Why do they always fire you on Fridays?

It sucks to wake up, commute and walk into an ambush.  Like why not Thursday afternoon?  Ugh so back at it.  Resume, looking, temp agencies, interviews, etc etc.  Talk about a stressful and most unfortunate turn of events at barely two weeks into quitting opiates!  Oh well, life continues.  Plus I don't have to go back to that shitty job.  Just got to get another one.

I totally feel like this guy:

The Blue Girl

"Wake up dude!  C'mon!" says Jason bouncing up and down on the couch cushions.  

Last night I got so drunk I crawled beneath them for warmth and to worm my way away from the all-seeing stare of the sun.  Going to bed at 6:00 am is a bitch.

"Fuck!  Fuck you!" I shove him off and crawl out.  "Oh fuck Jase.  Wait.  Hold on dude.  I'm gonna get sick ok?"

"Ok but hurry up we gotta go."

I stumble to the bathroom, gaze deeply into the stained toilet that always smells of piss because we never clean it.  EVERYTHING comes out in a tidal flood of puke and partially digested bits.

"Holy shit!" laughs Jason from the hall.  "That was like from your soul dude!  If only Mary could see you now!"

"Fuck...", I cough out between gasps and gags, "...fuck you!  Asshole!"

"Hey you gonna eat that half a burrito on the table?  From the smell of your puke, I'd say it was carnitas right?  El Taquito gringo special with some guacamole and pussy hot sauce?  Not Mexican hot for sure because it would burn holes in the floor-"

I slam the door and proceed to dry heave until I collapse on the ground groaning.  Why?  What?  Oh yeah.  Tuesday night.  Cocaine and tequila.  I pull myself up to the sink and mirror.  Eyes like two cherry tomatoes floating in a bowl of oatmeal stare balefully back.  I wash my face and brush my teeth as Jason pounds on the door taunting me.  Fucker.  I only open it when he blows the sweet scent of marijuana under the door crack.

I get dressed and we smoke a lot of weed.  I wish I could go back to sleep under the couch cushions or hell, my futon but Jason will never let me be.  It is a glorious Wednesday morning in the city and we ain't got shit to do.  I watch with disdain as he eats my leftover burrito.  I have a cigarette and a glass of tap water for breakfast.

"I met a guy who introduced me to a guy last night.  A hook up.  Said we can cruise by and pickup" says Jason picking cilantro out of his teeth.

"Pick up what?" I ask.

"Heroin!  What the fuck you think son?"

I shrug, "I don't know man.  That stuff is bad news.  I think I'm more of a weed guy."

"What?  Remember how fucking high smoking that shit got us?  Higher than any fucking weed or pills!  It was like being in your mama's cunt again!  Warm, soft and full of love!" says Jason leering at me.

"Yeah ok" I give in.  The high was pretty fucking amazing if I am remembering correctly but we both drink a lot.  "Where?"

He tells me and I laugh.

"The fucking Loin?  Some random room in the fucking Loin?  And at the end of the alley we turn left and knock?  What the fuck Jase?  Why not just use that weirdo hippie chick at the park?  Dev.  Go find Dev and let me go back to bed."

"Like any drug for sale, you need to expand your contacts" says Jason.  "It's for your own financial well being.  Dev middles.  This dude Sherlock is a source!"

"Sherlock?"

"Well his name is Nate Watson but everyone calls him Sherlock."

"Because he's smart?"

"No!" laughs Jason.  "He's a fucking dumb ass hick from Florida but he's ok.  Let's go!"

"I don't know man-"

"Look" explains Jason, "we are going into the Tenderloin as you have pointed out.  Not the best neighborhood.  And we both know you're a pussy.  But dude, you are a BIG pussy.  Tall, grouchy looking.  You could be mean.  Who knows?  Just don't smile.  Or talk.  C'mon I need you for backup."

And that is how I found my way to my first heroin house and the dead body.  I followed Jason as he walked brazenly and with purpose through crowds of park kids, beggar kids, gutter punks, hobos and crazy, psychotic lost souls.  It's a city thing.  You stare forward, you don't make eye contact and keep moving.  We keep moving until Jason finds the alley.  It's filled with smelly people.  Not smelly hippie people like at the park.  Smelly, dying junkie people.  Zombie crackheads conduct business openly here.  The tang of crack mixes with mentholated cigarettes, humanity and despair as we push through the lost souls.

"Hey man" says a bony older guy in a trench coat blocking our path.  "What are you dudes looking for?  Rocks?  I got rocks holmes, I got rocks, dust, speed-"

"Nah" says Jason casually shoving him aside.

