Jamie

by Jeffrey Stockbridge

Jamie, 2010.

JS: I see that you are pregnant. How many months do you have?

Jamie: I’m 7 ½ half months.

JS: Do you know if it is a boy or a girl?

Jamie: It’s a boy.

JS: Why is it that you are out here on the street?

Jamie: Basically just to support my habit.

JS: You use Heroin?

Jamie: Heroin and Crack.

JS: How much Heroin and Crack do you use in a day?

Jamie: Anywhere from 6 to 13 bags a day, Heroin and um God knows how much Crack, you know as much as I can get basically.

JS: And you’ve been using for how long?

Jamie: Since I was eighteen. I’m twenty-eight.

JS: How did you get pregnant?

Jamie: By my baby’s father.

JS: Are you married?

Jamie: No, I’m not married. I have a daughter, she is 3, and now this one I’m carrying now.

JS: Does your baby’s father use?

Jamie: No, he’s clean… I just had three years clean. When I was um pregnant with my daughter I had, I had gotten clean. I was clean for 2 years and she was born on Methadone and she had no withdraw symptoms and I was on a Methadone program and then uh, I relapsed.

JS: Do you know what it was that caused you to relapse?

Jamie: Not really, uh well, I know that because I started taking some Xanax, I started taking some downers, I started taking pills and then that sorta caused me to relapse. You know, once I did that then I was like, I didn’t care about going to cop, you know and I don’t know, before then it was like you know I was not, not too proud, it was just like you know I didn’t want to and once I got high off the pills I was like fuck it, you know.

JS: Whats the best date you ever had? Whats the worst date you ever had?

Jamie: The best date is um, huh, you know getting someone that gives you loads of money and you don’t got to do nothing for it really. That’d be the best date. The worst date is um, you know I’ve been raped, and you know almost killed really. You know there’s all kinds of dates actually, scary and uncomfortable all types.

JS: And yet you’re still out here, do you feel like it makes you stronger?

Jamie: It has and it hasn’t, it has definitely made me stronger but I don’t want to be like this the rest of my life.