The phone rang once, twice, three times. No, it couldn’t be. After all of this pain and effort, no one was home. I thought it was all over right then and there. But just as I was about to hang up, I heard a familiar beeping noise and I wrenched the phone back on my ear.
It was the answering machine recording, blessed with the sound of my mother’s voice. I just filled with relief from head to toe and somehow I knew that everything would be all right.
When the message finished and the sound of my mother’s voice diminished, I just breathed into the phone like an idiot. I still couldn’t think of what to say and time was running out. So I cried. I cried into the phone and just as the tape was going to run out I added, “I love you, mom,” between all of my tears.
Long after the answering machine clicked, I held the phone to my ear and cried. Once I’d started, it just kept coming like a waterfall. My cheeks were so frozen by now I couldn’t even feel them. But I knew they were there.
It felt good to cry for once, but my racking sobs were hurting my back, so I forced myself to stop. As soon as I got out of the booth, the cold air froze my tears on my cheeks, so it was even more obvious that I had been crying.
I got as far as the bench beside the telephone booth and I sat down on it before I collapsed. At this rate, there was no way I’d make it to my supplier and back by nightfall, if I got back at all. I was so far behind that I could see the house clearly from where I was sitting. When I looked over in its direction, I buried my head into my hands. This would never work. Plus, I needed food so desperately. Before this, I had never gone without food, even when I was poor and living in a trailer.
While I was wallowing in my pitiful misery, a kind lady walked by and got my attention. Then she swiftly tossed a coin in my direction and walked away. It was a quarter. A bloody quarter. That lady wanted me to get some help, in other words. I was totally piteous.
I held that quarter in my hands and stared at it for what seemed like forever. It was shiny and new and worth an entire twenty-five cents. I’d never thought about it before, but that was a lot of money for a little thing like that. When I was a kid, I could have bought a whole crap load of candy with that kind of money. Well, maybe not that much candy, but to me it was a lot. My mother always told me to spend my money wisely, but not to regret a poor decision that might possibly precede it. That poor decision would provide a free lesson for me in which I would learn from in the future. OK, so maybe she didn’t put it exactly like that because I was too little to understand, but that’s what she meant. She always knew that I would spend my money on something foolish and she was right. Funny that I never understood that until then.
On that dirty, welfare bench I learned a lesson. Ever since that day I’ve appreciated money, no matter how much money I earned. Even now I give the guys hell for wasting money lavishly on clothes, cars, and girlfriends. I only have one car, one house that I built myself and no girlfriend to share it with. Other than the part about the girlfriend, I couldn’t be happier.
As I was thinking, someone I recognized walked by. It was my drug dealer, Chad. After many months of faithful service to him, I had eventually learned his name. As you can tell I’m not the type to care about that sort of thing. After all, a name is just label given to you by your parents so that you can be recognized and thrown in jail in the future. Most druggies understood this, so they went by a pseudonym.
I reached forward as far as I could without straining my back and I grabbed the coat he always seemed to be wearing.
“Look, I told you,” he said, “we can’t do business here.” He glanced down at his watch, “I have to be on time for my appointments, and if I do business with you here, I’ll have to run to my next appointment. If I do that, I could possibly slip on some black ice and become crippled and useless.”
Just before he walked away I added, “Like me?” He turned abruptly and looked at me carefully. I must have been a sorry sight because he reconsidered.
“All right, but just this once. Not a word to any one of your friends, ok?”
“Ok, and they’re not my friends,” I croaked. I cracked a smile in his direction and he smiled back. We dealt quickly and he left in a hurry. Right then and there I wondered what Louie would do to him if he was late. He must have been late that one time, because I never saw him again.
I lived my entire life with people doing favors for me. People who did it because they knew who I was and because I was famous and people who did it out of sympathy. But I really liked Chad. He understood me and he felt bad about what he was doing for me. I think that I had cost him his life. Believe me, I never meant for that to happen and it saddens me every time I think about it.
After Chad left, I turned back to me again. I had been only thinking of myself lately. Even when I called my mother, I wasn’t thinking about relieving her, I was thinking about the possibility of going home.
Now that I had the drugs, I had to decide whether or not to take them where I was sitting. They were illegal, I knew that. So, if I took them on the street there would be a risk of getting detained. But if I got detained, would it really be so bad? A warm, dry place with food to eat and a bed to sleep in? That decided it for me, and I did the drugs right there.
Fortunately, nothing happened to me. Some people gave me a disgusted look, but I was so far out of my mind right then and there that I hardly noticed. During my high I was able to pry myself off of the bench (which was somewhat difficult because the wet something-or-other I had sat on in the telephone booth had frozen, and I was stuck to the bench) and walk back to the house.
During the high I wouldn’t be able to feel much of what I was doing, but I would feel it once it wore off. I could constantly feel the effects of the drug, I had terrible memory and I could never remember where I put things. I knew that I needed help, but this nagging voice kept telling me that it was too late and no one would be able to help me now.