"Ok!  How about a smoke?" says the guy trying to block Jason.

"How about you fuck off?" says Jason.

I see the guy reach into his coat and put my hand on his shoulder.  He whips around and stares at me with the the eyes of a lost animal.  A wild creature, forgotten by men.

"Here" I say holding out a smoke.

Thankfully only his hand comes out of the pocket as his bony fingers reach for the cigarette.  He nods and turns back to the alley.

"Don't feed the animals" scoffs Jason as we approach the end of the alley.

People are everywhere.  They lay on the ground, crouch against the Victorian buildings in the shade and shake.  Most huddle in small groups but some just wander alone.  A girl rushes forward and grabs Jason who shoves her away.

"What the fuck bitch?" he yells at her.

"You holding?  C'mon I have $7 and can get more!  I can make up the $15 if that's what you want baby..."

I stare at the skeleton in rags.  Older than us but ancient from her wounded stare.  Eyes that have seen too much.  Way too much.

"Fuck off!" says Jason.  We come to the door.  It is open and we walk inside.

I follow Jason and my skin tingles.  Nothing is normal.  Nothing is in the right place.  People lay sideways on the ground and stare at us.  Some giggle.  I smell human shit and blood.  Time to go.  But Jason pushes forward.  Then he stops.

And I hear the voice.

"Are you the ambulance people?  I found Alison like this.  I woke up and Alison was like this.  Is she ok?"

Jason turns around.  "Let's go" he says simply.

But I see it.  The Blue Girl lying on the floor.  Her brown eyes are peeled open in pure awe.  Like she saw her God.  Funny how you can tell amazement from just the eyes.  Even eyes that are dead.  Her mouth is obscured with foamy puke.  Her face and neck are blue.  Purple and black limbs with curled hands and feet sprout from the most normal looking and beautiful coral-pink sundress.  But I look at the face.  Oh so blue.  Empyrean blue like the sky at 6 am through our living room window.  When the Darkness is banished from the Earth by the rising sun.  Sol Invictus.

We walk away from this bad dream.  The undead lurkers in the alley no longer shock me.  Jason is silent but keeps a fierce pace.  Out on the street with traffic and sounds of human civilization we slow down a bit.  I stop at a payphone and he looks at me.

"I'm not calling the cops.  They are probably on the way if Sherlock thought we were ambulance people."

"We have to call" I say simply and Jason sighs as he scrounges a cigarette out of his leather jacket and lights it with a shaking hand.

"I'll never call the fucking cops.  She was dead.  You call."

"I will.  What's the address?" I ask.

It is surreal to dial 911 from a payphone as the city operates around us.  Driver's making deliveries.  People coming and going.  Life continues unnoticed, unchecked and not giving one fucking shit about you, me or the Blue Girl.  I tell the address to the 911 lady and hang up as she starts with her questions.  We walk down the sidewalk in the bright sunlight.

"Alright" says Jason.  "Let's go find Dev."

     

 

Staggered

Meds ate away my happy bits but sometimes songs stagger me.  Heard this in a grocery store and went home to write All Cops Are Bastards.  Her voice is light in the Darkness.

All Cops Are Bastards

The car is traveling through bridge traffic at roughly 10 - 15 miles above the speed limit.  The CD players is busted so Kym turns to me and sings along to the AM oldies station, "Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you!  Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you...But in your dreams whatever they be-"

"Uhhhh...KYM!" I yell as the truck slides in slow motion towards our imminent traffic related doom.

I yank the wheel and we whip past a semi-truck clearing it by at least two or three inches...Once again, thank the gods for Mario Kart.

"What the FUCK you guys?!" pops up Jason from the backseat.  He waves my Gameboy at the road.  "Kym!  For fuck's sake pay attention!  Hands on the wheel!"

Kym turns completely around which is easy if you never wear a seatbelt and leans towards Jason as I pilot the car through bridge traffic.

"You need to relax Jase" she says turning her head sideways. "You'll live longer."

"Fuck!  Fuck!" screams Jason.  "Turn around you crazy bitch!" 

Kym is a distracted driver by nature.  She likes to look at the person she is talking to even if they are in the backseat.  She also has a nasty habit of yanking the steering wheel right when she looms towards the person she argues with in the passenger seat.  Oh and dancing while she drives scares the shit out of everyone.  But I hate city traffic.  So Kym takes the first driving shift as we travel north.  North to Eagle Lake where my mom's family owns a cabin.  Plus Jason and I ate acid but Kym will figure that one out soon enough.

