break," was suddenly blurted out by another West Villager who happened to be the only customer at the bar.

"Excuse me?"

"Give the guy a break," he repeated as if I should've known better.

"Listen," I said to the guy with the baby carriage while ignoring the guy at the bar. "The back of the restaurant's completely empty. You can do whatever you want back there but there's really no room up here for a carriage."

Suddenly, the West Villager climbed down from his stool and tried to usher me away from the gentlemen and the area of the restaurant that he and his offspring were occupying.

"That's Philip Seymour Hoffman," he then said to me.

"So," I replied and to be honest, I didn't even know who Philip Seymour Hoffman was.

"He's an actor."

"Ohso?"

"Hey, Lou-tell the waiter he should leave this guy alone," said the West Village idiot.

"Why should I tell him that?"

"Because that's Philip Seymour Hoffman! The actor!"

"Ohokay then," said Lou after he thought about it for a second. "Nevermind, Craig. It's okayhe can sit wherever he wants."

"Why?! A second ago you were begging me to get him out of there."

"Because he's Philip Seymour Hoffman!" the fawning fan squealed at me once more. "He won the f.u.c.king Academy Award, for chrissake! Come on, man-PHILIP-SEYMOUR-HOFFMANHe's a really famous dude!"

"WHO CARES who Philip Seymour Hoffman is?"

"What?"

"Who cares who he is?!" I said again. "Why should we have to shut down the front of the restaurant for a single guy and a baby carriage?"

"Because he's a celebrity and a talented actor and that's what Nick would want," Lou pointed out as I watched Mr. Hoffman and his carriage quietly leave Mole though no one else seemed to notice.

"f.u.c.k Nick," I said.

"Come on," said Lou who was apparently willing to pander for the right price, though still unaware that the attempted a.s.s-kissing was a wasted one. "Help the guy out. Remember when you wanted to sneak Jennifer Aniston out the side door?"

"That was only because I wanted to deprive the paparazzi."

"De man wit de baby es gone?" Lydia asked as she was suddenly inspecting the other side of the bar.

"Yes, indeed," I told her.

"DEN PUT DE CHAIRS WHERE DEY BELONG!" she bellowed at me.

"What?" I asked, more addressing the nasty tone than the words behind it.

"I said move de chairs!"

"Move them yourself," I said as I gestured in her direction and had finally had enough.

"What?"

"You heard me-MOVE THEM YOUR f.u.c.kING SELF."

So that was it and that was that. Then, in a blaze of glory across a burning bridge I headed for the very same door I wanted to use to prevent the photographers from having their way with Jennifer Aniston, and as I did one of those illegal kitchen-f.u.c.ks mentioned the 'gato' while making a mocking and sarcastic gesture. So, without saying another word I finally left the restaurant for goodright after I threatened to deport everyone in it.

I stormed out of the building and headed east down Jane Street with the clearest head I've ever had. For the first time in my life I knew what I was supposed to be doing with myself, my time, my energy and perhaps most importantly-my written words. Indeed, I now knew what mattered most. While amidst wasted wealth and ever-increasing appet.i.tes for a.s.sets that even I once coveted for all the wrong reasons-my path was finally shown to me by a beautiful, little black bag of bones with an eye infection that oozed a mixture of puss and blood, and two damaged legs that flailed to the side as he hobbled about. I meanas she hobbled about.

My mind raced as my pace increased and though I had no idea where I was going, I knew exactly what I was doing and decided I would self-publish Needle and hope it might eventually provide a platform to affect significant change and help improve the plight of forsaken, forgotten and abused companion animals. Of course, I had no idea of what else to write, but I definitely had a reason to write. And as I briefly recalled the reservations I previously had about exposing my past-they now seemed foreign, almost as if I was remembering someone else's thoughts because my own now revolved around the furry four-legged.

As I continued blindly in a northeasterly direction, I eventually reached 22nd Street where I made a right turn and pa.s.sed a restaurant that seemed to be putting on the finis.h.i.+ng touches ahead of some sort of opening. And, with October rent looming just ahead, I had no choice.

I stepped into Ciano and pa.s.sed a man who was sitting on a couch and shuffling papers, and then proceeded to the bar where two others were in the midst of a discussion.

"Excuse me," I said. "I was curious if you were hiring wait staffor server staff."

"As a matter of fact we are," said one of the gentlemen. "Got a resume?"

"Actually, dropping by was kind of spur of the moment. But I can go home and email you one, or if you want I can just-"

"Don't waste your time," said the man on the couch. And, as I retreated from the bar and proceeded back in the direction of that couch, imagine my surprise when I suddenly stumbled upon- "Stratis!" I said as my eyes lit up and simultaneously looked down on him while I salivated like a hungry lion about to pounce on a pound of flesh. "I'm gonna make you famous."

"Hey, Rick!" Stratis shouted to the man who asked for my resume. "This is the f.u.c.ker that stole a hundred bucks from me back in 1995!"

"It was actually a hundred-and-thirty-five and you still owe me money," I said as I slowly turned around and left Ciano along with Stratis sitting there like yesterday's news. But of course, it wouldn't be too long before Stratis would suddenly find himself newsworthy again.

The Afterward Several months after I left Mole, The U.S. District Court in Miami found Stratis Morfogen and one of his restaurants, Philippe, "guilty of false advertising and unfair compet.i.tion by deceptive conduct" and as a result, ordered him to pay Mr. Chang-the owner and namesake of the world renown restaurant whose reputation he was trying to exploit-a million dollars in damages. But the fun was just beginning, and about six months later TMZ reported that four Philippe employees had filed a lawsuit claiming they were forced to serve pot-smoking patrons which exposed "them to smoke from a harmful and illegal substance." In fact, according to The Huffington Post, one employee claims to have been fired after confronting the owners with the issue as well as his displeasure at having to return home to his family covered in smoke and the smell of weed, which, when given my own proclivities it seems odd he didn't forget about the money and hire me on the spot. And though the lawsuit didn't explicitly name the patrons involved, TMZ points to Rick Ross and Nicki Minaj, both of whom have been known to dine at Philippe.

