Thirst

1 Numb New York City, Fall 2003 It started in my arms and legs. The nerve endings would go dead for twenty or thirty minutes, like I'd woken up on a limb that fell asleep. Sometimes the fingers of my right hand lost sensation, and then a prickly blanket of numbness would spread to my wrist and up my arm. I could've banged on my hand with a hammer and still felt nothing. At first I thought there must be a simple explanation, like a pinched nerve. I was twenty-eight years old, with no history of serious illness. But when the episodes became more frequent, I got the name of a neurologist in Manhattan and made an appointment. Sitting in the dingy waiting room, I nervously flipped through a half-dozen dog-eared magazines, hoping to take in some news from the real world. It was mostly bad. Bombings in Istanbul, suicide attacks in Iraq, the passing of Johnny Cash. A nurse called me to the reception window and handed me a stack of forms to fill out. Name, age, height, and weight were easy--Scott Charles Harrison, twenty-eight, six foot one, and a slim 170 pounds, thanks to a steady diet of Marlboro Reds--but the long list of questions about my lifestyle wasn't so simple. Looking through the packet, I realized that I didn't dare answer truthfully, lest the doctors think the presentable college grad in front of them was some kind of degenerate. Do you smoke cigarettes? (Two to three packs a day. Is that too much?) Do you consume alcohol? How many drinks per day? (Up to ten drinks, but I try not to mix. My current favorites, in order: Champagne, beer, and vodka and Red Bull.) Do you use recreational drugs? If so, how frequently? (Well, that really depends on how much I've had to drink. Cocaine, two to three times a week; Ambien to come down; MDMA whenever I can get my hands on it.) Anyone who knew the full extent of my partying would've said it was no wonder I was finally having health problems. But I'd come here for a brain scan and a quick diagnosis, not a lecture. And the fact was, getting wasted every night was my job. For the last ten years, I'd climbed the ranks of New York nightlife to become one of the top club promoters in the city. Most nights, you'd find me at the hottest party in town, sitting at the owner's table with beautiful women, drinking expensive Champagne (or occasionally spraying it), and looking like the guy who had it all. And for a while, I did. I was making about $200,000 a year but living like a millionaire, thanks to the perks. The place I called home was a big, industrial Midtown loft with a baby grand piano in the living room, a killer stereo system, and a private rooftop patio. Bacardi and Budweiser each paid me $2,000 a month just to be seen drinking their brands in public. On my wrist, I wore a Rolex Oyster Perpetual, which I loved to flash at club photographers with a knowing smirk. The watch had been a gift from my then-girlfriend, a nineteen-year-old Danish model whose face graced the covers of Vogue and Elle. I hadn't always lived like this. Ten years earlier, when I moved to the city and began collecting these superficial markers of success, one of my first mentors in nightlife said, "Scott, you're too nice. If you're going to do this right, you need to be seen out every night, spending money, with a hot model on your arm." Mission accomplished. But somewhere along the way, the sameness of nightlife--booze, drugs, girls, repeat--made me restless. I wanted change, and the more things stayed the same, the more booze, drugs, and girls I'd needed to force my mind and body to show up for work with a smile. It's like what Ernest Hemingway said about going bankrupt: It happened gradually, then suddenly. For me, "suddenly" would involve a gun, a bottle of Scotch, and a cobalt-blue Mustang. But that comes later. Over several weeks in the fall of 2003, I endured a battery of medical tests, searching for the cause of my numbness. Technicians examined my brain and spi