The Invisible Man

The Invisible Man, Pages 25-29

Our twin daughters were born six weeks premature.

Only one placenta, but in their own amniotic sacks. Identical twins have identical DNA and so should be virtual clones. But nothing could be further from the truth.

One was born bright red, and the other was blue. Twin-to-twin transfusion is a condition that causes the single placenta to oversupply one baby with blood-rich nutrients and undersupply the other.

I looked at the nurse and she must have seen my concern and said, "They are fine."

And they were fine. Neither required any ventilation and after six weeks in a special care unit, we brought them home.

I took three months off work to help Em with the parenting, and because I wanted to bond with them. We got into the groove of caring for two babies. The one that was oversupplied from the placenta was 2.2 kg and the blue one was 1.7kg.

Doesn't sound like much difference...but half a kilo on a baby not much bigger than a doll is significant and so she needed more attention. In those first moments we arrived home Em decided that the larger one was going to be her assignment, and the smaller more frail one would be mine. That suited me fine, and we got to work.

It did have its moments, but I loved most of it. The first shitty nappy was a bit difficult, but once I had done a few it was easy. Finding the money became the hard part, but I had a plan.

****

Growing pot was something I was very good at...after all, it is just a weed. But with the hydroponics explosion, it became more than just throwing a few seeds in the ground and hoping for the best. I already had a network of friends who smoked enough of it to justify my idea to Em.

"Let's set up a room."

"But we can't, what about when visitors come over...our parents?"


I had thought of this...in fact, I had been planning for this for quite some time. Even when we bought our new home, I checked to see if my plan could work.

I looked up, and my eyes would have had a glint in them, unmistakable in their devious nature and it was then that the penny dropped.

"Up in the ceiling?" she exclaimed.

The house had a really long gable roof, high enough for me to stand up straight in the centre. I took a step ladder, opened the manhole and climbed up into the crawl space.

"Come on up," I said.

She stood at the top of the ladder, watching me walk towards the other end of the house. I imagined where I stood, below me was a huge open area, being careful not to misjudge my steps, from one joist to the next, until I stood over the kitchen some 20 meters away from where Em stood in the manhole opening.

Planning began that day, but a lot of hard work lay ahead of me. I needed to build a room. The temperatures during the day in the ceiling space were way too hot for marijuana to survive, but at night, it was doable.

I bought sheets of aluminium fridge panelling, which is very light and already insulated. When I sealed the room completely and installed the air conditioner, I could keep the temp in the room down to fourteen degrees Celsius, when just outside, the daytime temp in the crawl space was well over fifty degrees.

It was to be a late Autumn, Winter, and early Spring project. Two crops per year, each going for fourteen weeks was enough for my friends and I to have pot all year round.

The time came, the room was built, the lights were in and the AC worked a treat. The wiring was done and I could turn off a light switch downstairs which turned everything except the lights off upstairs if needed.

The main exhaust fan was ducted to the whirlybird in the roof and the cold air intake came from 300mm ducting that pulled cool air from the exhaust fan above the shower. Tiled rooms are always cool, so I didn't have to run the aircon at all at night. Only during the day, when the lights were off and the plants required cold conditions, did the AC have to be on...and when everyone was either at work or school.

The clones or cuttings came from a local grower. The strain was called 'White Russian'. Very nice pot, but it stank to high heaven when the buds were mature. Sometimes, I would arrive home from work and get a whiff of my little hobby from our driveway.

Paranoia is an illegal pot grower's worst enemy. And many times if I saw a cop car drive by or even just people popping in unannounced would have my heart rate at near cardiac arrest speeds.

When harvest time came, I was literally trimming buds for weeks. The trimming scissors used to cut the leaf from the flowers would bind up with resin. I would then scrape the brown tacky stuff away, placing the resin in a small clip bag.

Once it was all done, I would have a bag full of this high-potency resin, and if in the mood, place some on top of a cone and by smoking just one, I would be stoned for hours. The average return of bud for each plant was ten ounces, times that by six plants and that's a lot of pot for just one person.

