2016
how i got robbed trying to buy adderall on craigslist
Maggie calls me during work. She says I sound glum—I tell her I was closing my eyes while sitting upright in the cafeteria. We talk PMDD and anxious meltdowns and I tell her that I want to write a story about getting robbed while trying to buy Adderall on Craigslist in 2016. Everyone’s positing photos of 2016 like it wasn’t the year Trump got elected. I didn’t even know Trump won until the next day because I passed out on a friend’s couch after eating a tray of Jell-O shots.
Wait, what?????, she said.
Oh, I hadn’t told her. So I begin: I went through a break up at the end of 2015 that left me with no appetite, but then it came back, but then I started Wellbutrin and lost it again, but inevitably it came back. That wouldn’t do. So I fantasized about Adderall, a drug that I never recreationally took in high school or college but deeply needed now. A friend gave me some of her pills but I didn’t want to be annoying about it and ask for more. So I did the next logical thing, which was to look up Adderall dealers on Craigslist. I made a burner email and responded to posts like “XXXADDY 100MG $200 CASH DMXXX”. Someone responded and we made plans to meet at a Dunkin’ somewhere in Harlem on August 23rd.
I was panicking on the train ride up but I separated myself from the fear of being hurt, killed, whatever, and focused on the mission ahead. I had $150 in cash in my bag and I was going to get some fucking Adderall so I would stop eating and also be able to deep clean my apartment. I’m reminded of the time in college when my friends and I went on a school trip to New York and I made them take the D train all the way to Fordham Rd to get alcohol, but then I couldn’t find the right liquor store when we got there. I could’ve gone to any bodega and probably wouldn’t have gotten carded. I met up with the dealer and don’t remember anything about him except maybe he was wearing a tank top and jeans. I followed him to an apartment building and gave him the cash and waited on the stairs while he slipped into an apartment. Five minutes passed, then 10, 20, 30. It was the night before my birthday. My friends were gathering at Night of Joy to meet me, where was I? I called the dealer incessantly, starting to freak out, banged on the door, nothing. It was too late; I called a car to take me to Brooklyn. My Uber got rear-ended on the way there.
My 25th birthday. Diana and I had planned a whole day of massages and facials and Eataly cheeseboards and dessert and Bergdorf’s and shopping and a barbecue at Bryce’s and ice cream cake. I was texting the dealer the entire day, who accused me of being a cop and that he was visiting his daughter in the hospital (aw hope she gets better, I texted back, but I promise I’m not a cop). He agreed to meet me the next morning. There’s a photo of me posing with a Buck Hunter gun at the end of the night, my eyes unfocused.
I wake up hungover and foggy at six am and make my way back to Harlem. Round two. I meet the dealer outside the address and hand him another $150. He went into the same apartment and then nothing. Radio silence. I needed to be at work in an hour, I smacked my fist on the door, no one answered. I finally opened the door only to find there wasn’t an apartment behind it, but a hallway with more doors. Tons of doors. I ran up and down the hallway, screaming, crying. The gravity of the situation hit me and I realized how stupid and careless I was being. I took another Uber home (no accident). I called out of work. Laura was in town and came over and I jealously gazed at her flat stomach.
A few weeks later I would hug a girl outside of the Nordstrom Rack in Union Square and she would slip a baggie filled with four Adderall pills and some MDMA in my bag. The molly sucked and was probably cut with bad speed or something. Soon after I’ll convince a mean psychiatrist on the east side to write me an Adderall prescription. I took it until I didn’t, not liking how angry and anxious it made me. Plus I still felt hungry. A dusty pill bottle sat untouched in my cabinet for years until I finally threw it out. It could’ve made a killing on Craigslist.
