CROSSTOWN TRAFFIC

I’ve been off the drugs for a solid handful of years now, yet it’s weird and strange how often drug memories, actions, and thoughts pop into my fairly clean head. Sure, like everbuddy else who spent their teenage and early adult years partaking in any drug, anytime, anywhere, then followed that up with a solid decade on the coo-coo-cococaine ya begin to wipe out a whole lotta the mishaps, financial woes, ruined relationships and general bad vibes and easily zoom back to the cocaine camaraderie, wanton sex, unforgettable nerve-tingling- brain-sparking-crystalline-thinking that always kicked off the next cocaine high. Luckily, beyond that(whew), I don’t desire or fantasize about or even consider jumping back in for a quick line or two (or forty), although I do experience a nausea-inducing mix of envy and hate when I spy someone tawkin’ and walkin’ the cocaine trail. The one aspect of my former drug persona that I can’t rid myself is--and it’s somehow embedded deep within my central nervous system-- that when driving, while on the road, when I spot a policeman I switch right into a state of silent-yet-urgent paranoia. My eyes get glued to the rear view like I’m observing a last chance glimpse of Penelope Cruz doffing her clothes, I reach for my seat belt and snap it into place crushing my vertebrae in the process, I immediately start planning my copspeak explanation, and reach into my recent memory banks in a tongue-swallowing attempt to remember if there is any paraphernalia or discarded drug stuff lying under my feet, anything and everything to avid the downhill rush of yet another jailtrip. (I’ve only done three, and I think that should be enough to cover my particular lifetime.) All this, and I’m GODDAMNED STRAIGHT! Is it some kinda druggy karma, or self-mediated punishment, or simply a case of the results of irreversible damage done to my poor battered and busted-up central nervous system? How do I kick this post-habit habit and get to be like most of the rest of the pack, switching lanes, forgoing signals, traveling at absurdly high or low speeds, ignoring coppers as if they were nothing more than silly stop signs? Maybe I should get into the pill thing, chemical zen, a new fix for the end results of just saying no…