The Learning Curve

The coke curved across the brand new lightly tanned coffee table for a good thirty centimetres before it was joined by another of equal measure. This was insane, even for our standards. I’d never seen that much cocaine hovered up one nostril in one fowl swoop. Still, I wasn’t one to be out done and the other line went the same way up mine, eventually. When the next lines were arched out across the table, I had to call in my brother and Mazza from the next room to come and watch. I considered this at the time to be an extraordinary spectacle, and one which must, for prosperity be witnessed by the stag and his best man, both of whom, with a little drug appreciation in their history, together with the assured excitement at the prospect of a wee snort themselves, would see this as legendary. Indeed they did, as they watched Cin and I do a second in astonishment, they were laughing and buzzing as much as we were. Cin then hoovered up his third whilst they assisted me with mine, breaking it down into three perfectly respectable, if not still on the hefty size lines. After a few beers in the hotel bar whilst the stag party re-convened, off we went into the Bristol night, the drug takers set aside from the rest of the crew, but only a little; reassured that there was more than enough to last us, more than enough to go round, there would be no need to watch the source; no need for cocaine politics, indeed, we’d had enough of the stuff already! It was an incredible weekend, but that’s by and by, my story continues at its end. It was the journey home on the Monday morning which took me by complete surprise, and which for the next six years of my life was to re-occur, never with as much vigour, but as if my brain had been shown the route in, introduced to a way of thinking. Alas, the seam is now sealed, but has left a scar that manifests by way of vertigo and internal turrets from time to time. Cin had to measure up a job while we were down south before we ploughed back up north, we left early and without a great deal of sleep. I bought a bottle of Lucozade and a bottle of Ribena upon arrival, I drank both immediately. Cin cracked on while I watched, he was good at what he did, he looked confident, unphased, self assured and rich, he had the place and the people measured up in moments. I thought of myself in my profession, I was his flaming opposite, his inferior, I felt a long way behind, and too stupid to catch up. This reality of adulthood was as I had expected for Cin, but not so for me, what the Hell had become of me? Eventually, Cin had everything he needed, in and out like a whirlwind he had clearly impressed every other tradesman on site and the owner, we roared off and hit motorway. Cin kept us fuelled up, bought us McDonalds, did all the driving, the least I could do was keep him entertained. As the time passed in social silence, I put myself under immense pressure to perform, the problem was, there was just nothing there, nothing in reserve for my spirit to muster; I’d used it all up in our flurry of chemicular fuelled brilliance, most of which we’d forgotten. The stuff I was coming out with by now was increasingly desperate, it sounded shit to me and I’m easily pleased, I felt thick and boring, I was unnecessarily nervous and scared, not only of my so called best mate and what he must be thinking of me, but of myself and what I was becoming in life. The more I thought on, the more pathetic my very occasional responses to Cin became. I had absolutely nothing about me, I had withered away to my pre-Cin rugby school bus days, and with regards those days, I was a grower not a show’er. By south Lancashire, Cin took it upon himself to keep us entertained. He did this by drawing his horseless carriage alongside lone female drivers on the M6, if they were unattractive then he sped off, if they weren’t then he’d circle them like a shark. It’s amazing the level of interest a metallic grey TVR Tuscan with red leather upholstery can draw, especially with the top down to expose all that hand stitched leather, grey suede, silver, gold, anodized aluminium, and the rushing of the wind through Cin’s hair as he flashed them his winning smile. Most of the girls reacted positively, but did so whilst doing very little for my self esteem; looking straight through my insecure posture, cowering demeanour and ‘boo smile,’ hoping to catch Cin’s eye. After sniffing the exhausts of the smaller female cars, reminiscent of my own at home, and performing some kind of automotive mating dance around them, we'd be off back up the road with a bone curdling clatter from the Tuscan’s hugely aggressive tuned up V10. From time to time the braver of the younger girls would attempt to keep up, by then, what little interest I had would be gone, every ounce of my very being re-directed back inwards. The noise of the TVR had always been nothing short of frightening, it was what made it stand out from the increasingly luxurious supercar market. Indeed it was the noise that made me fall in love with the car; it gave the impression of greater acceleration, greater speed and sheer brut power, way beyond that of its silenced counterparts. Cin’s Tuscan was excitement on a stick, but was also a seething fire spitting monster, a brutal machine with a relentless roar that would silence the very chariots of the Gods. That car was the closest we’d ever get to being fighter pilots or astronauts, but that constant noise for almost 3 hours on a motorway was adding significantly to my fear. Although I was concentrating with all my might, I was not in the slightest bit sure on what, maybe simply to stay alive, I don’t know, but it was making me very anxious. It was becoming sheer terror in fact, of the kind experienced when there is an impending sense of doom and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it; panic, but with crystal clear vision. I felt as though I was losing control, that I was losing a battle in my mind for me. The first physical manifestation was finding that swallowing was becoming