The night I met Escoe, I was at a party with a man who wore blue suede shoes without a trace of irony; also, he kissed without using his tongue. I left him on the balcony, talking to a girl with the same long blonde hair as me, though happily without my exquisitely symmetrical bone structure and translucent complexion.
Marco, my dealer, lived in the kind of apartment that makes you wonder if selling crack is worth the risk. It was a huge, white warehouse loft, with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the sparkling lights and shimmering waters of the Thames. Naturally, he had the penthouse. There were pictures hung in odd places, like down beside the skirting board, or next to a window. He collected sculpture and it was mainly neo-classical and white.
Marco liked to mingle with the elite of the art-world and they had shown up in droves tonight. He was celebrating his twenty-eighth year of being alive without incarceration for his crimes. Achingly fashionable people lounged on the minimalist cream sofas and held whispered conversations beside bowls of pale roses. Caterers roamed the crowd, balancing trays of black and white sushi on their fingertips. The music was soft and sophisticated, some kind of jazz. I thought about sleeping with Marco, just so I could wake up the next morning in that wonderful space.
I had a lot of coke in my blood, which made me gregarious, and once I left the balcony, I ended up talking for about three hours to someone I only remember now as Escoe's cousin. She was tiny and wore her hair in a thick plait of dreadlocks to her waist. She called me 'Girlfriend' and laughed a lot. But when she introduced Escoe, she suddenly got serious. 'Girlfriend, this here's my cuz, Escoe.' She waved her arm in my general direction. 'Essie, this is Rachel. I think she wants to fuck you.' I flinched at the profanity and stared at my feet, which were bare. I was nearly always barefoot in those days. But when I looked up, there was a golden man smiling at me, hurriedly doing up his jacket, so that I wouldn't see the .45 in the waistband of his wheat-coloured jeans. He looked like he'd just stepped off a cinema screen. He was obscenely good-looking. 'Nice gun', I said.
He frowned and half turned away; then he seemed to change his mind and offered to get me a drink. I asked for water; if I drank any more scotch I was going to puke. When he passed me the glass, I saw the track marks on his arms. Afraid of offending again, I pretended not to see. He downed his own glass in one. 'Its nice to meet you, Rache,' he said.
It was strange that he called me Rache from the very beginning and it didn't sound obtrusive. I felt like I'd known him my whole life. There was something so familiar about him - his gun, his needle, the whole self-destructive thing he had going on - that I barely noticed I was meeting someone new, except to feel a little excited, because I think I knew he was going to be important in my life, even then.
'Escoe'¦' I tried out the unusual name, ''¦do you live in this area?' I was still pretty wired and keen to talk. He smiled his big, warm smile. 'All my life. It's best in the autumn. Think you'll be around then?' I took a careful sip of my water. 'Maybe. It depends on how the novel goes.' I was always a little shy of telling people I was writing a book. 'A writer,' he said, with another smile. 'And are you gathering material right now?'
'Gathering,' I thought. What an odd word for him to use. 'I suppose I am,' I said, still cautious. Then I thought, what the hell. 'I'll write you in. The addict, who looks like Adonis.' He raised one eyebrow. 'Adonis? Don't call me Adonis,' he said. But there was a laugh in his voice and I could tell he was not displeased.
He told me he had been a research analyst, until he couldn't make it to the office any more for shooting up. Now he worked freelance, doing the accounts for small, burnt-out firms. He knew he would have to stop his drug-taking soon, but he wasn't in the right mindset just now. He talked about giving up in the New Year. It was June.
In turn, I told him about the modeling I did to make the rent and how my agency said I was the first girl they'd had to tell to put on weight to get work. I told him about the sleazy photographers and the bitchy make-up artists. I told him how I stood there in the various ridiculous poses, making up stories about them all in my head. He seemed to understand, and I quickly decided he was the most compassionate and articulate man I'd ever met. I smiled inside. His cousin was right. I wanted him.

A little later, or maybe a lot later, we left together. The party was winding down and, anyway, we wanted to be alone. I was already crazy about him and he clearly felt the same way about me. When we touched each other, we practically gave off sparks.
He had a crummy old Beetle, an original classic from the first time around. I remember standing there on the pavement in the hot night, as he held the door open for me, waiting for me to get in. It was one of those potent moments where you feel omniscient, and I hesitated. I looked at him, his eyes unfocused from smack and scotch, and I looked at the car, which plainly hadn't seen a mechanic in a good many years. I almost turned to go back to the party. But then I thought about spending the entire night pressed against Escoe's golden-brown body. I gave a fateful shrug and climbed in.
I don't remember much of the drive. I think he glanced at me once or twice, but mostly he stared at the dark road ahead. My hand rested on his thigh and we were just biding our time, enjoying the anticipation. We thought we knew what was coming.
I saw the wall first. It seemed to jump up at us out of the darkness. There wasn't time to scream, however. I felt the sickening thud of bone crunching into metal and then the nightmarish scraping sound that was the windscreen searing my torso. Another thud as I landed on the street outside. My face felt strangely numb. I saw twisted steel and shattered glass, torn skin and spilt blood. I heard a siren and then people arriving. They seemed desperately busy; they were all shouting and rushing around. And then I saw Escoe. In fact, there were two of him. Both screaming. 'Her face! What the fuck's happened to her face?' I don't know if it was pain or horror that made me black out.

