Crank

Now that she has developed an addiction to meth, nothing in Kristina’s life feels right, except getting away and getting high.

Being with the monster involves a new routine. Kristina uses cigarettes and coffee to manage school and carefully plans which classes to cut each day so that she doesn’t miss too many classes with the same teacher in a row.

Kristina’s relationships have changed. She has relegated old friendships to the past and views her parents as villains stopping her from being her true self. All her support systems have crumbled under the weight of the monster.

To always have access to crank, Kristina needs to build and maintain multiple connections. Finding the drug is easy, but getting good-quality stuff is difficult. Her bank account is dwindling fast, so cash is also in short supply.

The biggest problem with life is that Kristina has stopped enjoying all other highs, such as the high of acing a test or experiencing the season’s first snow.

Feeling good is now a scale involving meth, with 1 being the low of withdrawal and 10 being peak euphoria. Kristina doesn’t always need to be at the peak, but she always needs to go up from where she is. This is her life as she approaches her 17th birthday.

For her birthday, her family takes a trip to San Francisco to visit her grandmother. When her grandmother, who is experiencing dementia, shouts in church that she needs to go to the bathroom, Kristina bursts out laughing.

In a lucid moment, Grandma draws Kristina aside and gifts her a beautiful gold locket with her wedding photo inside. She wants Kristina to pass it to her own granddaughter when she is 17. Kristina is touched by the “wealth of love” (420).

Back home, her siblings and parents give Kristina thoughtful gifts. Marie tells Kristina she blames herself for their growing apart. In her heart, Kristina thinks this is only partly true. Even if Marie had paid more attention to Kristina, “the monster was a mightier intruder” (422).

Marie asks Kristina to make better choices. Kristina wants to ask Marie about her own bad choices, which have created the person Kristina is. However, she pretends to be contrite.

Kristina gets permission to go out with Chase on the night of her birthday. Chase has procured ecstasy, or MDMA, a drug that has hallucinogenic effects. Chase and Kristina consume ecstasy at his house, hours before their other friends arrive.

Being on ecstasy is hard to describe. The drug heightens each sensation and produces fantastic visions. It makes Kristina forgive herself and feel more love for all her loved ones.

Chase and Kristina have sex, and Kristina feels that he is the most beautiful man in the world.

Kristina feels invincible when the other guests arrive. She takes a second dose of ecstasy and accepts someone’s offer of “shooting up” or injecting crank.

Kristina will never forget her 17th birthday. It is a day of firsts: her first consensual sexual encounter and the first day she injects herself with meth. The high of shooting up is like approaching infinity.

Kristina has heard that people who overdose on ecstasy die because their bodies get overheated. Kristina feels the drug’s heating effects and dances all night in an ecstatic celebration.

Someone in the crowd nicks Kristina’s wrist so she can taste her own blood and offer it to others. Chase takes her outside and tells her he loves her.

Kristina wants to have sex again, but Chase’s watch beeps that it is already 2:00 am, way past Kristina’s curfew. Kristina is hopeful her parents will be asleep by the time she gets home, but she finds them wide awake and furious.

Marie grounds Kristina again and lectures Chase for being irresponsible. She tells Kristina that, at this rate, she might even get arrested.

Kristina thinks she should be mad at her mom, but the ecstasy makes her look at things from Marie’s point of view. Marie’s concern is natural. The problem is Bree doesn’t care about what Kristina thinks.

The next day, Kristina and Marie can tomatoes. Kristina wants to confess about the drugs to Marie but fears her mother will isolate her from her friends and Chase. Kristina tells Marie that all she tried was some weed.

As she comes down from the ecstasy and crank, Kristina feels despondent and her head hurts. She doesn’t know how to get out of the rut.

Kristina sleeps and is woken by the sound of Scott and Marie arguing. Scott tells Marie that it is clear that Kristina is using drugs, but Marie says Kristina had nothing besides marijuana.

Kristina worries about her grades, which will be out in two weeks. She knows she has done very badly at school. She wants to get out of the house to escape her thoughts and decides to hitch a ride to Reno.

Kristina sneaks out of the house and flags a car down. Luckily, she says in retrospect, it is a policeman and not a “rapist” or a “serial killer.” Kristina quickly disposes of the weed she’s carrying.

The officer tells Kristina she should not be out on her own so late. Kristina lies, saying her parents are not home, so he takes her to juvenile hall. Kristina says her name is Bree Wagner.

Kristina calls Chase from juvie, pretending he is her brother and asking him to pick her up. Kristina is assigned a bed in the dormitory. She notes that all the other girls are in for crimes, and all of them have an addiction.

Kristina spends the next day talking to her roommates and finds an “odd rapport” with one of them, Lucinda. Meanwhile, Chase calls her parents to bail her out of juvie.

Kristina is assigned 24 hours of community service. Scott is extremely angry with her, while her mother is devastated. Kristina ignores them, knowing she has found a useful connection in Lucinda.

It is clear that Marie has searched Kristina’s room and read her journals. Kristina is thankful that all Marie found was evidence of smoking. Kristina falls asleep.

The next day, Kristina resolves to stop injecting meth and keep her drug usage to a minimum. She also resolves to ask for extra credit at school to improve her grades. She plans to go on contraception and finish incomplete projects like a song she was writing.

Carrying out her resolutions does not prove easy. Most of Kristina’s teachers refuse her extra credit, and finishing the song—which is about her drug usage—makes her crave meth again.

Meth is not a garden-variety monster. Rather, it is a giant octopus closing in on Kristina. Whenever she tries to get out, a tentacle grabs her and pulls her back in.

In acute withdrawal, Kristina calls up Lucinda to procure meth. Lucinda connects her to her brother, Roberto, a member of a drug syndicate. Kristina ditches PE to go out with Chase.

Chase picks up Kristina. They drive to a secluded spot and make love.

Chase tells her he has been accepted at the University of South California on a scholarship and will be leaving after Christmas. Kristina cries.

Kristina asks Chase to borrow money so she can get drugs from Roberto. Chase thinks dealing with Roberto is dangerous and drives Kristina home. Kristina refuses to say goodbye Chase. At home, she finds her mother’s new credit card in the mailbox.

After some hesitation, Kristina decides to use the card. She hitches a ride from Robyn to meet Roberto. Roberto is not as scary as she expected him to be, but he deals only in half-ounce quantities. Kristina decides to sell some of her stash for profit, becoming a dealer.

Kristina is in demand on The Avenue, dealing meth. Roberto is happy with how fast she is selling the drugs. In retrospect, Kristina feels that, had she continued on this path, she would either have ended up very rich or in prison. But something intervened.