Not surprisingly, Stratis dismissed the lawsuit as an attempt at "extortion" and said, "We do not allow smoking of legal cigarettes in our restaurants, so obviously we strongly deny these ridiculous accusations." But Stratis certainly shouldn't have been the only one investigated for his business practices and during the summer of 2012, a few months after publis.h.i.+ng Needle, I would be courted and then exploited by a scurrilous publicist who supposedly represented the interests of a well-known cable news correspondent. As a result, after falling victim to her silver tongue and what I believe was a fabricated concern for charitable causes, I believe she plundered almost a thousand dollars of funds that would have otherwise been used to help scores of displaced and affected pets in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Needless to say, she has now found herself squarely between the crosshairs of my pen and my middle finger.

Perry, meanwhile, remained in San Francisco, and though he successfully avoided another relapse that didn't prevent the most recently donated pig valve to finally start squealing toward the end of 2013. Fortunately, thanks to twenty years worth of advancement in the field of cardio thoracic surgery, Perry's impertinent pig part could now be replaced through an artery in his leg and as a result he was out of the hospital the next day and just in time to visit his mother who was in the midst of succ.u.mbing to cancer.

"How'd it go out there?" I asked after he'd returned from that final visit at a hospice in Wisconsin.

"There were no surprises," he said.

"You mean no miraculous recoveries?"

"I mean she didn't want me by the deathbed."

I would have thought that Felicia, during her final hours, might have wanted to make things right with Perry but apparently that wasn't on the agenda. Of course, as an absentee parent she was never in the running for Mother of the Year, but by the very same token she was obviously a much less destructive force in Perry's life than Mrs. Goodman was in mine. Either way, I suppose that even during one's final hour, self-serving self-righteousness can reign supreme. Needless to say, at this point my own mother, who is certainly not on her deathbed (come to think of it, I don't think she can ever really die), has never shown a scintilla of real remorse about her own poor parenting-which is obviously a euphemism beyond words.

Certainly, from the child's perspective, the physical abuse I suffered while growing up was the defining aspect of my childhood and as a result-and as far as from what I can glean from the lives of others-it was essentially s.n.a.t.c.hed away from me. But still, as I've previously mentioned, I don't directly blame my mother and the abuse she doled-out for my addiction. However, it seems to me that the dysfunctional relations.h.i.+p I had with her as well as the dysfunctional relations.h.i.+ps I've had with other immediate and extended family members may have been an obstacle to my recovery...or at least my sustained state of abstention. And though the ramifications of having flawed familial relations.h.i.+ps was mostly unknown to me until later in life, I believe that had those relations.h.i.+ps been of a more functional nature then perhaps my use of opiates wouldn't have dragged on for as long as it had. In fact, had I been part of a tightly knit and supportive clan, the kind of clan that I was occasionally exposed to while growing up, then maybe I wouldn't have had the b.a.l.l.s to stick a needle in my arm to begin with. But who knows because regardless, I was ripe for the taking.

Of course, there is one aspect of my childhood that I believe my mother's parental shortcomings not only delayed the maturation of, but almost eliminated the possibility of ever being realized, which was my undying devotion to the animals. Clearly, that pa.s.sion began to reveal itself while I was in the midst of writing Needle and then again after Leo arrived, but of course-it was there all along. And without question, my life and journey were irreversibly altered by Kittyand I will never forget her, nor will I ever forgive myself for failing to save a life when I could have. Indeed, this is the albatross I'll wear around my neck forever. So, in retrospect, it is that personal shortcoming-more than anything- for which I resent my mother most and hold her personally responsible. It is that which has prevented me from saving lives that I could have saved and that is, indeed, the hardest thing to come to grips with. And maybe, just maybe, had she embraced my germinating interests as a child I would've been too busy as an adult with important things to be wasting time shooting dopebut I suppose there's no sense in crying over spilt milk. Nonetheless, sometimes I think about how things might have turned out differently and what I might have accomplished and it's during moments like these when I keep picturing all these little dogs playing in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little dogs, and n.o.body's around-n.o.body big, I mean-except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff and what I have to do is catch them if they start to go over the cliff-I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the dog catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.*

THE dog CATCHER in the RYEdue out in 2016-but you know how that goes. Fortunately, there's tons of s.h.i.+t to be agitated by until then-so stay tuned. And to be notified when any future efforts become available please visit www.NeedleUser.com, join us on Facebook (Craig Jordan Goodman), follow us on Twitter (@CraigJGoodman) or send a request to [email protected]

In the meantime, however, as part of a groundbreaking and gra.s.sroots effort to improve the plight of homeless animals, we're in the process of developing a nonprofit business model and new concept for pet store owners that will enable them to find homes for animals rescued from city and state kill-shelters, as opposed to those being bred for business and often the product of puppy mills. With a little luck, the first of these brick and mortar operations will be coming to Brooklyn by the end of 2015. Clearly, this is a tremendous undertaking and all hands are needed on deck, so if you're interested in getting involved, especially if you happen to work in the pet supply business or have influential contacts within it, we'd love to hear from you and can be reached at Of course, monetary contributions to the cause are desperately needed and appreciated. For more information please visit https://www.NeedleUser.com.

* Inspired by The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger.

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