My mom's parents built a cabin in a secluded copse of wood with an amazing view of the lake.  It is another world there.  A world of pine forests, moonlit fields and the solitude and serenity of Nature.  Jason has been up there but it will be a new experience for Kym.  Unfortunately my brother Carl and his fiancee are also there.  Juanita's nice but Carl is complicated.  

After you cross the bridge and slog through the 505 traffic you exit to Highway 5.  Then it's a long straight stretch with flat boring views until you to start winding up Mt. Lassen.  

"I'm hungry" remarks Jason from the back.

I look at him in astonishment.  He is the only person I know that gets the munchies on LSD.  I feel like the car windows are made of ice cubes and the warped world outside reflects this.  Food?  Food is chemical energy my body needs to continue the journey.  Pepsi and gummy bears are all I need to exist.

"Yeah I'm starving too.  Burger King?" yawns Kym as she exits the road.  We pull into one of the tiny towns that dot the highway artery like parasitic ticks that sell gasoline, cheap lodging and fast food.

"Totally" agrees Jason.

Inside we get some stares.  Kym has a collapsed, black mohawk, I have spiked black hair and Jase is bald but has a clothespin shoved through his nose.  Plus his shirt says All Cops Are Bastards which makes some folk smile and others visibly offended.  But this route is the way to Chico State and UC Davis so it's not like these good townspeople have never seen college-aged freaks before.  Nah, it gets much weirder when you hit the tiny hick towns in Lassen.  I stare at my burger.  The texture is wrong, it keeps wiggling and I think the secret sauce is semen.  I keep opening it up and checking for sperm.

"Not hungry babe?" asks Kym through a mouthful food.  

Kym can skip whole days without eating and then consume a large pizza in one sitting.  I watch in a trance as she wolfs down her burger and shoves fries into her face.  Jason is just as frenzied with his food.  He gulps his chicken hunks down, one after another.  I am convinced he is dipping deep fried, newly hatched chicks into barbecue sauce but I don't say anything.

"Yeah dude can I have your fries if you're just gonna stare at your food like a goon?" he winks at me.

How the fuck does he do that?  We split a sun while we loaded the car.  A sun is four hits of orange sunshine LSD.  Two is borderline crazy.  Three is psychotic.  People who take the whole sun never come back the same.  I push the fries over to Jason and try again to eat the burger.

"You're up babe" says Kym tossing the keys at me and belching.  

They bounce off my forehead and fall on my Whopper Jr no cheese.  The damn thing squirms away from the metal and now I KNOW that It knows.  Oh yeah, It knows.  Motherfuckers.

But once I'm behind the wheel, I'm fine.  The rock stations from Sacramento provide us with staticky high school hits and I start to zone out.  Highway 5 is easy because it's straight.  All you have to do is slow down when you get near overpasses or exits because that is where the cops lay in wait.  After that you can go 80mph without a worry.  

"Why do you keep doing that?" asks Kym who is filing her nails.

"What?" I ask startled as she snaps me out of my trance.

"You drop down to like 45 mph every time we get near a town.  It's weird."

"Because that is where they wait" I answer.

"Who?"

"The cops.  If they pull us over they will execute us and burn our bodies.  But like, if I can cruise through undetected, we will totally survive" I answer as waves of purple and red fluke worms wriggle through the sky and shatter in our slipstream.

"What the fuck did you just say?" asks Kym.

"Look" I explain, "they lay in wait under overpasses and highway exits.  If they take us down and see Jason's shirt we're dead."

"Duh" says Jason from the back as he sits up and displays his All Cops Are Bastards t-shirt.

Kym looks at Jason and then at me.  Then she sighs and shakes her head.

"Acid?" she asks calmly.

"Yes" we both answer.

"You're driving my car on acid?"

"He's a better driver frying than you are sober" explains Jason.

We pull over in the next town for cigarettes and Kym takes the wheel again.  Two hours later we are winding through the shady, cool slopes of Mt. Lassen.  Pine tree forests swallow us as we curve past spectacular views of alpine valleys and the lakes beyond.  When we reach Susanville, we pull into the Safeway grocery store for supplies.  

Jason and I no longer function like rational humans.  Kym keeps herding us back to task as we wander away or find ourselves staring at the locals or boxes of cereal.  My god there are thousands of colorful, cuboid cereal boxes floating in this corridor.  Being lactose intolerant, I have barely tried any of them.  Life is cruel.  

"Everything is so shiny and beautiful here" sighs Jason.  

