Jordan McClements is a writer and painter from Dover, who teaches at his alma mater, Delaware State University. His paintings are on display at the Dover Art League.
Every Aug. 31, International Overdose Awareness Day, it burns through my mind the number of essays I’ve written about my cousin dying from an overdose and about how I’m alive, despite overdosing. My uncle had a stroke from his overdose and luckily survived because I called 911. No matter how many essays I write, my cousin isn’t coming back. You might not know what overdose feels like, reader. I do. I should be dead. Be honest. You’re not sure how to help.
How do I know?
I resorted to heroin use after my grandmother’s stroke. I couldn’t accept the responsibility of my own life because I didn’t value my life, and I was ungrateful for it, and I blamed my lack of hope in myself on the world, by blaming everyone and everything but me for my life.
I hadn’t talked to Dad for a few months after first joining the English department. I moved in with Mom, but I was still making my grades. I knew that I had no chance to get a real job, and I couldn’t write while existing on coffee and cigarettes, and alcohol no longer worked. So, I called Dad to get back in touch with my cousin.
I’d graduated and was now shooting up every day. I never shot enough to nod out. I wasn’t interested in anything but the rush. I was sitting in my cousin’s dirty room, trying to gauge whether he was asleep or nodding out. By this point, I’d run out of money for cocaine, so we were doing twice as much heroin.
The heroin economy in Delaware was meant for working-class youth like me. It didn’t matter that I had an English degree or made it into a top-30 graduate school program; heroin has no alibis or aliases. It’s deadlier than all those things, and more.
Any gas station in Kent County had heroin being sold out of it. All the gas stations in downtown Dover are within a 2-mile radius of the police station. Yet, we never got bopped. The reason we shot up at gas stations — besides being where the dealers were posted up and being close to the neighborhoods they were dealing out of — was they had large containers of water and large plastic spoons for free. Three times a day, grab a spoon and fill the water with ice. If the attendant wasn’t looking, I could grab a new spoon and have somebody look out. Flick the bag three times. One flick to the bottom left, one to the top right and one in the center. Pull the cotton out of the cigarette filter. Somehow, I managed to smoke American Spirits during this period. Take the spoon out of the package. Drop water into the spoon. Pour the heroin into the spoon. Mix the cotton with the point and pull the hammer back.
And, every time I did that, I didn’t have to think about not being able to afford the University of Maryland or how, outside of being a professional student, I didn’t have any job opportunities and how all the guidance I thought I’d learned from literature turned to me wasting my adult life trying to get out of a social class. I was injecting into my arm three times a day. But, eventually, I got sloppy. I’m not in Jane’s Addiction. I can’t walk around wearing long sleeves in the summer and throwing up every morning.
I bounced in and out of rehab for a while. Then, just like Mark Renton from “Trainspotting,” I took that last hit. I guess I made it out, but I can still smell the heroin lurking around the gas stations and the crummy trailer parks at the edge of town. One wrong turn, and I’ll be right back in it. But, for now, I’m out. One day at a time, right?
I got with my cousin who was addicted to heroin, and I chose death. But, unlike what I planned, I lived. He didn’t. I only became a writer because I didn’t know how to respond to his death. I had outlived the person that I wrote a letter to in third grade, telling him how much I missed him, and in college, I took my death trip with, and he died while I survived.
I only survived because Dad helped me kick heroin. Rehab didn’t work, twice. Dad watched me fight that demon on the couch and sweat that monster out, watching documentaries on Jean-Michel Basquiat, Tennessee Williams and Jack Kerouac, and “Pollock,” the movie. It wasn’t easy to not use after kicking, but I was able to get away from my cousin. And away from heroin because I had to go to graduate school for English in Maryland, then Louisiana, but I never reconciled with my cousin after I kicked heroin. I gave him a fist bump at Christmas and left immediately because I knew he’d bring me back into heroin, regardless of whether he believed I was the only one given a chance in our family to make something of himself and regardless of how much he loved me. He wasn’t him anymore; he was heroin, just like I was. And, when he died, I remembered every time I tried to get him to kick with me. Each time I wrote, I thought of his words to encourage me to write after we both had shot heroin, while, at the same time, asking me to tell no one about this. No one can know about this. Maybe that’s why I still feel uneasy every time I write. I’m consciously pushing against those words, no matter how much of his blood is in mine from our shared needle. I survived, but I took it all out on my family. I took it out on you, Dad. I’m sorry. With my drug use, I put you in the position of burying me, most likely. You don’t deserve that. I thought I lost you in that car accident when I was 5, when you were listening to Alice in Chains’ “Unplugged,” and you flipped your Firebird into the ditch five times, were ejected from the T-top and survived because you weren’t wearing a seat belt. The police officer who found you said you were circling the Firebird that was on fire, saying, “I have to take my son, Jordan, to day care in the morning. I have to take my son, Jordan, to day care in the morning.”
Dad helped me. Count the people without help down on that highway strip. You know, the one by the Dunkin’, the one you look away from and hold your breath near, because you don’t know what to do, and your anxiety spikes.
What can you do?
You want to help, but you don’t want to get hurt or feed a suspected addiction. You want to feel something for these people. I get it. You want to help.
What you don’t understand, reader, is that overdoses don’t just affect people using drugs. We’ve got to look out for our community. The people we lose to addiction have children, family and loved ones. We’ve got to check in on the children of those we lose to addiction. What about my cousin’s kids? Have I shown up for them? What about Mom, Muh Mum, Dad, Puh Pup, Unc and Auntie? Are we checking in on those who have lost someone to addiction? I have to be here for my family who lost my cousin, too. We need to reconcile that pain together. Just like, as a country, we need to reconcile our pain and come together. Addiction is bigger than us, America.
Addiction is universal. It doesn’t discriminate against who it kills. Right now, world, it’s got us all. We’ve got to take care of each other and love one another. Check in on those who have lost someone to an overdose and give them your time because that hole in their lives is consuming them. On International Overdose Awareness Day, you can change their day for the better. Be that change.
I’m not calling anyone out.
Two hundred people are unsheltered at night on average in Delaware.
We celebrate overdose deaths going down, while overdoses are on the rise.
We’re not helping the addicted and the unsheltered in Dover.
What have you done this summer for the addicted or the unsheltered? Silence from you, reader, and from you, Delaware politicians. We didn’t help the addicted and unsheltered this summer.
So, we must be acting now for the upcoming winter, right?
We’re worried about the Trump administration criminalizing homelessness. We know Donald Trump is wrong, but guess what, reader. Trump isn’t going to change the overdose and unsheltered crises in Delaware. Trump is a spectacle, so we talk about him because it feels satisfying talking about nothing more than a catchphrase and ill intentions.
We need to talk about these politicians who have plans suddenly, after the Unsheltered Working Group presented its recommendations to the mayor of Dover. They have a plan, and yet, they’re still talking. They think they’re called out when they’re not. All Delaware politicians are working on the overdose crisis like a cash grab by how they are more interested in attaining the money from the opioid settlement fund than saving lives today. Our leaders won’t meet to save our state from homelessness and addiction. It’s embarrassing and egregious. If their kids were addicted and unsheltered, change would have happened years ago. We need your help on the front lines. You see people with the signs on the interstate and people falling on Loockerman.
When are we going to stop and help?
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