At one stage, I noticed I was going through more than usual. Then one day I walked into my laundry to find Jordan with his hand firmly in my cookie jar.

Apparently, he had his own little business going, selling my pot at $50 a bag. So, from then on it had to be locked up. He had pre-sold a $50 bag to a kid who was bigger than I was, and of course, had already spent the money.

We were going out somewhere and I noticed Jordan was acting very jumpy. I asked him what was wrong, but he wouldn't tell me. I noticed there were a few kids hanging around not far away, so I walked up to them and asked what was going on.

At first, they were coy, but I pressed them and the truth came out. Rather than leave him to his just desserts, I gave the big kid $50 and told them Jordan was now out of business.

Unfortunately, that was not all that he was stealing, and if it wasn't bolted down, it belonged to him. He had no problem taking his little sister's money from their piggy banks or from his mother's purse.

And so began the battle of the Good Son vs The Evil Step Dad. Refereed by his mother. It wasn't a fair fight, and after the money was gone and he returned home, tail between his legs, he knew exactly what to say to her. Making promises to change, and getting her approval time and time again.

In the end, I just gave up. He knew where the chink in the armour was, and it didn't matter how many times he re-offended, he knew he couldn't be touched, so why change. He won, but the price my family paid was high, and in the end, we all lost. He went on to do a few stints at her majesty's pleasure...I'm sure we should all be proud.

****

A near-death experience saw me re-evaluate my life...somewhat. My friend who had participated in the cop prank and I were returning from a motorcycle ride up the mountains in the Gold Coast Hinterland. We were at the very top, and the road was narrow with a sheer drop on the left and solid cliff face on the right.

I was approaching a right-hand bend. The corner was a sharp 90 degrees and as I found my line a vehicle was coming the other way and had crossed into my lane...not much, but enough to make me have to take evasive action, and on such a narrow road that did not leave me a lot of room.

I stood the bike up, corrected to avoid the front of the looming vehicle, dropped back down...and ran out of road. The rear locked up as I saw the looming guard rail, slid sideways and high-sided, throwing me over the rail and into the abyss.

The first solid thing I hit, I felt my shoulder break. The tumbling continued over and over. Everything was moving in slow motion and was surreal, like a dream. Then, something solid (I assume a rock), brought me back to reality and subsequently broke my ankle.

After what seemed an eternity, but in reality, could only have been thirty seconds, the tumbling stopped. Dust filled my full-face helmet, the visor was smashed and was only just hanging onto my helmet. The wind had been knocked out of me and I struggled to breathe.

Dust and dirt were in my mouth and my eyes. Once it cleared and I got my breathing back to normal, it was then I could feel my collarbone trying to push its way through the skin.

Raising my head, I looked up from where I had come...holy fucking shit. I was on a 45-degree slope about seventy or more metres from the road above and surrounded by large gum trees and bush rock.

My friend appeared out of nowhere, breathing heavily from his efforts.

"Are you ok?"

"I think so. My shoulders fucked, but I think I can walk out."

But, one step on my right foot and that plan was abandoned. He looked at his phone. He had service and called the ambulance. I hobbled over and laid down on the flattest rock I could get to and waited.

We heard the sirens coming. The fire brigade was also dispatched, and as they clambered down to my position, they were amazed to find me relatively unscathed (I think we all were).

I remember one looking up from where I had come and saying, "You are one lucky boy."

And then, the hard work began. There was no way back the way I had come. I sucked on the green stick for the pain that was getting worse by the minute, as they planned how to extract me from the mountainside. Too many trees for a helicopter to winch me out, so a line perpendicular but in a slightly upward direction was it.

A hard plastic stretcher was brought down to my position, I was loaded onto it and strapped down tightly. A very long rope was tied to the front, with several fire brigade men manning the rope from above. There were six men assigned to the sled, who then began the long and painstaking journey back up to the road above.