more and more difficult, until eventually it became impossible, even with a mouthful of liquid, and especially beforehand with a dry throat, and afterwards with tiny amounts of liquid lodged in my throat which I couldn't seem to clear. I was telling myself to swallow and going through the motions of doing so, whilst at the same time thinking way too much about what exactly the motions that caused a swallow were, and how my brain took the signal of thought, unconsciously to the throat, and why then the throat muscles did what they did. How exactly was I really in charge of that? Believe me, when you think that intently about it, and you try to swallow, you find that you’re no longer in charge, and at first, nothing happens. This then got me thinking, as if I wasn’t thinking enough! What about breathing? If that were to stop out of my control then I was a goner. Now, the beauty of breathing is that you don’t have to think about it, there is a reason for that! My undivided intensity of thought moved to my breathing, was I becoming a little asthmatic? The answer, yes, very probably, I often did get that way after heavy drinking, and my left lung was getting a little tight. Was I getting enough oxygen? I wasn’t sure. Could I be breathing inadequately, and could indeed I simply just stop breathing without my mind being in charge of it? I didn’t want to take that risk and took over for myself, breathing harder and faster to compensate. This had been going on for approximately half an hour, and as we approached Junction 19 of the M6 I asked Cin to pull off because I wasn’t feeling well, he laughed, at last, and did so. I got out of the car and lay on some grass, my ears still ringing from the engine, but somewhat relieved to have some quiet, and on solid stationary ground, I planted myself and tried to get a hold of myself. Cin moved the car off the very busy road that traversed Cheshire for several miles before linking to another motorway; he disappeared into a side road on the edge of some Cheshire estate. Five or ten minutes passed, it wasn’t working, I needed to get home. By the time I got back to the car, another car was pulling away, it was one of the particularly hot young women we had circled on the motorway, she’d followed us in. Cin had been somewhat swept of his feet and was left holding the business card of a very sexy young lady who had more letters after her name than we had in our names, she was a high flyer, I think in literature or publishing. By the time we got back on the motorway, I started to feel tingling, like sporadic pins and needles in my fingers and then hands. It was an unexpected and unusual sensation, but as it spread up my forearms it became damn right frightening. A similar sensation started in my stomach, was I haemorrhaging, was my blood supply being restricted somewhere, could this be a stroke, or had something ruptured in my tummy? The feeling started to intensify in my arms and my stomach; it was time to come clean. I told Cin that something was wrong, I didn’t know what, but I wasn’t well. Cin looked at me, he was grinning, he clearly thought it was just a hangover, ‘I’m going to phone Jim,’ I said. Jim was a very good friend to us both, often our third member back in the day, I’d known him since Class 1.  Jim was also a font of knowledge, a professor in bio-chemistry and a practising scientist at Leeds University, we called him ‘Doctor Caryl,’ on account he just knew about everything.   Jim didn’t pick up, so I left a voicemail describing my symptoms, speeding up as my face grew stiff and my jaws began to lock. I looked at Cin, he’d gone white and was no longer smiling.  He lifted off the throttle.  As far as I was concerned, Cin’s reaction suggested that what he had heard and what he was seeing, he considered to be, and therefore must be, serious.   My forearms tightened up, as did my stomach, they were tightening up so much that they beginning to hurt, I couldn’t release them, it was happening completely out of my control and there was nothing I could do to stop it.   I remained lucid and concentrated on breathing, my vision was fine, but I was utterly convinced that I was about to lose consciousness at anytime, and very aware that I might not ever wake up.   My stomach contracted further, and bent me over, my forearms did the same and drew my hands over to my wrists, my fingers then did the same forming claws with my hands.  I looked down at my arms; the sight was reminiscent of advanced cerebral palsy.  I thought I was having a spasm.  My thighs and calves were now contracting too and is was as though my body was collapsing inward to form a black hole or something, whatever, I was being crushed by my own body, but not by my mind.  The deeper I went, the more anxious I became.   I felt the TVR slow further and pull onto the hard shoulder, the speed was still enough for the hot tyres to pick up a lot of gravel, showering it onto the underside of the fibre glass body.  I started to worry about the beautiful car, that beautiful TVR; a great car to go out in, but please, without causing her any damage.   Cin was on the phone, he’d called 999, they’d located us and he was told to exit at Junction 18 in Cheshire and go straight to the Hilton Hotel just off the roundabout, the ambulance was on its way there.   We raced up the narrow drive, slowing for the speed bumps slightly then tearing off to the next, twenty metres or so on.  The 4.0 litre, six speed V10 rickashayed around the quiet enclosures of the hotel’s house and gardens, they would wonder what the Hell was coming, the tight tall hedgerows keeping us visually encapsulated.   Cin pulled the Tuscan into a loading only bay at the front of the hotel and jumped out, running round to my door and enlisting some door staff as he went.   The door opened but I couldn’t move, the racing style bucket seats meant that I was sat right down into the bowels of the machine, but it wouldn’t have mattered, everything had seized.           