I Need to Talk About Cocaine

‘I
need to talk about cocaine,’ I said.

It
was Saturday morning. I was lay out on my sofa, friend at my feet in a
similarly dishevelled ball, nursing the kind of migraine that only the cheapest
of red wine can give hospice to.

‘You
need to talk about cocaine?’

‘Yes.’
I rubbed my temples. I said, ‘Last night I saw people do coke for the first
time ever, and it made me want to cry.’

‘It
made you want to cry?’

‘I
feel really weird about it.’

‘Well,
why do you feel weird about it?’

‘I
don’t know. That’s why I need to talk about it.’

‘What
do you want to say?’

‘I.
DON’T. KNOW.’

We
sat in more silence for a while. Eventually I said, ‘Isn’t it bad people who do
coke?’

My
friend laughed. ‘You’re cleverer than that, LJ. You’ve been in London six
months now. Londoners do coke.’

‘But,
I’m like, proper well street-wise. I
know stuff, about the world and shit. I’m cool. I’M REALLY FUCKING COOL. And I
knew it happened. But it happened outside of my world; other people did it.’ I
gesticulated with my right hand and then winced at the sudden movement. ‘Then people I know did it, right there, in
front of me, and I realised everyone does it. But I didn’t know everyone did it, you know? Does everyone do it? Who does it? Why is
this the first time we’re having this conversation? I feel like my world has
shifted. OHMYGOD DO YOU DO IT?’

I was
genuinely upset. I think, on less hungover reflection, that it's because “cocaine”
was, until Friday, an abstract concept that had abstract morals. Coke happened
to other people’s nostrils. I didn’t have to think about it. But then, when
people you know do it, friends, and
you’re in their home and it’s obviously habit and you like them but thought you
didn’t like drugs, it’s confusing. Bad
people do drugs, but you’re my mates, and I’m not friends with bad people, so
coke must be okay?

That
can’t be right.

We played
a game. I named people we knew and sofa-buddy confirmed or denied their drug
use. No, she doesn’t. Yeah- she did it
last night. Yeah, she does, but her boyfriend doesn’t. Doesn’t agree with him.
Yeah, he does, and his boyfriend. I think they’re trying to do less of it now
though. No. She doesn’t. She doesn’t even take paracetamol.

Suddenly
eleventy million things fell into place. The way certain groups of friends
always leave a party for half an hour at one a.m. and come back with more
energy than when they left. How he slipped
money to her before we left the restaurant
and she disappeared for a bit. Unfinished sentences, half the story from a night
out, whispers in corners. Drugs. No big deal and everything, all at the same time.

When
I was in Year Nine at school, I stood on Melbourne Market Place wearing a black
pleather jacket and my new Rimmel frosted lipstick, and Blonde Jenny stormed up
to me outside of the chip shop and said, ‘YOU? ARE YOU DOING IT TOO?’

She’d
just found out that all our girl mates had been practicing snogging on each
other in the loo at school- you know. Just to see what it was like to kiss a
girl. But she was incensed by it.
Furious. Couldn’t believe we’d be so ridiculous- or, more to the point, why.

We’d
never told Blonde Jenny where we kept nipping off to at break, because we all
kind of agreed she wouldn’t like it. That she’d be a bit… judgey.

The
penny cracked in two as it finally dropped: I'm Blonde Jenny. I’M TOO JUDGEY
FOR DRUGS AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT.

My friend
told me that in his last job Friday beers were lined up next to grams of
powder, an either/or/and sort of scenario. He said for a big night out, a
party, New Year’s, you get some in. Maybe some MDMA. What’s MDMA, I asked. HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT YOU ARE THIS NAIVE,
he replied.

How is it possible that I’m this naive? I’ve
spent twenty-seven years making people believe I’ve had this alternative,
bohemian, crazy life, and I don’t even know how to roll a joint. Drugs have
literally never crossed my path. I’M THEATRE PEOPLE. WE BE BONKERS ENOUGH.

I
don’t know what to think, really, apart from the fact that I know even though
it's something “everybody” is doing, apparently, I still won’t be. But if friends
I otherwise like are, then what I want to know is can I still act like it's fine by me? Even if I'm not sure it is? Because fucking drugs, man. They’re everywhere. 

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