Choose Your Poison Carefully

I am just about finished Chris Walter's "Welfare Wednesdays." I have been reading it a few pages at a time during my morning beer shits. Let's be honest: sometimes I am lucky to read a paragraph before I am wiping away like a care aid in an old dear's home.

Like most of Chris' books it is set in the East End of Dope City. Chris looks and writes like a tough nut to crack but I bet he has rarely, if ever, taken the Sky Train to Sliverville. They eat old school skinhead punks like Chris without even needing to chew in the North End.

There is a lot of talk about crack in Welfare Wednesdays. Dope City was lucky not to have been fucked over by the rock until the mid-80s. I was lucky too because I was past my dope experimentation stage by then. I guess I tried on just about everything but crack. I never went Dillinger for the disco white powders in the first place. Cocaine hates you just like lots of other drugs but if you are real careful, and your heart is flawless, a little shot of the shit will sure brighten up a rainy New Year's Eve in Dope City. Or it might just order you up a wooden winter jacket.

Walter does not exactly over-romanticize the effects of crack on East End folk.

For Lucy. the sensation was slightly frightening. The rush was so intense that she was afraid her heart might explode. She clung tightly to Jack and rode it out, waiting breathlessly as the drug tore through her. Crack was not what she had expected at all and, though she liked it very much, still couldn't understand how people could get so dependent. She did not plan to keep using it for long and was only experimenting with it to be closer to Jack. Clearly, you had to be careful how you used this drug. Part of her brain nagged that Jack would not be able to stop using but she blocked it out. For now, she would relax and enjoy this. As soon as her heart slowed down a bit.

That is why I stick to the booze: it is good for your heart motherfuckers. All it takes to get my heart racing these days is an excellent beer ad on the tv.

I do not know about you but I am all in favour of the Canucks' new owner changing the name of his hockey team to Crack if he cannot bring himself to changing it back to the Millionaires. The Canucks have got to go.