While I was walking, I started to hallucinate. I noticed that the quality of my eyesight was slowly deteriorating and it was scaring me. It was not from the drugs, I didn’t think, but from my sickness. I wondered if cancer could effect your retinas. Also, it didn’t help that I was taking heroin, because whatever the cancer was trying to do to me went faster. Again, I didn’t actually know for sure if it was the drugs, but it really felt that way.
In the midst of my high, I forgot where I was going even though the house stood before me. For a few moments I stood wondering where to go, then I thought that I had grown wings, and I started to “fly” in the opposite direction. Sure, it was funny, but it was scary at the same time. Sometimes I would go totally maniacal and dart out into the street without knowing it. Most of the time the druggies kept me locked up inside because they knew how I acted when I was high. They became mellower when they were high, but not I.
It took three tries of going back and forth to the house for me to finally realize that this was where I was supposed to be. When I went inside, I recalled the jealous looks on the druggies’ faces and started giggling like a madman. I “flew” around the room a couple times before I finally flopped roughly down on my bed and promptly fell asleep. In the morning afterwards, I was generally be moody and unpleasant. Usually I was by myself when I was like this, so I would yell obscure phrases at myself and drown myself in self-pity.
When I woke up I was in terrible condition. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak and I could hardly see or hear. It’s still hard to describe how helpless I felt. I couldn’t even tell anyone that I was feeling this way. The druggies knew somehow though, I could faintly see them casting knowing looks in my direction. They were sure that my time had come.
I tried hard to shut my eyes and sleep again, but my eyes hurt badly when I tried to shut them. Every now and then I would try to make little noises to express my discomfort. One druggie, a female, came to my side when she heard me and started talking to me soothingly. I could have sworn I heard her say, “It’s all right, it’ll be over soon.” She patted my bald head a couple times and eventually convinced me to try and get some rest. Before I shut my eyes, I saw her clasp her hands together in prayer and say something that I heard Brian say before, but I never found out what it meant and I never asked. Then I fell into a restless sleep. I would wake up and forget where I was, then pass out from exhaustion again.
The druggies were still injecting me, but it wasn’t doing anything for the pain I was feeling. I could feel it worsening bit by bit and I knew that I was a goner. For the first time in my life, I said a real prayer to God. I asked for forgiveness from God and my family. I prayed that my mom got my message and knew that I meant what I had said.
After that I couldn’t force myself to get back to sleep. I guessed that it was God’s way of saying that this was my last chance to look around. My eyes strained as I tried to memorize every nook and cranny of the house. I memorized the window that I had first entered the house through and how the paint was old, chipped and cracked. Right below the window was a series of cracks that resembled a human being in a twisted sort of way. There was a big, long crack that formed the nose, mouth and chin. Then there were several cracks protruding from the back of the “head” that resembled hair. I had a lot of time to think about and see those sorts of things. Last of all, I memorized the druggies. I didn’t know any of their names, but I had my own way of memorizing them.
There was the tattoo guy, which I nick named “AJ.” He wasn’t friendly, he had a terrible disposition and he never listened when he was being spoken to. But I didn’t name him after my friend because of that. It was just because of all the tattoos he had. He had many more than AJ and none of them were professionally done but it worked to help me remember him. One thing he and AJ had in common was a large dragon tattoo that was located on his back.
Then there was Nancy, who I just recently named. She was the only female in the group, but she was the nice, sensible one. Like Nancy, she was nice at times (mainly towards me) and fraudulent at others. She took care of me like Nancy did, but only sometimes. On most occasions she completely forgot. Surprisingly, she was very religious and didn’t curse as often as the other guys or me.
Rudy was the next guy I named. He was the worst of all of them, in my opinion. I named him “Rudy” for a reason; he was the rude one in the group. When I was sick he whined, when someone wanted him to do something, he whined. He was so arrogant and self-absorbed that I would’ve smacked him most days if I had the strength. I was completely surprised that no one had smacked him yet. I was even more surprised that he had passed their initiation. The first thing he said when they realized that I was dying, was, “Aw, man, he just had to pick the worst day in recorded history to die didn’t he?” In short I loathed him.
There were plenty more druggies, I just didn’t have the time or energy to make up names for them. I had the time before, but I didn’t care before because I was too busy trying to make the pain go away.
My eyesight was starting to waver, but not from my sickness. I was crying again. I could hear “Nancy” say, “Oh God, oh God it’s happening…”
My eyes shut themselves and my entire body relaxed. So this is what it feels like…I thought to myself. It felt wonderful. There was no pain anymore, but I would have traded that in to see the world for one last time.
Suddenly a cool breeze touched my back. It was a foreign breeze, not the kind that I was used to. The kind I was used to wasn’t as cold or as sharp, because it had to squeeze through the cracks to get to me. This breeze was directly from outside.
I heard voices faintly and felt someone touch my head, my arms and my face. The same person uttered soothing words to me as I felt myself being lifted. Then I lost consciousness.
Chapter 39
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