Jason only becomes rational to select a myriad of hard alcohols, mixers, limes and beer.  My only moment of clarity is when I pick out candy, cookies and Cheez-Its.  The rest of the time we follow Kym.  We watch with breathless wonder as she selects meats, vegetables, picnic supplies and breakfast items.  As we load the car, Jason and Kym get to meet their first local redneck teens.  Parked next to us are two hick kids drinking beer in their truck.  Looking around the parking lot, this is a common occurrence.  Huge trucks with teens inside drinking beer.  Apparently the Safeway parking lot is where the local high school kids come to party in this tiny town.

"Man I hate fucking Generation Xers" says a fat kid in overalls wearing a backwards baseball cap.  Then he spits.

"Whoa.  That one looks like the hick in Footloose" says Jason loudly as Kym loads the car and we stare at them.

"Which one?" I ask as I start to pick up on the intensely hostile feelings from them.

"I don't know.  I fucking hated that movie" shrugs Jason.

"Alright get in.  I'm driving" says Kym.

It's an hour to Eagle Lake.  Eagle Lake is still undeveloped and the paved roads give way to fireman trails and red cinder roads.  Somehow with my fucked up sense of direction and LSD, I guide us down towards the lake to the cabin.  And like the free-loading shits we are, we turn up as Carl's fiancee is prepping dinner.  She calmly accepts this as my brother shakes his head and gets up off the porch where he was adjusting the sights on his hunting rifle and sipping beer.

"Jesus!  Look at you guys.  You look like a fucking Cure video" he says shaking his head.  But he helps us unload our stuff.

The cabin is small but there is a trailer out back.  Surprisingly enough, Carl and Juanita took the trailer.  It has all the amenities of the cabin minus a hot water shower.  But Carl knows me.  Worse, he knows Jason and Kym.  Since he loves his girlfriend, he chose the trailer because it was a 5 minute walk away from us.  So they could hang out at the cabin for cooking or showering and then escape to the bliss of their secluded trailer.

In the cabin there is one bedroom which Kym and I take.  Jason gets the couch which he is good with.  I used to sleep on that damn couch as a child and hated the openness of the cabin.  Unlike a city with lights and noise, it is dark, silent and ominous here.  No traffic noise or even crickets.  Pure silence.  An dreadful thing for a city child.  Oh and the heads are weird too.  Severed deer heads watch everything.  Two stuffed pheasants and a poor Mallard duck are nailed to the walls.  Their bills are glued open as they silently scream forever.  Same TV from my childhood too.  No remote.  You walk up and fuck with the knob and antennae until the one NBC channel from Susanville appears in black and white.  

"Let's unpack our stuff and make the bed" I say to Kym who sits on the edge of the bed and watches me shuffle around the cramped room.  

"You're like an ant" says Kym.  "Always rushing to and fro.  Whoa!  Did you see that?"

I look at Kym.  She is uncharacteristically mellow and she sits on the edge of the unmade bed with her legs crossed staring at the window where rays of sunlight slant in.  Her wide blue eyes look a little darker than usual.  Huge pupils.  She holds a nearly empty Snapple ice tea limply in her right left hand.

"See what Kym?"

"The dust...the dust looks like faeries.  Tiny ones floating down with star balloons."

"Where'd you get that ice tea?" I ask.

"Jase gave it to me at Safeway."

I smile.  That fucker.

"I'm going to get some linens from the closet.  I'll be right back."

I find Jason still looking out the window at the lake.

"Dude these birds keep swooping the lake.  Huge fucking hairy birds..."

"Did you dose Kym?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because when we give her coke she throws beer bottles.  It's funny.  I wanted to see what she does on acid."

"She's never taken acid" I point out.

"Ah.  Well dude, you should tell her.  I only put a quarter sun in the Snapple" shrugs Jason.  "Oh hey Juanita just popped in.  She said she's grilling carnitas dude!  I'm gonna make margaritas!  Should be an epic feast.  This place is so awesome!"

I don't know what to say so I leave.  

Inside I find Kym unpacking a huge, locked box that contains her makeup and other cosmetic products.  I sit and watch her take out tiny vials and containers.  She arranges them on the bed and looks up at me.

"Jason dosed you" I tell her.

"That little fucker.  I knew something was up.  Can I kill it with coke or maybe a line of H?"

"Nah.  Just ride it out.  You'll be ok.  It was just a tiny bit" I say knowing there is nothing else to say.

Kym calmly keeps searching through her box and arranges vials and containers of makeup, perfumes, lotions and shampoos.  She forms them in a spiral based on bottle sizes.  Oddly enough, it looks like a map of our solar system.  

