Seeing Red by Shawn Sutherland

reads: Hey! I bought some cocaine last night. Wanna give it a shot? Craig is here. Come over. Yaow!
    Cocaine? Where’d he get cocaine? I’ve never known him to indulge in any drug aside from marijuana. And hash. And mushrooms. But never cocaine. I decide to give him a call.
    â€œHey! Reid! You get my message? I have coke!”
    â€œReally? How?”
    â€œI ran into this guy last night after you left and I asked him if he had any weed and he said he did, so I paid him the money and he goes, ‘Wait, sorry, I actually don’t have any weed, but do you want this coke instead?’ And I was like, ‘Okay.’ And now I have coke.”
    â€œNice.”
    â€œI eventually found some weed, too.”
    â€œAttaboy.”
    â€œSo, you coming over? Craig’s already here.”
    â€œI don’t know. I’m kinda waiting on a phone call.”
    â€œWell, why don’t you come here and pre-drink with us while you wait? I can give you a ride downtown after. You won’t have to pay the subway fare. That’s a saving of three dollars, my friend.”
    â€œ. . . Alright, I’m on my way.”
    About an hour later, the three of us are perched around a glass table in Scott’s living room. Like mine, his apartment is a mess: dirty clothes and various pieces of sporting equipment are discarded haphazardly on the floor alongside an array of marijuana paraphernalia. We sip on liquor and smoke cigarettes until Scott finally unveils a ziplock bag full of white powder—hopefully he bought actual cocaine and not baking soda—and pours it onto a mirror in the centre of the table.
    â€œDon’t we need a razor blade or something?” Craig asks.
    â€œNo, it’s already cut,” says Scott. “But we need a credit card to divvy it up.” I retrieve a library card from my wallet and toss it over to him, watching as he starts pushing and sorting the white powder into six separate lines.
    â€œI’ve never done this before,” Craig says, shifting in his chair. “Someone else go first.”
    â€œI’ll go,” I say. I’ve snorted cocaine on several occasions, but never this early in the evening or this sober. It’s a drug that usually only makes an appearance at the end of a night, typically in a bathroom stall or at somebody’s house after the bars have closed. I rarely buy it for myself because it’s far too expensive; however, there was one time during a particularly heavy bender when I wandered into a busy intersection at three o’clock in the morning and shouted, “Hey! Somebody sell me some coke!” Ten seconds later, a man in a thick black jacket obliged me. There were two police cars in the immediate area, but somehow they failed to notice our transaction. Or maybe they didn’t care. Either way, I was lucky.
    I roll up a five-dollar bill until it’s taut, then insert it into my right nostril and lean forward so that the bill is hovering over the line. Closing off the rest of my nose with a free finger, I inhale as hard as possible, like a vacuum, not stopping until the powder is completely gone. The feeling hits me instantly like a shotgun blast to the brain: a burning, euphoric rush that I’ve never experienced before. My mind elevates and feels lighter, as if it were full of air. And I want more. I desperately want more.
    â€œHow is it?” Craig asks.
    â€œMan, I love it,” I say, rubbing my nose and sniffling. “You feel it immediately. I get why this stuff is so addictive.” I stand up from the table and start pacing around the room; my heart is beating faster and I’m overcome with adrenaline and I can’t stop clapping my hands together.
    â€œOkay, my turn,” says Scott. I pass him the bill and he lowers his head toward the mirror and slowly breathes it in. His face comes up quickly and there’s white powder all over the edge of his nostril and he starts