It turns out Irene got the dope from one of the cleaning men who she was fucking in the stairwell during lunch. My kind of people.

DAY TEN

Three new people checked in today. Marvin, a retired bus driver in his fifties, is probably here for alcoholism. Wanda is a heroin addict who says she’s a model and brought the makeup to prove it. And Mark is a crazy kid from Vacaville—I don’t know what his drug of choice is, but I don’t think it matters anymore. This is a cross section of village idiots from all over the state. Everyone you ever would have thought was too loaded at a party is in one place.

After group, Bart apologized for calling me an asshole and told me a story about the time that he spilled amyl nitrate on his testicles and his balls melted into the sheets, and he had to take the sheets and his balls to the hospital and have them separated. I told him it was a great idea for a TV movie.

We had lunch and watched The Outer Limits. Drug addicts pretty much all have the same taste in shows: science fiction and MTV. It’s so bizarre. Everyone is acting like where we are is sort of normal, and we’re in a drug clinic.

DAY ELEVEN

The new people came out of detox today and joined our group. Marvin said he wasn’t an alcoholic, but he likes it here. He thinks all of us are interesting. It’s like he’s on a field trip for Psychology Today, or a segment of Bloopers, Blumpers and Bleepers where they send a healthy person to blend in with a wardful of addicts just to see if anybody notices.

Wanda was in the hospital recovering from a suicide attempt (carbon monoxide in her car). She called her dealer to bring her heroin because she couldn’t sleep. She overdosed in the hospital, so they just transferred her down here.

Mark was brought in by his parole officer directly from Vacaville. He’s nineteen, and he looks like he’s been on medication of some kind for most of his life. His blond hair is greasy and parted down the middle, and he has very wild eyes. When he walks down the hallways, he hugs the walls, which Carl says is a prison thing. Mark has already been in jail for three years for resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer, and now he’s in a drug clinic. His father came in today to bring him some clothes. He seemed disappointed at the way Mark’s turned out.