"Juanita is cooking carnitas" I say counting the cosmetic jars.  Nine swirled around a pot of French facial cream with a sunflower design.

"Well" announces Kym standing up, "I must shower and get ready for dinner then."

The acid is wearing off and it was pretty clean so I feel oddly sober.  I help myself to another one of Jason's margaritas.  He makes them in a cocktail shaker with fresh limes and they are amazing.

"Muy bien" smiles Juanita toasting Jason.

"Gracias and salud!" says Jason and we all take a drink.

The sun is halfway behind the mountain and the temperature is cooling.  Juanita lights a lantern and some citronella candles to keep away mosquitos.  Kym has still not appeared.  Carl begins to grumble so I shrug.

"Just start" I tell Juanita who has been warming tortillas.  "She'll be out in a moment."

And as I say that the door of the cabin opens and we all stare.  

"Jesus Edward fucking Scissorhands" remarks Carl.

Kym calmly walks to her place at the table beside me.  She is head to toe dressed in black.  Black boots, black jeans and a zipped up black leather jacket.  Her dyed black mohawk is gelled, shiny and combed to one side.  Her face is porcelain white, her eyes smeared thickly in black eyeliner that drips towards painted black lips.  With freshly painted black nails, she takes the margarita from my hand and drains it in three long gulps.

"I am sorry to have kept you waiting" she says simply.

"No problem Kym.  Can I get you a plate?" asks Juanita recovering quickly.

"No thank you.  Just water and an ashtray if you please."

The food is amazing and everyone has seconds except Kym who just smokes and silently observes.  She sits perfectly upright, rigid and only her eyes and right arm move.  Jason makes more drinks and even Carl has one though he primarily a beer guy.  

"All cops are bastards" says Kym suddenly as Juanita was explaining to Jason how to marinade the carnitas.     

"Excuse me?" smiles Juanita.

"I get it now.  I totally get it.  I mean it was like a riddle but I understand" says Kym.

"This is why we are staying in the trailer" shrugs Carl to Juanita.  "Dope is for dopes."

"That gun" says Kym pointing her cigarette at the porch where Carl was working, "what are you going to do with it?"

"That's not a gun little girl" says Carl.  "That's a Marlin 336 hunting rifle.  And what I'm gonna do is get my deer.  One bullet, one deer.  Haven't missed six seasons in a row and going for seven."

"Carl comes up here to hunt" explains Juanita.  "Then we pay a butcher to age and deal with the carcass.  We get steaks, chops, hamburger and usually end up brining and smoking the rest.  The neck meat makes good chorizo."

I wondered what was going through Kym's visual mind as my stomach began to turn.  I like shooting guns but I never enjoyed hunting.  I often missed on purpose as a kid when we'd hunt pigs or deer.  Carl figured it out and stopped taking me.

"I want to go" says Kym.

"What?" laughs Jason.

"What?" I ask surprised.

Carl grins at me and leans back from the table.  He runs his hand through his hair and looks up at the stars laughing.

"Ok.  I'll take you.  Been scouting this dry creek bed that has some good blinds.  But you don't get to touch or shoot the rifle because you don't have a hunting license.  You listen to everything I say and do whatever I tell you and you can go.  And no drugs."

"Thank you" says Kym.  "When can I shoot a gun?"

"Well Wingus and Dingleberry over there" says Carl pointing his beer at me and Jason, "can take you shooting whenever.  Grandpa's .22 rifle is in the lockbox.  There's a .32 in there as well.  But no one touches my rifle.  Period."

"You sure you want to do this Kym?" asks Juanita as she starts to clear the table.  "It can get...a little messy out there."

"Yes.  Yes I do" says Kym lighting another cigarette.  "I'm a meat eater and have come to the conclusion I am absent from the food chain.  The cycle of life and death.  It is unfair for me to eat meat until I understand with my own senses the animal's death."

"That is exactly how I feel" says Carl.  "Maybe you can relate that to my little bro who has been shanking shots for years like the little drugged out hippie bitch he is."

I hear Jason laugh as I get up and get another beer.  

"What are you laughing at Curly?" growls Carl to Jason who unconsciously rubs his shaved head.  "If you had to gut your own meat you'd eat peanut butter."

"Let me gut the deer.  I want to taste the blood" says Kym and everyone gets real quiet.  She looks like an angel of death in the flickering candlelight.  In the silence, the sun slips behind the mountain casting the goddess Nyx upon us as Kym crushes out her smoke and stares back at us.