Cin and a doorman lifted me out of the car, I couldn’t feel my feet properly in order to put my weight down, they unfolded me as if I had early onset rigamortus and carried me like a drunk through the front doors.     The foyer was absolutely packed, the hum of people was so dense, and the place so busy, that they got me in with minimal fuss and over to a long leather Chesterfield.  Those sitting were dispersed and I was lay down horizontally with my feet up on the arm of the sofa.   The facilities and life within the environment in which I now found myself, calmed me, I was somewhere safe, I wasn’t dead, an ambulance was close now.  It was like I had been brought back down to earth and grounded.   I felt my hand being lifted by another hand and looked round to see the kindest most beautiful face holding it, all the while coming in closer, down to me, then sitting alongside me, into me, stroking my hand.  She smelt beautiful, she felt beautiful.  Soon my claw shaped hand was opening up and out, allowing the angel to massage the palm of my hand.  Ecstasy followed as my neck muscles and head started to relax and melt away with the caress of gentle blood flow and the kindness of somebody I didn’t know. I started to realise that my breathing was taking care of itself while the control of the rest of my body was being handed back to me.   The young woman asked us both if I was on medication, Cin looked at me sheepishly, but prompted me, if I wasn’t going to volunteer full and frank information then he certainly was.  I needed no prompting and explained that I had been on my brother’s stag do and had been drinking heavily, and, that I had, stupidly, taken cocaine.  There wasn’t the slightest hint of judgement in that pretty face, the kindness didn’t falter, her soft grip didn’t waiver.   We had been lucky she told us, smiling; we had landed in the middle of a nurses’ convention.   The ambulance arrived and I walked out, as lucid as I had remained throughout, the ambulance took me to Wythenshawe Hospital, tailed by Sin in the TVR.   I was right as rain by the time we got there, the paramedics had joked and commented on the car, they were on an easy job now, they knew what this was.   The hospital kept me in so I released Sin, he still had a couple of hours to go before he got home, re-assured, he left me with the line, ‘you need to know why this has happened and sort it out.’  He didn’t for one second mean the drink and the drugs, that was obvious to us both.     I lay on my bed in the drunkards ward thinking.  Of course I knew why this had happened, and yes, it had all been in my head, but it had been the drink and the drugs that had dropped me off there, it was they which had aided the laying of the track and been the greater part in the fuelling of my thought to get me to this particular destination.  People like me are a paradox, we struggle with moderation because the drink and the drugs are a form of medication, but then, they can also be the cause of the condition.   So, in line with the first element of Cin’s request, I knew why this had happened.  As for what I was going to do about it, I suppose lead an active healthier lifestyle and fuel my thoughts with science and the arts, probably not the solution that would please my hedonistic friend, Cin, for if this was to be the case, together we would no longer raise Hell.   At that moment a drunk who had been out cold for three days sat bolt upright in very high spirits, there was a cleaned up crack on his head, even after three days kip he was still merry.  He clambered out of bed in his hospital nightie and realised he was still connected to various tubes and an intravenous drip.  He had no idea what had happened to him, he didn’t care, all he wanted were his jeans and his fags.  He called a nurse who came in and told him to get back into bed, that she would see what she could do to get him disconnected and out for a cigarette, but that it was not such a good idea just yet.  As soon as the nurse left he pulled out a needle in his arm and then the tube out of his knob.  The tube had obviously been under strain, snapping back at his hand as his dick finally let go, he cried out in pain, then asked the drunk in the bed opposite where his jeans were.  He was gestured towards the cupboard by his bed, found them and pulled them on under his nightie.  Feeling round his pockets he exclaimed, ‘shit no smokes.’  The drunk across the way responded by saying, ‘ye can ave one of mine, ere, al cum wid ye,’ only that particular drunk came back.   The next morning, upon my discharge from hospital, I phoned work and pulled a very rare sicky, whilst I felt fine, I didn’t want to put it to the test quite so immediately.  I took the bus home when Jim called, ‘panic attack old boy,’ he said, ‘and a rough one by all accounts, the first is always the worst because you don’t know what’s happening. I’ll tell you though, hyper ventilating, breathing too fast creating a build up of CO2 in your blood which causes your muscles to restrict and spasm, just calm down old boy, but try not to take deep breaths, grab a paper bag next time.’ Sure enough, there was a next time, several infact, but I’ve got a handle on it now, some six years down the line. I laid off the drugs, but the drink was not so easy. It was the hangovers from the two day binges with the odd shot thrown in that really took their toll. Once rid of those, to a large extent it became mainly just heights, or later on still, when not at height, but presented instead with a situation whereby to say the wrong thing would be horrendous, a form of internal turrets that would cause my mind to say that very thing, but thankfully not out loud. There is no doubt that I managed to wake up a part of my brain previously not utilised, let’s call it the panic cortex, now that the door is open, I know there are triggers that will result in me entering, whereby previously I may have bounced off a locked door, however, the more I go in, the easier it gets to get out, and thus, the more control I have over my fears, the greatest of which would be a dependence upon the cures.