11-27-00
(continued)
While the girls were in Amsterdam, Katie actually came home for an entire week. Of course, she revealed that her arms were covered in track marks from where she and Erin had taken to shooting heroin, so it was a less than happy homecoming from my end.
Listening to her rationalize her drug use by explaining that the heroin made her feel a kind of love and warmth and inner peace that she'd never felt before made me feel sick. But knowing that Erin was the one that had gotten her on the junk felt like a knife twisting in my heart. The same girl who had made the moratorium that Katie either choose the beer or her love had become Katie's dealer and the person who actually administered the injections because Katie couldn't stick herself.
She'd quit her job, wasn't going to school, and was getting money from her parents for bills and rent. And then she asked me if she could borrow $35. I asked her if it was for drugs and she said it was. I refused and she left, after making me promise to not tell Melissa and Heatha her secret.
When the girls got back, a huge blowout ensued over Katie's allegedly taking Heatha's car. I didn't know if she had taken the car or not, and I did not want to know.
My days of knowing Katie were mercifully coming to an end.
Our landlord was spending his winter and spring helping his church build housing for the poor in Southern Central America. He called us in March or April from somewhere like Ecuador to ask us why Katie hadn't paid any rent since January. We told him that she'd said she was paying it independently, and he told us to get it all figured out, or move out ourselves.
Melissa and Heatha couldn't figure out where the money had gone, since they knew Katie's mother had been sending her $350/month, but after some thinking on their part, and a round of charades on mine, we all figured out she'd shot up the rent money, the only thing to show for it was track marks.
The girls decided to call Katie and Erin's parents and clue them into the fact that something was seriously awry with their children. I don't think heroin was ever specifically mentioned, but something expensive and bad was implied. Their mother told us that we were liars and that she trusted her girls, but took the number of the accountant to confirm the rent situation on her own*.
Katie showed up the next day with boxes and took all of her stuff. She tore into me for breaking her confidence, which I only did under duress. They asked me point blank, and I had only mimed the response. I NEVER said a word to them otherwise until it was way out into the open.
I never saw Katie or Erin after that day. Melissa and Heatha saw them later and told me that they were still alive, but super messed up.
We got a call and a letter from Katie's bank at some point with regards to Katie: apparently she and her sister were wanted for bank fraud - they'd taken to depositing empty envelopes into the ATM and taking out cash.
And the bank let them.
I later found out that the evil twins had made off with a bunch of my videos, some jewelry and cds, none of which I ever got back. Good riddance if that's all it took to get people like that out of my life. But I don't hate them at all. I'd like my stuff back, but I'd rather know that they had both gotten help and gotten clean.
That's the sort of thing I hold to be more valuable.
*We later found out that all but $100 of the back rent was paid by Katie and Erin's mom. She must have believed someone, if not us. And we ate the $100 out of our damage deposit.