"The tasting of blood is a privilege reserved for the hunter that killed the animal" says Carl quietly.  "And no way I'd let you gut the animal because if you puncture it's stomach or it's scent glands you'll foul the meat.  But what the hell.  If you don't puke while I do this, I'll let you taste the blood."

"Cool.  What time do we leave?" asks Kym exhaling a plume of smoke.

     

Day 6

So I think I'm slightly healed besides the massive depression, boredom and outrage my body and brain feel from stopping pain meds.  I can't believe I wrote Half Truths while WDing.

For those of you on my path, stay strong.  For those of you living on the other side stay sane.  Please don't get swallowed.  But I'm not stupid enough to preach anything for I am 2 seconds away from a relapse every fucking minute.  My brain messes with me.  Hey man, you still have a medically verified reason to get pills.  Very true brain and well played.  But I told my doctor I need to stop.  You know the soul, addiction, life, etc etc.  All that shit needed to breathe upon the Earth and connect with love and the Universe.  I need it man.  But I'll tell you what brain, you know and I know where all the pills are hidden.  It is amazing we haven't cheated.  Let us grow strong, gain mental clarity and see the filthy world for what it is and then- we can talk about all those pills.  But not while you crave them every waking thought.

Actually, I am enjoying this clarity.  Day 5 was false morning clarity like when you wake up from a massive flu and think you feel better until you do some housework or yard chores and realize you are weak and sickly.  But Day 6 I felt ok all the way to lunchtime and I wake up at 5 am to start my day.

For those of you asking, there is no easy cure.  You will suffer.  For me Gatorade, water and bananas kept me alive.  All the weed, DXM, benzodiazepines, alcohol and whatever the doc gives you that doesn't have dope in it won't help.  It will weigh you down, make you dumb and able to watch TV but WD will come.  RLS will come.  But Loperamide helps A LOT.  Look it up.

My doc gave me clonidine and robaxin which I felt was useless.  But the BEST part was when I picked it up they gave me 150 oxycodone pills.  Maybe an old order lost in the system?  Who knows but for once the faceless gangstergod corporation gave me a gift.

If you are going to ask me about cold turkey stuff please email me rather than here or Reddit.  Also I am doing something for all the Melo and Dev fans.  Trying to work out another story.

Be safe,
M2K

Half Truths

I wake up early for work.  I kill the buzzer two two digits before the alarm.  Body feels ok.  Sleepy but normal.  All the shit I snorted, swallowed or slammed the night before still lurks in my blood.  In fact, I feel so good, I would love to drift back sleep.  This bed is so cozy on work days.  It's dark and warm with the pumping blood of two humans who share a life together.  I smell her scent, her shampoo, traces of yesterday's perfume and I want to fall back into my pillow and be content with life.  But schedules, money and addiction are demanding masters.  They wait for my sacrifices like marble faced gods that preside over my Fate.  I barely get 10 minutes with my arm around my wife.  Soon, I can feel the nausea building for my daily vomit.  It's still far enough away that I'm comfortable just laying here in the dark.  But time to move on.  So I yawn, pat my wife's ass good bye and walk on down the hall.  My mind is already plotting my day.  When?  What?  How much?  

When as in, When am I going to get high?  What as in, What am I am going to take?  How much, as in do I take enough to stave of sickness or enough to feel high?  Like wayward stars in distant universes, these thoughts spiral towards my alien, inhuman existence.  And I know these stars well. Let them come.  

I go in the bathroom on the kid's side of the house.  It is early enough that they are in their deep, untroubled slumbers.  They sleep the restful, innocent sleep of creatures that thrive on the planet Earth.  I sleep like a rotting thing half buried in the tidal flat mud.  A briny creature, oozing liquid, repulsive and unclean.  But after you have kids, you understand this is now their world.  Let them take it and run under the sun like the silly creatures they are.  

I seal myself in the bathroom.  The first round of sickness hits.  Explosive diarrhea.  Yes, being a junkie is so sexy in the morning but I forgot to tell you why I am hiding on the kid's side.  The fucking cat stalks the other side of the house and will start yowling.  As opiate withdrawal approaches and the liquid shoots out of my body like a disease, I begin to shake.  Saliva pours out of my mouth as I prepare to vomit.  But I save this rude noise for the cat on the other side of the house and grimly swallow back the urge.  Now the When, What and How much thoughts collide into my body like meteors slamming new craters into the moon.  Decide!  Your body is shutting down...  