They told me I had lost a month. A month. Thirty days just lying in the darkness, waiting to wake up. I was groggy and disorientated, and my legs wouldn't work properly. But this was, in fact, the good news.
The scar cut my face in half diagonally, from my left temple to my right jawline. Where they'd sewn me back together, I was all wonky. I had been pretty for twenty-one years and I couldn't get used to the new, hideous me. I would see a good-looking doctor and start to smile, before remembering and quickly turning away. The other patients whispered about me, and the children who came to visit them laughed openly. I felt like an animal in a zoo ' an ugly one.

As soon as they let me out, I went straight round to Marco's. There was no way in hell I was going through another day without drugs. Not the poxy so-called painkillers they'd tried to fob me off with on the ward, but proper, soul-numbing, pain-damping, life-evading drugs.
When Marco first saw me, he looked like he was going to puke. 'God, it's even worse than I heard.' He couldn't look me in the eyes. I tried to shrug. 'Just give me the fucking gear, Marco.' He shook his head and went to get it. He wasn't known for taking orders; he was obviously giving the poor disfigured cow a break.
As I stood in the vast whiteness of his apartment, I remembered the last time I'd been there. How casually I'd considered sleeping with Marco. Now he wouldn't shag me if it would save his entire marijuana crop from ruination. I shuddered. No-one would ever sleep with me again. Especially not- I had deliberately avoided thinking about Escoe since the accident. But now I couldn't help it. His memory was everywhere. He'd sat on this thin silver strip that passed for a chair. He'd swallowed a canapé beside the Jeff Koons sculpture. He'd looked out at the river with me from the balcony.
Suddenly, I knew I was going to be sick. I rushed to the bathroom and emptied my stomach into Marco's loo. I suspected it had often been used for that purpose before. I avoided the mirror above the sink as I rinsed my mouth.
As I came out, Marco headed me off. 'Here you go.' I looked at the bottle he placed in my hands. I'd asked for a lot of drugs, but this was ridiculous. There was enough in there for a month or more. He noticed me staring. 'Listen,' he said, looking out the window, 'it might be better if you found yourself another place to score from now on. People talk, y'know.' I clutched the bottle. 'Sure. You don't need a deformed hag showing up at one of your fancy dos. Wouldn't look good, I agree.' He tried to look at me, and failed. 'It's not like that, Rachel. I mean, come on. You met that fucker Escoe right here in this room. If anyone grasses me up, if they find out that smack-head junkie got his fix here'¦' The threat hung in the air. Like I cared. I was already leaving, unscrewing the bottle-cap as I went. Soon I was out on the street, swallowing the delicious little pills that would bring oblivion. I couldn't wait.

I saw Escoe one more time before they locked him up. I was walking down the street, my woolen hat pulled low over my eyes, my scarf carefully placed to cover my nose. 'Rache!' I stopped and turned around. Only one person called me that. There he was - tall, golden, and striding towards me. 'Rache, wait up. Oh God.' He looked at my eyes, which were all that was visible through my cover-up. 'Come get a coffee with me?' I hesitated, then nodded. 'Okay. But I'm not taking my scarf off.' He almost smiled, then thought better of it.

I waited while he queued for drinks. He hadn't changed. His handsome face was untouched by any blemish from either the accident or his habit. He was still film-star good-looking. Tom Cruise's better-looking younger brother. His jacket covered his messed-up arms. There were no clues to his messed-up psyche.
He placed an espresso in front of me. 'I have tried to contact you, Rache. The police held me for ages. Then the hospital wouldn't let me see you. I didn't even have your number. Marco told me to fuck off when I asked him for it.' I nodded. I knew all this. The hospital had to place a guard outside my ward at one point. He kept turning up off his face and threatening the nurses.
Escoe ignored his coffee. 'It should have been me.' I nodded again. I felt so bad, I would have given my fucked-up face to an innocent child, let alone Escoe. The man who was so high he'd driven me into a brick fucking wall. A new stab of pain pierced all the other pain sitting on my soul.
Escoe took my hand. 'I'm so sorry, Rache. I did a terrible thing by you. I know you can never forgive me. No-one could and, god, I won't ask you to. But you know something?' I stared at the steam coming off my coffee. 'We would have been so good together. We would have been amazing.' I was surprised to hear a catch in his voice and I looked up to see his eyes were wet.
Slowly, I raised my hands and pulled my hat off. I deliberately unwound the scarf and placed it on the table. He just looked at me. I heard a child at another table ask her mother why that girl had such a funny face. What was wrong with her nose? I ignored her. So did Escoe. After a moment, he reached out his hand and tenderly touched my cheek. I felt a little bit of the pain disappear. 'I'm so sorry,' he said again. 'I truly wish it had been me.' Then he got up and quickly walked away. I reached for my pills.

© Omma Velada 2004

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