It was summer, and sweat was pouring from their faces and arms, but there was no other way. The commitment they showed, the sheer determination to get me out no matter what it takes...I was so humbled. I know they were doing their job, but when you have just been thrown off a mountainside and lived, only to be a thorn in these men's side...well they were heroes to me that day.

I don't really know how long it took, as the painkilling stick was taking full effect. But I remember when they finally slid me onto the road a hundred metres up from where I had been high-sided.

I looked down the road and I could see my bike resting up against the guard rail, appearing from where I was to be in perfect condition. I was looking at the untouched right side of my beautiful Ducati, the left side, of course, was smashed.

I arrived at the Gold Coast Hospital, was checked over by a junior doctor, and a neck brace was applied. For some reason (probably claustrophobia) this sent me into a panic attack. I wanted it off but he insisted, saying he had seen people die from slight neck movements after an accident, but I was having none of it. As soon as he left me alone it came off. Then he came back and back on it went. I couldn't breathe, and I wanted to run. He saw I was not handling what had happened and gave me a mild sedative, which helped.

It was taking ages for the triage doctor to see me. Another accident had happened at almost the same moment as my own, on the other side of the hill. A young guy had come off his bike and was in a bad way. As I waited, a man came over to me, placed his hand on my shoulder and told me I was going to be alright...he was the father of the other rider, and later I was told his son had died of his injuries.

I had my bike repaired, but I never really rode it again. Always thinking, always holding back. I had 'the fear'. My twin daughters meant more to me than putting my life at risk every time I climbed on board, so it just sat in my garage. I would take it for short journeys or ride it to work every now and again, but that was it.

Then Em decided she wanted the cash it would provide.

"You never ride it."

"I don't care...it's my bike and it is not for sale."

Eventually, when she kicked me out, I did sell it, hoping its new owner would ride it the way it was meant to be.

****

I had a friend and we were really close. He is, or at least he was an alcoholic. He had dabbled in drugs before, and I introduced him to meth.

We smoked it by breaking a glass light bulb and melting the crystals and drawing up the smoke into the barrel of a pen.

Later, of course, we advanced to a glass pipe, but he went to the next level and began to inject. I resisted for a long time, telling him I would never put a needle in my arm.

But, after watching him and his girlfriend hit those highs for so long, I decided to do it. It was New Year's Eve and he did up the shot...and BANG...fuck me it was incredible, the rush was like nothing I had ever experienced.

It took a while for me to learn to do it myself, but I was determined to achieve that goal. I never became good at it, my veins were not easy to find, and there were many blood baths and missed veins.

I went from half a gram lasting me all weekend, to a shot with two points, then another shot a couple of hours later, so a gram was required. Then I was doing two point five and then three...and towards the end, I was shooting three and a half points in one shot...chasing something that had been lost months before.

The catalyst for change came one day when a shot went wrong, and I developed Cellulitis, which if left untreated can lead to Septicaemia, and can kill.

Luckily for me, I recognised the telltale redness, and the burning hot skin and headed to the hospital. On arrival, I told the casualty nurse I was a meth user and got that look...strung out loser...throwing my life away to a drug that would take it gladly.

I spent two days in the hospital receiving intravenous antibiotics...and that was it for me...almost.

I wasn't quite done, but the writing was on the wall. I made an appointment with the free local drug and alcohol treatment centre. I cancelled that appointment because I was too high to attend. Then, I made another, with the same result.

I told the receptionist I would not make another appointment, and she said,

"Neil, we are here for you when you are ready."

Those words rolled around in my head for a few weeks and then my dealer ripped me off. And the next one did something similar.

I thought to myself, "Neil, these are signs. If you don't listen to them you are going to either lose everything that is important to you, or you are going to die."

So I called Rene' at the Drug and Alcohol Clinic.

"Remember me?" she did. "I'm ready."

****

And I made a discovery...I can write. Not just stories, but poetry, observations made through clear eyes written by clean hands. Will I ever go back? Not today and today is all that matters to an addict...tomorrow will take care of itself.