And it is.  I can feel it shutting down with each step.  I try and remember what it is like to not feel this way.  But I can't. This insane hunger to live in my skull and blot out the rays of our life giving star.  I splash water on my face for that oh so rare clarity.  As I walk over, the cat hears me and starts yowling from the window so I let him in.  He is an ugly white cat with a crooked tail and nicked ear cruelly named Handsome Bob by the wife.

"Fuck you Bob" I yawn as he saunters inside to eat.

"Maow" croaks Bob.  Even his greeting is disgusting and offends me when I am sober.

"You are so fucking ugly Bob" I point out as I open a can of stinky cat food for him.

The rank, fishy smell reminds me of my daily routine.  I go in the bathroom, clasp my hands behind my back like a sailor on deck and vomit.  Thin, yellow gastric juice mixed with all the saliva I produce at night.  There is no such thing as a discreet puke which I why I chose this side of the house.  Let them slumber in peace. I am a large man with large guts that make large, disgusting sounds when expelling stomach contents.

I turn on the shower to numb the noise of my gurgling pukes and prepare my disguise.  Oh yeah motherfuckers. Now I can definitely feel them.  Tiny winged creatures chase me from across the nightmares and into this world.  They trail me in the house screaming and surround me in numbers.  When the crowd grows, they pounce on me and latch onto my limbs and spine with cruel, hooked claws.  They gather in force to weigh me down.  Not just physically but my brain slows down too.  The clarity is gone and I feel myself disintegrating.  A familiar feeling of not belonging in this world.  The Priestess called this 'ghosting'.  Spend too much time in the other side and your grip on reality slips away.  I blot out these dark thoughts as the demons crawl across my flesh.  I strip and climb into the shower.  Let water bless this cursed body.

Water.  It is my element.  The sight and sound of water soothes me.  I can stare at fish tanks for hours and feel myself unwind.  When I go swimming and surfing it feels like I am returning home.  But these days, the water is harsh to me.  The shower burns like Hell and the sea is as cold as the grave.  When I get this way I know I have strayed far from the natural path of an Earth creature.  I live too far inside my broken mind where there is only an endless loop.  Am I high?  Get high.  Am I high?  Get high.  But this high I chase like is like a dog chasing the moon.  Pleasures too beautiful to comprehend and far too distant to ever catch.  I shower quickly as the steam triggers dry heaves.  

As a matter of habit, I avoid mirrors.  The thing that looks back is often deranged and sad.  Perhaps I have grown so accustomed to the Mask it has replaced me?  And if I tear it away, am I still inside somewhere?  Or is there just a dry skull?  I let my eyes un-focus as I stare into the mirror.  I am definitely ghosting away.  The moths gather and try to rip the fluttering creature free from my body but I am still alive.  I grab the sink as the morning swoons beneath my unsteady feet.  The unpleasant feeling passes and I open my eyes.  The thing in the mirror is still there.  I see a stranger's face.  I no longer recognize the dull, blank eyes that stare back.  A dead man silently regards me.  I comb his hair, make him presentable for the day.  As I hide myself beneath the Mask, I address the man.  

Who the fuck are you?  A creature of shame!  Dragging all that poison and misery behind you like a dark streak across the hearts of people that waste their fucking humanity caring about you!  The best parts of your world are spinning by with you too fucking weak to care.  I don't like you...I sigh and dress the creature.

Cloaked as a responsible citizen, I make six-grain wheat toast. I open the peanut butter and spread it across warm bread as the demons slowly twist my spine on their frozen, steel rack. The pain is intense. As intense as the longing for that last taste of euphoria long since passed. I can remember feeling good. Being good. I am good...

The physical pain, shitting and puking reminds me who is Master. Ok. The When is now.  The What is oxycodone.  How much is just a little.  Just enough to get to work and last a few hours in a mildly deranged, yet functional state.  I rail a couple pills, sip coffee and munch toast as Handsome Bob rubs against me.  I pet him and go check my nostrils.  The man stares back.  Sober, groomed and prepared.  We leave.

My car needed an oil change several thousand miles ago.  I have to pump the brakes to get them to work.  Much like my body, the car is improperly maintained and breaking down bit by bit.  I see two homeless men walking towards McDonalds.  

"Could be anyone" whispers the Priestess in the vast emptiness of my mind. And I remember.  Somewhere in the Darkness, as I lay deep in my nod, there was that dream.  

I was on top of a narrow train that sped through a deserted mall.  Empty stores, shuttered bars and nothing but decay and ruin.  The train raced towards an enormous black hole.  I knew if I entered the dark star my life would end for only annihilation exists inside.  So I looked down.  The scope of the distance from this insane height gives me vertigo and I swoon and fall in the dream. At the last second I grab an iron pipe and dangle above the madness. I am strong enough to pull myself up but I hesitate.

