The Taste of Cigarettes

A Memoir of a Heroin Addict

After three decades of living in the sandy beach suburbs of Huntington Beach, Jon Vreeland’s heroin addiction has finally destroyed his once promising music career, and estranged himself from his wife and his two daughters. Now Vreeland broods his daughter’s absence while living in his old tour van that is broken down and parked on Atlanta Avenue, on the brink of downtown Huntington Beach. He and his brand new lover and longtime junkie, Zooey Leigh, live in the van and sell and shoot heroin, move from place to place, shift from crime to crime, rob the undeserving in their brazen attempt to escape their hypodermic reality and themselves. But no matter where they go or who they stay with, they always circle back to the shores of Huntington Beach, where the dark nights are their lonely playground. But Jon isn’t meant for this life—he wants nothing more than to rid himself of this very real nightmare, and return to his estranged family and career. This is the story of how he began to get out.