| Chapter 1: | Tracking Cixous’s Medusa? |
|
|
“I tried, while you were out there,” he admitted, “and I couldn’t. It didn’t last more than about thirty-six hours. I missed the lamp most of all. I find the lamp very nice.”
“Well, that’s easy,” I answered. “Just light it and lie there.” We both giggled. It was the first time I’d been able to make a joke about opium. Then he took me back to the hospital. His eyes when he said goodbye were wet, because he needed his tray. I felt smug.58
The alacrity of Hahn’s account of her addiction and recovery has a striking resemblance to the cheerful forthrightness of the following excerpt from Barbara Quinn’s account of her life as a drug addict entitled Cookie, published in 1971. Quinn overcame her addiction to heroin in 1965 and founded New York City’s Phoenix House, an addict rehabilitation center. Resonating with Hahn’s memoir, the protagonist’s active pursuit of a heroine habit in Quinn’s novel disrupts the stereotype of the passive female addict:
I told Harriet I wanted to mainline, injecting the dope directly into the vein as she did instead of popping it under the skin…There was a fascination in going the whole way, tasting everything, knowing there was nothing I wouldn’t dare do. Did I really want control? Perhaps not. Perhaps I wanted to shuck off all responsibility. A habit was a hallmark of sorts, a license. A habit could excuse everything. With a habit I could throw off all restraints, be responsible to no one, not even to myself…
“How do you know when you have a habit?” I asked the junkies on 100th Street. I wanted to be around when it happened to me. I wanted to be the first to recognize it…
“Harry,” I said, “I feel really weird.” I described my symptoms. “Is it a habit? Does it mean I have a habit?”
Harriet took it philosophically, “Yeah, baby. You got a habit. Ain’t that what you wanted?”