"It is a long way down.  But you will survive.  You always do" says the Priestess from the Darkness.  

But I can't decide.  Stuck between two worlds I freeze...swaying over impossible, industrial heights. A paralyzed, useless thing.  And then I wake up.  Just in time for work.  I click off the alarm and lay there wishing my life was different.

Waiting to enter the highway, I pass a McDonald's and know the Priestess is right.  I get it. Fuck I get it. I slowly inch past the McDonald's. It's packed. Kids love this place but we only take them as a rare treat because we love our children.  And oddly enough, every time I enter a McDonald's parking lot my heart races and my body grows tense.  This place triggers memories of buying dope.  How many bags or how many pills did I score at the McDonald's on the corner of Haight and Stanyan Street?   I still habitually look for parking spots where I can see cars come and go.  Like my dealer or the cops.  And these sick thoughts twist into my family life and no...No I can't do it anymore.  

It is time to quit.  Again.  The thought sickens me so I instantly calm myself with The Cruel Truth.  I am a slave. So I'll just quit for awhile.  Enough to get sober. Enough to kick physical addiction. Enough to make it OK to get high every fucking now and then. Soon. But responsibly right?

Much like my mind, the office is crumbling around me.  I am too tired and too focused on getting high to comprehend the changes.  Sometimes I complain to my wife who lives in the real world.  She says, "Why don't you look for another job then?"

What...?  

So I get high.  I forget and no longer care.  Then I wake up, curse my life, shit and puke and start another hazy day.  And the haze is peppered with pills as milestones.  Hurray it is 10 am!  Pills!  

But no more.  Right?  No more.

The day is long and mysterious as I dream walk through it.  I am not sure how much this Mask protects me anymore.  I have written off most of my duties and barely pretend to function.  If I'm high and confronted I can still talk like a puppet. But in my experience the herd mentality of the office will soon turn on me if it hasn't already.  This is fucked.  My pretty little world is peeling apart and I can hear the ancient voice warning me, "The Darkness..."  

I need a taper plan.  I look at my Company Calendar and see all the days I have already taken off to be high by myself.  Yes, all the fun of a family vacation days off spent alone, nodded out in front of the computer watching old television shows.  Lovely.  With a weekend I can weasel maybe four days?  Barely enough and I will come off limping and half-mad but change is needed.  A rapid, burning, cleansing change.  

After work, I drive home in a fugue.  The meat puppet pilots the car home mechanically pumping the brakes and steering carefully through afternoon traffic.  It is a beautiful day.  Sunny weather used to mean I would hit the beach with my longboard.  Surf for an hour before I went home.  Now I sit in an air conditioned vehicle, pray the brakes hold and curse the fucking sun.  Too bright, too hot.  I plan my taper.  Maybe do one more pick up for the taper.  

In my experience a taper sucks.  It prolongs the Hell of withdrawal.  But then again, the come down is a little lighter.  Hmm.  I think about this as I take another couple pills to slap back the little demons who are now crawling out of the car seats to hook my flesh and stab ice into my spine.  I don't feel bad about taking some pills because I know soon I will be in Hell.  Plus these will make my ride home more pleasant.  The dopesick stomach cramps can wait.  Yes, a taper is just what I need.

At home it is quiet because I left work early to celebrate my impending sobriety.  I rail some oxy and look at the calendar.  No that week would be terrible, maybe the next one?  Nope a holiday weekend...Hmmm.  I am sliding down the hole and slowly not caring again but I pick a week that is three weeks away.  I put a red dot on the day to initiate Hell.  Actually looking at it, planning it out like this I think I will need at least two more pick ups.  And since I am picking up, I take another pill, snort it and open a beer.  I sit in front of my computer as the demons melt away and the stardust covers me again.  Two more hours until life happens.  So two more hours to enjoy enjoying.

The computer blinks as it loads a page and for a second I see the Fiend in the warped reflection.  It smiles.  I smile back.  I do a quick pill count. I like what I see and take another one.  Then I go back to watching The Sopranos.    

           

Holed Up

Taking a break from my meds.  On Day 3 with little sleep, crazy nightmares and the emotional spigot in my skull is broken.  Take away that layer of numbness and life is harsh.  Making toast is harsh, typing is harsh, breathing is no longer that great.  I suppose this malaise will pass when the dopamine returns to the synaptic clefts like salmon spawning.  But until then, I lay in that space where the addict is buried alive with his or her sins.  The atonement for pleasures of the poppy is almost...not worth it.