Mikkel Hørlyck

I Refuse to Die is published in Information

Jørgen is on his way home from the heroin clinic in Aarhus. He is walking extraordinarily bent forward this day. His back hurts. But that does not stop him from singing and whistling.

Every five years, Jørgen meets up with his old friends from school. They call him “Sol”, which means sun. When Jørgen wasn’t in school, he always played football and, according to his own assessment, he was quite big of a talent. “Jørgen never came home from the pitch before sunset,” his mother Inger says.

On Jørgen’s way to his morning fix, he crossed a red-light right in front of a police car. He ended up in handcuffs. “They grabbed him hard,” says a social worker. First, Jørgen went to detention, later he went to the hospital because his shoulder was aching. The day after, Jørgen is still in pain.

While an 80s rock soundtrack hits the speakers, Jørgen slowly disappears into a universe of his own. His life is characterised by heavy ups and downs; when he is going through a rough patch, his apartment becomes more and more untidy and cluttered.

According to Jørgen, he was once lifeless for around 6-9 minutes due to carbon monoxide poisoning from a fire in his former apartment. The year was 1987. Someone in the building detected the smoke from Jørgen’s apartment and that saved him. The doctor said that if they had found him a few minutes later, he would not have survived.

The street where Jørgen lives. The mist has put a veil over the city, and Jørgen is not home. “He’s in the hospital,” Jørgen’s guardian, from the municipality, says. Every morning he checks on Jørgen.

Jørgen and his mother, Inger, hug in the entrance of Inger's home. She is the most important person to him. Jørgen's body can react extremely to emotional pressure, when Inger (86) is in a critical health condition. 

Handprints on the wall by the entrance to the former heroin clinic, one of the five heroin clinics in Denmark. Every day, Jørgen visits the clinic where he receives two daily heroin fixes as well as aid in health and practical matters, just like 19 other heroin addicts in the city. 

“The heroin clinic is the last stop before you die,” says one of the visitors outside the clinic. The staff at the heroin clinic hopes to be able to give the visitors the energy and motivation to become clean. 

But for Jørgen, the game is over. "I've tried rehab several times but keep falling into temptation.” In addition to Jørgen's daily visits to the clinic, Jørgen injects five to ten times a day.

Jørgen is examined at Skejby Hospital. The doctors tell him that he suffers from a liver inflammation – news that every drug addict dread. The doctors also found something much worse; spinal staphylococcus, an inflamed cardiac valve and gallstone. Jørgen stayed at the hospital for seven weeks.

Jørgen visits his brother Ole’s burial place at Malling graveyard. ”I can’t fight the tears when I think of my brother. It just starts pouring. In this very moment too. I miss him every day,” Jørgen says. The two brothers spent all their time together. Since Ole passed away, Jørgen has thought of himself as “a lonely cowboy”.

Jørgen (right) and his brother Ole (left) in one of Jørgen's family albums. His brother was a smart guy, who finished his theology degree while he and Jørgen sold a lot of heroin and made big bucks in the 80s.

Birgitte (62) and Jørgen listening to Roger Waters. Jørgen is singing along: “It’s a miracle, another miracle”. They have been apart for six years but in the spring of 2018, they found each other again in an affectionate friendship. Prior to the break, they were together for 25 years.

Birgitte too is a drug addict and when she and Jørgen used to be together, she earned a living as a prostitute, while Jørgen was dealing drugs. “When we were young, I used to pray to God to have Birgitte be mine. I saw her do a show at a downtown disco once. Since then I was sold,” Jørgen says.

Jørgen starts the toaster but leaves the bread on for too long. “What’s happening Jørgen?!” Inger says. The bread starts smoking and the smoke detector is activated. He stands on a chair to turn off the smoke detector and change the batteries at his mothers home. "Sorry, mum!" Jørgen yells.

“When Jørgen was a teenager, I worried a lot about him. He hung out with some real troublemakers. They pulled him into all of this,” Inger says.

Jørgen's stuffed hummingbird.

A hummingbird often seeks a flower called Bird Of Paradise. Artistically the bird sucks out nectar, the flower essence, with it’s thin long beak.

Jørgen has just discharged himself from the hospital and is on his way home. Jørgen's one leg was double its normal size because of an infection. He loves to swing his walking stick when passers-by are looking. “I want to make a playlist for my funeral titled “Highway to Hell".

Jørgen and Birgitte like to reminisce but talking about their memories may also easily provoke an argument between the two. It gets intense when they argue who did the lion’s share of the cocaine they bought together. Once in a while, it is necessary for them to be apart.

“Once I forgot 300 grams of heroin at a café in Hamburg. I spent all my money on that heroin. After that, I was ready to end it all and had prepared a gun to commit suicide. But I didn’t do it because I had no right to hurt my mother, brother, Birgitte and others”.

Maria and Jørgen on their way home from the heroin clinic. Maria lives in the same building as Jørgen, and they often accompany each other. "My mother told me that the power went off at the hospital the very second she gave birth to me. To me, this is very symbolic," Jørgen says.

Jørgen has been through a MR-scanning. He has a good relationship with the nurses at the different institutions and hospitals that he goes to. The doctor suspects that Jørgen’s recent backpains are caused by spinal staphylococcus, one of his previous diseases.

“I’ve always said that I’ve never feared death. But as of today, I’m not so sure anymore,” Jørgen says. A month later, he was hospitalized at Skejby Hospital's emergency department because of internal bleeding in his stomach.

The other night Jørgen’s mother, Inger, fell from her bed and hurt her back. She is in pain in her kitchen, and Jørgen supports her. Inger's health has been significantly deteriorating over the past year. “Her condition has been critical, it was so close to the end. I’m so nervous on her behalf”.

On his way home from his mother’s, Jørgen has to use the customer toilet in a grocery store to recharge his energy before he takes the bus back to Aarhus.

“Once, I ran away from an open prison because of severe withdrawal symptoms. Actually, I did it twice." Jørgen is in a hurry and on his way to his bank before meeting a drug dealer.

“Hey darling,” Jørgen says. He is in a taxi, telling Birgitte on the phone that he is in good health and on his way home after examinations at Skejby Hospital. Right after he calls Inger.

When Jørgen needs to buy his daily consumption of drugs, he often negotiates with other addicts. People from the drug scene call Jørgen “one of the last men standing”.

Jørgen is walking through Malling graveyard on his way to his mother. A few minutes later Jørgen yells: "No, no, no! I see several names of my old schoolmates on these headstones”.

In a park next to the heroin clinic. “I have to go home to pick up the chicken, then I’ll be there,” Jørgen says to Birgitte on the phone. It is Birgitte's birthday, but Jørgen is feeling stressed out because his mother, Inger, was recently hospitalized. Jørgen cannot bear if Inger also dies.