clean
an unused version

Duane came from a dirty place. He told me about a dirty club in a sketchy neighbored in Detroit where his punk-rockabilly band played. Sometimes, the opening acts at the club had to clean dog crap off the stage since the proprietor’s idea of a security system was to let a couple of Rottweilers loose in the place after hours.

Duane had a dirty habit and he’d come to Minneapolis to “get clean”. By the time I met him, he was done cleaning up dog crap, and done with heroin.

He wasn’t the first junkie I knew. I’d known a few and wisely kept them at arms length. There was no need for protective measures with Duane. When we became friends, he was sober, stable and utterly delightful.

He also was remarkably open about his addiction. Maybe this was another part of his treatment — like AA meetings, where drunks sit on folding chairs in a circle and spill out horror stories, Duane shared his horror stories with me.

Those stories dove deeper and differently than the stories I knew. I’d heard tales of hideous withdrawal; bone-crushing aches, nausea — dope sickness. Duane schooled me more on the social costs of addiction. He’d been on the other side of arm’s-length relationships.

When Duane was using, getting high was his sole focus. This meant that he’d skip out on his job while he was trying to score. Then he’d lose that job.

He’d skip out on his rent since he didn’t have a paycheck, and pretty soon he’d loose his apartment.

He’d couch surf and overstay his welcome with friends. Or, he’d borrow money from those friends which he couldn’t pay back. Then, he’d lose his people.

Ultimately, he’d lose his city, like he’d lost Detroit. He’d have to remove himself from the scene that provides the poison and start over.

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I’m glad to know these things. Understanding suffering is humanity-101 and we should always keep studying it. Duane’s suffering was different than mine — far more brutal than mine. He really helped me put my troubles into perspective.

One day Duane showed up at my apartment asking for a ride to the impound lot. A cop had pulled him over on the north side since his car had expired Michigan license plates — at least, that’s the official story.

Duane’s take was that the cop suspected a tattooed rockabilly punk had no business driving in this particular neighborhood — aside from buying drugs. If this was the cop’s assumption, the cop was right.

On our drive to the impound, Duane fessed up, teared up, and essentially gave me permission to keep him at arms length. He knew from our discussions that this is what I’d done in the past. He knew that if he was going to lose me as a friend, it was better to get on with it rather than cause me harm.

I knew that I’d let him in. We'd grown close, and at this moment, what we were experiencing was breaking my heart as well as his.

Friendships come and go but I’d never known such stark contrast between a solid friendship and a collapsed friendship. I hadn't known that he was no longer clean. I hadn’t prepared to keep Duane at arm’s length.

I don’t know if this story has a happy ending. I only know that Duane and I said goodbye and good luck with a hug that day. As goodbyes go, the setting could have be far sweeter than the God-awful impound lot.

I heard Duane left Minneapolis shortly after all of this. Minneapolis had become another dirty place for him. There was poison here and he needed to start over elsewhere.

For a while I felt sorry for myself. My buddy was gone in a blink. Now, when I think of Duane, my main emotion is gratitude. He’s deepened my understanding of suffering. And among the things I wish for, is the wish that Duane finally got clean.

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